As tax season heats up, the rate of my posts will likely decline for the next four months. I’ve invited some guest bloggers to post (if they have time). If you’re interested in posting something, please email me (link at left).
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Thanks to Bob at Polizeros for posting a link to the Zero Emissions Challenge on the blog Crooks and Liars– and for all those who’ve joined the discussion.
I’ve now set up an email address for this blog, so you don’t have to leave a comment in order to reach me. It is (spelling it out to avoid spambots) dj at AsymptoticLife dot com.
Cars buried under five feet of snow in our driveway, January 1969.
A trip home for a family renunion has me thinking about the place I come from: New Hampshire, the Granite State. When I was growing up, my home town had 800 people spread out in four villages. We had one part-time cop who pulled over speeders on State Highway 114. Eight towns sent kids to the local high school, and nearby Andover still had a one-room schoolhouse.
I grew up in a house built in 1760. It had a central chimney and fireplaces in almost every room, though my parents installed hot water heating. In the winter it was drafty, and the copper pipes made a racket when the heat kicked on. The house had three wells, and in dry years we used them all. Later we moved to a brand new house. It was less drafty, but also had less character.
One night in January of 1969, my dad went to the next town to get a pizza for dinner. It was just starting to snow when he left. Hours went by, and the snow got deeper, and he hadn’t come back. About ten o’clock, my mom called a man with a snowplow on his truck. Even though it was already late, he agreed to go out looking for my dad. Turns out that on the way home from the pizza place, my dad had seen a guy stuck in a snowbank at Shingle Mill Corner, which was in those days a very sharp turn. My dad had stopped to help. He got the guy unstuck, but then got himself stuck in the process and couldn’t get out. The man with the snowplow found him sitting in his car with a cold, limp pizza.
The snow didn’t stop for days. Over in Bradford, they had to dynamite a 20-foot drift in the center of town because they had no equipment big enough to clear it. Where we lived, the snow was too heavy and deep for the normal snowplows, and our town’s only heavy-duty plow was down for maintenance. We were snowed in for a week. But we were prepared for something like that, and kept enough food in the basement to get by.
Another time, we got so much snow that one of our roof supports cracked in the middle of the night. My mom took us kids to my grandmother’s house, and our neighbor, old Em Bailey, came over to help shovel the snow of the roof at 3:00 am.
What I remember about these incidents isn’t the snow, but the way people helped each other. Our family and the Baileys weren’t close. But when someone needed help, that didn’t matter: you did what needed to be done. I don’t know if FEMA existed in those days, but if it did, I never heard it mentioned. You didn’t rely on the government, you relied on your neighbor, and he relied on you.
Seems like things have changed a lot since then. Or maybe I’m just getting old and wistful.
In the months since I began my blog, I’ve kept comment moderation on. That means no comment appears until I approve it. During that time, I haven’t had a single abusinve comment. (By contrast, I’ve had literally hundreds of Spam trackbacks.)
I’ve decided to turn comment moderation off, at least for the time being. That means when you post a comment, it should appear immediately. Please let me know if you have problems with it.
Naturally, I reserve the right to edit or delete comments I deem inappropriate or abusive. But as I said, I haven’t received one yet.
Thanks for reading, and thanks too to those who’ve commented.
As I wrote a blog post today and wondered in which category it belonged, I realized I was missing one– hence the creation of “Peace & Justice.”
Peace & Justice is a topic dear to me. Over the past 15 years, most of my personal efforts toward those goals have been in Sri Lanka. But the widespread need, the actions of my government toward (or away from), and the religious and theological aspects of Peace & Justice are all topics I hope to explore. In addition, some of the posts formerly in “Observations” have been moved here, as they were directly or indirectly related.
Don’t look for a party line; you won’t find it here. I’ve been strongly influenced by religion but am not a member of any religious body. I’m neither neo-con nor Clintonesque “liberal,” neither Democrat nor Republican. What I believe has been the result of my experience, study, and reflection– and above all, the suffering I have seen first-hand, especially among the Sinhala and Tamil people of Sri Lanka.
Jane outside the Primary Purpose Club in Cedar City last July 4 (by an unknown photographer).
