“Marley was dead.”

OK, not the opening line you’d expect to launch a holiday classic. Punchy, sure, but dark. Really dark. This from “The Man Who Invented Christmas”? What lessons for a mortal such as I? Let’s assume a lightly regarded author hopes to move from obscurity to neglect. The formula is seemingly established: Start dark (really dark) then redeem the central character from darkness in the last chapter. 

Start dark.

I wrote a novel, The Christmas Quilt, some years ago with no expectation that it would find an audience, primarily as an excuse for me to wallow in the sort of coded sentiment that brings a gulping, snorting, soul-liberating tear-fest. I started in full sunlight, the central character awakening from dreams filled with exquisite fabrics to a fulfilling day as a quilter. I tossed a few challenges her way, but gave her a best friend who remains one of my favorite people. Spoiler Alert- she does not survive the book, but the spirit of Christmas does, hence the previously mentioned cathartic weeping.

Snuffle, sniffle, blow nose and repeat. 

But not dark. I hadn’t really experienced dark.

Ten years ago I could summon a good snuffle and sleep soundly. Yes, we knew grave shifts in climate were likely and political discord was threatening, but, you know, later. 

I began this piece as a whimsical reflection on my descent into catatonic acceptance of a truly devastating future. A friend sent an article (one of several hundred I’ve read) prophesying the end of Democracy in the US, asking for my thoughts on the author’s reasoned description of White Christian Nationalism. Operation Red Map, a reactionary Supreme Court, a clown car congress, and a relentless stream of threats from the former President offering little hope for an orderly transition of power in November and January. This week storms from Texas to Iowa have swept tornadoes across the middle of the country as the seacoast south experiences flooding at a catastrophic level, and the dreadful insistence on vaporizing Hammas in Palestine has cost thousands of lives and terrible famine, polarizing the voters most likely to prevent the political cataclysm I fear in November.

I haven’t been able to summon whimsy for some time; the landscape is growing darker by the day. Am I steaming, railing, marching, protesting, bombarding editors with my reasoned outrage?

Nope.

I sit in my comfy home in Connecticut and for the first time understand the meaning of the term “gobsmacked”. The relentless litany of awful has knocked me into flat-affect narcolepsy.

Only a few years ago, I was roused to action as firestorms raged throughout the west, deciding to become a climate migrant. Our best laid retirement plans simply hadn’t worked out; it was time to migrate!

Things had looked pretty simple in 2014. We bid Cate School and Edenic Carpinteria, California farewell and retired to the almost equally paradisiacal Rogue Valley, settling on a small farmstead near Ashland, Oregon. Mary developed a thriving enterprise training dogs on our two agility fields, and I joined the company of the Ashland Shakespeare Festival as an audio describer working with visually impaired patrons.

Ok, the first summer was daunting – weeks of 100 degree days filled with smoke from the Butte Fire in California and others in Washington, and Idaho. So, that wasn’t great.

But wait …there’s more!

The next summer fires destroyed almost 50,000 acres in Kern County’s Erskine Fire  and 132,000 acres in the Soberanes Fire along the Big Sur near Monterey. In October of 2017, the Northern California Firestorm spread through Napa, Sonoma, Lake, Burre, and Solano Counties, burning 245,000 acres. In December of 2017, the Thomas fire started near Santa Paula and quickly spread, burning almost 300,000 acres in Filmore, Ojai, and Ventura, forcing the evacuation of students from Thacher School to the Cate School campus. In January, heavy rains caused erosion, flood, mud and debris flow, sweeping away 129 residences, damaging another 300. The 21 fatalities included a student we had taught and her father. Although fires continued to flare on all sides, the Camp Fire in 2018 was even more notably devastating, sweeping through northern California, destroying the town of Paradise, killing dozens in that town and more than 85 people in the adjoining counties. Damage caused by the Camp Fire was estimated at 16.5 billion dollars. The President(tourist?) visited the smoking remains of what was once Paradise and expressed his regret to the people of “Pleasure”. 

Insult to injury.

By comparison, we in the Valley had only to deal with a summer of relentless smoke. We’d been expecting the usual five to six weeks of troubling smoke, but it was in the course of this summer that we learned to check the Air Quality Index on a daily basis to see if we could safely walk outside. I’m not sure if other regions were as attuned to the index as those in the Valley became. I look up today’s index here in Connecticut and see that we can expect air quality ranging from 10 to 15. That’s good. Most folks out here have never heard of the Air Quality Index, much less check it daily.

The yardstick runs from 0 to 500. An AQI above 100 is considered “unhealthy” for sensitive groups; the “red zone”, just plain unhealthy for anything alive, is an AQI above 150. During the summer of 2018, we regularly saw an AQI of 200 or better. As a result, the town of Ashland, a vacation destination, saw tourism drop by 80%. The Shakespeare Festival struggled mightily, installing air filters in the theater and moving performances in the Elizabethan (outdoor) theater to the local high school’s stage. Almost 50% of the season’s performances had to be canceled altogether. 

In the summer of 2019, more than 7,500 fires burned in California alone, but with the exception of a spike in July and August, the air was mostly breathable. Persistent drought, however, lowered the supply of ground water to a dangerously low level. Our neighbors’ well went dry. We took a deep breath and hoped the town and the Festival could recover.

But, no … in September of 2020, we caught on fire.

In early September, 2020, the account published in the New York Times read, “A two-week stretch of 110-degree days sends the fire department scrambling to rescue people overcome by heat, and tests a force already accustomed to tough summers.”

Our home was ¼ mile from the path of the firestorm which reduced our town to cinders, and consumed more than 2800 homes and commercial buildings in a span of four hours. We heard fuel tanks exploding, saw black smoke rising, shoved our dogs and the Go Bags in the car, and evacuated to what we hoped would be a safe refuge.

Our home survived, but in the subsequent weeks, the Air Quality Index in our region was regularly above 400.

Oh, and in March, 2020, Covid. 

2020 as a whole was not a great year. We were in the midst of the pandemic, the worst heat wave on record arrived in the summer (126 degrees in Canada!), Europe flooded, George Floyd was killed in Minnesota, three million animals died in Australia’s worst fire, Ruth Bader Ginsberg died, “murder hornets” arrived in the US, and there were so many hurricanes that we exhausted the alphabetical names and had to resort to the Greek alphabet, Amy Coney Barret replaced Ginsberg, and Kavanaugh and Gorsuch joined the Supreme Court.

So, we swallowed twice, drove by the rubble that had once been the Umpqua Bank, eyed the vault, the only remnant of buildings in town, realized that without the bank to block our view, we could see our home from its parking lot, began looking at the record of snowfall in Vermont, New Hampshire, and Connecticut, and began the process of searching for our next home. We moved to northern Connecticut in January of 2021, stomped through moderately heavy snow fall, settled as best we could, and kept up with the news of the nation and the world by subscribing to six newspapers on-line and watching the nightly news, assuming it probably couldn’t get worse.

And yet … 

2021: Rioters (tourists?) stormed the Capital, Hurricane Ida hit Louisiana, Winter Storm Uri knocked out power in Texas, Daunte Wright was killed in Minnesota, the Delta Variant arrived, the “fetal heartbeat bill” was enacted in Texas, the supply chain was still sluggish, the Taliban returned to power, and Russia built up troops on the border with Ukraine.

