Amy and Mel

November 28, 2009.

I’m on a road trip right now, driving from Georgia to California and back. I’m spending Thanksgiving with my son Britt and his family.

Cross-country trips are always an adventure, and they invariably yield an interesting story or two. When I left home, I wondered how long it would take to encounter something blogworthy.

Not long. By the morning of the second day, I was making notes for a post. By midday, I had what I thought was an embarrassment of material.

But you can judge for yourself.

————

Amy

Weatherford, Texas, 7:00 AM.

The evening before, I had checked into a motel in Weatherford and, after a quick supper, crashed for the night. I deserved it. It had been a 600-mile day. I slept well.

Having retired early, I was up at 5:00 AM, anxious to roll. I was sick of Texas already. I wanted to get moving, maybe cross into New Mexico by nightfall.

I showered, packed, loaded the car, and went to the office to check out and partake of the complimentary breakfast, whatever it was.

To my chagrin, the lobby was jammed with Rvers. They were the loud, silver-haired kind, apparently traveling in a pack. They were like a chattering flock of magpies and probably had picked the breakfast bar clean anyway. I spared myself the aggravation and departed.

As I pulled out of the motel parking lot, I spotted a homey-looking diner across the street. Perfect. I pulled into the parking lot and went inside.

The diner was a classic place, pretty much as I had pictured it. Only a half dozen customers were present, most of them truck drivers. I figured I would get a fast, tasty breakfast with lots of hot coffee, and I did.

My waitress caught my attention immediately. She was a melancholy girl of about 20, very sad and distant. Clearly, her burdens were great. She struck me as painfully tired and vulnerable.

In spite of the state she was in, she carried out her duties professionally. She was polite and attentive and took good care of me.

As I ate, she puttered behind the counter, busying herself with unseen tasks.

Moments later, the busboy passed my table, stopped his cart next to the waitress, and began to chat her up.

It was a one-sided conversation. The waitress continued wiping down the counter and studiously ignored him.

The busboy was a muscular, tattooed fellow in his late 30s or early 40s. He wore a tight-fitting knit cap (a tuque, a la The Edge from U2) and thick glasses with heavy rims. He was a somewhat rough-looking sort.

My table was about 20 feet away, and I couldn’t quite hear what he was saying. All I could hear was a deep mutter as he spoke quietly to her.

The waitress never looked at him or responded. She kept her eyes down and continued working. The man kept speaking to her.

I studied her a little closer. She was of average height and weight, not quite pretty, not quite homely. Her hair was medium length, brown and straight. It looked as if she had stepped from the shower, combed it flat, and left it to dry that way. She was painfully sad. I couldn’t imagine her smiling.

The busboy continued to drone on in a low voice. It was clear he wasn’t giving up or going away.

Finally, without looking up, the girl said, quietly, with feeling, “No. I can’t.”

Even though she spoke softly, I heard her clearly. It was a bit of a surprise.

The tempo of the man’s muttering increased. I couldn’t make out what he said, but his meaning was clear: Why not?

“I can’t,” she repeated. “You know I can’t.”

The man droned on.

“No, I won’t,” she said, eyes averted.

There was a brief silence. She looked up at him at last.

“How can you ask me that?“ she said. “How can you ask me that after what you did?”

The man stopped speaking. He turned without a word and disappeared into the kitchen with his cart. The waitress continued wiping the counter.

I don’t know what the man’s transgressions were, and I don’t care to know. But clearly, they were awful. I wanted to cry.

By then, I had finished breakfast. She brought the coffee pot, warmed up my cup, and asked if I were ready for the check. I said I was.

The bill was a little over $8.00. At the top, next to “Your server is ____,“ she had written “Amy.“

I placed $20.00 on the table and left.

————

Mel

Big Spring, Texas, 1:30 PM.

By lunchtime, exhausted from listening to the news on Sirius all morning, I stopped in Big Spring for a lunch and fuel stop.

Next door to the gas station was another of those anonymous small-town cafés, the kind I much prefer to a MacDonald’s or a Wendy’s.

