Why Sinning Is A Bad Idea

(Editor's Note: this essay is the first of a series entitled "Reclaiming Spirituality From God: After Six Thousand Years Of Suboptimal Performance, Your Services Are No Longer Required. Clean Out Your Desk, See HR About Your COBRA Benefits, And Be Off The Property By 5 PM."

Unlike most people I know, I have the luxury of certainty around one of life's Big Questions. Indeed this may be THE Question for you......what happens when I die?

I entered this State of Knowing at the tender age of six or seven. (I'm a little hazy on the exact number because The Moment occurred during either first or second grade, when I attended what is now known as The Cathedral School, at Portland's St. Mary's Cathedral.) We all wore school uniforms, I remember - white blouses and navy blue skirts for the girls, navy blue sweaters over white shirts and "salt and pepper" corduroy trousers for the boys. Our teachers had uniforms, too.........this was in the days of nuns wearing habits: those starched black and white cloaks with the head blinders. None of this liberal stuff like we have now, with nuns trying to blend in like normal people, as long as they wear their hair like the banker's secretary on The Beverly Hillbillies.

From time to time, between penmanship exercises and "Duck and Cover" drills - to this day, I know what to do in case of a Russian missile attack, although I must say I get a little insecure whenever I am more than a few steps away from a row of thick wooden desks mounted on black cast iron rails - our class would be ushered outdoors to stand in line at the top of a flight of concrete steps leading underground to the Lavatories. (To this day, I wonder if the nuns took us out there according to some divinely-inspired insight as to when we might be about to pee our Catholic pants, or because the plain old clock on the wall said to. I persist in believing the former.)

The deal was this: first the girls, then the boys. When it came our turn, the boys would go DOWN the stairs, do our business, then come UP the stairs and file back into class. No talking was allowed at ANY time. But this business of going up and down the stairs was a highly regulated affair. It could not be left to any willy-nilly conduct as might be practiced by some giddy bunch of prepubescent boys. No, if this bunch of young louts was left to its own devices, it would undermine all the strict conditioning heretofore applied. And then, later, when we were older and expected to be compliant when it Really Counted - when the priests wanted to do Special Things with us - might we not rebel? No, this would never do. (Which makes me wonder, did the nuns do Special Things with the girls? I mean, you see Catholic diocese going bankrupt left and right nowadays to avoid paying adult males large sums of money for the (mortal) "sins of the fathers," but you never hear of adult females seeking payoffs. At least it isn't in the news.) (And another thing: the diocese now being forewarned, shouldn't they, out of fiscal prudence, be setting aside and investing large amounts of dough in a hedge fund - call it the Vatican Buggering Fund - to indemnify themselves against future awarded damages, as new generations step into the docket to claim their rightful amends for what the Fathers are doing Right Now? I think I heard the government has made it harder to claim bankruptcy than it used to be. I'm just asking.)

The nuns made it Very Clear: when we descended the stairs TO the lavatories, we marched DOWN the Right Side of the stairs. When we were ready to return to class, we marched UP the Right Side of the stairs. Just like riding a bike, always on the Right Side, no matter what direction you were going. Any talking or any diversion from the Instructions meant one thing: Hell. Eternal Damnation. Burning. Flames. Always and Forever.

Now, there are two kinds of sins in this life. There is your venial sin, which can be burned off in purgatory, which is your first port of call after you die; there is also your mortal sin, which cannot. The difference between the two is that with your venial sin, it was unintentional. You didn't know what you were doing. You were a chump and you went against God's will, but what the hey, you didn't know and can have the thing burned off. Kind of like you went to a nice party and spilled some wine on your shirt. You're a clumsy doofus, but with a little seltzer water and a quick trip to the dry cleaners, boom, good as new! (Come to think of it, this might be a good name for a chain of dry cleaners: Purgatory Dry Cleaning: "For All Your Venial Stains." Ha Ha! You can use that if you want, for free. I'm a Giver.)

Now, your mortal sin is a whole different proposition. With this baby, you KNEW it was wrong at the time. Whatever you did, you did it with the full knowledge that God would not approve. You don't get a do-over, a side trip to purgatory, a second chance, nada. Your metaphorical Goose is cooked. And cooked. Forever. You should have thought of this at the time, buddy.

Well, when I first heard this differentiation, in all my youthful exuberance, I took it as a challenge: could I, knowingly and with foresight, commit a sin and not get caught? Could I beat the immortal odds and fool Sister Mary Novena? I decided to try. My plan was simple: one day, on a pee break, I would PURPOSELY walk down the LEFT side of the stairs to the lavatory. BWAH-HA-HA-HAAAAAA!

I got caught.

And during my tongue-lashing and wooden-ruler-on-knuckles interlude, Sister wised me up. Turns out I had overlooked one important nuance in this sin business: even if I had eluded Sister in my rebellion, GOD Would Have Known! Of course, how silly of me.....


Fast forward about 25 years. It is the late seventies in Seattle. I am experiencing a series of workshops and seminars put on by a former Greyhound Bus Driver with delusions of becoming the new Jim Jones, of mixing up the medicine for a willing group of acolytes. What started as a wildly successful series of Real Estate Investment Seminars morphed into a wildly successful (and more expensive) series of How To Unlock Your Real HIdden Potential And Rule The World seminars. Naturally I was interested.....my money is as good as the next sucker's.

At one seminar, I remember the Bus Driver told us the true meaning of sin: to miss the mark. Yes, the etymology of the word sin derives from archery. The distance between the bullseye and where the arrow hits on the target is called the "sin of the arrow." Morality aside, one might argue, to miss the mark you have set for yourself is to sin. Which puts things in a whole different light. I am still pondering the implications of this information for my own status vis a vis God and that Eternal Damnation thing. Seems like a loophole kind of thing to me, a technicality, like what gets horrible criminals off in these courts with these activist judges nowadays. I want no part of this kind of stuff. I'm a man, responsible for my actions no matter how horrendous, how threatening to the Natural Order Of Things. I can take a licking and keep on ticking, like a Timex Watch, buddy.

(Postscript to the Bus Driver seminar thing: many years later, a friend who had attended the same courses told me that the guy had committed suicide. Tragic. A Troubled Figure, obviously. A Man, Searching Alone In This Confused World, Seeking Eternal Liberating Truths To Share With Humanity, Offering Salvation To A People Otherwise Destined To Live And Die Without Knowing Why. Upon hearing this news, I recall my first reaction: I wanted my money back. This is the kind of thinking that sets me aside from Decent People.)

But for fifty years now, I have Known, while you have doubted your ultimate disposition. All is foretold for ME, if not for YOU. You go through your tenative life, always watchful, always mindful of potential future consequences of your actions. Is this a Mortal Sin, you ask? Where does the concept of Plausible Deniability come in here? Just exactly how far can I go, what can I get away with? Questions, worries, stress, ulcers, high blood pressure, strokes, bad skin, cold sores, insomnia, compulsive gambling, sex, shopping, drinking, erectile dysfunction, and skinny lattes. These are the hallmarks of your life out there.

