On reading: how many books will you read in your life?

On Reading:

How many books will you read in your life?

May 13, 2014

“How many books will you read in your life?”  That question from my nephew started me thinking.  How many books have I read?  How many more will I have time to read?  I cannot remember a time when I did not have a book or two within ready reach.  Reading is almost like breathing:  it is hard to imagine life without books.

My earliest memory of books was standing in front of my father’s bookcase in our farmhouse in northern Minnesota.  The bookshelves, located at the head of the stairs on the second floor, stretched from floor to ceiling.  I remember craning my head to look to the top and knowing that there were many books out of reach.  Even the ones I could touch were out of reach given my reading level, yet I was curious about their content.

My father's library had to be abandoned when we left northern Minnesota.  Space in our home-made trailer was scarce and books were not a priority in our move to the west. The books were boxed and sold for ten cents a box.  My father retained two boxes with some of his favorites.  In Oregon, those boxes were placed in the attic of our new home.  I was eight when we moved and that attic became my place of refuge when family noise or fights were too much to handle.  I could hide and read.  Over the years, I would open and paw through those boxes looking for books that interested me.  In later years, my sister JoAn would join me in searching for and reading those great books. Some, among them  Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn, were read and re-read until the covers literally fell off. Marjorie Rawling's classic, The Yearling, was one that I put back a number of times until I was ready for it.  I then used it for a book report, though it was not on the teacher’s recommended reading list.  The teacher asked, “Where did you find this?” and I told her about my special place.  Treasuries of Grand Opera and Dante’s Divine Comedy with the Durer wood prints were two favorites that migrated to the living room of our home where my father’s library space was reduced to one meager wire rack. Years later, I found these in used book stores; the same edition with the same memorable pictures.

Some of the books in those boxes were Reader’s Digest Condensed Books.  Reader’s Digest started condensing books (often then-current best sellers)in 1950 as a way of making books  more generally available  to those who lived in rural areas without access to libraries or the means to buy large quantities of books..  Four times a year, my father would receive a book with four or more novels, condensed or abridged.  As a young reader with neither guide nor restrictions, I did not know that some sneered at condensed books.  I read them, sampling many different authors, some of whom became friends for life.

I don't know the total number of books in my father's library.  Fewer than one hundred survived the trip in those two boxes and before I left home at 17, I had read nearly all of those books.

A life-long reading habit often starts with hearing books read aloud. Since I have no memory of books read to me as a child, I can only estimate their number. As a grandfather, I have created an Excel spreadsheet on which I try to keep track of the number of books that our grandchildren have read or heard read.  I am now behind and realize I can’t capture all the books that belong on the list.  I can report, however, that with my oldest grandchildren approaching eight years old,  the list of books read now contains more than 400 books.

With the help of family members and the web, I also created my own suggested reading list, "1001 Books to read before you go to college."  That To Be Read (TBR) list started by asking my son and my daughter to list the most memorable books from their childhood.  My wife added her “must read” books, including some that I had never read until I met her.  Charlotte’s Web, Stuart Little, Winnie the Pooh, and the Wind in the Willows and anything written by Dr. Seuss were on everyone’s TBR list.  The TBR list has been a useful resource when buying books for birthday or holiday presents.

My original plan was to start a new list on each child’s sixth birthday:  books read on their own.  Like creating lists of words they know as infants, the task soon proved impossible. When they were 18 months old, we made such word lists for our children and in turn our children did the same for their children.  By 24 months, they all knew too many words to list. Readers read.  Sam and Andy now read more than 4 books each week. Their first grade reading log has daily entries for Monday-Thursday and is handed in each Friday.  Even if I were there to copy that sheet each week, that would log only the books they choose to list. I am sure that Dara reads at the same rate and Abby and Eden will soon be there as well. I know that their pace will slow down as school demands more and their pleasure reading books become longer.  Even so,  I think it likely that by college each grandchild will have read (or have read to them) more than 1,000 books.

My early reading years were likely not as rich, though I was reading to myself before first grade, which I entered when I was five.  I was known as a reader and a bookworm.  I was eight years old when we moved to Oregon.  That summer I was given my own library card.  Every Friday night was library night.  My mother took us to the local library and we were allowed to check out three books each.  Though the library imposed a fine of two cents per day for late returns, in my early years that fine was rarely a problem since I would usually finish my three books long before the next Friday.

In the children's section, I had my own little nook.  Two series of books were kept in that reading nook.  The first series I just called the "Orange books." These were biographies of famous Americans and descriptions of aspects of Americana-the Erie Canal, the Oregon Trail, the California gold rush and of course stories about cowboys and Indians and the settling of the American west. I read all the Orange books, sometimes checking out the same book several times.  The other series was known as the "Landmark" books, because the publisher imprint on the spine of each book was "Landmark." Starting in the fifth grade, these became my favorite books.  Landmark books covered many topics, but I remember the biographies of famous men and women, including Jane Hull of Hull House, Thomas Edison and many others. Published in the 1950’s and 1960’s, there are more than 100 books in the series.  I think that completing all books in these two series that were available at my town library was the start of a lifelong habit of "adopting" authors and then reading every book they had written in English (or translated).

I became special friends with the librarians. When I ran out of books in the children's section I was personally escorted to the adult section to continue my insatiable quest for books about cowboys and Indians.  The adult section seemed large. Row upon row, all organized by the Dewey decimal system, with a card catalog to locate books by subject, author or title.  Even at our local library in Springfield, Oregon, I learned that I was unlikely to read all the books that had been written.

When I left home for Harvard, I knew that I was a reader.  I thought that I was a fast reader and I thought that I was well-read.  Imagine my surprise when I was tested and classified as a slow reader. Harvard suggested strongly that I take a remedial reading course.  Since I was on scholarship, Harvard also offered to pay $20 of the $25 tuition for the reading class.  I took the course.  There I found a totally different way of reading; speed-reading for content; trying to wrest from the writer the central meaning of his writing in the least amount of time.  There I also learned what Harvard thought of the Reader’s Digest.  In my first week at college, my roommate had snickered when I started a sentence, “I read in the Reader’s Digest that . . . .”  In the reading course, one of the exercises in speed reading was to take the test and answer the multiple-choice questions without bothering to read the article.  The instructor selected an article from the Reader’s Digest, “The most unforgettable character I ever met.”  We were supplied only the title of the article and the name of that character.  Then the class took the test, answering in unison the correct answers to the multiple-choice questions.  Though I still had affection for the Reader’s Digest, it was no longer a source reference for conversations.

I also found out in those first few weeks that I was not well-read at least in comparison to many of my class-mates who had gone to prep schools in the east.  I had read one Shakespeare play, Julius Caesar; they had read Shakespeare for many years and could quote lengthy passages.  There was a body of classical literature that seemingly all of them had read.  I was familiar with many of the names and titles, either from the game of Authors or by some exposure at school. I realized very rapidly that I simply had not read as many of the classics as my classmates.  I also realized that it would be a challenge to do my required reading for my courses and that I could not catch up overnight on all the reading that I had missed.  And yet, it mattered. 

