Physical issues

As of this writing I am 76.

Today I decided to walk 9 holes at our golf course here at Mill Creek. The temperature was forecast to be in the low 90s and I wanted to see if I could get around 9 holes without passing out.

I've recently bought a remote controlled electric (battery powered) bag cart to carry my bag as I walk the course. It's sort of like walking the dog. Sometimes the cart leads me and sometimes I lead the cart.

According to my fitbit, walking the front 9 sets me up to walk between 6 and 7 miles for the whole day. Most of that is on the golf course. I live on the 17th tee, so I begin there, walk down to the club house, play holes 1 through 9, and then walk back to my house. That circuit racks up about 11000 steps, or about 5 1/2 miles (there's a lot of distance between holes on this course, probably accounting for 25% of the circuit).

Heat has bothered me since elementary school. I don't tolerate it well and have passed out from it maybe a dozen times through the years, so I bought this cart hoping to extend my walking golf longer into the summer. Not only does the cart carry my 45 lb bag but it's also powerful enough to help pull me up the many inclines and hills on our golf course, when I hold on to the cart's handle going up hill. Surprising how much difference that makes.

Well I started on my experiment around 1:30 - temperature clocking 90. If I were pushing my old 3-wheel cart, no way would I make this circuit. During the outing, I drank two 12oz Gaterades and 24 ounces of iced tea that I took in my thermos. I also ate a nice juicy apple walking down to the first hole and an energy bar after 5 holes.

By the time I got to the 9th green I was feeling a light headed, so after finishing, I found a bench in the shade and sat (and hydrated) for about 5 minutes before making the trek back home. When I got home the thermometer registered 92. I was soaked, bushed, and feeling woozy, clearly just on the limit of what I could physically tolerate.

So while the cart is making a difference and will expand my walking season, I'm clear it won't allow me to walk throughout our typically blazing NC summers. My summer golf will be relegated to riding in a golf cart, and even that gets iffy in August and September - until the heat breaks.

Political Ruminations

I’ve been thinking back over my politically conscious life experiences (I wasn’t politically aware as a child) and pondering the swings back and forth between what we now call “left” and “right”. My first conscious recollections were from conversations between my parents when Truman was president in the early 50’s.

He seemed to be respected but not particularly exciting. When Ike came along the mood seemed to change to one of relief. We expected our “general” could keep us safe so we could get into action, building our infrastructures and developing new economic opportunities. Despite the nagging fear that we could at any moment, be bombed into oblivion, it seemed to be a period of prosperity - such that I grew up thinking that was just the way the world was. Prosperity was an “is”, a guaranteed future.

Kennedy came along and defined a new set of hopes. And after he forced Russia to stand down during the Cuban crisis, we sighed relief that maybe we could actually somehow no longer fear a nuclear holocaust. Hope and optimism were front and center again. This is about the time when I remember the terms “right’ and “left” coming into use, mostly on TV.

When Kennedy was assassinated it was a psychological blow to our solar plexus. The lesson seemed to be that hope and optimism were emotional inventions and were subject to instant eradication. The mood was sadness. We mourned.

Although he tried, Johnson could not stem the downward emotional spiral we had fallen into. We weren’t just morning Kennedy, we were mourning the loss of our hopeful innocence.

When Nixon entered the picture the mood of the country went even darker. It wasn’t just a shift to the right. It was a shift in what had constituted the purposes of our leaders. Truman, Eisenhower, Kennedy and Johnson had all seemed to be organized around serving their country. With Nixon, I remember being worried, perhaps for the first time, that our prosperity was threatened not just by foreign “enemies”, but also by the very politicians we had elected to lead us. It now seemed clear that they put themselves before the country they aspired to lead.

Ford seemed to stem that drift as he seemed decently organized around the good of country before himself. Carter turned our attentions back toward the values and hopes of the left, followed by Reagan and Bush (1) who seemed more centrists and less about themselves. Maybe we hoped, it could be that the intentions of our leaders were once again trustworthy.

