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Wednesday, February 18th, 2004
Words for Today -- "Port William prefers to hear what it has heard before." So says Jayber Crow in Wendell Berry's novel of the same name, the story of the barber of the town Berry created ala Garrison Keillor's Lake Woebegon, but Port William in Kentucky is real in a way that is as faithful to life as 'tis lived yet crystallized in a way that astonishes with its insights into human relationships in general and small town America in particular. Jayber summarizes the reception of those young seminarians who come to Port William and offer new ideas. Like the Hannover Township in Oliver County in beauuuuuuuuuuuuuuuutiful Dakota when I was growing up, 'twas much the same - fact is probably is still that way for those who gather in church on Sunday mornings and during the week during this Lenten season want to hear the same old thing - we are sinners, damned to hell, but saved by the grace of God who sent his son to die for our failings. 'Tis rather grim business - or 'twas when I was growing up, and I suspect that hasn't changed. Once in a great while there may be mention of the grandeur and beauty of the place, but not very often. Says Jayber, Begin Jayber Quote What they [the young seminarians who came to Port William] didn't see was that it [the world] is beautiful, and that some of the greatest beauties are the briefest. They had imagined the church, which is an organization, but not the world, which is an order and a mystery. To them, the church did not exist in the world where people earn their living and have their being, but rather in the world where they fear death and Hell, which is not much of a world. To them, the soul was something dark and musty, stuck away for later. In their brief passage through or over it, most of the youngest preachers knew Port William only as it theoretically was ("lost") and as it theoretically might be ("saved"). And they wanted us all to do our part to spread this bad news to others who had not heard it - the Catholics, the Hindus, the Muslims, the Buddhists, and the others - or else they (and maybe we) would go to Hell. I did not believe it. They made me see how cut off I was. Even when I was sitting in the church, I was a man outside. In Port William, more than anyplace else I had been, this religion that scorned the beauty and goodness of this world was a puzzle to me. To begin with, I didn't think anybody believed it. I still don't think so. Those world-condemning sermons were preached to people who, on Sunday mornings, would be wearing their prettiest clothes. Even the old widows in their dark dresses would be pleasing to look at. By dressing up on the one day when most of them had leisure to do it, they signified their wish to present themselves to one another and to Heaven looking their best. The people who heard those sermons loved good crops, good gardens, good livestock and work animals and dogs; they loved flowers and the shade of trees, and laughter and music; some them could you a fair speech on the pleasures of a good drink of water or a patch of wild raspberries. While the wickedness of the flesh was preached from the pulpit, the young husbands and wives and the courting couples sat thigh to thigh, full of yearning and joy, and the old people thought of the beauty of the children. And when church was over they would go home to Heavenly dinners of fried chicken, it might be, and creamed new peas and hot biscuits and butter and cherry pie and sweet milk and buttermilk. And the preacher and his family would always be invited to eat with somebody and they would always go, and the preacher, having just foresworn on behalf of everybody the joys of the flesh, would eat with unconsecrated relish. End Jayber Quote There's beauty here in this place we leave today - the desert where Nevada, Arizona, and California meet, a place where thousands of new residents come to enjoy the sun and the buffets of places like Laughlin's Harrahs, where we stayed last night with our friends Jerry and Jean Waldera enroute to a return to Omaha and on to Lincoln to meet our darlin' daughter tonight. 'Tis a quiet place, here in a room on the fourth floor - 'twas quiet last night, and I slept most soundly after a trip or two to the dessert bar - and arose early in the Pacific Time Zone for a long, long bath with plenty of hot water in a large tub - and Jayber Crow my companion. No CNN, breaking news, or any sound - just quiet and a book. I've heard the news this morning - an over-the-top Mel Gibson talking about his new movie about the death of Christ and his most curious explanation of how God directs every moment of his life - from ingestion to defecation, the way its sounds. The debate about the film's violence, its possible anti-Semitism, and any criticism seems to be taken by Gibson as an attack on God himself - and he strongly implies that God was heavily involved in the direction and production of the film. Vanity, vanity, sayeth the preacher. 'Tis time for me to enjoy the beauty of the day kola - and hope that you don't miss any of those brief moments of beauty and the opportunity for laughter and song that comes your way today - as you take care of yourselves and look out for each other. And may you entertain not only what you're ready to hear but listen to new ideas that come your way on this fine, fine day to be alive. Ev Albers
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Tuesday, February 17th, 2004
Words for Today -- "He loved politicians. Even Republicans"-- So said the daughter of the man with a single letter for a middle name - just S - Harry S Truman, the famous fiercely Democratic commoner from Independence, Missouri, who made all his decisions - but never failed to consult with his quiet wife, Beth. Margaret turns seventy today. Margaret was a sorority girl - a Phi Beta Phi. Some of her famous sisters include the famous suffragist Carrie Chapman Catt and Senator Kaye Baily Hutchinson of Texas - and actress Faye Dunaway. Margaret, or course, wrote books about both her mother and her father in addition to mystery novels. I first heard her name when I arrived at the University of North Dakota in 1960 just as the presidential campaign between Richard Nixon and John F. Kennedy was heating up. Lots of folks in Dakota had a good deal of trouble with Kennedy's Catholicism - still a hangover of the notion that electing a Catholic would turn the country over to the Pope. A few folks had trouble with Nixon's heavy 5:00 shadow - and no few of the few women students considered him less than as good looking as Kennedy - but they set aside their admiration for Jack Kennedy's boyish good looks for family tradition - they were Republicans descended from generations of Republicans, and to even consider talking about having a Democratic president was next to loudly shouting the Lord's name in vain during Holy Communion. I heard the song at a Greek rush party - not that I had any intention of joining a fraternity - that, too, would be a grave sin - something worse for a lad of the Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod persuasion than joining the Boy Scouts or later becoming an Eagle or Elk. Those fraternal organizations prayed together, we didn't pray with potential unbelievers, period. Of course, 'twas a drinking song about Mary Margaret - one that my good friend Jean Waldera said she heard the ditty as a college student as well. I've probably posted the song done to the tune of The Missouri Waltz -- today's nomination for a rather pleasant earworm for a great day to be alive - here 'tis Mary Margaret Truman Was the daughter of the Prez She lived in the White House With her ugly mother, Bess Now there's no use denyin' She was self-relyin A member of "I felt a thigh" Back in 1950, when old Harry lost his shoe Mary Margaret Truman didn't know quite just what to do She went back to Missouri To work in a brewery So let's drink beer To Mary Margaret Swinging on the outhouse door Without her nightie Swinging on the outhouse door I did my share of metaphorical swinging on the outhouse door last night - of course, the facilities, several, in this fine place where the Walderas winter here at Lake Havasu are inside, not out. Not that they couldn't be, for although it cools the weest in the evenings here, 'tis warm, warm, warm during the day - heading near the 80 degree mark today - quite a change from the invigorating brisk breezes of Dakota, where indeed is a beauuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuutiful day. We who leave its borders always carry the weest bit of Dakota in heart and soul wherever we go. It's a little bit like OMF, Dakota's gift to the millennia, Thomas Matthew McGrath, carrying a bit of the moon in his pocket, which is a good thing to do as well. The day has begun in earnest - quite leisurely. Hostess Jean relaxes for a moment on her wondrously flowered patio, Jerry begins working on a cross-word puzzle. Aye, 'tis the life of Riley they live here - and well deserved after toiling in the vineyards of the humanities, bringing into the world and sustaining three fine young men and now enjoying four grandchildren - and continuing to rail against the enemies of social justice and a fair deal for the common man - especially those Republicans, who, like Truman, they might like but still Jean and Jerry aren't gonna tolerate any outrages from folk of thie ilk. My friend Jerry Waldera, at the help of the pontoon yesterday, looks as young as he did decades ago when he captained the pontoon at Lake Melissa and took our children on their first fishing trips. His physical failings are few - he doesn't hear as well as he once said, but, as he will be the first to point out, this can sometimes be a blessing - one has a bit of peace in the dinniest of places. I'm all for peace on this day - Primary Day in Wisconsin - where John Kerry 'twill win, of course. This day observes another race day -- - February 17 - 'Tis the Championship Crab Racing Day in the U.S. of A. - and 'tis also national Prayer Day. Don't know how many folks will be praying to the same god for opposite ends - that their crab in the same race with\ another fervent prayer will win. God's gonna have to choose to answer one prayer with a "Yes," and the other with the "No." The reason, say the true believers are two-fold: one) we do not know God's master plant for us, course; so we can't know whether of not winning the crab race will be good for us; two) losing the crab race could be the be the way God answers our prayer for our own good. Besides, back from where I came from in Hannover Township in Oliver County, we weren't supposed to be praying for things like staying alive or stopping the war or killing the Japs or the Commies - our prayer was supposed to be "Thy will be done." Jayber Crow, the young man who flirts with the ministry for a short time after leaving the orphanage in Wendell's berry book of the same time, begins to asks questions that no one can answer - amazing questions that I remember having myself was I thought about be a pastor in the Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod. Jayber had more than few problems with inconsistencies in the Bible - which the folk running both the orphanage and the seminary were'nt amused with, because they believed that ever work of the Bible was true. Finally, in desperation, Jayber goes to the head of the seminar, the man everyone is afraid of. Jayber begins: Jayber talk With old Dr. Ardmire from Jayber Crow by Wendell Berry "Well," I said, I've got a lot of questions." He said, "Perhaps you would like to say what they are?" "Well, for instance, " I said, "if Jesus said for us to love our enemies - and He did say that, didn't He? - how can it every be right to kill our enemies? And if He said not to pray in public, how come we're all the time time praying in public? And if Jesus' own prayer in the garden wasn't granted, what is there for us to pray, except 'thy will be done,' which there's not use in praying because it will be done anyhow?" I sort of ran down. He didn't say anything. He was look straight at me. And then I realized that he wasn't looking a me the way he usually did. I seemed to see way back in his eyes a little gleam of light. It was a light of kindness and (as I now think) of amusement. He said, "Do you have any more?" "Well, for instance," I said, for it had just occurred tome, "suppose you prayed for sethting and you got it, how do you know how you got it? How do you know you didn't get because you were going to get it whether you prayed for it or not? So how do you know it does any good to pray? You would need proof, wouldn't you?" He nodded. "But there's no way to get any proof." He shook his head. We looked at each other. "No, I said. I was concentrating so hard, looking at him, you could have nailed my foot to the floor and I wouldn't have felt it. "So," I said "recken what it all comes down to is, how can a I preach if I don't have any answers?" "Yes, Mr. Crow, he said. "How can you?" He as not one of your frying-size chickens. I don't believe I can," I said, and I felt my skin turn cold, for I had not even thought of it before then, BR< He said, "No, I don't believe you can." and we sat there and looked at each other again while he waited for me to see the next thing, so he wouldn't have to tell me: I oughtn't to waste any time resigning my scholarship and leaving Pigeonville. I saw it soon enough. End Wendell Berry quote from Jayber Crow My own departure for such an institution to which I hied with some money from the good folks at St. Peter's Lutheran Church was a three-month one at Concordia College in St. Paul, Minnesota, to whence I transferred after being convinced that pre-medicine at the University of North Dakota was not for me - 'twas both the really fine-paying job I had assisting in research by pharmacologists who induced shock in experimental dogs and then tried various