But not me. (OK, except for the drinking part.)

Whether my corporeal body is violated by flame or worm, my immortal soul will burn in Hell and I know this. I am OK with this, because it is like a ride on a carnival or a plane ride. No matter how afraid I might get, no matter what might happen if the roller coaster slips off the track or if the plane crashes, THERE IS NOTHING I CAN DO ABOUT IT! It is completely out of my control. And not only that....for all of my earthly life, and I can SIN and SIN AGAIN, because I only have one body to burn.

The die has been cast. I may as well enjoy the ride, because it will be over soon enough, and the only question worth asking is: was it worth it? Was the game worth the candle? Did I get a big enough thrill, enough satisfaction in walking down the Wrong Side Of The Stairs to make up for what I know is ahead of me? Was the delight I felt, as ephemeral as it was, in performing this act, sufficient to compensate for an eternity of unrelenting agony?

Yes. It was.

Caring For Pete

OK, right at the outset here I am going to give away the end of the story: I failed a personal test, and violated what I thought were my deeply held values around caring for other people, and about virtue and selflessness. This failure and this violation were purely internal things…decisions I have made about myself, within myself, and only occurred long after the time I am about to describe.

Actually, the more I think about it, by saying what I just said, I am not "giving away" anything. It isn’t as if this were some mystery and I had revealed the identity of the guilty party at the very beginning, or told you some secret that was at the center of the whole thing. And the truth is, this personal judgement I made falls more in the class of a "postscript" than in the class of "end of the story." The story stands on its own, unlike (and I am guessing here) the subject of the story – Pete - who probably is dead by now. At least that is the direction he was headed when I saw him last.

Pete was a drug addiction counselor, one of several who treated the clients of the nonprofit organization I was employed by as a fundraiser a few years ago. Pete was among the newer counselors, and had moved to Portland from New Jersey and Philadelphia a few months before I met him, because of a relationship with a woman (which promptly went south). "It’s always a dame," as they say in the films noir I love so much. He had been a counselor back there, too, and his position at our organization was incidental to the move.

Without knowing much about Pete, I liked him right away for two reasons: a personal trait and a thing he did. The personal trait was his east coast accent, which I have always been a sucker for, both as a result of watching too many movies as a kid and of having been stationed around Bruce Springsteen’s early stomping grounds – the northern New Jersey shore – during the Viet Nam era. His accent was a combination of something out of Asbury Park, NJ, and/or "South Phiwwy," as any true Philadelphian will turn their "l’s" into "w’s" in pronouncing the name of their hometown.

The thing he did was related to the trait: he posted a note on the employee bulletin board announcing his intention to have genuine Philly Cheesesteak sandwiches airfreighted to our office, and asking if anyone else wanted to go in with him on the venture. Point being that the cost of airfreighting one sandwich was astronomical, and would be considerably less painful if amortized over several sandwiches ordered by colleagues with a similar "jones" for them. Talk about what people will do to feed an addiction………

I doubt if his plot came to fruition, but the sheer guileless innocence of it endeared Pete to me. Here was a guy trying to recapture some sublime element of his hometown experience, and wanting to share it with others.

Warning: Digression and Long Sentences Ahead

Our collective lack of interest in joining in Pete’s sandwich project and ordering the most expensive sandwiches we likely ever would have eaten was no doubt in some part due to the fact that in those days, none of the counselors were confident of maintaining their jobs from one week to the next. It was not that the Greater Portland area lacked for drug addicts; quite the contrary, the growing underclass of citizens engaged in self-exploration of the wonders of personal biology as revealed by their participation in a burgeoning methamphetamine market lacking only discount coupons in the local papers and enabled by the turnstile justice system guaranteed to have its clients back on the street in the nick of prime car-prowling hours only added to the legion of drinkers, shooters, smokers, huffers, poppers, and other miscreants whose main defining characteristic were poor choices of mind-altering substances (NOT the socially approved caffeine and nicotine), wrong skin color, and lack of "juice" sufficient to insulate them from vulnerability to the uniformed shock troops in the War on Drugs who patrol our streets and alleys while acting out their parts in this particular chapter in the Fairy Tale that is America.

No, what was lacking was funding for their treatment, and hence, money to pay counselors to work their spells in the lives of people whose prime motivation in coming to us at all was to get their driver’s licenses and/or their children back (and for some, the part about the kids was a Jack Benny question…….. "I’m thinking it over!"), to get their parole or probation officers to pick on somebody else, and/or to get their records expunged of their substance-related transgressions so they might have a shot at the presidency of IBM after all.

Money to pay these counselors emanated largely from the state, filtered down through the county, and took the form of contracts and grants, renewable each year after a few statistics were jiggered around by cubicled bureaucrats in accordance with what they learned at the latest workshop/seminar/conference/meeting/session addressing Total Quality Management By Objective Pursuit Of Excellence Six Sigma Leaders As Servants Who Dare To Be Empowered. This was How Things Had Always Worked. Great system, unless something changed, some big problem came along. And now we had one: we could no longer count on Mississippi.

Up to that time, and since the ink was dry on the Declaration of Independence, no matter how bad your state – any state – was, according to any indication you might choose, you could always compare it to Mississippi, the perennial #50 (#51 if you included our nation’s capitol or Puerto Rico). Poverty, education, hunger, racist lynchings, weirdest spelling, you name it, Mississippi was always dead last. Until now. Oregon had gained the honor of being the hungriest state in the nation, even as it had simultaneously become the fattest as well. AND, thanks to the Doonesbury comic strip, everyone – including Mississippians who could read – knew that Oregon also had the shortest school year in the country. The phrase, "Mississippi with a view" was bandied about in countless boardrooms around Portland as increasingly descriptive of our state.

It is said that state government exists to educate, medicate, and and/or incarcerate its citizens, and if you look at budget expenditures, you readily see the accuracy of this assessment. Our Organization’s funding derived mostly from the intersection of the medicating and incarcerating parts – parts like all the other parts in that they were shrinking, not from demand but for lack of tax money. When funds are tight, stuff gets cut, and since adult drug addicts, imprisoned or not, rate only slightly higher in the public’s estimation than sex offenders or legislators or sex-offending legislators, and are considered to be equally hopeless, the funds necessary to deal with them took a giant hit. This "hit" took the form of a New Method for doling out what little money was available, and this New Method did not treat Our Organization well – a predictable result for an organization which, when confronted with Anything New, invariably pleaded, "But we’ve always done it this way."