Like my breakfast stop in Weatherford, this place was small and well-worn. It featured one waitress and a meat-and-two menu. Only four or five other customers were present. I found a table and sat down.

The waitress appeared. She was tough and brassy, fully capable of whipping anyone in the place. “What are ya drinking, sugar?” she asked.

“Iced tea, please, unsweet.”

She disappeared into the kitchen, and I scanned the menu. I had a choice of meat loaf or chicken-fried steak. The veggie selection looked good.

When she returned, I posed the question: did I want the meat loaf or the steak?

“The meat loaf,” she said. “Sometimes the steak is tough.” I ordered meat loaf, black-eyed peas, buttered jalapeno potatoes, and cornbread.

A lone cowboy came in and sat down at a nearby table. “Hey there, Mel,” he said to the waitress.

“Hey, Bill.”

“Things aren’t too busy in here,” he said. “Why don’t you and me get out of here — go to my place for a couple of hours.”

“You don’t want to do that,” she said. “I’d hurt you. And I don’t mean your feelings.”

“Okay, baby, but the offer stands.”

The telephone rang. Mel answered it.

“Oh, hey. Did you go to the grocery store? Good. You what? God dammit, you dumb-ass! I told you we need to cut back! I don’t care! I told you what to get! You are such a dumb-ass! I gotta go — I‘m busy!”

She hung up in disgust. “Dumb-ass,” she spat.

A few more minutes passed. My tea glass was half empty, and Mel topped it off. She set the pitcher on the counter and went to the swinging doors that led into the kitchen.

She pushed the door open and yelled, “Hey, what’s the hold-up in there! Get a move on! My little man wants his lunch!”

A muffled, but equally sharp reply came from the kitchen. Mel walked back to the counter, picked up the tea pitcher and a coffeepot, and made the rounds of her customers.

Soon afterward, someone yelled “Order up,” and Mel brought my lunch.

The meat loaf was pretty darn good. The buttered jalapeno potatoes were even better.

————–

Later, back on the road, I turned off the radio and rode across west Texas in silence. I thought about the contrast between the two women.

At that moment, if I’d had a wish, I would have returned to Weatherford, collected Amy and everything she owned, and driven her to Big Spring. I would have taken her to Mel’s café and left her there.

Mel would watch out for her, by God.

The ABCs of Life

November 26, 2009.

I don’t think of myself as an overly sentimental person. Maudlin stories rarely bring a lump to my throat. Sappiness to any degree usually causes me to roll my eyes, not to weep.

Still, I can’t deny the fact that I’m more emotional than I was in my youth. No doubt something psychologically interesting is at work there, but I’m not so far gone that I want to look into it.

I’m reminded of this because two Christmases ago, I gave my granddaughters Katie and Kelsey (the twins, age nine) a large wall plaque entitled “The ABCs of Life.”

I chose the plaque because it offers simple, sound advice we can all understand. It also has the advantage of being a wall plaque and therefore hard to miss. I figured it would be in plain sight constantly and thus more likely to make an impression.

A book? Relegated to a shelf somewhere. A plaque? Looming in your face.

The truth is, Britt and Terri could have sentenced it to oblivion by tossing it onto a closet shelf. But they didn’t. They placed it in the girls’ bathroom where it’s impossible to miss.

I’m in California right now, spending Thanksgiving with them, and I share that bathroom with the girls. Each time I enter the room, I can’t help but read an entry or two. It’s impossible not to.

If I’m compelled to pay attention, maybe the girls are, too. One can hope.

Like I said, I don’t think of myself as the saccharine type, but these ABCs have a certain je ne sais quoi about them.

My Christmas shopping is already done this year, but next year, maybe I should purchase more plaques and gift all of my relatives.

If any of them had the audacity to toss it on a closet shelf, they‘d have to answer to me.

Happy Thanksgiving, y’all.

The Fish

November 25, 2009.

