Doc - Divorce

After a bit, Chipper asked, “So Doc, what ever happened to you and Sandy?  I only met her a couple times, but you two seemed great together.”

“Yeah, we were great.  At least parts of it were great.  We were good friends before we got married, and the friendship stayed good.  We threw great parties together, and had a lot of laughs.  People loved coming and being part of them.  Even when our marriage was falling apart, nobody knew.  We’re both pretty open sharing happiness, but more private with pain. 

When we finally decided to pull the plug, we took some dear friends out to dinner to let them know we were divorcing – so they’d hear it directly from us.  When we told them, they both burst into tears.  My God!  We were reaching across the table to touch them, and reassure them that everything was going to be alright.  It was kind of comical, in a truly loving, bittersweet way. 

“As much as we loved one another—and we did love each other—I was never much of a husband to her, and she was not what I would have hoped for in a wife.  It should have been obvious from the start—in a way it was—but when we met, we were both about as old as you’d want to be to become a parent, and we each liked that the other was ready for that.  Over time, though, our differences drove a wedge between us.  Once you’re close to forty, you’re already pretty set in your habits; you have rigid expectations about what you’ll offer a mate, and what you expect in one.  Our shared love of our daughter kept us together for quite a while, and helped us ignore the inevitable for as long as we could, but we never really got past the differences, and finally decided we each deserved the chance to find a better fit”

“Did it get ugly?” Buck asked, “Because most of my divorces involved flying dishes, loud swearing, and usually at least one 911 call.”

“Sorry to disappoint you, Bucky.”  Doc replied, “Rarely even a raised voice – and no real blame either.  Just the kind of deep hurt that sits in your gut, and wakes you up in the middle of the night, wondering if you’ll ever be happy again.

“Sandy has found a great guy.  And I haven’t lost hope there might be somebody out here for me too. 

 “But we’re not kids anymore; hell, we’re not even forty. We’re not looking for somebody to share our transition into adulthood, or to build a family together.  That’s all behind me  The malleability of youth has all been pounded out, and we have become rigid – and overly protective of our wounds. 

In a way we’re like old toys at the bottom of the toybox; some with an arm or a leg missing, hair fallen out and ragged, or a stray spring popping out.  What I’m getting at is we’ve got a lot of miles on us, and we seem to be looking for a mate who can protect us where we’re broken, and maybe needs help where we have help to offer.  It’s a weird-ass way to start out a relationship, but you hear about it working out sometimes.  But for people who are slow to bond—or maybe were hard to fit, even when they were young—the prospects aren’t that bright.”   

Doc - Career Reveal - WFW

They all sat around the campfire, easing into the mountain evening; staring at the flames, sipping on their beers and straight-shots, passing around a pipe, and generally letting dinner settle in.  The light rain earlier woke up the smells of the old-growth forest – fresh sap, and decaying fir and pine needles all along the floor.  It was a magical time of silent pleasures, until the flatulence began.  You might think men in their sixties would be past the humor and novelty of farts – but you would be wrong.  What began as a simple release of pressure soon devolved into a competition, with evaluations in categories ranging from loudness, duration, resonance, and occasional new categories.   You could see the faces of some of the less-prepared guys turning red from exertion, as they tried to advertise a product they just couldn’t release – vaporware, I suppose you could call it.  

After things quieted down a bit, Chipper asked, “So Rip, what’s this about you being a doctor?”

“I’m not”, Rip replied.

“What about that couple we saw in town last weekend, who called you ‘Doc’, and were telling you all about their little girl?  

“Well, I’m not a doctor anymore.  I retired last year.”

Nero jumped in, “Well how the fuck long WERE you a doctor without telling us – your lifelong friends?”

“Look, I’m sorry if you all thought I was concealing something from you.  I just didn’t think it mattered.  I don’t know what half of you do for a living.  It’s not like I could treat any of you – or would want to if I could.  You don’t have the right plumbing.”

“Oh man, oh man!”, began Fogie, “A lady doctor!  That’s even worse!  All the stories you could have shared.  Any one of us would kill to have a job working with bare pussies all day long.  You’re going to have to make up for lost time with stories from the office!”  

“Shit man!  Are any of you starting to see why I kept this to myself?  Do you think my job was a parade of girly models trooping through my office in lingerie each day for my pleasure?”

Red responded, “Dude, if that’s not the case, you have to let us down easy.  Remember the dreams you might be destroying.  And, when you do share, just tell us about the healthy ones … you know, routine checkups.”  

Rip said, “Okay, I know you guys are just fucking with me, but for the record, there’s something called HIPAA.  There’s a lot to it, but the relevant section for tonight is ‘When you treat a patient, you keep your fucking mouth shut about it’.  If you violate that, they don’t let you see patients anymore.”

“But you’re retired, who cares?” Fogey interjected, earning him a laugh from everybody.  

“I think I’d still be in trouble, guys.  Besides, old habits die hard.  When you spend a couple decades respecting people’s privacy, the idea kind of grows on you.”  Rip was ready to change the subject, but added, “Besides, there is nothing titillating about helping people stay healthy—or get better—no matter who, or what parts of their bodies.  You’re there to help people, and you kind of dissociate the patient you see in front of you from anything sexual.  If you guys really need something to stimulate your imagination, I’m sure there are plenty of videos online that will be a lot more effective than any stories I could share—even if I were willing—without violating anybody’s privacy.”

Little Debbie stood up – all six-feet, five of him, and started to unbuckle his pants, “Since you’re a doc, Doc, I wonder if you could take a look at this boil.  It’s right here between my balls and my bunghole.”  

“Fuck you, Deb!” Rip interrupted, “it’s nighttime, in the middle of the Oregon Cascades.  Do you think I brought up exam instruments, just in case one of you wanted to play Show and Tell?  I’m not going to look at whatever the hell kind of infection or infestation you’ve managed to get yourself into.  Besides, I said before, you all don’t have the plumbing for what I practiced – WHEN I practiced.  When you get to town, I can recommend a competent large-animal veterinarian.

“And Chipper, I can’t hardly thank you enough for bringing this up tonight.  Fuck, man!  Will I ever hear the end of this?”

“Fuck you, Doc”, Chipper responded, “You aren’t getting this ration of shit because you’re a doctor (or WERE a doctor).  We’ve been your best friends since grade school, and you kept this from us for … what?  twenty years?  Thirty years?  Yeah, you’ll hear the end of this, but not tonight … maybe not this year.  Honest to God, man!  How fucking arrogant are you.”

“So it’s ‘Doc’ now?  You’re going to start calling me Doc?  Shit!  I’m sorry, guys – seriously sorry.  I really never kept this to myself to keep you all out of the loop, or disrespect you.  It just never felt like something I wanted, or needed, to share.  I had my ‘at work’ life, and my life with my boyhood buddies.  It just never made sense to mush them together.

“I’m going to hit the sack now.  I’ll see you all in the morning.  And, Deb, I’ll see if I can find the name of the veterinarian for you.”  

Father's Day Thoughts

A typical spring Saturday morning growing up found Dad in the driveway, under the hood of his car, leaning in—crescent wrench or ratchet in hand—ready to fix something.  If things were going well, it might be pretty quiet – if not, Dad might share a vocabulary lesson with anybody within earshot.

The raised hood was a signal to the other dads in the neighborhood—Duane Everard, Earl Johnson, or maybe Ray Janni—to come over and shoot the shit for a while.  There was always more than one way to accomplish the task at hand, and there was no sense doing any work until all the options were thoroughly considered. 