2022: Russia invades Ukraine, a gunman killed 19 students and two teachers in Uvalde, Texas, the Supreme Court overturned Roe vs Wade, Shinzo Abe was assassinated, Will Smith slapped Chris Rock, Gas prices hit $5.00, Hurricane Ian slammed Florida, a cruise ship docked in NY dragging an endangered whale, and although in December, the holidays were merry and bright again, the temperature dropped 40 degrees in an afternoon, another gift of climate catastrophe, but nothing compared to the “snow bomb cyclone” that pounded Buffalo. You’d think a planet called upon to invent a term such as “snow bomb cyclone” would be on high alert, but here’s the next necessary neologism “climate numb-out”.

Hurricanes, monsoons, drought, landslides, reservoirs and rivers going dry, leaving me with the observation the philosopher Mediocrates is reputed to have offered:

 “Meh”.

The world as we know it not only will not exist in a decade’s time, it has already experienced non-reversible change. The outlook is not brilliant even for those of us who are currently alive. Even less brilliant for Polar Bears, Rhinos, North Atlantic Right Whales, Black footed ferrets, and Orangutans.

And then, all my news sources and the three brilliant columnists I follow agree that we are about five months from the End of Democracy.

So dark, right? 

But I wake, check my email, finish a crossword puzzle, read a book, mindfully eat and snack, watch tv, and go to bed. 

Just as “climate numb-out” describes this slack environmentalist, “fatalistic proto-slave” is as close as I can come in describing the energy I give to righting any of the world’s wrongs.

It took THREE visits from the other side to convince Scrooge that he was part of a greater, richer, more fulfilling humane world. It may take more than that to pull me back from the mushy discontent of a half-swallowed “Meh”.

This morning the New York Times featured a story on competitive game play this morning, citing the pleasure a new combatant has found in churning through questions provided by Learned League, the Torquemada of Trivia sites, an outfit that snared me four years ago. Administered by a software engineer whose nom-de-torture is Thorsten A. Integrity, they describe the invitation only exercise in brain sharpening as, “The Greatest Trivia League in all the land. 

Here’s the breathy report from the NYT’s first time player:

“I got a Learned League invitation from a colleague a few weeks ago, and began playing last Monday, at the inception of the league’s 100th season. I spent far too many minutes this past week staring in agony at trivia questions and trying desperately to summon knowledge from the deepest parts of my brain.”

The article appeared on Monday. On the previous Friday I had grubbed my way to one correct answer out of the six questions.

Here’s one:

Q.Restylane, Perlane, Juvederm, and Belotero are among the popular brands of injectable dermal fillers made from what acid, which occurs naturally in skin and other tissues?

A.Hyaluronic Acid

It’s ok for me to reveal the answer to this question because yesterday’s daily “trivia” contest has closed. At this point I have two options:

1. Suggest that I answered or could have answered this question
2. Admit that I was and am – I’d say “clueless”  – but apparently “injectable dermal filler” is the clue, and let’s just pause to note that “injectable dermal filler” refers to shooting juice into the face in the hope of smoothing out the ravages of time and care. I won’t go into all the possible side effects and complications of a poke in the face, but I watch the nightly news and Jeopardy so I’ve seen countless references to hematoma,  stroke, and death whenever poking takes place, in the face or elsewhere.

So, the clever reader will correctly intuit that I failed to score that point yesterday and fell from 24th of 28 contestants to 26th. I’ve been paying to “compete” in this league for several years, enjoying many of the challenging quizzes, but not particularly concerned about how my performance on the six daily questions compared with the scores generated by anyone else. That’s still the case, but claiming only one correct response from the yesterday’s six challenges felt pretty crumby, not simply because it revealed the depth of my ignorance with regard to Brazilian Mixed Martial Artists and lack of appreciation of Spanish sheep-milk cheese, but because the fun I find in this pursuit arrives when I meet questions that are cleverly constructed. I love questions that might not offer an immediate answer but which can reveal a thought process that leads to an answer.

It happens that I dragged Hamlet (the play, not the Dane) into my classroom something like twenty times over my teaching career; I can’t quote entire scenes, but I can find my place reasonably quickly. The widely appreciated lines are so familiar that actors playing the role have to learn to ignore the voices in the audience spouting “To be or not to be …”. They know it’s coming, they can sense the audience preparing to add voice to the moment, there’s no stopping it, and yet, the interpretation of the role depends in part on the actor’s choices in taking on that soliloquy. 

Other lines are equally poignant, but less well known. Tuesday’s quiz included this question:

Q4. THEATRE – In Shakespeare’s Hamlet, in Act 5, Scene 2 (the play’s final scene, just after Hamlet’s dying words), a character referred to as “Ambassador” states, “The sight is dismal, / And our affairs from England come too late. / The ears are senseless that should give us hearing / To tell him his commandment is fulfilled, / That [BLANK]. / Where should we have our thanks?” What statement, itself the title of a 1966 play, fills in the blank?

I found my place quickly but paused to admire the rope thrown to those who may not have been entirely familiar with the play but who had familiarity enough to recognize that the citing of another play opened other doors to memory. I’m guessing that even those who had not read or seen Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead might remember these two unfortunates sent to their death by Hamlet. The bodies do mount up as the play proceeds; If we consider Hamlet responsible for Ophelia’s checking out, he can be credited with removing nine of the ten major characters (including himself). Not Ted Bundy, but …

Today’s musings, however, have to do with the slippery satisfaction in messing around with trivial things. Look, I’m aware of the names I can’t remember, words I can’t find in conversation, the slow, steady incursion of fuzz and fur as I attempt to process the ordinary events of the day. I get it. I watch the sorts of shows that people my age watch; I’m pretty sure there are no real miracle cures, but I choose to believe that doing crosswords and paying to be stumped in trivia challenges keeps some of the lights on.

And … it’s fun when something I’d not thought about in years bubbles up as a trivia question. Thorsten Integrity may never ask me what the Cisco Kid’s horse’s name was, which baseball player has the record for hitting the most foul balls, what Scotland’s national animal is, what toy was invented in a search for a new form of rubber, who was the first woman to appear on a box of Wheaties, how much did Billie Jean King earn when she won at Wimbledon in 1967, but each one of those questions unleashes a torrent of other equally unimportant but emotionally satisfying shards of information.

So, the Cisco Kid’s horse was named Diablo, his sidekick, Pancho, rode Loco, Duncan Renaldo played Cisco, Leo Carrillo played Pancho, Leo Carrillo State Park is on the Pacific Highway, just west of Malibu near Neptune’s Net, the restaurant featured in Point Break. Mel Blank played Pancho on the radio.  Blank also voiced Barney Rubble, Captain Caveman, Cosmo Spacely, and Fruit Loops’ Toucan Sam as well as most of the characters in Warner Brothers cartoons. 

Brandon Belt of the Giants hold the MLB record for longest pitch at bat (21 pitches) during which time he hit 16 foul balls, but I grew up admiring Luke Appling, Hall of Fame shortstop for the Chicago White Sox, who routinely hit a dozen or more foul balls, ordinarily to wear down and annoy opposing pitchers like Dizzy Trout who got so flustered that after 14 foul balls he threw his glove at Appling and said, “Hit this, you &%$&”. Appling’s ability to put the ball where he wanted it to go allowed him to outwit the White Sox bean counters who didn’t want players to autograph and give away baseballs. Appling routinely hit first in batting practice and sliced a dozen foul balls into the stands to amuse spectators. When the Yankee bench was riding him, he hit eight foul balls into their dugout. Appling was left handed until his teenage years when he became right handed in order to be able to play shortstop.