One friend shared a hobby with his father, an English professor.  They read Finnegan’s Wake for fun, searching out the obscure literary clues that littered the book.  I had read only Portrait of an Artist as a Young Man, thought that Ulysses could be tackled only by masochists, and could scarcely comprehend the depth of knowledge required to read, understand, and enjoy Finnegan’s Wake.  Conversation in the dining hall included literary allusions and references:  said of a California student, “acting like a Gatsby;” said of a professor, “full of sound and fury;” of the freshman year, “it was the best of times. It was the worst of times.”  Some references I knew, others I didn’t, and some slipped by me without my being aware that a reference had occurred.   What to do?

I decided on a plan of action. I knew I could not catch up overnight.  I also believed that this deficiency was of knowledge, not intelligence.  I was capable of reading and understanding any of these works.  I committed to myself to read one book each week, apart from my required class work.  Over time and with some disciplined selection, I would catch up.  This reading would be for enjoyment and comprehension, not speed-reading to wrest meaning from the text.  I adopted the plan on my 18^th birthday, November 18, 1964.  I was to follow that plan for the next fifty years.  I did not restrict my reading to the classics or any particular genre.  Usually, I read one “serious” book for about each three lighter ones – books to be read on a bus or airplane, or on a beach.

When I turned 30, I realized that the last hard science course I had taken was in high school when I was 16 and the last science book I had read was Niko Tinbergen’s, The Herring Gull’s World, which I read in my one and only soft science course in college.  Looking at my young children, I realized that if I did nothing, I would be increasingly out of touch with their world.  So I started to read science.  Isaac Asimov was a great writer of science fiction.  He also wrote popular science essays.  Groups of around 15 of his essays were then published as books.  His interests covered all of science and so I was exposed to chemistry, biology, physics, astrophysics, astronomy and cosmology as those topics had developed in the 1970s.  I found the essays on physics and cosmology to be particularly compelling.  That led to a long-term hobby of trying to understand and to keep current with developments in these disciplines. 

I love book lists. High school English teachers started me with recommended summer reading lists.  Harvard sent a suggested summer reading list before freshman year.  In college, I started my own TBR list, primarily of classics that my friends and classmates considered to be basic.  At first, I would simply check off books on the TBR list as I read them.  Later, I started keeping lists of all books that I had read in the course of a year.  Theoretically, this was to help prevent me from buying duplicates of the same book, first in hardback and then in paperback some time later.  Keeping the book list never solved the duplicate acquisition problem, but it did become a habit.  In earlier years, I kept the list on a yellow legal tablet.  Later, I started to keep the list on the computer.  In some years, I annotated the list with a little review— what the book was about; would I recommend it; what did I learn from it.  As I slowed down my work pace, my reading pace picked up. In recent years, I average around one hundred books each year. That pace is unlikely to change as long as I can see to read.

So to answer my nephew’s question:   500 to 1,000 books before college.  Fifty to 100 books per years for 50 years = 2,500 to 5,000, so I have read 3,000 to 6,000 books to date.  At my current rate, perhaps 2,000 more before I am dead or can no longer read.  So, in my lifetime, I will read 5,000 to 8,000 books.

Passover in an Ecumenical Home

Passover in an Ecumenical Home

James E. McGuire 

April 15, 2014

            We celebrated Passover this year with our son’s family and the family of their au pair, visiting the United States from their home in Germany.  This year Abby, age 4, quietly asked the first question: Why is this night different from all other nights?” Sam and Andy, age 7, reading from index cards, asked the other questions with loud clear voices. The answers to these questions were somewhat truncated in respect of the age of the children and the challenges of translation from English to German.  We did cover the most important parts of the service: praising a god who gave us wine and negotiating with children for the return of the afikomen (a hidden piece of matzoh) necessary to conclude the service, leading to the last glass of wine and dessert.

As a secular humanist, raised as a Lutheran Christian, and married to a Reformed Jew, I offer my reflections on the core teachings of Passover and the Seder service to my new German friends, Kalli and Ulli. Why do we hold this special Seder service?

            Passover is an ancient festival that captures eternal ideals: spring and the renewal of life and freedom from slavery or servitude.  In the pastoral tribes of Israel, spring was celebrated by sacrifice of the first born of the flock of sheep, the Paschal lamb.  The festival, Hag Hapesah, became a festival of the home when the Jews were in bondage in Egypt and the Pharaoh refused to allow them to journey to the wilderness to make the Paschal sacrifice.

            Pesah means the “passing over,” sparing from suffering and delivering from bondage.  In Exodus, “the sacrifice of the Lord’s Passover, for that He passed over the houses of the children of Israel, when He smote the Egyptians and delivered our houses.  (Exodus 12:27).  The feast of Matzot or “unleavened bread” was created in remembrance of the hurried flight from Egypt, when the Israelite’s did not have time to let their bread rise before fleeing Egypt to create Passover.  These three festivals, Hag Hapesah, Pesah, and Matzot were combined to create Passover.

            When Israel was a free nation, the Passover Seder was the key celebration of freedom and the renewal of life, conducted at the Temple in Jerusalem.  When the Romans destroyed the Temple (AD 70), the celebration moved back to the home.  Under centuries of oppression, Jewish people intoned fervently, “This year we are slaves; next year may we be free.”

            When I first participated in a Passover Seder, I was immediately taken by the universal truths embodied in the symbols of this service.  At our Passover table, we find many symbols of our shared heritage in celebrating the renewal of life.  On the farm in Minnesota, the lambing season was first sign of spring.  For all of us who have ever held a new-born, whether lamb, puppy, kitten, or baby, it is at once a mystery, a miracle, and an occasion for celebration and hope. So a roasted lamb bone (the Paschal lamb) (provided for free by our neighborhood Whole Foods store) on a platter with an egg and parsley. These are signs of spring and the renewal of life.  On the same platter, we also have saltwater and bitter herbs as a reminder that life can also be hard and that our joy in living can sometimes be mingled with tears of sadness and sorrow. The tulips on the table, which renew themselves each year, are also universal signs of spring.  The table is lit with candles, our symbol for light, the source of all life.

            The Paschal lamb is the ultimate symbol of sacrifice of the first and the best for the greater good.  Christianity has adopted this notion and applied to Jesus Christ in his sacrifice as the Lamb of God.  In this ecumenical household, we honor these symbols of sacrifice by our notions of sharing and caring.  With family, we recognize our obligations to care for aging parents, siblings in need, and nephew, nieces, and cousins who benefit from a helping hand.  We welcome our guests because you are an important part of this tradition.  In the Passover seder, there is always a cup for Elijah, the symbol of travelers, looking for shelter and hospitality.  In our home, it is fundamental:  the door is always open, our friends and our children’s friends are always welcome.  Our lives are richer by our sharing with you and with others.