drugs to bring them out that did me in - every weekend, all day Saturday into the wee hour of Sunday morning, administering drugs and doing blood draws until the animals succumbed - sometimes with a bit of help from an empty syringe of air. Finally, off the the crematorium and home to clean up in the little basement space allowed me by my roommates - Missouri Synod Lutherans all who stayed at the Gamma Delta House - an old fraternity house taken over by the church. Another factor in my decision to leave pre-med - although my grades were quite good and the recommendations from the medical professors for whom I attended those seven dogs each week end (there were seven special "doggie" operating tables) were grand, I found myself wasting times. The campus minister for the LCMS was one Reverend Elmer Elmer Yohr - he and his wife, who hailed from Wisconsin or had spent a good deal of time there, were childless, and they more or less adopted those of us they thought could benefit from special attention. I was one, and the attention I received was an attempt to answer some of my burning questions about God and the insistences in the Bible - but more, often, an introduction to diversion - trolling for walleyes on Lake of the Woods to playing bridge - in fact, it got to the point where he had me playing bridge every moment I wasn't working or in class - not good, this too much of an interesting thing. I haven't played bridge in earnest in the thirty-three years since then. So I went to Concordia, St. Paul. That, too, 'twas not to be. The clergy/faculty there didn't like the questions I asked, and they became most upset when conversations with some of the younger students - there was also an academy there where young people arrived right after grade school - turned to the questions about God and those inconsistencies in the Bible in which every word was supposed to be true - in fact, I was almost brought up on some strange version of the what did Socrates in - corrupting the youth, for Christ's sake! Now I know Socrates. Socrates is a friend of mine - and I ain't no Socrates. Nonetheless, just asking the questions were enough to strongly suggest to me that I might now have a calling for the future folks at Concordia prepared to follow. I don't think that the faculty ever found out that I did a brief gig at the budding new improvisational theatre down town in Minneapolis, Duddly Riggs Brave New Workshop - that wouldn't have helped, had any of them known what the hell went on at Duddly Riggs. So I returned home - and my father had to pay back the money used to send me to Concordia. I'm happy to be here with good friends - and to enjoy the company of those who find nothing wrong with asking questions, like my friend Jean Waldera. Methinks, indeed, whatever gods or goddesses may be do in fact answer prayers in mysterious ways - and methinks I should be thanking them for not allowing me to continue at Concordia - 'twouldn't have been good for me, and it certainly would have been troublesome for any who found themselves listening to one of my sermons, because I'm not about the business of reinforcing prejudice and spiritual poverty if I can help it. Nor are you, my kola - we're about taking care of ourselves so we can do the best possible job of looking out for each other. Ev Albers Monday, February 16th, 2004
Words for Today -- "Hard work never killed anybody, but why take a chance?"-- So said perhaps the most famous dummy in the world, the iconoclast through whom the great comedian and ventriloquist Edgar Bergen spoke. Bergen was born on this day in 1903. Back when I was growing up in Hannover Township, we loved to listen to Charlie's show – featuring the likes of guests like Hopalong Cassidy and Rose Mary Clooney – and a real dummy of a dummy, the dull-witted Mortimer Snerd -- from time to time. Today is an observance created by less-than-kind Zsa Zsa Gabor, National Slap a Cop Day. I'm not sure what particular incident brought Ms. Gabor to create the day. 'Tis also Do a Grouch a Favor Day, which is not a bad thing to do any more any occasion. After all, us grouches – I count myself among them too much of the time – need all the help we can get. My lovin' spouse and I have nothing to be grouchy about his fine day a few miles as the crow flies from beauuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuutiful Dakota, where the temperature soars to the teens and the wind's a bit brisk. We're here basking in the sunny days, sans breeze or bugs, of Lake Havasu City where 'twill be in the seventies today. We're with our friends, the generous souls and the most compatible and companionable for fellow passengers here in the middle work, Jean and Jerry Waldera, who came to get us last Saturday night on a late flight from Las Vegas and escort us to a clean, well-lighted motel last night at Railroad Junction, and then on here to the magnificent condo where they abide by this noon – 'tis mountain time here – pacific in Vegas and California, across the way. We' re in the great state of Arizona, and I must agree, untimely ripped though I be from the wondrous weather of beauuuuuuuuuuuuuutiful Dakota, 'tis quite tollrble' place to be, all things considered. We drove around the area of some 50,000 yesterday – growing and improving at a dizzying pace. Folks go down to one of the finest public piers I've seen to fish for bass – and they boat in units that cost more than our house in Bismarck. Curiously, most dwellings here have two huge garages – one really large one for an RV – restless folk, methinks, who need to pack up and leave Lake Havasu – unless they're motoring to the mountains to stay cool in the summer. Jean and Jerry provide not only the most comfortable of accommodations, there's two pies in the refrigerator, juices, Ensure, and wonderful food – in fact, kola, yesterday was one of considerable consumption by yours truly, who even had a bit of steak last night – watch those red counts soar now! Today there's be more pie – enough to fortify for a pontoon trip on the lake – and, if one has a mind to, one can go out on the patio and pick a grapefruit for breakfast – or make one a dummy for a foray into ventriloquism. These poor folk down here languish without snow or drifts or frozen ice – including our friends Jerry & Jean, who are expatriates from their home on Lake Melissa in Clay County, Minnesota – and who spend decades teaching at Dickinson State in western North Dakota. There's no ice fishing at Lake Havasu. Truly 'tis a remarkable place – but the true reason for my spouse Leslie's and my great pleasure and contentment is the companionship of such friends as J & J – we've been here but a day and a few hours, and already we've enjoyed great laughter and high humor. Today, of course is President's Day – now that we've lumped Abe Lincoln's 12th and George Washington's 22nd into one celebration and added the rest of those who have served in our country's highest office – and made the day on a Monday so folks could have a long weekend. Not for the Humanities Council back in Bismarck, the folks I work for – we don't take off President's Day, I don't think. OMF, Thomas Matthew McGrath, the epic poet of the twentieth century who is Dakota's gift to the millennia, said that work is slavery or play – and I think that the work that Charlie McCarthy would avoid is slavery, not the "play" in a quite distinct sense that McGrath meant. My friends Jean and Jerry work and play all time – in their most active retirement, they have a full calendar taking care of themselves and looking out for their children and grandchildren and all their friends – 'tis a busy, but most happy life the Walderas lead. Jean, for example, prepared a reader's theatre for the county Democratic function here in Lake Havasu – 'twas a well-attended event – they had dinner (we had a better one at Jean and Jerry's home before we left), awards, and then a great half-hour of the words, ideas, and ideals of two former presidents, Woodrow Wilson and Harry S. Truman, with proper attention paid to their lovin' spouses. 'Twas a grand half hour. Jean's at the left in this photograph (note: photo missing) taken last night at the local high school where the event took place. While proper acknowledgement of Presidents Wilson and Truman was there, the message of the program was clear: these two achieved what they did in no small part because of their lovin' spouses. So, 'tis true for my old friend Jerry Waldera and me – we're the most fortunate of men, he and I. Unlike my pal Jerry, I've never entered the political fray. He did, back when he was teaching at Dickinson State about a couple of decades ago – Jerry ran successfully for the United States Senate from a heavily-Republican place – hell, all but the most grouchy, died-in-the-wool loved – and love – Jerry Waldera, whose politics are populist, based in the strongest convictions – shared and reinforced by his spouse's own commitment to looking out for one's neighbor – that we are doing one hell of a lousy job of treating others as we would be treated, and that we damned well better be about something about it. Jerry won and served several terms – he stayed with us in Bismarck during the biennial sessions – babysitting for our children on occasion and watching many a bad movie late at night after I retired with my spouse – including those of the ilk of Conan the Barbarian. They still like bad movies – they haven't reformed in the weest, those two. The desert here ain't far from or much different than Barstow, California, where my big brother Jim lived for years after finishing a stint with the army – he drove a jeep for a colonel in Korea following the end of the war. Jim came back and brought his wife Lucille to Barstow, where my nephew James John Albert Albers was born. Jim first worked at a big Marine Depot, and he later went to work for a dairy farmer on whose land he parked his trailer – I went to visit him and his family back in the early 1960s and stayed a couple of months finding work here and there on one of my hiatuses from going to college – 'twas at one job in Barstow that I learned that work can be slavery, all right – and that what I was doing should be avoided at all costs. I was hired off the street by a swimming pool contractor – his eyes brightened mightily when I told him I was from North Dakota – "We like guys from the Dakotas," he said with a grin. He told me he could pay me a lot more if he did so in cash – I think I went to work for the handsome hourly rate of $2.50/hour. We worked fifty-sixty hour weeks – no overtime. My job was pushing a wheelbarrow full of concrete without break – from sunrise to sunset and beyond to twilight – a ten-minute break on the morning and another in the afternoon with twenty minutes for lunch – and for which my generous employer deducted an hour from the time spent on the job. We were collected before daybreak at a meeting place downtown and driven in a truck to the site where the pool was being installed. When I finally said, "I've had enough of this, and I'm not gonna take it anymore," as someone says in the movie Thousand Clowns, the guy offered me a $0.25/hour raise – so I worked a bit more. So I stuck with it a bit – even though the guy had a clock or a watch that kept different time than mine – his ran a lot slower, and so, when I came to end of a six-day week on Saturday night, I thought I had worked fifty-five hours – ten hours a day less the five hours for the breaks, but he came up with forty-two hours – he said it had rained a couple of afternoons and slowed us down. I think the guy became a millionaire because of Mortimer Snerds like me. My friend Jerry has similar stories of working for slave-driving farmers down in the Geneseo area of southeastern North Dakota, the Polish community where his father Roman owned the most important business in town, the one without which the social compact of the community would not have been able to continue – the bar and tavern. But Jerry, the oldest of three sons who helped out his father from a very early age, also went out to help area farmers hay and harvest – hard work for little money. My big brother Jim, I remember, worked one harvest season during the last years of the big threshing rigs – just before combines took over in earnest. Jim was a spike-pitcher – that is, he helped unload the wagons of bundles constantly, as opposed to those who went out to the fields, loaded their wagons, then came in the machine area and waited their turn to unload. The guys with the teams and wagons – usually eight or ten of them – had lots of time to loaf and contemplate the clouds and play such juvenile pranks as tying a bundle to the back of the wagon so that the spike-pitcher would fall on his ass when he tried to fork it into the voracious feeder of the huge threshing machine. But my brother had no such breaks – he was to be on a wagon at all times helping haulers unload as quickly as possible – one man from each side of the machine couldn't keep pace with the big units running a full . My brother would come home at night exhausted – and awaken so stiff he couldn't move his arms at first. For this incredibly hard work, he was paid the handsome sum – in cash, of course, to avoid social security – of $10,00 day – days that started at 4:00 A.M. and often ended at 7:30 with supper. 'Tis that kind of work that should be avoided – why Charlie McCarthy was so right – "Why take a chance?" even if it is true that "hard work never hurt anyone." Hard work of this ilk only lined the pockets of someone else. Which is not to say that work is not absolutely essential to human happiness – in my humble opinion. In the first years of the twentieth century, we have mechanized away or winked as foreign workers came to in to the concrete hauling and spike-pitching jobs my brother and I did – and we've send away to places where it can be done cheaper the jobs that once sustained a great middle class in this country – today, on a scale ever experienced in the history of social compacts among human beings, the distance between those who have money and those who do not is enormous -- wealth largely wrought from the labor of others and made from being privileged to tap natural resources in a way denied to the vast majority. 'Twas something my friend Jerry fought against as state senator, something he and his wife Jean have worked against all of their lives in every way they can, including putting together fine readers' theatres that both teach and delight. Here's to day with the finest of friends and the most noble of causes – may you find ourselves with such this day, kola. Ev Albers Sunday, February 15th, 2004
