Portents of Spring

North Hampton Rail Road Station, Along the Abandoned
Rail Road Bed 

At the risk of tempting fate, there are signs we may yet see Spring this year:

1. It is light now  at 6 AM now and it stays light until 5 PM. This means I do not need to bring a flashlight when taking out the dog for his morning poop.

2. Pitchers and catchers have reported to Ft. Myers for Spring training.   Attendance is picking up at the Wednesday night indoor practices of the Coastal New England Baseball league.  You can hardly get into a batting cage. 

3. Black asphalt shingles are finally visible on my roof. 

4. My hardy Yankee neighbors, some of whom are life long Granite Staters, are saying things like, "We've earned Spring this winter."

I do love snow, but  love has its limits. 

Rails To Trails From Hampton to Portsmouth

This past weekend, Mr. Boat, the lab, and I took the trail bed of the abandoned railroad line from Depot Square, Hampton, toward the North Hampton railroad station. This is to prepare for this weekend's Vermont ski weekend, which is my personal end- of-winter weekend rite of passage. The snow and winter spirits do not always take note.

Mr. Boat was quite comfortable. After ten minutes, I was hot, wearing just a sweater. Cross country skiing does warm you up, as does snow shoeing. 

Route 1 underpass Hampton

The railbed is not always scenic, but you do see parts of town you never knew existed.

Proof Hampton Teens Can Do Graffiti: Route 1 Underpass

There is light at the end of this snow tunnel. 

Hampton Depot Square Terminus 

And, get this:  The Smuttynose Brewery and Restaurant have finally opened on Old Towle Farm Road, just down the road from Depot Square.

Smuttynose kept this  poster of Obama bravely displayed in their pub from February 2008, through the end of the election.  They deserve some loyalty.

On Children and Being There

May you grow up to be righteous
May you grow up to be true
May you always know the truth
And see the lights surrounding you
May you always be courageous
Stand upright and be strong
May you stay forever young
--Bob Dylan
"Forever Young" 
As sung with Robbie Robertson and The Band, 
In The "Last Waltz" The Best Version EVER

In the winter of my senior year of high school, when I was 17, I traveled with my wrestling team to a high school in Poolesville, at the far reaches of Montgomery County, Maryland, 35 miles distant from my father’s office in downtown, Washington, D.C., near the White House.

The match was not particularly significant, although it is always focuses the mind when you look across the mat at a boy who is hungering to pin you. I stood at mat’s edge, with my coach, and looked across, but somehow, caught a glimpse of my father, pacing around in the hallway outside the gym.

This momentarily disoriented me. I did not expect to see him there, but it was definitely him, in his raincoat, pacing around.  I had wrestled varsity for three years and he had never come to a match, never, to my memory, asked about any match. He had seen me play football once, baseball once but there he was, and he must have had to leave work two hours early to make it there, driving along those back country roads at that time.

When I looked up, after the match, ninety seconds later, he was nowhere to be seen.

My father was not unusual, in those days, in not being present for high school games. Most high school sports, apart from football and basketball, were played out on Friday afternoons and working parents did not often make them. He did come to the Saturday morning swimming meets, along with the rest of the community, because there was a social aspect to those. Age group swimming was a festival at community pools.

But, for my father, athletics were not of much interest. My brother and I saw him run only once in our lives and we were both astonished to learn he even could run. We knew he played something called “handball” when he was young in New York City, but we had only the minimum in the way of sports equipment at home. He did not fish or hunt or play golf.

 He sat and read, is what he did.

That night, at dinner, I asked him if he had been at the match.

He looked embarrassed and said, “Yes. You didn’t have much of a challenge today.”

That was it. That was the entire discussion.

My mother, across the table, kept her head down. I could see she was smiling, though. She probably had gone to work on him. Your son’s final season. You’ve never even seen him wrestle. If he wrestles in college, you will likely never go to New England to see him there.

My own son, my younger son, started wrestling at age 7 and his last match was 10 years later. I had spent every weekend from November through March in sweaty, tumultuous gymnasiums with him, from Friday night until Sunday nights. I had seen him suffer crushing defeats and soaring, exhilarating victories. We suffered through wrestling together. We had got up at 4 in the morning to drive to distant tournaments and we drove as far away as West Virginia and Pennsylvania. I was always there—until his final tournament, which I missed because I was on call and it was in Allentown, Pennsylvania, three hours away.  I was at all his practices for little league baseball and I was there for most of his games. We played football and lacrosse together. Whenever it rained or snowed both boys and I played football in the mud and I had to put them in garbage bags for the car ride home and we had to hose them down outside before their mother would allow them in the house.

