An Angry Old Man

 I have a lot of things I want to write about but I’m going to start with a movie review.  I don’t plug a lot of movies, but this one hit close to home.

It's aptly named “A Man Called Otto.”   Tom Hanks plays Otto.  It’s a character sketch of an old man.  Somehow, I identified.  Let’s back up.

My healthcare provider, which I am newly grateful for given our area’s recent shocking hospital closure, sent me a survey.  I always take surveys.  I think I want to be heard.  I also want to find out what the sender is interested in knowing. 

This survey was about my mental health.  Given the work I did during my career, I appreciate any organization that pays attention to its members’ mental health.  Without going back to find it and report on their questions, the gist of their inquiry was with whom and with what frequency did I have contact with other people.  They asked it several ways.  It didn’t take long.  As the movie opened on Otto’s life I thought of that survey.  Otto was profoundly alone.

We learn through flashbacks, visual representations of Otto’s own thoughts, that Otto was recently widowed.  He and his wife had no children.  He lived in the small apartment they had shared throughout their married life, among old neighbors who were once friends.  Except Otto had become estranged from virtually everyone. 

Otto was a self-appointed enforcer of subdivision rules.  When he encountered others on his daily “rounds” through the neighborhood, he barked his disapproval at those out of compliance.  Closing a gate no one else cared about keeping shut, correcting those who put garbage into the recyclables, etc..    But it wasn’t his peculiarities, his obsession with rules and details that set him apart from the people around him.

It was his rudeness.  Otto was an angry old man who had long ago stopped keeping mean-spirited thoughts to himself.  He spouted those rude thoughts loudly, in people’s faces, with an angry contorted face. 

Otto’s bad behavior wasn’t confined to the neighborhood.  He let loose on virtually anyone and everyone.  Particularly store clerks.  Not only was Otto mean, but he was also cheap.  He argued about money incessantly.  No wonder he was alone.  At first, I was disgusted with Otto.  But as I learned more about his past, I began to feel sorry for him.  He was deeply depressed.  He didn’t know how to cope with his singular existence.  He couldn’t control his grief following his wife’s death.  Otto’s depression was killing him.

He was most animated and positive on his trips to the cemetery.  He went daily with flowers, a lawn chair, and coffee in a thermos, settling in for long conversations with his deceased wife.  He reported on his day, and shared his thoughts about events, but mainly recalled memories of when they were together.  His tone, his facial expression, and his very being changed entirely when he talked to that granite headstone.

It's amazing an asshole like Otto can elicit compassion from the audience. I attribute it to a great script and an accomplished actor.  Otto was suicidal.  He survived three attempts.  Not unusual among those who ultimately die by suicide.  It was painful to watch.  Amazingly, that angry old man found hope in the depths of his despair.

It came in the form of a young immigrant couple, the wife Marisol mainly, who somehow shrugged off his insults.  Otto’s proven record of pushing people away by being insultingly rude just didn’t work with Marisol.  Maybe the language barrier helped.  Maybe it was naivete.  Whatever it was she persisted in maintaining contact with her awful neighbor despite his anger and unkind words.

Otto’s life was saved by Marisol and the others around him.  As she continued to uncover Otto’s story, coming to understand the person that was Otto’s wife, Otto slowly began to share his feelings.  It wasn’t due to his initiative.  His normally successful insults and angry retorts failed to shut Marisol up. And others helped as well.

One of Otto’s sworn enemies was the young man who rode his bike down the street throwing rolled-up shopping flyers, the ones stuffed with coupons, at each door.  They landed all over, mostly unread.  Otto collected them, put them in the trash, railed at the young man, and threatened him. 

One day, the young man stopped his bike and looked at him.  Rather than responding angrily, he shocked Otto by being civil.

“Hey, I know you.  Your wife was my teacher.  She was the best.  She was the first teacher to call me by my new name.  I’ll never forget her for that.”

Otto looked closely at the young man.  A closeup of his face suggested he was transgender.

“Is that right?”

It was all Otto could say.  He was completely disarmed.  He didn’t know how to handle kindness. 

Marisol and her family persisted in engaging Otto against all odds.  He didn’t want to talk about his past, his issues, his anger.  But somehow, they made him do so.  Otto helped them during emergencies, even babysitting their children.  He grudgingly cared for a neighborhood feral cat.  His life began to change.

“A Man Called Otto” is a story about overcoming mental illness.  It’s well-timed.  Our isolation during the pandemic was eye-opening.  Isolation can be devastating.  I can’t help but think that in Otto’s case, professional help and a good anti-depressant could have sped up the process, but the movie revealed the real key to being mentally healthy.  It’s positive interaction with those around you, finding community and being part of it, directing our thoughts away from ourselves to the welfare of others.  It’s not rocket science. We each learned about this firsthand right?

In early March 2020, my wife and I spent ten days in El Salvador volunteering at an eye clinic.  There was talk of this looming problem as we were leaving, and curiously, some people in O’Hare were wearing face masks as we departed. When we caught the plane home from the San Salvador airport, we felt lucky to be able to board because of the news of Covid’s spread. And when we landed back in O’Hare, it was chaos.  Everything had changed in ten days.

Schools, churches, businesses, and government offices were all closed.  Protocols at hospitals and health care providers were hard to navigate. We had our groceries delivered.  I remember driving down LaSalle Street, going nowhere, and all the parking spaces on both sides of the street were empty.  Thank God my wife and I had each other.  Where would I have been if I was alone like Otto?

We learned to attend church on Zoom.  Choir members learned to make solo voice recordings, and others learned to blend them together digitally.  It was surreal.  And lonely.  I missed my kids, my friends, and my life as it used to be.  We talked to our neighbors outside from ten feet away.  My wife was convinced if I contracted COVID I would be a goner.  She became very protective.  Before we had the vaccine there was little hope of real change.  But there were precious exceptions.

The YMCA in Ottawa allowed limited use of the pool for lap swimmers on a strict schedule and short time frames.  Upon entering the Y, we had our temperature taken.  We could not use the locker rooms.  We came in our swimsuits with sweatpants over them, stripped down to our trunks on the pool deck, and after 45 minutes of swimming exited the pool, pulled on our sweatpants, and left wet. 

As limited as it was, being back in the pool was a lifeline to normalcy.  I got to see my friends who were lap swimmers.  We mostly waved.  Just seeing them helped.  We yelled across the pool at each other.  It was the highlight of my day. 