Clinton wanted to be, and clearly was to some extent, a resurrection of the Kennedy hope, now labeled by journalists as “the Left”. Noticeably he also reveled in the notoriety and adulation. Even so, we enjoyed a period of relative safety and prosperity.

Bush (2) then swung our attention back toward what we needed to be afraid of. We now faced enemies all over the middle east and learned through our media that we needed to fear and be suspicious of Muslims, jihadists, and weapons of mass destruction.

Then Obama swung us right back to the hope theme, now not just for white-middle-class-America, but also for African-Americans and other minorities. We now hoped we could finally all get along together. Still there was, and remains, a festering unspoken undercurrent of bigotry and covert fear-based righteousness. These fears were finally given voice, given a political theater from which to act out, to resist, and hopefully, even defeat that nascent hope and innocence of Obama's presidency.

And now Trump seems to be telling us we need to turn back to the right, to hunker down and defend our shores against all kinds of enemies some real, many imagined, all fodder for dramatic narratives, and wildly invented realities.

And so it seems, we swing back and forth between a national mood of hope, then fear, then hope, then fear. The hope survives briefly until we invent a new threat to its future, then we dive back into the fear syndrome, righteous about our need to protect ourselves.

What’s so interesting is that none of machinations ever seem to be fully realized. The mood of the majority swings back and forth. We’re either certain of our impending doom, or our next revived optimism. Now, our mood is fearful - looking for some hope to grasp upon, wanting to invent our next calling.

Of course, I have my personal preferences.  And even though they seem to be under assault right now, I’m reminded, we have until now, and I expect will in the future, survive. Whether for four years or eight years, Trump is by his very actions and behaviors, laying the ground work to swing the pendulum back toward “the left”, whatever the hell that is. A little drama gets the blood flowing again, yes?

I've been noticing the prevalence our almost screaming need to be right regarding our opinions about the candidates in the election. I, like many of my friends, have been tempted to jump into the various arguments and rationalizations of my choices. It's seductive. I'm sure that my arguments are the right ones!

Last night I began to observe the urge, and wonder - what's the draw? What's the seduction? Why do I think I should voice my "informed" position? Do I really need to be more right than those who argue their positions against my beliefs? I noticed the underlying psychological default emotion, the drift, the pull, is to yes. I need to be right about my opinion.

How come?

Well it seems that it's connected to my own identity. For sure that I have one. And for sure, it doesn't live like a construct that I've crafted over my 75 years. No, rather, it's more like it's the truth. It's reality.

And so based upon that truth, I look at those who so blatantly, and yes even authentically, advocate against my candidate of choice and I wonder; how can an otherwise seemingly intelligent - and sometimes educated - person, possibly arrive at that stupid kind of reasoning?

How could they possibly overlook all the negatives for their candidate while so vociferously attacking my candidate? Where did their sanity go?

Well it went into the toilet with the rest of our basest needs to defend our identities. And yes it is our identities we are advocating, and the identities that our identities can't abide that we are attacking. It's not actually the candidates.

We argue for our particular candidate because we're on rails, We're required by 20,30,40, or in my case, over 70 years of programming, now hard wired, to defend our identities, and the candidates that most closely agree with our personal realities - to defend, attack, and argue!

There's no rational choosing here! It's all our programming! On stage and mirrored back at us to watch. And this morning's news shows - our dramatization machinery - reported our collective reactions to our own driveness: 80% of us are disgusted with this election. 80% of us are disgusted with our own behaviors - or maybe embarrassed by how easily we get sucked into, repeat, and dramatize, the very rhetoric that disgusts us.

So the election is either attacking candidate of choice (my identity) or supporting them (my identity). And even as I'm drawn to participate in this slaughter of identities, I disgusted.

Who did this to me?

Waves, Snorkeling, and Political Behaviors

Have you ever had the experience, as I have, of snorkeling in relatively shallow waters near a reef, such that you and the fish and coral, etc are subject to the up and down and back and forth action of the waves as they interact with the reef?