I was not unusual in this. Most of the kids in those days had to put up with their fathers hanging around. My brother told me I really ought to find some friends my own age. 

My wife did the same for our older son, driving him to kayaking races as far away as New Hampshire, gone for the entire weekend.

Dropping off my younger son at college in Nashville, Tennessee, ten hours by car from our home, I got back to my car and, inexplicably, burst into tears, which startled my wife, who said, “I don’t know what you’re crying about: You’ll have all your weekends free now.”

She was right. It was liberating, when he left home, in a sense. We were empty nesters.  I suddenly had all sorts of time on my hands. Weekends were entirely free.

Now both sons are 4 hours away, by car, in New York City and we see them at discrete intervals, in meticulously planned weekend visits, with dinners every night and walks through museums and parks, but they have their own lives now and we are interlopers, swooping in, bribing them with restaurant meals for time with them. One is married, one has a girlfriend. They have lives apart from us.

When they travel, to Thailand, Peru, England, we do not accompany them, although my wife constantly volunteers for this duty. She gets no takers.

When I lived in New York, my father occasionally visited and stayed in my apartment, while I was across the street at the hospital. He liked my apartment. It had good books. He loved walking around New York City, soaking up the energy.  But our contact was limited, mostly because I was working, but also because our contact had always been limited. We had discussions and dinners, but we never went camping or hiking or did anything, apart from the rare road trip on a holiday to see grandparents, which kept us together for more than an hour.

Now, I see friends who go visit their kids in Australia, China, Europe and they hang out, I guess. They have spent time with their kids as they grew up, and they know what to do with that time now.

I guess we are lucky. We are modern parents.

Touching the Face of God: Michael Pollan on Psychodelic Experience

Michael Pollan

"From here on, love was the only consideration. It was and is the only purpose. Love seemed to emanate from a single point of light. And it vibrated...No sensation, no image of beauty, nothing during my time on earth has felt as pure and joyful and glorious as the height of this journey."
--Patrick Mettes, a dying patient, after taking Psilocybin, a psychodelic drug

Michael Pollan's piece in the Feb 2 New Yorker about the science of psycho active drugs, in particular LSD and Psilocybin, is so well done, it actually kept me reading, despite a longstanding antipathy to all those people who extol these drugs,  the airhead who dreamily said things like, "Far out" as they drifted off into la la land.  

When LSD got really popular, I was in college, not at all interested in distractions like psychodelic experiences, while I was trying to get into medical school at the height of the Vietnam war, when any male who could use a slide rule or add sums suddenly decided he had an intense desire to become a doctor and heal the sick and get his draft deferment for medical school. Competition was intense. No trippers need apply.

It was still on going when I was in medical school, and nothing could turn me off faster than meeting some perfectly splendid young lady, blonde surfer hair flowing across her shoulders but then she would lean forward, chin on hand, and say, "I had the most amazing trip, last night. I mean, it was just so...far out."  

Oh, please.

But having lived among the dying, and having, at least briefly, put myself in their place, facing the deep despair of feeling yourself sliding down the road toward oblivion, I can readily appreciate the huge relief afforded by taking a drug which allows you to feel death does not really matter. The meaning of death,  losing contact with all those who mean so much to you, when you take psychodelics, does not matter.  Never being able to swim in the ocean, or gaze out over Lake Winnipesaukee again, never being able to be thrilled by things of this earth, this life, doesn't really matter. There is something else. 

Pollan is a very accomplished writer and he takes you from the origins of Aldous Huxley describing his experiences with mescaline through Timothy Leary through the plodding, systematic approaches of researchers at Hopkins and NYU into trying to understand the physiology of these molecules, and their huge potential. 

There is, of course, politics. It's one thing to get approval for the use of drugs in dying patients, but quite another to make it available to enhance life among the ostensibly healthy. That brings you into the sites of the  drug warriors. And, this being America, there is the problem of money. These drugs may not be patent-able, so they may never be fought for, developed by the only real power in America: Money.

Having just read the Pollan article, I got an email from a high school friend about an upcoming reunion, complete with the  link to the reunion. I had not been interested in this reunion. At ten years out, I was very hot to go. There were still a couple of girls I was eager to see again, and I was in a position to reconnect. At 20 years, some people had been married, divorced and were clearly there to pick up loose threads. By 30 years, it was just a matter of seeing who you could actually recognize, after weight gain, hair loss and years behind a desk had taken their toll.  