            Freedom from servitude, slavery, and strife is the central theme of the Passover Seder.  In this year, we can celebrate the prospects for peace as we conclude our longest war in Afghanistan for true peace is the beginning of freedom for all people.  For ourselves, we can celebrate our own freedoms:  our choices in retirement to pursue new endeavors; the choices open to our grandchildren as students to pursue their own unique interests.  We can also reflect on our slavery and servitude:  Too many of our citizens are slaves to a minimum wage not adequate to provide for the basic necessities of life.  Next year, may they be free: “an honest day’s pay for an honest day’s work.” 

For each of you, this Passover Seder can be a celebration of freedoms won and a resolve to overcome whatever puts your mind, body, or spirit in bondage.

Teaching kindergarten 2014

Teaching Kindergarten 2014

James E. McGuire

March 31, 2014

            “Stretch your brain.  Stretch your sentences,” said Mrs. Slaughter as 22 kindergarten students went from the carpet to their work tables to begin their journal entries.  The students had already written the first four words:  “Over the weekend, I …. “  Now they were to complete that sentence, describing their weekend.  When finished with the writing, their assignment was to draw and color a picture relating to their journal entry. Our assignment was to respond to a raised hand by providing assistance to writers who were stuck.  During the 15 minute journaling period, Mrs. Slaughter made her way around the room, deftly checking work, helping to erase and re-write mistakes in spelling or incomplete sentences, and finishing her review with a star and a comment. 

            Before starting to write, the students had discussed their week-end activities with each other in an exercise of active listening that I also use in advanced mediation training.  “Pair up with a partner,” Mrs. Slaughter said.  “Ask your partner what she or he did over the weekend.  Listen carefully because you are going to share with the class what you heard.”  The silence that had lasted during these instructions was broken quickly as excited young voices told classmates what they had done over the weekend.  I could hear only snatches—“playground. . . playdate; shopping for . . . ; trip to . . .; had fun with . . . .”  Then Mrs. Slaughter called time and asked a student to tell the class what his partner had done over the week-end.  She prompted for more details—“Who did you go shopping with?”  “Where?” “What did you play?”  “Stretch your mind.  Stretch your sentences.”

At 8:00 am on the first Monday in February, we had stood outside classroom zero, Mrs. Slaughter’s kindergarten class at the Country Lane School, waiting for the doors to open.  We watched as the line of kindergartners filed in with a gaggle of parents clustered on the other side of the breezeway.  My heart was beating a little faster—I was excited and somewhat apprehensive at my first day as a kindergarten helper.  We had volunteered because our granddaughter is in Mrs. Slaughter’s class. Every Monday for the next two months, for ninety minutes, we would assist Mrs. Slaughter.  I did not know what that meant.  I thought I was up to the challenge, but still felt that little frisson of fear we experience when facing the unknown.  I took a comforting sip from my traveling tea mug and then took a picture of our granddaughter Dara as she came skipping across the playground to join her classmates.

Promptly at 8:15 a.m., Mrs. Slaughter opens the doors with a warm smile and welcoming words.  She is dressed professionally, slacks, a colorful top and leather shoes with modest heels. We enter and put away our jackets as the students enter and go directly to their cubbies to deposit backpacks, jackets, and morning snack .  Then they walk quickly and sit criss-cross on their assigned spots on the colorful carpet.  All know the routine.  Each day starts with a class meeting.  Taking attendance is easy:  is there an empty spot?  When all are settled, It looks like a miniature United Nations General Assembly. 

Mrs. Slaughter puts us to work while she meets with the students for morning meeting.  Our tasks vary.  I graduate from removing staples on school work that had been stapled to the wall to stapling together the pages of next month’s journals to filing the papers students will take home.  The quantity and quality of the student work impresses me. Here is the homework packet for January—multiple pages of various reading, writing, counting, drawing projects completed by the students at home (goal: 10-15 minutes/day), with comments, corrections, and stars from Mrs. Slaughter.  Here are portraits of presidents and illustrations of stories that had been read in class.  I struggle a little to decipher unfamiliar names written by the students on their paperwork—Riko, Naila, Suhas, Zichen, Medha.  Claire learns how to use a glue gun (great fun) and the cutting board to cut colored paper to size for some future project. Confident that we understand our first assignments, Mrs. Slaughter turns to give her full attention to her students.

Mrs. Slaughter sits in a comfortable director’s chair in front of her class.  There are two flip-charts in the front near her chair and a plastic console filled with markers, pointers, and school supplies of all sorts.   Near her feet are plastic tubs filled with books. On the side is an activity board for recording important information:  the day of the week; the weather; the number of days that the students have been in school.  The carpet itself is an education.  The colored rows depict the visible spectrum:  bright red and orange near the teacher; blue and violet at the far end.  The border of the carpet has the days of the week and the months of the year with a seasonal picture for each month. Each spot is a rectangle, 18’ x24”, just big enough for a kindergartener’s personal space.

In the center of the room are five tables and chairs.  Each table has a centerpiece, holding a mound of erasers, and boxes of crayons, colored markers, pencils, and scissors.  Around the room, the walls are covered with completed student work, the alphabet, sight words, and new quizzes. The section captioned “Algebra and Functions:  Symbols, Operations, Properties” has a new neatly-written question:  “Which symbol shows ‘equals’?  + - $ =. ” Next to that is the section entitled “Math reasoning:  Word problems.”  Today’s word problem:  “Sadie went whale watching.  She saw 7 orcas and 7 blue whales.  How many whales did she see altogether?”

As we worked, we listened to the morning routine—“For this week, Caden will be our line leader; Barak and Dara will be handing out papers; Anna is our attendance messenger; and Aadya is our caboose.”  “What day is today?” Little hands shoot up; one answers “Monday” and goes to the board to change the day.  “And yesterday was?”  A smaller number of hands go up; one  answers.  “And tomorrow is?”  It is sunny today and this is our 125^th day of school.  So let’s stand and count, this time by tens.”  Mrs. Slaughter leads the students in running in place or jumping. Everyone shouts, “Ten, twenty, thirty, forty  . . . one hundred twenty; one hundred twenty-one . . . .”  Then everyone sits back down and Mrs. Slaughter explains the schedule for the day and the themes for the month.  “This is the first Monday in March.  This month we will learn about Spring, leprechauns, and whales.” 

Seamlessly, Mrs. Slaughter slips into reading mode.  I had glanced at a schedule on her desk—five days divided into 15-minute, color-coded blocks.  She read from the book in the fluid style of practiced teachers the book turned so that all could see; an animated voice, able to switch from reading to commentary and back.  The children listened with rapt attention.  When she came to a challenging word—“The whale raised its fluke.  What is a fluke?” The hands shoot up; someone is called on and correctly answers and the story continues.  Other concepts are explained—‘‘breaching; spy-hopping; lob-tailing”-prompting another hand to shoot up.  “Lobtailing is like a whale ‘high five’,” offers one boy.  Mrs. Slaughter stops reading before they have reached the end of the book.  It is 8:30 and time for learning centers.

