Luck of the Draw-Part 1

On August 13th in 1969, my eighteenth birthday, I registered for the draft in a hot little office somewhere in downtown Bloomington. For an occasion that was so momentous to me it turned out to be dull and mundane. While I put my life under the thumb of the U.S. military the woman behind the desk chewed gum. Immediately after leaving the draft board office I bought two albums, Dylan’s Nashville Skyline and Donovan’s Hurdy Gurdy Man, one of which I still listen to. I went back to the farm, sat in front of the big wooden stereo in the living room and played the music loudly as I pondered my fate. Mom was not impressed.

“What are you doing? It’s time for chores.”

“I just registered for the draft.”

“Oh yeah? So does every other eighteen year old boy in the country. What makes you think you’re so special? Now turn off that record player, get out to the barn, and help your Dad milk the cows.”

Dylan’s Nashville Skyline was a happy country album which took up where John Wesley Harding left off, with a guy named Pete Drake playing pedal steel guitar. His band had even added a Dobro. With the war out of control, why in the hell was Dylan happy? I sure didn’t feel happy. Dylan’s protest days were evidently over. Mine were just beginning.

That fall while living on campus I joined the huge but peaceful march that snaked through ISU’s campus and downtown Normal protesting the Vietnam War. While I did so my older brother, an officer in the Air Force, flew night missions targeting the Ho Chi Minh trail in an F-4 fighter out of an air base in Thailand. I listened to both radicals and arch conservatives speak on campus. I took a sharp interest in politics and became critical of President Richard Nixon. On December 1 of that same year I was in the 11th floor lounge of ISU’s Manchester Hall watching the first ever draft lottery drawing on TV. It was held by the Selective Service System to determine the order of young men to be drafted. Three hundred and sixty five balls, one for each day of the year, were drawn randomly from one rolling cage while three hundred and sixty five balls with consecutive numbers were drawn from another. It was like a huge game of BINGO. When the two balls were matched we learned when and if young men would be called essentially to serve in the Vietnam War. The room was quiet. We had all received four year student college deferments from the draft board, the last ever to be issued, but the order of our birthdays on this list mattered.

It mattered a lot to Frank Lowell for example. Frank had learned, from knowing no chords at all in August, to play guitar amazingly well. He was forever coming into our rooms and saying “listen to this” before breaking into a popular guitar riff. He had just learned to pick that great opening to the Beatle’s “Blackbird” off the white album. Frank accomplished this by never going to class. While we slept he stayed in the lounge and played guitar. While we attended school he slept. Frank was flunking out, had already flunked out for all intents and purposes, and the number he got in the lottery mattered a whole lot to him because he would lose his deferment as soon as grades came out and immediately enter the draft. With a high number he could continue to sleep late somewhere else and play guitar. With a low number he would soon be in basic training. You could, with little imagination, call the lottery process a matter of life or death for Frank. He was born on April 24th, 1951. The ball that was drawn opposite his birthday had the number 2 printed on it. Frank’s face went pale when they put that single digit next to his birth date on the big board. He stood and left the lounge holding his guitar by the neck. It swung slowly as he walked back to his room, barely clearing the carpet. Frank was essentially gone.

I was lucky. My number was 307. Predictions were that no numbers over 210 would be called. In the cold calculations of conscription each number called yielded some known number of Army recruits. The number of recruits called up corresponded directly to the need of the Army for fresh live American male bodies. As it turned out no one would be called past 195. We didn’t know then that the war was beginning to wind down.

The previous year, 1968, was the bloodiest year of the Vietnam War for Americans when 16,899 young American died. 1969 was on a slower pace, and would end at 11,780 American casualties. 1970 would see 6,173 Americans die. Probably only God knows how many Vietnamese were killed, along with Cambodians, Laotians, Thais, and other Asians during those years. My friend Mike, a year older than me and the driver on a double-date to the prom when I was fifteen and lacked a driver’s license, joined the Marines to avoid the draft. College was never in his future. No one in Mike’s family had ever gone to college. He told me in great detail how the Marine officer in full dress uniform validated his papers in a ceremony in Chicago by dramatically drawing straight lines which formed an X over them using his sword as a straight edge. He was gung ho for a long time. Then he lived through the siege of Khe Sanh when so many Marines didn’t. The tone of his letters to me changed. In them he described napalm and its effects on people in graphic terms. It didn’t sound like MIke. He was wounded but sent back to the fight. When he was home on leave he had a nearly fatal collision alone in a car on his way home. He collided with a utility pole he passed every day of his young life till he left for the Marines and would never return to the war. The war and that accident changed his life forever.

For those of us paying attention to what was going on in Vietnam the Battle of Khe Sanh preceded by a few months the Tet offensive when everything we had been told about the US winning the war proved to be wrong. After waging a war primarily in countryside villages the Viet Cong attacked Vietnam’s cities. The cover of Life magazine featured a Vietnam regular army soldier firing a rocket launcher at the American Embassy in Saigon. The VC blew a hole in the wall surrounding the newly built four acre US embassy compound and occupied the grounds for six hours. All this after the US Army’s top officer General William Westmoreland earlier in the fall expressed his belief that the communists were weak and “unable to mount a major offensive.” He went on to say “I hope they start something because we’re looking for a fight.” In February of 1968 he definitely had one, and it was being fought by and large by conscripted young men my age.

