Had to Get Away from those Fools

I recently retired from professional life, participation in which put me into a retirement plan with others in that line of work. Twenty years ago I met another member of the same plan. He was on the cusp of retirement and wanted out of the plan. He felt that it was managed by “a bunch of fools.” My own recent departure from working life has meant no longer having to attend thrice-yearly legislative sessions of a regional association. I gladly relinquished active membership because sometimes it felt to me like being part of a congress of clowns.

It’s spring. We’ve entered the season of school graduations. Some people happily attend events celebrating their elevation from elementary to middle school, middle to high school, high school to college or work, and college to professions, jobs or further study in graduate school. Some look ahead to opportunities and challenges with zest and joyful anticipation, others with fear. Some look back on what they leave feeling nostalgia and sadness, others heave a sigh of relief that they have “busted out of class” and gotten “away from those fools.”

Leaving the U.S. Army at age 20 in 1972, my initial feelings were that I had gotten away from those fools. Two years later I joined the reserves. A few more years of minimal participation in military structures; meeting a different sort of soldier than I had known while on active service, meant that when I left the reserves it was with regret that life had taken me overseas. It also revealed to me that “the bunch of fools” from whom I most needed to get away, whether at school, Army, jobs or profession, is most often internal to myself.

One cannot “learn more from a three-minute record than we ever learned in school”. One cannot learn more from a weekend seminar than from three years of graduate school. There’s no quick fix through which one learns one’s own foolishness. We ourselves are among the fools from whom others need to get away. It’s also possible that those fools among whom we live, move and have our being are exactly the people from whom we need to learn as we develop from fool to sage.

David Alexander resides in Holland, MI after 39 years in Taiwan.

After-cat

Our cat, Shadow, was born on the streets of Kaohsiung, Taiwan sometime late in 2003. He became ours when a young woman friend from church rescued and brought him to us early in 2004. We’d been “in the market for” a house pet and had decided on a cat. He took to life in our 6^th floor apartment readily. He didn’t scratch the furniture or anything and ate the “cheap food”.

We had him neutered when he was of the appropriate age. He seemed to consider our son, Grant, to be his litter-mate. We were away for 10 months in 2007 & 2008, during which he spent most of his time with another friend, Julie, and her 2 cats. He came live with us on the campus of Tainan Theological College in 2008. Taking a keen interest in the world outdoors, he began to be treated to a morning walk on a long lead. He didn’t climb trees, but he DID mark his territory with copious liquid attention. Sometimes he got into conflict with stray cats in the area. Once he slipped his lead, got into a serious fight and was badly injured. The overnight he spent at the vet’s included being shaved, getting stitches and wearing a “cone” until he healed. His outdoor life ended, and he eventually became a real “house cat.”

We left him twice more. In 2012 he stayed with our daughter, Kate, and her husband, Gene in Taipei while she did doctoral research and writing in Taipei. He became Gene’s companion, spending a lot of time with the heating pad. In 2016, we were away for 7 months. A couple graduate students from Chang Jung Christian University house-sat and companioned him.

In the Spring of 2018 he began to vomit regularly. The vet in Tainan examined him and did blood work, but nothing was out of the ordinary. He passed all required health checks and was given an exit visa to accompany us to the USA at the end of July. He adapted quite well to living in our temporary home, loving the sunny front porch, but the vomiting increased. A local vet found nothing and prescribed medications, but he steadily lost weight.

On December 6^th we took him to a regional veterinary hospital for an ultra-sound, which found a tumor. It was a death sentence. We changed his medication and considered him to be on hospice status. We began looking for signs that his time was over. Good days and bad days came and went.. On the evening of the 18^th he vomited blood. We left notice with the vet, who came to our house at about noon on the 19^th. A lot of sympathy, a couple of injections, and our pet was gone.