Scotland’s national animal is the unicorn, the mythical creature which also shares the heraldic neighborhood with the non-mythical but equally happily crowned lion representing the United Kingdom. Wales is a constituent nation within the United Kingdom, but its heraldic champion, the dragon, is not featured in the UK’s crest. Wales is among the Six Nations competing in Rugby union, currently not faring well, but historically heroic. A match against New Zealand’s Original All Blacks in 1905 began with a haka, the traditional dance of the Maori people to which the Welch responded by singing their national anthem, the first time an anthem had been sung at an athletic event. 

Silly Putty emerged from attempts to find a substitute for rubber during World War II. The substance contains silicone polymers and can be stretched, bounced, and returned to its original shape. Generations of silly putterers have also used the substance to copy images from newspapers or comic books, generating hours of fun filled hi jinx as images are distorted. Silly Putty was used by astronauts to secure objects in zero gravity. On a personal note, it also tastes terrible.

Elinor Smith, an aviator known as the Flying Flapper of Freeport, was the first woman to appear on a box of Wheaties. The more celebrated Babe Didrikson Zaharias was the first female athlete to appear on a box of Wheaties. A remarkable athlete, after leaving high school Babe Didrikson won an AAU championship in track for her team, winning five of six events – notable, but more remarkable in that she was the only member of the team. She was an outstanding basketball player, pitched in three Major League Spring Training games, championship bowler, diver, and roller skater. She won two gold medals and a silver at the 1932 Olympic Games, ( 80 m hurdles, javelin, high jump) setting four world records and still the only Olympic athlete to win medals in separate running, throwing, and jumping events.

And then … she took up golf. She was the only woman to have played professional golf against men until Annika Sorenstam played in the Colonial in 2003 and was one of the founding members of the LPGA, winning more than 70 tournaments before falling ill with colon cancer, dying in 1953 at the age of 45. 

Billie Jean King won a voucher worth 45 Pounds when she won at Wimbledon in 1967. Last month Jannik Sinner and Aryna Sabelenka each received more than two million dollars in winning the Australian Open. Parity in payment for women in tennis is largely the result of King’s work throughout the decades, beginning with the founding of the Women’s Tennis Association and the Women’s Sports Foundation. Billie Jean King won 129 singles titles, and her career earnings totaled $1.966,487.00.

Virtually every broadcast of a major tennis event features the phrase King brought to competition in all sports at all levels, “Pressure is  a Privilege.” Last week Caitlin Clark broke the NCAA women’s scoring record in basketball. When questioned about the pressure she felt as the countdown to the record began, she responded simply, “Pressure is a Privilege”.

Take a deep breath … ok … shake it off …

I’ve been stupefied for months, whimsy-eviscerated, and slogging along in fear of a future I had hoped my children would not know. Stupefaction acknowledged, and malaise, paralysis, demoralization slightly sluffed aside, I’m determined to bring the Cogitator back to life, because, why not?

So, let’s start with “stupefied”, a handy word indicating befuddlement and the inability to think or feel properly. I first encountered the term as I first encountered most sophisticated concepts, in a comic strip. I learned a lot from Walt Kelly; Pogo offered wry satire as the anthropomorphic characters in the Okefenokee Swamp batted fairly large ideas around. The denizens of Al Capp’s Dogpatch, however, were for the most part caricatures of rural Southerners (i.e. Moonbeam McSwine, Sadie Hawkins, ), although other vivid characters also thrust their way into the public eye – Evil Eye Fleagle, General Bullmoose, Jubilation T. Cornpone, Pantless Perkins, and … Stupefyin’ Jones … a female character identified as “A Walking Aphrodisiac”. The slightest glimpse of this character caused men to be frozen in place, rooted to the ground, incapable of speech or gesture.

Stupefied.

So, it hasn’t been THAT bad around here, but bad enough to have forestalled following up on a subject suggested by my daughter, a world-class inventor of generative questions. She remembered an assignment I’d given a writing class years ago. I had challenged them to describe an imagined museum they would like to visit and to describe its collection in detail. I hadn’t intended the assignment as a means of profiling character, but some of the results did reveal more about the writers than they might have intended; I did not linger in the “Museum of Mistakes I Wish I could Forget”, for example, or do more than scan the “Museum of Things I wish I had Not Eaten”. A visit to the “Museum of Missing Memories” was interesting enough, but the inspiration for the assignment had come from a museum encounter of my own, years earlier, a completely unexpected tour of the “Toaster Museum” in Bellingham, Washington.

I’ve written about the museum in an earlier post, so I’ll spare the reader my gushing appreciation of the varieties of toasters assembled in three fairly large exhibition spaces. Cool toasters, but what struck me most forcibly were the Polaroid photographs of the curator/toaster fan with toasters he had admired but not been able to snag for the museum. 

I found myself in an unvarnished celebration of toasters, and, from my point of view, a celebration of whatever it is in the human spirit that responds to the call of beauty. I haven’t been doing nearly enough celebration recently, so I vowed to respond to my daughter’s latest challenge – Holidays that don’t exist but should.

The rules of engagement preclude reference to any of the widely unrecognized celebrations already on the calendar. I guess Polar Bear Day has gained some clout as bathers apparently do find themselves taking a plunge on January 1st; International Polar Bear Day, however, is right around the corner – February 27th. Saturday, January 27th, was Chocolate Cake Day (missed it!), only a few days before Data Privacy Day, but a full month before Public Sleeping Day (?). I have plans for Drive-In-Movie Day (June 6th) and Thrift Shop Day (August 17th), but I’ll give a pass to Rice Krispie Treat Day (September 18th) … too sweet for my taste.

So, what’s left to celebrate? 

Terrible TV Shows That Are Actually Kind Of Great Day

Terrible is in the mind of the beholder, and tastes differ, but when a show is palpably off-putting to even the most undiscerning of viewers, we have a winner. There are some concepts that ought to have brought a network some concern; were no execs sitting around a table when My Mother the Car was pitched? Shows don’t appear without a platform; someone said, “Sounds good. I’ll write a check.” No accounting for taste,but these are BUSINESS decisions. We’ll consider performances and “scripts” in a minute, but let’s take a look at a few concepts that seem questionable in retrospect. 

Concepts that actually weren’t that great –

Networks can be forgiven for leaping at pilots that feature an actress such as Patty Duke, recent winner of an Oscar as Best Supporting Actress as young Helen Keller in The Miracle Worker. Compelling, intelligent, radiant, a young Patty Duke must have seemed perfect for any role played by a teen actress. Producer Sidney Sheldon, who would later get away with an equally outlandish but successful concept in developing I Dream of Jeannie, was keen enough an observer of human behavior to notice that Duke often presented two distinct sides to her personality. His pitch? The Patty Duke Show, in which Duke played two IDENTICAL cousins. Get it? They look exactly alike (as cousins do), but one’s a “normal” flighty teen aged girl, the other a sophisticated “European” cousin. They are identical because their fathers were identical twins. See? There’s actually a third “identical”, a southern cousin, played by Duke in a blonde wig. 

Pastry Duke was later diagnosed with bipolar disorder.

Just to put the truly terrible conceptual category to bed, we have to consider a show that most of us never had the chance (Thank God) to see:

Heil, Honey! I’m Home.

Produced in 1990 for the British Satellite Broadcasting and released (one episode) on Galaxy, Heil, Honey was a spoof of American sitcoms (particularly I Love Lucy) in which the Hitlers in 1938 find themselves living next to Jewish Neighbors, and comic hijinks ensue. Seemed like a good idea? The unscreened later episodes featured a cartoon intro patterned on the opening of Bewitched. Probably didn’t help much.