Perhaps if we knew why we were being asked to fight and die we would have felt differently. By the end of the Vietnam War 58,220 Americans died. I did not then and still haven’t a clue why. I was confident no one actually believed in, or could look you in the eye and repeat with a straight face, the argument represented by the Domino Theory which held that if South Vietnam fell to the communists in the North then so would the rest of Asia somehow jeopardizing our American way of life. South Vietnam eventually did fall and when it did America hardly noticed. Many if not most young Americans were there I think simply out of a sense of duty, to not disappoint their father, their family, or their community. To allow oneself to be drafted was a huge risk, but to flee the draft by leaving the country was an enormous and perhaps irreversible sacrifice. There was no good way out. Some had schemes to flunk the military’s physical exam and some of those might have worked. Some tried to enlist in what looked like a safer branch of the military. Those of us with student deferments in 1969 studied hard. Those who turned eighteen in 1970 underwent another lottery with no deferments and no escape.

My friend Steve, a year behind me in school and also a Danvers dairy farmer’s son, got a low number in 1970 and enlisted in the Army rather than face the draft. He somehow found himself in Germany. Things could have worked out much worse for Pete, but as it turned out Germany and army life proved a daunting challenge for that farm boy as well. How might the lives of Pete and Steve and all of us have been different had the draft not hung over our heads? We’ll never have good answers to that, only more questions. Would the American public allow a draft of our own children today? I do think we know the answer to that one. I knew I was very fortunate in 1969, but I could only attribute my good fortune to chance. Something about it wasn’t right. (More next week.)

Just Say No

Either I didn’t work as many hours as I thought or I was doing more personal business during work than I realized but I don’t have as much time on my hands in retirement as I imagined I would. I did get my first (make that my second) call today from someone who assumed (correctly apparently) that I wasn’t doing anything and could surely drop whatever I was otherwise engaged in to help “since you’re retired.” There was a problem with an air conditioning unit at church which needed the attention of someone from the trustees. Right away. She thought of me ‘because you’re not doing anything.’ So I did. In doing so I accepted her assessment of my current life.

“Are you busy?” she asked.

“Not at all,” I replied. I said so almost without thinking.

Just like when my son called during my first few days of retirement to say he and his friend Na had ridden their bikes on the Illinois and Michigan Canal towpath from Joliet to Morris on a hot Tuesday afternoon and “could you come get us in your car? How soon can you get here?” He would never have made that request if I were I working. They had planned to pedal all the way to Ottawa but it proved longer and harder than they had imagined so Dean thought ‘let’s call my Dad. He’s retired and not doing anything. He can come get us and we can put the bikes in the trunk of his Buick.’ Which is exactly what happened. So people assume I have nothing better to do and will help them at a moment’s notice. And I confirm their assumption by doing just that.

But if this immediate response request thing happens more frequently I’m going to have to find a way to turn up the ‘Just Say No’* meter and tell them I can’t because…what? Why can’t I bring myself to say I’m busy? Why can’t I just say no because I’m busy writing, reading, about to go to the YMCA, or otherwise engaged in something else? Aren’t those valid activities? Instead I find myself saying “I wasn’t doing anything really.” How often do you truly do absolutely nothing? Never. Rather we regard whatever activity in which we’re engaged as not valid in the mind of the person who inquires. We assume they don’t accept that writing or reading or napping fall into the category of ‘busy’ and perhaps deep down neither do we. So we don’t offer those perfectly valid activities as reasons for not meeting whatever request they throw our way. The trick is not falling into their frame of mind. Bill my friend from Chicago called around lunchtime and asked it another way.

“What are you doing right now?”

Because I’m an honest guy I replied “I’m sitting in my yard at the picnic table doing a crossword puzzle.” Fortunately he didn’t ask me to drop what I was doing and do something else. He only wanted to talk, and for a very short time. The issue of being busy or not didn't come up.

It was 72 degrees and the sky was a perfect blue. Birds flew past me to the feeder. My dog was lying beside me. I was under an oak tree. It was idyllic. I was fully aware that it was mid day Thursday and I was in bib overalls in my back yard. Was I doing nothing? Not at all. Compared to most people in town the activity I was engaged in would be categorized as nothing. But one’s activity and the perception or validity of that activity by others are different things. I was pretty absorbed in that puzzle, and the weather, and the beauty of my yard. Being occupied in that way may not qualify to most as busy. But it does to me.

I’ve received a lot of mostly unsolicited retirement advice during this my first full month of not working. One little pearl of wisdom was this

Do not gloat.

So in order not to gloat I’ll stop. I won’t go into the golf, the naps, the 'sometimes one, sometimes none' scheduled items on my calendar most days. The point I’m trying to make here is that we each have the right, I believe, to determine our own level of activity and describe it as we wish. So don’t hesitate to call. But don’t be surprised in the future if I tell you I’m busy.





