The Wizard (Part 1)

Let's talk about roller skates. Not the ones with a brand new key that Melanie sang about...not the strange things with all the wheels lined up end to end either. I mean quads. Four wheels on each foot and one wheel on each corner.

I've spent what has to amount to years with those things laced to my feet. Of all things to last a lifetime...why skates? I was asking myself that the other day as Kellie and I kicked around which rink we wanted to hit on one of my rare Friday nights off.

I met Kellie at a skating rink by the way...just as information. 

We still like to go when we can and still hold hands like kids when the lights go down and a slow song comes on. But maybe I should start at the beginning...

The actual year is pretty hazy but it must have been sometime after '77 because I'm reasonably sure I was out of high school before I went skating for the first time. I don't remember how it came about that I got talked into going. I liked ice skating on frozen ponds when I was younger so maybe it was the idea of skating while not ending up as frozen as the water...I'm just not sure. I was working on the farm at the time and it's possible my girlfriend suggested it for something different to do...I really don't know. Somebody came up with the idea because it certainly wasn't on my radar at the time.

Regardless, I somehow I ended up at a little place on Judd Falls Road in Ithaca called 'Ides Skate City'. It was next door to a bowling center and owned by the same family that ran the lanes. Over the years, skating had faded from popularity though and for a while the building was used as a warehouse for equipment from a factory. At some point, a couple of guys (who I found to be very sketchy...more on that later) thought they could cash in on the booming skate craze, leased the building, cleaned out the junk and opened it back up as a rink.

As I remember it, the still-original floor had water damage ripples on the far end from a very leaky roof and it always developed puddles when it rained. There was no surface finish like they use now so they sprinkled powdered rosin over the bare wood to give it grip just like in the old days when both floors and wheels were hard-rock maple. The dust was incredible on a busy night.

The rental skates I took my first spin on were ancient and equipped with incredibly slippery wheels. The leather was crispy from a million sweaty feet and most of the laces had three or four extra knots that made it impossible to tie them right. They also had loose-ball bearings that occasionally fell out and scattered everywhere if the lock nuts backed off. Hitting one of those little BBs with super hard wheels was like instantly nailing your foot to the floor and a hail-mary nose-dive almost always ensued. 

I remember carpet covered plywood boxes for benches, carpeted walls, a tiny snack bar, skate rental counter, bare cinder block restrooms and a DJ booth all crammed in one end by the door. A few flashing lights and six speakers on the walls made it sort of disco-ish and there I was. Something must have clicked even as I was staggering along the wall holding on for dear life because it wasn't long and I was there an awful lot. 

The DJ most of the time was a guy called Flash. Mixing was still in the future so he just played random songs that he liked back to back and droned out the announcements in the same flat monotone used by almost every rink DJ I've ever heard right up to this day. 

"Clear the floor please. Clear the floor", "Couples only on the floor please. Couples only"...it's like a litany that never changes. 

He gravitated to country rock and oldies so I learned to keep my feet under me to 'Long Cool Woman In A Black Dress' by the Hollies and 'Can't You See' by Marshall Tucker. They did an all-oldies night once a week for the fifties and sixties lovers and Tuesdays was organ music on 45's that got a pretty good crowd of waltz and tango couples. They never had a live organist like some of the older, established places did but nobody seemed to mind. Flash gamely played it all and eventually lowered himself to take occasional requests if he was feeling mellow.

I soon found out that there was another rink job called 'Skate Guard'. Mostly it consisted of rolling around with a whistle in your teeth, scolding the tag-players and whip-crackers and helping the fallen back to their feet. I think it pretty much paid  in free admission and soggy pizza at the time.

That job belonged to another character known as Wild Bill. He was probably as old as my father and skated on ancient wheels under an ever-present cowboy hat. Everybody that worked there wore the same hideous orange bowling shirts (courtesy of the lanes across the parking lot) with the rink name in big letters on the back. Bill looked a little odd with a ten gallon hat perched over that shirt but he made up for it when he cut loose and really skated. He had the most incredible, very fast shuffle footwork when he got going and we loved to try to keep up and copy the steps. I think he might have been the one who first taught me how to go from wobbly forward to wobblier backwards. Once I figured it out though, there was no stopping. I never broke any bones during all that...but I sure did fall and hurt a lot. 

To this day, I don't know what the attraction was...but I was there. Saturday matinees, weekends, weekdays...didn't matter. And like anything else, if you do something often enough...you're bound to get better. I got so I could keep up with Wild Bill. Then I got faster.

