Soft(er) landings

 

     The only way to get good at anything is through practice.
     Which is hard enough when you are practicing something safe, like writing, or tennis, or carving wood.
     But what happens when practice can get you killed?
     Steps must be taken. And devices deployed.  

     I was was hiking down a mountain trail in Colorado when I spied a flash of something large and hot pink up the trail ahead. It looked like an inflatable mattress. Hard to ignore a thing like that. The owner noticed me noticing it.  

     I had to ask, because otherwise I'd never know.    

     "I'm trying to figure that out," I said, in my friendliest tone, gesturing toward the large pink object.
     "It's my very visible crash pad," he said, with laudable abashment. 

  A "crash pad" was an unfamiliar concept to me. Well, except as a temporary place where hip young people caught a few z's. But that couldn't be its meaning here. Still, well-named, as no further explanation was really necessary. The device describes itself. 

     As if to demonstrate anyway, he immediately proceeded to set the crash pad at the base of a rock wall and begin climbing, quickly but methodically working his fingers and toes into the crevices and crawling up the red rock wall. I asked him if I could take his picture and he said, over his shoulder, that I could. Better safe that sorry, 

  

Joe Pyzyk's bench

 

     Joe Pyzyk's friends choose his tribute well. A sturdy wooden bench, sitting all by itself in the shade of a lonely tree, well along the Mount Sanitas Valley Trail, just west of downtown Boulder, Colorado. Marked by a simple bronze plaque: "In memory of Joe Pyzyk." One tends not to notice such plaques. But I noticed this one. 
     I'm in town, hanging with a pair of octogenarians of my acquaintance, seeing one through a daunting medical procedure, with the stipulation that I'll vanish first thing in the morning, if possible, and get a walk in.    
     My wife asked a niece who had studied at Boulder's Naropa Institute what trail she recommends, and she picked Sanitas, which worked for us. Saturday we walked up the valley trail and Sunday went up the more difficult mountain trail, which is like climbing a staircase a mile long. Both trails are well-populated, which is supposed to be bad, nature rudely withdrawing her glories when it comes to humanity. But after a year of lockdown, I enjoyed saying good morning over and over, and watching the procession of lean, lanky hikers, without enough fat to make a butter pat between them, plus of course their dogs, of all breeds, from whippets to huskies.  We saw dozens of them.

     There were also a number of black-billed magpies capering around the slope side of the valley trail, and I had never seen the bird before, with its dramatic black and white feathers and long thin tail. Like myself, they seemed undaunted by the presence of people, and got quite close to us.
     On the way back, both days we paused on Joe Pyzyk's bench, to let my spine recalibrate itself—more back trouble—and watched the people and dogs go by. (It's located on the valley trail; on the second day, after an hour on the mountain trail, we hit the valley trail for a cool-down stroll). Most people had a canine companion, and most of those were off leash but well-trained.  I of course wondered about our benefactor, and later found enough on-line to glean that he was 27 years old, a University of Wisconsin grad who came to the University of Colorado at Boulder to work on his masters in fine arts. He loved his dog Leo and loved the Rockies, which make the bench's location double appropriate: before a stunning vista and a virtual pooch parade. Pyzyk was also loved enough that somebody or some group endowed this perfectly-situated bench. I noticed his parents' names online, and for a moment thought of digging further. But his youth reveals tragedy aplenty without sniffing around for details, and in this case delving would be ingratitude, certainly poor recompense for installing this fine bench in such a dramatic spot. I suppose purists might complain, as purists like to do, that having a bench here at all interrupts the natural vista.  But so does the trail, as well as a wooden fence by the bench keeps people, who can be careless, from falling into a small brook. So this is already a blazed area of the countryside, a place which a good solid bench enhances rather than detracts from.

     During the pandemic I didn't worry too much about what I would do once I had my shots and could go somewhere, and now I know: I would come here and do this. A good choice.

Black-billed magpie

Travelin' man.