So, what with everyone’s job on the line every day, morale was pathetic, and different staff members reacted to the status quo in different ways: whining, moaning, crying, somatic disorders, committee formulation and other tantrums, and extreme denial. (And this was among The Leadership Team.) The counselors themselves sent out resumes, learned the locations of their local unemployment offices, and considered alternative careers, including the dream of owning that big pink Mary Kay Cadillac. Pete had been a plumber before, and thus fell on his sword by taking a sales job in a Big Box Home Store for a few months. Eventually he came back to counseling part-time, and about then learned that his inability to breathe very well while schlepping plumbing supplies up and down those huge wheeled ladders that clog store aisles had to do with the fact that one of his lungs was pretty well shot. That’s where I came in, and here’s where the digression ends.

The deal was, a large part of the offending lung had to come out. What was also true was that Pete faced a long period of recuperation at home after the 3,000-minute drive-through surgery/hospital recovery episode, as allowed by the health insurance company. Pete had no relatives or other discernable local network of human support, and by the tenor of the interoffice e-mails floating around, it became pretty clear that he could not count on his Extremely Caring Colleagues to help him out beyond the Get Well Quick Card they all signed. (I learned that many addiction counselors are themselves "In Recovery," which I suppose gives them a degree of empathy which comes in handy while counseling people who are trying to shake off their own demons. As a layperson, though, on the whole, I have never encountered a more narcissistic, uncaring, emotionally unavailable bunch of malcontents in my entire work history. And I used to work among Ballet Dancers!)

So, what the hell…….I kind of liked Pete, I had some time, and a few extra karmic points in my favor couldn’t hurt. We talked it over, and agreed that I would pick him up from the hospital, take him home, and generally make sure he had food in the house, etc., for the duration of his recovery. Pete also had a fairly new love interest, whom he had met before the dire diagnosis, but she seemed "missing in action" as the plans were made. He said his Lady Faire lived in Vernonia, a place which to me was only a name on a highway sign several miles west of town, near where the coastbound Sunset Highway divides.

Mystery Woman was of independent means and lived on the side of a mountain reputedly owned by her family, a la The Waltons, but assured Pete she would "come into town" if he needed her. Pete had set her picture as the "wallpaper" on his computer monitor, and every time he turned it on in my presence, I became afraid for him. (Granted, as someone whose wallpaper consists of the cover of the classic Jackie Gleason record album, "Martinis and Memories," and whose screensaver offers flying cans of Spam, I am not the best judge of these things. Still, this woman scared me.)

Christ, Here’s Another Digression.

I must admit, in the blessedly few times in my life when I have been either the recipient of others’ care, or have provided care, I have hated almost everything about either role. I imagine that in situations where care is given and received in professional settings, either in institutions or in recipients’ homes, clear role boundaries are established and maintained which go a long way toward smoothing out the rough spots of ego manifestations. On the other hand, I have repeatedly surprised myself at my marked inability to either receive or provide care with anything approaching grace or dignity. This personal inner territory was a consideration as I offered to help Pete out in his Weeks Of Need.

Twice in my life, as a result of my own clumsiness while jogging, I have been laid up for days with either a severe sprain or a fractured bone, and as a result have been completely dependent, not upon the "kindness of strangers," but of friends. Better they were strangers, from the way I acted. I don’t know if I unconsciously envied my caregivers for their mobility, or could not accept the role of being helpless, or felt that I could not clearly state my needs, or what. I acted like a jerk, and alienated roommates, girlfriends, and anyone else within striking distance. (In my partial defense, I will hereby state that the milk of human kindness did not exactly gush forth from my caregivers. In those days, I was keeping them from important romantic interludes, and anyone can guess where my needs rated on that priority scale.)

Conversely, when I found myself in the role of caregiver for a girlfriend who had broken her leg on her indoor staircase – a woman I later lived with, as amazing as that prospect seems in retrospect – I was absolutely lousy at it. I have yet to view any "reality TV," but I imagine tapes of our interaction would have gotten high ratings among voyeuristic types hungry for images of people even more screwed up than they are. She was absolutely impossible to be nice to, the vixen!

You would think that people would be at their best in situations like this, but my experience is the opposite: nurses, candy stripers and other professionals aside, the average amateur caregiver or receiver, no matter their degree of nobility and empathy in momentary social interactions, become hateful people over the timeframes necessary to give or receive meaningful degrees of care and attention.

But the days of my broken legs were long gone, and I have lost touch with the woman with the broken leg, although I understand she overcame the scars of our relationship and went on to make something of herself. I was ready to minister to Pete in whatever fashion my considerable talents were needed. I could drive, cook, run errands, lend an ear, make phone calls, and kibbitz about nothing with the best of them, and I was rested and ready for the ordeal.

OK, We’re Back.
At the appointed hour, when the approximately 3,000 healthplan-approved minutes necessary for the various medicos to prep, cut, suction, stitch, and wheel him out front like so much laundry were up, I was there for him. It took me awhile to realize that he had in fact survived the operation: no doubt these professionals were required to certify his survival as a condition of billing the health plan for whatever pre-negotiated fee is associated with such a procedure. On the other hand, my mind raced with considerations of what kind of liability I might suffer if, on the way home, his official internal life status changed in a manner reflecting his outward countenance. As I was saying, "Pete, great to see you, man," I was staring at his accompanying nurse’s aide with a look meant to inquire, "He IS alive, right? You’ve checked recently?" No one I had ever been near – and this includes a friend in her hospital bed only hours from her cancer death - had had a more "stove-in" look than that poor man right there in that wheelchair.

Surely there was some "Good Samaritan Law" that covered me here. No, that was probably for accident situations I might encounter on a dark rainy night. I was standing in sunshine in the lobby of a huge hospital…..I clearly saw what I was getting into.

This was one of those situations that recalled the perfect solution for the health care crisis in this country. Just reduce the health benefits now enjoyed by those who are responsible for their quality, regulation, and application – I’m talking political representatives here – to a level enjoyed by "the least of us," and we would see universal health care coverage faster than you can say "single payer system." If the mobbed-up millionaires passing for elected legislators suddenly found their health plans equal to the 45 million of their constituents who have NO coverage, we’d see some changes ‘round here. And in Pete’s case – he actually HAD what in most circles is considered damned good coverage – just substitute his HMO’s Board members for legislators and I think you get the idea. No more drive-by surgeries. Righteous anger in that moment was my self-prescribed antidote to the fear I felt in Pete’s presence.

Our first order of business was to schlep up to the pharmacy to get a prescription for painkillers filled. God forbid someone would have thought of this ahead of time. On one hand, the pharmacy wait was interminable, like they all are. On the other hand, I figured the longer we were still on hospital property, the better – I doubted Pete was going to live through the trip home. The aide and I gabbed about drugs and withdrawal and books and god knows what. Pete was not exactly in on the conversation, because talking required more breathing than was absolutely necessary and he could not afford that particular luxury right then.

