Monday gratefuls: Movies. Women Talking. TV. New Amsterdam. On Joy, Season 4, episode 1. The Last of Us. Finale. Furball Cleaning. CJ Box. James Pogue. Anarchy. Political Violence. Decivilization. Michael Pollan. How to Change Your Mind. The Plant Magic Cafe in Denver. Keens. Ruth and Gabe this afternoon. Taxes. It’s time. Silicon Valley Bank. Vibrant Matter.
Sparks of Joy and Awe: ChatbotGPT
This week. One eye exam. Two radiation treatments. Three visits with friends. And a Peruvian glazed chicken breakfast for supper. Almost Christmas. Gotta figure out my playlist for the Cyberknife. Coltrane. The Band. Cool jazz. The Blues. The Goldburg Variations. Not sure.
Yes, there’s a bit of absurdity to my life. It veers from the sublime to the profane and back again. Wait a minute. That’s everybody’s life isn’t it? One moment we’re watching our grandson make his uneasy way across the floor to us and the next we’re paying bills. Getting on a jet plane for that much needed vacation. Stuffing the grocery list in our pocket and heading out to Safeway or Lunds.
We can’t afford to stay in one state too long. Neither the mundane or the profound. Not built for it. A continuous state of ecstasy would drive us mad. Too much of the quotidian dulls us, pulls under. We all need to work on our ecstatic to the ordinary balance.
That’s why I plan to head into the Plant Magic Cafe someday soon. See if there’s someone who can help me find a willing source for some psilocybin. It’s been a minute for me. It’s now legal in Colorado to receive a gift of psilocybin. And to have it in your possession. But you can’t buy it.
Not that that’s the only source of ecstasy for me. Dream world. Hiking in the Mountains. Reading a great poem. Discovering new ideas. Deep conversations with friends. Writing. Even so. It is one and I want to go again.
There was this time, you see. Long ago and far away. But not so long ago, really. When students opposed a stupid war. Men walked on the Moon. And there were drugs to help you find your own way among the stars. The music, too. That wonderful music. We did slip the surly bonds of normal life. A time when the ecstatic to the ordinary balance tipped toward the ecstatic.
We lived it. Some of us. Then many of us, most of us, allowed the lapping Waters of work and family to serve as a constant draught from Lethe. We never fully forgot though. A bit of Tinkerbell’s dust remained caught in our hair.
No. I don’t want to go back to a psychedelic age of protest and up the establishment. That was college. This is old age. What I want is a psychedelic old age. And protest? Of course. Always. Up the establishment? Never quit on that one. Or the protest either for that matter.
Thing is I can’t stay up late lying on the floor with my head between the speakers and the Doors cranking out Riders on the Storm.
What’s that look like? A psychedelic old age. About to find out.
Monday gratefuls: Dr. Eigner. Dr. Simpson. Kep, the early. Snow. More Snow. Mild temperatures. The Ukraine. Biden. The James Webb. Tom and Bill, the science bros. Max, getting older. Ode, the well-rooted wanderer. Paul, the steadfast. Alan, the cheerful. The Ancient Brothers, a true Sangha. Zoom. Korean fried chicken. Jon, a memory. Kate, always Kate. Ivory. Ruby. Oncology.
Sparks of Joy and Awe: The Ancient Brothers
So I said it out loud. My reaction to mom’s death turned me from a confident, ready to take on the world teenager to a frightened, hesitant young adult. One who dropped German because he was failing it. Shame. One who convinced himself there was not enough money for Wabash because he was afraid to go back. Shame. One who entered then a great teacher’s college, but a mediocre university. Ball State University. Shame.
Not a lot of shame in my life. Very little. That’s where it lies. Perhaps now having put it out there. So late. 76. It will fall away. It took me years, nearly three decades, to put the pain of her death in perspective. Treatment for alcoholism. Quitting smoking. Quitting the ministry. Years of Jungian analysis. Finally. Meeting Kate. 26 years later. I finally passed the threshold of grieving mom’s death.
And started living my life. As a writer. A gardener. A dog lover. A beekeeper. An anachronistic blogger. With a woman who loved me as I was and one whom I loved as she was. A love where we wanted and supported the best life for each other. We traveled. A lot. We stood with both sons fully.