It is interesting to note that The Producers, Mel Brooks’ first film, is widely appreciated although on its release The New Republic’s Stanley Kauffmann observed that, “…Springtime for Hitler does not even rise to the level of tastelessness”. It helps, I think, that “Springtime” is a Jewish writer’s gag within a gag within a gag, ridiculing Hitler, and clearly intended as an overblown tribute to tastelessness. Brooks knows tasteless; it’s his stock in trade. Pretty sure Heil,Honey is more than one step beyond.

So, what I’m heading to belong in the “Guilty Pleasure” category. I’m happy to admit I’ve watched most episodes of Gilligan’s Island, Green Acres, Family Affair, The Munsters, Batman,The Many Loves of Dobie Gillis, and many more intentionally vapid amusements. No, I’m about to drop into the nether regions of “reality” tv to endorse two absolutely unredeemable  shows that held me captive for most of their run.

There’s reality and then there’s reality. The major network versions include several shows that fall for me into the “Don’t Miss An Episode” category, most notably Survivor, Top Chef, The Great Pottery Throwdown, Alone, Next Level Chef, The Amazing Race, Taskmaster, The Big Brunch, and The Great British Baking Show. None of those, by the way, made the top ten in terms of viewership last season. Both iterations of Below Deck, on the other hand? Solid fan base.

• Side note: Jury Duty belongs in the “reality hoax” category and is one of the most engaging, inspiring, satisfying, and restorative shows I have ever seen.

The guilt that accompanies my less widely reputed favorite reality shows derives from what philosophers would term “the sleaze factor”. I have watched far too many unpleasant versions belonging to the “Celebrity” category, “celebrity” being a term that is used extremely loosely. No kudos here for Dr. Drew’s Celebrity Rehab, Rock of Love with Bret Michaels, or Flavor of Love starring Flava Flav. Dance Moms? The Mole? Higher quality, but meh.

The two widely and properly undigested shows that remain indelibly in my memory are Meghan Wants a Millionaire and Tool Academy.

I have no memory of any of the other matchmaker reality jaunts, but Meghan’s search for love sticks with me, not because she (Meghan Hauserman who had washed out of Rock of Love with Bret Michaels) was a compelling or vivid character, but because the show only aired three episodes before it was discovered that one of the contending “millionaires” had murdered his wife and committed suicide in a hotel room in British Columbia after the show had filmed. 

There’s nothing extra goopy about the show when placed against the backdrop of other “mating” reality shows, but I can’t watch any subsequent shows pitting aspiring mates against each other without wondering if one of them bought a wood chipper and Googled “How Long Before A Dead Body Starts To Smell.”

Tool Academy stands on its own merits. The premise was that long suffering girlfriends sent their bad boy partners to this relationship boot camp. The insensitive, exquisitely crude louts were properly labeled as ‘tools’ in need of remedial socialization. In challenges designed to test their … humanity? … the tools learned to appreciate qualities the producers deemed essential. The tools had been given blazers when arriving, but had to earn the badges that moved them from tool to healthy romantic prospect. Each challenge offered a badge to be won: Honesty, Humility, Communication, Trust, Fidelity, Maturity, Commitment, Dedication, Appreciation, and Modesty. 

Not bad.

In fact, I can think of no higher praise for a show that I am reluctant to mention in the company of educated men and women.

Not bad.

So, the bells ring and the trumpets sound! It’s Terrible TV Shows That Are Actually Kind Of Great Day!!

Happy Halloween!

I shout that seasonal greeting with all the oomph I can muster as I am just returned from a last-minute Trick or Treat shopping trip in search of the particular treat (Sour Patch Kids/NOT watermelon) demanded by the trickster headed our way tonight. This was a foray into seasonal commerce I’ve not attempted for a few years, and whereas much remains the same (a truly overwhelming stockpile of sweet decadence aisle after aisle), the merchandising machinery is more complex. Momentarily overwhelmed, I pause before a colorful array of choco-mayhem. How complicated is the M and M universe? I knew there had been some steamy exchanges about the humanized pitch persons touting the various confections, but had no idea how many bite-sized characters remain. There are ELEVEN remaining varieties of M and Ms packaged in several varieties of sizes. Against all odds, Mars Inc, the candy juggernaut owned by the 4th largest privately held corporation in the US, has apparently employed a marketing anthropomorphic impulse which occasionally bulges into social and political statements, inoffensive to most but seemingly disturbing to those allergic to efforts to promote inclusion and diversity.  

I was just looking for a bag of candy, but I’ve learned that pundits on the right have been particularly offended by several of the recent initiatives. Tucker Carlson opined,”Woke M and Ms have returned. The Green M and M got her boots back but is apparently now a lesbian, maybe, and there is also a plus-size obese purple M and M. So we’re going to cover that, if course. Because that’s what we do.”

Woke or not, all eleven flavors weighed down the shelves at each of the stores I visited; I met Plain, Peanut, Peanut Butter, Almond, Caramel, Pretzel, Dark Chocolate, Mint, Crispy Cookie Fudge Brownie, and the newest, confection – Caramel Cold Brew. Most of these come in a variety of sizes, and even not counting in M and M minis, Campfire Smores, Mad Scientist Mix, or the seasonal faves (Christmas green and red, Hanukkah blue and white, Kwanza green, yellow, and red, and Easter’s White Chocolate Strawberry Shake), the mass of chocolate bound by a thin candy shell is impressive. By now, America seems to have accepted the challenge of eating anthropomorphic candy, chomping down any of the colorful spokespersons without much guilt.

But M and Ms, however personified, were not on my list.

 No one-stop shopping here; it took a deep dive into the candy bins at three stores before finding Sour Patch Kids nestled next to the Jolly Ranchers, Life Savers, Sweet Tarts, Twizzlers, Gummy Bears,Skittles,AirHeads, Charms, Swedish Fish, Nerds, Fun Dip, Dots, Turkish Taffy,Laffy Taffy, Atomic Fireballs, Abba-Zabba, Bit-O-Honey. Apparently these and a few generic knock-offs occupy the infamously NOT chocolate section of the candy aisles.

Mission finally accomplished and any candy craving I might have brought to this outing now extinguished, I put out the Halloween flags at the head of the driveway and wait to hear the knock at the door. We no longer put out carved pumpkins because our town has the highest density of black bears not in Alaska, and black bears are hungry and testy at this time of year. I’d leave out a pumpkin or two if we hadn’t seen the bears in our garage last summer and spotted one under my window as I wrote a column this fall. I’m aware that they are forced to forage for acorns when they can’t find a tasty pumpkin on the porch. Acorns! How’s that for a skimpy meal before hibernation? And yet, safety first. Dig into the acorns, Bruins.

My granddaughter will be arriving soon with an empty candy sack and a healthy appetite for Sour Patch children. She was a mummified fairy queen last year, but has shifted persona this season, arriving soon as “Lumpstump”, a tree like Ooblet found in Badgetown. Badgetown is a seaside town in Oob, I am told, a locale inviting video game players designated as  Frunbuns, Peaksnubs, Mossprouts, and Mimpuns to a dance battle with the aforementioned Lumpstump. There is no clear evidence to determine whether the objects sprouting from the Lumpstump’s skull are ears or horns, but the Lumpstump approaching my door has opted for horns, and they are impressive.

I’ve written at length about the rare opportunity to assume a well conceived persona, even for a single evening. The impulse to assume an identity endorses qualities that may not be visible in ordinary street clothing. Part of the delicious agony in preparing for Halloween is in deciding which elements must emerge in the light of the moon. Shall I be Batman or a Smurf? Mummy or Lumpstump?

These are questions of some importance to a few imaginative children and decisions not easily made. 