Mrs. Slaughter divides the class into five groups.  She consults a wall chart,  calls out the students’ names, and directs them to one of five tables.  We have been joined by two other volunteer parents, seasoned veterans, I think.  I am given a table with iPads, encased in sturdy green plastic protective covers and attached to a set of headphones.  This is self-directed learning.  My job is to monitor and help if there is a technical problem.  For several sessions, I observe the students join a penguin on his adventures.  To move to  the next stage, he must solve a math problem.  Most problems involve addition or subtraction.  Some introduce simple equations—balancing a scale with an equal number of blocks so the platform is stable and the penguin can climb.  Each student starts at the beginning of the game and proceeds at a comfortable pace.  The adventures are more exciting and the challenges more complex as the game advances.  I can observe that some struggle to find the solution.  The patient iPad never scolds or quits.  When mistakes made, the penguin must try again.  Occasionally, I offered a small tip to help someone who was stuck. In March, the iPads were supplemented with Chrome notebooks with high speed internet access.  The students learned (or already knew) how to navigate with the notebook and open an eBook.  The stories were read to them, usually by a celebrity.  Then the students would either discuss with me what they had heard or  listen to a new story.

At another center, Claire helped a group of students set up and play a game to improve reading and spelling.  At another center, Karen, a parent volunteer, is helping a group of students on an art project—creating a seascape with pieces of colored paper—a whale habitat.   Another parent is reading a story to her group and helping the students chart the facts from the story.  Mrs. Slaughter is leading a group of readers at her center, all reading the same story.  Mrs. Slaughter calls out, “Three more minutes.”  And later, “one minute—get ready to move to your next center.”  And fifteen fast minutes have gone by and I have a new group donning the headphones and turning on the iPads.  I glance at the other tables—every group is quickly engaged in the new activity. 

I return to my group and study more closely the games they are playing.   I knew generally about Common Core standards, adopted by 44 states, to guide an integrated curriculum in math and reading for K-12.    I had downloaded the Common Core standards on my own iPad and had mused about how some of these standards translate to teaching kindergarten.  http://www.corestandards.org/  The titles can intimidate:  “Counting and Cardinality, Operations and Algebraic Thinking, Number & Operations in Base Ten, and Geometry.”  The actual standards are more understandable:  “K.OA.A.2.  Operations & Algebraic Thinking:  Understand addition as putting together and adding to, and understand subtraction as taking apart and taking from.”  And now I saw this in action—an iPad and an adventure game that was easy to learn and fun to play.  Wow.  I was still watching, but now engaged at two levels:  watch them the play the game; map to Common Core. Too soon, I heard Mrs. Slaughter, “Three more minutes” and then “one minute, finish your project and come back to the rug.”

9:15 am.  My first hour was done and I felt like I had been on a fast-paced exhilarating ride.  I sip my tea and enjoy with some free time to just observe.  Mrs. Slaughter and the students have resumed the story they had started earlier.  When the story ends, Mrs. Slaughter stands at the flip chart to print the information the students provide about whales:  where they live; what they eat; what they do.  I observe and reflect:  “Common Core standards:  Reading: Literature.  RL.K.1. With prompting and support, ask and answer questions about key details in a text.”  RL.K.4. Craft and Structure.  Ask and answer questions about unknown words in a text.”   Mrs. Slaughter glances at the clock and announces, “Time for journaling. Today I want you to write about whales and draw a picture of whales in their habitat.  Stretch your mind.   Stretch your sentences.”

9:45.  Journaling is done for the day and so are we.  Mrs. Slaughter and her class are less than halfway through the day. I know only a little about the rest of the day: snacks and recess, of course; a trip to the computer lab, possibly; and more learning, certainly.  I also know I will never underestimate kindergarten and the professionals who teach it.

On Luck (March 13, 2014)

On Luck

March 13, 2014

James E McGuire

“It’s hard to detect good luck—it looks so much like something you have earned.” In spite of the wisdom of these words, there are those who mistakenly believe their good fortune is due solely to their own hard work.  In his last presidential campaign, President Obama misspoke when, trying to echo the eloquent comments of Senator Elizabeth Warren, he muffed his lines and said something like, “When you see someone rich and successful claiming they built it, they are wrong.  They didn’t build it.”  He should have added “by themselves.” 

Every American success story is due, in part, to all the advantages and support that are built into our social system.  I am one of those American success stories and in many ways embody the American dream.  I do, however, know that luck was a critical factor in my success.   

Luck:  the roll of the genetic dice.  It all starts there.  Any student of reproductive biology knows the role that chance plays in determining how each of us starts the game of life.  At the moment of conception, it is a random event as to which sperm will win the race to join with that particular egg at that particular moment to make “me.”  There is no one who can claim control over his genetic make-up or the occurrence of her birth.

Luck:  birth order. Particularly in a large family—I was one of six—with the same parents, one notes and marvels at the differences among siblings.   We were all reasonably confident that we had common parents.  At the same time, it is also true that no two children have the same parents.  Birth order makes a tremendous difference. There are special advantages and burdens placed on the first born.  For the parents, it is their first experiment in being parents.   By being in the middle, I had the benefit  of birth order.  My parents had just the right balance:  still interested in my band concerts and scholastic achievements and yet giving me enough latitude and freedom to develop my own interests and goals.  I had an older brother and an older sister to buffer me from some of the  bad stuff -  parents when they were really angry and bullies in the school yard.  

Luck:  moving to Oregon. We were all born on a farm in northern Minnesota.  We thought of it as the land that God forgot.  It was hot in the summer with unbearable swarms of mosquitoes to torment cattle and humans.  It was cold in the winter with daytime temperatures well below zero and with blizzard winds coming straight from the North Pole.  At a time when no one measured wind chill factors, as a farm child of  seven years of age, I hauled water and grain for the chickens when the thermometer registered many degrees below zero.  One will never know what the future would have been had we remained on the farm.  Few farm boys from Minnesota were lucky enough to make it to Harvard.

In 1955 our parents sold the farm at auction and headed west.  All of their worldly possessions in one home-made trailer and one 1949 Chevrolet, filled with two parents and six children.  I had a cast on a broken leg.  They had five hundred dollars in their pockets and no debts.  We settled in Springfield, Oregon:   population of 10,000 across the river from Eugene (pop. 25,000) and the University of Oregon. No child can claim credit for the circumstances that landed us in the heart of the Willamette Valley and all the riches that it held.  Also, we were only one hour from the Pacific Ocean and one hour from the Cascade Mountains. In the early years, we all knew that we were lucky to have left Minnesota:  the cold, the unremitting labor of caring for animals twice a day, the absence of running water or indoor plumbing.

Benefiting from the post-war boom of the Eisenhower era, right at the beginning of the building of the Interstate highway system, in Oregon in the 1950’s, everyone had jobs and opportunities for new jobs. We all started by picking crops: strawberries, cherries, and beans. We enjoyed good neighborhood schools with enrichment programs for the “gifted,” and a safe social environment where kids could comfortably walk the streets by day or by night. Though they had been given a key when our parents bought our new home, to my knowledge the front door was never locked. 