*Just Say No was the national anti drug campaign started by Nancy Reagan during the 1980’s. It was the most simplistic and inane approach to drug prevention yet to be foisted on the American public. The message was that we didn’t need more drug treatment, increased resources, and new approaches, only more will power on the part of those tempted by drug use. If only it were that easy. If only we could wear a button that says JUST SAY NO and stop the violence and pain that stems from addiction to drugs. We can’t. It didn’t and doesn’t work. But it was great for a while, thirty some years ago, to think it might.

What Can I Say?

Last Friday I saw Bob Dylan perform in Bridgeview’s Toyota Park. He was the headliner of the Americanarama tour, which is playing this summer in medium size venues like the soccer stadium in Chicago’s near southwest suburbs. The night before they had played Peoria. Appearing with Dylan were two great bands My Morning Jacket and Wilco.

Unlike the weather we’re experiencing at this week’s end, last Friday was a beautiful night, clear blue sky and a breeze, just on the edge of needing a jacket. The concert opened at 5:30 with Richard Thompson and the Electric Trio. My wife Colleen and I were there with friends Ken and Sharon and my daughter Moe and her boyfriend Don. We did a little tailgating in the parking lot before we climbed up into the stadium. It turned out to be a great place to hear music. Our seats found us close to the stage in the bleachers with a clear view of the performers. Strangely there were empty seats.

I’d last seen Dylan live at the Illinois State Fair in August 2001, twelve years ago. I was there with my family. It was August and Moe was about to move away from home to attend U of I in Champaign. We were in the grandstand bleachers that night, across the racetrack from the stage. Dylan was center stage in cowboy boots, changing from electric to acoustic instruments, wearing a harmonica holder, moving quickly back and forth across the stage engaging the other musicians, leading the vocals of course and playing a ringing guitar. On that summer night when Dylan really got into his guitar riffs he dug the toe of his boot into the stage and swung his leg back and forth in time with the music. That night was beautiful too. Just about a month before September 11 came and changed everything. On that night Bob Dylan was sixty. I was fifty one.

Dylan was very smart in choosing My Morning Jacket and Wilco as his tour mates. My Morning Jacket is an eclectic band out of Louisville Kentucky led by lead vocalist Jim James that seems new but has been performing since 1998. Several of the band members have long hair and throw it forward and back in the tradition of the sixties. Something about that makes me feel good. I tend to like any band that keeps a pedal steel guitar on stage but I especially like My Morning Jacket. Carl Broemel plays that pedal steel by the way. I had never seen them perform but they’re good to watch. The members of My Morning Jacket are all out entertainers. If you want to get acquainted with their music try a studio album they recorded in 2004 simply called Z.

Wilco was perfect for the crowd in Bridgeview because they’re a Chicago band that has been together since 1994. I saw them perform last year at the Hideout. Wilco is like a stealth bomber, hardly noticed but packing a big punch. Are there really famous bands now? You could argue not. There’s so many bands that there may no longer be room for the giant famous bands we remember like the Stones and the Beatles. Wilco has a terrific front man in lead vocalist Jeff Tweedy. They work themselves up to a complicated and loud arrangement of wailing guitars and drums only to drop back into the a simple melody line with Jeff Tweedy’s voice coming through sweet and clear, all in the same song. Wilco brims with talent. They’re high energy. Their most widely heard album, many say their best, is Yankee Hotel Foxtrot recorded in 2002. For a special treat the two bands, My Morning Jacket and Wilco, joined together on stage to perform Neil Young’s “Cinnamon Girl” recorded in 1969 with the band Crazy Horse. The crowd roared their approval. It never ceases to amaze me how good old music continues to live. I guess that would come to no surprise to Beethoven fans.

And then there is Dylan. What can you say? I think we should all watch out when people use that line “What can you say?” It means nothing in itself. We assume, wrongly I think, that when someone says “what can you say?” the speaker is implying that words alone cannot express how good, how bad, how extreme the experience truly was. But I think the question is often used instead to say nothing, to not declare one’s opinion. It’s a safe cliché. Like this.

“What did you think of Dylan last Friday night?”

“Wow, Dylan. What can you say?”

Instead of falling back on that cliché, as I would really like, I have to say he wasn’t very good. On the other hand my friend Ken, who saw him last year in New York, said he was a lot better Friday than when he saw him a year ago.

He opened with the song “Things Have Changed” a title apropos to my experience. He was center stage behind the mike without an instrument. Evidently he no longer plays guitar in his public performances. Maybe it’s arthritis. Bob Dylan is now 72. His voice is gone. That’s a relative statement you know as we’ve been saying his voice is gone for twenty years. I have to say now it’s getting serious. Very serious.

He plays the piano on some numbers. His harmonica playing is good and you don’t hear good harmonica much these days. Ken’s opinion on his performance had a lot to do with his harmonica playing. In New York he reported that he did little if any harmonica, instead staying seated behind a piano and a microphone. Ken liked the fact that he was back in the middle of the band, a short man in a dark suit with stripes down the sides of his trousers. He was surrounded by wonderful musicians. He had all the elements of a great show, famous songs, an attentive crowd, a beautiful setting. I just couldn’t get around the painful growling voice.