I would wax philosophical on the implications surrounding the choice of one persona over another, but there’s a knock at the door and a terrifying demand for treats. I’ll grab the sack of Sour Patch orphans and respond with delight in meeting the creature on my doorstep, warbling the refrain all good children must:

Trick or Treat

Trick or Treat

Gimme Something Good To Eat

Gimme Candy

Gimme Gum 

Hurry Up And

Gimme Some 

“There are no secrets that time will not reveal.” Jean Racine

Relax. 

I’m not going to spill the tawdry grotesqueries of character that have afflicted me and all who know me, and I’m not going to make reference to the big secrets that tumbled out of family archives eons after the information might have done some good. No, I’m going to describe three afflictions that accompanied me throughout the years, nothing terrible, really, just impediments that were problematic as I groped my way from the first grade to the twelfth. 

Loyal readers know of my fascination with the work done by Oliver Sacks and other neurologists. We’ve been poking and prodding, electrifying, drugging, depriving, operating, and generally mucking around in brains for centuries. Fair enough. Brains are fascinating. We can say a bit about some of the mechanics of brain activity and localize some functions, but the most complete description of how the brain works is a mildly furry generalization: “The brain sends and receives chemical and electrical signals throughout the body.” 

Signals? That’s it? Apparently some make us sleepy, and some allow us to feel pain.

Here are my top five questions about the brain?

1. What is thought?
2. What is sleep?
3. How do neurons communicate with each other?
4. How do we compute?
5. What causes the fascinating anomalies – The Man Who Mistook his Wife for a Hat, Face Blindness, Synesthesia, Walking Corpse Syndrome, Alien Hand Syndrome

OK, five more:

6. What is autism spectrum disorder and how/why does it exist?
7. Foreign accent syndrome – after a stroke some people speak with an accent? Huh?
8. Why does a urinary tract infection cause short term memory loss?
9. What is consciousness?
10.  Is there thought in a coma?

I love my brain and thank it daily for the wonderful thoughts it gives me. I don’t thank it for the intrusive earworms and whatever it is that causes me to hum, tap, bounce, fidget, wiggle, and draw in the air. Each of those unbidden tics is apt to appear at any time; some are constant. My wife has her least favorite, the hum. My daughter reminds me that my constant tapping of my feet causes vibrations that make her sea sick. I’ve unintentionally terrified a drowsy family when I walk down the hall dragging my knuckles against the uneven boards on the wall. Apparently it can sound like snare drums or machine gun fire.

And, of course, I am not aware of any of this.

I was at least fifty years away from the humiliation that was Math, Algebra, Geometry, and Statistics when I realized I have dyscalculia, a disorder that that experts define with rigorous specificity: “Dyscalculia is a learning disorder that affects a person’s ability to understand number based information and math.” What exactly is it that a person with dyscalculia can’t do? Process numbers visually, put them in short term memory, have language to describe them, plug in long term memory, understand quantities and amounts, and carry out calculations.

Fractions? Graphs? Logarithms? Geometry?

Not even on the screen.

I got by when I could translate a task into a word problem. Language works for me as math cannot. Do I feel better understanding why I was designated dunce throughout my school years? Not much.

The third issue is not hard-wired.

As a lad I closed the door to my room and read until I could read no more. I read all the usual stuff … and … a staggering number of British mysteries, comedies, dramas, histories, and fiction. By the end of my fifth grade year, orthography had become the next tar pit for this unconventional speller. Did I spell “Rose” as“Rows”. I did not. But with Dorothy Sayers firmly occupying my mid-brain, I spelled “honor” as “honour”, “humor” as “humour”, “defense” as “defence”, and “theater” as “theatre”. As I type these examples, my self-correcting word processing program is spilling red correction fluid all over the virtual page. Exactly as my teachers did.

Please do not think that this orthographic route was affectation; I still spell with choices that aggravate the heck out of my editors. Here is an example of a sentence spelled in a fashion that would make any red blooded American speller gag.

“I am paralysed as I analyse the manouevers a traveller must catalogue as part of a flavour or colour, how to organise not apologise, when one does labour for a neighbour.”

Today, with the generous loss of school day memories, I am ok with being a tapping, dyscalculiac, British speller. It was a long hard slog, and my academic record is impressively tattered, but I got through somehow.

Brains! Who knew!

What’s in my wallet? 

Not cash, not for a long time. Only one card, until now, as well.

Somewhere along the way I got confuddled by points, rewards, and miles, and essentially use a debit card that does not reward me, but does keep track of the actual balance in my bank account. I haven’t thought about credit cards for a while until I was offered a card that would allow me to buy stuff I frequently buy online without being charged for shipping. Free monograms, too, as if I need to see my initials every time I put on my pajamas. I hang them up in the morning; I can pretty much expect that they are still mine when I head to bed at night.

Let’s leave suppositions about my pajamas aside; it’s been a while since I divulged my most notably guarded secrets in order to register a card I barely need and will hardly use. Name, address, email – sure. But then came the security questions, intimate information that only I and whatever nameless, faceless corporate entity compiling the shards of my life will share.

I’ve handled those in the past with ease. Best friend as a kid? No problem. Favorite football team? You’re kidding. Michigan, Duh. But this time, the question asked was: “What’s the name of a college you applied to but did not attend.” 

Uh, now they’re not only asking me to scuff around in memories established when I was essentially brain fogged by hormones and family drama, they are also hitting me right in the mistakes I’ve made/choices I flubbed/ opportunities I let slide away jackpot.

Between CATS, Freud, Oliver Sachs, and Marcel Proust, the subject of memory has been extravagantly worked over. Assuming you have the score of CATS pinging in your brain at all times, I need only ask: “Midnight. Has the moon lost its memory?” Too rich for my blood and one more example of a tentative fungo hit into a field of surmise. On the other hand, Sigmund Freud was a physician even when working in the realm of the subconscious mind, and he too had his doubts about memory: “Our memory has no guarantees at all, and yet we bow more frequently than is objectively justified to the compulsion to believe what it says.” Oliver Sachs, a neurologist (author of the remarkable The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat), took it a step further. “It is startling to realize that some of our most cherished memories may never have happened – or may have happened to someone else.”

Wait. What? Our memories may have happened to someone else? Is the corollary that someone is walking around with my memories? Actually, with only a moment’s reflection, I’ve got a boatload of memories I would be happy to offload.

Be that as it may, Rosiland Cartwright, a neuroscientist whose research was primarily in the area of sleep (a phenomenon which we don’t understand, by the way), argues that “Memory is never a precise duplicate of the original … it is a continuing act of creation.”  

That supposition may have its most compelling example in the work of Marcel Proust, whose novel A la recherche du temps perdu/In Search of Lost Time, is comprised of seven volumes, over a million words, examining recollections of childhood and adulthood, famously inspired (maybe) by a crumb of a puffy cake known as a madeleine. 

Here’s a tiny excerpt:

”And at once the vicissitudes of life had become indifferent to me, its disasters innocuous, its brevity illusory – this new sensation having had on me the effect which love has of filling me with a precious essence; or rather this essence was not in me it was me. … Whence did it come? What did it mean? How could I seize and apprehend it? … And suddenly the memory revealed itself. The taste was that of the little piece of madeleine which on Sunday mornings at Combray (because on those mornings I did not go out before mass), when I went to say good morning to her in her bedroom, my aunt Léonie used to give me, dipping it first in her own cup of tea or tisane. The sight of the little madeleine had recalled nothing to my mind before I tasted it. And all from my cup of tea.”

I rarely read all seven volumes, but the notion endures that a sight, a smell, a warm wind on one’s shoulders can catapult us into a rich tapestry of memory, a notion that persists despite the discovery that in the first draft it was a tartine rather than a madeleine that shook loose Proust’s avalanche of memory.