The dogs. So many dogs. Celt. Sorsha. Morgana. Scot. Tira. Tully. Orion. Tor. The Wolfhounds. Iris. Buck. Hilo. Emma. Kona. Bridget. The Whippets. Vega and Rigel. The IW/Coyote Hound sisters. Gertie, the German Short Hair. And Kep, the Akita.
It was so good. Until the work became burdensome. Until I visited Colorado one year and Ruth ran away from the door because she didn’t expect me. A surprise visit. Then we had to come. The two. A push. The work of Seven Oaks had become too much. A pull. We wanted, needed to be there for Ruth and Gabe.
So we packed everything up. And on the Winter Solstice of 2014 moved here, to the top of Shadow Mountain. 8,800 feet above sea level. Into the Wildland/Urban Interface, the WUI. With four dogs: Kep, Gertie, Rigel, and Vega. Again, thanks to Tom for helping with the dog move.
When the time came, we put away Andover and envisioned a life together in the Rocky Mountains. Kate felt like she was on vacation every day until she died. Where she found the Jewish life she had always wanted. Where we both found ourselves immersed in the lives of our grandchildren, of their parents.
Now Kate is dead. Vega is dead. Gertie is dead. Rigel is dead. Only Kep and I remain alive. I’m at another threshold, waiting to cross.
Thursday gratefuls: Kate Strickland and Michael Banker. Seeing them on Sunday. Dushanbe Tea House in Boulder. Diane this morning. Tom tomorrow. Tom Tomorrow! Alan on Saturday. Mussar today. Fresh white Snow. Kep, the sleeper. His sleeping sounds. Sudbury Impact Crater. Ejecta all the way to Gunflint Lake in Minnesota. Subduction. Nickel. Copper. Platinum. Paladium. Zircon. Uranium. Colorado Plateau. Placer deposits of uranium. Manitoulin Island. The Georgian Bay. The Chi-cheemaun.
Thursday gratefuls: Life in all is wonder
Getting a distinct Canada jones. This Origins of North America course has rekindled memories of Stratford, Ontario, taking the Chi-cheemaun ferry to Manitoulin Island. Also my trips circumnavigating Lake Superior. I’ve always loved Canada. Every since our first family trip there and I saw those road signs with the crown on them. And those Fords that looked like Fords but had a different name: Meteor. That moment on Lake Huron in Ipperwash Provincial Park. One with the Lake and the Sunseen.
Now I see this is land stolen from the Chippewa Band of Kettle and Stony Point. This story about the sniper killing of band member Dudley George in 1995. Maybe the spirit of the Anishinabe inhabited me that day.
And so back to Imani (faith) Perry and her South to America. In her chapter on the Soul of the South she talks a lot about the Black Belt, a geological region that runs through Alabama, Mississippi, parts of other Southern states which was especially good for growing cotton. The term also has a broader definition: “Political analysts and historians continue to use the term Black Belt to designate some 200 counties in the South from Virginia to Texas that have a history of majority African American population and cotton production.” wiki
The Black Belt and the Chippewa’s struggle over Ipperwash are of a piece. They are land used by White governmental and economic structures enforcing white supremacy over those deemed lesser. This is why Perry says to understand the U.S. we have to go to the South. Because slavery informed the founding documents of our nation and because the wealth of the early United States had its base in cotton production and trade. These two facts go together. The wealth of the Southern states allowed them to have an outsized voice in the negotiations creating our nation.
That would mean that originalism is ipso facto racist. It says we have to interpret only the words of the constitution and use the plain meaning of those words as laid down by the founders. Well, hey. The three-fifths clause. The electoral college. Senators two from each state. That means the Extremes are not only hard right conservatives but also standard bearers for white supremacy. Wonder how Clarence feels about that.
February is Black history month. Would be a good time to read some DuBois, maybe some Richard Wright, Imani Perry, Frederick Douglas. Margaret Walker. Toni Morrison. Maya Angelou. James Baldwin. Langston Hughes.
Back to that Canada thing though. Think I’m gonna plan a trip. True North Shore of Lake Superior, over to the Georgian Bay, cross the bay going South, Head to Stratford for some good theater. Anybody wanna come?