The Fish

By Simon Brown
Published in 1998

As fishes go she was neither the smallest nor the largest, but she was without doubt — and by a considerable margin — the smartest. Exactly how this came about was beyond even her ken, but she suspected strongly that her own parents, fine and respectable coelacanths both, may have resided too long near that lump of glowing yellow stone that had fallen out of the sky three years before her own birth.

Whatever the cause, she found her intelligence both a blessing and a curse; a blessing because it enabled her to catch food with remarkable ease while enabling her to avoid being eaten in turn, and a curse because there was little in her life that offered any challenge. Indeed, life for her was just one long swim. She yearned for much more.

One day she happened to be swimming through a shallow channel. Being the curious creature she was, she determined to discover why it was shallow. Over the next few months she carried out detailed observations of currents and tides, oxygen levels and thermals. Nothing her parents had taught her about life, nor any of her previous experiences, could satisfactorily explain all the phenomena she was now studying. In time she came up with a radical theory of her own: the world was more than the ocean.

For a coelacanth, it was a paradigm shift of enormous proportion. She decided to call that part of the world that was not ocean, “dirt.” The word was simple and had the extra benefit that it could be said with only one bubble. What’s more, she reasoned, if the existence of such a thing could only be deduced by a creature such as herself, and since she was the smartest fish in all history, then it meant the dirt was virgin territory, ripe for colonisation by the coelacanth and whatever other species they decided to let in on the secret.

However, to convince her fellow coelacanths that her theory was not only true but that her dream of colonisation was practicable, she would have to provide hard evidence. A happy discovery that kelp kept water well, and that wrapping a few strands around her gills gave her enough oxygen for five minutes hard activity, gave her the germ of an idea.

So it was that one day she gathered her kelp and her courage, took a deep gurgle, closed her eyes, and set off. She found a shallow channel and swum up it as hard as she could. With a splash and a scrape she found herself on dirt. She opened her eyes to see the new world, and had time only to see the shadow of the sea eagle that a moment later grasped her in its huge talons.

She was a few hundred million years late.

 

Bumper Stickers o’ the Day

November 24, 2009.

A Roll of the Dice

November 22, 2009.

It was called the draft. Conscription. Compulsory military service.

The U.S. isn’t conscripting its youth right now, because we have an all-volunteer military… if you don’t count all those unsuspecting reservists who ended up conscripted to fight in Iraq and Afghanistan.

We last had an active military draft from 1954 through 1975. According to the Army, the draft was invaluable in maintaining a steady flow of volunteers. They estimate that for every draftee, four men enlisted. In other words, they avoided the draft and had at least some choice about the when and how of their service.

I was one of them.

Although I always planned to attend college, I was well aware that without my college deferment, the draft would have nailed me immediately.

I also knew that after graduation, I would be vulnerable again to conscription. There was only one career path I could follow that would protect me from being drafted into the Army and sent to the rice paddies of Vietnam, probably never to return, and I took it: I enrolled in Air Force ROTC.

The fact is, that choice was not too off-the-wall, inasmuch as my dad had been a career Air Force officer. He, of course, was delighted.

And the ROTC route was fairly easy — one extra class each quarter in military science, plus a few hours each month on the drill field, plus two memorable weeks of basic training one summer in a Florida swamp.

Deep down, I knew the military and I were not a good fit. Which is all the more reason I was shocked to be named one of a handful of Distinguished ROTC Cadets during my senior year. Not too shabby.

On graduation day, a few hours after the UGA ceremony, we Rotsie cadets were sworn in as officers and gentlemen.

Back then, a newly-commissioned officer simply waited to be called up. He or she might be activated immediately, or a year later, or somewhere in between. Usually the latter.

But I had a better idea. I applied to Graduate School at the University of Georgia to pursue a Master of Arts degree in Journalism. If all went well, I would finish in 12 to 18 months. My military obligation simply would be delayed a bit.

At that point, I received good news and bad news.

The good news: I was accepted into grad school effective Fall Quarter 1964.

The bad news: my Air Force orders arrived with lightning speed. I was summoned to duty at Cannon Air Force Base, New Mexico, effective July 31, 1964.

