by Peter Rodman
Compare that to what we have now. All the important issues and offices are isolated in their own odd year election. No, the city council will not start a nuclear war. But they may raise your garbage rates, or incur a debt your grandchildren will have to pay off, or decide your street doesn't need trees. What is important to your life? Do you think the president of this country matters in your daily grind? No, not in mine either.
So we have this strange election when all we have on the ballot are city issues, like Measure O. Who shows up? Just the people who care, who think voting is important, who study issues, the people who always show up. Even if it snows on September 26th, they'll show up.
(Snow isn't as unusual as it may sound. Few people realize that the name of city of Fresno is the words, "Fresh Snow," run-together. It commemorates what the founders of the town said over and over back in 1833 when drifts of snow covered the countryside from September 14th to early March 1834. It could happen again.)
Having more people vote doesn't give better government, it just gives a more representative result: the uninformed outnumber the responsible voters. Let the uninformed vote for governor and president, but keep the more important city issues in their own election so it takes an effort to vote.
The city is 150 years old, and the charter is as old. It's worked okay so far, don't mess with it.
Gregg says:
"Delay demonstrates
doubt
and doubt demonstrates
a lack of unity
in the comm
unity."
(And the newspapers thought he was talking about getting a football team.)
So vote early and often. Vote no on O.
The Disappearance of Dang and Darn
I don't know how to account for the well-dressed man driving a new Porsche with "F**K YOU" phonetically lettered on the back. Today cussing out complete strangers appears to be appropriate behavior in most social situations.
People who don't know any better, and I'd class people who cuss me without knowing me as people who don't know better, usually insist this is some sort of new freedom, a pushing back of the boundaries that inhibit free expression. Sure, why not.
There have always been smutty words. I'm sure in ancient times people on the cutting edge of Babylonian trendiness (or social conscience, or free speech, or whatever) slopped offensive words over their fellow Babylonians. We've been pushing back boundaries and freeing things up for a long time.
After a while, the cutting edge dulls, ages a bit, then gets to be on the receiving end of the abuse. It always seems to each generation that things can't get any worse and society has gone in the garbage can, but the coming generation is always worse than the last one, and society never quite makes it completely into the garbage can.
Rhett's, "Frankly my dear, I don't give a damn," is a case in point. In those days, respectable journals spelled the word, "d**n," and respectable people didn't use it, but rather, "darn" and "dang." Darn and dang disappeared as people became casual about damn (and magazines allowed it in print), just as "shoot" and "sheesh" have disappeared now that s**t spills glibly from the lips.
Words have baggage: additional meanings that everyone understands but no one says. Some are soft, some hard, some violent. The baggage changes over the years, but at any given moment each word has a certain nimbus of meaning.
No one is seriously discussing excrement or sexual intercourse when they use s**t and f**k. They are not "only" words, they are special. They have angry baggage attached to them. Cuss words are violent and aggressive. They're supposed to be; when they lose their shock value, we find new cuss words.
Where once angry people used them to be violent and aggressive, today the words are used as filler in common conversation. Although this is a sign the words are losing their power, I don't believe it is a good thing.
Glib cussing isn't murder. It is intentionally rude and usually aggressive, even when people pretend otherwise. I began using the words both to attach myself to a group where I thought I belonged and to alienate myself from a group I despised. But the unacknowledged darkness of the words burrows in on the user; he becomes a less pleasant person as his words become casually angry. The words didn't just change my image, they changed me.
The world runs and probably always has run on Greed, Lust, Anger, and Fear; they move us when compassion won't. When a person tires of GLAF--tires of grabbing or lashing out or slapping away--and begins trying to dwell in the world rather than to dominate it, the dark power that these words reflect against the user becomes clear.
S**t Happens is not an acceptance of the world on its own terms. It is a judgment that the world is divided up into good events and bad events, and that my imagined interests determine good or bad.
But I am no judge of my life. Events I dreaded have ended up being blessings--the release from an obsession or a bondage to a person or thing I was sure I couldn't live without until I was given the gift of loss. The baggage of that word s**t poisons what I already dislike. No good can come of it, because I will never look for good in it.
Those words do you violence and hurt me when I use them. They are a lizard's membrane over my eyes, darkening my world; they eat at my self-image. But even knowing that, they persist in sitting like toads on my tongue, though I'd rather not have them, and they still hop out.
That easy cussing bothers me again after years of being insensible to it, I take to be progress. A person may ask, "If the world is hard, why not toughen up, work on the shell, dull the sense of outrage? Why refine a sense of smell if garbage covers the landscape?"
Because today the world has less trouble for me, and the garbage recedes now that I contribute less garbage of my own. If you want garbage, pick it up. Carry it, you can have it.
My Sap Is Falling
It's autumn. The apples and the cheeseballs are ripening on the trees and will soon be showing up fresh and firm for the holidays.
We set the clocks back an hour and go from daylight savings time to daylight spending time so we can start squandering some of those soft spring mornings and hot summer evenings we've been banking all this time.