Monday gratefuls: The Good Life. Helen and Scott Nearing. Kate and mine’s version. Garden catalogues. The Bees. Their Superorganism. The Squirrel that used to steal our Honeycrisp Apples. Gertie standing on my electric fence. Those first Shoots in the Spring. Grape anemones. Daffodils. Crocus. The eagerness to get out there. Plant something. Reluctantly waiting for May 15, the last frost. The Woods in Winter. That Opossum that visited me one Winter Solstice.
Sparks of joy and awe: Horticulture
Happy and fulfilling memories. The Andover years. Kate and I working as a team in the Vegetable Garden. I handled the Orchard, the Bees, and the Flower beds, but the ongoing work of the growing season in the Garden. A mutual task. Harvesting Honey. Also mutual.
Kate earning money allowed me to work in the Gardens and in the Woods during the day. If I had worked full-time, we couldn’t have had as much. With writing I could take a break and plant. Cut wood. Tend to the Bees. We both felt the division of labor worked well.
We did have a housecleaner. Cooking and shopping were also my responsibilities. It was a good life. And a level of physical effort we did not want to continue after we both got older. Moving to Colorado came at the right time in our lives. Out here we had the grandkids, CBE, the Mountains. Travel. Also a good life, one suited better to our energy.
As I said in the Ancient Brothers yesterday, even the years of Kate’s decline were good years. Sure there was anguish, pain, frustration, anxiety. But we had three solid years of working closely together again to keep her healthy and alive. In her last year I would apply lotion to her arms and legs because they would get very dry. A lot of touching. Not the rosy glow of forgotten difficulty, rather the difficulty was the point. The connection. As our many hours in the garden had been all those years ago.
The same with these years after her death. Two in April. The adjustments, the adaptations. The work on the house. They have been the necessary domestic duties that kept me grounded. As did caring for Rigel and Kep as they cared for me.
Even the cancer. Not fighting it. Learning to live with it. With the now much reduced stamina occasioned by androgen deprivation therapy. Going slower. Doing things in slower increments. Resting more. Also a good life.
Yes, I may recognize the benefits later. Sometimes in the moment. But, I do find them. More and more the realizations of the good life I’m living come to me daily. As a result, I’m calmer, more accepting.
Sunday gratefuls: Breakfast with Jen, Ruth, Gabe, Barb. Driving back up the hill. F1. The MIA. The Walker. The docent program. My many years there with good friends and art. Acting class. Creativity class. Origins of North America. Finding the volume of a Mountain. Korean. Pruning moving forward. Interior painting, early February. Probate. Still moving. slow. ly. The Good Life. Scott and Helen Nearing. Eudaimonia. Kristen Gonzalez. Psoriasis. Mark and the USPS. Mary in Kobe. Ancient Brothers.
Sparks of joy and awe: Eudaimonia
Human flourishing. Eudaimonia. Satisfaction. More important than happiness. Duty is just another word for cultural norms received and accepted. Obligations. On the other hand. Imposed. Why do we do what we do?
Assessing the life that is neither heroic nor mediocre. Since that’s where most of us end up. No need to measure ourselves against the ends of the bell curve. No need to measure ourselves. But can we be at peace with a life without comparisons?
As for me, I choose eudaimonia. Flourishing. Satisfaction. And, yes. Duty plays a role. Family. Sacrifice. Friends too. Being there. Wherever love is, there is duty. To be honest. Sincere. Kind. Helpful. To support the best for the other. Right down to the end. And by implication to support the best for yourself. Also, duty. The unexamined life is not worth living. Yes. A duty to yourself to know thyself. And to thy own known Self be true.
What’s interesting for me right now is how much a sense of duty has played in my life. Oh, no! The original oppositional defiant guy admitting to a sense of duty. I who even rebel against my superego. You can’t make me!!! Yes, duty.
A minor yet significant example. As a convinced feminist of the Betty Friedan/Simone de Beauvoir second wave. At the age of 26. In seminary. Went to the Rice Street Clinic late on a Winter afternoon. A scalpel I felt on the first cut slashed my vas deferens on both sides. Shutting down sperm from my testicles. Being responsible for my own contraception.
Another. One I’ve mentioned before. Fits here. No. I don’t want a Johns-Manville full scholarship to college. Managing people in a large corporation is not me. Will never be me. High school.
Once convinced of Vietnam’s sturdiness as a nation, one that had held back China for over 3,000 years. No. I will not fight, nor support that war.