But now, I thought: If you hadn't kept up with people over those years, what was the point of traveling back to see them for a night? As one of my classmates said in the comments section, "Actually, high school is now just a vague memory."

But, elsewhere among the comments, certain names struck me like a shot of LSD--Peggy O'Dell, Abby Trueblood, Alison Whittaker.  Yeow. No time had passed. I could see each clearly before me. I got out my year books, but none of their photos even came close to approaching the clarity of their images in my mind' eye.

Each one of these 16 year old girls was a firecracker in my soul. Just catching a glimpse of any could make my day, and a conversation in the hallway between classes was an endorphin high. 

Of the three, I dated only Abby, and she only briefly, for reasons which are lost to me now. Why did I fail to spend more time, tons of time with these three? What kept me so occupied that I failed to pursue them? And then the psychodelic moment--as I reached out to touch the face of, not God, but at least each of these girls, I realized, it's okay. They are lost to me. It's all cool. Far out. 

In one sense, you never really lose anyone, as long as you have their memory.
And, in another sense, I had much more of those girls during high school in fantasy than I ever had in reality, and maybe that's a good thing. In fact, maybe that's the best part of life--not what happens in the real world but what happens in your mind.

We lose everyone, eventually, and everything. We lose parents, friends along the way, and we go on. And, looking back at those people who evoked the most intense response from me at that particular point in the journey, now gone, I have that feeling Patrick Mettes described--it's alright. We had that then, lost it, survived, found new people, had new experiences, and will likely move beyond again.  

Far out. 

Psychodelic babble. No drug needed.

Everyone's A Little Bit Racist

Everyon'es A Little Bit Racist: Avenue Q

LINK TO AVENUE Q
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RovF1zsDoeM

Everyone's a little bit racist
Sometimes.
Doesn't mean we go 
Around committing hate crimes.
Look around and you will find
No one's really color blind.
Maybe it's a fact
We all should face
Everyone makes judgments
Based on race.


--Avenue Q

You know a new day has dawned with the director of the FBI quotes Avenue Q in a speech at Georgetown University, in the wake of the fatal shootings of three Muslim students in Chapel Hill, North Carolina.  (And Director Comey remarked, "Just be glad I didn't try to sing it." If you want to hear it on youtube, try the link, above.)

Recognizing the disease is the first step toward diagnosis and therapy.

This nation, which has proclaimed itself a paragon of tolerance, has, in fact and is in fact still not free of racism. 

One of the great ironies of World War II was the fact the Nazis, that ultimate in glorification of racism was defeated by powers which were themselves deeply racist: England, the United States and Russia. When General George Patton "liberated" a concentration camp, he was appalled by the Jewish inmates he discovered and he described them as subhuman, animals and vermin. He was not saying these human beings had been degraded and reduced to subhuman conditions, but that they were simply subhumans, at core. 

The Great Liberator, General Patton

 Of these concentration camp prisoners, he said, "The inmates looked like feebly animated mummies and seemed to be of the same level of intelligence." 
He later opined that of the races in Europe left after the war, it was a choice between the Slavic/Mongols, the Communists and the Germans, and he thought the Germans were the only good race left.  Patton was something of an equal opportunity racist--he didn't  much like anyone, outside of the good White folk from Virginia.


When the United States government swept up all the Japanese on the West Coast and threw them into concentration camps, the rationale was, well, you just don't know if you can trust "them."  By virtue of your membership in a group identified by white, Christian, Anglo Americans, you were suspect and stripped of your possessions and sent off to a prison. You were seen differently, seen as a member of a group. You might see your Japanese American neighbor as socially or intellectually different from yourself, but the white American saw you as all the same.

Internees, guilty of the crime of being of Japanese ancestry

Black soldiers were not allowed to serve in the same units as white soldiers, and in fact, when they were stationed in England before D-Day, local English pubs had to post signs saying only white American soldiers could enter on Mondays and only Blacks on Thursdays, because the combination of alcohol and native racism proved so dangerous.

Black American Soldiers: It wasn't until 50 years later
they were given of the privilege of dying with Whites

There is hope. When my older son, at age 12,  described his English teacher, with whom we were about to meet for a parent/teacher conference, he said she was tall, thin, elegantly dressed and she spoke with an aristocratic accent.  What he did not mention, and the first thing I noticed, and would likely have mentioned up front--she was Black. He simply did not see that. 

We were very proud.

But the fact is, most of us do see color. There are more and more people like my son, who do not, but we are long way from there now.