Somewhere along the line, I decided I'd had enough of scuzzy rental skates and plunked down some cash for the first set of my own. Sure-Grip Super X plates and All American wheels, the cheapest Reidell boots there were, sealed bearings that didn't fly apart and away I went! I tinkered with different wheels. I found out how to tune the trucks the way I wanted. I was well and truly hooked.

Finally, the owners decided I was there all the time anyway so they might as well put me to use. I got an orange shirt, a whistle and no longer had to pay admission. I'd race through chores at the farm...shower, change and be there when the door unlocked. My girlfriend openly wondered what I'd gotten myself into...or more probably...what she'd gotten herself into.

This was the '80's remember and the skating boom was in full swing. Some Saturday nights the floor was so packed you could hardly move. We needed four or five skate guards on our tiny floor just to cover the crashes. We routinely ran flat out of rental skates and some people were using mismatched sizes made out of broken pairs just to get out there. The snack bar ran out of everything. Flash broke down and started playing better music under pain of after-session beatings if he didn't. 'Knock On Wood' brought on a stampede. 'Working Day and Night' was a train wreck waiting to happen if someone went down. 150 mostly out of control people at high velocity in a dark room could never get around that poor soul who lost his footing. The pile-ups were epic.

The off-skate area was shoulder to shoulder too so one unchecked-full-speed exit from the floor into the milling crowd looked and sounded a lot like the bowling alley next door. It was an absolute free for all and I loved it.

I wound up working there as much as I was farming. Skate-guarding morphed into after-session cleaning, working the snack bar and skate rental counter, selling tickets, fixing broken skates and covering the booth so Flash could get a break. I swept up the rosin dust, swamped out the disgusting restrooms, cooked a million hot dogs and became in all senses of the term...a rink rat.

One thing kept leading to another as time went along. I figured out how to build new skates from scratch so I became the resident 'pro' in what was hilariously called a pro shop. I got my hands on the turntables and records and that became yet another story. Music started to matter a lot more. 

I became a fixture. I would work the sessions and then come in early to skate some more (I had a door key by then). I can't even imagine how many miles I put on. I just kept on skating. I wore out set after set of wheels and bearings until I scrimped up enough for a whole new pair of skates. This time around they were Century plates with jump bars (I didn't know how to jump too well yet but the bars looked really cool and nobody else had them), a much nicer grade of boots and Fafnir speed bearings inside Powell-Peralta wheels that rolled like glass. It felt like I just got a new Corvette.

A whole pack of 'rats' developed out of nowhere at Skate City as well. Names and faces...some I can remember...some not. Some I still know...others long gone. They were the circle of friends I never had before. I finally had something...something I didn't even know I was missing.

And somewhere...sometime...someone started calling me Wizard. Whoever you are...wherever you ended up...I hope you know that it stuck.

Choices

You know that we could save everybody right? I mean...everybody. 

Every broken veteran that our endless wars have created; every struggling addict the opioid companies created; every cold, hungry, sick child and family that we've kicked out of the social safety net; every immigrant or asylum seeker at our borders that we've criminalized; every homeless, helpless soul who wanders among dumpsters because we closed the shelters; every senior who has to choose between medicine or food each week because they can't afford both...every single one of them.

(December 2020 Covid-19 update: And since this was first written, a pandemic has torn around the world. 300,000 Americans are dead. We couldn't have saved them all but we could have used our vast power, treasure, knowledge and skill to at least try. We could have saved so many but we chose not to. Thousands of people instead chose to argue over masks and closed bars and if it was even real. It became a political hot button and states that didn't vote the right way or say the right things got cut off. Hundreds of our 'leaders' decided it was expedient to ignore it outright and do nothing. We abandoned the sick and dying for poll percentage points and posturing. The powerful let them die. HB)

We are the richest, most powerful political construct the world has ever known and yet we choose not to be the most compassionate.

We choose not to. We have the money. We have the ability. We choose not to.

We have decided collectively if not individually to to leave the weakest and poorest to fend for themselves while a select few accumulate wealth that most of us cannot even comprehend. Consider...

There were 621 billionaires in the United States in 2019. The highest number ever. Can anyone honestly picture a billion dollars? That's one thousand times one million. $1,000 X $1,000,000. 

Jeff Bezos, the CEO of Amazon is alone worth 13 of them. That is simply an unimaginable number.