Cleaning up meant more than removing the cat box, scratching post and other things from their accustomed spots. Cleaning up includes memories, feelings, and empty spaces which he leaves in the house. Cleaning up involves creating a “shadow corner” in our house to represent the space he will always occupy in our hearts. 19 December 2018

David Alexander resides in Holland, MI after 39 years in Taiwan

Misled through the You Tube

The old house that we bought as a retirement home — our first self-owned home ever– has a broad front porch that is divided into two fully glassed-in rooms. One of them is hooked to the HVAC system, but we didn’t heat or use it in the winter because it has big single-pane glass windows that would leak all heat in there to the city around us, benefiting nobody.  

When we arrived, the room was the place for stuff not-yet-unpacked or that we had shipped to America for others. Eventually it emptied out, revealing “the ugliest floor in the world”, linoleum thought to have been attractive in the 1970s. We went to the Habitat for Humanity ReStore and searched through stacks of open boxes of  laminate flooring to find enough that matched. The weather was too cold, and we were too inexperienced, so the job got put aside. In the meantime I watched a You Tube video about it. A guy made it look pretty simple. I “scheduled” the work for when the weather turned.

It’s spring. Our son and his wife came for a couple days’ visit. He and I went to Harbor Freight and bought the proper power saw, blade and safety equipment for the job. Returning home, we set things up in “the other half” of the porch. We actually used screws to secure a sheet of wood to some sawhorses, and more screws to secure the saw to the wood. That was a change for me. Probably a positive lesson, too. Preparing the “ugly floor” room for laying new floor, we found lots of poorly done “homeowner” stuff from previous occupants of this place.  

Positive things we learned included how to “measure once, cut twice” and how the boards interlock with each other very neatly.  As I ponder the result, it occurs to me that what we did might eventually appear to future owners of this house as “the ugliest floor in the world.” We learned some “not-so-positive” things, too: 1) Installing laminate flooring is probably best done by experienced people. D-I-Y looks like “DIY”. 2) Even a simple project uses a lot of tools.  3) A power miter saw is best used outside, where the wind will carry away the sawdust. There was a LOT of cleanup where we hadn’t imagined we’d need to do it.

Maybe #1 and 2 of those last three lessons can be applied to other projects and life in general, too. As for #3, since I now own a power saw, the potential for mischief with wood may know no limits. I’ll have to be careful about learning from You Tube, though.

Talking About Boring Old Glory Days

Amtrak recently called to inform me that the last leg of planned a round trip to California will NOT be in business class. I’ll be refunded the difference between what I’ve already paid and the price of a coach seat for that trip, which is scheduled for August. That’s OK with me. The train from Chicago to Michigan has pretty wide coach seats anyway. My trip will be for participation in a 50th high school reunion. Sometime in the 1990s I read Robert Fulgum’s All I Really Need to Know I Learned in Kindergarten. One of his essays included the suggestion that one should attend at least one of our high school reunions. He made a good case. Living far from California during the 10th, 20th, 25th, 30th, and 40th reunions, I’ve attended none. This will probably be my last chance.

“Springsteen Therapy” (not recognized by the American Psychological Association) has helped me to negotiate the change of life that I’m in. The more CDs I borrow from the library and copy onto my computer and the more YouTube playlists I listen to, the more I appreciate the breadth of the man’s compositional skills. One song I’ve heard in both places has been “Glory Days”, which tells stories of people about 10 or 20 years out of high school running into each other and having nothing else to talk about than their “boring old glory days.”  As I prepare for the trip to California, I need to get ready for that possibility, partly because my high school days were fairly inglorious. I may find myself tonguetied.

There is an alternative. I regularly get together with a group of guys, many of whom are older than myself. I can’t say whether it’s because of the character of the group or why, but we manage to talk neither of “glory days” nor “aches and pains.” Maybe the reunion will include an “aches and pains” corner.

What will there be to talk about?  Maybe I should just slowly sip on my beer and listen,  saying “ooh and aah” as I listen to others’ stories about their own and their children’s accomplishments and look at pictures of grandkids. Probably that would be the best thing I could contribute to the gathering.  

As for “what are you doing now?”, I’d better figure something out.  “Blogger” probably won’t carry much of a cachet.