Knock on wood I have not yet contracted COVID, and I’m vaccinated and boosted.  My wife now thinks I may make it after all.  Covid is still out there, but our lives have by and large returned to normal.  But didn’t we all learn something from the experience?

“A Man called Otto” is the story of a man learning one of life’s most elemental lessons in a very hard way.  Go see the movie.  See if you take from it what I did; that we must be kind to people who are hard to like.  Doing so might save their life.  Those people need us.  But more than perhaps anything else, we need each other. 

Santa Showed Up at Thornton's

 

After Christmas, I went to one of my favorite eating places, one I hesitate to mention lest it becomes mobbed with customers.  Although I think this one is fairly safe.

A short drive from my house, inside Thornton’s gas station, they have a small table with three chairs by an emergency exit.  This tiny sit-down oasis is framed by a long rack of potato chips, pretzels, and other salty stuff to the north, a wall of energy drinks, Red Bull, and other non-pop products in coolers to the east, a big glass window facing the gas pumps to the south, and a free-standing rack filled with liters of pop and packs of bottled water to the west.

Few people walk past it while I’m there.  I have never found it occupied when I wanted to use it, nor has anyone ever asked to join me in one of the other chairs.  I’m not so naïve as to think it’s a secret place.  But only one other person I know, my friend Keith Goetz, has ever alluded to its existence and confirmed using it.  Keith and I share an affinity for Thornton’s hot dogs.  They’re not perfect but we both agree they’re damned good.

As an eatery Thorntons has a roller grill dominated by hot dogs.  And yes, there are pre-packaged sandwiches, giant fountain sodas, candy bars, lonely baskets of bananas and apples, and other miscellaneous road food.  But that’s it.  There is no service save for the cashiers.  On the other hand, there’s no tipping.  What this destination lacks in ambiance it makes up for in simplicity and economy.

The pandemic robbed us of so much.  Our collective anxiety about the virus shut down the roller grill entirely for a time.  Not that we were buying gas anyway.  Then one day the slowly turning wieners glossy with grease returned to the hot roller grill at Thorntons. 

But sadly, all condiments were prepackaged.  Gone were all the fresh condiments in open bins.  Hidden away were bottled ketchup, two squeeze bottles of mustard-spicy and yellow, and mayo.  What replaced them?  Condiments are trapped in foil packets with a shelf life measured in months, perhaps years, rather than days.  Such a steep loss in quality.  Dehydrated onions in a briny gel?  Come on Thorntons.  Why bother? 

While we are nearly back to normal if there is such a thing, only four bins of fresh condiments along with squeeze bottles of mustard and ketchup returned.  New was Sriracha sauce.  Four measly bins with plastic spoons contain sauerkraut, chopped onions, standard sweet pickle relish, and jalapenos.  Gone are sport peppers, bun-length dill pickle spears, the classic bright green sweet pickle relish, not to mention celery salt, and poppy seed buns.  Yes, peppers in the form of jalapenos are available, but everyone knows an authentic Chicago hot dog requires sport peppers.  Amazingly, Thorntons has abandoned sales of a true Chicago dog.  It’s a tragic corporate decision.  Life in America can be cruel.

Rather than boycott Thornton’s hot dogs for their lack of Chicago dog cred, I continue to point out to the cashiers the folly of eliminating sport peppers.  They may be getting tired of it, but I’m not giving up.  Do you suppose there is still a Thorton involved to talk to?

The lure of a fresh Thornton Dog brought me into the lobby that day.  At the gas pumps, I actually could picture greasy wieners turning slowly inside.  At the roller grill, I fixed my own dog, using jalapeno peppers in the absence of sports, and added yellow mustard, onions, and standard sweet pickle relish.  I was tempted to try the Sriracha but stuck with tradition.  I paid the cashier.  Yes, I complained about sport peppers.  It was a new cashier who wanted clarification.

“Pepperoncini’s?”

“No.  You’re thinking Italian beef.  Sports are smaller and hotter.  No wrinkles.”

She looked at me blankly.  Obviously, the lack of sport peppers is not an issue among the staff.  There was a customer behind me.  I took my change and headed to the table. 

You need a lot of napkins at Thorntons.  They offer a jumbo wiener only and a standard bun.  The problem presented by a Jumbo dog in a standard bun is the wiener takes up room in the bun better filled by condiments.  You can’t get a proper portion of onions, relish, mustard, and jalapenos inside the bun with a jumbo dog taking up all that space.  Invariably you end up with condiments on top that fall off when you bite into your dog.  A mustache only compounds the problem.  Minimum three napkins. 

I took the chair facing the window with the bags of chips behind me, the energy drinks to my left, the liters of pop to my right, and while watching people pump gas closed my eyes to offer a small prayer of gratitude: that we had a good Christmas, that the cold snap is over, that all our guests got home safely, that I was once again enjoying a quiet $2.67 lunch in an old familiar place.  My reverie was shattered by the sound of a chair being drug across the tile floor beside me.  I heard a familiar voice.

“What the hell you doing here, McClure?”

I opened my eyes.

“Santa Claus?”

He sat down with his back to the bottled water.  He was wearing a hoodie and bib overalls.

“In the flesh.  How was your Christmas?”

“It was great.  I almost didn’t recognize you.  You’re out of uniform.  And you trimmed your beard way back.”

“I always do, after Christmas.  If I didn’t it would drag on the ground after a decade or so.  Unlike you, I’m in this for the long haul.”

“You always have to bring that up, don’t you?  Go ahead Nick, rub it in.  I’m getting older and you’re ageless.  I know.”

“Just a reminder.  But even though we have differences, we’re on a similar path.  How’s June?  I thought of her when I came by your house.  I saw her in the shack last year, remember?”

“I’ll never forget it.  That was a great night.  June is almost two now.  Jabbers away in a mix of her own personal version of English, proper English, and a little Spanish now and then.  I thought I was going to miss you.  Isn’t it late for you to still be away from the North Pole?”

“It is.  I’m doing field research.  It occurred to me that with the world changing so fast I need to see more of it.  Mix it up with the mortals.  Think about my life McClure.  I live at the North Pole, go out once a year, and enter children’s houses only when they’re sleeping.  I need more contact with humans.”