Words for Today -- "The total absence of humor from the Bible is one of the most singular things in literature."-- Right on, Brother Whitehead – you wonderfully insightful philosopher and mathematician born on this day the year the Civil War began. You lived to see the beginning of the Cold War in earnest in 1947. I noticed that when I was a lad growing up out in the Garden of the Universe in Hannover Township in Oliver County – not only was there a singular lack of humor in the Bible, there was none that I ever remember in the Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod church and the Bible classes at the school I attended – not in a sermon, not nor in Sunday school. Born into sin and condemned to hell unless we accepted Jesus Christ as the Son of God and the only way to heaven – and that by grace alone – we youngsters who took everything we heard seriously really didn't have a hell of a lot of fun in church – it wasn't a place where I remember ever hear anyone laugh upstairs where men sat on one side and the woman sat on the other with the children – until that custom broke down when we moved to a new church. But we did laugh a bit in the basement, where the school plays were performed and there was entertainment of other sorts – including lots of music, because the long-time teacher out in Hannover, Ted Kaelberer, who was there more than thirty years, believed that everyone could be taught to sing – now there was an optimist! Had it not been for Ted Kaelberer's inclination to tolerance and something less than the hide-bound morality of the folks in power out there in Hannover, things could have been pretty grim in the school. We were true believers, and knew exactly what was right and wrong – not only for us, but for the rest of the world as well. That's a lot easier if you're a majority, but we weren't in Oliver County – which was populated by a great many Roman Catholics, Methodists, and those other, lapsed Lutherans of the ALC ilk – American Lutheran Church. We heard rumors that there were even folks living within the county borders who weren't at least Christian in name, if not members of the one church true to every word of the Bible – humorless though it be. Whitehead was right when he asked and answered a rhetorical question: What is morality in any given time or place? It is what the majority then and there happen to like and immorality is what they dislike." In short, what is right and what is wrong in a social compact depends upon how far the pendulum of self-righteous interference in the lives of our neighbors has swung in the direction of "a whole lot" – the condition we find ourselves in this year 2004, when a majority of Americans have decided that the social compact recognition of couples living together and taking care of each other must be limited to a woman and a man – and we approach a national collective homophobic hysteria. The true believers who are opposed to same-sex marriages, to a woman's right to choose whether or not carries a fetus to term, and who are outraged by the bare breast of Janet Jackson during half-time of the Super Bowl are a humorless lot as well – doubt if any of them have had a belly laugh recently. Policing one's neighbors to make sure they are leading moral lives in hard work, kola, and there ain't no time for laughter. 'Twas another of today's birthday folk, the English philosopher and general advocate of free expression Jeremy Bentham, born on this day two hundred and fifty-six years ago in 1748 when nearly all of the English-speaking world agreed those who didn't accept Jesus Christ were condemned to eternal damnation. This remarkable free thinker observed that "As to the evil which results from censorship, it is impossible to measure it, because it is impossible to tell where it ends. Today it's fines increased to more than a quarter-million dollars proposed to prevent a breast from being bared on national television again – tomorrow, who knows? It's like those in the current administration that in fact made an effort to stop such web sites as whitehouse.org from lampooning members of the administration – it bespeaks a lack of a sense of humor for one thing, for another it pretends to a super morality without any basis in a record of contributing to a social compact that increases the possibility of happiness for all members of the compact. Here's to you, Jeremy and Alfred – would that we could find a way to take ourselves less seriously. Whitehead stood firm for taking a chance on the future, for the possibility that we don't know it all, and that what we do know will be bested by a better explanation in the future. Birthday boy Galileo Galilei, the Italian astronomer was judged by the Roman Catholic Church to be a heretic for daring to suggest that perhaps the earth was not the center of the universe around which revolved the sun and all the identified planets. Galileo, born on this day in 1564, four hundred and forty years ago insisted that "I do not feel obliged to believe that the same God who has endowed us with sense, reason, and intellect has intended us to forego their use." There are times, of course, when reason, common sense, and the intellect are not enough to explain what we know to be true – and this is the area of religion. The problem, of course, was the development of a social compact that includes passengers here in the middle world with great differences in their religious convictions and the degree to which they support a public morality that infringes on individual freedom unnecessarily or selfishly. We really didn't have those problems when I was a lad. I've been reading Wendell Berry, that great Kentucky poet and novelist who preaches love of the land and respect for one's roots not with a sledge hammer but with great humor and considerable skill. In Jayber Crow, the protagonist, who tells the story in first-person, has been both orphaned and then orphaned again when his aging aunt and uncle take him in – so he's placed by the community at the religious home for orphans. Jayber remembers his life with his Aunt Cordie and Uncle Orthy at Berry's created town of Port William – in many ways, more real than the real places many of us call home. Jayber observes, "And so there would always be more to remember that could no longer be seen. This is one of the things I can tell you that I have learned: our life here is in some ways marginal to our own doings, and our doing are marginal to the greater forces that are always at work. Our history is always returning to a little patch of weeds and saplings with an old chimney sticking up by itself. And I can tell you a further thing that I have learned, and here I look ahead to the resting of my case: I love the house that belonged to the chimney, holding it bright in my memory, and I love the saplings and the weeds." There are weeds, of course, back on the farmstead where I grew up in the Garden of the Universe in Hannover Township in Oliver County – and the house still stands, unfortunately. I sure wish my cousin Randy, who bought the farm from my mother when my Dad died in 1990, would tear it down, for it's suffered mightily from vandalism and too many unheated winters in Dakota – it deserves a burning or something, for I doubt it can ever be habitable again. A chimney standing alone is fine – Jayber's remembered house was different, for it obviously had a fireplace on an outside wall. All has to go in the house I called home – that white frame house, spliced together from two other houses – so there's a little slope going down from the original two rooms to the two-story addition. This little slope was a great place to play with toy trucks and cars – we didn't really have such, but all the grandchildren did, and they spent many an hour on that little slope. My major entertainment when I was a lad was laboriously screwing in wood screws and hammering nails into the sill between the kitchen and porch – although the porch door was never left open in the winter. So I had to do my hammering and screwing in the other seasons in beauuuuuuuuuutiful Dakota. If I had time, I'd retrieve that sill before the house were burned – but perhaps the memory is better than having the sill – and I don't know what the hell I would do with it, anyway. The upstairs of the add-on house could never be heated adequately – the heat was supposed to rise from open registers in the floor of the two rooms, and when 'twas the weest bit seasonable, that heat didn't rise beyond the first floor from the furnace burning lignite in the basement – the stoking and maintenance of which was a full-time job. I especially remember the curse of the clinkers, those huge chunks of what looked like coal that harbored clay that would harden and foul up the furnace – they had to be pulled out of the fire at considerable risk, for that fire was hot, hot, hot. My Dad was the master stoker – through the last years of his life. In part, I think, having to stoke that damned furnace kept him alive. After all of the children left – and that took quite a while for some of us, because I still stayed at farm for a summer or two when I was in my mid-20s – the upstairs became something of a cold storage area in the winter – no one went up unless they really had to when the temperature dipped. But when we were home, the east room at the top of the stairs was where my big brother, Jim, and I slept – later, my sisters slept up there in the west room. The east room had a window that didn't quite fit – nor did the storm window, so when the wind came from the southeast – as it does with some of the great storms, we would awake with a blanket of snow atop the quilts – 'twas quite warm, actually, until one had to get out of bed. I was not one to suffer discomfort unless I absolutely had to, so I happily used the chamber pot instead of struggling to the outhouse in the dead of Dakota winters in the Garden of the Universe – and I suppose my mother emptied them, just as she did most everything else – except stoking the furnace, which was really my father's only household chore. In his later years, he would boil water and fix himself a piece of toast, but he sure didn't cook much. 'Twas a lot warmer in the center of the household, the kitchen, before that greatest of inventions, a combination coal and electric stove, and before that a straight coal stove, were replaced with an all-electric stove. The fire was always going in the coal half of the combination stove – and there was a coffee pot on it at all times. Among our favorite winter foods came from the huge kettle that was recessed into this marvelous stove – 'twould be filled with homemade egg noodles and perhaps a canned canned chicken or some boiling beef. We really didn't need much from the village store, a long half-mile away, reachable only by horse and sleigh – flour, sugar, and some occasional fruit – our spices were bought in the fall when most of the work was done and the grain threshed from the Watkins' man, old man Wilkins – how's that, Wilkins the Watkins man? 'Tis true, he traveled from farm to farm a couple of times a year selling spices, a nectar that was a precursor of Kool-Aid – and a whole lot less expensive – as well as a line of personal products – we didn't buy those. Fact is, we didn't know what deodorant was until much later in the 1950s – and, of course, until we put in the bathroom, one never took a bath unless it was Saturday night. I suppose we were used to each other, but I know for certain that there must have been times when one could smell a family member coming before they saw or heard them coming. We did try to separate our barn clothes from the stuff we wore to school – or to town. In my father's case, he usually wore a second pair over a relatively clean pair of bib overalls – over long johns, of course. My parents had great, sometimes heated, discussions about how often the bib overalls should be washed – especially the outer pair that hung in the porch above our dog Curly's blankets – our faithful Collie slept out there when the weather really got bad. My mother was of the opinion that they should be washed before they took on enough of the great aroma of the barn where fifteen stanchioned milk cows, a pen of calves, the horses Kate and Ben, and sometimes a penned bull spent most of their time in the depth of winter when 'twas too cold to allow them outside during the day in the corral area east of the big barn – the bull, of course, never really got out except on a really warm day when his pen would be cleaned. Although the gutters behind the milk cows had to be cleaned every day, whether or not it was possible to haul the manure to the fields in the spreader pulled by Kate and Ben – when the weather really got rough, the manure was pitched out the east door – and even that brought a pretty big chill on the days the wind came from that direction. My father held that washing took more life from the denim than any wear and tear – that he could make them last a hell of a lot longer were he able to wear them for a week or two – and that the cows really didn't give a shit, so to speak, if he gave off the odor he picked up from them them – and, besides, he never wore them to town. I don't know why my mother would be eager to wash them – or any clothes for that matter – in the wintertime. Now there was a chore, especially before she finally got something we would recognize today as a washer and dryer – through the 50s, she used a white wringer-washer that she cursed with the same language I remember she once washed out my mouth with soap for saying – but that was only once, and I think it was at the insistence of some holier-than-thou relative that prompted her to administer such a shocking punishment. These same interfering folk – sisters-in-law in particular, would often suggest a heavy dose of corporeal punishment for coloring the walls – especially if they were newly-papered – as high as we could reach – my sister Faye and I considered this our responsibility – decorating the walls. But my mother, ever-indulgent, could not bring herself to punish such self-expression – just as she really never said anything when I hammered and screwed away on the sill – oh, she may have once suggested that I not leave anything raised above the surface because the door wouldn't shut, but that was about it. But back to washing day – and I know I've written about this before, but 'twas quite an ordeal, and I fully understand why my mother might make rather earthy remarks referring to the most elemental of human activity – as well as occasionally even taking the Lord's name in vain on washing days. Before water was run to the house from the well in the barn in a buried pipe line, water had to be carried in to wash – and then the clothes were wrung out through that ringer -- and then take them outside and hang them on the line over the big snow drifts where they froze solid. Then they would be brought into the house – bib overalls that could stand by themselves – and thawed in the lignite odor-laden air – they would have to dry inside, of course. I know there's a rationale for most of what I consider the nonsense of the good old days, but if there's a reasonable defense of this practice, I would like to hear it – I've asked my ninety-one-year-old mother why she did it – 'twas, of course, because that's the way things were done. But the cussing of those days betrays the fact that she knew damned well she was wasting time doin' it, just because that's the way her mother did it. Before TV in the 50s, there was radio – one a combination radio/phonograph player my dad brought back from New Salem, nineteen miles to the south, one particularly balmy Christmas season. The old upright went upstairs with big brother Jim, if I remember right. The phonograph played 78s – and the Gamble's Store provided a supply to get us started – and then we would get the old ones from the bar where Uncle Elmer worked in Hazen for a while – mostly country-western, but a few other goodies as well. Among the fondest memories are coming home from school on nasty days and tuning in to the back-to-back broadcasts of Sergeant Preston of the Yukon and the Lone Ranger – a wonderful hour, often with the additional pleasure of a bowl of the fat noodle soup. We also listened to The Shadow, and there was always music. Later, after we got TV, we still had a radio in the barn – where we heard the news and music every morning and every night. I hope Randy burns that house without a chimney to leave standing to the ground – I can't stand driving down the road north of Hannover and looking past the pasture where Curly went to get the cows all but the worst of the winter months and seeing that abandoned place that lives so vividly in my memory – and memory are where such places beyond renewed life belong. The barn went years ago – let the house follow. I wish the same for my body, this shell that houses my soul – burn it – and then scatter my ashes over the farmstead where weeds thrive in my mother's old flower and vegetable gardens of old. Tell you the truth, wouldn't mind in the least if it were a day with a bit of blustery weather from the southeast. But let that day not come soon – and today's a grand day indeed, for we awoke at a clean, well-lighted place called Railroad Pass where our dear friends Jerry and Jean Waldera took us after picking us up at the Las Vegas airport last night – we traveled from Omaha yesterday late yesterday afternoon and arrived here last night – the weest bit weary but in the finest of fettle. A big day ahead, this grand and glorious Sunday morning in this foreign place sans snow – 'tis warm enough here to go out in coat sleeves. We'll have a leisurely trip southward and back across a time zone ('tis the Pacific Zone here at Railroad Pass and but 5:30 A.M.) to the MT and Lake Havasu – and perhaps a trip on the pontoon on the lake today. In our short visit last night we've already laughed heartily and had one hell of a good time. I look a bit like Alfalfa from Spanky and Our Gang, because I'm missing my front tooth again – 'tis a false one, and it keeps coming out of its moorings – and what little hair I have 'tis more than the weest whispy in this gentle desert wind. Of course, I miss beauuuuuuuutiful Dakota, but sure 'tis wonderful to be with such great friends. I do hope that Sunday morning finds you at peace with God as you understand him/her and not too eager to change your neighbor's mind about her ideas of god and morality – 'tis the secret to getting along here in the middle world. Ev Albers Saturday, February 14th, 2004
Words for Today -- "'Nobody on his deathbed ever said, "I wish I had spent more time at the office.' " -- So said Paul Tsongas, who would have been but sixty-three today had he lived – he died in 1992 at the tender age of fifty-five back in 1997 – he almost made it to his fifty-sixth birthday – he left the middle world in January. A survivor of a very aggressive cancer of the lymph nodes diagnosed in 1983, he left public life to be with his family – and he was cancer-free when he died of liver failure and pneumonia brought on by the treatment that was keeping him alive – a treatment which included getting a life-saving bone marrow transplant from his sister. He ran for president in 1992 – he lost the race to be the Democratic candidate to Bill Clinton. He was one extraordinary man who chose to be a politician, a nice guy and a thoughtful traveler in the middle world who believed that we have an obligation to take care of each other and to get our priorities right. A remarkable tribute was paid the memory of former Senator Tsongas on the Senate Floor by Connecticut's Christopher Dodd on January 28, 1997. Said Dodd, in part Begin Dodd Quote on Tsongas In all the time I knew him, Paul Tsongas never wavered from the firmly held beliefs and principles that guided his public and private life. What is more, Paul was never afraid to speak his mind or voice an opinion, no matter how controversial or unpopular. The courage was never more evident than in his hard fought battle to conquer the health problems that plagued him for more than a decade and eventually took his life. When Paul was diagnosed with cancer in 1983, he gave up what was then a promising political career in the U.S. Senate to undergo radical treatment and rehabilitation. After his amazing recovery, Paul stayed close to his family arguing that no man ever died wishing he'd spent more time with his business. But the pull of the arena was too strong for Paul Tsongas and after being cleared by doctors to resume his political career he began what most observers termed a futile campaign to unseat George Bush. But, what he lacked in fiery oratory he made up for with a commonsense agenda that appealed to Democrats across the country. While Paul failed to gain the Democratic nomination he never lost his dignity or the trademark dry wit that always characterized him. Teddy Roosevelt once said that of public service "It is not the critic that counts. . . . The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena; whose face is marked by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs and comes short again and again; who knows the great enthusiasm and great devotions, and spends himself in a worthy cause, who at the best, knows in the end the triumph of high achievement; and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly; so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who know neither victory nor defeat." Paul Tsongas knew well both the joys of victory and the anguish of defeat. No matter what adversity befell him, be it personal or political, he never paused from his tireless efforts to improve the world around him. For all those in the Senate and throughout the country who valued his wise counsel and commitment to public service he will be sorely missed. End Senator Dodd on Paul Tsongas I salute Paul Tsongas' memory today – we need someone of his commitment to public service today. He deserves more recognition, for 'twas he who raised the issues that Bill Clinton eventually capitalized upon to win the election. This is also the birthdate of Jimmy Hoffa of Teamster fame, born on this day in 1913. We know that Hoffa met an unfortunate end – he left the middle world under mysterious circumstances back in 1975. Hoffa once said, "I may have my faults, but being wrong isn't one of them." Reminds me of the old saying, "I always said no one was perfect, and then I met [enter any name you want]." We aren't perfect – that's what makes us interesting, kola, especially on a day like Valentine's Day. Aye, kola, 'tis a beautiful day here in Watertown, South Dakota, where my lovin' spouse and I stopped on our way to Omaha ha ha. I'm down in the breakfast room of a Super 8 – a clean, well-lighted place that even has a phone line to hook up my computer. 'Twill be a grand day for travel, although 'twill be the weest bit more seasonable, weatherwise, than it's been. Unseasonably warm day for the trip thus far – and 'twill be warming up to real thawing back in beauuuuuuuuuuuutiful Bismarck. All goes well, we'll be catching a plane in Omaha this afternoon to spend a couple of days with our dear friends Jean & Jerry Waldera down in their retreat from the crisp climate of the North in Lake Havasu in Arizona – get to Las Vegas about 8:00 tonight and be whisked to a clean, well-lighted motel somewhere en route to their place on the lake. It's the birthday of Arizona as a state this very day – back in 1912 – we'll say Happy Birthday a day day late, tomorrow. 'Twill seem the weest weird to go out for an excursion on the lake on a pontoon. My lovin' spouse has no love of flying – I did get her on a plane to Ireland some four years ago – not quite, for we left on the night of 2000 election in November 2000 – for no small part of the time we were there, she fretted about the trip back. I have no problem flying – I just go to sleep because nothing I can do will make any difference one why or another. Drives Leslie slightly nutzo, 'cause she wants me to help her concentrate to keep the plane up – she says it takes enormous will on her part to do so. For all I know she may be right – so as a Valentine's present this trip, perhaps I'll help her concentrate. Valentine's Day – how well I remember the way it was back in Hannover Township in Oliver County back in the 1950s on Valentine's Day – the Hannover Store – maybe we went as far as Stanton or Center – but I think that the Hannover Store carried the packs of valentines and the sugary little hearts with such pap as "Be Mine" and "Happy Valentine's Day." If we were really into it, we may have made one for our mother – otherwise we used the pack of thirty or so that we bought. 'Twas mighty hard to favor anyone with a special valentine – they were all about the same. I think that we set up our little mail boxes on our desks – and everyone gave everyone else a valentine – regardless of sex, body odor, or whether or not their hair was combed. I just remembered – there were a great many bad hair days back then, because we wore tight caps with earflaps – one didn't want to ride bareheaded behind the sleigh in the winter – tell you the truth, I don't remember what the girls wore, but 'twas more than a scarf, I'll tell you that – perhaps a woolen cap, but more likely the same sort of earflapper we boys wore. You wanted to be warm to go out and make snow angels or play fox and goose – alas, we didn't have those great lined snow boots one can pick up now for a song at Walmart's or K-Mart – made somewhere in Asia, of course. We wore four-buckle overshoes. There was many a Valentine's Day that one didn't see a motorized vehicle – tractor, car, truck – in fact, there were weeks when we didn't see one. We traveled by horse and sleigh – and I'm sure that supplies were brought by truck to the Hannover Store where one could buy anything from kerosene to candy, all the popular medicines, bib overalls and shirts – in addition to groceries. But we didn't see that truck, because we were inside the school. Don't know what the store did to stock up when the roads blocked up completely for long periods – I think that folks just made do. Hannover Township was dairy country, and the Holsteins had to be milked twice a day, morning and night as close to twelve hours apart as possible – regardless of how bad the weather was. The creamery was a cooperative – and it accepted only sweet cream, so the cream had to be hauled to the village at least a couple of times a week. One of my earliest memories is watching my father grab an eight-gallon can of cream in each hand and head down the road through the drifts to the creamery – 'twas less than a half-mile away, but that's a long, long way when there's a blizzard and one faces the possibility of plunging through the crust atop the drifted snow and having to crawl out. He walked because it was too treacherous for the horses – how's that for taking the business of farming seriously? My memories of the winter my father's brother was with us are especially vivid – his name was Willard, but we all called him "Shorty." My dad came from a family of six boys and four girls – all the boys were born first – my uncles