Surreal

What a marvelous age we live in: Step on an airplane at snow covered Logan airport and three hours later, get off at Ft. Myers, Florida in 70 degree weather and clear blue skies.  It's not exactly "Beam Me Up, Scottie," but it's close. Walking out into that warm, surprisingly dry, air you have the feeling of unreality.  All around you, people on bicycles with tennis rackets slung across their backs, people jogging in shorts look as if this is as it should be in February, nothing remarkable. 

Having waxed euphoric about the delights of New Hampshire winter, the Phantom was induced to make the journey, to do the Odyssey. Come on down, the weather's fine. And they were right. Of course, getting back home was not so simple.

A very successful trip: 1. The plane did not crash. 2. Upon return to New Hampshire, the dog had not died nor swallowed anything problematic at that Taj Mahal of doggy day care, The Barking Dog 3. Our new gas fireplace had not blown up the house. Anything beyond that, had to be a bonus.

In fact, in between departure and return, the Phantom discovered where the great blue heron who lives at Bachelder Pond had gone--he's down in Florida, with all his cousins.  The birds in Florida are magnificent. Egrets, like pigeons, wander all over the place. Pelicans, lesser herons, all sorts of birds who the Phantom could not name, but who sat at the tops of trees in the morning, until they got warm enough to swoop down to the water. Prime egg hunting territory. 

Naples, Bonita Springs, Fort Myers are clearly where the winners in our economic system winter. Apparently, the only cars allowed across the borders, or into the gated communities are Lexus, BMW and Mercedes. The homes are maintained with strict codes of uniformity: mailboxes must all look the same; the shingled  roofs must be sprayed with algaecide to prevent unsightly darkening; even the numbers which mark the addresses must be uniform, lest someone with less than ideal taste wreck havoc on the appearance of the community.

There is an undeniable demographic among those who can afford winter homes in these communities: They are not young. As my sister-in-law remarked, off handedly: "This is the ante room of Death." 

Well, they are enjoying themselves, until then. 

There are many locked gates. Just walking to get the paper, one passes through enough security to make you believe the people who built the Berlin Wall must have been consulted. 

If there is a generational strife in this country, you don't see it in these communities: Youthful staff wait eagerly on their elders at restaurants, bars, in their gardens. It is the older generation, after all, who support them handsomely. No complaints here about exploitation of young workers to support older workers. Here it's older patrons supporting younger workers.

The Phantom, of course, being admittedly odd, is disoriented by retirement communities. For the Phantom, work gives purpose to life.  For the residents of these communities, they no longer arise with a schedule of tasks to accomplish, of people to serve, of production schedules to meet.  So where is the purpose to their days? Not that you need a job. The political organizer. The community organizer. The woman who works for clean water, universal vaccinations, the man who serves on the school board, or directs a youth orchestra, they  are all doing meaningful, if not paid work.

There is only one child in the gated community where the Phantom stayed. A school bus carts the kid off every morning. Apart from that one child, there is no purpose imparted by the essential task of raising up the next generation. 

Women fill the tennis courts. There is a community center and men and women arrive for a discussion group. The topic this week is:  Great and consequential decisions of the Twentieth Century.  For some reason the Phantom thought of Bill Clinton's remark: "Now that I'm not President, I can say anything I want. Thing is, nobody cares."

We watched Dowton Abbey. It was fun watching with a group, for once. Aunt Violet, who once asked, "What is a weekend?" was in grand form, skewering a new hairdo on the one hand and, on the other, sliding deeper into the one, grand, forbidden passion of her life. That seemed meaningful, watching Downton.  For one thing, we were watching a set for whom every day is a weekend, just as it is for the retirees of Southwest Florida. But there is another thing: watching Downton is an exercise in that special form of communion which is experienced by those who can see in fiction meaning for the reality of their own lives.

The Phantom can see abandoning the workaday world for a life devoted to other projects, a life less scheduled and organized by others--sitting at the cafe in Paris, or in Central Park, with the world swirling around. But there is something missing when the people you are watching are not Parisians trying to get their kids to school, or New Yorkers who always look purposeful and busy, even when they are simply on their way to pick up their laundry.

One thing not to be missed: The Everglades. Take one of those air boats with the flat bottoms and big fans. It is not at all buggy this time of year, but those waters are thick with alligators, birds of every color and wingspan, the occasional snake--Pythons are a problem, especially for the alligators.

But that was then--this morning actually. Now the Phantom has returned to his home among the frozen, the hardy and the resigned. 

As he was told when he moved to New Hampshire, there are four distinct seasons here:  Almost Winter, Winter, Still Winter, Road Repair Season.

If you get tired of snow, well, there is always Florida.