“Your life sounds like mine during the pandemic.  I saw my friends and family mostly on computer screens.  It hurt, being so isolated.  And I’m afraid some of that isolation is sticking around.  We have to work harder at keeping friendships, I think.  That’s why I’m so glad you showed up.  How’d you know I was here?”

“McClure, are you really slipping that much?  You know I know these things.  I’m Santa.  Come on.”

“Oh yeah.  Well, you’re my only friend who is omniscient you know.  Other than that, you seem like a regular human.”

“I try.  You’re a hard group to relate to sometimes, but I’m working on it.”

“Hard how?”

“Well, being mortal limits the number of years you can learn.  That being said, human beings live a good long time, as far as animals go.  Like turtles and parrots.  I’ve met some very smart humans.  Plus, you have both the ability and the means to record and pass on knowledge to the humans who live beyond you.  I’m just amazed and disappointed you don’t learn more and make things better for yourselves and the planet.”

I didn’t say anything.

“Does that make you uncomfortable McClure?”

“Yeah, a little.  I feel the same way though.  I hold out hope we can pull it together still.  Sometimes I’m ashamed.”

“Shame is a wasted emotion.  Let’s talk about hot dogs.  What’s with this decline of Thornton’s hot dogs you’ve been thinking about?”

“Damn.  You know what I’m thinking all the time?”

“Only when I tune into you.  I was headed this way, dropped into your thoughts for a moment, and what do I get?  Some rant about sport peppers.  What’s the deal McClure?”

“Thornton’s dropped sport peppers Santa!  You can’t sell a true Chicago hot dog without sport peppers!”

“And Chicago hot dogs are that important in your life and the life of others?  Listen to yourself, McClure.  There are perfectly fine pickled jalapenos available, softer than sport peppers and more likely to stay on your dog when you bite it.  Plus, there’s a fine red pepper sauce offered that will give you not the same but a nice peppery tang if you lay a little stripe of it at the bottom of your bun.  Who cares about sport peppers and Chicago hot dogs?  These things change.  You know that.  I’ve heard you say you embrace change.  What’s with these rigid hot dog requirements for Christ’s sake?  And while we’re at it, though I haven’t talked to him in a long time, I don’t think Christ cares about Chicago hot dogs either.”

People don’t often talk to me that way.  Santa had a point.  Sometimes good friends help you see yourself in a different way.

“You know what is important, McClure?”

“What?”

“Yemen.  You know where it is?”

“Yeah, generally.  It’s the bottom end of the Arabian Peninsula.  Old style kingdom last I knew.  Across from the Horn of Africa.  Next to Eritrea and Djibouti.  Protracted civil war going on.  Poor as hell.”

“Tortured might be a better word. They have the bad fortune to be located along the Suez Canal, ground zero of the fight over the dying oil industry.  They’re the site of a proxy war being played out between the U.S.-backed Saudis and the Iran-backed Houthi rebels. Been going on for eight years.  The human world is forgetting about Yemen.  Short attention span.  A six-month truce brokered by the United Nations ran out in October.  Ordinary Yemenis are scared the past will return.”

“I know it was bad, but just how bad was the past?”

“70,000 Yemenis have died since January 2016 that we know of.  10,000 of them children.  The UN considers Yemen the world’s worst humanitarian crisis.  Starvation is rampant.  400,000 children suffer from acute malnutrition.  Fighting prevents UNICEF from reaching all the children who need help.”

“You’ve been there?”

“Of course.  I show up jolly like I’m supposed to.  Smile, pass out candy canes to the kids, and rice and beans to their mothers to cook after I leave.  I give them the old Ho Ho Ho and go on.  That’s what Santa does.  It’s what humans expect of Santa.  But it’s not enough.”

Sometimes it’s hard to respond to people who are discouraged.  You don’t expect it from Santa Claus.  I stayed quiet and listened.

“Do you know there are states in your own country that still haven’t accepted federal funds to expand Medicaid and help poor adults get improved medical care?  That affects about 2.2 million people.  I don’t understand that.  Do you?  I need help, McClure.  Santa’s old mind is boggled.  You’re the richest country on earth.  Americans are smart, and well-educated by and large.  Yet you continue to screw your own people over.  Not to mention the immigrants and asylum seekers from other countries you could help if only you would.”

“Everything you say is true Santa.  I’m afraid I don’t have answers.  But what’s happened to you?  You never used to talk this way.”

“I’m getting out more.  It’s an eye-opener.”

“I’m a little blown away by your pessimism Santa.  I got to think some event touched you personally.”

Santa sat back and looked out the window as people fiddled with the touch screens on the gas pumps.  Most used credit cards and left.  A few came into the store.  Business as usual at Thorntons.

“I realized the fake Santas get more meaningful exposure to human beings than I do.  So, I ramped up my pre-Christmas visits.  I spent a lot of time among you, trying to figure out what makes you tick here in the early 2020s.”

“How’d that go?  Tell me something real that happened when you were with us.  Something you can’t forget.”

“I started going to American homeless shelters.  It seems odd, after dropping into refugee camps, where people flee their homes to save their lives, that a whole network of homeless shelters in a country like America even exists, rather than affordable homes, but that’s why I went there, to understand.”

“And what happened?”

“I ran into a child I couldn’t reach.”

“Go on.”

“There were a bunch of kids with adults, crowded into what looked like a dining room, and I went in like I do, being loud with the Ho Ho Ho’s, shaking hands, bending down to look at kids individually.  Have some eye contact.  You know.”

“Yeah.  I know.”

“So that’s normal.  Kids either come running to me, scream and run the other way, or hide their eyes like I’m not there.  And there’s rarely any in between, except for kids who are frozen and just stare at me without moving or speaking.”

“So, what happened with this kid?”

“I couldn’t get his attention.  Everyone standing around expected me to, including the adult with him.  Might have been his mom, maybe an older relative.”

“That’s never happened before?”

“If it has, I can’t recall.  And I don’t get “senior moments” like my older human friends.  Present company excepted of course.”

“Of course.”

“He was playing with something.  Not even a toy.  A piece of cloth, a wisp of something.  Picking it up, letting it drop.  I touched his head.  I spoke directly to him.  Nothing.  The adult with him looked at me with such sorrow in her eyes.  I think she thought Santa surely would break through whatever veil there was between him and the real world.  It was profoundly sad.  For some reason, it shook me.  I felt more inadequate than I’d felt in centuries.”