David Alexander resides in Holland, MI after 39 years in Taiwan

We only Live to Serve

The local school board has a sudden vacancy for the remainder of a term, stretching until the end of 2020.  There have been ads in the paper asking for interested people to submit applications by April 12. On the 15th interviews will be conducted and an appointment will be made.  I walked over to the school district office today and turned in a letter of interest. I said to the receptionist that I’m hoping they have a bushel basket full of same. I only live to serve, but maybe I’m not so eager to do so.

Part of what the board wants to know is if the person whom they eventually appoint will be interested in running for a full 6-years term during the general election in 2020. I don’t know if they want someone interested in running, or someone NOT interested in running. I am NOT interested in elective office.

In 2001, thinking to “raise my profile in the community”, I volunteered to serve on the board of Kaohsiung American School. In 2002 I was appointed board chair. It was the unhappiest year of my life. So WHY would I volunteer for THIS thing? I’ve no interest this time in a heightened profile. In the end, I hope that the letter of interest I submitted is only one of a million they’ve received or that they find something else about me that is disqualifying.  Maybe I should’ve mentioned my pro-union sentiments.

Keystone Cops

Winter was not kind to our car, a 2008 Honda. Or maybe, “the way I drive” is not kind to our car. The nylon liners inside the front fenders have deteriorated. I replaced the one on the right using zip ties instead of expensive twist fasteners. Under the front end and on the left side I did similar “maintenance and modification” where bits had disappeared over the years. But “tightening here” seems to have resulted in “making things worse over there.” A few weeks ago something appearing to be a plastic box with tubes coming out if it came loose near the front left corner. It started to rub against the wheel when the car was in reverse. Since I don’t reverse a lot, I tied it kind of back in place with some Taiwanese “red string” and have gone merrily on my way.  Today, Char had a Keystone Cops moment.

Did you ever watch the Cops?  Keystone was a silent film studio in Los Angeles in the early 20th century. Learning my hometown as a kid in the 50s and 60s, I sometimes recognized locations from the short Keystone Cops episodes that were shown on TV between the cartoons of which I watched far too many. In one that I recall but cannot find on YouTube, the Cops in their Model T Ford were chasing a miscreant through the streets. They hit a bump, a pothole, or a streetcar track, and their engine fell out. Today in Holland something came loose as Char exited our driveway, reversing through a pothole where it meets the street.When she shifted into “Drive” she heard dragging noises from under the car. I heard a knock on the door, and went out barefoot to gather up a pile of broken plastic from under the car and behind it in the street.  It wasn’t the engine, so I sent her on her way. We’ll need to have the car looked at soon.

I’m glad that 21st century cops aren’t the buffoons portrayed by the Keystones early in the 20th. Sometimes I feel like cars haven’t changed much.

Walking on the Wild Side

Lou Reed’s 1972 Album “Transformer” included the song, Walk on the Wild Side. The title was a line used by cross-dressing men who relocated to New York City and supported themselves as prostitutes. “Take a walk on the wild side” was what they would say to potential customers. In his song, Reed introduced some friends from his own cross-dressing prostitute life. From whenever it was that meaning of the line was brought to my attention, I was careful not to use it. I didn’t want to be misunderstood. Back in New York, potential customers of street-walking sex-workers were already walking on a wild side. The invitation from the male prostitutes was to walk on an even wilder one.

 

Every endeavor has its wild side. Though we may think of persons in some occupations as dour or boring, that’s more likely a function of their personality than of their profession. Accountants may do creative things with numbers, agricultural engineers with drainage systems, and assessors with valuations.  (Those are just a few occupations that begin with “A”. There are 25 more letters and thousands more occupations.) Taking a “walk on the wild side” comes to mean, “adding risk”.

 

Twenty years ago, the organization that employed me changed the way that employees’ pensions would be managed. I attended an informational session at which a representative of a large New York bank that was about to take over everyone’s accounts tried to put us all at ease. She was very friendly and competent, but totally lost the portion of the audience who were near retirement when she casually dropped the word “risk” into a sentence. You’d think she was a man dressed up as a woman asking us to “take a walk on the wild side.”