 

     I've travelled by gondola and burro and aerial tram, taken streetcars around New Orleans and cable cars around San Francisco, crowded into tap-taps in Port-au-Prince and clung to tuk-tuks in Bangkok, sailed across the Atlantic and around the tip of South America, taken bullet trains across Japan and France, flown in biplanes and helicopters and the Goodyear blimp. I get around, or used to, before COVID grounded me and, to expand my perspective beyond its usual focus, the whole world too.
     So my emotion, returning to air travel Friday, for a quick hi-folks-remember-me? visit to Boulder is perhaps surprising. Or at least worth noting. It was not joy or relief or even enthusiasm, but the deepest calm I ever experienced going from Point A to Point B. I didn't sweat the plane tickets—hard to do, since my wife bought 'em. Didn't sweat the packing or the cab. Sat facing away from the gate as they called the rows and, to be honest, when I did turn around at "4" imagined the gate empty and the plane gone. And smiled.

    Everyone on board wore their masks when they weren't sipping their bottles of water or nibbling their Stroopwafels and mini-pretzels. I ordered coffee black and didn't worry too much about lowering my mask to drink it. The air smelled medicinal.  
    No worries. Maybe surviving the pandemic, so far, is part of that. Just as I used to say that after you give up drinking everything else is easy, after you hunker down for a year to avoid a plague ravaging the world, well, whether you get a window or an aisle seat just isn't that big a deal anymore. I can't say whether this is permanent or the result of a ... calculating .... 14 month pause in flitting hither and yon, a period when the longest trip was a drive up to Madison to find out who opens the Cologuard jars. 

     True, when the United Airbus took off, I did ruminate, as I always do, that the first 10 seconds the plane is in the air are the most dangerous in the flight, when you find out if you'll get where you're going or end up spread across a field, like American Flight 191, with workers picking you out of the muck with tweezers.
     But if the past that thought came as a kind of hard squint, this time it was a distant ruffle, soft and vague, like a bell tolling twice in a church steeple far away.

Texas note: Goodbye Austin

    This is Caren Jeskey's last post as EGD's Austin Bureau Chief. Next week she begins her new role as ... well, she was going to be Albany Park Bureau Chief. But I understand that is up in the air. Perhaps "Former Austin Bureau Chief" until things get settled. If you've got a gorgeous little coachhouse available, not too pricey with lots of natural light and an authentic vibe, and love the thought of Caren patrolling the neighborhood, observing the scene minutely and dispensing acts of kindness and sage counsel as circumstances dictate, well, now is the time to step forward.

    Shoeless zombies and wild-eyed dirty young women roam Austin’s downtown streets. A slim and handsome dealer wearing expensive high tops with fresh corn rows in his hair rides an electric scooter purposefully in the direction of a bedraggled young man whose shorts are falling off of him. He is skin and bones. His thick black hair is an unruly mess and his shoes are tattered and worn, with no laces. The dealer speaks harshly to him and the addicted person pleads for more time to pay, and for more dope. Scooter rides away angrily, for now, but he will be back.
     I called my friend who is a street outreach worker and she informed me that there are some very bad drugs out there on the streets right now. Tent encampments surround the edges of town and have taken over every grassy area, and even slabs of hard concrete near major roads and expressways. Those of us who love to hike, bike and run upon the countless greenbelts that weave throughout Austin have grown accustomed to seeing blue tarps, tents, mini grills, and bony tattooed men and women scrounging for cigarettes, sharing a laugh, or sleeping in every nook and cranny between the trees.
     There are fewer tourists and business people around to give out a dollar or a hamburger. 
The down and out are now all but invisible and, like other superpowers, this invisibility tends to protect others while not really benefiting themselves. As I drove down a road just west of the Texas State Capitol on my way to the post office the other day, I was horrified to have to stop at a red light. To my right was a man who may have been dead laying on a piece of cardboard, another man sitting slumped over on a milk crate injecting something into his arm. I didn’t stare but I glanced over as I pulled away and was relieved to see that the man laying down rolled over to reach for his turn with the needle.