Luck:  Mrs. Vosberg, the teacher who cared.  Almost every success story involves one teacher or other adult who singles out a lucky person for special attention.  Logically, of course, such a teacher has done those small acts many times over the course of a lifetime of teaching.  To the student who benefits, it seems an act of amazing grace and sheer good luck.  I had such a teacher in the fifth grade:  Mrs. Vosberg.  Mrs. Vosberg singled me out and told me I was gifted.  “You have a brain, Mac.  Use it,” she said in her gravelly, smoker voice. I knew nothing of her personal life, except she was a great teacher and a smoker.  I know that because I was invited into the faculty lounge to talk with her while she enjoyed a cigarette break.  When I bloodied the nose of a school yard bully by banging his head into the basketball goal pole, I was taken aside by Mrs. Vosberg to be escorted to the Principal’s office for the punishment that was due.  On the way, she leaned over and whispered, “Next time, Mac, hit him harder!”  Even then I knew that was not a license for mayhem, but a vote of confidence in me.  Throughout the school year, Mrs. Vosberg “found” clothing that her “nephew” had outgrown and that miraculously fit me to a T.   My mother was comfortable with me accepting hand-me-downs, even when accidentally one of them arrived at school with the price tag still attached.  I was the teacher’s pet.  From that year forward, I knew that I was smart and that I could do anything that I wanted.  “You have a brain, Mac.  Use it.” 

More generally, we had the benefit of good free public schools.  Class sizes were reasonable; arts, music and sports were part of the curriculum for all who wanted; the teachers were good, dedicated professionals who were paid a decent wage, and the school buildings were safe.  We walked to elementary school, junior high school and high school.  The town library was also only a short walk away.  We were given library cards when we were old enough to read and could check out as many books as we wanted, every week, for free.  The librarians knew me personally and helped me read more advanced books from the adult section.

We had a strong local community center, with free swimming lessons and a special “Teen Canteen” for safe dancing on a Friday night.  We also benefited by having a quality state university, the University of Oregon, right across the river.  Open to some of us as seniors in high school, the university promised an affordable education to all students who graduated and wanted to go on to college. 

Luck:  getting into Harvard.  There were many related elements of luck that sent me to Harvard.    I had made the announcement when I was 14:  “I am going to be a lawyer and I am going to Harvard.”  I made the decision based on a school career preference test that established that I was fitted for indoor clerical work:  jobs like secretary, accountant or lawyer.  I told my parents that afternoon and never changed my mind.  On this topic, my mother was as ignorant as I was about the odds, the admissions process, or even where Harvard was located.   She never doubted the plan and would tell here customers in the beauty shop, “My oldest boy is going to be a doctor and Jim is going to Harvard to be a lawyer.” After years of hearing stories about the future plans of her children, one of her customers in the beauty shop, who had actually graduated from Columbia, asked my mother if I had taken the SAT exams.  Of course, my mother did not know.  Neither of us even knew what an SAT exam was.  The customer also gently suggested that schools in the east tended to have much earlier dates for applying and since this was the summer before my senior year in high school, perhaps I should start the application process soon, if I really was going to Harvard. 

A trip to the library and a discussion with my special friend the librarian gave me all the information I needed.  She told me what an SAT was, that the SAT application came from Princeton, New Jersey and gave me the address for Harvard in Cambridge, Massachusetts.  I asked her to check again since I was pretty sure that the Harvard I wanted to go to was in Boston.  She told me that she was pretty sure there was only one Harvard and that it was in fact located in Cambridge, across the river from Boston.  Not until I applied did I discover that one had to attend four years of college before even applying to go to law school.  Undeterred, I filled out the forms and applied.  By then my summer job was a roofer, working for my father. Somewhat grudgingly, he gave me a free Saturday in August to take the SAT’s.  Naturally, I did nothing to prepare for the exam except to buy two new number two pencils and find my way to the University of Oregon campus where the SAT exam was given. 

I was accepted by Harvard.  Later I found out that one of the reasons was that Harvard had a concept of “regional distribution preference” to ensure a more diverse student body.  I was also given a full scholarship:  $10,000 to cover tuition, room and board for a four-year education at Harvard.  Harvard even gave me a student loan of $750 in the spring of my senior year, requiring only my signature on a note and an agreement to pay when I could afford it.

Luck:  meeting and marrying Claire. Many successful people acknowledge readily that their spouse is the source of their success.  So, in a sense, there is nothing new in this part of my narrative.  We met by luck and happenstance at a bridge game arranged by an old girl-friend.  It took me less than 24 hours to call Claire, unsuccessfully, for our first date and only three weeks to propose, also unsuccessfully.  One year later, Claire finally said yes after I had been drafted, was serving in the Army in basic training, and might be sent to Vietnam. There were many differences, any of one which might have important enough to be a permanent obstacle:  I was younger than Claire; she had an advanced degree; I was not Jewish; I came from Oregon; I had no money, no job, and no prospects.  I was in the Army and I might be killed within the year.  And yet, Claire said yes. 

In the last 44 years Claire has done too many good things for me and with me to recount. It started right at the beginning. I did not go to Vietnam—another story with elements of luck and a larger element of Claire’s efforts.  I did get into Boston University School of Law—another story of luck, but a much larger story of Claire’s efforts.  My success in law school was a direct result of Claire’s support.  It was not just that she had been to law school before me and not just that she supported us for three years when I was in law school.  It was the positive support that got me out of bed early on Sunday mornings to study; the rationing of football games so that I did not waste the week-end.  It was the positive support of reviewing my notes and outlines and practice exams and help in editing my major law review publication.

Another example is the support I received when I did not make partner at my first law firm.  Of course, there were elements of luck in finding the last available suitable big firm in Boston that would still consider my application after I had been turned down for partnership.  But even more important than the luck of landing a job was the support from my wife after I suffered the devastating sense of failure when I was told that I would not be made a partner after seven years of hard work.  Anyone who has ever been out of work or turned down for a job knows the enormous toll that experience can take on one’s mental health and sense of self-worth.  Having someone to support you in every respect is critical to getting out of bed the next morning and doing what needs to be done to try to get a job. 

The first two examples are cases of constitutional luck:  the baggage and benefits of our birth.  The second two are examples of circumstantial luck: things that happened where we had no control, but benefited or suffered from the circumstances and the events as they unfolded.  In the third group are examples of ignorant luck:  lucky things that happened where we did not even know luck was involved.  

Luck is what happens when preparation meets opportunity. [When I first wrote this, I got the quote wrong.  I should have acknowledged it came to me from Don Crowley, a great teacher and mock trial coach.  He borrowed it from Seneca, a noted Roman]. Being prepared; working hard; seizing the opportunity are all necessary, but not sufficient conditions for success.  We all need the opportunities provided to us by Lady Luck.