What shook loose the avalanche at my desk was the ostensibly unprovocative “What college did you apply to but did not attend?”

I can’t reveal the one word answer that is now among the tightest of safety precautions attached to my financial record, but let’s just pretend that it is a name that signifies the highest aspiration of any college applicant, a name that evokes tradition, excellence, and a passport to a lifetime of power and privilege. So, but, I did not attend. Looking back on it, I got some juice throughout most of my senior year as an applicant to this bastion of academic superiority. I was just as not-denied as thousands of other applicants; decisions used to arrive by mail on or around April 15th in those days, so I got a good long run out of an application that was doomed from the outset. I was also not denied yet at another smaller but also snappy college, more than good enough when it came to sweatshirt recognition. Oh, and I also applied to this other college, I guess, because … well, I wanted to be nice to the admissions representative who actually spoke to me and encouraged me to apply. He wasn’t as sharply dressed as the other college reps, and the letter he sent after his visit had a troubling grammatical error. “It was nice to OF met you,” he wrote. ‘Nice to HAVE met you,” I breathed, giving him the benefit of the doubt as his secretary might have misunderstood his dictation. In hindsight I suspect it was a form letter, so not great, but also an actual letter, putting this third place option in a different category than the other not-to-be-attended non options.

It was the only college in straits dire enough to accept me.

I still have that letter, along with the report cards chronicling my lackluster performance throughout my school career. The trace memory of myself as the younger person not attending those colleges has changed over the years; I can see myself as I was  more clearly now, disappointed that I floated along so thoughtlessly, so carelessly, but aware that I had shut down well before I was sent to boarding school at the age of ten. I kept my terminally unimpressive reports, along with various letters warning me of imminent ejection from schools and college so that my children would never feel pressured to excel. All three were and are substantial people, not a shred of carelessness among them; they have racked up academic honors and found lives of purpose.

So, that worked.

If I was any good as a teacher during a career of more than forty years, it was because I had been the student who didn’t engage, didn’t get traction, couldn’t catch on first time around. I worked with kids of great ability whose reports looked very much like mine. I knew what many other teachers hadn’t figured out – nobody WANTS to be in the doghouse. And, Mr. What College Did You Not Attend, I wrote a guide identifying great college options for students who would not be striding across the campus at that bastion of academic prestige.

So, that worked too.

One might be tempted to hail the impossibility of obtaining season tickets for the 2023-2024 University of Iowa’s Women’s Basketball Women’s season as a pretty powerful indication that women’s sports have reached a new level of popularity. Of course the Women’s National Soccer Team has played to sold out crowds, Women’s Gymnastics are a predictable draw, the women’s Euro League has filled stadiums.  The final game between Iowa and LSU drew 10 million viewers, and the NCAA is considering selling the rights to the women’s NCAA basketball tournament separately from the rest of its championships.

Hawkeye Fever in women’s basketball is intense as Caitlin Clark, NCAA Women’s Basketball Player of the Year, enters her senior season. Ticket sales are one thing, but Clark joined an elite group of athletes whose likeness have been carved in butter at the Iowa State Fair. By elite, I mean three. Clark joins Kurt Warner, Hall of Fame quarterback and graduate of Northern Iowa University, and Jack Trice, the first African-American athlete to play at Iowa State University. Iowa State’s stadium is named after Trice, who died after sustaining injuries in a 1923 game against the University of Minnesota.

Caitlin Clark holds a slew of records, many of which were viewed by the millions watching the 2023 NCAA basketball tournament. She scored 40 points in two consecutive games; in one of those games she recorded a triple double – 41 points, 12 assists, and 10 rebounds. She hit eight three point shots in the final game against LSU, eventual winner of the tournament.

Sportscaster Rich Eisen suggested that “the best shooter in the US is playing college ball,” to which Hall of Fame basketball player and analyst Reggie Miller responded, “Caitlin Clark is amazing.”

That’s impressive, but I gotta think the butter statue still beats any other tribute.

Excitement surrounding the start of the 2023-2024 season is building as Clark will face stiff competition from LSU’s young championship team, a physical and talented South Carolina team coached by Dawn Staley, and perennial contender, the University of Connecticut, coached by Gino Auriemma in his 38th season at the helm.

That’s really what I wanted to get to in starting this piece. I’ve been a fan of UCONN women’s basketball for years. I grew up in Connecticut, but my fandom began in the Rebecca Lobo era, 1992-1995. I could wax rhapsodic about UCONN’s dominance, capturing eleven NCAA Championships, four in a row from 2013-2016, but my experience in watching basketball in the years following UCONN’s championship streak has informed my appreciation of the sport. National Champions South Carolina, Notre Dame, Stanford, Baylor, and LSU and the teams they beat in the finals, Mississippi State, Arizona, and Iowa (also UCONN) are terrific teams. NCAA Women’s Basketball is exciting, challenging, and, most significantly, has reached parity among a number of excellent programs.

How? Why? I’m going to suggest that the UCONN juggernaut, like the NY Yankees, Tom Brady’s New England Patriots, and the US Olympic Gymnastic programs demonstrated skill at the highest level, allowing many to jump on board, and in the case of the Yankees, develop strong antipathy as well. The MLB and NFL had plenty of viewers anyway, but America loves winners, and UCONN won big and won often.

This observation explains, I think, the rising tide that carried all boats. UCONN is still very much in the mix, but its success has bred a plethora of equally exciting programs. 

So too, the success of the Women’s National Soccer Team (USWNT) changed the face of soccer in the United States and around the world, and created the impetus that brought superior teams to this year’s FIFA Women’s World Cup. The US won four World Cup titles and Four Olympic gold medals, but the 1996 Olympic Games and the 1999 World Cup final super charged the success of the sport. More than 76,000 people watched the gold medal match between the US and China, and more than 90,000 filled the Rose Bowl for the 1999 World Cup match, again against China.

Just as WNBA players such as Rebecca Lobo, Sue Bird, Maya Moore, Lisa Leslie, Cynthia Cooper, Sheryl Swoopes, Breanna Stewart, and Brittney Griner are names to conjure with, so Mia Hamm, Brandy Chastain, Michelle Akers, Julie Foudy, Abby Wambach, Alex Morgan, Megan Rapinoe, and Carli Lloyd have become familiar as members of the USWNT. Just as the pool of talented and experienced women playing soccer at the highest level has grown in the US, so have the numbers of talented female players on the world stage.

The US bowed out early in this year’s World Cup, barely escaping the group stage and losing to Sweden in the round of 16. In earlier years, I might have signed off after my team was eliminated, but the quality and personality of several surviving teams allowed me to enjoy the quarterfinals and to anticipate the semifinals. Having now seen all 32 teams in action, I can offer three observations:

1. The US team on the field was less dangerous than the teams that have moved on. The coaching was bizarre. Julie Ertz played in the wrong spot, Alex Morgan didn’t score, Rose Lavelle was not able to play at full strength, Lindsey Horan is a beast, and look out for Sophia Smith, Lynn Williams, Trinity Rodman, Naomi Girma, and Alyssa Thompson.
2. The women playing football at the Cup level are remarkable athletes and almost superhumanly tough. 
3. Whereas I cannot identify a particular character in describing the US side, I have no problem in differentiating between the meticulously controlled brand of football as played by Japan and the brutally physical game played by Colombia. Neither of those excellent teams survived the round of 16, but neither went out easily.