Otto, Elmer, Ray, my Dad Albert, Shorty, and Roy – and then the girls Edith, Vera, Nellie, and Marie. Of the ten, only my Aunt Marie survives. My father died of lung cancer in his late seventies – he was born back in 1912, when Arizona became a state, as was my mother, who is ninety-one and going strong – living in an assisted living facility over in New Salem, just down the road west on I-94 from Bismarck. But I digress – I was telling you about the winter Uncle Shorty stayed with us back on farm in the 1950s, when we took the tires off the car, removed the battery, drained the crankcase, and covered it for the winter season. Shorty would drive the team, or Kate and Ben, across the pasture to the school – we would be bundled up in layer upon layer, but Shorty's World War II lined cap was at a rakish angle and the earflops would be blowin' in the wind – and, as often as not, his great coat would be open to the elements. You see, Uncle Shorty had the weest bit of alcohol from time to time – actually, he had it as often as could in any form he could find – he did catch a ride up the road to Center, six miles to the east, from time to time – and he was quite a card until he became so inebriated that he became a real nuisance – lying on the tiny kitchen floor muttering the praises of his boots, which he said carried him through the war – don't think so: they were probably after-WWII surplus. I remember the day my mother found one of his bottles and poured it down the sink – Uncle Shorty cried. But there were long periods when Shorty didn't have booze that long winter, and he told great stories – very few of which were true, I'm sure. I think that he was a cook in the army. Shorty went on out to California where three of my aunts and Uncle Ray went as well – Lodi, which through the 1970s was populated, for the most part, by former North and South Dakotans. Shorty worked on dairies and other farms – and he continued his nipping from time to time. He didn't drive in those years, but he had a bicycle to ride around, and he would hop a bus from time to time to visit his sisters. He found the California winters a bit cold – and he happened upon a solution to his housing problems by accident. Jailed for a short time one winter for vagrancy or some other charge – probably involving alcohol – Shorty found himself on a prison dairy where the work load was light, the food good, and the sleeping quarters clean and comfortable. He tried hard to get back the next winter – he rode his bicycle out somewhere and began lighting little brush fires – he was carrying about 200 books of matches. Then he called the authorities and demanded to be arrested. They did, but they didn't incarcerate him, and when he tried it again, they wouldn't even arrest him. Shorty was the only one of my father's siblings who never married – and I don't know if anyone ever sent him a valentine – so here's one sent your way, wherever you are – may your passage in whatever world you find yourself be one where you find a roof against the rain and sustaining food – think you're probably milking cows somewhere. Uncle Shorty, in reviewing what finally did him in – back in the 80s, I think – probably succumbed to pancreatic cancer, as did my father's father – although when he died in the 1960s, they didn't do autopsies – I don't think they bothered to diagnose Uncle Shorty, either. My grandpa John Albers turned most yellow before he died – the jaundice which finally took me to the doctor back in September 2002 – and my Aunt Nellie died of a cancer as well – that, too, could have been pancreatic cancer. Her older sisters Edith and Vera had other forms of cancer – uncles Otto, Ray, and Roy heart disease, and Uncle Elmer succumbed to kidney failure after long decades of nipping the weest from time to time himself. I don't know about the personal lives of all of my father's siblings – I do know that he and Uncle Otto – and their youngest brother, Roy, who happened to have six toes, but I can't remember which foot – that's another story – Otto, my Dad, and Roy didn't drink that much – in fact, my father would become quite ill if he drank more than a few shots – but all drank. It was a family tradition. 'Tis something I haven't done for quite a while – but I've tipped more than a few in my time. 'Tis not a good thing for those with the genetic structure that predisposes them to permitting the invasion by the insidious Big C, pancreatic cancer – but there's always the possibility of turning things around – and probably leaving the middle world for a different reason, as Paul Tsongas did – but later, instead of sooner, if I have my druthers on this Valentine's Day, 2004 – I've already made it almost a year beyond the most pessimistic of my physicians. And on this Valentine's Day, I'm truly thankful for the love of my spouse, Leslie, without whom I could never have made it heretofore – and I remember my lovin' children – Albert and his spouse Bobbi and Gretchen – Paul Tsongas was right – family should come first, and I've spent far too much time in my office and too little really being with them – in spirit when I can be with them, undistracted by work. Which is not to suggest that work is most critical to my survival – even Tsongas had to return to the fray. But this is a day to say "I love you" to all those who make one's passage in the middle world worth making – and to say thank you to all those like you, kola, who have reached out to me with such incredible unselfish concern and help – no one more than our dear friends Jerry & Jean Waldera, whom we'll be with 'ere another dawn. I've been reminded of Paul Tsongas this year with some aspects of the candidacy of Senator John Edwards – he's a down home sort of fellow appears to have married a no-nonsense, unpretentious woman – she is most appealing. I just learned today that the Edwards go out to Wendy's every Valentine's Day – maybe I'll suggest that we drive through Taco John's or Taco Bell on our trip south to Omaha today – might as well live it up and treat my lovin' spouse, who'll be drivin' whilst I'm snoozing this glorious day to be alive. 'Tis a day when we continue to be bombarded with would-be presidents offering us a vision for a more just social compact. Back in 1992, Paul Tsongas said, "The great political tugs of the past thirty-five years have concerned the distribution of the golden eggs. In the 1980s and 1990s we must focus on the health of the goose." The 80s and 90s were, of course, decades of folks getting as much of the pie as they possibly could – to hell with one's neighbors, let me get mine – time to take care of number one. As a result, the goose of state is less than well – the insidious invader of our social compact is the materialism, the getting and spending, the entrenchment of those who have and have no intention of sharing. We've yet to learn – and I'm as guilty as the worst of those still struggling – we still don't act on what we know to be true: we take the best care of ourselves when we look out for each other – it makes us human. Treating each other as we would be treated involves putting a valentine's in everyone's mailbox, as we did back in Hannover Township in Oliver County back in the 1950s. Happy Valentine's Day, kola. Ev Albers Friday, February 13th, 2004
Words for Today -- "Confronted with the choice, the American people would choose the policeman's truncheon over the anarchist's bomb." -- So said another Vice President – not former George Herbert Walker Bush's Secretary of Defense and current Vice President, elected with George W. Bush in 2000. The man who made this observation was Vice President to Richard Milhouse Nixon – Spiro T. Agnew. It isn't his birthday (November 9, 1918) or the day he left the middle world (September 17, 1996) or even the day he left office in disgrace over taking bribes and kickbacks (October 10, 1973) – actually, he was officially charged with not reporting some $25,000 on his income taxes while he was governor of Maryland. No, this is the day that Vice President Agnew went golfing and hit two tee shots into the crowd, injuring two people in 1971. Although Agnew pleaded that the Nixon administration was after him in order to take away the scrutiny the president was getting over the Watergate business, he was temporarily disgraced when the Maryland Bar Association disbarred him in 1974. Undaunted, Agnew became a foreign business consultant and did very well – and he outlived President Nixon, who would resign himself, by more than three years. Agnew knew how to turn a phrase – one has to give him that. Who can forget his characterization of the critics of the White House as "nattering nabobs of negativism." He also dismissed critics by saying that "A spirit of national masochism prevails, encouraged by an effete corps of impudent snobs who characterize themselves as intellectuals." And he said of those who questioned government policy, "They have formed their own 4-H club - the hopeless, hysterical hypochondriacs of history." May all the gods and goddesses help me, kola – methinks I may in fact be one of those, for I find much in the historical record of our social compact that leads me to a conclusion that we're not as well as we should be – and I suppose that it does indeed appear at time that I look at our condition as hopeless with a degree of hysteria. Nixon and Agnew were re-elected in a landslide in 1972 – all the electoral votes in the country except for the seventeen from Washington, D.C. and Massachusetts – which went for Senator George McGovern; and one from the state of Virginia which went to the Libertarian candidate Joseph Hospers. But within a very short time, the second Nixon presidency and the vice presidency of Spiro T. were in deep doo-doo. By the way, George McGovern is eighty-one and doing fine. McGovern was dismissed by the country in 1972 as far too liberal – after all, he said such things as "It is simply untrue that all our institutions are evil,... that all politicians are mere opportunists, that all aspects of university life are corrupt. Having discovered an illness, it's not terribly useful to prescribe death as a cure." He also gave us this version of "I'm as mad as hell, and I'm not gonna take it anymore: "I'm fed up to the ears with old men dreaming up wars for young men to die in." And 'twas George McGovern who lamented, "The Establishment center . . . has led us into the stupidest and cruelest war in all history. That war is a moral and political disaster -- a terrible cancer eating away at the soul of our nation." I don't think that McGovern has anything much kinder to say about our current response to a very real threat – international terrorists. Many of our political leaders from both political parties sound as though they support the spirit of Agnew's belief that the American people will give up personal freedom and liberty in the interest of security. The times we live in are perilous indeed – and the greatest threat to our social compact may well be an almost unchallenged establishment of treating citizens that ignores their rights to privacy. There's no few who would embed a computer chip into all citizens that contained our life's history – medical, family, and especially place of origin and affiliations. A couple of days ago, U.S. Attorney General John Ashcroft issued subpoenas for medical records of women who had an abortion – said one Congressman, Eliot Engel of New York, "All Americans should have the right to visit their doctor and receive sound medical attention without the fear of Big Brother looking into those records." Right on, Brother Engel. We should also have the right to worship at a mosque without the government secretly wiretapping our phones. There's a deliciously Swiftianly satiric web site that call attention to this threat with humor – it has so outraged some government officials that they have threatened legal action – to now avail. The site purports to be the official White House site – and it's a real hoot. Give a look here, (note: weblink broken) and check out the Homeland Security Section where you will find the following: Safety Tips from Satiric Web Site, whitehouse.org Be vigilant! The enemy is all around. Americans observing any of the following are hereby commanded to contact the FBI immediately: - Brown-skinned persons conversing in heated jibberish - Turban-wearing persons demonstrating emotions other than all-American bliss and contentment - Sidewalk falafel vendors of ambiguous ethnicity who are unwilling to make change for a fifty - Arabic store owners or cab drivers who have not begun prominently displaying at least 3 American flags - Middle Eastern persons who become visibly uncomfortable and/or upset when confronted with your suspicious and hostile stares - Burka-clad transvestites End Whitehouse.org Lampoon On second thought, I'm really not one of Spiro's "nattering nabobs." Come to think on it, the most effective tool those of us who find our personal liberty threatened is indeed humor – drives the self-righteous, self-appointed guardians of the American Way that would save us from ourselves and terrorists from abroad crazy when folks laugh at them and their outrages. Aye, laughter's the key, the antidote to "hopeless hysteria." Think I'll browse around the weest bit more before a bit of breakfast and then preparing for the beginning of our trip east and south, then west and back – Omaha and beyond, here we come, my lovin' spouse and I. 'Tis gonna be another tropical day in Dakota – no kidding, 'twill reach the mid-30s. I do hope that you are taking care of yourselves, kola – and that you're looking out for each other. After all, if we don't respect our neighbors' rights and treat them as we would be treated by them, we can't expect them to help us out when we need them – and we all need each other. Ev Albers Thursday, February 12th, 2004