Dylan was best on his newest songs. He sang “Duquesne Whistle” and “Early Roman Kings“ from his 2012 album Tempest. I think those were songs written and arranged for the limitations of his current vocal range. It would only be smart to do so. Why write a song that was impossible to sing? Even “Love Sick” from the 1997 album Time Out of Mind worked because it did not require the kind of high and low notes now outside his ability to hit. But it’s painful to hear the new arrangements of his wonderful older songs.

I don’t think musical artists should be trapped into singing the same arrangement of a song simply because it was made famous in a recording that is now stuck in their fan’s minds like a fly in an ice cube. That would require them to sing the very same song the very same way for, in Dylan’s case, fifty plus years. But as I listened to the nearly unrecognizable version of “A Hard Rain’s Gonna Fall” written in 1962 and recorded on The Freewheelin’ Bob Dylan, a song that has so much meaning for me and my relationship with my son, I realize he not only changed the music to fit the limitations of his voice he eliminated part of the rapid lyrics so that his tired 72 year old voice could deliver the lines.

Same with “Tangled Up in Blue” from Blood on the Tracks, my daughter Moe’s favorite song. She has a framed Blood on the Tracks album cover. I think the line “wonderin if she’s changed at all, if her hair is still red” reminds her of her mother. But I’m just guessing there. I know it does me. In the middle of that song, her favorite, she turned to me and said

“Is this ‘Tangled up in Blue’?”

“Yeah,” I said.

“You can hardly tell. And the words are different.”

“Yeah.” Moe had a puzzled look on her face. I knew what she was thinking.

Probably the most poignant was the song “She Belongs to Me.” I love that song. It was recorded in 1965 on Dylan’s sixth album Bringing it All Back Home. You don’t know it by its title, but rather its opening stanza.

She's got everything she needs
She's an artist, she don't look back
She's got everything she needs
She's an artist, she don't look back
She can take the dark out of the night time
And paint the daytime black

If you were me you could hear Dylan’s 1965 voice in your head straining and sustaining those notes, lengthening and shortening particular words, the phrasing giving them special meaning. I love Bob Dylan and his work because of the genius and poetry of his lyrics. When I hear that song I imagine the woman who is its subject and the relationship she must have had with the song writer. The lyrics themselves tell a story of a complicated and deep aspect of life among people. But the lyrics are made stronger, the song is made complete, by the beauty of the music. That song is no longer beautiful as performed by Dylan in Bridgeview. It’s a wonderful lyric and the complete package in 1965 was and is great art. But the song we heard last Friday night no longer measures up. I’d rather I had not heard that version. He’d do well to take it off the playlist.

Dylan can do whatever he wants. He’s earned that. He has great talent still and I expect he always will. Why not now use that talent to write wonderful songs to be performed by others with the ability to sing? If you can’t sing yourself you can still be a song writer. And you can record in a studio. The music industry can and does wonderful things with mediocre voices. But on stage, between the giant speakers, competing with the instruments around you? That’s a different thing. Dylan and his voice in concert jut do not measure up to Jim James and Jeff Tweedy. I will buy and listen to every song Dylan ever records. I may have listened to them all so far. But I’m not sure I’ll go see him perform again. Maybe I’m wrong. I’d love to be wrong. But I’d like to be known not by what I did in the past but what I did last. I can’t imagine Dylan feels differently. You’re as good as your last effort. Dylan last effort just wasn’t that good. I wish I didn’t have to say that. I almost feel disloyal. But it’s true.

Two things make me saddest. Dylan began to perform as night fell on Bridgeview. Towards the middle of his set those at the concert began heading for the exits. Maybe they were trying to beat the traffic back into the city. Maybe they had to relieve the baby sitter. I don’t know. But they were walking out as he was still playing. I can’t imagine.
Last, I had the opportunity to talk a lot to a bright young woman, a friend of my son’s, during the week about a lot of things. She talks a lot. As a result, I got to hear a lot of young thought and ideas from both her and my son. I think that’s good for me by the way. I mentioned the Dylan concert.

“Are you a fan?” she asked.

“Yes,” I replied.

“I’m not. I saw him just a few years ago. I know he’s revered. I know he’s contributed so much. But I don’t understand the appeal.”

“Have you heard his old stuff?”

“No.” She’s between 25 and 30. “I just know him for how he sounds now. And I have to say, I just don’t get it.”

Maybe I went to see Dylan out of a sense of respect. At some point his performances will end. I don’t know if I want to be there when they do. He’s given me so much. Is it greedy to want more? Will I go to see him again? I don’t know. What can you say?

Farm Kids

I had my first schedule conflict as a retired person today. While working I had schedule conflicts all the time, so many that I’d make one appointment, miss another, and not realize till later I’d blown something else off. I expected few if any conflicts after I stopped working. In Saturday’s mail I received a thank you for agreeing to be a judge at the LaSalle County 4-H fair, and a reminder to be there at 10 a.m. on Thursday July 11. During my last week of work I responded by e mail to the John Howard Association confirming that I would be part of the team that visited IYC Kewanee on July 11, showing up at the gate at 10:00 a.m. IYC Kewanee is a juvenile prison downstate on past Ottawa on Route 80 and South. I had visited IYC Kewanee years ago and wanted to return in order to see if it had improved over time. But obviously I couldn’t do both. I decided to keep my commitment as a food judge for the 4-H kids. Heck, I was a 4-H kid once. John Howard would have other folks on the team visiting Kewanee but I wasn’t sure the people at University of Illinois Extension could find another food judge on short notice.