After reading a convincing study about the future job prospects for Ph.D.’s. No to graduate school.
Family. Staying in the fire with Jon. Ruth. Gabe. Kate in later life. Mark. Yet also. Cut your hair or leave! Leaving.
These may not at first reading seem like duty. But they are. A duty to myself, to my own understanding of how to be present in the world.
When I realized Ruth and Gabe needed us in Colorado. Broaching the idea of a move. Kate on board. Following through.
Those two and a half acres in Andover. Leaving them better than when we bought them. How? Working it out with Kate over the years. Together. Staying the course with the full cycle of responsibilities throughout the year. Each year.
And, dogs. Living into their lives. With them from puppyhood to death. Oh. Sweet duty. Painful duty. Life realized in full.
Friday gratefuls: Gabe. Shoveling. His comment about the Mountains. Driving into Denver. Freddie’s Steakburgers. Cheap down the hill gas. A waning 2022. Alan. 14 inches of Snow plowed. The Mountains in their Snowiness. Jeffco road crews. Garbage folks. Mail folks. School bus drivers. Tolls waived on I-70. Ruth seeing Gabe and Jen today. A pass. Cold. Good sleeping. The Snowiest months still ahead of us. The Rocky Mountains. The Laramide Orogeny.
Sparks of joy and awe: Kep in the snow
Vince, in spite of Covid, cleared my drive of its 14 inches of wet Springlike Snow. Not an easy job even with a plow. Folks with Snow blowers complained. Clogged chutes. Almost an inch of moisture. Helpful at this point in the season. Grateful.
Gabe offered to shovel the Snow off the deck. He took weightlifting last semester. Stronger than me by far. I usually push it off the deck. When it’s powder, no problem. But 14 inches of wet snow. Hard. Gabe took it care of it with young muscles, lungs.
He came up Wednesday afternoon. Had to go back yesterday because of the visit to Ruth today. As we went down the hill to his house in far northwest Denver, near the airport, we counted cars in the ditch. Only 9. Probably because the storm came at night and over a holiday week.
When I’m an adult, I’m going to live up here. He said on the way down. He loves the Mountains. Gabe will spend New Year’s Eve at a friends house. Go out and bang pots and pans at midnight. Forgot about doing that. You could stay up this year Grandpop. I could. But I won’t.
Kate and I never went out on New Year’s. Drunks on the road. Noise. Too many people. A quiet evening though we did make a point of watching the Vienna Philharmonic’s New Year’s concert the next morning. We always had a nice meal and stayed up a little later than usual. Occasionally I would make it all the way to midnight.
Not sure what my solo New Year’s routine will be. A nice meal for sure. Something from Tony’s. Maybe a movie (on TV) and a book afterward. Stay up till 10?
I remember one cold Minnesota New Year’s day. Sorsha a one-hundred and fifty pound IW bitch coal black and stubborn and I went up to Lake George for a walk. We went out on the Lake to the deserted Ice fishing houses, walked around and through them. Guessed the Ice fisherpersons still lay snug in their beds trying not to wake up. Hangover.
Sorsha pulled on the lead. We rarely walked our I.W.’s. Back then I was strong from the gardening work and regular workouts. I could handle her. Now. It would have been a sled ride with me as the sled. The quiet. The isolation. Solitude. A wonderful memory. She was such a sweet dog. And a stone cold predator. Anything furry that crossed her path, including neighborhood cats.
Brings up the memory of Anoka County. The unsung jewel of the Twin Cities metro. Scientific and Natural Areas. Carlos Avery Wildlife Preserve. The Cedar Creek research facility of the UofM. Various regional parks. I loved having access to all those places. Usually nobody was there.
Tuesday gratefuls: 8 years in Colorado. On the Solstice. The long dog ride with Tom. Memories. Challenges. Family. Death. Divorce. Mental and physical illnesses. Beauty. The Rocky Mountains. The Wild Neighbors. Mountain hiking. Deep snow. Sudden. Then, suddenly gone. Living at altitude. Becoming a member of CBE. Elk and Mule Deer visiting our back. Blue Skies. Black Mountain. Vega. Gertie. Rigel. Kep. Kate, always Kate. Who loved the Mountains.
Sparks of joy and awe: That dog ride 8 years ago. Talking story.