He made 130,000 times more than I did last year. At a rate of approximately $3,715 per second. And he does it year after year. Don't get me wrong...there's nothing wrong with being successful...they worked at it or got really lucky or both but how much is enough? How many tax breaks does someone who cannot conceivably spend their income in a hundred lifetimes need? 

Even those like Bill Gates and Warren Buffett, who are allocating billions from their personal fortunes to charitable work, continue to accumulate wealth faster than they can constructively give it away. 

Individual wealth aside, remember that our own federal government took in $3.3 trillion dollars in tax revenue last year. $3,300,000,000,000. Another unimaginable amount. And 80% of it came from individual income taxes. Corporate taxes came in at a whopping, uninspiring 9% of the total. (CBS News data)

We allow at least 60 Fortune 500 companies in this country to skate by without paying a single cent in income taxes on $79 billion in profits. If they paid the 21% federal tax rate, they would owe $16.4 billion in taxes. Instead they received $4.3 billion in rebates. (Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy data)

And we're in debt. To the tune of $22 trillion dollars. (I can't even imagine what it is now. I cost a bundle to bail out corporate America...again) Those who could contribute the most contribute the least and those who need the most can't keep up.

We're in red ink at the highest level in history but we decided to spend $13 billion dollars on another aircraft carrier. We have 10 of them already. More than any other Navy in the world...but just to make sure...we better build another one. 

Think of it like this. If the companies that paid nothing paid only their share...no more...like most of us, it would buy the Navy's shiny new carrier and lo and behold...there's $13,000,000,000 just kicking around to actually help people who desperately need it.

Or consider this...54% of federal spending is spent for defense. $598.5 billion dollars. Twice what is spent by the entire rest of the planet. We have by far the most powerful professional military in human history...but we decided we needed a new branch..."Space Force"...just in case. And by the way...we still have enough nuclear weapons to mostly eradicate life on Earth should the occasion ever arise. Just like personal fortunes; how much is enough?

But back to helping people who need it. A depressing percentage of the population are convinced that the vulnerable are the enemy. The stereotypical view that people who need help are somehow lazy or choose to be in the predicament they're in or refuse to work or whatever...is not at all typical. Yes, there are people who abuse the systems...but by far the majority are not nor are they looking to have everything handed to them for life. They are not the cause of our financial woes. We are.

Immigrants are not the enemy either. We all came from somewhere else. Unless your ancestors were here before the Europeans, you're an immigrant. Period. Stop calling yourself American if you believe otherwise.

People seeking asylum from Central America are not terrorists. Neither are the African or Middle Eastern refugees. Anyone taking on the danger and hardship of leaving their homes, especially those with families, is probably pretty desperate. They're not animals, not diseased, not bent on stealing 'our' livelihoods. They're looking for hope and we should be proud that they come to us to find it. Building literal or administrative walls to deny it to them is just evil.

They need help. Simple as that. And a society that claims to be a civil one needs to provide it. That's supposed to be who we are. Many working together to help a few to make us all better. Each of us who can putting a little bit in a big pot. It's stone soup. Everybody adds a tiny bit that they can. Those who need a hand now will be able to lend a hand later. It's not Communism or Socialism or any other '-ism' of the week...it's what makes us a country. It's supposed to be what makes us human.

We have the wherewithal to take care of everyone...or we would if we only decided to use it.

But I guess it's easier to just keep on keepin' on. Stay in the bubble where helping anyone is weakness. Where strength is more and more weapons. Success is for a few and power is for the most successful of all.

Hide in religion that preaches 'prosperity' while living in a tax shelter. Where the concepts of love, forgiveness and hope for the most vulnerable are lost in hate for anyone who is 'not like us'. Seek comfort in piety but lock the doors when 'the least of these' comes knocking.

Feed the lobbyists and starve the homeless. Hand out corporate welfare but cut SNAP. Roll out the red carpet to the shareholders and hedge funds but pull the rug out from under a retiree who depends on Social Security. 

Keep saying all is well because Wall Street is on a roll while millions...from WalMart employees to serving military families need public assistance just to eat. 

Cut staff and cut budgets. Build walls instead of homes. Buy another missile system with the money that would feed a thousand families. Save the banks and automakers and airlines with our money while personal bankruptcies skyrocket. And protect the health insurance providers' profits while real people die.

It doesn't have to be this way. We choose for it to be this way. We make a choice.

What happened to us?