Today we had a memorial for my friend Jane Doran (4/5/1930 – 1/21/2007). I was asked to give the eulogy. Here it is:
I’ve never given a eulogy before. I am honored to be asked to remember Jane Doran, who was an example and a friend to me, as she was to so many others.
Jane was born in Minneapolis, MN, on April 5, 1930. She had a sister ten years younger than she was, and a brother fifteen years younger. Her father died when she was still a child, and Jane moved with her mother and siblings to Los Angeles, where her mom worked in real estate, title work, and banking.
As a young adult, Jane decided to become a nun, and worked in a convent for 8 years toward that goal. While there, she had the opportunity through France and Italy. Eventually, however, she was asked to leave. As a result, Jane always said that she had “flunked religion.”
After she left the order, Jane moved to Las Vegas, where she became a taxi cab driver. She was a people person, and this was a job she really loved. She stayed there for 30 years.
Eventually, she bought a rustic cabin up at Duck Creek, and began spending time there. About 10 years ago, she sold the cabin and moved to the Cedar City area full time.
Jane loved reading history, especially books on the civil war, presidents & first ladies, and particularly President Lincoln. She took history classes at UNLV & SUU. She had a lot of fun taking classes, and she made many friends there. She would often spend time on campus visiting them.
She also walked 4 miles on the track every morning and of course made many friends there as well.
But Jane was best known for her service, her generosity of spirit. She was always ready and willing to be of service without any thought of reward, whether it was for a friend in the hospital, an animal in distress, or an organization that needed volunteers. She was one of longest volunteers at the Happy Factory, and also worked with the Shakespearean Festival helping to get their mailings out.
Jane had a great love of animals, and would often feed and rescue them when they couldn’t fend for themselves. One friend told me this story: There was a group of feral cats living in a shed behind Jane’s house, and she used to feed them every day. One day, she heard a cat crying in distress, and she asked this friend to help her rescue the cat. They went over and found that the cat was in an oil pit under a trailer. They decided they were going to move the trailer. But while they were pushing it, her friend’s back let out an audible “crack.” They decided then that they couldn’t do it themselves. With the help of a neighbor, they got the cat out of the pit. But it had a broken back and had to be put down. Even so, it was important to Jane to do what she could for the cat because she couldn’t stand to hear an animal in pain and not help.
Her friend, meanwhile, had to have back surgery, for which Jane felt terribly guilty. But she helped her friend walk through that process, and her friend made a full recovery. The experience led to a deeper friendship and Jane helped her to understand and accept herself in ways she never had before.
Another time, there was a goat at a neighbor’s house that wasn’t being taken care of as well as Jane thought it should be. She talked to the neighbor, but didn’t get the response she wanted. The thought of this goat suffering tortured her, and she talked about it often. She’d sneak over and give the goat food. She spoke with the authorities to try to get them to do something. Eventually, the neighbor got rid of the goat, but as long as it was there, in need, Jane couldn’t stand it. She had to do something to try to help.
Many of us know of Jane’s service in Alcoholics Anonymous. She was sober more than thirty years, and didn’t say much about her drinking. I did learn that, while driving, she could hold a champagne glass and pour wine into it without spilling. This, she thought, meant she could drink like a lady.
In sobriety, Jane was an example to us all. For many people, she was the first friendly face they met in the rooms, making both newcomers and transplants feel welcome.
She sponsored many women, and a few men as well. One of these women told me that Jane helped her get through college, providing constant love and support. Jane reminded her to keep it simple, pointed out that she had faced the same problems the previous semester and gotten through it, and always gave her support without any judgment. She enjoyed the success of her friends and sponsees.
Jane usually had a saying for any situation. She would often say “Isn’t life a nice place to be?” Her sponsees have told me she would talk about a class she’d made up: “Stop Banging on Your High Chair 101.”
She also had a tradition, when someone reached two years sober, of giving them a 2-dollar bill on which she would write AA slogans, like “Keep coming back.”
Jane attended the first planning meeting of the Primary Purpose Club, and was an active member for over three years. She was instrumental in starting the morning meetings.