We kids started out as tool go-fers; I learned to tell a Crescent wrench from a pair of Vice grips right out of the gate – and got my first lessons in fractions by distinguishing a 9/16 socket from a ¾.  Once we got good at this, we might actually be allowed to tighten or loosen something … under close supervision.

We learned important lessons through this – friendship, self-reliance, and the aforementioned vocabulary lessons. 

My Saturday mornings in the garden are perhaps a bit less instructive.  I chat with my back-fence neighbors, but nobody’s asking or offering advice – and I don’t share much edgy vocabulary.  And I’ve never bloodied a knuckle tying up a tomato plant or a dahlia.  I try to add a bit of drama to my time in the garden by playing movie soundtracks on the Bluetooth, but it’s not quite the same.  And, as for self-reliance, one of my happiest things about the garden is that I don’t have to rely on the produce to survive.  I’m really no better a gardener than I was a mechanic. 

This weekend, I wish you all happy memories of your Fathers.

WFW - Arizona Trip - Junior Year

It was never my intention to break my Mother’s heart or to make her cry.  But I was sixteen, and my friend Roger and I wanted to take a vacation.  It was cold and rainy in Eugene in late December, and rumor had it conditions were more temperate in Tuscon.  I thought my cousin Tommy might be there; he was a hard guy to track down, having lived on the road for at least a couple years.  Seeing him would have been a bonus to a pretty special vacation, but he had already moved on. 

I had laid the groundwork with my Dad for months.  He loved to regale us with stories of his time in the Navy during the Second World War … how he didn’t need a car, because a guy in uniform need only stick out his thumb, and people would go out of their way to get him to his destination.  He made it sound fun, and I encouraged him to talk about it, to eke from him something approaching permission for me to follow his example.  The note I left referenced his stories, and asked politely that he and Mom not report me as a runaway.  

We had made arrangements for a ride as far as San Diego before we left, through a ride-sharing billboard notice at the Odyssey Coffee House in Eugene.  All we had to do was buy a tank or two of gas, and make sure we could afford our own food.  

It was a nice drive down the coast with six passengers arranged in a big station wagon.  Somewhere north of San Francisco, I saw my first hillside that didn’t have trees on it, for any reason other than clear-cut logging.  It confused me at first until they explained that there are hills all over the world that aren’t covered with trees.  Eye opening!  The drive was pretty uneventful, other than being pulled over and questioned with some suspicion in San Luis Obispo.  Since Roger and I were minors, the officer checked our IDs against the five-state alert that is shared for runaways.  We weren’t on it, so he had no reason to hold us.  

As we dropped down into the Los Angeles basin I got my first look at serious industrial air pollution.  We had smoke in Eugene every August, when grass-seed farmers burned their fields after harvest, but this was something different.  From the hillside above, it looked like a huge toilet bowl, way overdue for a flush, with a diffuse reddish hue that seemed to permeate everything.  As we descended into it, it irritated my throat to breath it.  It took two hours to drive through Los Angeles.  I had never conceived of a city that took as long to cross as it took to drive from Eugene to Portland.  

It felt good to leave the L.A. basin.  

When we got to San Diego, Roger and I found our way to Mission Beach.  It was December 31, and as evening approached, we found a place to stash our backpacks, and walked up and down the boardwalk, inviting ourselves to parties.  Strangely, most people let us join them without giving it a second thought.  I tasted my first screwdriver, and saw two men kissing for the first time.  They were wearing Navy white uniforms, and it was San Diego - but it was New Years Eve, so these may have just been costumes.  Because nobody else in the room seemed to react to the kissing, it didn’t affect me either.  I made a mental note, but nothing more.  At the end of the evening, we found our way back to our backpacks, and slept in our sleeping bags beneath some shrubbery, just outside the fence of some kind of carnival.  

The next morning, we headed out from San Diego, this time actually hitchhiking.  On the way, I saw another marvel for the first time.  The desert alongside Interstate 8 glittered in the sun.  I don’t know if it was some kind of mineral crystal embedded in the rocks, or what, but it was spell-binding.  

When we got to Tucson, we found our way to an area of coffee shops and other counter-culture hangouts along a main street called ‘Speedway’.  We settled into one, and waited to acclimate and become part of the local crowd.  

We met this guy on our second day; not another young person, but by an older guy.  He seemed like a hippie-type guy, so we took to him pretty readily.  He said his name was Johnny Christenson, but sometimes made reference to Julius Caesar, and occasionally Jesus Christ - anything with the initials 'JC".  We thought it was pretty cool that this local guy had chosen to adopt us so readily.  We hung out with him throughout the day.  As evening came around, he asked us where we were staying, and when we said we didn’t know, he said he’d set us up with something.  Turns out he was staying at the YMCA, and was happy to get us rooms.  As it turns out, he got me a room, and invited my friend to stay in his room.  It was starting to feel strange to me, and I suggested to Roger that we find another option, but Roger was less a skeptic than I was, and assumed everything was fine.  

In the morning, Roger wanted to get the hell out of Dodge.  We packed up and left, without saying goodbye to J.C., and headed out.  Turns out, Roger had spent the first half of the night fending off this creep’s advances, and the rest of the night zipped up tight in his sleeping bag, not sleeping.  It was a hard-won lesson about not being too trusting, and we were very happy to be on our way somewhere else.  I don’t know if the term ‘chicken-hawk’ was used then, but this guy meets the description – looking for rootless young people, then taking advantage of them.  It didn’t work out for him this time, but he no doubt went right back to it the next day, looking for his next victim.  

We headed north from Tucson that morning, and got to Phoenix about mid-day.  Our last ride was a woman who had a boy not much older than we were.  She let us stay at her place – without any ulterior motives.  It was a very nice difference from the day before.  

When we left Phoenix, our first ride dropped us off in Sun City, a retirement community just north of there.  The grocery store had as many golf carts in the parking spaces as cars – craziest damn thing I’d ever seen.  

That day, we got as far as a town called Kingman, Arizona, then all traffic stopped.  We learned a new lesson about Arizona that night … the place is not uniformly blazing hot, especially at night, and especially the first week of January.  Kingman is in the mountains, and it got well below freezing.  We were lucky to find an abandoned laundromat, so we would at least be sheltered from the not-insignificant wind.  But the cement floor was hardly welcoming.  It was as cold as it was hard.  I had to change positions every few minutes, as the circulation was cut off, and the bloodless body part began to freeze.  I can’t think of a time I have so looked forward to morning.  

The next day, we only went as far as Bakersfield, where a girlfriend from junior high lived with her Dad, who had the distinction of being Buck Owens' private pilot.  They put us up in comfortable beds, fed us a nice dinner and breakfast, and put a little money in our pockets for the rest of the trip … another kindness that a road-kid would never forget.  

It took us a couple more days to get home.  Roger was in a bit of trouble, but all I had to deal with was the guilt of knowing I had scared my mother half to death.  I would continue to hitchhike around the country for another couple years (San Francisco that summer, Wisconsin the next year, right after graduating), but I never left without saying goodbye, and assuring my Mother that I loved her.  

After we got back from Arizona, I learned that my cousin Tommy had left Tucson long before we went down.  He found his way to Texas, where he would die a few months later, at the strangling hands of a jailer in Austin.  

I guess when you’re sixteen or seventeen, you presume yourself ‘bullet-proof’, and really don’t grasp the very real fear that you cause for your parents, and those who love you.  Among the many things that make me grateful every day, it is that my daughter has found much less hazardous ways of exploring.  I still manage to be fearful – less for the adventures she pursues than for the idea that the universe may feel it owes me an unpleasant karmic payback.  

WFW - The Shoe

I wouldn’t say I was a bad kid.  