Thanksgiving Abbreviated

Well...I guess CMC VRU is going to call tonight because I didn't change my PWS preferences for the holiday. I don't have FMLA and I already used up my DDO for the quarter so there's no getting around the Z. On top of that, it's not my YO till I get back.

It'll be just another PSR day full of PTC, TAs, TO and EM. As always, have to keep an eye on MU, HPT, TPOB and DBOL even with a GC at my HT. The EOTD and CSS is usually set up at least.

Probably have to talk to OSS at some point past BC, usually about the time the HBD/DED goes off but hopefully not to MOC unless something really conks out. They'll just tell you to cycle the BCCB most of the time anyway unless an it's an EMD FIRE problem and if so...well you're pretty much SOL.

Luckily, there's no HTUAs on the BI side so at least I don't have to worry about that even if we have a bunch of HM. Shouldn't be much MOW out either...no 752s or Form Ys. Only the DS and T&E.

Yep. Just another trip to the AWHT and a stay at the MSI. I'm wondering if PTI will have anybody or if TMs will be running us around when we get there? Sure to get an M2 and maybe some DE if R is late on Friday though.

DP is possible on the way back but only if HCT can scrounge linkable power away from UPS and JBH. EDT has a hard time getting stuff through a DI sometimes before the YM panics on a normal day. I guess it takes an order from the MTO to sort it out.

Ah the holiday season. Thanks HHH...you prick.

On The Road Again...Again

An old friend recently came back to life after a long sleep.

I finally took my well-worn '82 Harley Superglide to the local custom shop for a little rehab. I thought for many years that I would never ride it again. She's been stored since 2012 (I only know this because that's the last registration sticker on the plate) and I couldn't even remember the last time I had my helmet on. the old road warrior just sat under a cover in the garage collecting dust. 

I guess it was time...

I bought that bike brand new in the summer of '83 from Harding Harley in Corning...a dealership now long gone...when I sort of 'outgrew' my '80 Roadster. I'd ridden the 'Baby Hog' to Florida and back twice and towed 20 kids around a roller rink floor with it (and that''s another story) but I'd always wanted a big-inch. 

The FXE was a carryover so I scored a deal on it to get it off the dealer's floor. 6500 bucks for a brand-new bike seemed like a lot at the time but compared to current prices, it was practically theft.  I could swing the financing without a cosigner so he made me a smokin' price. 

Harding wanted it moved because everyone had to have the almost-customs that were selling like hotcakes to yuppies and Easy Rider wannabes back then. This one was as plain as dry toast and nobody was nibbling.

You see, somewhere along the line, HD realized that the people they'd turned away at the door for years actually had money and were willing to spend it to look 'edgy'. Guys that would have gotten the bum rush and a cold shoulder years ago turned up on the cover of the catalog. Tattoos appeared on middle-managers and college kids, stock brokers wore Harley paraphernalia to work and Willie G. Davidson smiled every time a dentist bought a shiny new Road King. 

People who'd never ridden so much as a moped were showing up at the dealerships with enough credit score to wobble off into the sunset with a decked-out dresser or factory chopper. Half of them didn't or couldn't ride but hey...they owned a Hog and that was all the rage. If it said 'Harley' on it, it sold out. The fancier, the better.

Nobody was looking for the most basic model of the 'Glides like the one sitting in the back row...not much chrome...no bags...no Screaming Eagle goodies...nothing fancy...not even a kickstarter...just a ride. 

It wasn't much but it was 80 cubic inches of all mine.

When I took it home, it was fire-engine red and the only accessories I could afford were an aftermarket aircleaner instead of the ham-can that Harley threw on it and a slick, baffle-less turnout for the exhaust to replace the giant sausage-shaped muffler that was legal but as ugly as an Edsel. The sound was awesome.

I managed to wring out a few bucks soon after for a sissy bar and what used to be called 'Frisco pegs but I couldn't spring for real forward controls so I turned the shift lever up a couple of splines and learned to kick gears and brakes with my heels. I threw away the factory turn signals and bought a tool bag and that was it. 

I rode it everywhere for just days over a year until an Allen bolt head sheared off in the transmission and went between the gears. It cracked the case on the way through the teeth so off to the dealer we went. Harley...in typical Harley fashion...determined that the warranty had expired by less than a week so they were not going to fix it. I was too broke to foot a new four-speed so the head wrench at Harding...a guy I only remember as Doug...sort of pieced it back together and sealed up the spider-web cracks in the bottom of the transmission for the cost of labor. He said keep my fingers crossed and sent me on my way. I have to give him all the credit...it's still hanging together after 30+ years.