Immediately, I sent copies of my grad school papers to the Air Force and applied for a deferment.

I didn’t get it. The Air Force replied that I missed the application deadline by four days.

Four days.

According to my Air Force orders, I would be assigned to the “Administrative Officer” career field. Somebody had to shuffle papers, and I was it.

That was more than a little irritating. I had assumed that, in keeping with my Journalism degree, my career field would be “Information Officer” — a publicity and PR guy. The one in charge of the base newspaper and the photo lab. The one who gives talks at teas and luncheons in town.

But that would imply that a thought process was involved. As far as I could tell, assignments were determined strictly by the numbers. Probably still are.

In the end, I did fine in the Air Force. I knew right away I wouldn’t make a career of it. I simply was too independent, and my bullshit detector constantly caused me trouble. But I was a solid officer with a good record.

Well, except for a couple of aberrations like this.

After serving time as an Admin Officer and later as a Squadron Commander, I finally wrangled a transfer to the Base Information Office as the second in command.

I hated it. Within a year, I wrangled my way back to the honest work of being a Squadron Commander.

After my four-year hitch was over, I did not, I regret to say, return to UGA and enter Graduate School. By then, I was married with a kid. My mission was to find a job, make money.

Looking back, it’s clear that being called to active duty so quickly was a major, major turning point in my life.

If, like my fellow ROTC cadets, I had been called to active duty three to six months after graduation, I would have entered grad school, and my life would have taken a different path.

The odds that I would have met my future wife in New Mexico are miniscule. I wouldn’t have my sons, wouldn’t have my granddaughters. That’s a little scary to contemplate.

All because of four days.

Some people think a Master Plan is somehow involved — that we are destined to live a predetermined life.

I don’t think so. I think life is a constant rolling of the dice. I think chance, not design, determines the outcome.

This is what makes sense to me: you try to influence things in your favor, then you hope for the best. In the end, you get what you get.

I’ve been lucky. Serendipity has dealt me a good hand.

Thanks, Serendipity, wherever you are.

Story Time

November 20, 2009.

My granddaughter Maddie, age five, loves to hear stories. She will sit next to me on the couch and request a story — scary, funny, or whatever — then will listen happily to whatever yarn I dream up on the fly, no matter how outlandish, improbable, or poorly-constructed.

Her sister Sarah isn’t so easy. Sarah is two. She is plenty old enough to understand the tales fairly well, but scary stories, even the milquetoast variety that I  create for Maddie, give her the willies.

A couple of weeks ago, the three of us were at my house, sitting upstairs in the reading room — the li-bry — when Maddie asked for a story. A scary story.

The two of them climbed onto the couch, one on each side of me, and waited for the performance to begin.

This is how it went down.

—————

Rocky: Once upon a time, there was a family, the Snootsburger family, who lived in a small town in Georgia. There was a mom, a dad, and two little girls.

Sarah: Woggie! Woggie!

Rocky: Yes, sweetie?

Sarah: Two little girls like me and Maddie?

Rocky: That’s right, just like you and Maddie.

Maddie: Sarah — shut up, okay? Rocky, ignore her. Get on with the story.

Rocky: The two little girls were named May, who was five years old, and June, who was two years old.

Sarah: Woggy, me two years old.

Rocky: I know you are.

Maddie: SARAH, SHUT UP! Rocky, go ahead!

Rocky: Early one evening, the Snootsburgers were watching television. It happened to be little June Snootsburger‘s second birthday. Well, Mrs. Snootsburger got up and went into the kitchen. But you know what? Everything got quiet, and she didn’t come back! May, the oldest girl, said, “Hey — where did Mom go?

Sarah: Woggy, where the mama go?

Maddie: Sarah, SHUT UP so he can explain it! That’s part of the story, get it?

Rocky: Take it easy, Maddie. She’s two, you’re five.

Maddie: I didn’t interrupt the stories when I was her age.

Rocky: That’s because it was just you back then.