Not everybody I grew up with would agree with that estimation. 

I grew up smoking cigarettes, skipping school, cussing, fighting, and generally disregarding any rules imposed by adults.  I liked people, but not so much those in authority.  I always had a need to go my own way – and some of the choices I made put me in with a group of mostly feral kids.  We spent much of our after-school time with each other, guided only by our collective ids, with all the folly that came to pass as a result. 

Among former smokers I know, most say that the times they really struggle with urges is when they're in a bar, surrounded by cigarette smoke. The smell and the setting takes them right back to that place in their minds when they began smoking, and the memories urge their body to follow. 

Since I quit smoking about the time I was old enough to go into bars, I don’t share that association.  When we were kids, my buddies and I would swipe cigarettes from our parents, then we’d go swimming at Emerald Park pool.  When we were finished, we’d retire to the woods, take out the cigarettes (which we had hopefully not gotten wet in the locker room), and smoke them.  It was a fun part of my childhood, that brings back fond memories. 

Now, many years later—over forty years since I quit—I rarely have any urge to smoke cigarettes. The one exception is if I’ve been swimming in a chlorinated pool, have some of the residual smell on my skin, and get downwind from somebody else who is smoking.  It is that combination of smells that triggers me.  It is all I can do to not mug them, steal their cigarette, and smoke the shit out of it. 

Another time we really enjoyed smoking was during the 880 – the half-mile run all the Colin Kelly Junior High boys had to do every couple weeks in P.E. class.  The course followed the periphery of the grounds of Kelly, and the adjacent Howard Grade School.  At about the halfway point, the course went past an entrance to Emerald Park (Hmm … that place keeps coming up in this story).  One of us would have a cigarette tucked in his sock, and somebody else would bring matches.  When we got to that point in the course, we’d slip through the fence, quickly light the cigarette, have a couple drags each, then toss it out.  On dry days, we might snuff it, and set it on a fence or a curb to finish later - but in the typical Willamette Valley drizzle, the remainder would have gotten soaked, so we wrote it off as a loss. 

Because of the delay caused by the cigarette break—and the fact that we weren't among the faster runners anyway—we would usually come in a minute or so after the last of the other runners, at least one of whom had typically ratted us out.  Terry Viohl, the P.E. Teacher, would be waiting for us, and just call us out, “Chamberlain, Heldt, Newton!! Into my office!”

Everybody in class knew what was coming next, and could hardly wait.  So they either showered and dressed quickly, or waited to shower until after the show.  We would go into Viohl’s office, and one at a time, be instructed to pull down our gym shorts, bend over and grab our ankles, thus displaying our butts; bare but for a jock strap. 

About the time we assumed the position, the chanting would begin.  Viohl’s office was surrounded by windows, through which all we could see was a mosaic of our classmates' faces, chanting ‘Shoe!! Shoe!! Shoe!!’ – to assure that the corporal punishment would be accompanied by humiliation.  They wanted nothing more than the satisfaction of seeing us cry.  Then Terry (yeah, we were on a first-name basis with Mr. Viohl ... when he couldn't hear us) would reach into the cubby where math teacher Cecil Kribs kept a set of gym clothes.  Viohl would reach in slowly, and with a smile, extract one of Kribs's size 14 Converse—the perfect size to induce terror in the heart of a young teenager—and begin his windup.  As the shoe hit its mark, the crowd outside the windows erupted in paroxysms of schadenfreude.  The shoe really stung, but none of us would validate this punishment with tears.   And no matter how it stung, it didn’t hurt badly enough to counter the pleasure we had gotten from those couple drags off a cigarette.  And it damn sure didn’t prevent us from doing it again the next time we ran the 880.  

I don't really know what was going through the minds of the spectators.  Did they enjoy the spectacle of rebellious kids getting their just desserts?  Did they admire us for taking our punishment 'like a man', and not crying?  I imagine it was some of each.  Few of them expressed admiration directly, but there were a lot of questions about the experience. 

I doubt that anybody who got the shoe had much affection for Mr. Viohl - but time really does heal wounds.  A good friend of mine has stayed in touch with Mr. Viohl, and occasionally does handyman work for him.  He brought me over to Mr. Viohl's house a couple years ago.  He is now in his 80s, and has grown into a pretty genial old man, who is married to a very lovely wife.  By the time we left that day, I had a standing invitation for Friday evening happy hour at their home ... and even posed for a (fully clothed) re-enactment of being administered 'The Shoe'. 

WFW - The Fighter

When you change schools in the middle of the third grade, and you already smoke
cigarettes, it narrows your choice of friends in the new neighborhood. I started
hanging out with Tommy within a couple months. He smoked, got in a lot of fist
fights, and told jokes I had never heard before, and really couldn’t repeat to
anybody else.

During my years hanging out with Tommy, I sneaked out in the middle of the
night in summertime, did a bit of vandalism, shoplifting, fighting – sometimes as
teams against gangs from other schools, sometimes against each other. We
looked up to older guys, who were further along the same path. Lots of our
friends had spent some time in Skipworth – the Lane County’s ‘juvie’ hall. Some
of our more hardened role models had done serious time in Maclaren up in
Woodburn. They called Maclaren a reform school, but, judging from the guys
coming out of there, the only reforming going on was honing the skills they would
need as future adult criminals. Though I was in awe of these guys, I really didn’t
want to emulate them. Even when I was immersed in this, I didn’t see it as my
future, and tried to stay on the periphery; keeping one foot on a straighter path.
If we had been caught in some of our adventures though, my path might have
been decided for me – at least in the short term.

I got in a lot of fights, both within my gang, and with other kids at school.
Sometimes it would be a spontaneous flurry of fists, but at least a couple times a
year, I would be ‘featured’ in an arranged after-school fight on the playground,
that other kids would plan for. Because so many of the kids I hung out with did
this same thing, I thought it was normal. It wasn’t, even then. A number of kids I
grew up with are now Facebook friends. And at least a few of them tell me I was
the only person they ever fought. It is my shame that I sometimes don’t even
remember fighting them … much of that time is a blur of stimulus and out-of-
control response. At a high school reunion a few years ago, I ran into somebody I
hadn’t seen since graduation. He didn’t remember me at first, but when it finally
dawned on him, he blurted out ‘You’re left-handed, aren’t you?’ I am, and
confirmed that, and he mentioned that I had broken his nose with a left hook.

The shame I carry from that period of my life, and the osteoarthritis in my hands
and wrists are the legacy of my lack of impulse control.

I don’t blame my Dad for my pugnacious nature, but he was an influence,
whether intentional or not. He grew up tough in Hoquiam, on the Washington
coast, had been a varsity boxer in high school, and continued boxing in the Navy
during the Second World War – when they would set up a boxing ring on the deck
of the aircraft carrier he served on. One year, he gave me and my brothers each a
pair of boxing gloves for Christmas. It was all well-intentioned, but in my young
mind, it validated the idea of using my fists. Dad would tell me, ‘Never start a
fight, but once you’re in one … finish it!’ No doubt, this is advice he was given by
his Dad, and he just passed it on.

I don’t know for sure what broke me of the tendency to fight. Two things
contributed. Some of my friends’ older brothers were being drafted and sent to
Vietnam – and in a couple cases, not coming back. I didn’t believe in that war,
and wanted to be a contentious objector, but thought that a life punctuated by
violence might work against gaining that status. The other factor was marijuana.