From there on out, it was just miles on top of miles. I got some throw-over saddle bags and used to load them with records to go to a DJ gig I had in Syracuse. A bunch of us would just head out after work some nights at 2am and ride to a place called The Roscoe Diner about 100 miles away just to have breakfast as the sun came up. I rode to New Jersey to go roller skating. I rode to New England with a monster known as Beast and got run out of town by the local PD in Montpelier Vermont. I made it as far south as Virginia and as far north as Montreal. I taught advanced MSF RiderCourses and used the FX to do demonstrations for the students. Somewhere along the way, I wound up with an '85 SuperGlide to go with the '82 but the payments got the best of me and so the original stayed and the '85 went. My ex and I rode away from our wedding on the Hog. The bike lasted longer than the marriage.

Over the years, it went from red to black and lost all the Harley decals. Leaded gas went away so the valve guides crapped out first. Two or three sets of rings wore out, the original Japanese carb vibrated itself to death, the rod bearings gave up after about 85,000 miles and the clutch finally started slipping at about 90,000. I never did put in a new primary chain although I wore out dozens of finals and a boatload of tires. But still the old thing ran.

I led MDA rides and Poker Runs with it when I was a Road Captain for ABATE...rode in the rain and snow trying to get home from someplace a thousand times...made it up the Cross-Bronx Expressway at 5 o'clock on a Wednesday with a broken motor mount (a miracle for which I promised I'd never sell her)...and most days, I just rode to work. So many miles and so many places along the way.

Decades later...what little chrome it had is shot and I never did spring for any on the heads and side covers. A fresh paint job would be good. The bottom of the turnout pipe is ground razor-sharp from dragging in right turns and there's a kid's sneaker sole melted on top. There's about a hundred things that need tinkering but somehow, they never seem to get done. The speedometer hasn't read right and I haven't seen anything but blurs in the mirrors since it was new. The left fork leg seal has leaked since 1987 and I just never get around to getting it fixed. I don't know why there's still anything in it. In true Shovelhead fashion, there's always an oil patch to mark my parking spots. A few things never change.

Maybe some year, I'll put her back to new(er). Paint, some snazzy chrome, forward controls, un-blued exhaust pipes, a fork seal...you know...all the stuff that never quite made it to the top of the list. Legally, at 37 years old, she's an antique now so it's actually more of a 'restoration' now than anything else. 

But still...the old FXE starts when I hit the button once again. Another chapter...another life...more miles. I never would have believed it.

I Didn't Vote For This...

It's always about sex isn't it? 

Our elected government assemblies can't figure out how to do much of anything productive so they always default to something reproductive. When in doubt...moralize, criminalize or at best endlessly debate some aspect of sex. What's acceptable...what's not. What fits the ethics-du-jour. Who's doing what with whom. Who should use which restroom. And on and on ad nauseam...

Vis-a-vis, abortion...

The world teeters on ruin and yet, a woman's reproductive decisions and by extension, sexual life is the top priority this week in our governing chambers. There is a vigorous and extremely obnoxious march of morality among the mostly immoral, mostly white, mostly old, mostly male legislators to deny any woman...anywhere...any chance to have her own choice whether to or not to have a safe and legal abortion. The hypocrisy of this is mind boggling.

"Murder!" they cry. "Execution!" as they thump the Bible and pretend at piousness. "We must protect the unborn!" is the chorus of the agents of the theocracy. Of course, any sponsored form of government death is acceptable. Lethal injection jumps to mind for a start...but that's another story.

In a stunning rape of the separation of church and state, they have decreed that a shiny new soul is awarded the moment a sperm finds an egg and no choice is possible after that event. No woman, no physician, not even the father is better qualified to make decisions about this than they who sit in senates and on judicial benches. The Evangelicals have assured them that this is so. 

No circumstance or exception will be considered because every life is precious...at least until it can breathe on it's own and presumably join the military. 

No choice will be brooked. Punishment for an abortion will be swift and ruthless. Prison time will be mandatory for the mother and the doctor will share in retribution. The zealous at the statehouse will sit in judgement. They talk like Jules Winnfield quoting Ezekial in a diner. But unsurprisingly, there is no mention of keeping their own pants zipped. Who would think of denying sex to a congressman? Huh?