After reading the 4-H letter I remember Margaret Anderson’s phone call long, long ago. It’s so easy to say yes to things three months in advance. Who knows what they’re doing that far ahead? I’ve always thought that people that plan ahead take special advantage of people like me who don’t. Why Margaret thought me qualified to be a food judge I don’t know, except that people know I like to cook and enjoy eating. My kids would laugh knowing I was judging food. I once imagined out loud at the family dinner table that I might become a food critic. My son Dean immediately sounded off by saying

“Dad, you would make a terrible food critic.”

“What are you talking about Dean? Why do you say that?”

“Because you like everything. I can see it now. Everything you taste would get five stars. When is the last time you had a bad meal?”

I pondered that, maybe a bit too long.

“See? Exactly what I’m talking about. Dave McClure, food critic who thinks everything edible is wonderful.” We got a good laugh out of that one.

So I go to the fairgrounds on the South Side of Ottawa at the appointed time and become part of a bevy of activity in one of the exhibition barns. I find Margaret seated at a table amid lots of forms and clipboards and she puts me to work, pairing me up with Carol Elmore, retired home economics teacher from Mendota. I know Carol from another organization to which we both belong. Carol and I are assigned the microwave fudge entries, the microwave crumb coffee cake, microwave carrot cake, and a number of other categories. You get the idea. It was required that we taste each offering and then rate them using a checklist of criteria individualized for every type of food. Pretty elaborate if you ask me. We did all desserts. The kids had to plan a menu around the dish they presented that contained all the food groups. Some of them did so in great detail. So not only did Carol and I eat little bites of a whole lot of desserts, we imagined them as part of bigger more sumptuous meals. The whole experience made me hungry. It took about an hour to complete our task. I have to say Carol and I were pretty easy on the 4-Hers whose projects we judged. A lot of them were twelve year old kids. For all we knew it was their first try at competitive cooking. So we gave them the benefit of the doubt, except for example the kid whose carrot cake was absolutely uncooked in the center and the girl who left the apples out of her microwave apple brownies. Pretty hard to recommend blue ribbons for those.

I left the exhibition barn and made my way to the lemon shake up stand, where a homemade lemonade drink was only a buck. Lemonade in hand I moseyed down to the livestock barns. Some of the cattle were just coming in so I wasn’t able to see everything. I used to take my kids to this fair when they were little. They always liked seeing the small animals, rabbits and chickens and such while I gravitated towards the animals we had on our farm, the jersey dairy cows and the sheep. There is much less livestock on area farms these days, especially cattle and hogs, with so many farmers specializing in grain only. I didn’t expect to see Jersey cows. If there are dairy cows around they are nearly always Holstein. But as I walked into the diary barn there standing before me were three Jersey heifers, the only dairy cows at the fair that morning, chewing their cuds. Springing heifers I believe. It took me back. They’re such pretty cows. So much of my first eighteen years was spent caring for and being with these animals that I somehow felt at home in their presence.

I was a twelve year old kid at the McLean county Fair with a heifer like this one fifty years ago. I’d tell you what I named her but her name was the same as the receptionist at YSB today and I don’t want to Janet to feel bad. I’d taught my heifer to lead with a halter, taken special care of her, clipped her carefully before the fair and given her a good bath the day before the show. It was my first time in the show ring. I didn’t get a blue ribbon but it was OK. I just loved being off the farm and at the fair.
I started looking more closely at the kids at the fair yesterday. Farm kids. 4-H officials always talk about recruiting more city kids into 4-H, and they probably have, but the fair still belongs to farm families. The Pearse family was there. Tom and Carol farm and raise Hereford cattle out in Deer Park. Their kids are married now. Whenever I see Carol she reminds me that her daughter Mary became a special education teacher because she worked as a teacher’s assistant for my wife Colleen, a special Ed teacher at Ottawa High. Mary lives in Galva now and has a family of her own.

Dick Fricke was there, also from a farm in Deer Park Township, judging something or just helping out. I ran in to Delbert and Michelle Rich who reported their kids had lots of projects at the fair. They live on a farm up by Mendota. Michelle used to work at YSB. They were unloading a crate of chickens. Their kids were “somewhere” according to Michelle. I didn’t get to meet them. We talked a while, then I made my way to the food hall operated by one of the local 4-H clubs and had a hot roast beef plate complete with homemade rhubarb pie and milk for only six bucks. While I was in the lunch line I ran into someone that I didn’t know, but she knew me. I hate it when that happens. I think at any moment I’ll remember her name but I don’t.