World Cup play is still ongoing, but the US Open tennis tournament begins in about a week. Is Coco Gauff ready to break through? Can Ons Jabeur finally win a final Slam match? Is Jessica Pegulathe best US player? If the past informs the future, will the next Open champion be from Kazakhstan, Belarus, or Poland? 

If Pegula wins it all, surely the city of Buffalo will do what it takes to carve her likeness in butter, or beef on weck, or spaghetti parmesan. Greatness demands tribute.

Twice a month my mother walked into our village’s small library with a sturdy canvas sack, waved at the librarian’s empty desk, and swept a row of books off the shelf into the bag. She read mysteries, exhausting the library’s stock as she traveled alphabetically by author, returning the alphabetical end of authors, Patricia Wenworth (Miss Silver Deals With Death) through Margaret Yorke (Once A Stranger) and starting again with Robert Arthur, Jr. (The Case of the Stuttering Parrot) through Lillian Jackson Braun (The Cat Who Could Read Backwards). Some authors, notably Agatha Christie,  Dorothy Sayers, Rex Stout, Mary Roberts Rhinhart, Josephene Tey, P.D. James, Dick Francis, and later Mary Stewart were in her permanent collection, immediately available if she went through the canvas bag too quickly.

Having retreated to my room sometime in 1958, I grabbed and read most of her haul as she finished, developing a fondness for complicated murders and crafty detection which remains to this day. It’s probably not surprising that what was once a relatively homogenous genre has splintered into a very wide range of murderous narratives; even a casual visit to the nightly news brings fresh accounts of unspeakably vile behavior from coast to coast. My wife and I have become inured to these rancid accounts, huffing with contempt as yet another husband is nabbed after conducting a sketchy search on a home computer. My favorite was the question: “How long can a body last before it starts to smell?” A close second is the pithy: “Neck Snap Break?” Wives, too, seem to have dumbed down the art, siphoning bleach into hubby’s coffee as a means of starting a new romance. Without bogging down in the catalog of homicidal varieties, I will confess that I am fond of police procedurals when cases are handled by Jo Nesbo or Michael Connelly and equally pleased when brilliant amateurs bumble their way to brilliant solutions.

I’d like to be more charmed by “Cozy” mysteries, but even those featuring baked goods, charming seaside villages, basset hounds, and burgeoning romance lack the tang of an old fashioned murder in a locked room or the icy charm of a contemporary serial killer.

All of this is at play this afternoon as I contend again with my own inability to write the sort of novel I might actually like to read. There are a plethora of hideous things to do to victims and a gigantic catalog of quirky habits and curious obsessions with which to decorate my masters of detection, and yet, as I set out once again, I find myself sliding into the most overworked and obvious crimes and settings. My inclination is to inhabit the persona of the quirky, brilliant sleuth and let a case come to him as cases must. I still need a crime to solve. Does inspiration arrive on cue? No, then I find myself searching for “hideous ways to murder someone”, barely done researching the efficacy of venom milked from the common krait when it strikes me that should anyone in my zip code disappear without explanation, that search will land me in the top tier of suspects to be sweated in an airless interrogation cell.

I did find out, however, that the common krait is one of the “Big Four” most poisonous of snakes, information that has left me with skin still crawling. The other three are Russell’s viper, the indian cobra, and the saw-scaled viper, information which has guaranteed that I will never set foot in India. 

Leaving vipers aside for the moment (forever!), I’m currently reading Thomas Perry’s The Butcher’s Boy, in which a “button man” dispatches his target, a U.S. Senator, by putting curare in the water glass holding his dentures. Duh! Who wouldn’t think of that? Obvious!

Recently a very kind acquaintance asked me which of the books I’ve written would be one he might enjoy. I loved writing each of them, but it’s become clear to me that although they amused me, I’m more than a little shy on plot. Sure, things happen, but “plodding” would be a kind term of description of the events that creep across the two or three hundred pages of wry discourse on affairs of no concern to anyone outside my brain.

I do still read quite a number of mysteries, not alphabetically by author, but with little critical ambition. A relatively forgettable novel (Can’t remember the title) presented “The Rules of the Game” from the Golden Age of Detective Fiction – all ten of which are presented below as further impediments to any project I might begin, allergic to rules as I am:

1. The criminal must be presented early in the story, but must not be anyone whose thoughts the reader has been allowed to know.
2. All supernatural or preternatural agencies are ruled out as a matter of course.
3. Not more than one secret room or passageway is allowed.
4. No hitherto undiscovered poisons may be used, nor any appliance which will need a long scientific explanation at the end.
5. No person from China may figure in the story.
6. No accident must ever help the detective, nor must he have an unaccountable intuition that turns out to be right.
7. The detective himself must not commit the crime.
8. The detective is bound to declare any clues he may discover.
9. The sidekick of the detective, the Watson, must not conceal from the reader any thoughts which pass through his mind; his intelligence must be slightly, but very slightly, below that of the average reader.
10. Twin brothers, and doubles generally, must not appear unless we have been duly prepared for them.

Leaving aside the unfortunate misogyny and racism of the Golden Age, the rules do prevent the sort of “Evil Twin” or unreliable narration that can make contemporary detection fatuous and annoying. Kudos to those of an earlier time who foresaw supernatural horseplay and the sharing of thoughts belonging to nasty characters; it’s a shame that our most successful contemporary thrill merchants pretty much obliterate the rules.

So, the gauntlet has been thrown, the challenge etched in blood. I have the temerity to scoff at authors who regularly churn out more plot in an hour than I have in a lifetime; now it’s my turn to play by the rules. My opus, the mystery I was born to write, ought to be finished by Halloween at the latest.

Or … 

“Back pedal, assume trophy position, hit through the ball, and aim for the orange cone.”

I’m one of three “Adult Tennis Players” on the court with a local club’s tennis pro moonlighting during the summer as an instructor for the town‘s recreational and activity programs. The governing outfit is actually called “Simsbury Culture, Parks, and Recreation”, and I’m the lone septuagenarian returning to tennis after having been sidelined (In tennis, would the term be “discourted”?) by the ravages of time and noncompliant vertebrae. I can aim for the orange cone; anybody can aim at objects. The actions leading to delivery of a tennis ball to the cone, however, appear now to be in the realm of:

“No-problem-doing-any-of-this-five-years-ago-but-not-happening-tonight”

Let’s start with backpedaling. The gurus at Exercise.com remind me that backpedaling is a simple maneuver calling upon my quads, glutes, hamstrings, and calves. Their instructions are terse -”Keep your hips low at about ¼ of a squat position, take small steps backward continuously, and continue for the desired time or distance.” 

We could start with the  mobile ¼ squat; not happening. The thing about assuming the demi-squat is that for some period of time, perhaps only a few seconds, my lumpencorpse is to suspend itself between standing on a flat surface and sitting without a chair while taking short steps backward and continuously. I can still do crossword puzzles and tie my shoes, but something happened to my balance when my left side went numb. Simply walking backwards has become an issue; I seem to lose track of myself in space.

The process of walking, forward or backward, would be made more ungainly if I were to look straight up as I attempt to move. Down is ok, but up is the wake-up call for vertigo. Is there any posture that would ask me to shuffle backwards while looking straight up?

The trophy position replicates the figure standing atop the participation trophy, head up, racquet back, arm extended to the sky. The figure is also bent at the waist, curving against gravity and nature. 

That’s not happening either, but the instructor hits a wobbling lob falling in a perfect arc, falling at terminal velocity as it leaves his side of the court and enters mine. I’ve been instructed to get trophied, use my non-racquet hand as a guide, reach up, and drive this rapidly dropping object back at the instructor before it hits the ground. 