 

Every endeavor has a wild side, and it has a “safe” side. (Admittedly, the idea of being a cross-dressing street walker in New York City in 1972 gives me pause. I can’t see the safe side of that one.) We can operate in ways that keep us “on the safe side” even if we’re test pilots, fire fighters or airport security screeners. It’s not hard to imagine a politician amending even a tired out stump speech for a different audience in order to “stay on the safe side.” Sometimes college students choosing courses for an upcoming term avoiding certain departments or instructors in order to keep “on the safe side” and protect their potential grade point averages. One can even conceive of young men and women enlisting to serve as U.S. Marines showing bravado in front of their non-enlisting friends, and choosing the safest of the occupational areas available to them when they sign papers with a recruiter.

 

Neither the safe nor the wild side is sinful. The safe side carries the risk of being bored. I admire George H. W. Bush, who died in November of 2018. Even with various  shortcomings that became evident during the four years that he served as the President of the United States, he showed himself to be one who walked on the wild side. He took a lot of risks as he became and then served as president. After he retired he celebrated his 80th, 85th and 90th birthdays by going skydiving.

 

Walk on the wild side. Indeed. See Ya’ there.

Metaphors For Life On Committees

Pacific Island Surfers

The Polynesians who developed the sport and art of surfing (riding waves) learned that in order to “catch” a wave one had to look into the distance and observe how the sea was running, then position oneself and one’s surfing board, paddling it in order to create momentum in order to be moving when the swell reached one. To do otherwise was to risk missing the wave or being crushed by it when it broke in a place where the surfer was unprepared to be met by it.

So, for committee life: Look to what is coming and start moving to meet it before it arrives.

Japanese Women’s Volleyball Team

When a team plays volleyball, all members of the team must be aware of the position of the ball, of each other, and of the members of the opposing time at all times during play. Though one or another member may be designated the team captain, during play all are equal. They even rotate between serves so that all members play all positions.

Were they to await the captain’s command on who was to receive and return the ball each time it came over the net, they would not be a team at all, and the game would be lost.

That being said, if any member of the team calls, “mine” (or its equivalent in Japanese) when a ball comes over the net, other members defer to that call and adjust themselves to receive the setup from that member or, anticipating that she will put the ball back over to the opposing side, prepare for its return.

So, for committee life:Watch out for everyone and everything. Don’t wait for the captain’s command. Be able to play in all positions.

Minibus Taxi Drivers in South Africa

The minibus taxi is probably the cheapest and most dangerous way to travel from place to place in South Africa. These vehicles, overloaded and under-maintained, are often driven at high speed on narrow roads in bad conditions, resulting in frequent accidents and many traffic deaths. One who drives such a conveyance must look ahead, not only to the back of the vehicle most closely in front of one’s own, but through the back window, interior and front window of the car or other minibus taxi in front to the road conditions several vehicles ahead. In that way one can apply one’s own vehicle’s worn-out brakes in time to slow or stop when things get congested.

So, for committee life: Watch out for possible negative things ahead. Don’t wait for the one immediately ahead of me to tell me what is happening if it is possible to see farther along.

The Magi who Saw The Star

They weren’t looking for the newborn king of the Jews, they were just looking at the stars, and based on what they saw and how they interpreted their sightings, acting accordingly. When they, in the east, beheld a new star, they came seeking the One whom they had decided had been born to be the king, the one whom the star’s appearance had announced.

So, for committee life: Keep eyes open for everything that is out there. Some of it may mean something.

You Can’t Always Get What You Want

You Can’t Always Get What You Want

The musicians and groups that were my favorites in my teens and early twenties have long since been eclipsed by others more recent, with the exception of Judy Collins. Thankfully, she’s still touring, she’ll be in Petoskey on June 8^th. But I don’t have to go even that far to see her. Through the magic of the internet and Youtube I can call up almost everything she ever preformed on camera or recorded in a studio. From the time I first fell in love with her voice and stagecraft I assumed whatever she sang to be a “Judy Collins” song. I later learned that besides her own stuff she performed a lot written by others, including a lot of Leonard Cohen’s poetry. The combination of Cohen’s language and Collins’ voice can pierce to the depths of my soul. Though these words are Cohen’s, they live in me in Collins’ voice:

I saw a beggar leaning on his wooden crutch,
he said to me, “You must not ask for so much.”
And a pretty woman leaning in her darkened door,
she cried to me, “Hey, why not ask for more?”