     This is just a normal sight in Austin. Before COVID there were areas that were known to be designed spots for people to huddle and use drugs—openly smoking, shooting up, drinking and sleeping a mere few blocks from the capitol. The only silver lining was the presence of HOST (the Homeless Outreach Street Team) and other groups that helped as much as they could. These days the numbers of encampments and sickeningly open destitute and desperate human existence has taken over. It’s “being addressed” but from the outside looks unsolvable.
     I used to stop, open my trunk, and (safely, in the light of day, masked) pass out gloves, food, blankets, back packs, masks and the like. Looks like I’ve lost some of my helping spirit, and some of my energy, these past few months.
     I like to take hilly back street on the outskirts of downtown. Austin is so small, outskirts in her case means a few blocks away from the city center. There are wood framed homes with wrap around porches in the shadows of office buildings. They won’t be there for long so it’s nice to take them in before they become the dust of development. A sad looking German shepherd with a pink collar slowly passed in front of my car. I reflexively pulled over and called “good dog!” She eyed me, turned around, and skulked away backwards towards a rambling old fashioned house with a white picket fence wrapped around it. She tried to lap up a trickle of water coming from a green hose on the side of the house.
     As I got out of my car, I heard a man’s voice calling out to me. Across the street on top of a little hill there he was. Young and bearded, wearing a fashionable crinkled button down shirt, dress pants and loafers. “I’ve been following her for a while, trying to get her to come to me. Animal rescue facilities are closed. I called 911 but I am not sure if they will come to help.”
     I sat on the curb and ignored the pup. She came a little closer and lay down. She looked tired. Her eyes were drooping but she refused to lower her head. Ears triangles of alertness. Business casual came and sat down too. Don’t worry, at least 10 feet away. We decided he’d walk a couple blocks to his office and bring back some Slim Jims. Maybe we could coax her into my car and read her collar?
     He got up to leave and she immediately jumped up and followed him. “Wait!” I said. “She’s following you.” He sat back down and she relaxed, laying back down closer to him. We decided I’d drive to the gas station nearby to get something to lure our dog friend closer to safety.
     As I got up, the pretty German shepherd got up too, and started walking towards the picket fenced house. A middle aged woman with long gray hair appeared out of the back door. “Hello! She’s mine. She's patrolling.” Business casual and I were surprised. “She’s yours?” he asked. “Yes. She’s fine. Just keeping an eye on things.” Biz caj and I shared a glance, both thinking “how irresponsible can a dog mama be?”
     Now that she had an audience, she lunched into a story. “There is a homeless man living here but I can’t get him out. The police seem to think he has a right to stay. We’ve never even had a relationship. He threw a microwave out of the window!” Biz caj and I scanned the house. It was a huge two story wood framed home on a big plot of land, right downtown. Must be worth millions. We could see piles of things stacked up in a huge bay window, and as we looked closer we could see hoarders clutter inside and out. White paint was peeling and the house needed a lot of work.
     I wondered what I had gotten myself into. 

      “That sounds rough,” I said, “are you safe?” 

      “No. But there’s nothing I can do. This is an estate and none of us who own it can agree on what to do with it. He comes around a lot less now. I think he only comes to sleep.” 

     “Is there anything we can do to help?” I asked. 

      “No,” long gray said. I was still concerned, but relieved, and started backing away slowly towards my car. “I am so sorry this is happening to you and I wish there was more I could do. Good luck!”
     I said goodbye to my new acquaintances and got into my car, ready to get back to taking care of my own life. I saw b.c. do the same—back away and finally turn to walk back to his office. Things are often not as they appear.

‘Worst attack on democracy’ continues still

     President Joe Biden spoke for over an hour Wednesday in his first address to a joint session of Congress, raising urgent issues from the need to get Americans vaccinated to the jobs that will be created fighting climate change to the key role immigration has always played in the American story.