Back of the car anthropology. Two vanity plates. YAHWEHS. ODACIOUS. The first on a jet black fancy Audi. The other on a Lexus sedan. Also. Stickers. I heart Aging and Dying. No baby on board. Feel free to ram me. Toyoda. With yoda ears on the T and the a. I love the way we express ourselves on the back of our vehicles. So revealing. Full disclosure. I have a large decal of Lake Superior on the back window of Ruby. And, an ADL Dissent is Patriotic on a side window. There are too the cars seemingly held together by stickers like the occupants got started on the project and just. couldn’t. stop.
On December 20th, 2014 Tom Crane and I loaded Rigel, Vega, and Kep in Ivory. All three trazodoned. Tom drove straight through. We talked the whole way. Talking story. The conversation continues now, eight years later. Gertie rode with Kate in the rental van filled with stuff we didn’t want the movers to take. I remember Kate telling me she bought Gertie a hamburger at one of their stops. A satisfied dog.
These have not been easy years. No. They have been fulfilling, satisfying years though. Deep intimacy between Kate and me, especially as she began her long decline. Putting cancer in the chronic illness box. Being here for the kids and Jon after the divorce. Now for Ruth and Gabe after Jon’s death. Becoming part of the CBE community. Making friends. Learning from the ancient civilization of the Jews. Kabbalah. The Torah. Mussar. Talmud. Mitzvahs.
The Wild Neighbors. The Mountains. The Streams. The hiking. Mountain adjustments. Four Seasons. Eight Seasons. The Mountain Fall. Golden Aspens. Against green Lodgepoles. Black Mountain punctuated with gold, then green. Snow flocked in Winter. Wildflowers in the Mountain Spring. Fawns. Kits. Cubs. Elk and Moose Calves. The long Summers. Beautiful in their own right, yet also angsty with the ever present threat of Wildfire.
Living here has been, is an adventure. In relationships. In deep learning. An immersion in the world of Mountains. After the world of Lakes and Rivers and rich Soil.
So much more to see. To learn.
Visited Carmax yesterday. The Jeep. Prepared to sell it, then Uber home. A first for me. But. Can’t take a North Carolina power of attorney. Colorado makes it difficult. Do you want me to get you the necessary papers? Yes. Talked to Sarah while the nice lady in the blue Carmax smock did that. Took fifteen minutes. Many pieces of paper. Post it notes. Sign here stickers. OK. Thanks. Back up the hill.
Got two calendars as presents. Aimed at different parts of me. A Zen Calendar from Tom. A New Yorker Cartoons calendar from Sarah and Jerry. Yep. I recognize both of those guys as resident within me. Wonderful to be seen.
Tuesday gratefuls: Memories. Friability. Dreams. The same. Mini-splits. Warm when and where I want it. Cool, too. That back I never had mowed. Beautiful and dangerous if a Fire came through. Sigh. New options for the move. An obvious one, missed until now. Diane. Robin. Tal. His turn at the Creativity Class. Acting class tonight. Chekhov. The Seagull. Uncle Vanya. Ivanov. Will read the Cherry Orchard today. Growing. Right here in Colorado. Change. Stability. One inevitable, the other pleasant while it lasts.
Sparks of Joy and Awe: Lead time yields multiple options
Whether a correction is in order or not about yesterday’s post, let me be clear: my cousin Diane prefers Jerseys. Always has. Always will. In fact she wore a t-shirt while here that read: Zike Jerseys. Morristown. Higher butterfat than those run of the mill Holsteins. At first she thought my memory might have been wrong, but then she remembered Uncle Riley often bought Holstein bull calves to feed out and sell for slaughter. Could have been some of them. Or, my memory could be faulty.
Still eating through the collection of See’s chocolates Diane brought. A real treat. Ramping up my yogurt and fruit game, too. Told you she was a good influence. Bean and cheese burrito plus yogurt and raspberries for breakfast.
Televisit with Kristie. So. Once a month urology oncologists, radiologists, and other specialists and their physicians assistants have a round table dicussion. Each one who wants gets up to two cases to present, then the gathered group provides advice and thoughts. Since Dr. Eigner. my oncologist, and Dr. Simpson, radiation oncologist, differ on their view of the bony sclerosis on my thoracic spine, Kristie will present next Wednesday.
