This weekend was both our twelfth anniversary and the Perseids Meteor Shower. We sat and stared out into the universe and oo-ed and ah-ed as streaks appeared in the sky for an instant and were gone. Sometimes all three of us saw them; sometimes only one or two of us, leaving the others slightly disappointed.
On Saturday night we saw one that made a big thick streak across the eastern sky and lasted for a couple of seconds. All three of us saw it and it felt like a great success.
We were only supposed to be gone for an hour. We had been sitting in the Adirondack chairs in the shade on a beautiful day that was the first break from humidity in a while. I was lying in the hammock with a dog and a cat. A couple of Turkey Vultures circled continuously waiting for some poor critter to pass.
I had talked about going to the music store in Hudson but we didn’t really want to leave this idyllic scene for that long. Tami needed to go to Passiflora in Hillsdale to get a wedding present and that seemed much more manageable.
We thought we could combine it with lunch, pizza. Neil wanted a slice. Two slices, to be precise. No, we couldn’t get a pizza and slice it up, it had to be a to-go slice. Apparently, the reheating makes a difference.
So, shortly after 1:00, we headed up to Hillsdale and stopped at the IGA for dill and beer, like you do. There was some amusing banter in the beer aisle while Neil and Tami assessed the wares. I got some oatmeal raisin cookies and a Budweiser Strawberrita. That was about 15 minutes.
We then drove next door to Passiflora and poked around in there for another 15 minutes. We went across the street to the liquor store for Gordon’s gin but it was $27 so we passed.
So we sashayed over to Four Brothers Pizza, about a half mile down the road. We went in and sat down but when we found out they didn’t have slices, Neil opted to drive to Millerton to go to Taro’s which he knew had slices.
Now, Millerton is about 11 miles south along one of the most beautiful drives in the country. You go down Rte 22 through a valley at the foothills of the Berkshires and pass farms and hamlets off in the distance across rolling hills and tucked amidst meandering rivers and an old rail bed. Old farms scatter the way, many of which have found a way to survive through the demise of local agriculture by cashing in on the locavore movement which is so popular amongst the rich New Yorkers who have made second homes in Columbia County.
Millerton was hopping when we got there. As we pulled into town the fire siren was going off. As we were parking, a pickup truck with flashing lights rushed past, closely followed by a fire engine and ambulance.
The girl cleaning up the patio at Taro’s didn’t know what was going on and bemoaned the fact that the emergency vehicles always pass by but she never finds out what the problem is. We waited for her to clean the four tables and then sat down under an umbrella which we had to play around with before it would block the sun.
The waitress came out and took our preliminary orders. Tami ordered the one beer they were out of, which always happens to Tami. We were joking around and the waitress said,”I think you may have broken the curse out here.”
“What curse?”
“Well, all day long, on that side there have been really nice people at those two tables. But on this side the people have been positively evil. But when I looked out and saw the beards on you guys, I thought, ‘Guys with beards are nice. Maybe the curse is broken.’ And now I see you are really nice, so I think the curse is broken.”
She was really nice and noticed that Tami asked if she could have a third of my sandwich and she’d split her slice with me. When our food came out the slice was cut in half and Tami got her own plate with a third of my sandwich. Great service!
The patio sat right on the main street. Behind it was a stand of yews and then a parking lot. Through the trees we could hear a couple returning to their car and the man saying, petulantly, “No, I don’t want to walk, Maria! I’m done!” We were laughing at him but I have to admit, I’ve felt that way myself. Low blood sugar, fatigue, being touristed out.
We ate, paid, and walked around a little. Tami got soft-serve at an ice cream place. Then we drove over to the CVS so Tami could get some cash. While we waited in the car, Neil and I discovered that it was past 3:30 and that we’d been gone much longer than an hour. By the time we got home after stopping at a farm stand for chocolate milk and two milkshakes made by the slowest person in the world, it was almost 5:00.
It rained like hell today. First time in a long time. A truck crashed on I93 North and was hanging off the overpass by Exit 28. All the lanes were closed. I wondered what was going on as Kimberly gave me a ride home from work and we got on the highway just upstream of the accident and it was traffic free.