What I believe (2014)

Thoughts for the day

James E. McGuire

February 26, 2014

          Frequently, I say, “I am not a Renaissance man.  I was born 500 years too late and, in any case, I am not smart enough to know all there is to know, the goal of the Renaissance man.”  My values and beliefs are, however, shaped by the Renaissance.  These are my five core beliefs.

.      Pursue happiness.  People do have fundamentals rights: life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.  We owe it to ourselves to try to live a happy life:  to be at peace with ourselves, with others, and with the world.  In work and in play, we should do those things that bring us happiness and joy.  “If we are not having fun, we are doing something wrong.”

          Use reason.  Central to being human is to recognize the human brain and to use it to its full capacity.  While never ignoring feelings and spirit, the use of reason and the human brain is central to solving any of the problems that we face.  There is no human-created problem that cannot be solved using human-created solutions.  This is an article of faith, but it is faith in reason, not in miracles.

      Be hopeful. Optimism is a state of mind—a world view.  I believe that problems can be solved; that things can be made better; that each person, starting with myself, can become better.  Alternative world views—pessimism or fatalism do not lead to happiness. 

           Be thankful. We should have a thankful heart—prepared to give thanks for all that we have and all that we have been given.  Thank all those who care for you. If you have a god, give thanks.  If you have no god, have a thankful heart and give thanks to the Universe that you are alive and aware and can say and feel, “Thank you.” Be grateful when you awake in the morning that you are here to enjoy another day.

      Learn and Teach.  Learning is part of living.  As long as we are alive, we should continue to learn. Teaching is what we owe to the next generation.  Each of us has an obligation to transmit our knowledge and values from one generation to the next.  This is what it means to be human. None of what we know and what we can do would be possible if others who have gone before had not taught us.  “If I can see further, it is because I stand on the shoulders of giants.”

On Teaching (2014)

         On Teaching           

James E. McGuire

January 27, 2014

             “Greetings. I believe you were my teacher at the Belvedere School, 1968-69. I just wanted to send my regards. Ben.”  

             The email just appeared in my inbox on May 31, 2013, 44 years to the day since I had last seen or spoken with Ben.  What prompted this?  How did he find me?  What are his thoughts now about the teacher I was then?  What are my thoughts now about the teacher I was then?  Of course, I remembered him.  He was my favorite student.  

                I became a teacher in the fall of 1968 at the mature age of 21.  I had graduated from Harvard College in May 1968.  The Vietnam War was raging and the draft was still in effect.  I was classified “1-A”, a prime candidate to be drafted and to go to a war that I did not believe in.  The nation was in turmoil—about the war, about Civil Rights, about the assassinations of Dr. Martin Luther King and Robert Kennedy, about the great divide between the young student culture and the older, blue-collar, World War II generation.  Between solid American citizens who proudly wore the American flag on their hard-hats while young people sewed the stars and stripes  to the ass-end of their blue jeans or burned it along with their draft cards.  It was the summer of ’68 and the Democratic Convention in Chicago.  That summer I was working as a lackey on an estate—Crowfield---in Rhode Island.  The estate was owned by Dr. Oliver Cope, the head of surgery at the Massachusetts General Hospital, who was married to Alice Longworth Cope, a Boston Blue-book Brahmin.  We watched the Democratic Convention together.  When Mayor Daley ordering blue-helmeted riot police to bring terror—dogs, batons, and tear-gas-to the protesters in Grant Park—Dr. Cope and I said in unison, “I wish that I were there.”  Startled, we looked at each other and realized that we were wishing for the same thing for opposite reasons.

                Mrs. Cope had taken me under her wing in January of that year when I was desperate for work to have enough money to finish my last year of college. My first job that year was shoveling snow for selected families who lived in great houses on Brattle Street, Cambridge—the Brattle Street arks.  After graduation, she employed me to work at Crowfield, doing whatever needed doing—cleaning and washing the garbage cans in the kitchen; mowing the meadow; building an equipment shed with Dr. Cope with oak lumber that had been harvested from an old estate oak tree, moving the mooring stone in the sheltered harbor for the family sail boat, and then dressing for dinner and serving drinks to the extended family and guests.  During the dinner hour, my role shifted to the Young Man from Harvard who offered a different point of view on world affairs and the war.

                Dealing with the dilemma of every young man of draft age in 1968, Mrs. Cope intoned with her plummy voice with Brahmin overtones, “That young men will die in war is a certainty.  Which will die is a matter of random chance.  I see no reason why a young man from Harvard should be a victim of random chance.” With that thought, she asked what I was doing to avoid the draft.  I explained that student deferments had been eliminated and so I could not go to law school.  Teachers could still be deferred from the draft, but I had no teaching certificate and had no experience.  She thought about it and then observed, “One doesn’t need a teaching certificate for private schools.  I will make some phone calls.”

Using the old girl connections bestowed upon those in the Blue book, she called her friend, Mrs. Lincoln (Parker) Clark, who was still a trustee at the Belvedere School, a preparatory school in Chelmsford, Massachusetts.  Several days later, she announced that I was going to be an elementary school teacher, teaching sixth graders at the Belvedere School, and boarding with Mrs. Clark.  She also arranged that I would have a job as a driver of the school bus/van to supplement my modest teaching income—$5,000 for the year.  No interview was required.  My only obligations were to say “yes” and to notify my draft board.  My only qualifications were my Harvard diploma and her recommendation.

                My home room class consisted of eight sixth graders, from Lowell, Chelmsford, and Billerica, Massachusetts.  They came from different socio-economic backgrounds.  Ben’s father was a mailman for the U.S. Post Office.  They also had different academic abilities.  Though none had special needs, Tom Fitz was a slow learner and reader.  Ben was a genius. What they had in common was a commitment from their parents to give them the best education they could afford.  Their only entrance requirement was to show up at school, ready to learn.

                The school was sensible enough to assign me to teach the social sciences only:  reading, writing, literature, history.  Math and science were taught by an experienced “real” teacher.  During those blocks, I taught her fifth graders in social studies. My initial lesson plan was a two-page memo talking generally about the topics/subjects I expected to cover in the course of the year.  The class was small enough and the school budget large enough to let me supplement the assigned pre-purchased course books with any books that I wanted to use.

                I had freedom to teach in ways that are now hard to imagine and created my own curriculum.   I decided to introduce my students to Shakespeare.  We used a student abridged copy and read Hamlet.  Ben was not content with that watered-down Shakespeare and read the whole original play as Shakespeare wrote it.  Later, when we performed the play for the school, Ben “ad-libbed,” using Shakespeare’s dialogue in Elizabethan English.

            Ben’s intelligence revealed itself early in the school year.  I taught him how to play chess in October.  By December, he was wining most games.  My nephew David says that may speak more to my abilities as a chess player than my assessment of Ben as a genius.  I am now playing chess with a grand-nephew Nathan, who is now about the same age as Ben was then.  So far I am still wining.  If he starts to win by March, I might declare Nathan to be a genius too.               