A presentation consists of an overview of treatment from diagnosis through procedures and lab work up to the present day. In my case it will span the time from May 2015 to October 2022. The particular issue in my instance is whether I have metastases causing the swelling on my spine. Dr. Simpson wants to radiate it; Dr. Eigner wants to ignore it.
The most likely result of the conference will be some earlier scans and if felt necessary an MRI to determine the exact nature of those sclerosis. This is good for me because my case is getting reviewed by many docs. Sorta like a fifth, sixth, seventh and eighth opinion.
Kristie gave me some other news, too. If my numbers continue the same PSA undetectable and testosterone low for the next 10 months, I’ll go on a drug holiday. Not sure how long. The reason? These drugs lose their effectiveness over time and a holiday from them reserves some of their capacity so I can still use them. I forgot to ask what the cancer does during the holiday. Lives it up I suppose.
Kristie is a caring doc. I like her and she likes me, a good deal for both of us. We discussed the fatigue I have in the early afternoon. She suggested I check myself while in Hawai’i. If I don’t have it there, it could be psychosomatic. Which was one of my thoughts, too. Good idea.
Seeing Kristie brought to the fore a third option for the move, one I’d neglected to consider. Move down the hill. I’ve neglected it because I thought of it as moving to Denver, a place I don’t want to live. But I’ve begun looking seriously into Golden. Once I get to down to 5 600-5 800 feet my O2 sats return to normal.
I’d thought about moving to a college town if Hawai’i didn’t work out, then Minnesota got on my list. Golden has the Colorado School of Mines. That means cultural opportunities. It’s also closer to Boulder with its cultural opportunities and restaurants. Also, it’s right at the base of the Foothills and abuts Interstate 70, a quick shot up to Evergreen and CBE.
Seeing Kristie brought this to mind. I really appreciate her attention to my situation and I wouldn’t have to change oncologists. Medical care in Hawai’i and Minnesota is excellent, so I don’t imagine there would be any degradation of care, but I know Kristie and Dr. Eigner. Eigner since May of 2015. And Kate thought him a good doc.
Not to mention that it would save some money on the move. Quite a bit probably. And retain that link to Gabe and Ruth. All three have strong arguments. Now we’ll see where the different factors begin to move my heart as we get closer to a pruned house and and a sold house.
Oh. And one more thing. Over the last year especially I’ve found my personal growth accelerating with CBE and mussar, with the Kabbalah Experience classes, and with my CBE friends. A move to Golden would preserve those. Not an insignificant consideration.
Monday gratefuls: Diane home safe. Kep nudging me at 4 am. Frost. Ideas spinning. Downstairs to write. For Kep. Agency. Feeling strong in the move. Robin coming Wednesday. Fatigue. Long Covid? Mary. Kobe. On the waterfront, Osaka Bay. Mark, working for Amazon in Oklahoma City. Kristie. Urology Associates. Laughing with the Ancient Brothers. Creativity, creating. Acting. Growing here in Colorado. Me. Ruth.
Sparks of Joy and Awe: See’s Candy
Mostly deaf, mostly blind, still a sweet boy. Kep. Kep has adjusted to his disabilities, continuing his life as dogs do. My teacher. He sleeps more, sometimes going to bed as early as 5 pm. Eating well. Enjoying his day in a more subdued manner. Life at the short end.
Diane is my first cousin, the daughter of my mother’s brother, Riley Keaton. She grew up in Morristown, Indiana as did my mother and her four siblings: Riley, Roberta, Barbara, and Marjorie. After Mom and Dad moved to Indiana from Oklahoma when I was about a year and a half old, the Keaton extended family was always nearby. Marjorie in Muncie. Roberta in Arlington. Riley on the family farm in Morristown. Barbara sometimes in the state hospital sometimes not.
Grandpa and Grandma Keaton, Charlie (my namesake) and Mabel, lived in town in Morristown. Since the Keaton family grew up in Morristown, Morristown has always held a special place for all of us.
Morristown had about six hundred to seven hundred souls during my childhood and adolescence. An American small town to Alexandria’s small city status at 5,000 according to Indiana municipal designations.
It also had and has a famous restaurant, the Kopper Kettle, where my Aunt Mame made fried chicken for tourists who would drive to quaint Morristown for dinner, often from Indianapolis. Locals however ate at the Bluebird with an excellent Sunday buffet, sugar cream pie, and a spot for old guys to drink coffee and solve world political issues.