Finally we are back downstairs and wheeling out toward my car. I pushed Pete and the aide carried his prescriptions, a fat file folder, and a couple of potted plants and helium balloon arrangements that pass for sympathy these days – hot air either way you look at it. My fairly large sedan seemed quite small all of a sudden. The aide stuck with us until we were headed down the driveway, in retrospect I suppose to be able to report back the moment we were officially off the property. As we escaped, I reflected that one of the most effective purposes served by hospitals is to make non-patients feel glad they aren’t the ones being visited. All the way to Pete’s house and for the rest of the day, I felt glad.

Pete directed me to his house with a minimum expenditure of precious breath. We drove within moments from a curving six-lane suburban boulevard punctuated by massive driveways leading to gated communities, shopping malls, and glass-wrapped office complexes to a two-lane country road sporting hazard signs ventilated by bullet holes. Dirt roads led to hoary, unkempt properties littered with shacks and rusted out cars where it looked like an even bet as to which of the two was the human domicile. This is what an urban growth boundary looks like. Finally we came to a signalized "T" intersection with a high-speed spur road, the Clackamas Highway. Most everybody at that point could turn either right or left onto the highway. I say most everybody, because there was in fact a third choice for those more ill-fated among us – a trip directly across the highway led into a private driveway: The Gateway to Riverbend Mobile Home Estates.

Digression Again….Oh, Never Mind
Now, as I view the property on Google Maps (such a thing did not exist when I was caring for Pete), there IS very clearly a BEND in the Clackamas River adjacent to this place. And like all satellite pictures available on the site, there are rooftops, lots of them, defining the various curves of the lanes that make up Riverbend Mobile Home Estates. But you really have to get down there at street level to see the wonder that is Riverbend.

Since my adventures I have on occasion spoken with various people about Riverbend Estates. It has a reputation. Until I crossed the Clackamas Highway that day, though, I had never heard of the place or its reputation. Upon subsequent mention to people who know of it, though, I invariably get a chuckle and "Oh, THAT place…..yeah I know it." My brother in law the contractor has done work there (building and repairing stuff – which is what contractors do) and a County Sheriff’s deputy has also done "work" there of a different sort (arresting people and checking out crime scenes – which is what law enforcement types do). Riverbend seems to offer loads of opportunity for both professions, a quality readily in evidence on my first drive-through.

Remember how I mentioned Mississippi earlier on? I have never been there, any more than I have been to the places pictured in the movie "Deliverance," but both places take up space in my mind as platonic ideals of poverty, crime, white trash, ignorance, and just generally hell on earth. No doubt I am being unfair here, but this is my mind we are talking about and I don’t claim fairness for a lot of it. It is chock full of hard-earned ideals and portraits and images of concepts which come in really handy for imagining and dreaming, which aren’t necessarily the same things. My inner territory makes no sense most of the time. On that day, I added Riverbend to the inner collage depicting the lower ideals listed above. It has the distinct advantage of being relatively near at hand, unlike Mississippi, should I ever feel the urge to visit depravity, as opposed to just looking at its rooftops on Google Maps. Kinda like a hospital, if I ever need a real emotional boost.

As we enter Riverbend Mobile Home Estates, my delicate sensibilities are overwhelmed and I am suddenly aware that both Pete and I are unarmed. In his shape, he will be no help in a struggle. And the truth is that HERE we have things of value in this car. This is a low place. There is rust, dust, mildew, moss, dirt, and people with sunken cheeks and substandard dental plans. And homes. Mobile ones, although their wheels, if they have them, are hidden by skirts displaying the ravages of rising damp. We are vulnerable, Pete and I. The speed limit is 10 mph and there are lots of speed bumps. Signs tell us that there are "Slow Children At Play." Poor babes.

One of the pathetic perversities in life is that so often in places you really want to move quickly through, to get it over with, there are really low speed limits. 10 mph at Riverbend Mobile Home Estates, and at most of your better trailer parks, RV campgrounds, drive-ins, drive-throughs, airports. Can we please get out of here real quick? Yet out there in the high Oregon desert country, for instance, where the vistas are awe-inspiring even to an indoorsman like me, you can drive as fast as you dare and no one cares.

I mention rust. Neil Young averred that "rust never sleeps." Here, not only does it not sleep, it has hobbies. It lies waiting. Waiting to slink out and grab small children, pets, and those too old or too tired to fight back, from their slow-moving cars. As we drive through Riverbend I am cognizant of the need to keep moving, the speed limit notwithstanding. As Pete directs me to his little piece of manufactured heaven, I am looking around for the bald kid with the banjo like in the movie. I am resigning myself to coming here lots of times over the next few weeks. This is grim. I cope by doing what I do a lot when I am feeling put upon. It could be worse. I could be sitting next to me with serious parts of my lungs gone and looking forward to recovery at Riverbend Mobile Home Estates, relying on the kindness of relative strangers and prompt delivery of my oxygen by disgruntled minimum wage ne’er-do-wells. (More fun images from the psychic library…..billions and billions served…..no waiting…..no late fees…..results not typical.)

I mention meth. As I drive, I wonder that Our Organization, the drug treatment agency, didn’t just set up a shop here. 24/7. Here, where the bulletin board – strategically located near the mailboxes, a juxtaposition driven by the assumption that people who would be collecting mail were also capable of reading that mail, and also the notices posted thereon – advertised the advantages of having your own home lab. "Teach your children chemistry!" "Cooking meth brings families together!" "The family that cooks together……" "Study home dentistry at your own pace…." You get the idea.

We find his place. I practically carry him into the house, then offload the frozen food we had picked up on the way to paradise. He paws through the mountain of paperwork he was discharged with and finds the number for the oxygen delivery people, whom he calls and wheezes through his address with. They will be right out.

I put away the stuff and we agree on a sort of schedule for future visits. What kind of food does he like? Not spicy. Lots of pasta and starches. Vegetables. Chicken is fine, less beef is good. Tuna noodle casserole (my specialty)? He loves it. Where is his cat? Don’t know, hope he comes home. Not if he is smart, I am thinking.

Will he be OK? Yes, his girlfriend is coming down from The Mountain to help him buy a new recliner, because he won’t be able to sleep in a bed for awhile. He deposits himself, ensconced in a blanket, in a comfy chair within remote’s distance of his beloved television and his computer, phone nearby, and assures me I can take off. I do. Quickly.

On my next visit, a couple of days and a few phone calls later, I learn that: his cat has returned; and he has mesethelioma (Pete, not the cat). Pete explains in a most ironically labored fashion what that is. After they had removed the offending portion of his lung, the docs’ normal procedure would have been to sort of duct-tape his remaining lung to his rib cage, to spread it out like a sheet drying in the sun, so as to maximize the remaining surface’s ability to do what lungs do. But they couldn’t do this because apparently the tissue surrounding his lung was rotten due to asbestos exposure at some earlier point in his life. This was apparently a surprise to the surgical team, so they patched him up as best they could and sent him home.