“I’m sorry that happened to you Santa.  But I don’t think you should take it personally.”

“It’s not that.  Why should he and his mother be consigned to a setting like that?  How did someone or some system allow them to fall so low?”

“What do you mean?”

“They need more than what Santa and a homeless shelter can give them.  They deserve more.”

“Maybe the shelter is trying to find them help.  I bet they are.”

“Oh, I’m sure they are.  But why are they among the Americans without homes?  I gave the crowd laughs, and candy canes, and passed out some presents, but they need homes. They need so much more, and it is entirely possible homes be made available to them in America.  I understand poverty in Yemen.  They have so few resources.  But here?  In America?  You lead the world.  Why aren’t humans better?  I’ve watched you develop over all these centuries, and you are not getting kinder.”

Santa was on a roll.

“You center on yourselves.  You hold up wealth and those who attain it as the goal.  You worship the growth of business and industry and leave people behind.  In fact, it’s getting worse.  Antisemitism is growing in your country.  LGBTQ folks who have made so many gains are seeing more discrimination in schools, and in communities.  Do you know how easy it is to simply let these people live their lives among you?  Why would that happen in the 2020s?  I don’t get it.  I’m afraid it’s being done in the name of politics of all things.  Is that even possible?”

I was lost for words.  I put my hand on Santa’s shoulder.

“Surely you don’t expect to be able to fix us do you Santa?”

“No.  But I expect you to make progress fixing yourselves.  You’re burning up the world as we know it.  You think about now and disregard the future.  I want to represent hope but I’m losing my own.”

“Santa you might need to talk to somebody regularly.  Not me, but someone who can help you with your anger.”

“Like who?”

“I don’t know.  You mentioned Christ a while back.  Could you talk about it with him?  You have a lot in common.  You might ask Jesus to set up a meeting, maybe bring his Dad and that other person.”

“What other person?”

“The person that’s so hard to describe.  The third one.  Spooky yet comforting.  Anyway, you help Jesus celebrate his birthday.  He and his crew owe you I’d say.  And besides, they existed before you.  I bet they’ve been plenty disappointed in human beings.  They may have tips for dealing with us.”

Santa put a hand over his eyes.

“It’s been a hard week.”

“I know what you mean.  I have those myself.”

Santa hung his head.

“How about a hot dog”, I said. “I’m buying.”

“Well, that’s a rare event.  I’ll take one.”

“What do you want on it?”

“The works.  Sriracha, everything.”

“You got it. 

“And don’t give the cashier any shit about the sport peppers. You embarrass me sometimes.”

“I won’t.”

“Promise?”

“Yeah.  You’d know if I did anyway.”

I bought two dogs.  We ate them and walked outside.

“Hope I see you next year Santa.

“I expect you will McClure.  You know, you might feel better if you lost twenty pounds.”

“Look who’s talking.  Keep your chin up Santa.  Look for the good in us, will you?

“I’ll try.”

Santa got into an old Buick and pulled away.  A white glove waved out the window.

And I heard him exclaim, as he drove out of sight,

“Happy Christmas to all, and to all a good night.”

Ted's Last Christmas

I posted this story before Christmas years ago in a longer form.  These were two pieces recently in our local paper, published two weeks apart to conform with their word limits.  Still shorter than it used to be.  I think this condensed version is better.   

In late 1976 I came back from South America completely broke.  I took the first job offered to me, an aide in a nursing home.  They assigned me to the men’s wing where I made beds, gave showers, emptied urinals and bedpans, and coaxed my guys into signing over their Social Security checks to the home.  I also learned the depth to which some people live alone. 

I met Ted there. Ted was a bachelor farmer, an only child of deceased parents.  Ted was living in a mobile home when he suffered a debilitating stroke.  The right side of his body was completely paralyzed.

The other nurse’s aides claimed Ted was so morbidly obese that EMTs had to enlarge the doorway of his trailer with a power saw to get him out.  Ted never walked or talked after his stroke four years earlier.  He communicated by pointing and grunting.

“Ted was morbidly obese?” I asked.

“Before we put him on a diet.” my co-workers said proudly.  “He was 550 when they brought him in.”

I looked down the hall at Ted slumped in his tall back chair behind a tray.  He couldn’t have weighed more than 175.   That would explain the huge folds of loose skin that hung from his body in the shower.  

“I guess that’s why he’s so hungry,” I said.

Ted was beyond hungry.  He was ravenous.  We watched him closely around the snack cart.  When you did you would see Ted inching towards the cart, pushing slowly with his one functioning foot.

Ted betrayed himself by looking up and smiling.  Ted rarely smiled.  If Ted got his left hand within range of the cart, he attacked it. Within seconds his left hand was furiously stuffing food into his gaping mouth.    

It wasn’t only food.  Ted ate toilet paper, tissues, anything.  Ted was in constant danger of choking.  Ravenous gluttony took over Ted’s life.

At Christmas, visitors to the nursing home increased.  But no one visited Ted.   Mail increased also.  All the other residents got Christmas cards.

I delivered mail to my guys.  Every day Ted watched me from behind his tray.  The skin on his face sagged and made his eyes look bigger.  He looked up hopefully.  

“No mail today, Ted.  Maybe tomorrow.”

On the last mail day before Christmas, there were lots of cards to pass out.  When I came to Ted’s room he was slumped sideways in his chair, his eyes glued to me like I was a pan of brownies.

 “Ted, you got a card.”

His eyes grew big.  I straightened him up in his chair and laid the card on his tray.  He fumbled at the envelope, so I opened it.  It was a card from the nursing home administrator.  Every resident got the same cheap card.  Her signature was stamped inside.  Before the card’s message, she wrote “Ted.”   

“Look Ted, she wrote your name.” 

Ted looked up at me and his eyes filled with tears.  He sobbed openly because he got a Christmas card from someone who rarely left her office and didn’t know Ted from a bale of hay. That was the moment I knew I had to get out of that job.  It was just too sad.

* * * * * * * *

On Christmas Eve I headed to my parent’s farm, anxious to be with family.  Christmas on the farm was special.  As I left town, I stopped for gas near the nursing home.  Under the cash register was a rack of candy bars. 

“Give me a couple of those Snickers, would you please?”