In junior high, some of my buddies started smoking pot, and when I tried it, it kind
of took the fight out of me. Prairie Home Companion fans may remember the
commercials from the Ketchup Advisory Board, which tout the ‘natural mellowing
agents’ ketchup contains. If you relate to that, you can see the effect pot had on
me. I don’t recommend this to others – as a teenager, it had a detrimental effect
on my overall motivation. But it made me an easier-going person. I may have
extended that self-medication longer than needed, but have long-since left it
behind.

Leaving fighting behind, along with the increasing numbers of ‘better’ kids who
also smoked cigarettes, enabled me to enlarge my circle of friends. Over time, I
saw less and less of Tommy and the gang. I’ve never seen him as adults. I heard
from old classmates that he has served time in prison, and that a few years ago,
accidentally blew one of his lower legs off with a shotgun he had intended to use
to intimidate somebody into revising the terms of a drug deal he thought should
have gone differently.

When I retired my fists I substituted a sharp wit, and a poison pen. I convinced
myself that I only unleashed these on those who truly had it coming, but that’s
the same easy fiction I told myself when I was fist fighting. I doubt that many
people are changed for the better after verbal humiliation, any more than they
would after being punched. It took me years to realize that this was as
destructive to my heart and soul as fist fighting ever had been. I now try to use my hands
to build useful things around my house, and my words to validate and heal. Old
habits die hard, but I keep my eye on the prize, and am successful more often
than not.

When my daughter Madeleine was in Kindergarten and First Grade, I coached her
soccer team. There was one boy who had a tendency to suddenly act out – either
pushing another player down, or screaming at them. His parents were in the
midst of a divorce, and he wasn’t handling it well at all. Some of the parents
asked me to kick him off the team, but I asked them to give me a little time to see
what I could do. I can’t claim to have turned this boy’s life around—I haven’t
stayed in touch, and don’t know how things have gone for him—but I did spend
some time with him, showed him some respect and love, and helped him practice
impulse control. He would still occasionally get angry, but there were no more
incidents of violence. Part of me feels that I owe the universe something – and
that perhaps helping nurture a troubled boy might be at least something positive.
I can never untip the scales for the actions of my youth … any more than one can
‘unsay’ a cruel comment or ‘unspank’ a child. But I hope that some of the nature I
try to cultivate in my behavior now at least has some healing effect on others I
encounter.

WFW - Hamilton in the Snow

For my birthday, I chose a day on my own in the woods. A solo hike up Hamilton
Mountain seemed to be just what the doctor ordered. I hadn’t been up there for
a long time, and was overdue for my favorite go-to hike.

There as snow on the ground at the trailhead; a promise of deeper snow up
above, so I put on my new strap-on cleats – the heavy-duty ones with the teeth
like crampons.

I put in my earbuds; music enough to lay the soundtrack for my day, but quiet
enough that I could still hear the sounds of nature through it. Lord Huron would
be perfect – beautiful, ethereal and just a bit mysterious.

Out there’s a world that calls for me, girl
Headin’ out into the unknown.

The first steps up the trail from the parking lot are anything but unknown – as
familiar to me as any footsteps in the Gorge. The snow, with the spots of bare
ground where tracks had worn through spoke of earlier adventures, and the
promises of my day. This would be time out of time for me – time within my
mind, punctuated only with brief trail greetings and exchanges of pleasantries
with others of my ilk.

There is no waiting for the incline to begin, and within a hundred yards my
breathing was deeper and faster. The crispness of the winter air held tickled my
nose, and lungs. I anticipate the first landmark – the clearing that opens for the
power lines coming from the dam to keep the lights on.

And I feel like I know this place
as the tree line breaks into wide-open space

A hiker ahead of me had pulled over. She was wearing tennis shoes, with no
traction help. She said she would continue, but I could only wonder how far up
she would reconsider and turn around. We spoke briefly, and I pushed on.

You made me swear I’d never forget,
I made a vow I’d see you again

The trail winds around a bend then opens to the left, looking down to the first
footbridge, cutting back to cross a stream. I remember the first time I brought my
daughter and former wife on this trail; stopping here to take their picture on the
bridge. It’s so easy to frame the shot, and catch an unforgettable moment – even
in summer. It was familiar in the snow—though the bridge now held only
memories—it was starkly beautiful.

Further up I began to hear the sounds of Hardy Creek in the distance – meaning
that Rodney Falls and the Pool of the Winds were getting nearer. I met the hiker I
has seen earlier on her way back to the lot. Slippery was the order of the day, and
she made a good decision to go back.

I reach the place where the trail descends to the footbridge that crosses Hardy
Creek just below Rodney Falls. I pause to take in this beauty before I walk down.
I don’t hike up to the Pool of the Winds this time. The trail is narrow where it
passes under a cliff, and in slippery conditions it’s a risk I’ll pass up this day. I love
this feature, but not enough to give my life to reach it.

Lie where I land, let my bones turn to sand
I was born on the lake and I don't want to leave it

Across the bridge, with a couple pictures in the can, I walk back up the other side.
The trail is steeper now, and will be for the next mile. You don’t necessarily
notice it as you walk, but there is one place where the terrain folds back, and the
path continuing on the other side, looks daunting in the distance. Once you
round the corner though, it’s just one foot in front of the other, looking forward
to the turn at the top of this pitch, what has an incredible view of Beacon Rock,
and the Oregon side of the Gorge. This is stunning in summer and winter. This
year, it is doubly stark. I’m torn between the rugged beauty of the bare trees
jutting whisker-like from the landscape, and the grief for the incredible forest that
no longer provides the hills a modicum of modesty. I take a couple pictures as I
catch my breath, and press on.

A bit further is the fork in the trail. The new sign is more informative, but less
whimsical than the old sign that read ‘Difficult’ to the left, and ‘More Difficult’ to
the right. I loved that sign, both as validation for the sensation in my legs, and as
a metaphor for so many of the choices we face in life.

After a bit of scrambling, I reach a promontory that goes out to a 500+ foot cliff. I
choose to not walk out to the edge today, but take a picture of a gap that affords
a peek-a-boo view of a meadow, and the river beyond.

Don't want a long ride,
I don't wanna die at all.

Because of a late start and friends making me dinner when I got home, I had
planned to hike only to a saddle that affords a breathtaking view of a cliff-face at

the edge of the last part of the climb. But the snow was deeper there, and
sloppy. People were passing less frequently, and it looked like weather might be
coming in. Since I was by myself, I turned around to head down.

About a quarter mile back down, I was approaching a particularly challenging five-
foot step. As I began to consider what would be the best way go down the step, I
forgot to think about where I was in the moment. My feet came out from under
me. I slid about twenty feet, changing directions at the last minute – avoiding a
significant drop, and landing at the bottom of the five-foot step. Problem solved.

All that was injured was a slightly bruised buttock and my pride. A small price to
pay to be there.

The rest of the hike down was uneventful. I reached the parking lot grateful for
my time alone in the woods, and ready for the companionship of my friend with
food and drink together.

This is my go-to hike. I have stayed away for a while – allowing her to provide
solace to displaced hikers from the Oregon side. But I have missed her.

Where could that girl have gone?
Where? I've wandered far.
Where could that girl have gone?
She left no trail but I cannot fail; I will find her.

WFW - Saint Louis

If you say to an American, ‘Take me to Saint Louis, Louis’, you’ll either get a blank
stare, or a smile that takes them back to a show tune from a century ago. Heck,
they may even come back with a tune to go with the lyrics.

Ask a Parisien the same question, and they may just walk you to Sainte Chapelle,
on the Ile de France in Paris, just a few blocks from Notre Dame.

Saint Louis … King Louis IX, or Le Roi Saint Louis is memorialized with a statue on
the main floor of Sainte Chapelle. His bones are buried elsewhere, but this is
where his statue sits, surrounded by beauty.