Turns out Pete had done some shipbuilding in his earlier life, and was exposed to asbestos in the bargain. His Girlfriend From The Mountain, upon hearing this, urged him to join a class action lawsuit against asbestos manufacturers. She had done some research on this, and hooked Pete up with some East Coast law firm, which, upon hearing of his fate and his work history, was MORE than ready to include him in the class and could they send a team out right away to depose him and collect whatever relevant paperwork he had? He was almost sure to win Six Figures, with them taking Only Half.

Pete asked for my reaction, and I told him how sorry I was to hear of this latest challenge to his longevity, and asked how he felt about participating in the lawsuit. Just at that moment, Pete opened his newspaper and confronted a top story quoting George Bush as saying that we really needed tort reform in this country to stop all these "needless lawsuits."

"Good for Bush," Pete said. I thought he was kidding.

"But tort reform would mean that you and your other new "class members" likely would not be able to bring the very lawsuit you are participating in." (Or gain Six Figures from, I thought.)

"That’s OK. He is a good man and he has the right idea."

Pete is clearly delusional, and Rust is out there right now surrounding my car and I want to go home. This whole thing is a Bad Idea.

We work out a schedule for my next visit. Pete and the phone and the remote control find a hole in the New Recliner, and I leave. The Rust doesn’t get me and I get home OK and forget about the lawsuit thing, mostly. But still I wonder about this guy.

The weeks come and go, the weather turns chillier – which slows the Rust to a crawl, figuratively speaking – and The Holidays grab us by the throat. Hallowe’en decorations –redundant here in this most naturally ghoulish of settings – come and go. By the notices on the Riverbend Community Bulletin Board, which I peruse as I pick up Pete’s mail on way to his Estate each time I visit, I gather that the annual Holiday Meth Cook-Off and Recipe Faire was both hugely anticipated and well-attended by all.

Pete gains strength and my visits are less frequent. The Girlfriend From The Mountain helps Pete find, via the computer, his long-lost daughter in Pennsylvania and a Christmas reunion is planned. The grown daughter has married some political bigwig in state government and the whole family traipses out so they can see each other and Pete’s "new" grandchildren can load him up with all kitschy things "Grandpa." No new lung, though.

One day, a preacher visits while I am there. He met Pete while trolling the Riverbend Community LaundryMat for potential converts. He is a finely-built, ebullient, moussed-up pastor of some local Foursquare Pentecostal Assembly Of God Holy Roller Endtimes Rapture Heal Me New Hope Glory Of God Evangelical Come To Jesus You Sinner Unless You Are Gay Pro-Life Church Nestled In The Green Sheltering Hills Of The Lord. They get along fine: for one thing, they both love to watch The Big Game on TV. All the time. This gives me an excuse for an early out. Drop off the new food, pick up the old Tupperware, how are you, I am fine and is that my imagination or did Rust just set off my car alarm? I better go check and nice to meet you, Reverend.

I am pretty much thinking I have done my job here. Pete can hobble down now and get his own mail, he is off the Big Gulp-size oxygen containers, the lawsuit is proceeding nicely, The Girlfriend is around more and more, and the dust on all the "I Love You Grandpa" chatchkes is verging on ripe. The days are getting longer and warmer, Rust Season is upon us, and I am content to view The Finals from home.

On my next visit, I bring in some food and find Pete in his recliner. Watching a game, or some interlude in a game. I open the paper and remark on some story I see.

Pete erupts. "Do you MIND??!! I am trying to watch a GAME here!!"

I hate this guy.

That is Pete. He has gained, I decide, sufficient strength to resume his true behaviorial identity. Pete is an asshole. I have been driving all the way out to this fucked-up, godforsaken, white-trash trailer court, for weeks on end, to help this fuckwit regain his strength out of some obviously misdirected sense of wanting to help out a person in need. Who wasn’t a person in need anymore. I had been driving ten miles per hour through a fetid human swamp, an above-ground cesspool populated by ignorant gun-toting reprobates whose only hopes in life were big endorsement deals resulting from their Gold Medal Finishes in the International Spouse Abuse/Projectile Vomiting/Phlegm-Carving Triathlon. Pete was no longer in need. He is better. But he is a better asshole - who wants to watch The Game now.

I refrain from saying what I am thinking, in a herculean feat of self-restraint.

"Well, I guess I’ll be heading out. Looks like you are pretty well set. Give me a call if you need anything. Take it easy, good luck on the lawsuit, and I’ll look for you back at work."

So, driving home (keeping to ten MPH while in Crap City), I muse. There’s a lesson here, I just know it. What the hell happened back there? What a fucking jerk. Did I fail in my goal to "be a friend in need?" Well, yeah, if "failing" means I am pissed at Pete for not appreciating what I did for him. Hey, I did my part. I helped a guy out. He is better. I can’t control how – or even IF – the guy is going to react to my efforts. End of Story.

Pete never came back to work, our little agency was eaten by a bigger, better-funded fish, and I left. I imagine Pete is dead by now. I don’t hope it, I just imagine it. I wonder if he ever won Six Figures.

Four years later now. I still help people out, I am just better at recognizing why I do it, what’s in it for me, what my expectations are. So what have I decided? About personal virtue, selflessness, helping others? What do I want out of it?

A nice "Thank-you!" maybe. Is that too much to ask?

Wake Up, You Sleepyheads! It's The Dawning of a New Morning on the Shining City on the Hill!

(Editor’s note: throughout this article, I use the term "America" and "Americans" to signify the USA and its citizens. I know there are a lot of people out there who are saying that this usage is improper because this whole hemisphere is American and no way should these terms refer only to those in the USA. Well, I for one am tired of this whining. First Venezuela and Bolivia steal our oil and natural gas and now all those little countries down there are trying to steal our NAME! Enough, already.)

Like you, I have been worried lately about the state of America. I am pleased to be able to report to you today, though, that the tide is finally turning again in our favor, and there is much cause for a lot of rejoicing among us common folks. Let me explain…

My worries have mainly been centered around two issues: the propaganda machine is foundering, and I may be once again called up personally to serve my country in its hour of need.

For a long time, in the face of poll numbers showing an alarming trend among the populace, that being an increasing nasty tendency to answer poll takers’ questions in a manner demonstrating an appalling lack of belief in the pronouncements of our government, I continued to rely on the fact that 66% of American adults believed in the Creation Myth. I took sustenance in the knowledge that, underneath it all, beat the hearts of a people whose gullibility – like their stupidity - knew no bounds. I found solace in the continuing degradation of an already pathetic public education system, guaranteed to continually produce a polity as dumb as warm rocks and even less likely to question, to connect, than my generation is. I buttressed my diminishing confidence by remembering that, while we are a nation of the bravest Voters and Poll Respondents that the world has ever seen, we are also a nation of bloated tubs of lard whose collective belly buttons, obscured by our burgeoning omentums, are beyond pondering and even if they weren’t, that’s an awful lot of WORK! But lately, even I began having my doubts….after all, polls don't lie, which is something I learned in school.