So, to summarize: Can’t squat, back pedal, or assume the position. I let the ball bounce and poke it back across the net in a pathetic invitation to have it fed back to me before I have brought my racquet back to protect myself.

I go to the back of the line, bounce somewhat , and imperfectly repeat until the drill is finished, but the tang of uncertain memory intrudes. I believe I have known the satisfaction of perfectly timing a dropping lob, raising fist and racquet to the skies, delivering a eviscerating return to an opponent no longer willing to call me friend. I have back pedaled and skidded. In the summer of 1963, my touch with a loosely strung Jack Kramer racquet, a wood racquet weighing a hefty 13.3 ounces, was artful. I could run all day and swim a mile to cool off. Without a second thought I ate burgers and fries sodden with animal grease, snuck cigarettes when I could, and slept until noon.

All of which is to explain why I signed up for the next lesson and why I have a bag of tennis balls in the back of my car. 

I can’t do what I once did easily. I can’t even do what I once did with considerable effort. When injured, I visited an osteopath and a physical therapist who manipulated me back into mobility, but they haven’t helped me remember the name of that movie, that actor, that book, that place we went that time, whenever. My brother and I comfort each other as we keep misplacing nouns. Why verbs, adjectives, and adverbs are within reach I cannot say, but I do apologize to those who need to know where the grocery store is and only get “Near the …. Across from …. That pretty place …. Smells like ink.” 

I can sense the frustration my fumbling brings to conversations; I’m trying to have nouns handy before I speak. Then there’s tennis; the poor sap attempting to move me around a tennis court doesn’t shake his head and mumble under his breath, but I do feel obliged to get up, stretch as much as I can, shuffle backwards and try to assume the trophy position.

I won’t look like …. That guy …. Won at that place …. Short hair …. Whatever …. 

Readers familiar with my feckless scribbling will not be surprised to find yet another terminally muddled speculation on books, popular culture, the world as it exists from time to time, and the joy of writing solely for one’s own amusement. 

From whence, you ask, do these furry ruminations arrive? Do they just clatter down the chimney like Santa at midnight? Today, in fact, they do. I begin this scattergram with my meeting with Joe, the chimney guy from Naugatuck. How do Joe and I end up on the same hearth? Like Frederic, apprentice to the pirates who are eventually tamed in Penzance, I am a slave to duty; repair of our chimney had been on the list of bullets to be bitten for more than a year. I saw Joe’s work online, took out the checkbook, and gave him a call. I will not admit the countless unfounded and unfortunate estimations of character I had made in seeing Joe and his body art for the first time, but I confess they were many, which is the more unfortunate in that I number Ink Master, the televised tattoo competition, among my guilty pleasures. Within seconds, however, Joe had won his place in my pantheon of heroes by admitting that he had “Googled” me and was delighted to meet an author in person. 

I’ve frequently described the stack of self-published and almost entirely unpurchased books sitting on a shelf in the living room, books of little or no interest to the general reading public. I’ve found peace in admitting that for me, writing a novel is essentially the equivalent of completing a tough crossword puzzle; it exercises the mind, offers satisfaction in the completion of the task, and keeps me off the streets and out of handcuffs. 

And yet …

I still recall a July afternoon in Santa Barbara. The glitterati were doing whatever it is glitterati do in Santa Barbara; I was in the parking lot of my favorite thrift shop. In moments I would be rifling through previously-loved clothing in search of the elusive “Score” – the once-in-a-lifetime-find, the Picasso in the bin full of cracked frames, a Gutenberg Bible at the bottom of a pile of books. My juices were already bubbling as I stepped out of the car. 

Then, a woman with a shopping cart waved at me. “Are you a writer?” she asked.

“Why, yes. Yes, I am” I froze in place. “Why do you ask?”

“You look like a writer.”

That may not be as good as it gets, but it’s as good as I got. 

Joe’s got his retainer, I assume the chimney will be repaired, I sit on a Sunday morning determined to wade through the articles I’ve set aside during the past week. I’ve done what I could to absorb the news throughout the week; today I wallow in Op Ed and critical reviews. I subscribe to four major news outlets – lots of opinions to get through, but I trip down a rabbit hole within minutes of opening my files. Suzanne Garfinkle-Crowell, founding director of the Academy for Medicine and the Humanities at Mount Sinai writes, “Taylor Swift Has Rocked My Psychiatric Practice” in the New York Times. The article describes a phenomenon; In her experience, Swift’s music, Swift’s persona, provides, “ …a kind of big sister through the daily agonies of being a teenage girl: unsteady friendships, the 24-hour firing squad of the internet and, of course, the endless longing to feel seen and valued.” Garfinkle-Crowell goes on to describe these young women – “Who is the Swiftie? In my practice, these patients share certain characteristics. Raised on a healthy diet of kindness and fairness, she is sensitive, ambitious and a bit of a perfectionist.” Providing a kind of hero who meets these young women where they are, Swift provides an external analog, the young woman who can feel deeply but not be destroyed by feeling. The psychiatrist notes that in difficult circumstances, many of her patients have begun to ask, “What would Taylor do?”

There’s a lot to consider here; too much for one essay. I’ll have to circle back, and look forward to circling back, but as limited as my generational experience is, I have to wonder if there have been many cultural figures of similar impact. Gandhi, Martin Luther King, Jr., Anne Frank, Hellen Keller, for some of us the Obamas, sure, but at a distance. As a retired teen did I feel that Elvis, or Holden Caulfield, or the Beatles had answers I could not summon? Even when I found myself “itchin’ like a man on a fuzzy tree” – psychologically All Shook Up, I never found myself wondering, “What Would Elvis Do?”

Returning to Joe and his unsolicited affirmation of myself as a man of letters, I picked up the next article, “Everyone Likes Reading, So Why Are We So Afraid Of It?” by A. O. Scott, formerly a film critic with the Times. I like Scott as a reviewer; he described the film, 65 in this fashion, “Millions of years ago, a guy from another planet landed on this one. Like most survivors, he had a moody little girl with him.” This article has to do with the battles over books in this age of partisan culture sniping; the subtitle is, “What it means to read has become a minefield.”

Scott presents Franz Kafka’s aphorism that “a book must be the ax for the frozen sea within us”, and goes on to write, “By itself, the violence of the metaphor is tempered by its therapeutic implication. Less frequently quoted is Kafka’s previous sentence: “What we need are books that hit us like the most painful misfortune, like the death of someone we loved more than we love ourselves, that make us feel as though we had been banished to the woods, far from any human presence, like a suicide.”

Uh, I understand that Scott is moving toward a defense of literature that confronts our humanity, even as that confrontation is ugly, and dangerous, and frightening. No argument from me, but on this morning in June, even as I count the blessings that abound, ugly, dangerous, and frightening are realities as well, and I could use a big brother or sister to meet me where I am, as I am. One of the authors I most respect as a writer, Cormac McCarthy, died this week. I’ve read his work with delight and disgust; he was a magician. I belong to a book club that may never forgive me for picking Blood Meridian as our shared read. When it came time for me to select the book those friends would take on this month, however, I picked Hello Beautiful by Ann Napolitano because I wanted to spend time with characters I wish I’d known. I’m a sucker for kindness, and there were times I was gifted with tears. Kafka may have needed an ax to get at the frozen sea; I’ll choose kindness.

All of which is to return to books and Taylor Swift and to introduce a goofy reality show, Jury Duty, in which a very ordinary guy meets a series of complicated events with unfailing generosity and kindness. No spoilers here. Watch Jury Duty, meet Ronald Gladden, and then, ask yourself, “What would Ronald Do?”