A half hour later when Tami and I left traffic was a little thicker. Then with all the rain it just kept getting heavier and heavier until the sign just before we got on Rte 90 said that it was 18 miles to 495 and it would take us 61 minutes.
You hope it’s wrong but these days they have the technology down so well that it never is. While accuracy is good for planning, it takes away hope. We used to be able to beat the GPS but that never happens anymore.
It took three hours to get to Worcester, a trip that normally takes an hour. I was trying to keep a zen attitude, listening to Club D’Elf on headphones while Tami slept or listened to NPR.
We switched drivers at the Taco Bell in Ludlow. We walked the dogs and I got a burrito while she got nachos. We filled up the dogs’ water.
While Tami drove, I read the paper. Karen Black died. Woody Allen has a new movie with Cate Blanchett. She steals it.
As we crossed the Housitonic to start the long climb up the Berkshires, fog wafted up from the valley. The mists enveloped the hills like gossamer shawls giving us our own Smoky Mountains.
I’m at a three day Lutheran training about missional work, which I guess means going out in the community and doing good works. This is such a different experience from what I’m used to. I am so uncomfortable with talk about God outside of church. I want to become comfortable with this throughout this time.
Who were the people who nurtured me in my faith. Fr Rosseau had a big effect during youth ministry. And I struggled with the very concept of faith. I couldn’t really understand what he was talking about. To this day I still consider faith a firm belief in something you know couldn’t be true. Yet I have no doubt God is with me all the time. Fr. Rosseau tried to explain faith to me and I never got it. But in Catholicism there was no tradition of scripture. Maybe if the bible was involved it would have illustrated it better.
I’m not comfortable talking to people and I am particularly uncomfortable with evangelizing. Spirituality is a very inner thing for me. I am pretty much okay with whatever people want to believe, within reason. I guess that where I can help here is by being able to offer people a spiritual home if they need one.
On the first day, a woman from Chile by way of Mexico told us about her first call in the US, in the South Bronx. It was getting to be Easter time. They had Good Friday services and only a few people showed up, whereas on Easter Sunday, the church was packed. It occurred to her that this was the opposite of South America, where Good Friday was packed but Easter not so much. It was like the south was able to embrace the burden of the cross whereas the north was more interested in the resurrection. She wondered if this was reflective of the economic differences between the two hemispheres; that the struggle under the cross kept the south from success while the optimism of resurrection gave the north the attitude to make more money. But moreover, the inability of each society to recognize the other’s day belied a breach in the integrity of whole spiritual identity of the society.
Maybe if we made a bigger deal of Good Friday we would be better able to empathize with the struggles of the poor. However, it is interesting to note that one of the last American institutions that still treats Good Friday as a holiday is Wall Street.
Would South America gain some hope and confidence if they were able to embrace the resurrection? Is that what they need or do the need to emerge from under the cross?
Today we went to a church in Baltimore that was the product of a white parish and a black parish coming together. When they merged they were 50/50 but now they were mostly black. Again and again I have seen this: white flight. Black folks really scare us.
After the end of the conference when we were waiting outside at the airport having a final cigar I saw this twenty something hippie chick driving along in an old blue Volvo firing up an already half smoked joint. Had she just dropped off her parents and was just embracing the moment of freedom?
Last week we went to a funeral for Don Irwin, one of my father’s best friends. They had both grown up in Argentina and had emigrated to the US. Don went on to become a US congressman and mayor of Norwalk, CT. His family and ours were very close. One of my earliest memories is of driving down to visit them in Washington DC. They were always at the Argentine asados my father threw on an annual basis. When my parents would go away for much needed R&R from us, some of us would stay at the Irwins.
Don was always cheerful and kind of a happy go lucky guy. He and my father had a great friendship and I think that watching them taught me how to be a good friend. Don gave my father the job of DPW commissioner which was a left turn for Pop, having had no experience in public works. But the workforce was spanish and needed to be communicated with and that’s where Pop came in. The job only lasted a few years but it was one of the best times my dad had.