Add to that, alarming news that our military is "broken," "stretched to the limit," or "not meeting its recruiting goals," depending upon whom you listened to. And these were military experts saying this! How long would it be before my 4-F status, which I earned one steamy summer morning by suffering an injury leading to permanent disability and medically retired status while serving my country IN the VIET NAM era, would cease to protect me from ravenous recruiters?

Now, what the hell good is a propaganda machine if no one is buying its product? Was it ultimately for NO REASON that Sigmund Freud’s nephew invented the Public Relations industry in America? Has it been for naught that this industry has so thoroughly massaged our minds and corrupted our basic beliefs about ourselves and our places in this world, has atomized our populace to a point beyond redemption, and has been so successful in its efforts that pure violence has been rendered largely obsolete as a means of societal control?

I mean, COME ON, people! Haven’t you and I watched in horror as support for our wars has diminished, as our president’s approval ratings have declined, as his loyal minions have been given the bum’s rush by the limousine load? (Shit, one guy - Libby or Liddy, I can never remember which - was even convicted of a crime and was looking at a Prison Wedding to the guy with the most cigarettes that he hadn't factored into his romantic future, until God intervened.) You can’t tell me you don’t cry at night.

I have even been comtemplating moving to a different country. My friends over there at International Living tell me that Nicaragua is looking real good right now. Real estate there is just begging for some good old fashioned American speculation, the political situation has cooled down, and Daniel Ortega, the former Sandinista turned Catholic, has recriminalized abortion. What more do I need?

Now comes the General and Freedom Watch. Petraeus, I think. (Petreus? Portius? Shit, whatever happened to Westmoreland and Ike and those easy names?) And Freedom Watch, with those cool commercials featuring busted-up vets just DROOLING to get back in action.

Between the General and the Watch and Congress and the media and a WELL-DONE PUBLIC RELATIONS CAMPAIGN, morning is dawning again in America! Yes, 60% of us (less than the 66% mentioned above, but a majority anyhow) trust the military to talk about and fix Iraq. And we LOVE those legless patriots! I can’t tell you how heartening and reassuring it is for me to see these guys who took up arms to go and kill ‘em some Iraqis and somehow got blowed up in the process are just fuckin’ PISSED that they can’t be over there with their buddies blowing up even more shit and people, if it weren’t for some pussy military regulations keepin’ from doin’ it. I say, get ‘em back over there! You are already taking criminals, mentally retarded, and -YES – gay people over there, so why not let the shot-up ones go back? I have two important things in my life here: a 4-F status and Other Priorities. Both should protect me from further sacrifices to my country, but the way things are going, I need something I can hold onto here, some solid convincing that I won’t be called up again, and if I knew you were willing to take another look at these pussy rules with an eye toward softening them up a little bit, toward being a little more cognizant of the "situation on the ground" over there, I could sleep a lot better. (One caveat: DON’T send the gay ones back. Just like John Wayne was needed here stateside during WWII to perform the greater public service by making those patriotic movies, we got a lot of extremely repressed senators, congressmen, evangelist preachers, and other powerful people who need "servicing" in a way that ONLY THE GAY PEOPLE can help with.)

So, my fellow Americans, take heart in the return of our Morning here on the City on the Hill. The Kool-Aid is fresh and strong. The tide is turning. The wars are getting popular again, and we focus our admiring gazes away from Those Who Want The Terrorists To Win and back on the Guys With All Those Shiny Medals And Good Posture. You are beginning to come back to your senses. Freud’s nephew thanks you for being there for him once again, and I thank you for redeeming yourselves in my estimation, and for perpetuating my status as a person who can not only gloat about my VIET NAM era sacrifices, but continue to collect my military pension and forget about being called up again.

Now quit reading this stupid blog! Jesus, there is an entire mainstream media out there! Are you BLIND?

Tobacco Harvesting In Downtown Portland

The other day I was walking through the heart of downtown Portland, on Fifth Avenue near Yamhill Street. I used to LOVE to walk through downtown anywhere, in any city in which I lived or was visiting. Not anymore, or perhaps more accurately, not for the same reasons. For me, downtown strolling has become more of a spectator sport than anything else.


First of all, I have no good reason to BE downtown in my own city. I don't trade there, and can get my quotidian needs met quite nicely in my own or nearby districts. Add in the downtown facts that parking is impossible and expensive, the streets are dirty, driving there wastes gas, it's noisy, too many streets are torn up, and it takes forever to get anywhere. I know, I know......most of these issues would be addressed by my use of mass transit. But generally speaking, I don't "do" mass transit. With few dire exceptions, "Baby, I can drive my car."

But there I was, downtown. Nice day, sunny and all. As I am walking by the entrance to a large office building, I notice a couple of guys who appear to be homeless standing by the ashtray attached to the wall. It's a silver ashtray, with one of those old-fashioned trays where you crush out your cigarette, then push a little lever and the tray opens and dumps the spent butt into the receptacle.

These guys are just kind of shooting the breeze, while one of them is going through the ashtray, and pulling out the butts. When he finds one, he "field strips" it. This is an old Army term, meaning that when you are finished with a cigarette and you are outdoors, you scrape the tobacco end of the butt on the bottom of your boot and pocket the filter. The paper and remaining tobacco, being biodegradable and all, blow off into the breeze like they were never there. Despite how many people the armed forces train their recruits to kill, they are VERY persnickety about keeping the ground free of cigarette butts and other litter!

So the guy is "field stripping" each butt he finds, but instead of freeing the paper and tobacco strands, he empties the tobacco into his own pouch, I assume to use later in rolling his own, and dumps the filter back into the little ashtray.

At least now I have some idea why, no matter how poor the guy holding the sign at the end of the freeway exit looks, he ALWAYS seems to be smoking a cigarette. Now I hafta rearrange my thinking. The cigarette thing was always one of my prime rationalizations for not giving these guys (and, increasingly, gals) any money: if they can afford Camels, they can afford NOT to be sticking these pathetic signs in my face and making their 25-words-or-less case as to why I should be a drive-by donor. (Besides, they are lousy writers, partly because they don't know the first thing about market segmentation. I am NOT their demographic! I am not in that highly prized 18-34 age group, and I am not gonna be moved by appeals based upon 1. patriotism - they are all apparently veterans, and, what with their much-in-demand-right-now experience, ought to be down at the recruiting office arguing their way into a cool college-loan-see-the-world-as-a-member-of-the-Army-Of-One-signing-bonus deal, instead of thrusting a ragged sign with a poorly-drawn flag in my face, or 2. pets, or 3. shitty clothes or hair, or 4. durable medical devices like walkers or wheelchairs, or 5. the WORST ONE OF ALL, bad spelling and punctuation.)