     But 10 words the president said early in his speech were particularly accurate and alarming, when he referred to the Jan. 6 insurrection as ”the worst attack on our democracy since the Civil War.”
     It had to be said plainly because the bulk of the Republican Party, deformed and unrecognizable after five years of rolling like puppies at the feet of Donald Trump, still does not accept reality. Polls show 70% of Republicans believe the Big Lie that the election was stolen, despite a complete lack of evidence. Half believe the Jan. 6 insurrection against our democracy was committed not by Trump supporters whipped into a frenzy, but by Democrats — Black Lives Matter activists in whiteface, perhaps — ”trying to make Trump look bad.” As if he needs help.
     ”The worst attack on our democracy since the Civil War.” It must be repeated because of the shocking resilience of right-wing extremism. Indeed, Trump apologists zeroed in on these specific words for their typical hoots of incomprehension and ridicule. Yet it is literally a matter of life or death, our nation’s and theirs. Trump’s toxic distortion of masculinity that allowed him to grope women and pretend he is always right and always wins also made him reject wearing masks and vaccines — he got his in secret. Millions of Americans listened to him, causing hundreds of thousands to die. Millions still listen, meaning hundreds of thousands more will die. Following him into their graves, literally.
     No one can be glad of that. It’s tragic and horrible. But I’m not writing to try and jar them from their error. That’s futile. Those who do not form their positions through reason cannot be argued out of them by reason.

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Joe Biden calls sedition by its name.

     "The worst attack on our democracy since the Civil War." 

     President Joe Biden said many important, noteworthy and inspirational things Wednesday night in his first State of the Union message before a pared down, socially-distant joint session of Congress.  He called for "hope over fear, truth over lies" and laid out a range of vital, blue collar, bread-and-butter initiatives, noting "doing nothing is not an option." He said that the "sacred right to vote" is under attack and called for its defense.

     An impressive, powerful, pitch perfect speech, realistic in addressing our problems, concrete in solutions offered, optimistic in tone.
     But this sentence, one of the very first things he said, echoed throughout the speech, for being simply true. With all the spin, the equivocation, fabrication and outright delusion that has been going on in our country since Jan. 6 and before, those 10 words, "The worst attack on our democracy since the Civil War," have the undeniable judgment of history upon them that no amount of sneering and whataboutism and denial will efface. Donald Trump was a traitor who colluded with our enemies and goaded the mob to try to overthrow our democracy to keep himself in power, aided by a ragtag band of power-hungry henchmen and underlings, and cheered on by an army of dupes and seditionists. That was obvious Jan. 6, it is widely-known now and will be the simple summation of history onward into the future forever. Whether you agree or not does not affect the truth of the matter. A sad and solemn assessment, yet it was still good to hear President Biden say it aloud, on the very spot where the clown insurrection took place, where the deluded had their awful carnival and shat upon everything that our country represents while calling themselves patriots. The truth will out.

An unexpected bonus for the shorter man

     Over the past year, I’ve worn a coat and tie exactly once. The incoming director general of the Taiwanese economic and cultural office in Chicago wanted to get acquainted over a Zoom call. I knew he’d be wearing a coat and tie, and didn’t want to be disrespectful: they’ve got enough of that coming from communist China already.
     It was, as they say in diplomatic circles, a frank and productive exchange of ideas.
     A few minutes before we spoke, I stood before the mirror in the bedroom, fingers fluttering at the necktie — blue, not red, for obvious reasons. I wondered if I’d remember how to tie it. But I’ve been tying neckties since 1974, when I played the Mr. Darling/Captain Hook role in “Peter Pan” at Camp Wise and had to tie a tie onstage while delivering lines. You don’t forget.
     The COVID-19 era was pants optional, business conducted from your living room. Now, with the non-wackadoodle segment of the country getting vaccinated, and beginning to emerge from our long hibernation, the question is: Are we going to start dressing up? Or go to work in sweats? Or even buy new clothes? Those with a dog in the race are optimistic.
     “The courts aren’t open, there’s no theater, no trade shows, the financial institutions are all still closed,” said Scott Shapiro, owner of Syd Jerome, the high-end Loop men’s clothing store, which has had plywood over its windows since August.
     “There’s no reason to put displays in the windows because nobody is walking by,” said Shapiro.
     Even without mannequins displaying cashmere sweaters and Italian belts, “our customers are slowly coming back.” A certain Chicago milieu is always going to look sharp.

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