At one time, Sainte Chapelle was said to hold an item considered priceless to
Medieval Christians; in fact, it was built expressly to hold it. Louis spent his life
fighting wars, leading Crusades, concluding peace, uniting and expanding his
kingdom … basically kingly-type stuff. But he did one thing that no other French
king, before or since, has done.

Louis purchased the crown of thorns from the Byzantine Emperor. It is said that
Louis paid a quarter of France’s annual national income for the crown of thorns;
so you know it has to be the real Crown o’ Thorns, because … you know … who in
his right mind would pay that much for a knock-off? He built Sainte Chapelle
primarily for this relic. It’s incredible when you think of it, that one of the most
magnificent buildings in Paris was built for this, and actually cost only a fraction of
what was paid for the Crown of Thorns.

Every year on Good Friday, the Crown of Thorns would be taken from its safe
storage, and presented to the congregation at Sainte Chapelle. It was moved
during the French Revolution, and I think is now at Notre Dame.

WFW - Listening to Scientists

Listening to scientists is the beginning of a slippery slope, with the potential to
dislodge you from what you learned growing up … and what you might be
learning now, if you stuck to traditional sources.

The nice thing about traditional learning is that it doesn’t change from time to
time. Truth is revealed, and it remains truth forever. Scientists tell stories that
change all the time. Last year they said to not eat eggs, now they say to eat eggs,
but not the toast. They tell us the Chinese landed a rocket ship on the dark side
of the moon, then tell us there is no dark side of the moon. They tell us that
we’re receiving radio signals from outer space that were sent over a billion years
ago. A billion years ago? How do they know … were they there?

Scientists do things that make us change what we do. They tell us to stop
smoking, but we have a right to smoke. They tell us we can’t log the forests,
because of spotted owls, and that we can’t dam the rivers because of salmon.
First they tell us that we’re descended from monkeys, but where’s the missing
link? Now they’re telling us that the coal and oil we burn is making the world
hotter, even as the Midwest id having the coldest winter in history. It just doesn’t
add up! They just want us to fail, by not doing our best to compete with the
Chinese. That should be obvious to anybody.

A few hundred years ago, an apple plopped on Isaac Newton’s head, and he
thought up gravity. I mean, so what! This is the same guy that invented Calculus,
so even if gravity’s a good thing, that doesn’t make up for it. Anyhow, about a
hundred years ago, some Einstein … I mean THE Einstein said that Isaac Newton
got it all wrong, and that there isn’t a force of gravity, but planets and stars bend
something called ‘Spacetime’. Seriously, he called it that, and came up with all sorts
 of crap about what happens to things when they go really fast … that they
get heavier and that time slows down. What a crock! Time is time, and has
nothing to do with space. They’re just trying to confuse us.
Now they’re going after people who don’t want to get shots for measles, or the
flu, or whatever. Hell, I had measles when I was a kid … it wasn’t so bad! And I
hate getting shots!

WFW - No Dark Side

Sorry, Pink Floyd fans; there is no such thing as the ‘Dark Side of the Moon’.
There is a side which always faces away from the Earth, but it is, on average just
as light as the side which does face us. In fact, since the side which faces away
from us is never eclipsed by the Earth’s shadow, its average illumination is just
ever-so slightly brighter. This doesn’t amount to much, but if we choose to label
one side or the other as ‘dark’, I’m afraid it would have to be the side which faces
us.

So, why does the same side of the moon always face the Earth? Is it mere
coincidence that the Moon rotates on its axis at exactly the same rate at which it
orbits the Earth? Does it have something to do with the origin of both bodies,
that these two movements would be so precisely coordinated?

Actually, it is a phenomenon known as ‘Tidal Lock’. The same interaction
between heavenly bodies that cause our seas to rise and fall twice a day, also
affects the interior of each. The liquid mantle deep within the Earth also moves
just a bit with the tides … not much, but a bit.

The effect of the Earth on the Moon’s interior is much more profound. If we
presume (as scientists do) that the Moon once rotated on its axis at a rate
independent of its orbit around the Earth, the proximity of the much-larger Earth
so close to the Moon would cause incredible internal tidal dynamics with each
rotation. These dynamics, this friction, had a slowing effect on the Moon’s
rotation, as friction tends to slow any motion. Over time—and there has been

plenty of time (~4.5 billion years)—the friction completely overcame the
rotational inertia, and the Moon’s rotation became synchronized with its orbit.
The Moon is not alone in this tidal lock phenomenon. Mercury, the closest planet
to the Sun always shows the same side to the sun, for the same reason. It is likely
that, given enough time any small celestial object near a much larger object will
exhibit the same behavior.

In fact, the tidal pull on the Earth’s interior, mentioned above, has a slowing
effect on the Earth’s rotation. But because the Earth is so much larger than the
Moon, the effect is much slower, and the changes in rotational velocity of the Earth
are much smaller. It is estimated that an Earth day is about 1.7 milliseconds
longer than it was a century ago. While this seems a very slight rate of slowing,
given enough time—and, as I mentioned, there’s plenty of time—the Earth’s
rotation would eventually also slow to the rate of the Moon’s orbit. My only
caveat to this is that the time required is long, and our sun may become a red
giant, and envelope both the Earth and the Moon before this occurs – making the
whole question moot.

WFW - Tumalo Mountain Morning

The packed snow squeaked beneath my snowshoes as I left my car and made my way across the parking lot to the place where I would step off the trail, and head uphill.  Soon the parking lot would be filled with the sights and two-stroke smells of snowmobiles off-loading and heading out.  But I would be oblivious to them.  Once in the woods, outside sounds are quickly muffled. 

As I stepped off the track, the squeaking sound was soon replaced with a nearly imperceptible whoosh of powder being displaced with each step.  Forty yards in, this was the only sound, other than my breath. 

The sky overhead was a study in pastel blues – translucent Caribbean to the east; fading to azure to the west.  I could see the sun kissing the icy treetops, but since my route began on the southwest slope of the mountain, I would be in the shade for at least the first hour of my walk. 

After a few minutes, I looked back to get my bearings – not that it’s all that easy to get lost going up a cinder cone … if you’re heading up hill, you’re on track.  Behind me, across Century Drive, I could see the chairlifts on Mount Bachelor begin to move; not holding any stylishly-clad butts for another hour or so – just cycling through so the operator could confirm they work properly, flip the seats down, and brush off the night’s accumulation of snow and ice.  The Sno-cats were on their last overnight run; working their way down the mountain, leaving wide corduroy paths in their wake—ego-snow—which would lend the first skiers of the day a false sense of competence, before warming temperatures and accumulating moguls replaced those delusions with cold reality.  

I could see each breath as I exhaled, little puffy clouds of water vapor, suspended in front of me as they froze to micro-crystals.  The sense of aloneness was so profound – so welcome.  After two days of lift lines and rapid descents, a morning of measured steps and solitude was the elixir I needed.  An airliner passing above left thin cloudlike contrails in its wake, as it traversed the sky.  I paused for a moment to consider where it was heading, and the lives of the people on board, six miles high, traveling at nearly the speed of the silence we shared. 

The sun began to work its way down the nearby trees, slowly melting the ice that coated each branch, and hung from them in icicles.  Every so often a chunk of ice would break off a branch, and hit with a thud against the branch below, before falling into the snow.  As I continued, this percussion became more frequent, like a percolator beginning to brew the morning coffee.  Finally, the sounds were almost constant – like a thousand Andean rain sticks.   It was other-worldly.  I looked around, and realized there was nobody else; the concert was just for me.  Then, as rapidly than it had built to its crescendo, the sounds diminished; becoming more random ... less frequent ... then finally not there at all.  