Upon encountering this guy, I did what any concerned citizen with half a heart would do: called a cop. This guy was obviously evading federal tobacco taxes by doing what he was doing. And to all you bleeding hearts out there who are gonna try to tell me that the original cigarettes he was salvaging were ALREADY taxed, I say this: we are a nation at war and we need all the tax revenue we can get right now. And just because the richest people in our country pay the least taxes, proportionally speaking, DOES NOT excuse this guy's hubris in evading his rightful tax burden.

Plus, on one of my few strolls downtown, on a sunny Friday afternoon, when I am striding along in the temperate breeze minding my own business and basically feeling like the world is my oyster and for a rare, fleeting moment when my antidepressant seems to be doing its job, I don't appreciate seeing such a thing. Smoking is a filthy habit, the guy is killing himself, god knows whose lips have been on those filters, and this does not make a pretty picture.

They took him away. I think in jail, you get free cigarettes, don't you? You should, anyhow.

A Test Of My Menschhood

You might call this post "self-congratulatory," and you would be right. I write this, though, more to spur your own thoughts on the subject rather than to revel in my own. Let me explain.


I don't speak Yiddish, but my understanding of the term "mensch" is that it means a "regular guy," or a "real human being." Somebody who is no hero, but is a reasonably upstanding member of his community, a genuine person. (Again, my lack of understanding of Yiddish fails me as to gender references. Does "mensch" refer only to males? I am referring to all human beings here.)


I think of myself as a mensch. I suppose most people would, if you put the question to them. How about you?


Part of menschhood is honesty, integrity. What you do - or don't do - when no one else is looking, when you could get away with it "scot-free" as my mom would say. From that standpoint, I have not always been a mensch. There were the times when I was a kid and would shoplift from the local Safeway, for instance: always candy bars and smoked meats. My career ended when I was apprehended and my mother was called to liberate me from the dark stockroom at the back of the store. Or later, in the early-seventies, when I was attending broadcasting school and living on not much (I was so poor, when I referred to myself as "broke" I pronounced the word with two syllables, as in "br-roke!"), I drew out my last $75 from my savings account at the bank's drive-through window. The teller did not run my passbook through the little machine when she gave me the money, so my record did not show the withdrawal. I rationalized that, "Hey, the bank can afford it, they got lots of money."


I have never forgotten that day or that woman. The bank is long-gone, eaten by the bigger bank-fishes in the sea. I think.


Which brings me to the other day. I had bought some blood glucose test strips from my local Fred Meyer pharmacy several weeks before. (I don't have diabetes, but my elderly gentleman cat, Max, who is over 80 human years old, does. I occasionally test his blood glucose at home several times over a daylong period to assist the vet in determining his optimum insulin dosage. The whole thing - testing, insulin injections, etc., works the same for a cat as it does for a human, except I obtain the drop of blood from his ear rather from a fingertip. He doesn't like that part, and I don't blame him.) When I went to use one of the strips the other day, my home testing machine informed me that the strips had expired. They aren't cheap, and the smallest quantity you can buy from the manufacturer - Kroger, which owns Fred Meyer and QFC stores locally - is 50. The strips and the machine have to be made by the same manufacturer, and I swear to god it is like a low-end inkjet printer: you might save by buying a cheap one (some glucose testers are actually "free") but the companies make their money back from you in spades on the damn ink cartridges. God forbid you would ever actually print something in color on one of those things!


I had about 40 of the expired strips left - say $15 worth - and I figured I would just have to bite it and buy a new box. But this time I would check the expiration date! Then my friend Laurie says, why not return them for an exchange? Of course I didn't have the receipt, and, like my other conception of a true mensch, I don't want to make a fuss. (Don't worry about me, I'll just shiver over here in the dark. You kids go and have fun. I'll be fine. Really. Go, and do! I'll be here when you get back. No rush. Take your time. Light bulbs and heat, they're expensive these days. Better we should conserve.) My family was about as far from Jewish as you can get, yet there are some universal and ever-popular themes in family life, eh?

But what did I have to lose? I would summon up my righteous indignation and make my case! The pharmacist informed me that they could not accommodate me, that I would have to buy a new box. OK, I tried. But when he brought out the "new" box to sell me, it had the same expired date on it. Gotcha!

I run over to one of the guys in those red vests who roam the stores, always talking on a cell phone, and who seem to be in some kind of authority position. "Operations Supervisor," this one was called. I huff, puff, and harrumph my way through my story, and he assures me he will right all wrongs. (Memo to self: in the future, always start with the guy in the red vest.) Since I don't have the receipt, he will have to give me a store credit. OK. But can I use the credit at the local QFC, since his store has no more fresh strips, and can he call over to their pharmacy to see if they have any? Yes and yes.

He gives me the gift card and I jet over to the QFC. I find that their pharmacy prices the SAME box of strips $5 higher! (Memo to diabetic cat companion: always buy your test strips at Fred Meyer. Your cat can't afford to be diabetic at QFC.) OK, I'll pay the extra. AND HERE IT COMES, the moment of truth: I run the credit card given to me by Red Vest through their machine and open my wallet to find five more dollars. They tell me that the purchase is covered, and that I have a $15 credit remaining! Glory days!

What to do? Red Vest obviously made a mistake, perhaps crediting me for the price of the 100-strip box. No one knows this but me. Out in the parking lot, it hits me: I have to return the credit slip to Red Vest's store. This money ain't mine.

Back at Red Vest's store, I go to the guy at the customer service counter, present him with the credit slip, and tell him my story. He is incredulous. He cannot believe I am doing this, and at first doesn't understand what I want from him. I don't want anything from you, I say, I am GIVING you this credit slip. So you're being honest, he says, as the true nature of the situation dawns like the golden sunrise. Yes, I am being honest, I say.

I feel good that I did this. No one would have known. I was scot-free. I am secure in my menschhood.

Are there stories in your life like this? Are you a mensch?

The Schizophrenic Accordionist

Here in Portland, every August we have Festa Italiana! Yes, for a whole week, the six known local Italians form a committee and put on a fun-filled celebration of everything Italian: pasta, bocci, grape-stomping, and musica! This thing ends with a three-day weekend extravaganza which takes over the entire Pioneer Courthouse Square, located on one square block in the heart of downtown. Exhibits include restaurants, scooter merchants, an information booth, a winegarden and more, all surrounding a big stage for various featured artists and announcements.

This year, as in the fifteen prior years of the Festa!, my new friend Gabriel, the accordionist, was a featured artist. To prove it, he sent me a copy of the latest event brochure, which he had highlighted to emphasize the times and venues in which he was featured. Some years, he plays the mainstage, while some years he is a "strolling accordionist"; some years he gets his picture in the brochure, some years he doesn't. This year, his picture isn't in the brochure and he is a strolling player. Last year, his picture WAS in the brochure and he was a mainstage player. Gabriel says it all evens out eventually, which of course it does. Even accordion players can remind us of life's little lessons if only we will let them.