And the inevitable tour busses start showing up around town. Leathery, overtanned Losangelers cruise the avenues of Rancho Cordova in charter buses for the annual fall foliage tours. ("Look mom, the leaves are all turning yellow and brown and falling off; are they dying?" "No, Tiffany, it's autumn; the trees do that in places where there are seasons.")
Each year there's a certain moment when the city seems committed to autumn. Spring, summer and winter aren't that way, we ease into them and their edges get mashed together, so we pretty much use the official dates to mark those seasons. But there's always a day, a moment of mixed sadness and gratitude, when a person says, "Well, I guess fall is here," and stands looking around at whatever pieces of nature happen to be around.
Shadows are suddenly longer, the angle of the sunlight is more acute, the beams skim the ground more. The sun is sluggish and has less heat; it has trouble getting up as high in the sky and works shorter hours.
A couple of months ago people would look for shade and a spot where the breeze would blow over them. Now a sunbeam grazing the carpet through the window is inviting. The weather's cooling, but is still warm enough at times for basking in the sun in a chair protected from the wind.
Fall used to have something to do with going back to school after summer, but I don't go to school anymore. Sometimes the smell of distant fields burning on the afternoon wind stirs memories of slogging to class with a pack full of books and I regret giving up my student days, but I can't do that anymore.
My brain is full, I've long since passed the time when I can add more knowledge to the muddled collection in my mind. Anything new I learn today displaces something else: a phone number, your name, the name of that song, my age.
Once again the leaves turn and drop their leaves in sequence. As it happens, I remember the sequence.
&
nbsp; First the Goldenrain Locusts turn yellow and drop the leaflets, then the midrib of the leaves, and the Chinese Elm leaves sift down about the same time. The American Elms are impossible to tell, the leaf beetles have skeletonized the leaves to tracing paper in midsummer and scraps are always drifting down.
The Mulberry trees turn yellow and drop their leaves from the top of the tree first. Then the Ginkgoes turn a translucent yellow. Next the Chinese Pistachios, plum trees, and liquidambars turn, giving the best color show.
The plane trees come last. Their leaves slowly turn brown, yellow, or purplish, a few at a time, then a few more. The foliage gradually thins through Thanksgiving, and the big leaves might be dead, dried bats, or discarded bird wings or the twisted, shriveled scales from dragons as they scuttle across the pavement to lie in heaps and drifts in protected corners. The drifts make good winter homes for spiders, centipedes and slugs if they're not raked up.
The bugs turn desperate. Houseflies look for sunny walls to collect on, they need warmth, the cool air makes them sluggish and drowsy and will soon kill them. Isolated bees and butterflies are lost, searching for the last bit of work they can do, but there isn't anything left for them. The female preying mantis's abdomen is swollen and pulsing. She needs a protected place to lay her eggs so she can die.
The air turns clean, it almost seems thinner and the wind loses its summer slowness and heaviness. Even a light breeze has a bite and an edge. The sky loses its summer slate color and turns deep blue. The sun glares too brightly, like the light on the screen when the film breaks in the projector, yet by afternoon the sun is exhausted, without even enough light left for a sunset.
Though there aren't really any such things as ghosts and spirits, their shadows do exist, dancing and sliding over the ground around us as the wind whips the baring branches and cuts the autumn light into shapes. Gather up, pack up, close up. It's coming.
Fall Down, Go Boom!
Some things a person just takes for granted after a while. Like walking. After thirty-mumble years of personally walking upright and several million years as a species, I don't think much about walking.
Walking is one of those things that it's best not to analyze too much. That's why kids learning to walk have so much trouble: there's too much to remember and it all happens so fast. Between throwing your weight forward and falling off balance, making sure there's nothing nasty to step in or on, then catching yourself by putting a foot in front of you, balancing on that foot, shifting your weight, and avoiding all the larger obstacles in your path, it's a wonder any of us can walk at all.
I'm surprised so many people walk as do. Complicated as it is, I'd expect more crawling adults, and its difficulty goes a long way towards explaining why teenagers spend so many hours driving around and around in circles.
So it really isn't all that surprising that on a sunny day while walking on flat, dry, pavement with nothing to slip on or trip over and with no one to distract me, I should fall down and wrench my ankle. It almost makes perfect sense, but I can't help feeling a little dumb.
It also hurts.
It hurt quite a bit at first, and evidently I was paler than usual. People came and hovered over me looking concerned. It was odd, everything had changed from three minutes before. Josie brought me a cup of water, Betty some wet paper towels. Bert wanted to know if I wanted flowers sent to the service or just a remembrance to Loaves and Fishes soup kitchen.
When it seemed clear I wasn't going to croak on the spot, I was gathered up and taken home. I sat there until my wife came home and reminded me that there is a whole group of people called doctors who know about twisted ankles and who even wait for injured people to come to them for treatment.
The doctor was quite impressed. The swelling was distinct and almost decorative and there was some wonderful tenderness. It would have to be x-rayed to make sure nothing was broken (nothing was), and a loose cast was put on to act as a splint and to complicate my life.
