Month: June 2016

Posted on

Reading and Revolutions

Heather and I have a lot of reading ahead of us.

OK, that’s not unusual. After all, between us, we have enough books to be the northern annex of the Longmont Library. (“Yeah, that’s history and classic literature in the living room, sci-fi and fantasy in the basement … I’m sorry, crafting and gardening? Upstairs and hang a left.”) But these next few months are going to be different.

For the first time in a while, I’ll be reading out loud to my wife.

We used to do this quite a bit. And, granted, sometimes she still listens in when I’m doing our bedtime reading with our disabled ward Missy. But this time, we’re doing this for exercise as much as recreation. Maybe a few laps with Heather’s beloved Jane Austen, or the calisthenics of Charles Dickens putting us through our paces. Heck, Dave Barry may be warming us up.

At this point, we’re reaching for anything and everything that will cut through the fog.

Regular devotees of this column may remember that Heather was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis a little more than 14 months ago. As we stumble towards (please!) a new, more effective medicine, there have been a lot of small battles to fight. The moments of weakness. The occasional vertigo and loss of balance. But the most persistent and insidious has been what Heather and others with MS often call the “brain fog.”

MS lives in your brain. And it’s not especially careful with the furniture. It can make someone forgetful, make it hard to focus or concentrate. Heather noticed it creeping in when some of her puzzle games became more difficult and when anything longer than a news article became too much to handle. The woman who had read and loved “War and Peace” couldn’t pick up a novel.

It can be fought – by using patience, by establishing patterns and workarounds, and maybe most of all by keeping the brain active and stimulated. Hence the out-loud reading, which lets us work through at our pace, stop and explain or repeat if necessary, and use multiple senses at once (including my own sense of the theatrical) to hold and keep her attention.

It won’t be easy. We know it’ll take a lot of time and work. The progress may seem minuscule or even invisible more often than not.

But that’s how revolutions work. Whether you’re revolting against Great Britain or your own brain.

This July marks 240 years since we first held “these truths to be self-evident.” But the American Revolution didn’t spring fully formed from the brain of Thomas Jefferson or John Adams. Its success was from more than just an eight-year war or even a summer-long Constitutional Convention. Plenty of movements have declared revolutions, from 18th-century France to modern-day politicians. Most of them fail.

What made ours different – or at least one vital factor in it – is how well-prepared it was.

In a way, the Revolution merely confirmed what the American colonists had spent seven or eight generations learning: that they could govern themselves independently of any outside power. They had been practicing that art for nearly 160 years before Lexington and Concord, learning how to build a society and keep it together, in a land where the mother country was months distant and much indifferent.

They survived. They thrived. And by the time the King and Parliament decided it might be time to tighten the rein, the colonists discovered they didn’t need Britain any more – and hadn’t for some time.

“The Revolution was effected before the war commenced,” Adams once observed. “The Revolution was in the hearts and minds of the people.”

Now it’s time for revolution to come to a mind again.

We don’t have 160 years to spend. But Heather spent most of her life forging the necessary tools. We’re willing to work as patiently and persistently as we have to, to knock the rust off and make them fit for use again.

I’ll take any excuse to read a good book. And this may be the best of them all.

Nothing could be more self-evident than that.

Posted on

Now You See It

U.S. House Speaker Paul Ryan, whatever his other gifts may be, has clearly never been a reporter.

That might sound obvious, like noting that Bill Gates has never been an NFL linebacker. But it may explain a curious decision of Ryan’s on Wednesday.

For those who missed the drama, several Democratic members of Congress staged a sit-in Wednesday, literally sitting on the House floor until a gun control bill would be heard. This would be shown to the nation via C-SPAN, an all-Congress, all-the-time cable network that normally draws a lower viewership than competitive crochet.

And then Ryan gave the protesters a gift of inestimable value. He ordered the House cameras turned off.

Now, since the cameras belonged to the House and not to C-SPAN, Ryan had the right to do this. No question. But that’s not the same as saying it was a smart thing to do, since:

1) Several of the protesters carried these amazing devices called smart phones and could stream live video for C-SPAN to rebroadcast.

2) Nothing attracts a reporter’s attention – or an audience’s – like a closed door.

It’s sometimes called the Streisand Effect, after a long-ago attempt by the singer to remove a picture of her home from an online collection of 12,000 pictures of the California coastline. Before Streisand’s efforts, six people had viewed the photo online. In the month afterward, that soared to over 420,000.

People want what they’re told they can’t have. Especially when someone powerful or famous says so.

It works on a smaller level, too. Years ago, I was covering the efforts of Emporia, Kan. to hire a new city manager. This was of moderate interest to the community since the incumbent was one of those long-timers who had been around since “Crocodile Dundee” was the biggest thing to hit movie theatres.

And then moderate interest became burning interest. The Emporia City Council went back on an earlier decision and decided it wasn’t going to announce the finalists for the position.

The result was a flood of emails and online comments, a front-page story and a very rapid surrender by the council. The decision to close the doors had become a bigger story than any announcement of the finalists could ever have been.