So, comes the Friday of the final Festa! weekend.....and I head downtown to see Gabriel stroll and play some Italian favorites........the ones we all know: Finniculi, Finnicula, Volare, etc., etc. It is a beautiful day for grape-stomping, the champions of which will be having a stomp-off at noon while Gabriel is strolling and playing. Perfect! I even get a nearby parking spot.

I walk onto the square, look around, and Gabriel is nowhere in sight. It's lunchtime, the place is packed with people eating and drinking and spilling food all over themselves, the stompers are stomping and I am in a VERY Finniculi, Finnicula mood and almost wish I had a "knapsack on my back." Almost.

So in the restaurant section I spy the OTHER strolling accordionist, whom I recognize because his picture WAS in the brochure this year. He is wearing a bright red shirt, just like in the brochure, and even though he has lost some weight since the picture was taken, I know this guy. Let's call him Luigi. Another big giveaway is, he is wearing an accordion. He will know where Gabriel is.

I go up to him, all jovial and all, and immediately use up one third of all the Italian I know.

"Buon Giorno, Luigi," I say. "I recognize you from the brochure. Can you tell me where I can find Gabriel Guererro?"

He looks at me and says, "Stop making stupid remarks, and go away!"

I feel as though I have been slapped across the face with a big-a salami. Ah, perhaps in the little village where Luigi is from, "Buon Giorno" means something other than "Good day!" Perhaps it means "I pee on your mother's grave, you pigdog!" Which was not my intention at all.

I recover quickly and say, "Isn't this your picture on the brochure?"

"No," he says. "That is not me." His voice is completely devoid of any accent. So much for the "village-of-origin" theory.

I show him the brochure, and I say, "Is this or is this NOT your picture?!"

"No," he says again. "That's HIS picture." And he points to a nearby table, where Gabriel is standing. (At this point, I am not sure of any of my usual bearings, like my name. I am not accustomed to being insulted by strolling Italian accordionists wearing red shirts named Luigi whose pictures I recognize from the Festa Italiana! brochure I hold in my hands. In fact, even at that moment, I could say with assurance that the last 30 seconds were absolutely unprecedented in the previous 17 million plus seconds of my life.)

I walk over to Gabriel, still a bit disoriented, and am welcomed by his generous smile. He is standing and talking with a table full of people with festive clothing, nametags, and thick Italian accents. I take him aside and point to Luigi, who is standing about 20 feet away.

"See that guy, that OTHER strolling accordionist, standing over there?" I say.
"Yeah.....Luigi." He says.
"Do you know what he just said to me?" Gabriel's brow furrows and his eyes roll.
"No," he says, but it's clear he has an inkling of what's coming.
I relate our brief conversation. Gabriel is crestfallen.
"He is schizophrenic," Gabriel informs me. "He sometimes has trouble relating to people." This is an obvious understatement. By now I have recalled my name and my ability to take righteous umbrage.

"Lucia, who is President of the Festa! hires him because she feels sorry for him."
"Yeah, well I understand about mental issues because a close member of my family has his own challenges in that regard. But to have the guy strolling around people, plus with his FACE in the brochure........?"
"I know, I know.........."

Quite frankly, it had never occurred to me that Italians could be schizophrenic. Italians are HAPPY people, full of life and passion and chianti. They sing exuberant songs with words like "Finniculi" in them! They play instruments they wear on their bodies, for Chrissake. The thought that they could be depressed or irritable had never crossed my mind. Swedes, now they can be depressed and have all manner of existential thoughts with their morning bowl of muesli. Or the Swiss, they never know what side they are on so are always afraid of pissing the wrong people off, and therefore never make any statement stronger than being SURE what time it is, which they can immediately prove by showing you their watch, case closed. But the ITALIANS! HAPPY people, with never a discouraging word. Especially guys named Luigi in red shirts strolling around playing the accordion at the Festa! They don't have "issues".

Whereupon Gabriel interrupts my reverie by introducing me to Lucia, the aforementioned "Mama" of the Festa! I take her and her marinara-thick accent aside and I say to her, "That accordion guy over there, Luigi, he said a very insulting thing to me."

"Oh, No!," she says. "He's-a no all-a there."
I feel as though I am talking with the sister of Chico Marx.
"Yes, Gabriel just explained things to me. But still..."
"Hey, we no hire him again next-a year. He's-a no play with a full-a deck."

So now I have gotten this guy banned from all future Festas! I start to feel bad. I walk around the rest of the Festa! and take in the sights and sounds. The champion grape-stomping team is announced, along with the fact that they stomped 7 inches of juice in their giant bucket. The band starts to play on the mainstage. What will Luigi do from here on out, I wonder? Where do schizophrenic Italian accordionists go when their Festa! gigs are yanked out from under them?

I do what any reasonable person would do in such a situation. I buy a bottle of Nebbiolo and two glasses and wait for Gabriel to put his accordion away and join me. Gabriel strolls over, I pour the wine, and tell him I feel lousy about Luigi the Schizophrenic Accordionist.

"Not to worry," he says. "It wasn't you. After you walked away, the band started on the mainstage and the rule is that we strolling musicians have to stop playing then. Luigi refused to stop and Lucia had to call security to shut him up. It wasn't you."

I felt better. He cooked his own goose. We drank the wine. The whole bottle. Finniculi, Finnicula!

How I Got My Name

I Love Gravy. I love to make Gravy, I love to eat Gravy, and I love to put Gravy on just about any food with which it is served. Gravy binds together the disparate elements of any meal, it is the one common part of a meal that enhances all that it comes in contact with.

I Love To Make Gravy. I am serious about making Gravy. In a potluck situation, I always volunteer to make the Gravy, for two reasons: I love to do it, and I don't want to eat someone else's pale idea of what I know Gravy can be.

My real friends know that when I am in the kitchen, I don't like to be bothered. I don't even like anyone NEAR me in the kitchen. And this is especially true when I am Making Gravy. Gravy is serious business, because there are many steps involved in the creation of a truly savory result, any one of which can render the Gravy less than we would hope for. So much is riding on the Gravy. Expectations, expressed or not, rise and fall on the Gravy. I am judged by my Gravy. I accept this. No other person's judgement of my Gravy is harsher than my own.

One Thanksgiving, I was in the kitchen of my friend Holly's house in Seattle. This particular feast, like so many, was a potluck, with each guest contributing the dish she or he does best. Reputations were on the line here. I was at a key point in the preparation of my Smoky Sage Gravy: the blending of the long-simmered stock with the painstakingly-prepared roux. This is the key step that can, if performed by amateurs, result in lumpy gravy. There is no room for distraction or delay.

A small crowd of well-wishers was gathered around the kitchen island upon which I was performing my critical task. As I was whisking away (counter-clockwise, then clockwise), one of the group (Bob, who no longer likes me) made a remark to me which only vaguely registered with me. Gaining no response from me (I was BUSY!), he said something like, "Look at gravyboy, working hard!" And thus my proud moniker was born.