Abstain! Abstain!" is their mantra...as if they ever could or did. In their world, sex for the masses is only allowed for government approved, correctly gendered married couples and only for reproductive purposes. Wealthy and powerful men can do whatever they like but by God given strength of will and moral fortitude, no one else (especially women) will enjoy or even have sex. Does anyone really believe that these publicly indignant men would even attempt that? Look how chastity has worked out for the Catholic priesthood for the last thousand years...

Does anyone also believe that the wife, daughter or mistress of a "thoughts and prayers" senator would be unable to get an abortion should they choose or if it was convenient? And knowing they could...would it be performed in unclean conditions or with protesters marching outside the door? Would hers become the test case for Roe vs. Wade? Would she wear the scarlet letter and be shamed in committee or threatened on social media? I think not.

She will be able to afford the birth control that her male guardians are making impossible for her less-than-influential sisters. She will be able to travel...even out of the country if necessary. She will receive the care that the peasantry does not deserve. She will not be mutilated and will not die from infection. No one will bomb her clinic or murder her physician.

And that is the evil in this. All the "right to life" hand wringing and sermonizing doesn't apply to those who are taking away every woman's right to her own body. Wealth, power and privilege as always, provides a shield that separates 'them' from 'us'.

So women are required to carry every conception to conclusion but once born, all bets are off.  Once these children arrive, they are expendable.

That is the worst evil of all. There can be no support for the child or mother. Society, they say cannot afford to feed, clothe or house the children it demands be carried to term. Many may soon burn in the waste heat of unsustainable profits as the climate changes or starve before the next quarter...sacrificed at the alter of Lord Operating Ratio.  Only the for-profit prison system is happy to see them arrive...and yet we must make sure they and multitudes more are born. 

Planned, wanted or not...catastrophically incapable of surviving...the product of rape...none of that is of consequence...they must be born. They will be free to struggle and perish as necessary after birth...but until then, there can be no choice.

The elected have already decided that children should die by the thousands in front of guns...because the right to bear arms cannot ever be infringed lest the hollow men seem weak. They may die by the thousands in wars started by cynical leaders if only to prove how powerful they are. After the moment of delivery (or even during delivery) children have leave to die by more thousands because healthcare is a bridge too far to be agreed upon and none may trample on medicine-for-profit.

Time and again...'We can't afford to care for them all when they're young...we can't afford to care for them when they're old...we can't afford to educate them...we can't afford to pay them a living wage. They can have a firearm but they can't have birth control. They can lead a squad in combat but can't be trusted with their own bodies. We can't control designer drugs but we damn sure can make certain nobody outside the beltway ever gets a morning-after pill...

Listen, I could go on and on but the bottom line is...I will never, ever believe that any legislative body has any business regulating someone else's body. Get the hell out of bedrooms, doctor's offices and bathrooms and do something...anything that serves everyone. Find something to do that doesn't involve your own insecurities about sex. Just once...keep your Fundamentalist nonsense to yourself. You don't believe it anyway...

Because I and so many others are weary of yet another edition of the 'Moral Majority' that as they say...is neither.

Wondering

Let's get this straight. I don't claim to be particularly bright. I've never attended a college course or received any academic awards. I made it through high school (after at least two tries at Algebra 1, a swing and a miss at English and a short fling with Chemistry) but my grades were such that the Air Force recruiter at the job fair shuffled me off to the Army table for 'lack of aptitude' when I told him I wanted to fly. I hated almost every minute of my classes and wiggled my way off campus by 11:00 am my whole senior year so I could work on the farm. 

Against that background, it's hard to figure how I ended up being such a geek. I somehow developed an affectation for history, technology and science. Not that I'm any good at it...I just like it. 

I've spent my whole adult life reading and listening and trying to be at least a tiny bit literate on lots of subjects. I may not know very much about any one thing but I try to know a little about lots of others. 

Science in particular makes sense to me. It is true that not everything is known and some things may never be known...but there is a structure to the search. There is order in it that appeals to me. It says that not every answer is the correct one but the way to research and test those answers is understood and the language of verification is spoken by all.

History is a bit hazier at times but still, a fair percentage of it is facts and records. The interpretation of said facts gets murky and opinionated but much of that too is interesting and thought provoking. There is always something to learn...no matter what the subject.

In that light...I have to ask...why did so many people give up on knowledge? I've been wondering of late how ignorance became so popular and so...well...normal. And by the way...when did fact-based thinking turn into conspiracies?