Sarah: Woggy, where the mama go?

Rocky: Well, when Mrs. Snootsburger didn’t return from the kitchen, Mr. Snootsburger said, “I’ll go see what’s going on.” And he did. Then, a minute later, everything got quiet again, and Mr. Snootsburger — he didn’t come back, either!

Sarah: (Apprehensively) Woggy, me scared!

Rocky: But at that very moment, the kitchen door opened, and the mom walked in!

Sarah: Her come back!

Rocky: Yes, safe and sound.

Maddie: This story isn’t very scary.

Rocky: The girls said, “Mom, you came back! But where is dad?” “Dad?” said the mother. “What about Dad? I thought he was with you! You mean… HE’S GONE??”

Sarah: Me scared!

Rocky: But at that very moment, the kitchen door opened, and the dad walked in!

Sarah: Him came back, too!

Rocky: Yes, he did. And the dad said, “What’s going on here? What’s all the ruckus? Is something wrong?” And the mom said, “Well, dear, we didn’t know where you were, and we were worried.”

Sarah: Woggy, where him go?

Maddie: SARAH, FOR CRYIN’ OUT LOUD, SHUT UP!!

Rocky: And the dad said, “Hey, what’s the big deal? I just went into the kitchen for a moment. Watch this — I’ll do it again.” And he went back into the kitchen. Suddenly, everything got quiet again. And the little girls said, “Dad! Dad! Where are you!” But the dad didn’t answer.

Sarah: Him gone again.

Rocky: Yes, and everything got quiet. So Mrs. Snootsburger said, “I’d better go check on him.” And she went into the kitchen, and everything got quiet, and she didn’t come back.

Sarah: Woggy, is a monster in kitchen? Is a monster get them?

Maddie: Yeah, Sarah — a horrible monster was in there, and it ate them. They’re history.

Sarah: Woggy, me scared!

Rocky: But at that moment, the kitchen door opened, and the mom and dad appeared, safe and sound. And the dad said, “Girls, you’ll never believe what we found in the kitchen! Hurry, come see!” So all four of the Snootsburgers went into the kitchen, and guess what they found?

Maddie: Monsters — horrible monsters! Four of them!

Sarah: What in kitchen, Woggy?

Rocky: It was a huge surprise birthday party for little June Snootsburger! All of their family and friends were there, and they all yelled, “Surprise! Surprise! Happy birthday!”

Sarah: Yay! Her get birthday presents?

Rocky: Oh, yes, she got tons of presents from everybody. But her favorite gift of all was a book from Grandpa Snootsburger — a big book of stories about brave little girls who defeated all the scary monsters that got in their way. The end.

Sarah: Me not scared of monsters. Me get a stick and chase monsters away. Me say, ‘Better run, monster!’

Maddie: Rocky, I have a question. That was a happy family story. What happened to the scary story?

Rocky: Maddie, you know how Sarah is. She gets spooked, and I have to tone it down. The next time, when it’s just you and me, I’ll tell you a story so scary, it will curl your toes.

Maddie: Well, bring it on — Grandpa Snootsburger!

Sarah: Woggy not a Snootburg! Maddie a Snootburg! Sarah not a –

Maddie: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Hey, Rocky, where do you keep the sidewalk chalk?

Grandpa Telling Stories by Norval Morrisseau, 2006.

Dishonourable Ancestor

November 19, 2009.

 Dishonourable Ancestor

By Rob Bleckly
Published in 1999

“There’s an anomaly.”

“What of it?” Melanie asked. She was aware of the discrepancy but had discounted it. She had spent years investigating birth, death and marriage records, tracing her ancestry back through 10 generations to an original colonist from Earth. Every record except her mother’s had been thoroughly verified and cross-checked with supporting genetic evidence.

“You must understand,” replied Fletcher carefully, “admission to Descendants brings enormous benefit. It is often the target of unscrupulous claimants.”

Melanie started to protest, trailing off at his expression.