I parked, went in the side door, and up the back stairs. It was after dinner but before lights out.  I went to Ted’s room.  He was still in his chair, slumped to one side, sleeping.  His Christmas card was tacked to an empty bulletin board. 

I turned on Ted’s bedside lamp. It was too hot in there, the radiator cooking, air not moving.  Behind it all was the faint smell of urine.  Christmas Eve in the nursing home.  

“Wake up Ted I’ve got something for you.”

I gave him a minute to get used to the light before straightening him up.

“Ted, I brought you a present, but you got to cooperate.  It’s not on your diet and I don’t want you talking to your buddies about this.  But you’re a guy who can keep his mouth shut, right?”

Ted may have gotten the joke, but I couldn’t tell.  When I took a Snickers out of my coat pocket his eyes lit up.

“OK Ted, you’re going to eat this slowly, so you don’t choke.  You understand?”

When Ted realized what was about to happen, he literally began to drool.  I got tissues off his nightstand and wiped his chin.  Then I cut a piece off the candy bar with my pocket knife and put it on his tray.  His left hand flashed out.  The candy was in his mouth instantly.  He looked at me as if I was going to dig it out of his mouth as I had done so often before with other things.

“Chew that good and swallow it before I give you more.”

He did.  I cut off another piece.  We repeated that five times with the first candy bar. 

“You feel OK Ted?”

Ted nodded enthusiastically.

“You don’t feel sick?”

Ted shook his head vigorously in the negative.  I wiped his chin with the Kleenex again.

I took out the second candy bar.  We did it again. 

“This is the last piece, Ted.”

I laid the final chunk of Snickers on his tray. Ted didn’t take it.

“What are you doing, Ted?”

He stared at me.

“It’s yours, Ted.” 

Ted brought his left hand up, pointed at the candy, and pointed to me.

“What the hell Ted?”

He pointed at the candy again and then at me.

Then I understood.  The guy who would eat the envelope his only Christmas card came in was sharing his candy bar with me.  

I ate it.  Ted smiled at me as I chewed the Snickers, his big old eyes bright.  

I believe people talk with their eyes.  I think Ted said thanks.  And Merry Christmas. 

“You’re welcome, Ted.  Merry Christmas to you too.”

I quit the nursing home in the spring.  Ted died that fall.   Choked on ham sandwiches.  I suspect someone didn’t watch the snack cart closely enough.  I will never forget Ted, or the kindness in his eyes.  If we let it, Christmas brings out the best in all of us. 

I Have a New Gig

 If you read Dave in the Shack by getting this email, you’ve not heard from me since September.  Here’s what is going on.  I have a new gig.  I’ve been writing for the local paper in a program called the Write Team.  My article appears every two weeks and is read by people in the Illinois Valley in their local Shaw Media publications; The News Tribune in LaSalle-Peru and the Times of Ottawa and Streator.  It has brought me new readers, and I post pictures of their articles on my FaceBook page (to get around Shaw Media’s paywall) but I’ve neglected to post them in Dave in the Shack and distribute them through my email list.

You may already have read these articles.  But I slowly realized my error for email-only folks.  I’m trying to correct that today. 

One note about these articles is that I am limited by the newspaper to 550 words (or so) per piece.  That’s been a real challenge.  My blog posts may average nearly 2,000 words, and for years I have written whatever has popped into my mind.  The paper’s requirements have forced me to choose my words much more carefully. Oh, and no pictures.

My journalism friends say that less is more, but I’m not sure I agree.  However, it may be good for me.  I think about us as readers and what is trending these days.  Do we read just as much but in smaller bites?  My kids urge me to shorten my blog pieces.  My daughter would like to listen to my stuff on a podcast while she works.  I’m game to try new formats.  But a podcast?  I have to think about that.

Today I’ve picked some of the short pieces from the newspaper.  See what you think.  If you want to comment, just reply to this email and it comes straight to my inbox.  Try these. 

 

Working the Mid-Term Election  (sneak preview.  Scheduled to be published November 22.)

I arrived at the polls at 5:30 a.m. with snacks, a thermos of coffee, the Tribune, and my kindle reader which I never found time to read.   

The polls open at 6:00.  We were set up the day before, a row of tables for each precinct, polling booths against the wall, tabulator stand in place-but there was more to do.  That morning we hooked up the closed-circuit Wi-Fi, installed and plugged in the tabulator (simply an optical scanner over a locked steel box), connected the tablet computer to the label printer and we were ready to go.  We ran the zero tapes from the tabulator and signed them, signed various other forms, took the oath, and before we knew it the polls were open. 

We had five people waiting to vote before 6:00.  It stayed like that most of the day.  Unusual for a mid-term.  Usually, it takes the draw of a presidential race, like 2020, to bring out the number of voters we saw in 2022.  It was hard to eat lunch, tenderloins cooked and delivered from Ottawa’s American Legion, because of the crush of voters.

We had four election judges at our precinct, as did the other precinct that shared our voting site.  I was glad to see that.  It was slim during the pandemic.  Judges are balanced as to party affiliation, and no judge has more power than another in making decisions. Keeping order, confirming the identity of people requesting ballots, determining they are registered to vote in the precinct, and matching the number of ballots with the number of persons voting at the end of the day are the duties of election judges.

We had few if any problems during a very busy election.  When questions arose, we agreed on the answers as a group.  People who had to cast provisional ballots, produce previously mailed ballots to be spoiled before voting in the booth, or who registered on-site before voting all accepted our decisions calmly.  Our training prepared us to make those calls.  We have good written manuals for reference, and the county clerk’s office is available to help if needed.  Improved technology, especially tablet computers, has helped us very much. 

I became an election judge after I retired in 2013 and have worked at every election since.  I marvel at accusations of voting fraud in America. From my experience, the system works because it is so localized.  I work in the precinct in which I live.  I know many of the voters and am familiar with their addresses because they are my neighbors.  I know my fellow election judges as well.  The checks and balances are baked in.

I don’t doubt for a second the accuracy and validity of the vote totals for my precinct.  I was there from start to finish.  I held the ballots in my hands and counted them with my fellow judges after the polls closed.  The number of ballots scanned by the tabulator and the number of ballots we counted as a group matched. I signed the tapes detailing votes per candidate because I knew they were accurate.

Voter participation was the clear winner in this mid-term election.  It’s the most encouraging trend yet.  We truly have free and fair elections.  Be glad.  Accept the outcomes.  They’re real. 