The Kopper Kettle is on Highway 52 which runs straight into Indianapolis. If you go a bit past it and find Morristown Road, you’ll go past the big house that Charlie and Mable lived in before his death. Further on Morristown Road quickly takes you into the country side where corn and soybeans dominate the landscape.
Hanover cemetery appears at the point where Morristown Road veers off toward the County Seat, Shelbyville, and a gravel road veers off in a wide V toward the family farm where my cousin Richard and his wife still live.
Many of my Keaton relatives found their final rest in Hanover cemetery, which Uncle Riley cared for and now Richard after him.
I spent many days and nights in Morristown while growing up, staying with Grandpa and Grandma, weeks at the farm. I loved the the small shed where the metal milk pails sat in a concrete water pool, cooled by an artesian spring until the milk man came to collect them.
I remember one time the Holsteins had come up from a field and begun heading out toward the road. I was there and Uncle Riley yelled at me, “Stop them!” I got scared at the big animals plodding toward me and got out of the way. Apparently all I would have needed to do was raise my arms and shout something at them. Uncle Riley was not happy with me.
Not long after we moved to Alexandria he had inscribed on wet cement Charlie polio, 1949. I think it was in a foundation for a corn crib. He was a sentimental guy who cried easily as I do still.
Not sure I’m getting this right. I want you to know the sweet memories, the lavender scented times, almost Victorian era life I experienced in this small town. One I prefer to my own hometown of Alexandria.
This will probably do it better than I’m able to this morning.
Saturday gratefuls: Tal. Georgeta. Nitya. The Importance of Being Earnest. Stagedoor Theater. A late Night. Gabe. This afternoon. Blue. Green. Gold. On Black Mountain. Solar panels soaking in the Sun. Boiler Medic. Geowater. Vince. Snowplowing set. Hawai’i. Minnesota. Adventure. Home. The housing market.
Sparks of Joy and Awe: Nitya’s performance
On the subject of liberal arts. If you pay any attention at all to the world of higher education, you know that the liberal arts have been and are under heavy fire from pragmatists of all sorts. Lists of majors that “pay off” are common with Philosophy degrees and Anthropology degrees easily targeted as low earning degrees and not worth the investment. Usually here investment means amount of money for the degree. Guess who has a Philosophy and an Anthropology degree? Yep.
Or, the fabled English major. God help the education major, the arts major. Doomed to a lifetime of depressed financial potential. God better help them because no one in the STEM or Health fields will.
My own conjecture about the roots of this issue lies in the long ago days of decent vocational education, days when blue collar workers could learn welding, carpentry, plumbing, electrical work, auto body and mechanics, cosmetology, secretarial skills and expect to earn a decent living from those skills. By decent living I mean the ability to do three things: buy a house and a car, afford good medical care and food, and a good education for your children.
Three things happened to first confuse then demolish this route to the American dream. First, American manufacturers lost the will to compete with the cheaper labor and goods available in countries like Japan and China. Jobs, blue collar jobs, left the country. Second, foreign goods began to appear in the United States that were not only comparable to US made goods, but cheaper in price, and sometimes, especially in the unfortunate instance of vehicles, better. Third, the combination of one and two lead to the Rust Belt effect where factories closed and well-paying jobs available to persons with a high school degree or even less vanished. Almost overnight.
This is the story, writ large, of my hometown, Alexandria, Indiana. In postwar times, say 1950 to 1970 or so, Alexandria had a thriving main street, Harrison Avenue. On it were two movie theaters: The Town and The Alex. Two grocery stores, Kroger’s and Coxes. Two dime stores, Murphy’s and Danner’s. Broyles’ Furniture. Fermen’s Womens Wear and Baumgartner’s Mens Wear. Mahony’s Shoes. Guilkey’s shoe shop and newsstand. Rexall’s Drugs and Bailey Drugs. The Bakery. The Yankee Bar. Conway’s barbershop.
On Friday and Saturday nights kids from neighboring smaller towns would come to Alexandria to drag main, go to the Kid Canteen, bowl. Parades, big parades, happened on Decoration Day and at Homecoming. Sidewalk Sale days drew customers downtown like weekend food stalls in Bangkok’s Chinatown.