“If we had the slightest hint of fraud, Ms Cook, we would be in court.” His manicured hands slid across the black glass, pausing to press at strategic points, as he concentrated on the information in his desktop. “Your grandmother was born in 2025 and you in — “

“2047,” finished Melanie

“Quite. 22 years later. At best, your grandmother and your unknown mother would have given birth at 11.”

Melanie had known it was unlikely, nevertheless, it had to be true. Her grandmother’s date of birth, like the total absence of any records for her mother could always be rationalised away as faulty record keeping. The genetic markers were irrefutable.

“Fortunately,” continued Fletcher, looking up from his study of the desk’s display and smiling for the first time, “our hospitals have tissue samples of everyone since colonisation. I have requested a complete rework of the genetic profiles of your parents and grandparents. The results should be here shortly.” He took his long white fingers away from the smoky glass desktop, and leaning back, laced them behind his head.

Melanie stared reflectively out the window at the pearly concavity of the dome. Her mother, her adoptive mother that is, Melanie corrected, let slip she had started as a surrogate contract. The contract had been made between representing lawyers. Shortly after implantation, Melanie’s genetic parents had disappeared and her surrogate mother had adopted her.

A tiny glow on the desk strobed.

“Ah!” Said Fletcher, tapping his fingers lightly on the black glass. He frowned, looked up at Melanie then back at the desk.

Melanie could not contain herself. “What?”

“This is unprecedented, I will have to get a ruling.”

“If you’ve found an error in my genealogy, I’d like to know, even if it disqualifies me.”

“Quite the contrary, Ms Cook, It seems your genetic heritage is accurate, as is your grandmother’s birth date. We have pre-natal tissue samples from her only child in 2046.”

Melanie struggled to assimilate the import of his revelation. How was it possible for her grandmother to be pregnant with her mother, the year before she herself was born? When was there time for her mother to have lived?

“The girl,” continued Fletcher, “did not come to term. The fertilised ovum hosted by your surrogate mother was illegally harvested from the unborn foetus.”

His words struck Melanie like a soft blow. Her mother had never been born.

“Newborn Baby” by Youngheui Lee, 2006.

This just In

November 18, 2009.

BERLIN, GERMANY — German police are investigating a kabob vendor’s hot sauce to determine whether it is capable of causing grievous bodily harm when used in an attack.

Police took a sample of the sauce from a kabob stand in Bremen’s central train station after a kabob salesman threw it into the eyes of a customer during a fight over napkins.

“Legally, the question of whether the spiciness of the kabob sauce constituted ‘normal’ or ‘grievous’ bodily harm must be addressed,” said a police spokesman.

Officers broke up a scuffle that ensued after a 23-year-old man wiped his messy hands on the stand because the vendor refused to give him a napkin. The vendor responded by flinging a ladle of hot sauce in the man’s face.

AYER, MASSACHUSETTS — Police said an 18-year-old man faces a charge of disorderly conduct for donning a mask like in the movie “V for Vendetta” to terrorize residents of the towns of Ayer and Groton.

The “V” sightings came after a group of teenagers began wearing the masks to scare each another. One teen got carried away and began peering into residents’ windows.

Police said the suspect was not arrested, but will face charges for scaring and alarming his neighbors.

SAGINAW, MICHIGAN — Victor Harris was pouring a fuel additive into his Lincoln Navigator at a 7-Eleven store, when a piece of paper fell into the gas tank.

Harris tried to fish the paper out with his index finger, but his finger became stuck in the gas tank opening.

Other patrons summoned Saginaw firefighters, who tried unsuccessfully to free the finger.

Finally, after four hours, crews cut off a four-foot section of the gas pipe and took Harris to nearby St. Mary’s Hospital. Medics there pried his finger from the pipe and gave him two stitches.

Coincidentally, Harris is an employee of St. Mary’s Hospital.

Something to Say

November 16, 2009.

Dr. Cara Barker, a former nurse, now an author, lecturer, and shrink, recently interviewed a group of 40 children to find out what they think about their families and their world.

Dr. Barker said nobody ever asks kids what they think. She suspected they might have something to say.