Most of us, whether reporters or consumers of the news, don’t have a lot of time in the day. There are a lot of things screaming for our attention, most of them claiming to be pants-on-fire urgent. So it’s normal that a lot of stories, sometimes even fairly large ones, will slip beneath the radar of the average reader or viewer.

But we’re also a stubborn bunch. We have been for a long time. And when someone talks down to us saying “You don’t need to see that, “it almost always prompts an immediate “Why not?” For a moment, we KNOW where to focus our attention – and our frustration.

I’m not saying that the gun-control bill was good, bad, or as ugly as Eli Wallach. I am saying that its proponents should send Paul Ryan a thank-you card. Whether they succeed or fail in their quest, they’ve gotten the attention they wanted, and then some.

Come to think of it, maybe the Speaker’s found a second career. I’m sure there are many other struggling broadcasts that could use his assistance in getting a larger audience.

“Live from the Pepsi Center … it’s the 2016-2017 Denver Nuggets season that Paul Ryan didn’t want YOU to see!!”

Couldn’t hurt.

Let us know, Mr. Speaker, willya?

Posted on

The Next Step

When we lived in Kansas, Heather once had a surgery that kept her in the hospital for a week. I know it was a week because of the parade of food that resulted.

If you’ve ever lived in the Midwest, you know what I mean. Small towns and church communities have a sixth sense for when one of their own needs help. That’s when the casseroles start lining up – because even if everything else in your life is chaos, by jingo, you won’t have to worry about dinner for a while. Just return the dishes when you’re done.

It was love made visible. Concrete caring.

Which brings me to Orlando.

As I’ve said before, I’m tired of writing about mass shootings. I’m sure most of you are tired of reading about them. We’re all tired of living with them, and the pain and confusion that follow in their wake.

As the drumbeat of violence goes on, seemingly without end, nerves are getting strained. Tempers are growing thin. For Exhibit A, just watch the reaction when any politician makes the now-traditional offering of “Our thoughts and prayers.”

“Never mind the thoughts and prayers, man! What are you going to do?”

Now, as one friend pointed out, thoughts and prayers by themselves are not a bad thing. When a horrific act occurs, we need a quiet space to sort things out. We need to think, to meditate, to pray and commune, so that we can get centered again and see a way forward.

But this should be a beginning. Not an ending.

What do we think about? What do we pray for? When we go into this quiet space, what do we come out ready to do?

When someone is sick, we don’t just offer thoughts, prayers, and cards. We make food. We run errands. We pay visits to ward off loneliness.

When a friend is in tight straits financially, we don’t just wish them luck and move on. We pass the hat. We offer help. Maybe we even slip an anonymous gift card into the mailbox.

When a society is wounded and bleeding, what do we do? The answer is, and always must be, whatever we can to answer the pain.

Our job is not just to pray. It’s to be the answer to someone’s prayer.

As a Christian, my own thoughts go to the challenge of James. “Suppose a brother or a sister is without clothes or daily food,” he wrote, long centuries ago. “If one of you says to them, ‘Go in peace; keep warm and well-fed,’ but does nothing about their physical needs, what good is it? … Show me your faith without deeds and I will show you my faith by my deeds.”

What do we do?

Do we address the issue of guns? Of mental health? Do we dare look at the problem while it is fresh in our minds and burning in our hearts and offer some sort of answer to it? If nothing else, can we offer any assistance to those still alive, to the families forever scarred by this abominable act?

Or do we simply argue, and groan, and maybe offer a word or two of blame before running for cover? Stand vigil for a bit, change a Facebook image for a week or so, and then move on until the next horror?

If that’s what we want, there’s nothing easier in the world. Just keep it up.

If we want better, we have to work for it. Hope demands nothing less.

Yes, give thought to what has happened. Yes, pray by all means. But in those thoughts, in those prayers, look for the next step on the road. How do we come out of this quiet space ready to make life better?

What do we have to offer? What can we give? What can we create?

The time is now. A world waits.

What will we bring to the door?

Posted on

Tugs and Stumbles

When the weather gets hot, I sometimes find myself thinking of the company picnics that my Dad’s work used to have.

You may remember something similar. Lots of food, with an emphasis on potato salad. Lots of people, many of whom only saw each other at something like this. And, invariably, the sorts of games that never got played anywhere else, unless your school had a field day and no compunctions about having some kids win or lose.

For example, there was always a tug of war – one rope, with a not-so-small army of kids and adults gathered on each side, each trying to pull like crazy until the middle of the rope passed to their side. The losers got the fun of sprawling in the dirt or grass with rope burns on their hands; the winners got a ribbon or small prize … and, usually, their own collection of rope burns on their hands as a memory. (There may be a reason this doesn’t get done much anymore.)

Or, for the ultimate in ridiculousness, there was always the three-legged race. Take two people, have them each strap one leg together, and then try to have them walk forward. Unless you have a lot of timing and teamwork, the result is a lot like Goofy after the mallet has fallen on his head; lots of staggering and very little progress. The first pair that can stay upright long enough to cross the finish line wins; the last pair gets to find out the best way to remove grass stains.