I have really good friends and they are among the things I value most. I believe that watching my father and Don joke around and support each other and talk about all kinds of topics and share music and family showed me how to cultivate this wonderful gift.
The fact that a black boy in a hoodie got killed by a creepy security guard wannabe who then gets to walk doesn’t bode well for the stature if the African-American in the US today. But, in my view, there are far worse examples of the state of race relations.
Twenty six white children get killed in Newtown and it sparks a national conversation on gun control. But how often do twenty six black kids get killed? And how often do we take to the streets in protest of this tragedy? What if, every time a black kid got caught in the crossfire, throngs of white folks would descend upon the black neighborhoods and march alongside the black preachers, youth workers and neighbors who mourn their loss? What if we made it a “big fucking deal!” every time it happened? What if we were to show our fellow citizens that we really cared and that we were willing to act on it? What if we gathered outside the known gang hangouts and yelled, at the top of our lungs, that this was not acceptable? Would this make a difference?
The pre-clearance clause in the Voting Rights Act gets struck down by the Supreme Court. Mere hours after this happens, Texas moves to limit the ability of black folks to vote. And how do they propose to do this? By requiring an ID at the voting booth? An ID! White kids in college have a veritable industry producing fake ID’s to buy booze, yet the lack of one is seen as a viable way to prevent an entire class of people from exercising the most basic right in a democracy. That is mass disenfranchisement at its most hideous. We’ve got to get these people ID’s. I’m actually less disturbed by their inability to vote than I am about their lack of ID. In today’s world, if we have people walking around without the basic means of participating in this electronic society, then we are not looking out for our brothers.
I worked in human services for years and I was very aware of the fact that most of my clients were people of color and most of my co-workers were white. One needs to tread lightly and not try to be the great white hope or something. But we can do a better job of trying to work alongside the people of color who are working in the neighborhoods and give them support and numbers. We are still a segregated society but we need to overcome our fears and get out into the streets and do the work of God and man.
Today was cooler. I picked raspberries tonight in Lorraine’s yard. Jiffy is lying on the bed with me. Stormy is his spot underneath The bed. My wife is watching The Young and The Restless tapes in the living room. It’s not much, it’s simple, and it’s home.
There was nothing that piqued my interest in the news today so I’ll talk about something else. Karen, our cat, is so full of life. She is playful and loves the dogs, playing with them, running after them and jumping over them. The dogs seem to regard her with bemusement. They generally ignore her. They let her eat their food and they wish they could eat hers, but they can’t.
When people say, “In times like these…” with a sense of foreboding, I like to remind myself that people have been thinking that the current times are the hardest times in every time. It always seems that way when you’re in the thick of it. But if one applies a modicum of a sense of history, one will be reminded that today is nothing special. In fact, against any rational yardstick, we are better off today than we ever were.
In America today, we are polarized. But we have been this way before and we will be this way again. We have a President of color. Regardless of how far we have come, that is bound to ruffle a few feathers. Rush Limbaugh has been pontificating for more than 20 years and, while it has colored the national dialog, it has not had a very lasting effect beyond creating a minority of pissed off white guys.
I read an article about gridlock at the FEC on Sunday. It featured a statement by one of the Republican members saying that he was more scared of his government than his neighbors. I realized that this is the difference between him and me: while I am not scared of my neighbors, I feel like I would rather have my government protecting me from them than the other way around. There are plenty of protections from the government enshrined in the constitution. The problems arise when my fellow citizens buy their way into the halls of power and begin to make laws. The shrewd businessman, the law abiding gun owner; I am neither shrewd nor armed and don’t like feeling like I have to be in order to survive in twenty-first century America. It shouldn’t have to be a dog eat dog world today. That is such a waste of our talent and energy. I don’t begrudge the entrepreneur his ambition, I just think it is only fair to him and me to have someone there to guard against his baser instincts.
I believe that is what makes today better than times past. We have some of those protections. In the Wild West you had to live by your wits and your six-gun and it sucked. People like me got eaten alive and those who were left were the shrewd ones, the eaters. They weren’t the sensitive ones, the artists, the thinkers. But I don’t think living in a world of merchants is a worthy national goal.
Conceptual Irregularities 