After lunch I killed time on a bench under a shade tree close to the food hall. Kids were walking by in groups of two or three, goofing around, looking at each other, being kids. I remember at the fair wanting to know where other kids were from. I went to a small school and we were around each other so much, the Danvers kids, that it was a big deal to see new kids. Gridley kids, El Paso kids, Minier kids, Lexington. I knew a few boys from playing sports against other schools but there were so many new kids at the fair. And girls. Farm kids, at least farm kids like me, weren’t around other kids much. All summer we were out there in the country, working, taking care of animals, wishing we were at the fair. When we got to the fair we were gawky. It looked to me yesterday as if little has changed. Sure they have ear buds now, stare at their smart phones and text, but they’re still kids hungry to experience the world outside their own.

That’s about all I did yesterday. It was a great day, for a Thursday.

It's Friday Already?

I think it is good to surprise yourself, if even in a negative way. This is my fifth day of retirement. I’m still not used to the fact that I get so few e mails, and I find myself thinking about what may be happening in my office. So I certainly haven’t settled into retirement. I figure after five days I’m just flirting with the concept at this point. But I was caught off guard by my reaction to a friend’s e mail yesterday. Let me set this up a little.

It may be natural for working people to envy the retired, but I don’t think I envied them in a big way. Retired people, mostly board members, would drop into my office from time to time and ask what was going on; at YSB, in the community, or with state politics. They would ask in a fairly detached way, as if it was impossible for them to know because they were out of the loop. Often they did this after being gone for long periods of time in the winter. They looked tan and relaxed. Anything I told them was met with, it seemed to me, only idle interest. They would shake their heads and laugh at the State of Illinois’ budget, whereas I was sweating blood at the prospect of making cuts caused by the legislature’s countless proposals to slash human services. But I understood. I really did.

Most of the retired people I encountered were, when engaged in gainful employment, very involved and equally concerned as I about the sorry state of government, our priorities as a society, and how it affected community life, families, and thus kids. But as retired people those worries were not a part of their everyday thinking. It didn’t mean they weren’t concerned, or actively trying to change what we value and how we behave as people. It was just that their life, and their actions, were to a large extent no longer dependent on such things. When your income is fixed it sounds bad, because it implies it will never go up. We forget that those on fixed incomes are also in situations where their income cannot go down either. Unlike employed people who can be brought into someone’s office on any day, at any hour, and suddenly lose their jobs and thus their incomes America’s retirees, those lucky enough to be able to afford not working, are by and large safe from economic catastrophe. At least the tan relaxed people I remember making their way back to my office in April or so. I begrudged them nothing.

What really made me mad about retired people though, every time, was this. I would be talking to some older person not in the workforce, at church, in the office, or in the store and the topic of some event in the future would arise. It might go like this.

“Hey, are you coming to the Lasagna dinner?”

Yeah I thought I would. When is that?”

“Saturday.”

“Saturday. Yeah…what is today?”

What is today? Who the hell doesn’t know what day it is? I dread Monday, think about an almost certainly unpleasant Thursday meeting all through Tuesday and Wednesday, have a deadline to meet on Friday, can’t wait to make it to Saturday when I finally have a little time to myself and then start feeling anxious about Monday again like clockwork starting about 7:00 p.m. Sunday, and you don’t know what day it is? This week I’ve been to four offices in four towns, worked two nights, had three long conference calls and a board meeting and you don’t know what day it is? You smug booger you. I’m dying here just to make it to Friday night and you smile and ask me what day it is? Are you kidding me? Are you saying that just to make me mad?

But would I react to the dumb question and the smiling vacant face across from me? No I wouldn’t. I’d respond in a friendly way.

“Today is Wednesday.”

“Oh, yeah. I lose track. When you’re retired every day is like Saturday you know?”

Sometimes I would manage a smile and sometimes I wouldn’t. But I always got mad and I never got used to the unfairness, the inequity, the downright wrongness of having so much time you didn’t know what day you were living. I remembered it from my days travelling. Sometimes in a foreign country I would go out into a town trying to buy one thing or another, or to find a Laundromat, and find everything was closed because it was Sunday. But I had absolutely forgotten how that felt. And I wanted it back. I wanted so much to have the luxury of time, to gain that relaxed state of being in which there exists no urgency in anything, that everything can be done and when it is done matters little or not at all.

Flash to yesterday. I’d watered my garden (mostly tomatoes and hot peppers), put up some tomato stakes my friend had left for me earlier in the week, read some, and taken a giant nap. We were having a friend over for a drink around 4:00 and leaving at 7:30 for a party on the river where we would watch Ottawa’s terrific fireworks display. Sometime in there I had to take a shower. But first I checked my e mail in the shack. There was a message from Ann in Chicago about various things, horseradish, going out East, other stuff. Nice newsy e mail. She ended it with this.

“Make sure I’m on your e mail list. I can’t wait for tomorrow to read your first post YSB Friday update.”

Tomorrow? Tomorrow is Friday? I looked at the calendar. It still showed June so I flipped it to July. There it was. July 4th. Thursday. What happened? I ran through the week.