I recall the first time I experienced this realizing that I, and the creatures who called this environment their home, were both subject to a larger context, that neither of us took great notice to, were not particularly alarmed by, and were clearly very much affected by.

I recall being in close to a school of damsels, maybe only a couple feet in front of my mask. A wave swept in and pushed both myself and those damsels, maybe three or four feet to my right and then back again to where we had been before the wave came by. I remember thinking that both myself and these creatures were inside a powerful "collective conversation", both clearly impacted by that context, and both comfortable, maybe even unaware of, the impact it was having, or not having, upon us.

Lately I've been listening to the currents of our public discourse, so loudly dramatized by our political theater, and by the shooting events that assault us daily - the embedded conversational themes that give us our collective identity, our way of being as a culture and country. It's a nosy permeating conversation coursing between us all, defining the possibilities and commitments that unfold as our future and impact us all, much as those waves moved myself and those damsels.

Throughout my cognitive years I have lived, as we all do, within this "public" conversation. It not only defines us as a country, but also lately, as a world, as it becomes increasingly more obvious and apparent through the unfolding impact of internet and social media technologies, .

Like the conversations that distinguish us as separate individuals within our communities, so do these larger, seemingly more complex and maybe noisier, more confusing conversations argue for, define, and occasionally change, our collective identity. I say change as distinct from transform, for in my lifetime, I believe I have only lived through three truly transformative conversational shifts: WWII, the formation of the EU, and 9/11.

The conversational milieu that engulfs the collective us, seems to have characteristically opposing themes that swirl about, louder and softer, depending upon the events and, the dramas, and the public narratives of the moment - themes like fear, danger, righteousness, divisiveness and individualism, sadness, and tragedy, contrasted against such themes as safety, well being, happiness, celebration, hope, inclusiveness, belonging, love, etc.

It seems to me that when there are what appear to be shared and dangerous external threats, we tend to shift our country's conversation toward internal inclusiveness and cooperation, simultaneously subsiding our individualistic narratives. When external threats are less threatening, as is the current psyche, then our divisive/separate/individualistic conversations dominate our discourse.

Some will say threats like ISIS are a common external threat that should be uniting the country. But I submit we are more threatened by technology and automation and the impacts they are having on taking our jobs away from us, than we are about ISIS being a threat either to the country or to us as individuals. True there is a risk of being gunned down by an ISIS "radical", but it's recently been calculated that risk is lower than being struck by lightening, so it's not so much something were are afraid may happen to us individually, as is the prospect of being laid off from our jobs.

As a nation we have ebbed and flowed back and forth between these themes, focusing upon and elevating one set of arguments or another, swaying our collective identity toward one set of interpretations or another, and passionately certain of the rightness of our momentary identity.

And make no mistake, although we believe ourselves to be individually volitional, we are each and all, individually given by these collective conversations ebbing and flowing with the waves that break against our reefs and shores each day. And so we typically swim, unconsciously, within these larger conversations, living within their constraints, their freedoms, their arguments, their encouragements and their impactfulness.

As the country ebbs toward divisiveness/independence even those who argue for inclusiveness/cooperation (sometimes we hear pleas for love) are swept into either a louder more intense resistance to the prevailing discourse, or alternatively, we modify our inclusive strategies to fit into a senior "divisive" theme. Either way, we are automatically acting within these shifting contexts and are as assuredly given by their possibilities and constraints as those we believe are driving the conversations (we call them "they").

Let's look at a specific example, intensely on public loud speaker right now: Donald Trump.

Notice your immediate thoughts and reactions. There is some set of feelings, internal thoughts, body sensations triggered within each reader just by virtue of reading his name. And we cannot escape them. They are automatic. Notice I haven't said anything about whether or not I like and support Trump or not. Yet each reader  already has an interpretation - they've already put me in one camp or the other - for or against Trump, and therefore automatically positioning the reader for or against me, depending upon which camp they have placed me in.