"The scientists are all in on it"..."NASA is hiding something"...

Somehow, "I do/don't believe it" is now seen as a legitimate argument. Logical reasoning gives way to argument from incredulity. "I can't understand it so it can't be true." 

Anything more than a cursory Google search is viewed as "elitist" and therefore suspect. Social media posts are quoted as reliable sources of information. Videos on YouTube for instance, while very useful for reference on installing a light switch, are a cesspool of misinformation and bully pulpits for an endless parade of irrational peddlers of nonsense. Comment sections on almost any platform have to be monitored and periodically flushed of hate-mongers, keyboard warriors and the ever-present conspiracy porn. It makes one's head spin.

My purely anecdotal take on it all is that a significant number of seemingly functional adults have chosen to wholeheartedly believe in some form of completely unverifiable, irrational or long since disproven bullshit.

You know the ones...chemtrails; the flat Earth; vaccines; crop circles; denials of everything from moon landings to The Holocaust; pick your poison...there's something for every echo-chamber. From Nostradamus to Bigfoot; Pearl Harbor to Sandy Hook; GMOs to NWO; everybody is hiding something and no one is to be trusted.

Somehow, somewhere facts just evaporated and thousands of years of observation, record keeping and study degenerated into memes and fairy tales. It's as if a certain percentage of the population suddenly volunteered to be wantonly stupid and afraid.

Just for example...you'd have to knowingly allow yourself to be convinced that the Earth is flat. A Greek mathematician figured out the circumference of our roughly spherical planet with a fair degree of accuracy sometime around 240 BC and the proof of that roundness has accumulated nonstop ever since. Same with the idea that the Earth is the center of the universe...it's not, never was and the proof of that is mind-numbingly extensive. And yet...people believe it still. Against all evidence, no matter what it is or where it comes from...they believe. Photographs from space are fake...mathematical calculations are wrong...direct observation is unacceptable...every single scrap of proof is unreliable. This can only be willful ignorance.

The idea that science in general is a conspiracy and 'up to something' makes absolutely no sense when you realize that even the assertion of falsehood is being made on systems developed by the same science that is being disparaged. Does anyone think that the computer or phone on which they opine has always been around or just popped into being one day? Somehow, electricity makes it to the wall outlet to power it too. How did that happen? At least in the world in which we live; we travel, communicate, eat, shelter and yes...fight based on continuous experimentation. Everything we do and come in contact with is the result of ideas...failures...successes...giant leaps and small steps. 

Which leads to me wonder why. Why is it so attractive to believe that which is so easily proven to be false? What is to be gained by rejecting reality and retreating to fantasy? Is it to find safety in something made-up and easy rather than real and difficult? 

Or is it just plain fear? Fear of the unknown and unseen. As Clarke's Third Law states: Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.
I submit that it is also indistinguishable from conspiracy. 

Is it seeing oneself as being diminished by the accomplishments of others? Or is it just that the world has become too big? Is it that being so small and worse...being able to see that smallness that people fear? Is it fear of not being important?

After all, we're surrounded by 'influencers', 'curators', 'spokespersons' and assorted 'important' people...each telling us what to do, what to wear, what to think. It's an easy trap to fall into to believe that your own little corner is meaningless. 

Technology allows everyone to see the much bigger world like never before and it's oftentimes a very frightening place. I suspect...again with no evidence other than my opinion...that being part of something, even if it's wrong, is better than feeling alone and afraid against so much that is incomprehensible. Fear, after all, drives power in many directions. Inward and outward. Are so many people so afraid? 

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I don't begin to know the answer but I would like to think otherwise. My belief is that there's a much larger, quieter population that lives day to day without worrying about...well...everything. Maybe they're not the vocal ones who make the headlines. But they go on pushing ahead for the joy of it. Maybe all the noise in the news cycle is only aberration and not as prevalent as it seems. It's all just clickbait and sales pitch. Maybe there's a lot more people who look up a the stars and wonder. Everyday people who aren't afraid of the dark. Who see the world as it is.

People who see the universe as embodied by this picture of an object 55 million light years away and understand that we live in a far more wonderful and magical place than any made-up construct could ever be. It only worries me that anyone would wish not to see it and be a part of it. 

I read about astonishing new wonders almost every day. Successes like that photo of a black hole above...the mapping of the human genome...the biggest plane in the world making it's first flight...and even failures like a lunar lander crashing on final approach. To me, these things are magical and akin to miraculous. I cannot understand the science but I'm happy to see it at work. The nuts and bolts of it is beyond me but the results are incredible.