Sunday I was still technically employed. If the manure had hit the rotating blades of the YSB fan, so to speak, I could have been called Sunday night to weigh in on some situation. Monday I was down at the church and got that call that took me away. Tuesday I had a good day revising the partial draft of the novel, I listened to the Cubs game, fell asleep when they were ahead 7-5 and found out in the morning they’d lost 8-7. Wednesday. What happened Wednesday? A lot of reading and another big nap. It might have rained. Wednesday was sort of lost. And now it’s Thursday? Really? I’ll have to write my update in the morning.

So forgive me. In five short days I’ve become that retired person I loathed when I worked. It doesn’t take long. No deadline looms. Not one meeting to dread. Not an issue to agonize over or a decision to put off anywhere on the horizon. Forgive me or congratulate me. It’s all in how you look at it. I hope to be, and fully expect to be, lost in time quite often. It’s OK. I like it that way. I’ll try hard not to ask you what day it is.

I could have closed there but let me share this. Sunday in church it was announced that the daily summer lunch program for kids being operated by the YMCA in our church's first floor could use volunteers. It’s a great partnership. They have a big program and we have a big kitchen and dining area. The church is literally across the street from the Y. So I went down about 10:45 Monday. It was my first day of retirement. They were going to serve at 11:30. The menu was meatball subs (pre made meatballs in marinara, nice provolone cheese, good buns needing slicing) salad, and fruit.

“What can I do for you?”

“You want to prepare the fruit?”

“OK. What do you want me to serve?”

“How about the cantaloupe?”

And so I prepared a dozen cantaloupe for 70 or so hungry day campers, from maybe age four through ten. Cut them in two, scoop out the centers, cut them into eight wedges, cut off the rind, chunk the wedges, and throw them in a big plastic bowl. I love doing stuff like that. Another woman was making a salad from scratch and very healthy. It looked like a great lunch. I talked with the other staff as I worked. Then they insisted I stay and eat. Insisted. I was taught, you know, that it’s rude to turn down such offers so I stayed and found myself sitting with six little day campers and a camp counselor at one of those big church folding tables. The kid on my left talked non-stop, mostly about eyeballs and what you could do with them. Fascinating. The rest were hungrier and kept their mouths full. As we were finishing the little guy on my right tapped my arm, looked up at me, and said

“Mister, can I have more of those wet orange chunks?”

“You mean these?” I asked, holding a piece of cantaloupe up on my fork.

“Yeah, those.”

“Do you know what they are?”

“No.”

“They’re cantaloupe. Some people call them muskmelon. You had them before?”

“No. But I like them.”

“Can he have seconds on the fruit?” I asked the counselor at the table.

“As long as he eats everything else.” I looked down. This kid’s plate was shiny clean, obviously a member of the clean plate club like me.

So I got him more wet orange chunks. Feeding kids good food-it’s not a sophisticated or complicated approach to helping young people, but I think it works well and is important. I’ll go back.

Thanks for reading this first edition of Update from the Shack all the way to the end. Talk to you again next Friday, or a day close to it.

Spring Plowing

In the sloping field east of the house I was driving the Minneapolis tractor pulling a three bottom moldboard plow mounted on a three point hitch, going deep, turning over long ribbons of black dirt and making a furrow. The right tires of the tractor were in the furrow, tilting the tractor to one side. My Dad had gotten me started, “laying out the land” as he called it, by plowing the first two furrows side by side and straight. I continued by following those two furrows he’d laid down in the center of the field, raising the plow at the end before the fence, driving to the other furrow, lowering the plow, and heading back in the direction I came. Away from the house and toward the house, away from the house and towards the house, the patch of black plowed dirt getting wider and wider in the middle of the field, the unplowed field, corn stalks whitened and left over from the winter, getting narrower towards the edges. It was still cold in the spring of 1964 but the sun was out. As I drove back and forth I stared at the front tire of the Minnie turning in the furrow. No cabs on tractors then, I spent the day in open air. I liked the dirt smell. I loved the sameness of plowing, the simplicity. I was thirteen.

As I stared at the furrow I saw a mouse running furiously ahead of the turning tire. He would gain a little ground, slow down to negotiate a clod lying in the furrow, lose ground, and then speed ahead. If he would only go sideways, I thought, change course back into the stalks or into the plowed ground. But he didn’t. He couldn’t jump the straight dirt wall of the furrow back to the stalks, though he tried, and he ignored the open black dirt on the other side. Probably too foreign for him, I figured, fresh black dirt he’d maybe never seen or smelled. He looked to be wearing down. Before the tire reached him I hit the clutch and stopped. He ran on ahead and then stopped too, hunched and trembling.

“Dumb mouse,” I said to no one in particular. I throttled down and took the tractor out of gear. I started to set the brake and then remembered the plow behind me, its three slabs of curved steel buried in the ground, and knew it wasn’t going anywhere.
I’d been on the tractor all morning and it felt funny to walk. My heels sunk into the soft plowed ground. I walked down the furrow to where the mouse was still huddled.

“Get out of here,” I told him. He ran down the furrow.

“Go right you dumb mouse.” But he continued in a straight line ignoring the plowed ground. I could run him all the way to the end, I thought, and he could get out by the fence. But I had just made my turn. If I kept stopping like this it would take forever. He kept running and I got back on the tractor.