However I'm not herein engaged in arguments for or against Donald Trump as a candidate for President. I have my preferences and opinions and they are not what this is about. For I am as trapped in my own reactions, as everyone else - everyone else including of course, each reader. In case you missed that, I mean you.

If you are a supporter of Trump, you have a certain available universe of arguments in his behave and in favor of his election come November, none of which are unique or original to you, all of which are given by the conversations swirling around in the public discourse, emotionalized, analysed, and dramatized by the media and our social media circles.

And before you go off threatening my life for saying so, I add, so are those who are against him. In other words each of us, pro or con in this drama, is given by the larger public discourse swirling around us. Everything we think, everything we say, our political contribution choices, affiliations, and actions, are all defined by, given by, and limited by these larger external conversations.

So if you write something on Facebook that favors Trump, you'll notice, an instant set of responses that are automatically identifiable, from a set of friends from whom you already know what for or against comments to expect. I'm not here to argue the merits of their responses but to ask you to consider that neither you, in your position(s), nor they in their position(s), have any choice. You are both on rails.

Then there's the emotional seas in which we are all swimming - the seas which at the moment, maybe even argue for and defend the righteousness of high anger, rage, assault, invective, dramatization, reactions, attacks, killing, righteous indignation, and suspended individual principles. Some of you will rail against that assertion. But of course you will! You must!

And of course then there's the political opposition, the same phenomena but wrapped in a conversation for and against Hillary Clinton. It's essential to the drama that we have both forces at play. We need camps to which we belong, larger external identities to give us location and reasons to exist. For without those touch stones, without this theater, who would you/me be? By the way this includes those who claim they are so disgusted by what's happening that they won't vote for either candidate - that being just another available form of against.

So the next time you write some attack, for or against someone, for or against something they said or some position they took, stop and look at how instantly, how automatically, and how assuredly right your position occurs to you. It's simply the way the waves are acting on you. It's all that's available to you.

Maybe someone like Werner can invent a new discourse inside this theater. The rest of are pretty much stuck in it. It will be interesting to see, in the current US (and so global) political debate, where the waves push us, and which opinions finally sway the largest community of damsels.

I'd better write this down

Coming out of the bathroom this morning something popped into my mind that needed getting/doing/something-like-that? So I headed down the hallway ten feet toward the bedroom.

By the time I got to the bedroom, I stopped, looked around and realized I'd forgotten what it was I had come to do or get. SO I turned around and head back out the hallway. When I got to the other end of the hallway, maybe twelve whole feet, I remembered!

So I turned around and went back, now energized in my purpose. But alas! at the other end of the hallway, I'd again forgotten what sent me to the bedroom; so back out again I headed to find something else to occupy my clearly mottled brain wiring.

"One more time for the gipper", I thought to myself, as upon reaching the doorway at the end of the hallway my original quest was clearer than ever. So back again I went, now annoyed that this silliness had gone on so.

Sure enough at the back end of the hallway, I drew yet another blank. I thought in my frustration, "this must be early Alzheimers", and headed back out, this time clear that even if I did remember upon gaining that end-of-the-hallway threshold, I was not coming back for anything!

I stopped at the end of the hallway to see if anything ticked. Nope. Nothing. A total blank. Now what was I doing before I thought of what I was wanted to do/get back in that dungeon?

Me, my Hat and I

I recently experienced a bout of separation anxiety. I lost my hat!

"What?" you say. "Separation from your hat?"
Yup, my hat. You see I and my hat have been mates since 1993 when I bought it at JC Penny. I couldn't believe I could find a hat this nice in a store like that, but I didn't 2nd guess my luck and I snapped it right up. And from the moment I tried it on, I knew it would be a long time friend. Although I was already bald, I was still young enough that my brain programming told me I was hardy and didn't need a hat. But somehow I just needed to by this hat.

Now of course, I realize I was already, despite my middle aged macho social characterization, programmed to be a hat guy. You see, I got my first hat to go with my Sunday-go-to-church outfit as you see in this picture of my family when I was in fifth grade.