A minute or so after the concert ended, as I had returned to my waking dream state, I heard what sounded like a gunshot.  I spun to look in the direction of the sound, and saw powder still suspended from where a branch had broken off and fallen into the snow.  The tree stood within a grove of standing dead trees – many so desiccated that the water which freezes each night is ultimately all that holds the branches to the trunk.  finally comes the morning when the ice thaws, and the branch gives way, to the tune of a broken-bat single, as it drops to the ground – returning whatever meager minerals and nutrients it retains to the sparse earth, whence they were drawn.  

This thin forest of standing dead trees stood as they had for decades; ancient ghost-sentries—their forest green uniforms long-since faded to gray, and fallen away—manning their posts in death as in life; the vanguard frontier of the losing battle against climate change.  They now resemble rows of abandoned scarecrows, or crumbling crucifixes – standing where they had vicariously atoned for mankind’s unrepentant sins against nature; bravely facing our longer, hotter summers, and decreasing precipitation; finally falling to those most relentless six-legged horsemen of the apocalypse – the pine bark beetles.   

I pressed on – haunted, yet nourished by what I had seen and heard.  Above the scrub pine forest, was an open snow field.  By now the nascent morning sunlight reached the surface of the snow at an acute angle.  As I walked, it glinted from the millions of individual ice crystals, like a visual cacophony of camera flashes capturing a key play at a nighttime Superbowl.  As my mind wandered—a couple hours of free association being the reason I was there—I imagined these flashes were directed at me, as though somebody wanted to document my ascent for posterity.  ‘Gosh, it ain’t no big deal’ I would reply with the best breathless humility I could muster, ‘It ain’t nothin’ any other elite athlete couldn’t accomplish on a good day’.  Yeah … sometimes I really crack myself up. 

My musing came to an end as I reached the juniper grove that guarded the summit.  This grove, though only about thirty yards across, is dense, and confusing – a labyrinth, requiring strategy to negotiate.  Some years, when the overnight snowfall hid the paths of earlier hikers, I’d plod up and back two or three cul-de-sacs before finding a place to break through.  As nice as it is to lay fresh tracks on virgin powder, there is something to be said for the confidence in one’s path that comes from following more experienced footsteps.  

Beyond the junipers, the slope flattens, and I reach the bald pate of the summit.  The view is breathtaking - irrespective of the aerobic work to reach the top.  Ahead, and just west of due north is Broken Top.  No depth of snow can hide the scars of the geological violence which it's name describes.  Further west, and a bit north, lay South Sister – more distant, but no less dramatic, with its more refined cone-shaped summit, followed by Middle and North Sister.  On a clear day like today, Mount Washington, Three-Fingered Jack, and Jefferson may be seen, shining in the distance.  

As beautiful as is the view, the top is exposed, and it doesn’t take much of a breeze at 25 degrees to discourage a lingering farewell.  A few pictures to capture the moment; perhaps brief pleasantries with other intrepid souls at the top, then a U-turn back to head downhill.  

Descending Tumalo Mountain seems less memorable.  It goes faster, and there is less attention to the scenery (or perhaps less need for excuses to take a break to admire it).  Wherever there is a clearing, you just look at Mount Bachelor – by now in full operation.  The faster pace, and without the effort of climbing in the snow, the unconscious craving for out-of-body moments is not as strong.  And, of course, there is my focus; hike to the bottom, doff the snowshoes at the car, drive back to town, and enjoy the cold beer I’ve just worked so hard to earn.  

WFW - Blowjobs

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WFW - Friends Tour

I don’t have a lot of ex-friends.  When I form a friendship, the connections grow deep roots, and I hate digging them up.  

But there is one.  

The summer before my sophomore year of college, I was scouting a place to live, and ran into this fantastic old farmhouse about a mile east of Corvallis on Highway 34.  It was HUGE – eight bedrooms for four guys, so each of us had a bedroom and a separate study.  

Anyhow, I met George when I checked the place out.  He was in graduate school in the same mechanical engineering program where I was an undergraduate.  

He was quirky as hell, and had no filters at all.  In most situations, especially at first, it seemed funny.  It very quickly became obvious that he simply didn’t care about the effects of his words or his actions – and that we who laughed at him were enablers.  I am not qualified to diagnose, but his behavior seems to perfectly fit the descriptions of narcissistic personality disorder.  He had an intense need to be the center of attention, and would do or say whatever it took to remain there.  

He moved out after about a year, to move in with Ann, who would one day become his wife.  She is incredibly gentle; intelligent, well-read, and kind.  In a way, they complemented one another.  Both are intelligent, but her sensitive nature offset his thoughtlessness.  With the passage of time, I would visit them, more to enjoy her company than his.  I imagine there were many like me in that regard.  

Eight years later, after I had moved to California, then moved back, and was married, I told him we were going to be parents.  Without hesitation, he responded with, ‘Don’t get too attached; it could die.’  I had known George long enough that there was no delay in my response that if she did, I would kill him.  We both chuckled at this great humorous exchange, but his comment really hit home.  As one who has spent his life catastrophizing, I have lived in fear since the day she was born that this would come true, and his comment didn’t help much.  A couple years later, when my Mother was diagnosed with cancer, I prefaced my telling him with a warning to just listen and to keep his mouth shut.  Uncharacteristically, he did.  

As horrific as his standard behavior always was, I didn’t see much of George, and it mostly didn’t affect me personally, so it didn’t create a breach.  He was just an oddity, even among my menagerie of odd friends.  

I don’t recall how I heard that he and Ann were divorcing.  The rude way he told her would have been shocking for anybody else, but standard for him.  He sent her home early from a vacation in Argentina.  When he got home a couple weeks later, he rang the doorbell and waited.  When Ann answered, he told her he was not coming in, that he wanted a divorce, and that they could work out the details later.  

I was terribly disappointed, but I really try to not judge the inner workings of other people’s marriages … or divorces.  My goal has always been to maintain bonds of friendship with both parties.  But what happened a few weeks later cut the cord with a jagged, rusty blade. 

George called to say he’d be in Vancouver, so we invited him over for dinner.  I didn’t plan to broach the subject of the divorce, and to just wait and see.  The wait was very short.  By the time the wine had decanted, he was on a roll, elaborating about what a terrible wife, and human being Ann is, and how he was lucky to be out of such a terrible marriage.  I was stunned and disgusted, but tried to be as neutral as possible.  After a while, it became clear that George was looking for validation for what he had done, and the he wanted his friends to choose between the two of them.  I didn’t communicate it to him that evening, but his insistence that I decide made the decision for me.  For years, I had shared much more in common with Ann than with him; so it was a choice of maintaining a rewarding friendship, or a complex relationship with an intelligent, but immature man.  

I occasionally have asked mutual friends about George since that evening, but have never sought him out, nor he me.  The validation he sought that night was not forthcoming, which was all he needed to know.  I doubt he grieved losing me any more than I do him.  I wish him well, along with his Argentinian wife, and their child – but don’t feel the need to ever see him again.  

I stay in touch with Ann.  A few years ago, when I was in Bend, I stayed with her and Bill - the wonderful, caring man with whom she now shares her life.  

WFW - Kit Dodd

The first time I met Kit was the beginning of fifth grade.  They had started a music program for grade schoolers.  I went to the first few meetings, and chose the stand-up bass, because that was the only instrument the student’s family didn’t have to rent; they just had a couple at the school you could use. 