Words for Today -- "America will never be destroyed from the outside. If we falter and lose our freedoms, it will be because we destroyed ourselves." -- It's his birthday, of course – Honest Abe Lincoln, born on this day in 1809, dead at the hands of an assassin in 1865. I saw his picture every day when I went to school out in Hannover Township in Oliver County – not this one of him and his son Tad, but the formal sort of portrait – but taken from a photograph – that was framed and hanged alongside one George Washington – the same two framed pictures that were in every one room school I've ever seen – along with a copy of the Ten Commandments and at least one roll-down map of the United States and another of the world. I can see in my mind's eye and smell with my memory that room, the big school out in Hannover, St. Peter's Lutheran of the Missouri Synod persuasion where grades five to eight from the township went. There was the chalk dust, the purplish-pink sweeping compound, the smell of lignite coal burning – and the smell of unwashed bodies, because back then we took a bath on Saturdays, maybe – if it wasn't too damn cold in the kitchen. Back then, some of you will remember, we had two holidays in February (in addition to Valentine's Day) – that was before lumping all the presidents into one and doing President's Day as a national holiday – one for Abe on the 12th of February, another for George on the 22nd. Lincoln's birthday was declared a national holiday in 1892 – don't know why or when someone also made this National Plum Pudding Day in the good old U.S.A., but they did. We didn't have plum pudding when I was growing up out in Hannover Township – in fact, I don't know as though I've ever had it. Not even sure what's in a plum pudding, other than plums, which we did have on our farm in some trees over in the eastern corner, surrounded on two sides by our neighbor's pasture and and on the south by the road to Center, the county's metropolis where at least a couple of hundred folks lived back in the 1950s when we sat and stunk beneath Abe's portrait in Hannover School – don't know if those who went to Center Public bathed more often than we or not. Seems like there's a day for most everything – "every puppy has his day" – yesterday, for example, was National Don't Cry Over Spilled Milk Day – and I'm horribly remiss in not letting you know in advance. This whole month is Grapefruit Month, as well as Snack Food Month – I used to celebrate the latter every day of the year back when I weighed about what the famed Dr. Atkins is supposed to have tipped the scales at when he died – in between those times I was on the Atkins Diet in earnest, beginning in the early 70s when I lost about sixty pounds – but now I'm less than 160 pounds, nearly 100 pounds less than the most I weighed in the past – and I don't need a diet to keep my weight down – the insidious invader does this for me very nicely. I don't think I'll ever balloon up again in this go-around in the middle world. Ah, but I digress. I do want to give you a heads-up, for February 19 is National Chocolate Mint Day – that's four days after Valentine's – and if you're a careful shopper, you'll find chocolate mints on sale after the mad rush through Saturday – big holiday, Valentine's – Honest Abe's birthday doesn't come close. And coming up – it will be here faster than you think, kola – is National Pistachio Day on February 26. National Pancake Week is February 21-26 – that's not to be confused with National Pancake Day, which doesn't come until September. And I do trust that you haven't forgotten that this is National Canned Fruit Month – that's how we got almost all of our fruit back in Hannover Township, except for the plums in the fall and the occasional apple and rare orange – that or from the Mason jars of canned peaches my mother would sometimes put up. There's was none of this business of an apple a day, though, I can tell you that. I still like canned peaches. But we didn't have plum pudding, which I've heard about since my earliest youth – mostly from works like Charles Dickens A Christmas Carol. Just today, about fifty-five years after I first heard about plum pudding, I learned that most traditional recipes don't include plums! Now what's this – here's the ingredients from an 1896 cookbook 1/2 lb. Stale Bread Crumbs 1 cup Scalded Milk 1/4 lb. Sugar 4 Eggs 1/2 lb. Raisins, seeded, cut in pieces, and floured 1/4 lb. Currants 1/4 lb. Finely Chopped Figs 2 oz. Finely Cut Citron 1/2 lb. Suet 1/4 cup Wine and Brandy mixed 1/2 Grated Nutmeg 3/4 teaspoon Cinnamon 1/3 teaspoon Clove 1/3 teaspoon Mace Hey, this sounds like fruit cake, which I've had a good deal of – and, alas, can eat now only on the best of days. Yes, I do know that raisins are dried plums, so I get the connection. Some folks say that Lincoln's wife, Mary Todd Lincoln, was nuttier than a fruitcake – a charge less than kind. She was never the same after the Lincoln's son Willie died in 1863. She also had a carriage accident – she fell on her head on a rock. Then there was the whole business about her half-brothers getting killed while fighting for the Confederacy. She took refuge in seances. She was very worried when her husband was so untimely ripped from this middle world that Congress would do something about her free-spending ways in decorating and running the White House – she was way over budget. There was, in fact, a Congressional investigation in 1866 about allegations that she had taken silverware and linen and other things when she left the White House, but the Committee found no wrongdoing. She went off to live in Germany for three years. Given a $3,000/year life-time pension in 1870. Her youngest son, Tad, died young in 1871. Her oldest son, Robert, had her declared insane by a jury in 1875, but the fifty-six-year-old Mary spent but a few months in an asylum, and she returned to Europe the following year. She returned home to Illinois in 1880 – and by 1881, she was very ill. She probably had been a diabetic for years. She died one after having a stroke in July 1882 on the anniversary of her son Tad's death. Earlier in the year, Congress increased her pension to $5,000 and gave her a donation of $15,000. Always worried about money, she died with an estate of over $80,000. The turn-out for her funeral was terrific – it included her son, Robert, who Secretary of the War at the time, and the Governor of Illinois. She died in the house where she married Honest Abe, and at her death, she still wore the wedding ring that had "Love is eternal" engraved on the inside. We're gearing up here in beauuuuuuuuuuuuuutiful Dakota for Valentine's Day and celebration of eternal – and not-so-eternal – love. 'Tis a grand and glorious morn to dig out from the drifted snow that closed things down for a while Monday night and yesterday, Tuesday – the temperature climbs, and by tomorrow, Friday the 13th, 'twill rise above freezing here in Bismarck. My lovin' spouse and I will be hitting the road for a grand trip for regional Chautauqua meetings and other shenanigans that 'twill culminate with another week at that bastion of Staying Alive with the Big C, the Cancer Treatment Center of America at Zion, Illinois. So we won't be able to attend the dinner offered as a fund-raiser for the Bismarck-Mandan Symphony – not that I would be able to down the stuff offered for a mere $50/plate anyway. 'Twill be French – Bismarck, of course, has a chef trained at the Paris Ritz Hotel's cooking school, so the entrée will be roast pigeon with truffle and marsala sauce. Those who go will also get Apertif les Danois; lobster Souffle a la Ritz; Rouget de Rouche a la Provencal; passion fruit sorbet; consomme; artisanal cheese course; warm chocolate croquette in cold coconut mild and tapioca soup and strawberry confiture; Valentine's Day chocolate cake; small sweets and Mariage Freres tea or Tuscan espresso coffee. North Dakotans can also go out to the gorgeous badlands and the town of Medora, the place that was called Little Missouri when Theodore Roosevelt spent some time out here in the 1880s. What a whoop-de-doo the little town has planned – a musical about Dakota's second most-famous son, Wild Bill Langer and his romance with his wife – the musical will also feature the romances of the Marquis de Mores and his wife Medora and Theodore Roosevelt and his wives Alice and Edith – and that's in the afternoon. There'll be a wine tasting at the Civic Center and the chef at the Roughrider Hotel will make a couple of fondues for dipping fruit and sweet cake in white or dark chocolate. For those who don't want to leave their loungers, a lovin' spouse could order up the Northern Lights Barbershop Quartet to deliver a gift and sing a song – for a mere $35 -- $5 extra captures the moment on videotape. My spouse and I will be in fabulous Omaha ha ha and then a little trip to the deserts of the southwest on Saturday night if all goes well – so we'll miss a big day here in Dakota, where folks down a lot of chocolate – used to myself back in the days when I ballooned up. Don't know if Mary Todd Lincoln had a chocolate habit – or whether Abe gave her flowers and candy on St. Valentine's Day. Lincoln did have it right in today's quote – and what he said about what can destroy a social compact goes for all human relationships – from citizens trying to live together as nation of such radically different values as we of the United States to people getting along in a marriage. Relationships are brought low from within, not from without. The latest threat to our unity this Lincoln's Birthday 2003 are not those that brought us to Civil War in Honest Abe's time – 'tis the insistence of what appears to be a self-righteous majority of Americans who believe the sacredness of marriage is threatened by the Massachusetts Supreme Court ruling that gays and lesbians have a right under the state constitution as written to marry and enjoy all the rights and privileges of legal marriages that a woman and man do. Last night, I saw Pat Boone on a talk show explaining why same-sex marriage would destroy the country – he's gonna be seventy this coming June 1. Pat once turned down a movie role with Marilyn Monroe because he would have had to kiss a woman who was not his wife – he's the guy with the white buck shoes. Last night, Pat wore shirt open to his navel under a glittering jacket – no more white bucks for this buckaroo, but he still wears his religion and notion of morality on his sleeve – and still wants our society to limit the freedom of one of our largest minorities. I have no doubt that Pat Boone thinks all homosexuals are going to hell – and he'll look down at them wearing his shirt unbuttoned to his navel beneath that tacky sports coat he wore last night. Pat's wife Shirley is the daughter of the famous country star Red Foley – Pat married her back in 1953. Red, born in 1910 in a log cabin like Abe Lincoln, is one of country's biggest stars – and he was one hell of a nice guy. He never bared his chest to the navel in some strange machismo get-up the way his son-in-law did last night – Red's been gone from the middle world since 1968. He sold millions with such gospel songs as "Just a Closer Walk with Thee" and "Peace in the Valley" back in 1950 and 1951 – two of my most favorite songs. His great country hit, sung with Kitty Wells, was number one in 1954, the year after the Boone kid married his daughter. The song was the charts for an incredible forty-one weeks – "One by One" CHORUS "D" refers to duet, "W" to Kitty Wells and "F" to Red Foley D: One By One we broke each vow we made W: It was you who lied, it was me who paid F: As sure as there's a heaven beyond the sun D: We'll pay for our lies One By One. F: My plans and hopes have tumbled down F: My castle of dreams plunged to the ground W: How can you face me after what you've done W: You've shattered my dreams One By One. CHORUS F: How can you go to sleep at night F: Don't old mem'ries make you long for daylight W: You'll pay the price after having your fun W: You'll regret each mistake One By One. F: The love I treasured you sold for gold F: For world goods you left me cold W: You're happy now, but the time will come W: You're false loves will leave you One By One. CHORUS The same old song – "Love is Eternal," as the ring Abe gave Mary says, but 'tis a hell of a lot easier if there's enough money to decorate the White House the way you want. 'Tis not so with the most loyal and loving of dogs, and one who had his day on Monday, was Josh, a three-year-old Newfoundland who won the Westminster Kennel Club competition at Madison Square Garden – the best of 2,624 entries representing 162 different breeds. Meriwether Lewis of Lewis and Clark fame had a Newfoundland that was his best friend – and probably the only living creature that loved him unconditionally. Valentine's Day was not one Lewis celebrated – he had some sort of problem that seems to have made it impossible for him to relate to women – in fact, after his triumphal return to St. Louis and on to Washington in 1806, he tried to find a soul mate – those he would court left home when he was coming. But his faithful dog, Seaman, whom he bought for $20 as a puppy, was there with him – to the end when he committed suicide in 1809 on that lonely place in Tennessee. I have more than a nodding acquaintance with the Saga of Seaman – in fact, I've written a book featuring both an epic poem and an essay exploring everything we know about the Newfoundland who went to the Pacific and back with Lewis and Clark. Lewis loved Seaman so much that he was ready to kill when his dog was abducted by Indians on the return trip in 1806 – and Seaman was a true hero of the Expedition who saved the Corp when a buffalo stampeded the camp in the middle of the night early on the trip west in 1805. Abe Lincoln loved dogs – and cats. He said, "I care not much for a man's religion whose dog and cat are not the better for it." And I don't care for those whose religion has them treating their fellow travelers here in the middle world worse than dogs – and we have plenty of those folks around in 2004, including some who bare their chests to the navel on national television – the same sort of folks who are mightily upset that a breast was bared during half-time of the Super Bowl. Sure hope you are taking care of yourselves, kola – and that you're looking out for you neighbors – as well as taking care of your pets. Ev Albers Wednesday, February 11th, 2004