Besides...is it important to know how everything works anyway? Very few of us can truly comprehend all of the technology that surrounds us any more than I can. It's too pervasive and embedded. Do I claim to know what makes the computer I'm typing on work? In only the vaguest sort of way I suppose...but I could no more build it than the squirrel peering in the window at me. My phone could be operated by pixie dust for all I know of its internal workings. But I don't believe there's some dark forces at work behind it just because I don't know what makes the screen light up. My truck starts, the WiFi works, everything is cold in the 'fridge...I couldn't tell you how.

I'm amazed that all this stuff works and that's enough. There was a time not that long ago when nearly everything we take for granted would have been pure fantasy. I'm in awe of the power we all have that in another age, would surely have been seen as devil worship. The power to be almost everywhere at once...to see beyond our own horizon...to be able to know so much by just asking...to be able to be curious. People were burned at the stake for less.

Onward and upward.

In the end...I never did pass Algebra...or English 3. I squeaked out enough credit to graduate and never did learn to fly. I'm nothing more than the next walking talking blog opinion. Yes, I worry more than I should about things I can't control. I let the foolishness in the world get under my skin too much. 

But I try hard to never lose the wonder...the gift of being able to dream of things unseen and things unknown in spite of it all.

I only wish more of the world would tag along for the ride. 

For Minnie Louise...

Home isn't what it always was anymore. My Mom passed away a few days ago. It seems like a little more of the brightness drained out of the world when she left it.

She was almost ninety years old and had been married to the love of her life for seventy one years. She raised five kids in what amounted to two families in the old style...she ran the house and Dad worked. She had a faith that was unshakable. And she knew, even through the Parkinson's and her failing health that she was ready to close her eyes for the last time.

I saw her about a week ago and want to remember her as she was that day. She and Dad sat in the sunshine on their glassed-in back porch chatting and smiling. You could almost see through her she was so thin and frail but she laughed and held my hand like always. I imagine we talked about the kids, the weather, the usual comings and goings, the latest news and how nice it was to see me. I just want to remember her face in the sun and the feel of her hand.

When I got the call that she was in the hospital and she wasn't going home...I sat for a few minutes and struggled with going to see her. She was in a coma by then and so the Mom I knew was already gone. We had said our goodbyes a week ago without even knowing it was the last time. I didn't know if I could watch her leave us. But I went...

The whole tribe was already there by the time I made it to the ER. As the old saying goes, nothing brings a family together like a wedding or a funeral...or in this case, a crisis. My Dad was sitting on an unpadded stool by Mom's bed and wouldn't even sit in a more comfortable chair. He just held her hand and watched over her...as he always had. They were together even if she was only dreaming about it.

It's all a little blurry but doctors came and went. Nurses checked in and finally a surgeon took us to a small room for the news. The damage was too much and there was no reason to subject her to surgery. She didn't want that anyway and no one could disagree. All that was left was to wait. They moved her to a private room and said it was only a matter of hours.

She slipped quietly away the next morning with Dad by her side and I'd like to think she knew it somehow. Through it all, they'd been together. They were everything I ever wanted to be. Theirs was a love for the ages. 

So yes...losing Mom makes me terribly sad and yet somehow...it doesn't. She made the world a brighter place with her presence and everyone who met her saw it.  

She was my inspiration in every sense of the word. And what she taught...even if she did it by example or by accident, will stay with me until my own end. She gave to everyone around her. She gave just by being who she was. 

Perhaps her greatest gift was was to teach me to mark her passing with joy at her life well spent and her rest well earned. She knew I'd be sad but she wouldn't have wanted that...at least not for long. She knew me well and I think she'd forgive me one more time if I hurt for a while.

I know this is the way of things. Life ends for everyone someday and that's a part of it all. I'll grieve for Mom and now and again...and I'll probably fall apart sometimes thinking about her and wishing she was here. But I'll temper the pain with a treasured memory of her sitting peacefully on that bright porch in the sun...with the man she loved all her life by her side...holding my hand...smiling and laughing at some silly story. That's the Mom I'll remember always...not in grief that she's gone...but in happiness that I was lucky enough to be her middling son. And when the tears do come, I can promise her that they're not because I'm sad...but because I will always love her and miss her.

She was my Mom you know. And that makes me smile.