Kit played the viola – and while my experience with classical string instruments was very brief, his was lifelong.  Fifty years later, Kit was still playing the viola in the Syracuse Symphony – and later with the musician-owned Symphoria, which rose from the ashes after the Syracuse Symphony’s bankruptcy. 

I mostly lost track of Kit after high school.  We had run in very different circles, and, aside from memories of somebody I admired, he rarely crossed my mind. 

At one point, we rediscovered one another through Facebook.  We were each surprised by how much we had in common, and an on-line virtual friendship grew.  His quick, sharp wit, sense of humor, and knowledge of quality beer all endeared him to me. 

I began camping each August with a group of boyhood friends in the summer of 2005.   Some of them were much closer friends with Kit than I was.  Brother Brian invited him to come out one year and join us.  He did so that year, and each year after.  He had to fly all the way from New York, but since both he and his wife (more on Becky shortly) both have roots in Eugene, they would combine trips. 

In one sense, Kit brought a level of refinement to our rustic camp.   None of wear tuxedos to work, and he is likely the only one who could tell Bach from Rachmaninov, or Dvorak – and he could tell one of their works after a mere handful of notes. 

But Kit wasn’t there to class the place up, but to bond with old buddies on a level we all shared … eating unhealthy camp food, drinking beer, playing cards, and generally just loving one another’s company.  And he damn sure didn’t wear a tuxedo to camp … more often an Oregon Ducks sweatshirt and cap.  He brought unique food from his part of New York … salt potatoes, and Dinosaur brand barbecue sauce; one year, he brought kits so we could make our own cannolis, and helped us remember the immortal line from the Godfather, ‘Leave the gun!  Take the cannoli!’ 

He downplayed his role in helping his symphony survive the bankruptcy, and rise from the ashes.  But as one of the longest tenured performers, and the music librarian, he was a linchpin, and his fellow musicians have never forgotten. 

He brought a CD one year that included music from Symphoria, and from his side-gig with the Clinton String Quartet.  He pointed out one piece in particular; as they were playing it one time, he was moved to tears by its beauty, and when he looked around, he noticed that some of the other musicians were crying as well.  I thought that was interesting … I love music, and am sometimes deeply moved by it, but it had never occurred to me that a performer could be, even as he or she performed it.  It really touched my heart. 

I loved talking with Kit about his lifelong love of Becky.  She was his girlfriend when he was in eighth grade, and she in seventh.  To my knowledge, neither of them ever dated anybody else.  For one like me, whose love life consists of randomly-arranged chapters in a poorly bound book, they are a shining beacon of stability.  One time, when I expressed my admiration of their steadfastness, he warned me against idealizing them – and that they had certainly had their share of struggles.  He didn’t go into detail, I could tell they had been as serious as most couples face.  That they chose to face these struggles together only made me love and admire them all the more.  

As a viola player, Kit had to endure the same type of jokes bass players do in rock bands.  One evening Becky shared this one, ‘How can you tell when the orchestra stage is level?  When it is, the viola players drool equally out of both sides of their mouths!’ 

We plan meals in camp with two guys assigned to each breakfast and each dinner.  I was always glad when Kit and I were paired up for same meal.  It was a nice time to catch up, while the rest of the guys were preoccupied elsewhere.  He’d bring a unique staple from Syracuse, and I’d be responsible for the more perishable local ingredients. 

We had just gotten our meal assignments in the spring of 2016 when Becky told us that we may need to make a change of plans.  It seems that Kit had suffered a stroke, and was not likely to be able to come that year.  He was having trouble balancing, and she was worried about tree trunks and the other tripping hazards in camp.  I told her that, if his condition improved enough, I would be willing to meet him at the airport, and do all the driving, so he wouldn’t have to.  He could stay at my house, then as the camping date approached, we could go to Eugene, and just stay at a motel and visit friends, rather than risk the hazards of camp, and the distance our camp would be from help. 

For a couple weeks, it looked like that plan might work.  But then Becky contacted me again to say that they had discovered that Kid hadn’t had a stroke, but was in the early symptomatic stages of Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease, and that he wasn’t going to be coming to camp this year, or ever again.  CJD is a brain-wasting disease that is always fatal. 

We stayed in touch with Becky as the summer progressed.  Kit has always been a gentle man (as well as a gentleman), and he retained his sweet nature, even as this cruel disease robbed him of everything else.  Becky related a conversation they had, as he reverted to a child-like state.  She asked him who his best friend in the world was.  He thought about it for a minute, then replied ‘Bugs Bunny!’  But when he saw that this wasn’t the answer Becky wanted, he changed it to, ‘You are … but Bugs Bunny is second!’  We are so grateful that Becky kept us close as they went through this transition – and she expressed that she was grateful to have the company of others who had known him nearly as long, and loved him. 

That year at camp, we made a batch of cannolis, and recorded a video toast, where we shouted, ‘Leave the gun!  Take the Cannoli!’  I posted our toast on Facebook, and Becky said that Kit loved seeing it. 

Kit passed away at the beginning of September, less than a month after that year’s camping trip. Our world, my world is a lonelier place for his absence, but a lovelier world for his having been part of it.  

Kit's Viola

 

WFW - Confirmation Bias

By now, authors and publishers of sociology and psychology textbooks are bidding on the rights to that image from this weekend in Washington D.C.  with the group of boys from the Catholic high school and the Native American man drumming.  This is an ideal illustration of confirmation bias.  The image provokes strong reactions, that vary widely, and which are set deeply almost immediately. 

As video was made available that provided a context to the original image, it offered an opportunity for people to reconsider their original impression of the picture.  In the interest of full disclosure, this had a profound effect on my impression.  For many people, the impression they got from the first impression was set so deeply that the only effect of seeing the contextual video was to validate that first impression.  The presence of ‘MAGA’ hats on the heads of many of these boys, and the fact that they were in Washington to promote laws that would be more restrictive on did much to promote a division among those viewing the video.  An individual’s feelings about Donald Trump, or abortion rights could create a strong bias for or against these boys. 

The contextual video revealed the presence of a third group involved that were not seen in the original image.  A group called the Black Hebrew Israelites had been in a taunting confrontation with the boys from the Catholic school – and it appeared that the Native American group had placed themselves between these two groups.  Again, this move was subject to interpretation; was it intended as a peaceful intervention, or a heavy-handed assertion of power?  This then returns the viewer to the original image of the drummer, and the Catholic school kids.  Were they chanting along with the Native Americans in a respectful way, or making fun of them.  As the drummer and the young man in the center of the original image came close together, and each stood their ground, was this a case of intimidation, or a more innocent proximity … and if intimidation, who was initiating it? 

The reactions I read on social media were all over the map on interpretation of the body language, both in the original image, and in the surrounding context.  How do we interpret the young man’s facial expression?  Was it a smirk, or a more innocent neutral expression?  Can we know from outside?  What factors influenced his response, as well as the response of the Native American drummer?  Did each expect the other to back up?  Is there any reason either should have expected that of the other? 

WFW - Cycling and Pride

 CYCLING AND PRIDE

For a non-athlete like me, cycling should be something done for enjoyment, fitness, solitude, and self-improvement.  I’m not a racer, and thinking of an event competitively is a sure-fire recipe for false pride and humility. 

A few years back, I was treated by the universe to each of these in rapid succession.  Every couple years I ride the STP – an organized ride from Seattle to Portland.  It’s a fine ride, and though you share the event with ten thousand other riders, you still have a lot of time alone with your thoughts … thoughts that can run astray if you let them. 