 

How Do You Like Your Eggs?

I cook breakfast with Steve Malinsky and Nelson Nussbaum at the Ottawa PADS shelter once a month.  It’s not your normal operation.  At restaurants like the Hi-Way and the New Chalet, short-order cooks come and go, but the patrons return to their favorite table for years.  Decades if they’re old-timers in town.  But at PADS the cooks stay the same, at least for our breakfast, while the clientele constantly changes. 

The three of us volunteered at PADS before it had a kitchen.  When it started in the ’90s there were actual pads-portable mattresses that moved from location to location each night of the week. You had to be an organized homeless person to keep track of where to sleep each night.  PADS has come a long way.

Our church, Open Table, provides a monthly dinner Sunday evening and breakfast Monday morning.  The dinner volunteers tell us how many are at the shelter and what food is available.  They look for eggs and orange juice, cheese, sliced bread, potatoes and onions, and breakfast meat.  The breakfast crew arrives at about 6:00 a.m. with whatever is missing. 

Sometimes we get help.  Gary Reardon asked last month if he could supply us with eggs.

“How does 48 sound?”

“60 would be better,” I said.

Monday morning there were two flats of 30 eggs in the fridge with my name on them.

I brought a gallon of orange juice and a loaf of bread.  Steve brought onions and Nelson brought sausage. He’s partial to breakfast links, maple-flavored. They’re a hit, and easy to cook.  The shelter had potatoes.

We serve two eggs to order with toast, fried potatoes and onions, and sausage.  Not everyone eats eggs or breakfast for that matter.  We always put out cold cereal and milk, donuts if they’re around, but eggs to order are not usually on the menu.

It surprises the residents when Steve asks, “How do you like your eggs?”

“What?  However you got them” is a common response.

“No.  We make them the way you want.”

Sometimes they’re puzzled.

“Scrambled I guess.” 

“You sure?  We can make eggs sunny side up, over easy, over hard, poached, cheese omelet.”

If you’re going to scramble eggs you can just as easily let them set up and fold them over some cheese.

Some don’t understand the terms for egg choices.  Scrambled has become the default egg order of America.  “Not runny” is trending. 

We serve them quickly.  Eggs from the stove, sausage from one crock pot, potatoes from another, and toast served hot and buttered.

Last time I found some strawberries in the fridge, stemmed and halved them, and put them in a bowl.

“Let’s give them some fruit,” I said.  “It’ll look good on the plate.”

A woman who ordered sunny side up and one scrambled for her baby came back with the toddler in her arms.  The baby’s face, next to hers, was smeared with red and smiling. 

“Thanks so much for breakfast.  Can I have more strawberries? They were a first for my daughter.  She loved them.”

After the rush, as we cleaned up, I messaged Gary.

“28 breakfasts, 55 eggs.  Thanks.”

PADS residents really appreciate a hot breakfast while temporarily sheltered.  But what they need, desperately, are homes. 

 

Thanking Milt Snow

Recently I was able to thank a former English teacher for helping me develop as a person.  That’s not always possible.  Take Milt Snow for example.  While swimming laps I see his name on a plaque when I take a break at the North end of the pool.

Milt was a major donor to Ottawa YMCA’s swimming pool, built in 1956 along with the rest of the current YMCA building.  If Milt was mature and successful, as most major donors to community projects are, and was say 50 years old at the time, he would be 116 this year.  Not likely alive.  I could only imagine expressing my personal thanks to Milt Snow.  So, I did.

Conversations like these are best done at a cozy diner.  There we are, Milt and I, at the Hi Way restaurant.

“You must be Milt Snow,” I say to the gentleman sitting alone in a booth.  I slide in across from him, introduce myself, and shake his hand.  “I could have sworn I was on time.”

“You are.  I came early.  What can I do for you, Mr. McClure?”

“Call me Dave.  I want to thank you for giving money to the YMCA to build their swimming pool.  It’s done a lot of good and brought a lot of joy to people in the Ottawa area.”

“Oh, for gosh sake.  No need to thank me.  I wasn’t the only one you know.”

“I don’t imagine so, but you’re the only one with their name on the wall.”

“Oh, that plaque.  I was going to donate anonymously, but my family thought I should get some credit.  They supported my idea, so I agreed to let them make my name public.” 

“I’m on the Y board now.  We’re breaking ground for a new YMCA building this week.  There will be a whole bunch of new donors to thank, but we don’t want to forget about the old ones.”

“Do you swim Dave?”

“Gosh yes.  I had a skiing accident when I was young that prevents me from running or walking for exercise.  Swimming laps gives me a good workout and doesn’t stress my joints.  I’ve been swimming laps in that pool since 1978.”

“Never thought of that.”

“How did your gift come about Mr. Snow?”

“A Y board member asked if I would help.  I had the money, and I knew it would do some good. Heck, when I was a kid, we swam in the river.  Every so often someone would drown.  Besides the Pirate Puddle at OHS, Ottawa didn’t have a public indoor pool.  I’ve always been glad I did it.”

“So am I Milt.  Besides swimming laps, I’d give my wife a break and take my kids to family swim one night a week then stop for dessert at Oogies.  Those were great times.  These days the Y gives free swim lessons to grade school kids in the area.  The Ottawa Dolphin Swim Team has developed hundreds of kids into great swimmers.  Seniors use it for water exercise classes.  It’s a busy place.  It’s helped so many people in these last 66 years.  Thanks again Milt, on behalf of everybody that’s benefitted.”

“You’re welcome.”

Naming rights for the new twenty-five-yard eight-lane pool scheduled to be built are still available.

 

JUNE LOVES CHEESE

The words are coming fast to my granddaughter June at twenty months of age.  Who knows how it happens?  Hearing the sound of a word over and over, finally connecting a word to a thing in the world, learning to move your mouth to make the sound you hear?  I’m sure there is tons of research.  But I prefer to simply listen to June talk. 

This weekend her parents are away from her for the first time.  Her grandmother and I are trying to fill in as best we can.  I won’t say it’s been easy.  The morning she woke to find her mother and father gone was a tough one, but we all made it through.  I tried to console her with food, usually a go to distraction, with little success at first.  She ignored a recent go to, peanut butter on toast, and wanted little to do with scrambled eggs.  Finally, June took matters into her own hands.