Dr. Barker observed, “Beyond what Art Linkletter dubbed ‘Kids Say the Darndest Things,’ our kids also say the most beautiful things, the most relevant things, the most useful things.”

Here are some excerpts from her interviews. The children are answering the question, “What do you wish grown-ups knew?”

——————

Annie, age 5: “They need to send my new baby brother back where he came from. He cries too much. Then they could play with me and we’d all be happy. It’s a lot of work to be a big sister. No one told me about that part.”

Alexi, age 5: “Little kids need grandpas. Mine comes back to see me sometimes, but I can’t tell anyone.” (To ‘Why is that?’) “I told them the first time he came after the ‘funeraling,’ but they told me not to make things up. He really did come to see me and winked. It made me feel better. Big people should believe you. Maybe grandpa would come see them, too, and then they’d feel better.”

Andy, age 8: “My dad shouldn’t worry so much. I’m scared he’ll get sick. I don’t want to move, but it’s okay with me if my dad doesn’t have to worry about his job. My head hurts when he worries.”

Marlee, age 10: “Moms should know when their kids are lonely and sad, like the boy in ‘Where the Wild Things Are.’ Moms need to throw away their phones. Okay, that’s dumb. But they need to unplug it. Moms need to rest and not stress us out.”

Brad, age 14: “Dads should be more than tourists in our lives. They probably think we’re pushing them away. But we need to know they’re there when things get dicey. I wish they knew everything is moving too fast out there for us. I wish they knew they need to turn off the news. Like the Fort Hood massacre thing is terrible. Hearing it over and over is too much.”

Mary Jo, age 15: “I wish parents knew how hard we try to get good grades and make them happy. When I get a B, they don’t say anything, not like when I get As. I wish parents would just stop fighting. Or at least remember their kids are listening. There should be a ‘parent pill,’ where they could learn to chill. Oh, also, I think dads should be nicer to the mother, even if they are divorced. It makes us feel bad when they are mean to our moms.”

Jeremy, age 16: “I wish parents knew we worry about them. When they lose their job, we don’t need to go to the big-bucks places. It would be awesome to just sit and play board games, and have popcorn. That’s cheap if you make it yourself.”

——————

Something to say, indeed.

Dr. Barker submitted this personal story with her report.

“23 years ago, our daughter demonstrated that we, as parents, had much to learn. As my husband walked through the front door, with a bit of an uncharacteristic growl in his tone, our three-year-old, with her arm in a newly-acquired sling, watched Dad harrumph around the kitchen.

“She told the two of us, ‘I was so stupid! I slipped on the ice and did this to my arm!’

“As her dad tried to make amends, she patiently listened. She quietly beckoned him over to her. She threw her arms around his neck and said, ‘Daddy, do you think you can forgive yourself?’

“The incident has become part of our family lexicon, not only about self-forgiveness, but about how attuned our children are. We would do well to pay attention.”

Marble sculpture in Frogner Park, Oslo, Norway, by Gustave Vigeland.

Geology Lesson

November 15, 2009.

So far, I have been on four rafting trips on the Colorado River through Grand Canyon. The first trip, in 1994, was a one-weeker. The other trips were two weeks.

I know it’s crazy, but even today, that first trip lives in my memory as the longest of them all. It was as if time slowed down and allowed me to savor every moment of the experience.

Oddly enough, the only time I was in any danger was on dry land, not in the rapids. It happened during the 1994 trip.

On either the first or second afternoon (I can’t remember everything), our group made camp.

Either at Georgie‘s Camp, river mile 19 (the 1st night) or at Buck Farm Canyon, river mile 41 (the 2nd night), we passengers dispersed to stake out our sleeping spots on the sand, and the guides proceeded to set up the kitchen and start supper.

We had about an hour of free time, so I decided to stroll off into the surrounding wilds to see what I could see. Per the trip rules, I informed Andrew, the trip leader, and departed.

In an ideal world, I would have had my camera with me, but the accursed thing had died that morning. Stopped working. Croaked.