So, I’m riding along, and see a pace line of about six skinnyboys … attired in matching US Postal Service spandex outfits from head to toe, each atop a matching US Postal Service Trek bicycle.  The US Postal Service team was led at that time by Lance Armstrong, and these guys seemed like they just might be admirers … if not acolytes.  Their pace line was so tight, and their cadence so perfectly matched, it was as though they were riding a twelve-wheeled tandem, rather than six independent bikes. 

What surprised me though was that I was gaining on them.  This made no sense.  I had to be 25 years older than them, probably had more body fat than all of them combined, and my twelve-year-old bike probably wasn’t worth much more than one of their spandex outfits.  I wasn’t racing them, or even speeding up (at least not consciously).  But I got to where I had to either slow down, or pass them as a group.  You see, there’s no way to pass just part of a pace line; there’s nowhere to pull back into the six inches between the rear wheel of one bike and the front wheel of the next.  So, I waited until there were no cars approaching from behind, pushed the pedals just a bit harder, and passed these guys one by one, until the pace line was behind me. 

As I continued along the ride, and the skinnyboys faded from view in my rearview mirror, I started to ponder the question about whether I had been underestimating my athletic ability.  Maybe it wasn’t too late to begin racing in the Master (a.k.a. ‘Older’) Class.  Maybe I might even end up on the cover of some bicycling magazine.  The thought was a pleasant distraction that I enjoyed for a while – probably aided by the fact that I wasn’t overtaken by a faster cyclist in the next half hour or so.  I never really took it seriously, but did breathe a little deeper, and a little prouder that day. 

Then, a couple weeks later, I was doing another ride – one that involved a great deal of hill climbing.  As I was huffing and puffing my way up one moderately challenging, fairly long hill, I noticed a rider in my mirror beginning to overtake me.  Each time I checked, the rider was closer.  Since we were climbing—and I still possessed that body fat I mentioned earlier—there was no way I was going to accelerate to avoid being overtaken.  When the rider finally caught up, it was not a pace line of athletic-looking skinnyboys at all, but a non-athletic-looking woman, at least my age or older, between whose flounderous thighs, a saddle had to be taken as an article of faith.  She slowed just enough as she passed to offer me some breezy advice about how I might improve my pedal efficiency if I didn’t throw my knees to the side every time my pedal reached the top. 

The advice was gratuitous, and stung just a little – maybe more than just a little.  But I smiled, graciously thanked her for the advice, and began reconsidering my fantasy about becoming a bicycle racer.  

Don’t worry about me and my feelings.  It’s been fifteen years now, and I’m over the indignity … really!  I am!     

WRW - Selective Memory

I don’t quite remember many of the events of my childhood – and often don’t remember things that have happened quite recently.  I often have to rely on the recollection of others who were there with me.  This has always puzzled me, and continues to. 

It’s not as if I don’t have a good memory.  I have an excellent memory for things external to my own existence – particularly objective facts.  In the study, and to a lesser degree, the practice of engineering, this type of memory served me well.  And I’m a dangerous competitor when watching Jeopardy – and can occasionally run entire categories.  And I am just flat dangerous with games like Trivial Pursuit.  But ask me where I went to breakfast yesterday, what I had, or who I was with, and I can often be hit-or-miss. 

My brothers and sisters know this well about me, and use it to their advantage when recounting occurrences from our childhood.  Sometimes they do this in fun, knowing I am somewhat hobbled in my ability to counter their version of events; and unfortunately, this is sometimes not so much in fun – and I am likewise not fully able to defend myself against accusations of an infraction they may say I committed forty-five years ago. 

This issue extends to names as well.  I’ve heard that for many people, their deepest fear is public speaking.  Not mine.  Though public speaking may tense me up a little, what terrifies me is introducing people to one another.  If I know I’m going to do that, I rehearse it, I memorize their names … even if I know them well, and I visualize pulling off the introduction correctly, and the incredible relief of not embarrassing myself, and (more importantly) not embarrassing somebody I know well, but whose name I forget when it matters most. 

I am candid about this with my friends.  Since I can’t be better than I am in this regard (though I continue to work on it), I at least mitigate the harm by forewarning people I care about, so that this may be an opportunity for humor, rather than humiliation. 

In my effort to understand this dichotomy between excellent trivia skills, and a poor memory for myself and those around me, I have wondered whether different types of memories are stored in different part of the brain.  Or is it a matter of focus?  Am I responding to early training, where I was praised and rewarded for intellectual prowess, but never spurred to develop these key skills that are such excellent social lubricants.  I don’t suppose I’ll even resolve the ‘nature or nurture’ question without an autopsy of my brain … and I’m not signing up, since I wouldn’t benefit from the new knowledge. 

WFW-Morning on Tumalo Mountain

Tumalo Mountain Morning

The packed snow squeaked beneath my snowshoes as I left my car and made my way across the parking lot to the place where I would step off the trail, and head uphill.  Soon the parking lot would be filled with the sights and two-stroke smells of snowmobiles off-loading and heading out.  But I would be oblivious to them.  Once in the woods, outside sounds are quickly muffled. 

As I stepped off the track, the squeaking sound was soon replaced with a nearly imperceptible whoosh of powder being displaced with each step.  Forty yards in, this was the only sound, other than my breath. 

The sky overhead was a study in pastel blues – translucent Caribbean to the east; fading to azure to the west.  I could see the sun kissing the icy treetops, but since my route began on the southwest slope of the mountain, I would be in the shade for at least the first hour of my walk. 

After a few minutes, I looked back to get my bearings.  Across the highway, I could see the chairlifts on Mount Bachelor begin to move; not holding any stylishly-clad butts for another hour or so – just cycling through so the operator could flip the seats down, and brush off the night’s accumulation of snow and ice.  The Sno-cats were on their last run; working their way down the mountain, leaving wide corduroy paths—ego-snow—which would lend the first skiers of the day a false sense of competence, before accumulating moguls and warming temperatures dashed those delusions.  

I could see each breath I exhaled, little puffy clouds of water vapor, crystalizing suspended in front of me.  The sense of aloneness was so profound, so welcome.  After two days of lift lines and rapid descents, a morning of measured steps, and silence was the elixir I needed.  An airliner passing above left puffy contrails in its wake, as it silently traversed the sky.  I paused for a moment to consider where it was heading, and the lives of the people on board, six miles high, traveling at nearly the speed of the silence we shared. 

The sun began to work its way down the nearby trees, slowly melting the ice that coated each branch, and hung from them in icicles.  Every so often a chunk of ice would break off and hit with a thud against a branch below, before falling silently into the snow.  As I continued, this percussion became more frequent – becoming like a percolator.  Finally, it was almost constant – like a thousand Chilean rainsticks.   It was other-worldly.  I looked around, and realized there was nobody else; the concert was just for me.  Then, as rapidly than it had built to its crescendo, the sounds became less and less frequent – more random, then finally not there at all. 

About the time the concert ended, I heard what sounded like a gunshot.  I spun to look in the direction of the sound, and saw powder still suspended from where a branch had broken off and fallen into the snow.  The tree stood within a grove of dead trees – many so desiccated that the water which nightly freezes is about all that holds that branch to the trunk.  Finally, when the ice thaws, the branch gives way, to the tune of a broken-bat single, and is no more.  The branch opposite looked like the left arm from an ancient crucifix.   

This thin forest of standing dead trees stood like ancient ghost-sentries – manning their posts in death as in life; the vanguard frontier our the losing battle against climate change; vicariously atoning for mankind’s sins against nature; bravely facing our longer, hotter summers, and decreasing precipitation; finally falling to those most relentless six-legged horsemen of the apocalypse – the pine bark beetles.