Words for Today -- "I never did a day's work in my life. It was all fun." -- I'm with Edison, born on this day in 1847, he traveled in the middle world until October 18, 1931. I've always been able to say, "Amen, brother, Thomas Alva" – at least for that part of my passage in the middle world after I decided that I didn't really want to spend the rest of my life shoveling manure, running jack hammers, pushing wheel barrows full of concrete, vibrating concrete, and the dozens of others mindless work I did before I decided that sitting on my butt and thinking was far superior to real work that just wasn't any fun. So I decided that I would work in the public vineyard of the humanities – and it has indeed been fun, kola, has indeed. At this very moment, I'm sitting on my butt in a recliner before the fire place here on Arthur Drive on this beauuuuuuuuuuuuuutiful, brisk, snowy and blowy day in Dakota. Aye, 'tis a glorious day. Edison also said, "Being busy does not always mean real work. The object of all work is production or accomplishment and to either of these ends there must be forethought, system, planning, intelligence, and honest purpose, as well as perspiration. Seeming to do is not doing." Right on, Thomas Alva, right on. Work for the sake of work is nonsense – and physical labor of the numbing ilk is not good for the human spirit. And I love Edison's approach to running his laboratory and work place – "There ain't no rules around here! We're trying to accomplish something!" he said. Happy birthday, Thomas Alva Edison, wherever you are. This is an important day for butt sitters of my ilk, for 'twas on February 11, 1948 that the "Lazy Boy" was invented – the precursor of all recliners. What would life be without one? Sure didn't know such things would be part of my life back in 1948 – but I was five, going to be six – six months or so later on March 28 – and the best seats in the house were nothing like a recliner. Don't know what the weather was like back then in the Garden of the Universe in Hannover Township in Oliver County, but I do know what it was like on this day in 1805 less than twenty miles from our farmstead – the way the crow flies. 'Twas on this day either in Ft. Mandan or perhaps at a winter camp about sixty yards from the Fort that Sacagawea gave birth to a baby boy – Jean Baptiste Charbonneau. I know from the definitive book about Lewis and Clark's stay in what would become North Dakota, A Vast and Open Plain edited by my friend Clay Jenkinson, that it was pretty warm for an early February day – 'twas but –2° F. in the afternoon – and although 'tis a bit warmer today, 199 years later, 'tis much windier. Popular opinion has it that Meriwether Lewis was at Sacagawea's side when she gave birth, but a close reading of the journal, as Clay points out, tells us that Captain Lewis was giving advice about helping the wife of Toussaint Charbonneau give birth to her first child from a distance. Writes Lewis: 11th February Monday 1805 The party that were ordered last evening set out early this morning. the weather was fair and could wind N.W. about five o'clock this evening one of the wives of Charbono was delivered of a fine boy. it is worthy of remark that this was the first child which this woman had boarn and as is common in such cases her labour was tedious and the pain violent; Mr. Jessome informed me that he had frequently administered a small portion of the rattle of the rattle-snake, which he assured me had never failed to produce the desired effect, that of hastening the birth of the child; having the rattle of a snake by me I gave it to him and he administered two rings of it to the woman broken in small pieces with the fingers and added to a small quantity of water. Whether this medicine was truly the cause or not I shall not undertake to determine, but I was informed that she had not taken it more than ten minutes before she brought forth perhaps this remedy may be worthy of future experiments, but I confess that I want faith as to it's efficacy. Says Clay Jenkinson in one of the some 1,500 footnotes in the book, "According to Dr. Bruce Paton, the rattle of a snake is chemically similar to the substance in fingernails, and without the slightest efficacy in the birthing process. Still, like any good scientist, Lewis ordered more tests. The concoction may have had a placebo effect on a first-time mother stressed by a day of difficult labor, and it is at least possible that the rattle had 'medicine' that cannot be evaluated by western science." The baby was carried on the back of his teenage mother Sacagawea to the Pacific Ocean and maybe part of the way back (although he may have toddled a bit on the return) – signaled peaceful intent to the Indians the Corps of Discover met. Moreover, he was apparently a delight to have around – the men liked him, and Clark liked him a lot – hence his nickname, according to most sources – Pomp or Pompy because he was a "dancing little boy." Clark was ever-inventive in his spelling, so he name the landmark outcropping on Yellowstone River where he carved his name on the return trip Pompey's Pillar – not in honor of the Roman emperor but to honor Jean Baptiste Charbonneau, Sacagawea's son. Pomp's father, Touissant, was the oldest member of the Expedition – he was in his forties when he showed up at the Fort during the winter of 1804-1805 with his pregnant young Shoshone wife in tow (he also had another wife, but she didn't go along on the trip). Rather feckless, something of a coward, and less than enthusiastic about work, Charbonneau's greatest contribution was that he was married to young woman who had been captured by the Hidatsa hosts of the Corps when she was a child, a young woman who might recognize landmarks when the Corps reached Shoshone country and who could talk with the Shoshone – she could then tell Charbonneau what they said in Hidatsa, and Charbonneau could tell the captains. Getting along and communicating with the Shoshone was critical to the success of the Expedition: the Corps needed the Shoshone horses to get over the mountains. The baby born this day was eventually educated in St. Louis by William Clark. He studied abroad – and became something of a tour guide of the great American West for visiting European royalty and other wealthy folk. He lived long and prospered for the most part – as did his father – in paid service to newcomers to the West. His mother almost certainly died when he was going on eight-years-old – at Fort Manual in what is now South Dakota in December 1812. Her son died in 1866 on his way to the Montana gold fields – he had traveled the world, including a trip to Africa and another to Germany where he hunted in the famed Black Forest with nobility. Lewis was always skeptical of Indian remedies – but he placed no small faith in the medicine given him by the leading American physician, Benjamin Rush. Sacagawea was lucky – she could have been given one of Rush's famous "Thunderbolts," so named by the Corps because of their efficacy in purging the system. Lewis carried fifty dozen of the pills on the journey, and he still had some at the Pacific to give out to the men for most any complaint. Little Pomp caused quite a stir when he was fifteen-months-old on the return journey – he almost died in May 1806 of high fever and swelling Lewis feared would become a boil – he was treated with cream of tartar and flowers of sulfur with little success – fresh poultices of onion seemed to relieve the swelling, and Lewis claims that he cured him only after giving the child a "Clyster" (enema). Doctors today conclude that Pomp probably lived in spite of the treatment – something that was true for most of what was done for illness at the beginning of the nineteenth century. It was probably the heat of the poultice, not the onions, that kept the infection under control. The Corps was mighty happy that the "dancing little boy" survived. It's a wonder anyone survived the best that medicine offered in the early 1800s – lots of bleeding and purging – and doses of mercury, of course, for venereal disease. In fact, the eminent Dr. Rush damned near killed himself once when he bled and purged himself so much that he became too weak to walk. There was but one great breakthrough at the time – smallpox vaccine. Following the onslaught of traders and trappers after the return of the Corps, smallpox ravaged the village Indians of the Upper Missouri once more, just as it had before Lewis and Clark arrived. The near annihilation of the Mandan in the 1830s could have been prevented, but no one gave much thought to preventive medicine in the heyday of mining the American West of fur. I was thinking this morning as I lay abed burning perfectly good semi-conscious hours – just as I did a year ago this very day -- were Lewis & Clark to time travel forward a couple of hundred years, what would most astonish them about how we live out here? Most everything would be cultural shock – from the dammed Missouri to the idea of getting from Bismarck to Astoria, Oregon, in a couple of hours by jet. But they would probably be both amazed and amused by our preoccupation with medical treatment and technology – in some ways, we are involved in the same sort of thing Lewis was doing for the toddler Pomp – he gave him an enema and hoped for the best. At the turn of the twenty-first century, one of the great hopes held out for folks with pancreatic cancer includes taking hundreds of pills and getting coffee enemas, java up the keester. Perhaps, kola, some of us are still living and greeting the sunrise in spite of the best medicine has to offer – there's a good deal of evidence over the last couple of hundred years to suggest that the spirit is at least as efficacious as any concoction of rattlesnake rattles or Rush's Thunderbolts. But just this week, a new study concludes that physicians encouraging optimism in cancer patients may be detrimental instead of helpful – puts too much pressure on the patient. Don't know about that – methinks attitude has a great deal to do with staying alive, staying alive. That and not doing any more hard work than absolutely necessary – there's nothing like a bit of butt-sitting on a recliner on a snowy morn to make one feel fine indeed. And I'm thinking about how right Thomas Edison was about many things, including the soul-scabbing effect of violence. Said Edison, "Non-violence leads to the highest ethics, which is the goal of all evolution. Until we stop harming all other living beings, we are still savages." He also said that "I am proud of the fact that I never invented weapons to kill." I proud of you, too, Thomas Alva. We're here, of course, to take the best possible care of ourselves so we can help each other, not hurt our neighbors. I trust that your doing such today, kola – in your thoughts and deeds. I'm trying. Ev Albers Tuesday, February 10th, 2004
Wise Words for Today -- "Work is the order of the day, just as it was at one time, with our first starts and our best efforts. Do you remember? Therein lies its delight. It brings back the forgotten; one's stores of energy, seemingly exhausted, come back to life." -- So said Boris Pasternak, the Russian writer and author of Dr. Zhivago, born on this day in 1890 (his birthday would have been January 29 under the old style calendar). He died in 1960 without knowing that his country revised its official opinion of him – he had declined the Nobel Prize for literature in 1958 because the Soviet Union authorities caused such a fuss. It wasn't until 1987 that his great novel was finally published in his beloved homeland. Pasternak loved his country and the beauty of the brisk winter climate of his home area – he found it as beauuuuuuuuuuuuuuuutiful as I do Dakota this fine day in February, a great day to be alive. I particularly like his poem "Winter Night," a description of a February in Russia: It snowed and snowed, the whole world over, Snow swept the world from end to end. A candle burned on the table; A candle burned. As during summer midges swarm To beat their wings against a flame Out in the yard the snowflakes swarmed To beat against the window pane The blizzard sculptured on the glass Designs of arrows and of whorls. A candle burned on the table; A candle burned. Distorted shadows fell Upon the lighted ceiling: Shadows of crossed arms, of crossed legs- Of crossed destiny. Two tiny shoes fell to the floor And thudded. A candle on a nightstand shed wax tears Upon a dress. All things vanished within The snowy murk-white, hoary. A candle burned on the table; A candle burned. A corner draft fluttered the flame And the white fever of temptation Upswept its angel wings that cast A cruciform shadow It snowed hard throughout the month Of February, and almost constantly A candle burned on the table; A candle burned. Back in the golden years, the halcyon days when I was growing up in the Garden of the Universe in Hannover Township in Oliver County, it snowed a great deal more than it does now – the weather has become almost tropical in Dakota the last few years. I remember winters when the snow drifted so high that we were able to walk up a drift that covered the south side of the house with our sleds and have a great ride down from the chimney. One winter, we had a tunnel from the house to the barn. We didn't even consider starting a vehicle – our transportation was a jumper sled pulled by Kate and Ben, our team of blacks. The cows didn't leave the barn for months, the pile of manure tossed out the back of the warm and cozy