Andrew said it was my own fault; I had somehow offended the River Gods. He said they won’t put up with crap from anybody, least of all a tourist.

The trail was good, and the walk was fairly easy. But soon, the trail being rather monotonous, I decided to venture off-trail. I headed up a slight incline to the right that appeared to lead to an overlook.

The route I followed was a faint sheep trail that climbed the hill in a mostly straight line, angling from lower left to upper right.

The overlook gave me a great  view, but I couldn’t see the river. I wanted to see the river. So I continued upward.

Before long, I was 20 minutes into the ascent and beginning to gain altitude. I was too far from camp to see or hear the activity below.

Not only that, the nature of the slope was beginning to change.

In Grand Canyon, the rock layers change as you go higher or lower. I don’t know what layer I reached that afternoon — my understanding of Grand Canyon geology is only superficial — but whatever it was, the terrain consisted of a layer of thin, fractured, flat grey rocks that were exceedingly unstable.

As I proceeded up the slope, I was forced to ascend on all fours because the loose chunks of slate or shale covering the slope would not be still. They were very slippery, constantly sliding and shifting underfoot as I walked.

Situation: I was on a steep, slippery hillside that was getting steeper and slipperier with every step.

At that moment, the voice of common sense and self-preservation that dwells in one’s brain, the survival instinct that one should heed in such situations, spoketh.

I looked around. The sheep trail seemed to have faded out. If I continued, I might become ledged out and in real trouble. The voice said it was time to turn back, and I concurred.

Carefully, I turned around on the path and positioned myself sideways, using my right arm to form a tripod and gain stability.

It was a good thought, but it didn’t work. I took one step, and my feet slid out from under me. I landed on my backside with a thud.

I tried again, this time descending backwards, looking over my shoulder, both hands on the trail for stability.

After one or two steps, I ended up flat on my belly. By golly, that slope was a lot easier to ascend than descend.

I turned around, sat up, and studied the slope. It appeared that the dicey part was a stretch of only 10 or 20 yards. If I could cover that distance without losing it in a spectacular way — and by that I mean cartwheeling head-over-teakettle several hundred vertical feet back into camp — I would be back on more firma terra.

I probably took a sip of water, adjusted my daypack, and wiped my brow with a bandana. Then, very gingerly, standing sideways, I took a step downhill.

Immediately, there came a deep rumble, as if of thunder.

The ground around me shook. Dust began to rise. I was being shaken violently, but somehow remained standing.

My first thought was earthquake! My fate was in other hands, and I probably was doomed.

But something wasn’t right. In spite of the sudden wild activity and movement, the ground beneath me looked perfectly normal. The earth should be splitting asunder, shouldn‘t it?

Then I realized it was no earthquake. It was a landslide.

A giant slab of the shale/slate material, probably a dozen feet square, had broken loose and was sliding down the slope in one chunk, with me on top of it.

Our slow, rumbling, downhill slide probably lasted 10 seconds. The slab stopped and started three times.

Each time the slab stopped, I thought, Thank God! Thank God!

Each time it started again, I thought, Oh, God! Oh, God!

And believe me, I wasn’t addressing the River Gods.

Eventually, the slab came to rest. For a few seconds, rumbling and booming echoed through the canyon.

The dust was awful, but I didn’t care. I had ridden the beast, kept my balance, and survived completely unscathed. It was good to be alive. It was SO GOOD to be alive.

The slab of rock had moved about 15 yards downhill and stopped at the base of the slope — the very spot I needed to reach. I stepped onto more solid ground and joyfully made my way back down the hill.

On the way back to camp, I decided not to mention the event to my traveling companions. The guides might bar me from leaving camp alone. Or at all. Besides, no harm was done. It would be my little secret.

When I arrived back at the beach, Andrew was waiting.

“I was about to go looking for you,” he said. “There was a rockfall somewhere back up there. We heard it in camp.”

“Really?” I said. “Too bad I missed the excitement.”

Technical depiction of your average rockslide.