When the crash came, it came fast. By 1974 most of those businesses had altered or closed. In later years plywood fronts would replace plate glass windows. Whole families would leave town in the dead of night, closing the curtains before they left because they could no longer pay their mortgages. Detroit had lost the battle with Volkswagen and Toyota.
I know. You’re thinking, he’s lost the plot. What does this have to do with the liberal arts? Vocational education lead nowhere. Who needed welders? Electricians. Unions began to decline in influence, too, and as they did so did blue collar wages across the board.
It was in this time that the lie of college for everyone began its insidious infiltration into the American zeitgeist. Get a BA and you’ll be safe. College graduates out earn high school graduates. And, this is true. Read this: Do college grads really earn more than high school grads.
And this is the where the story takes its twist. With vocational education or factory union jobs no longer a safe bet for that house and car, good medical care and food, what was left for the blue collar worker? College for all. We’re a small d democratic country. We’re all equal. So it seemed to make sense.
Except it doesn’t. College education takes a certain set of skills and gifts not widely distributed in any population. First, a basic level of intellect. Then, reading and writing skills. A taste for the sort of work required to sit through lectures, study, and write papers or lab reports. This is not about the idea of equality before the law which Americans often confuse with a leveling equality of skills and talents.
Such a leveling does not exist in the US population or any other. I could post links to several articles about the benefits of a college education. You could search them for an admission of the basic requirements to thrive in college. And find nothing.
With the dollar value of blue collar work on the decline along with it went the pride that came with hard work and a decent income. Many blue collar workers used to earn as much liberal arts majors do now. Not anymore. Now the blue collar worker scans and palletizes objects in Amazon or UPS warehouses, sweeps the floors of elementary schools, works in the volatile construction industry. Barely earning a long ago out of date minimum wage.
It was in this transition to an economy with few well-paying lifetime jobs for high school grads that saw white supremacy once again more obvious in US culture. It never left, of course, but it now purported to explain the poor white males declining, even vanishing, prospects. See this recent article by Thomas Edsall, Two Americas.
When the notion of a college education for all began to gain traction in the US mindset, it triggered a concomitant expectation that a college education would deliver a financial reward for those who stuck it out. College education began to replace the old vocational education model where a specific career with specific financial expectations were the norm for students.
And finally we come to the point: In this climate focused on the dollar value of a college education, college education as vocational education, the liberal arts begin to look like a bad bet. Cue the lists of majors and their earning power.
1. The top-paying college majors earn $3.4 million more than the lowest-paying majors over a lifetime.
2. Two of the top highest paying majors, STEM and business are also the most popular majors, accounting for 46 percent of college graduates.
3. STEM (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics), health, and business majors are the highest paying, leading to average annual wages of $37,000 or more at the entry level and an average of $65,000 or more annually over the course of a recipient’s career.
4. The 10 majors with the lowest median earnings are: early childhood education ($39,000); human services and community organization ($41,000); studio arts, social work, teacher education, and visual and performing arts ($42,000); theology and religious vocations, and elementary education ($43,000); drama and theater arts and family and community service ($45,000).
Now we have this remarkable reality in our country. Blue collar workers have trouble, big trouble earning a decent income. Ironically, the communities of color who suffer along with the poor, white male high school grad, have developed ways of coping with economic hardships. See the Edsall article.
And, colleges and universities, stuffed into a false equivalency with vocational education, have cheapened the word value by taking up the talking point of the dollar value of a college education as a primary rationale for attendance.
The problem in other words is not with the liberal arts, but with the mindset that places money as the determiner of a good result in a post-high school education.
This is not only a travesty, it’s a tragedy. And how would you know this unless you had a liberal arts education?
Here’s a good example of what a liberal arts education can do and why it’s not only valuable (good value), but essential:
I don’t know whether the liberal arts in the college and university setting will survive the 21st century. But philosophy, theater, music, painting, sculpture, literature and the other liberal arts will survive. Why? Because we need critical thinking, effective communication, rational analysis, and ethical reasoning to understand and weigh the life or death choices facing humanity. We need them.
It also had and has a famous restaurant, the Kopper Kettle, where my Aunt Mame made fried chicken for tourists who would drive to quaint Morristown for dinner, often from Indianapolis. Locals however ate at the Bluebird with an excellent Sunday buffet, sugar cream pie, and a spot for old guys to drink coffee and solve world political issues.