place where the fifteen or so Holsteins were stanchioned grew high. Many days, we had to dig out to open doors to the house or the barn – ah, but was terrific. One winter, my cousin Norman stayed with us during the week so he could attend school – Norm is about the age of my big brother Jim. I wrote a year ago today at considerable length about how Norm has influenced my life and continues to be the best of friends who belies any notion that relatives cannot be great friends – today is Norm's sixty-seventh birthday, and he and his lovin' spouse Idell are goin' strong. If you want to read more, you can check out last year's entry by selecting 2/10/03 from the box above – but I must repeat myself and give you just a bit of my tribute to the finest of fellows -- And the world of yours truly and his family is infinitely better because my friend and relative, Norm Albers is around. He turns sixty-seven today – and continues to offer proof positive that being a friend and relative are not necessarily mutually exclusive. Just over five years older than I, Norman is the youngest son of my uncle Otto, who was everything any kid could possibly want in an uncle. He took me to rodeos, got me my first job, brought me bib overalls when I was kid – and his son Norm carried on that tradition with my children with high humor and great generosity – what a guy, the one my spouse Leslie and I affectionately call "Stormin Norman" (picked up after the First Gulf War and the nickname of Norman Schwartzkopf – but Norm Albers "storms" around doing really good stuff for folks instead of invading Iraq). Norman was my childhood mentor – teaching me everything from how to shock grain to filleting a fish, telling me what I needed to know about the time of puberty. A self-taught master of such useful crafts and skills as carpentry, butchery, electrical wiring, and a host of others – including making some of the meanest sausage and tastiest of chili — howbeit eventually deadliest in terms of offensive consequences for the loved ones of those who indulge without the help of Beano – Norm is a man who could survive on a desert island – except he would go crazy without being able to visit with folks, and I mean visit. Norm can talk to someone – anyone – he meets for the first time for hours. In many ways, Stormin Norman is my hero – a man who can take care of himself and his family, do whatever is necessary to make things work, get along with most anyone – and have the sense to marry the right woman to both enjoy his exuberance and share his zest for life. That much Norm and I have in common – we married wisely, which is a good thing for Albers to do – and Norm's wife Idell and my spouse Leslie are two of the longest-suffering, unflinchingly supporting Albers' wives of all time. Aye, and 'tis the grandest of times my lovin' spouse Leslie and I spend with Idell and Norman. I've just been fortified with one of Idell's caramel rolls this glorious morn – don't know what we would do without Norm and Idell. Happy birthday, Norm. May you live long and prosper. This is the grandest of weeks in Dakota because my dear friend Clay Jenkinson is back home from his exile in Reno, Nevada – he's on tour signing and talking about the edition of all of the journals written by members of the Corps of Discovery when they were in Dakota back almost two hundred years past in 1804-1805 and then again in 1806 for a brief time on their way back from the Pacific. Clay's birthday was six days past, and although he's but a year away from his fiftieth birthday, he'll always be the young man with enormous energy and talent I first met some thirty-five years past when he, as a junior in high school, I think, audited the college classes in humanities I coordinated at Dickinson State. The Vast and Open Plain, the Corps of Discovery journals he edited over the last year and one-half, is an remarkable achievement of scholarship – for the first time, everything written by Corps members during their stay in this place so critical to the success of the Lewis and Clark journey are arranged by date – so we get the entries by all who wrote together, along with insightful comments – some 1,500 notes which expand the hints in the journals and offer explanations of all the obscure references with great sensitivity to the perspective of the Corps Indian hosts. Clay writes with a style and grace that astonishes me and pleases me mightily. He kicked off the release of the book at a press conference yesterday morning that focused the entire state's attention on this great gift to all of us Dakotans and to all those interested in the greatest of American adventures that changed the lives of both white Americans and the Indian peoples they met and learned from forever. The 200th anniversary of the the journey of Lewis and Clark and the Corps from 1803 to 1806 is not one that many of the descendants of the native peoples the Corps met have reason to celebrate – but there's plenty to celebrate in Jenkinson's recognition of the oral tradition of the tribes encountered in Dakota, as North Dakota Commissioner of Indian Affairs Cheryl Kulas and the Governor of the state, John Hoeven, remarked yesterday at the press conference. Welcome home, friend Clay – may you have the best of weeks as you travel around the state, and may this visit bring you closer to your permanent return to Dakota. 'Twas on this day back before the turn of the twentieth century – in 1897 – that the New York Times first used the slogan "All the news that's fit to print." What is printed these days may be fit, but 'tis hardly the stuff that offers much reason to celebrate – for our fragile social compact continues to be mightily troubled, and February 2004 finds us a nation divided by economic class, race, and religious persuasion. This is also the birthday of one of America's great down-home newspapermen and critics of our many shortcomings, William Allen White, who began his passage here in the middle world in 1868 and ended it in 1944 – White was the editor of The Emporia Gazette in Kansas. 'Twas he who coined the phrase "tin-horn politician" – there's plenty of those alive and well in 2004. We're a nation of plenty of promises from politicians – and little hope that the lives of most of our citizens will really improve – a citizenry skeptical about their children's chances to enjoy the good life by working at a good-paying job, that they'll be able to afford medical care, or that the sacrifice of our personal freedom will really make us more secure. We would work – and work for a more just society – and we would have leaders who help rather than hinder us in our quest – may you be taking such good care of yourselves on this fine day, kola, that you find a way to work on helping your neighbor. 'Twas the ever-optimistic Hubert H. Humphrey who said on this very day back in 1965, "The impersonal hand of government can never replace the helping hand of a neighbor." We can't afford to wait around for something better than tin-horn politicians – we have to help each other . . . Ev Albers Monday, February 9th, 2004
Wise Words for Today -- "The quietly pacifist peaceful always die to make room for men who shout." --She's sixty today, this prickler of our the conscience of the world, world-class poet and novelist (The Color Purple, 1982), and activist. Permanently blinded in one eye by an accident in childhood, one of eight children of Georgia sharecroppers, she went to become a scholar who studied at Sarah Lawrence College (graduated in 1965) and then began her writing and activism – she worked tirelessly to register black American voters in Georgia in the 60s. Her search for social and economic justice continues as she enters her sixth decade. Walker once said, "It just seems clear to me that as long as we are all here, it's pretty clear that the struggle is to share the planet, rather than divide it." Fact is, nothing could be clearer – or more difficult. Sixty years after Walker's birth – when women and African Americans were much farther away from being treated as real people than they are now in a social compact that has made some progress – the entire world was still at war. There's not many official shooting wars goin' on in 2004, but plenty of people are being killed, maimed, raped, or dehumanized all over this middle world, and we've a long way to go to achieve anything close to social justice. If you're interested in learning more about Alice Walker, here's a great gateway to information on the Internet. She remain . . . . A woman who loves wood grains, the color yellow and the sun. I am happy to fight all outside murderers as I see I must. We here in beauuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuitful Dakota on this balmy day love the sun well enough, but we're pretty happy in what we think is isolation from most of the worst of the world's problems – except for all of your women and men from the North Dakota National Guard who have been and will be killed or maimed in Iraq – another unit trains this February and will go to the place where not everyone loves Americans soon. Meanwhile, the political pundits and surrogates of the president and those who would be shout about whether or not a war so costly was necessary, after all. In comparison to other wars and killing each other in earnest, the cost in American lives lost is not great – 500. That's small consolation to those who loved and depended upon the soldiers whose passage in the middle world was so violently stopped. The cost in borrowed bucks is enormous – what it takes to sustain the occupation of Iraq one month would be more than enough to take care of government in North Dakota's for a couple of years – 'tis greater than our biennial budget and then some – more than enough to help low-income families get health insurance and a bit of help to raise their children, more than enough to give teachers a modest raise – more than enough to do the one hundred and one things we agree we need but cannot find the wherewithal to pay for. 'Tis enough to drive a man to eating pie this fine Dakota morn – and that's exactly what I'm doin' – have a slice of some Shoofly pie made by my friend Lillian Crook over in Dickinson and delivered by her fiancée Jim Fuglie last night here on Arthur Drive – made from a recipe sent to me by friend Karen Mittelman who works with the National Endowment for the Humanities in Washington – the recipe's posted on this site. Damn, but this pie fine! 'Tis amazing how ingredients so simple can be combined to taste so fine – tis mighty sweet, but oh, so good – fuel to meet greet rosy-fingered day on this great one in Dakota with zest and a bit of zeal ala Alice Walker. Thank you, friends, thank you . . . Karen, Lillian, and Jim. I'll share. As you can tell by my appetite for pie, I'm feeling in pretty durn fine fettle and looking forward to a couple of weeks of enjoying this mettle 'ere I return for another round of death-delaying chemo that's keeping the insidious invader at bay – after I have all those tests to measure and track the tumor. So, in spite of rather low counts in white and red blood cells, hemoglobin levels, I'm feeling well enough to continue to be outraged by lying politicians and political leaders, by the self-appointed guardians of public morality who would deny their fellow citizens equality because they happened to have been born with a different sexual orientation, and by the hundred and one ways we continue to shout instead of listening and then talking peacefully. Today is the anniversary of the beginning of one of the sorriest of times in American history, for 'twas on this day in 1950 that an obscure Senator from Wisconsin began his lying attacks on innocent members of President Truman's State Department – in a speech in Wheeling, West Virginia, he proclaimed that there were 205 communists who had infiltrated the Department. The embarrassing, lying Senator Joe McCarthy didn't go away – in 1953, a newly-elected Republican majority in Congress made him chairman of the Permanent Subcommittee on Investigating Governmental Operations, and the great witch hunt was on. Before he was done, McCarthy managed to destroy the reputations and lives of hundreds of innocent Americans. But he went to far, even for his own party, and he was condemned by the Senate in 1954 – and he died of alcoholism in disgrace in 1957. McCarthy was one of the worst examples of a lying politician run amuck. Fifty years after he was finally stopped by his colleagues, those who mislead us are much more subtle – but they still claim that God is on their side and that personal freedoms and arbitrary denial of work and full participation in the social compact are necessary for the common good – McCarthy's attacks resulted in hundreds of our best writers and thinkers being black-balled by Hollywood and the publishing industry without any attempt at due process. In the wake of 9/11, Americans have acquiesced in invasions of their privacy in an ongoing trade of their liberty for what they hope will be greater security. One of these days, we're gonna stand up and say, "I'm mad as hell, and I'm not gonna take it anymore" (Peter Finch's line in the 1976 movie Network). And we're gonna sit down over a cup of coffee – and perhaps a piece of such great pie as the Shoofly I had this morning – and talk about taking back our country and our social compact. Time's awasting – we best be started. You have to be in the best shape possible for the fray, kola – so take care of yourselves so that you can help and inspire your fellow travelers to begin the quest for social justice in earnest. Ev Albers |
AuthorEverett Charles Albers was the founding director of Humanities North Dakota (formerly known as North Dakota Humanities Council). Ev brought his love of the humanities to the greatest challenge of his life, his diagnosis of pancreatic cancer in September 2002. ArchivesCategories
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