“Cheese?”  she was pointing to the refrigerator.

She said the word perfectly, the consonant blend in the beginning, the drawn out Z sound at the end, a big double E in the middle.

“Cheese?  You want cheese June?”

“Cheese.” She said, not as a question this time but an affirmation.  A polite request.

As I opened the fridge, found a block of Monterey Jack, and took out my pocketknife to give her a slice, I was newly grateful for language and simple communication.  

June reached toward the white slab of food as I offered it and popped it into her mouth.

She smiled broadly.  “Cheese.”

She said it as she chewed, savoring the flavor linked with this new word she mastered.  Another word under her belt.  June knew what cheese was, how it tasted, and more importantly, how to ask for it. 

It was her first smile of the morning.  I was so relieved.

“Yeah. Cheese.”

I smiled back as I had a slice myself.

“Want more?”

June nodded, still smiling.

“Cheese.”

This went on and on.  June and I both ate too much cheese.   She forgot about missing her Mom, at least for a short time, and I was glad to see her happy.  Would I have given her anything she asked for?  Probably.  But she simply asked for cheese.

I coaxed her into adding reheated eggs to her breakfast and the day was off to a good start.  We followed it up with book reading until her grandma came on the scene and relieved me. 

Things change so fast.  Now June is bringing us favorite books, handing them to us, turning around so we can lift her onto our laps, and paying attention from start to finish.  She points out favorite things on the pages, sometimes small details.  A frog.  A butterfly.

June anticipates and says words.  B is for Baby is a favorite book, a simple list of words that start with B.  Her favorite page?  B is for BANANA!  I’m afraid this fix on food runs in the family.

 

Where I’m From

Written in response to a prompt at an Ottawa writers’ group:

I’m from upstairs at our farmhouse where my older brothers knew all the stories and I just listened.

A gun cabinet, made by my brother Denny in high school wood shop, with standing racks inside and doors that fit tight, stood in an old room with nursery-themed wallpaper.  In it were the pump shotguns, a bolt action .410, a .22 rifle, and old guns that no longer fired.  Tucked away in built-in drawers were treasures nearly forgotten. One was a brown glass bottle filled with seawater and sealed with a rubber stopper.

My brother Darwin held the bottle carefully, took out the stopper, and held it under my nose.

“It’s all the way from the Gulf of Mexico brought back by Uncle Eldon who was too sickly to farm.”

The exotic smell of seawater filled my head.  A present no doubt to all of us who had never left Illinois, tethered as we were to Jersey cows who had to be milked twice a day rain or shine.  That included me, who until age twelve had never been farther from home than Springfield.

I’m from that spot on the wood plank fence where two six-penny nails stuck halfway out at the same height.

Dad taught me to pop the nail heads through the rabbit’s skin, between a leg bone and tendon and dress them out.  The nails were spaced apart to fit the hind legs of freshly shot cotton tail rabbits, hanging downwards, splayed apart, their exposed bellies white and fluffy.  After cutting a circle around each leg, and connecting the circles with a cut in between, you could loosen the skin at the edges of the cut until you had enough to grab onto.  When you pulled down with both hands the skin peeled away from the meat making a sheath like a fur-lined mitten.

Our mom cooked the game.  She fried the rabbits slowly in a covered pan with onions and roasted the pheasants and quail in the oven.  She told us the quail were a waste of time, not enough meat to bother with.  We didn’t bring her many.  They flew fast and were small, hard to hit.  More times than not they flew away unharmed.

The pump shotguns were .12 gauge and held just three shells.  A wooden plug, required by Illinois gaming law then, prevented loading more.

“Why just three shells, Dad?” 

“Well, you gotta remember David that hunting is a sport.  We want to give the birds a chance, don’t we?  I mean if we can’t hit a bird in flight with three shots, we don’t deserve to have them.”

We hunted together for pheasants, spread out in a line, flushing them into the air from fence rows and waterways.  Quail prefer shorter cover, like short-growth alfalfa or clover in winter hayfields.  We took most of the rabbits from the timber in a corner of our farm.  I’d go by myself after it snowed, looking for tracks, kicking them out from bushes and woodpiles.

I quit hunting after I left the farm.  I think we all did.  We ate every animal we killed.  And never did we ever imagine shooting a human being.   

Fishing in the Wilderness

Face Book sends me pictures from my past.  During late August in one (it’s a blur) of the pandemic years a photo I posted years before took me, in a rush, back to a jewel of a lake I’d fished with friends during the same late August week years ago in Canada.  I stared at the image on my phone and wondered if I would ever be there again. For two years all fly in fishing to remote lakes out of Red Lake, Ontario was cancelled. 

And then it was 2022 and we were back.  After a day’s drive to the border and another to the outfitter’s dock, eight passengers lifted off the water aboard a refurbished Otter seaplane, rose into a sun filled blue sky, and landed on Job Lake by the one and only cabin on its shore which would be our home for the next seven days.

Photo by Nathan Robinson

We stay busy on day one unloading the plane, carrying gear up to the cabin, unpacking, getting out the fishing equipment, and finally heading out onto the lake, two to a boat, in early afternoon.  It becomes real when we reach our fishing spots, tip our jigs with a piece of worm, and drop a line in the water, intent on catching that night’s dinner.

The boat driver cuts the motor.  As conversation wanes, the quiet hits.  You think it’s quiet at home, in the middle of the night when you can’t sleep, early in the morning when no one else is up.  But listen closely and there is always something.  A train somewhere, an appliance running, the buzz of a fluorescent light, traffic in the background, maybe a plane.  But up north in the wilderness, quiet takes on new meaning.

Especially on a day with little wind.  The water lies flat and the absence of noise wraps around you like a old quilt.  It’s deeply relaxing.  Astonishing silence happens over and over each day until the sound of the plane coming to take you home is heard in the distance.  I forget from year to year.  And when I remember, I say a small prayer of gratitude for being lucky enough to experience such beauty.

The wilderness lake and the land around it are not frozen in time.  It changes.  Much of the land is actually rock.  We’re amazed that substantial pine trees can grow and thrive with such shallow roots at the water’s edge and beyond.  Fire struck some of the forest around Job Lake and created stark differences from what we remember.  Trees burned up and fell, lichen and other growth was stripped from the rock which changed its color from green to pink.  Charred logs laid at all angles while new seedlings sprouted among them. 