Hat's were in back then and they were considered to be part of a well dressed man's wardrobe. That's me on the left next to my mom ( I think). This is where my hat training/tapes started.

Of course like all trends that one passed and wearing hats went away. I became the typical male who was sure I didn't need on even as I lost my hair. The lowest I would stoop was to wear a beany in really cold or snowy weather or specialized hats for things like fishing, or sailing, or golf - you know, the kinds that sort of go with the shtick. 

Fishing hat

My Bahamas sailing captains hat

My golfing hat

Then there's graduation

and Mexico

 

and Wisdom Cruises

and Italy

and fun

And more fun

And Oh, did I say fishing?

But I digress. Back to my special felt hat. You see the first time I tried this hat on it was like, it and I were made for each other. It fit perfectly. And when I looked in the mirror I was transported to somewhere between the old west, Crocodile Dundee and Indianan Jones - I leaned toward Indiana.

You've heard the saying, "the hat makes the man"? Well in this case I can attest to some truth in that saying. When I put that hat on I can do almost anything. I can even walk to the car , open my rider's side door and get in - all by myself!

So a couple weekends back when we visited Philly and visited our friend Mary Ann and went out to dinner at the Hattery (of course) in Doylestown, and it had stopped snowing, I went into my senior funk and left my hat hanging back at the Hattery when we left.

So when we got home we called Mary Ann in a panic and asked her if she would please call the Hattery and recover my precious bonnet. I'd left it sandwiched over top of another man's hat (the Hattery is decorated with men's hat hanging all about) that was hanging on a post behind the booth we sat in for dinner. So of course it was transparent to everyone at the Hattery when she called to ask them if it was there. But Mary Ann, who had a picture of me in my hat and knew what it looked like, persisted. She trekked on back to the Hattery and retrieved my identity and sent it back to me. And much to my relief, it arrived yesterday.

So what's all the fuss you ask? I could for sure go out and find another black felt hat, a new one. But it wouldn't be the same. This black felt hat is not only broken in, it knows me. It's got a few of my hairs inside of it (it's takes one or two from me each time I wear it just to be sure I don't get to uppity) and it's formed just the way I like it. I've brushed it and gently washed it over the years to keep it looking good and feeling good and I have a special place on my hat shelf in our coat closet just for this hat. I mean how many of you can claim a 23 year friendship with a hat?

So Mary Ann is my latest savior. She's made me whole and complete again. Maryann, I and my hat thank you.

The poem Shapeshifter

The following poem was written by Jessica Colker to her husband and just found again before the memorial service for her in PHL on April 9, 2016. As you can see from this poem, Jess's death was not just a loss to her husband, but to all who will miss the authenticity with which she lived her life.

Shapeshifter

If I could slip
inside your skin,
slipper my feet into your soles, 
shrug on the heavy leather of your hide, 
What might reside there?
What tickle and brush of fur -
the surge and slack of muscle
against tendon, against bone?
What shape may our body take?

If I could merge
the roadways and tunnels of our vessels, 
tangle the highways of veins, 
reroute our arterial surge, 
What shunted path may our blood make?
What fresh map, inked red, inked blue,
May be drawn with you?
What foreign soil may our footfalls grace?

Tell me
If I could cradle your heart
within mine, flap in time
with the wings of your valves,
what thrust of love may we make?
Your heartbeat -
slow, definitively assuredly slow,
and mine with the quickened pace
of something startled,
what music might we create?
What rhythm may ricochet
from this eight-chambered part?

And what if
I could pour my emptiness into yours -
trust your hollow spaces with mine?
What places could nothingness find -
unnamed rooms, unnamed streets,
the vast span of constellations and solar dust?
How must we travel these empty ranges?
With the blood with flesh with teeth,
with the timbre of our trembling cords, 
and together, my fingers gloved within yours.

To Brian Melito from Jessica Colker

Now maybe you can see why we'll all miss her.