This sort of thing doesn’t seem to be done much anymore, which may be one reason we’re all living longer lives these days. (Never underestimate the potency of a potato salad that has sat outdoors for three hours.) But as I watch the state of national politics, I can’t help feeling that we’ve lost some valuable training.

Mind you, we’re all still pretty good at the tug of war. We prove that during every primary and general election, when most of us plant our feet in the ground and refuse to be swayed by anything that could sway us from our chosen position. “Never him!” “Anyone but her!” We pull and tug and haul until main strength decides the contest one way or the other. Of course, at a picnic or field day, you never had a team that tried to pull in five different directions at once, with the result that everyone on your side went sprawling, which demonstrates one of the many ways in which sixth-graders are still smarter than many American voters.

But we’ve lost our talent for the three-legged race. And that’s a pity. Because while the tug of war will get you through an election, you need the three-legged race if you really want to govern – different people learning how to walk together in order to reach a common goal.

Of course, most political “fields” don’t have a commonly-agreed-upon finish line. Sometimes it’s not even clear how long the race is. But like it or not, we’re strapped together and have to cooperate to make even a little progress … or else learn to enjoy the taste of Weed & Feed.

“Winning was easy, young man; governing’s harder,” George Washington notes in the recent musical “Hamilton.” (Yes, I’m still on that kick.) In many ways, it’s like the difference between a wedding and a marriage – one requires short-term planning to achieve an easily defined goal, the other requires long-term survival skills and cooperation, however hard the situation may get.

Many local governments haven’t completely forgotten the skill. It makes a difference when you have to live next door to your opponent. But at the national level, maybe it’s time to look for folks who actually know how to cooperate and step forward, instead of trying to break the ankles of everyone who doesn’t share their (sometimes very eccentric and bizarre) path.

It’s not easy. But then, no one ever said this would be a picnic.

Posted on

No Place Like Home

My home is running away from me.

Yes, I wrote that correctly. It’s a simple demonstration of what Jack London might have titled The Call of the Grandchild. When two sisters with three kids between them both choose to live in Washington State, Mom and Dad will follow, and it will be sooner rather than later. The draw of gold panners to the Yukon is a weak thing compared to the draw of getting to be Grandma and Grandpa without the need of plane tickets.

By the time the dust settles, I’ll be the last member of the old team still in the state. By itself, that’s OK. We’ve been scattered before. I lived in Kansas for almost 10 years after college, with co-workers who often asked “You moved here from Colorado? Why?” My sister Carey spent two years in Chicago before coming back to Colorado, while Leslie’s been in Washington for so long that we’re used to celebrating birthdays via Amazon. Through all of it, we knew that blood was thicker than distance, that family endured even when we couldn’t see each other all the time.

But this one’s a little harder.

This time, my folks have sold The House.

The House is where my parents have lived since 1977.  It’s a curious place in a way, more open in the back than the front. According to family history, The House was originally designed to be placed near a golf course and protected from errant shots; when that location didn’t happen, the plans were moved part and parcel to a site on Gay Street instead.

But don’t be fooled by blueprints. That house was open to a lot.

Its backyard was an opening to the galaxy. There sat the three swings that magically transformed into X-Wing fighters when my sisters and I took to the skies; a nearby two-seater was the avatar for the Millennium Falcon.  In the Christmas Blizzard of 1982, it became the ice planet of Hoth; in summers, it hosted backyard baseball games (including, memorably, one broken arm for an unlucky friend).

Its basement hosted tools, plants, books, a half-finished doll house, video games, and an ultra-organized pantry. (FEMA only wishes its planners were as detail-oriented as my Dad.) It was the base for sleepovers, for Bible studies, and for any game my sisters and I could invent. Blackout Tag, where we killed all the lights and searched for each other on our hands and knees, was perhaps not the best idea we ever had, as my black eye could soon attest. (“Tell me again how you ran into a table leg?”)

Every room of its two levels could host similar stories, along with the Rochat Family Zoo. Dogs, cats, a horned toad, birds, a rabbit, and some surprisingly-long-lived fish all called the place home. Looking back, it’s a wonder there was room for people – and yet, it held not only us, but Grandma Elsie as well, who lived in The House with us for a few years and visited often.

When Heather and I moved in with Missy, The House was just a few blocks up the road. It was one of the many things that made a surprising move feel pre-ordained, like pieces fitting together.

Now, The House will make memories for someone else.

It’s a strange feeling.

Ancient Romans spoke of a “spirit of place.” I think any Coloradan could agree with that feeling. We’ve felt the power and even quiet majesty that some locations can hold, from the Rocky Mountains to the Great Sand Dunes. But that power is never stronger than in a place you’ve called home.

When that place is removed, it’s disorienting.

The important things are still true. We’re still a family. We’ll still see each other. The love that was always our real home is still there.

And maybe, sometime, I’ll drop by and meet the new neighbors.

After all, when TIE fighters could strike at any time, it’s only fair to give warning.