Our first night we compared notes as to where the damage was greatest.  One favorite spot, which we had named “the wall” was nearly unrecognizable.  With little apparent pattern, some islands in the lake burned while others rods away from charred islands remain untouched.  We tried to imagine the day or night the fire struck, and the calamity caused to the wildlife, all without human witness, with the next day dawning as always.  We realize that nature operates on a time frames detached from humans.  In thirty years, after most of the fisherman on our trip are no longer living, all evidence of that fire will be gone.  Forgotten.

We noticed other changes.  We experienced mosquitoes for the first time in memory.  Waiting till late in the season usually brought chilly nights and the absence of insects.  We think it’s getting warmer.  Both the water and the air. 

But the fish seem to have thrived. Two years of no fishing pressure from humans produced fatter, bigger walleye.  We fish on Canada’s conservation license, which demands that all walleye under 15 inches and over 18 inches be released.  Think of walleye under 15 inches as children and over 18 inches as adult breeding stock.  We are allowed to eat the adolescents.  Some days they were hard to find.  Too many big ones.  What a wonderful problem!

Canada allows a daily limit of two walleye per person under this license, which works out to four per boat or sixteen each day for our four boats.  We can’t eat sixteen fish a day.  So, we keep twelve, three to a boat, for eating and release all the rest so they might live and grow and keep Job Lake a productive lake far into the future.

We’re eating walleye in more ways than ever.  In years past we fried them all.  With a little creativity and grizzled fishermen expanding their palates, we’ve taken to baking them and basting them in lemon/butter/caper sauce, making walleye ceviche, and this year for the first time chopping uneaten cooked filets into walleye salad akin to tuna salad.  It’s a feast up there.  Healthy wild caught fish from pristine water eaten fresh each day.  Hard to duplicate.

Laid over it all, this trip was about renewing friendships.  We were separated from each other for so long by COVID.  As we paired up in the boats, switching partners each day, we found ourselves checking in and catching up.

We talked a lot about family and community, sparing each other for the most part from politics.  We’re shut out from the internet on Job Lake, although cellular phone service has nearly reached its shore   I for one appreciate the respite.  I used my phone as a camera, and occasionally compulsively hit my Face Book icon.  Nothing changed.  And In truth, when I did log in after getting back onto WI Fi going south, nothing changed.

Change is relative up north.  The effects of the pandemic and the resulting economy on wilderness outfitters is perilous.  You would think two years with no fisherman would have been an ideal chance to make improvements to our cabin.  Sadly, the cabin is in worse shape than ever.  The bears returned, and although they didn’t bother us in August, they were hell for the fishermen in June.  That cabin was built in the late 50’s.  It won’t last forever.  And forever may be approaching soon.

Though life offers no guarantees I hope to be back next year.  If I do, I’ll give you a report again.  I don’t go back and compare this fishing blog to previous years, but I can’t imagine one is markedly different than another.  It’s a wonderful trip, made better by very good people.  I consider myself lucky to be part of it.

Baby in the Sun - 2011

 Note to readers old and new.  Before Dave in the Shack I wrote a weekly blog at work, as the director of a youth service/child welfare agency, Youth Service Bureau of Illinois Valley (YSB).  I wanted to explain to board members, donors, referral sources, staff, and the community what we did, why we did it, and how we felt in the process.  Writing that blog became all I wanted to do.

I wrote this eleven years ago, two years before I retired.  Besides Dave in the Shack, I have begun writing for the local newspaper.  I'm limited to 550 words.  Here's a short version of an old YSB blog post that appeared in the newspaper.  Still relevant today.  Thought I would share it with you.

Baby in the Sun – 2011

She’d be eleven years old now.  

Jackie showed up in my doorway on her way out the back. 

“You should come see this baby.”

“What baby?”

“We have a newborn in foster care.”

I followed Jackie out the door. 

It was hot.  There were no clouds.  Jami was standing by her van holding an infant carrier. 

“Look,” she said.

We looked at the baby without speaking.

The baby was wearing a lime green onesie.  Her feet were bare.  There were wisps of toenails on each miniature toe.  Her legs were tiny, short shins and knees the size of thimbles.

She slept with her arms folded across her chest. When she breathed her nostrils flared.  Her skin was paper thin and white.  I thought I could see through her eyelids. Each fold in her ear was perfectly formed.  Her dark hair held a barrette with a lime green bow. 

She breathed in, held her breath, and then sighed, her mouth moving.  When we talked, we didn’t look at each other but at the baby.

“She’s beautiful,” I said.  “What’s her name?”

“Doesn’t have a name yet.”

“Why not?”

“The mother hasn’t chosen one.”

“How old?”

“Three days.”

“She seems so small.  Premature?”

“Full term and healthy, just little.”

I didn’t want to learn the rest of the story.  There is a dark side to babies in foster care.

“Her mom?”

“Drugs in the baby’s system at the time of birth.”

“Where is she?”

“With a boyfriend in the shelter.  They were evicted.”

The baby made a fist and touched it to her cheek.  I saw a faint smile.  I thought of my own beautiful daughter, now 28.

“Heroin?”

“Yes.”

It seems like its heroin so often now.

“Mom is afraid she can’t quit.  Said she’s tried before.”

I looked at the baby’s toes.  They moved a little.

“But her mom will name her right?”

“We think so.  She has another day.  If she doesn’t the hospital picks a name.”

“Mom needs to name her.  It may be the only thing she ever gets from her mom.”

“I think she will.  We’ll help.  She talks to us.  She wants drug treatment now, but we’re afraid she’ll change her mind.”

Finding an inpatient bed when you need it, when the addict is ready to go, is a crapshoot.  Successful treatment and months and months of clean random drug tests is the only way mom will regain custody of her baby. 

“The father?”

“Not yet identified.”

“Family?”

“Not coming forward and mom isn’t helping.  The baby went to the doctor and is going back to our foster home.  It’s tough.  She didn’t sleep well last night.  She has a tiny tummy and seems agitated.”

Help us I thought.  Help our social workers say the right things and help the judge make the right decisions as this baby begins her life.

Help her mother and father find the strength to be parents.  Help her foster parents love and care for her but not break their hearts when or if her parents prove able to fill that role.

But most of all help this tiny human.  May she know family, friends, and all the good that exists in the world.  Help us all.