                “Never trust anyone over 30.”  Jerry Rubin repeated this memorable quote during the Days of Rage at the DNC in Chicago.  It was still fresh in the minds of my students.  I vowed that on any topic that we discussed, I would tell them the “truth” as I saw it, if asked, and there would be no boundaries for any topic that they wanted to discuss.  Students were encouraged to bring in news clippings from the daily newspaper for reading and class discussion.  Ben came from a very open family, with three older brothers, who were also grappling with the ethics of Vietnam and their own draft difficulties.  The war was impossible to avoid and provided the class many opportunities to express their views.  Ben participated in those discussions at a level markedly more sophisticated than his classmates.  At times, I had to suspend the discussion and move on to other subjects.  I promised Ben that we would get back to his comments, questions, and challenges later. 

Later sometimes meant on the bus on the way home from school.  Since Ben was one of the students on my school bus route and lived the farthest away, we did have opportunities to talk when I was driving him home, usually after all the other students had been dropped off.  Frequently, those discussions would simply pick up where the class discussion had left off.  Civil disobedience—what one can do and what should one do when confronted with laws that violate the individual conscience—was a recurrent theme in those discussions.

The Confessions of Nat Turner, by William Styron (1967), Pulitzer Prize winner, 1968, was on my book shelf behind my desk at the Belvedere School along with other books that I had read and used in class discussions.  One day Ben complained that he was looking for a new book to read and found the available books in the school library not sufficiently challenging.  Impulsively, I reached behind me and pulled down The Confessions of Nat Turner.  “Here, read this and prepare a book report reflecting your thoughts on this topic.”  At the time, I had not yet read the book and had exercised no informed judgment in determining whether this was “age-appropriate” or otherwise suitable reading for sixth grader.  (Confession of this author:  as I write this, I confess that I still have not read this book).   I did know that it dealt with a slave revolt in Virginia in 1831 that resulted in the death of many people and ultimately led to the execution of Nat Turner.  Though it won the Pulitzer, it was controversial for many, including many of the black community who challenged its portrayal of blacks under slavery, the nature of black revolts and uprisings against slavery, and the ability of a white person to even write about slavery from the perspective of a black slave.  So this seemed a good choice for a precocious young man trying to sort out his own views on the civil rights movement, which was increasingly strident in its demands and approach to achieving “freedom now.”  Of course, the Vietnam War, the struggle for “freedom now” voiced by the Viet Cong, the internal debate in the United States about the war, and the draft, including the increasingly strident nature of draft protest all served as an overlay for Ben’s reading of this book.

Ben struggled.  He finished finally and handed in his book report.  I asked one simple question:  “Did this represent his best effort?”  He thought about it for just a moment, took back the draft, and re-worked his own paper.  When that version was handed in, I was both impressed and humbled. It was sophisticated and thoughtful.  It reflected a serious struggle with the central issue about the role of violence in efforts to achieve freedom and justice.  Though I did not save a copy of his paper, I will remember forever what can happen when we challenge young people to think hard about great issues. That is what happens when we are given the opportunity to teach.  True for all teachers; perhaps more so when the teacher knows that this student is a genius.

So of course I remembered Ben and replied immediately to his email:

Benjamin:

What a bolt out of the blue!

I/we have thought of you often over the many years.

Without doubt, you were my favorite student then and among the top five in my entire life of teaching, which I continued to do on the side during my career in the law.

My wife Claire just calculated that you must now be approaching being an adult, like 54 or 55?

We have so many questions:  where are you?  What do you do? What have you done? How did you find me? What are your memories of that teaching year?  Do you still play chess?

We would love to hear more from you.

Jim

And then I received his reply.  What prompted the contact after so many years?

“To answer your question, I think it was the impending change in career direction that got me thinking about how I had arrived where I am, and the various points along the way at which I might have chosen a different path. I remembered beginning my lifelong struggle to balance a distaste for authority with a desire to "make a difference" around the time I passed through your class.”

He summarized his life and told me of his future plans.  He answered my most ego-driven question:  what are your memories of me as your teacher?

       “You were the first of a handful of teachers who made a seminal impression on me. I have always been grateful to you for challenging my intellect and respecting my efforts to form my own opinions.”

Benjamin

                I can think of no greater tribute to a teacher.  

Harnessing the Stars (2013)

Harnessing the Stars

“Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.”

Arthur C. Clarke

James E. McGuire

April 24, 2013

            The photon had started its life in the heart of a star.  In a nuclear furnace, two hydrogen atoms had fused, making one helium atom and ejecting the photon.  It spent a million years, struggling to the surface of the star.  Once on the surface, the photon enjoyed just eight minutes of freedom until it was trapped in a photon collector.  Joining millions and billions of other photons, it would be harnessed to do work.

            In the pre-dawn dark, he reached for his Brain.  With one touch of his finger, the photon streamed from the Brain to his eye.  “Let there be light.”  And there was light. He gave thanks for the first fact:  he was alive and well in this century; he could remember many who had lived and died in the previous century, and even some that had been born in the century before that.

            With another touch of his finger, the reports started streaming in from the Brain.  What had happened since he went to sleep?  From everywhere in his world, thousands of people had toiled through the night, collecting the information, summarizing it, making photos to show what had happened anywhere in the world.  All of that information flowed at the speed of light to his Brain.  There were no wires and the Brain was attached to nothing.  The photons moved through the air, using an electromagnetic grid, part of a field that circled the entire world.

            With another touch of his finger, he read personal messages from his family and friends, placed somewhere in the cloud, accessible by him and others on the planet, even if hundreds or thousands of miles away. More than one in five people on the planet are part of this network.

            He had questions from his dreams and thoughts before really waking:  “what is the age of the Universe?  I would like to see a picture of the entire Universe when it was smaller.  When did Europe conquer Attila the Hun? For any question, he had only to speak and the Brain would respond.  Having access to nearly all of the accumulated knowledge of the brains from all parts of the planet, living or dead, the Brain would process the question and provide answers. Just like that.  And just that fast.  “Age of the universe?” The Brain replied, “13.798 billion years.” And provided 150,000,000 additional answers-discussions of the topic.  All of this was delivered to his Brain in a fraction of a second—0.43 seconds.  The answers are not random, but are ranked in order of relevance by his Brain, knowing who he is and what he really wants to know.  Another person with different interests could ask the same question on his Brain and might receive more than one hundred million answers, but the order will be different because each Brain understands each unique person.  The Brain knows all the languages of the world; any information that comes in a foreign language can be translated to his language just by a touch of his finger.

            He paused to think, to reflect and to give thanks. He had harnessed the stars.  He had collected photons through photon collectors on the roof of his own home, caused those photons to stream into his home, to power his car, to light his home and to operate his Brain connected to the world with a wireless world-wide network.

            What planet?  What century?  Here and now.

Just someone reaching for an iPad in the morning.

Conversations with my father (2003)

Conversations with my father

James E. McGuire

2003

Every trip to Oregon to see my father is another chance to collect fresh stories. I can never remember all of them. Some are very funny and some are just nice. When I can, I take notes on the airplane on my way back to Boston.