Seventeen years ago I crushed a vertebrae in a motorcycle accident--broke my back--spent a week in the hospital, strapped on a back brace, gulped pain pills, and went back to college. I had to work twice as hard, because I had to make up the week I'd missed. (I was educated, not smart.) Except for whimpering as I leaned over my organic chemistry lab equipment and the occasional groan of discomfort during genetics lectures, no one knew I was hurt.
Doctors today seem to coddle injuries shamelessly. Instead of bandaging my ankle, giving it a slap and me a chin chuck and sending me back to work, my doctor immobilized it with the medical equivalent of a two-burner hibachi on the end of my leg. She handed me crutches and stood clear as I crashed into her office walls, then told me to stay home and not put any weight on the hurt ankle.
Not once was I asked if I might perhaps have a little Chihuahua who would be in danger of being reduced to a pulp by the uncontrolled swings of the lump of stone on my right foot. (I don't, but still--) Not once was I asked how important a person I was and what my absence would do to the company (another imaginary Chihuahua). And not once was I asked if I knew what I would do with myself if I couldn't work, if I couldn't stand to read, or write, or watch TV., or if I couldn't walk or drive. All the doctor cared about was the injury.
I've never been much good at accepting things from people. Not only the big things--large sums of money with no strings attached or a twelve room house on a bluff overlooking the ocean--but also little things like the gift of a book or a favor freely given. Or even very little things, like a compliment.
Gifts embarrass me. Accepting something makes me feel indebted, as if the giver has a hook in me. So I never went into debt. I always paid my own way; and if I didn't pay, I didn't play.
I've gotten better over the years, but the vainglorious idea that I don't need other people still floats around and influences the things I do. I'd still rather give a gift than get one.
So now I find myself helpless. I can't work the crutches very well and exhaust my arms and good leg to the point where they tremble by the end of the day. I need to ask people to come by, pick me up, and take me where I have to go. And they do.
If I want a glass of water, I have to ask my wife to bring it. And she does.
People are happy to help. I've had to call people to have someone to talk to, but some people have called me on their own, because they were concerned. Karen, Judy, and Bob dropped by the house and visited--a kind surprise.
So now I'm forced to reconsider still another basic rule of my life: "I'll do it myself, or I won't do it." What I find today is that people like the chance to be kind, that they like to help the guy that's busted up. It doesn't make much sense, but one of the best gifts I can give people is to ask them to help me when I need help.
Please Send Instructions
Dear Peter,
Thank you for the letter and the care package. It's a good thing you sent the package separate from the envelope, or we wouldn't've had any idea what it was you sent us. Or been able to read the letter.
I don't mean to sound ungrateful, and I think it's wonderful that people can have fresh salads and fruit in California in the winter, but I think it was pretty bone- headed of you to mail your aunt and me fruit and animals in the dead of winter. It snows in North Dakota you idiot!
At least your letter tipped us off the package was coming, but we thought it would be bigger and they'd hold it at the post office. As it was, the package was small enough to fit in the mailbox at the end of the drive, so that's where the mailman left it.
I'm sure it was okay in the mail truck, but it sat in our mailbox for a good 20 minutes at 17 below and had to be thawed before we could even open it. I made your aunt go sit in the other room while I opened the box. Good thing.
There wasn't anything in that box that looked like the kiwibird on the shoe polish can. Wasn't even feet or a beak left, and not a feather in sight. Kiwis must melt when they die, like slugs when you hit 'em with a dose of salt. Either that,
or the damn bird exploded. Just glad your aunt didn't see all that green slime.
I fished out the avocado and wiped most of the former kiwi off before I gave it to your aunt then hid the box in the garage.
The avocado wasn't much of a prize either, but your aunt made the best of it. She claimed she knew all about avocados, but I think as much as 70 percent of that was bluff. After thirty years of marriage you can pick up on things like that.
She got the rind off and scraped the black slime off the kernel. There was a lot of it, and parts of it hadn't gone soft and black yet, they were green and cheesy, but we weren't about to wait around until the whole thing went black; maybe we should have.
Is it ripe when it's slimy?
Well, we didn't wait. Your aunt washed off the slime, then took a wire brush to that skin on the kernel, and that peeled right off. Of course you didn't tell us what to do with the avocado, any more than you told us what to feed the kiwi in the off chance that got here alive, so we didn't know how to cook it. Your aunt decided to boil it, which is when I started to suspect she might not have as much experience with avocados as she let on.
She'd boil it and poke it with a fork to test for doneness, boil it and poke it, boil it and poke it. Three hours she boiled the damn thing. It was almost nine o'clock and bedtime when she served it up (it finally split in two halves).
She should've tried baking it. It was awful. She ate her half and was bilious all night, I had one little piece and kept belching the taste.
The next time you send something like that for us to try, don't just say "enjoy it," send instructions. The poor woman was groaning all night.
Not much news on this end. Your cousin John is growing his mustache back. He had it for about 15 years and decided to shave it off two weeks ago.
Winter's a bad time of year to lose a mass of hair, and his upper lip chapped up real bad. Besides that, you get used to seeing a mustache on a man. It's like an old lady and her old dog. They walk by every day and you don't think much about them, but then the dog dies and the old woman suddenly looks so lonesome. That was John's problem--his face looked like its dog died.