Starting from a dead stop with the plow fully in the ground was almost too much for the Minnie. I had to rev it up full and inch the plow higher with the three point lever to get going again. Once I was up to speed I sunk the plow back to the depth Dad wanted. As I did I heard the engine lug down to the sound I’d been listening to all morning. ‘I can’t be stopping and starting over and over’ I thought. Within seventy five yards I’d caught up to the moue again.

“Damn mouse,” I shouted.

I pushed in the clutch and stopped again. This time the mouse barely moved from in front of the tire. I walked around him in the plowed ground, going way ahead of him. With dirt from the plowed ground I made a wall, a sort of dam in the furrow. Then I walked back towards the tractor, shooed the mouse forward, and started up again. Black exhaust came out of the muffler straight ahead of me as the Minnie once more struggled to start from standing stop. I plowed up to the earthen dam I’d built in the furrow, leaving a gap of about two feet between it and the front tire of the tractor, and got off the tractor once more.

The mouse was trapped between the tire, the furrow barrier I’d built, and the fresh dirt. He looked defeated. I took off my cap, got down on my knees, chased him up against the tractor tire, threw my cap over him, grabbed him gently, and folded my cap so he was enclosed inside. I walked across the land I’d just plowed, across the stalks and up to the fence. I released the frightened mouse into the tall grass in the ditch by the road.

After chores my Mom, Dad and I had supper together. Lots of times we were quiet, busy eating, but this night Dad wanted to talk.

“So I couldn’t help but notice you were stopping and starting there for a while plowing. What were you doing?”

“There was a mouse in the furrow,” I said, a little sheepishly. “I didn’t want to run him over. But I finally got him out of there.”

“I thought that might be it,” my Dad said. He went back to eating.

Between bites of meatloaf he spoke up again. “When I plowed as a kid and saw those mice in the furrow I’d speed up and squash them. I don’t know how I got so lucky to have a son so kind as to want to spare the life of a lowly mouse.”

Mom looked at Dad and smiled. “Could be I had something to do with that Dad.” They always called each other Mom and Dad, rarely using their given names. I looked up from my plate. They were looking at me and smiling. I blushed. As a teen age boy in 1964 I felt kindness was better hidden.

Giving Thanks

On this Thanksgiving I’m thankful for much, but I’m especially thankful for my shack. It’s finished, as much as any place you live in is totally finished, and I use it nearly every day. I’m thankful for its warmth and comfort, its quiet, its utility. I’m thankful for what it gives me-solace, peace, and a sense of retreat from stress. While I am the one who conceived the idea of creating this space, and building it myself, I certainly did not do it alone. This Thanksgiving I have a lot of people to thank. I hope I didn’t leave anyone out.

Australians Yuri and Steve for helping me build the original shack Overlooking the Pacific outside Sua, Ecuador in 1976.

Lester Walker for devoting a whole book to personal spaces.

David Minch for first building almost the same beautiful shack somewhere else.

My wife Colleen for accepting the concept.

WCMY’s Radio Trader and the guy who sold me the patio door for $100.

John Liebhardt, carpenter, for consultation, bailing me out of framing problems, cutting the first rafter, making the stair stringers.

My daughter Maureen for all her thought, labor, support and encouragement.

Kerem Araci for all that good immigrant labor.

My son Dean who helped me build the porch in a day.

My brother Darwin for the trenching, all the electrical wiring, building the stove table, giving me tools, and convincing me I could do it all.

My brother in law Ron and his sons Brian and Brad Schieber for bracing the floor, installing the glass wall and cedar siding.

John (Jackie Knight’s brother) for donating the steel for the stove table.

Marine Stove Works on Orcas Island, Washington for finally delivering the Sardine stove.

My brother Denny for urging me to build the shack from the beginning and travelling from California to help put sheeting on the frame, defining the space.

McConnoughay Roofing for the obvious.

Maze Lumber for finally getting me to understand what I needed to do to vent my stove through the roof so as not to burn the place down.

Matt Krewer for installing the stovepipe and chimney and getting it right.

Gary Smith, my neighbor, for hooking the shack to the house panel and turning on the lights.

My neighbor Bill Zeller for tool loans and encouragement.

Jim Hinterlong for his truck, tools and helping with the foundation beams.

All the guys at Golden Rule Lumber for teaching me about building materials, talking me through confusion, and free delivery before the gas prices went up.

Bill Aplington for crafting the beautiful stained glass triptych.

Jim Vaughn for putting me on to Jim Scoma.

Jim Scoma from Tonica lumber for persuading me to buy the right windows and for trimming out the shack.

Megan Van Vliebergen for giving me my writing desk.

Davison Sawmill, Sawyer Michigan for building the hickory slab writing desk.

Joe Martin for building the stereo cabinet.

Rich Goetz for donating the speakers and CD changer.

Joe and Will Garcia for helping me cut and split the first batch of oak for the stove.

The Daily Times for the pallets from which I made the wood crib.

Kerry and Pat Bryson for the donation of pine stove wood.

Thank you to all the people for all the gifts, help, and encouragement I found among the people close to me. Thanks for understanding the shack, my need to build it, and most importantly my need to be in it. I wrote this thank you from there.