One of the most memorable of Jane’s activities was her picking up aluminum cans for recycling. This, she said, was her amends to the earth. She would also check around the drive-through windows at fast food restaurants for change, and she could often be seen checking the coin return at pay phones. All the money from recycling and all the change she found went to college funds for children.
My own Jane story has to do with her struggle with religion. After “flunking out,” she was never comfortable with the explanations she got about God and salvation. One day, I told her my understanding, learned from a Catholic theologian named Karl Rahner, which is that human beings are here for the purpose of seeking and finding God. That is our nature. We can never reach God in this life, but we will after. We, being confined to a time line, cannot see how or when this will happen. But for God, it has already happened. Jane found this fascinating. But she didn’t mention it again, and I didn’t think much of it.
When I went to see Jane at the hospital, she asked me to tell her again about what she called “predestination.” I did. Then she told me that this idea had made possible the most spiritual year she had ever had, and that she was now comfortable with what would happen next.
In sobriety, Jane began a second phase of her life. At the end, she told many of us that she was now looking forward to Phase 3.
One of her friends told me, “Jane’s spirit is somewhere, we just can’t see it.” Wherever she is, we can be certain that she is now as she was in life: Happy, joyous, and free.
Jane, you are loved and missed.
Mike Barnett’s brother created a website in Mike’s memory. It can be found at http://web.mac.com/chubascojohn/iWeb/Site/Home%20page.html.
Mike in October 2000 (the best photo I have of him).*
My friend Michael Barnett was killed in a car accident early Friday morning, January 5, 2007, when he lost control of his new Mini Cooper and struck a pole on Jefferson Boulevard in Los Angeles. He was reportedly going the speed limit (55 mph).
Coincidentally I was in Los Angeles on business when it happened, and had spoken to him just the day before. Shocking as it was to learn that he was gone, I was glad to be able to join with our mutual friends in remembering him.
Mike was a talented young man. I met him when he was at Loyola Marymount University. He was always cheerful, always smiling. His clients and co-workers enjoyed working with him.
Mike majored in film, and all he ever wanted to do was make videos. He founded Aisle Five Studios, which had become increasingly successful. He was only 30 years old, but his dream had come true.
Thanks to my friend Bob at www.polizeros.com for cleaning up the photo (1/10/07).
Antelope grazing near my home.
Some may think it strange that a peace worker owns guns. I struggle with it myself. Are guns and peace inconsistent? The obvious answer is yes, because so much violence is committed with guns. Yet a closer look suggests that the relatuionship between guns and violence is not so simple.
In my home town in New England, guns were common, but violence wasn’t. I will not suggest that violent crime was absent because we had guns. I don’t believe that, and I think those who do are misguided. I believe we had so little violent crime because we were taught to respect each other, and because we knew each other. My home room teacher had also taught my dad. One of the older police officers in town remembered my paternal grandfather from when he lived there. We had connections that caused us to see each other as human beings. That allowed us to keep guns with little danger of shooting each other.
Incidentally, when I was 19 and on the verge of moving to California, the town’s first murder occurred. It was committed with a pen knife. As far as I know, it was never solved.
Here in Utah, the situation is similar to my home town: almost everyone owns guns, but violent crime is not widespread. Here, as in the New England town I grew up in, people know each other.
This suggests two things: First, it helps explain why there is so much crime in the city where people don’t know each other and, in my experience, have less respect for each other. Gun control in the city makes sense to me, because gun ownership does seem to lead to violence, whereas gun control in the country would be more like taking away a necessary tool that wasn’t hurting anyone anyway.
But it also suggests that disarmament alone will not create peace. In order for violence to stop, people must begin to see each other as human beings. This takes dialog between individuals, and it takes relationship-building. Little wonder that in modern war, it is generally considered treasonous for a person outside the inner circle of leadership to talk to anyone who is considered the enemy.
When I work for peace, I don’t work for disarmament. If it’s needed, that’s someone else’s job. My job is to help initiate dialog, build relationships, and create empathy between people.
Do I find any inconsistency between working for peace and being a gun owner? Sometimes. But being pro-peace and anti-violence does not mean being either pacifist or anti-gun. In my view, it means being pro-human.
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