We hear something like the voice of that “pretty woman leaning in her darkened door” in Moses’ request to see the face of God. It comes at the end of a story of bargaining. Moses asked for this, and it was granted. He asked for that, and got that, too. But when he asked for the face, he didn’t get it. It’s kind of like if a person writing a doctoral dissertation. First she wants to please her committee and get the degree. Then she wants to produce something useful to science. Beyond that, few doctoral dissertations lead to patent-ready ideas that yield vast wealth…, not that people don’t hope.

Cohen’s poem also mentions a beggar leaning on his wooden crutch, admonishing that we not ask for so much. The beggar represents caution. He’s like a parent saying to a child, “You have the freedom to eat any of the good food in this house, and you can go anywhere in it, but you can’t go out the gate into the street because you’ll get run over by an SUV.”

Moses asked to see “the dazzling light of God’s presence”. The simple Hebrew word in the text is Kabod. The response was not what he wanted to hear. It uses the Hebrew word Achri. Much less than dazzling light and far from face. It denotes a different end. Achri is used elsewhere in Hebrew to denote the rear end of a cow.

The principle articulated by Mick Jagger and Keith Richards (others who were once teenage favorites) in You Can’t Always Get What you Want might apply. Whoever or whatever entity we face, whether we ask for more, or don’t ask for so much, one thing is certain, we’re going to get what we get. But don’t let that stop you. Dream. Ask. Like Moses in the story you might hear, “OK”. You might even hear that more than once. And you might hear “no” or “not that, but this.” Receive what you get, even if that’s only a glimpse of a cow’s ass. Let that be enough as you continue to ask for more.

 

David Alexander resides in Holland, MI after 39 years in Taiwan.

 

Differing Idioms

My computing needs are rather modest: some communication; some word processing; some presentation-making; and some web search capacity.  I didn’t need the newest most powerful machine to do my work at Tainan Theological College.  When I arrived in 2004 a hand-me-down previously used by the Secretary to the college president and then by a clerk in the general affairs office was dragged out of a storage closet for me.

Through the years I moved up the feeding chain. The computer that I used from 2014 to 2017 had been in the office of an adjunct professor of history (with a Ph.D.) before it moved to me upon her departure. Among the things on the hard disk were several files related to the school’s history, and lots of old photographs. At the beginning of the new school year in September, it began doing strange things, and it gave up the ghost on the 21^st.  I told the school’s Information Technology guy, who promised to drop by on Friday morning.  Before he arrived, I  turned on the switch. 

Arriving at my door, he glanced at the screen, noticed that something was happening, and announced that there was no problem. I told him that the same thing had happened for over an hour the previous afternoon, so he actually touched the keyboard and tried a few things. He then announced that the hard disk had evidently failed, and unplugged all the wires.  He asked if I wanted the data that were stored in the disk, of if I was willing to just let it all go.  I asked for data recovery, and with a big smile he carried the whole box out the door. 

Early in September I conversed with the school archives’ research assistant during a dinner. I mentioned the historical files and she promised to bring up a thumb drive to transfer them to her office. She never followed up.  At an out-of-town on the 23^rd I was seated directly in front of her. During a break I mentioned the computer failure and possible loss of her files. She was surprised that two weeks had elapsed between our conversations, responding only, “time flies.” An hour later she tapped me on the shoulder. She had phoned the Information Technology guy. She relayed the information that “we must pray about that computer.” This did not make me feel confident.

On the 27th I phoned to ask after my computer. I was not told anything about having to pray. In fact, I was told that the experts to whom he had delivered the hard disk had already restored most of the data, and that all should be well by the afternoon. I surmised that he spoke to the woman from the archives in HER spiritual idiom, and to me in MINE.  Either that, or between Saturday morning and Monday morning the Holy Spirit intervened in and interfered with my hard disk in such a way that by Monday further prayer was not required.