April 27-29, 2003

Mirable

Pop agreed that it was time to get a new bed. JoAn had suggested that the old one, bought at a yard sale many years ago, was doing no good for his back. We bought a new mattress, box springs, sheets, pillows and pillow cases.

Back at Pop's home, it was fairly easy to take out the old mattress and box springs. Bringing the new one into his bedroom was more a challenge. The turns were tight and the clearance minimal. We finally got the right angle and squeezed the box springs through down the hall, through the door, and into the bedroom. Now, would it fit on the frame? We lined it up, pushed it over and into the frame.

"A perfect fit," I exclaimed. Without a pause, Pop intoned, "Mirabile visu; mirabile dictu. "

[I know. I had to look it up too. Miabile visu: Wonder to behold. Mirabile dictu: wonder to relate.]

Tibetan Prayer Wheel

During dinner with Frank and Vi, I asked Vi how she spent her day. She said she started her day and ended her day with her prayers. "Do you kneel when you pray?" I asked. "No," she said," the arthritis in my knees hurts too much for me to do that. I asked the priest about it and he said God could hear my prayers just as well if 1 were horizontal, so I say my prayers in bed."

Frank was listening, but not saying anything as he continued to saw away and then eat his steak in small bites. Vi continued, "I also asked the priest what would happen if I fell asleep saying my prayers. He said, 'Not to worry. The angels would finish them for you.'" I asked her what she prayed for. Vi said, "Well, I pray for your Dad and his family, John and JoAn, you and Claire, and all your brothers and sisters and their families; I pray for my family; I pray for world peace, especially in the Middle East, and I say my Hail Mary's, the Lord's Prayer and the prayer for the day. You know, there is a special prayer that we have for each day of the year." Impressed by the number of prayers, I asked, "So, how long does it take you to go through your evening prayers?" "About a half an hour," she said.

At this point, Pop entered the conversation. "You know, Vi, in Tibet, they have what they call a prayer wheel. It is a big wheel.  They write each prayer on a separate piece of paper and then attach it to the wheel. Then they give the wheel a big spin and they let the wind do the work. That way the prayers just go spinning off to God and they can get some sleep. Maybe we should get you a Tibetan prayer wheel."

A Truck and then another truck

Driving down 1-5 to Oakland to visit Jan and Lillian, Frank calls out the exits, the turn-offs, the construction sites and other landmarks he has memorized. This is his way of showing that he could still drive the road if he had too. He can see "good enough." We have played this game over the last several years as his eyesight continues to deteriorate. In former times, it was an eye-test to see how close he had to be to read the road signs. Now there is no pretense that he could read any of the road signs. Big landmarks and the white line on the road side now map his driving routes. Frank calls out, "There is a truck ahead of us." Now the truck is turning; he is getting off at this exit." "The truck is now off the road."

 "Okay Pop, what is in front of us now?" He replies without even pretending to look, "Another truck."

Pop adds, "What holds up the world?" and answers his own question: "A rock. And what holds up that rock? Another rock." He remembers that conversation from two grade school friends, two brothers, who earnestly believed that this was the way of the world. In their version, he said it was turtles.  “What holds up the next turtle? Another turtle.  And that one?  It’s turtles all the way down.”

Driving 1-5, the pipeline of the West Coast from Canada to California to Mexico, what holds you back? A truck and then another truck . . . unless it's a car.

Breakfast at the Pour House

We went to the Pour House for breakfast at 6 am. I drove his truck, but Pop called out the route. He also cautioned that there was no fire and that they would serve breakfast when we got there so there was no need to drive so damn fast. I glanced at the speedometer and posted sign to confirm that "so damn fast" was exactly the speed limit, 35 mph. At the Pour House, 1 pulled into a parking spot. Frank observed that he generally backed into the parking spot since it made easier to leave.

We went in and he was greeted warmly by Renee who regularly serves him his usual breakfast. It is somewhat startling to be served a traditional ham and egg breakfast and then watch the waitress draw a pitcher of Bud from the tap for the early-morning beer-drinkers. Frank noted, "The beer drinkers usually don't drink at the bar. They have their own table." I saw them then, near the pool tables, mill workers who had just finished the graveyard shift. There were also three or four people playing video poker with dogged determination. They didn't look like they had come from work or had bothered to sleep the night before.

We talk about wood-cutting and how much energy it takes. He admits this is probably his last season since his legs just get tired and he does not want to go to the woods and just set in the truck while Carl does all the work. "Though it doesn't take as much energy as setting choke." Pop stared off into space and started another trip down memory lane. "When I was younger, 1 worked in the woods setting choke. You had to scramble down the hill with the heavy log chain in tow, get it under the tree that had been felled and cut to length by the loggers, cinch off the chain and then signal the whistle punk to start hauling the log up the hill. It was hot, hard work." "Setting choke-a choker-you were low man on the totem pole out in the woods." "The Brush Bull would come by to make sure you were not dogging it and direct you where to go for the next log he wanted up the hill." From me, "Was he at the top of the totem pole?" Pop: "No, I think that the rigging spinner claimed that spot. Of course, no one could swagger like the fallers, especially the fellows that were toppers." "What did it pay?" "Top wage was $6.75 a man for a full day—sun up to sun down."

We talked about favorites. Favorite author -Louis L'Amour. Favorite color-­blue. Favorite poem or poet -"Charge of the Light Brigade or Crossing the Bar. Well, actually Robert Service is pretty good. But my favorite poet? Why, I guess that would be me." "You didn't know I was a published poet? Western Anthology of Verse, University of Washington 1935." "It was a school assignment. Write a poem. Naturally I waited until about ten minutes before class and then I just scratched it out. The teacher bundled all the poems together and sent them off to this poetry contest. I forgot all about it and so did she. Months later, she told the class with a look on her face like she had just swallowed a lemon, "We should all congratulate Frank. He is going to be published in the Anthology." She did not want to believe it and neither did the class, but there were only two high school poems selected for the Anthology and mine was one of them."

I asked, "What was the poem?" "Well, I don't exactly remember, but it was something about the lonely beach and a sandpiper." He thought some more:

Gray November sky

 Walking on the beach

 Just a lonely sandpiper

 And I

Conversations with my father August 11,2003

"Controlling blood pressure/heart rate is a difficult thing to do. They say I have a heart rate of 92-96. I don't believe that for a second. When I take it myself, it is 68."

"Maybe going to the doctor's raises your heart rate."

"Maybe so. They are enough to provoke anyone, but I still don't believe it. I know what my heart feels like. If I had a heart rate of 96, I would be hopping around like a sparrow. And I know ... I am not a sparrow."

"You know they put me on Coumadin too. You know, "Warpath" the rat poison [warfarin]. They sell it by a different name now, but it is the same stuff."

"Well then, I guess am I glad you are not a rat."

"So am I. Because if I were a rat, I would be dead now. I have been on the stuff for two months."