You should be ashamed

No doubt the new kid would have fit in with some clique in a public school, but his parents - who had bought an old rooming house near the University campus - had the temerity to enroll him in the University's lab school where the classes were tiny and there were only two cliques:  "In" and "Out."

Jack Thornton wasn't an attractive kid. He galumphed into our tightly knit little 9^th grade class with a loose-limbed gait, funny clothes, and a bad haircut. Most of his new class had been together since kindergarten and I doubt any of us expected the new kid to make it through the  semester. Even the new University president's kids had left to enroll in public schools after nine painful months.

It wasn't physical intimidation that sent them running, it was verbal. Most of the students were armed with a biting wit and attitude forged in homes where the alpha parent's mastery of verbal combat had earned the title tenured professor, or a parent whose livelihood depended on exercising power over others.
Jack obviously didn't fit the mold. In addition to his unconventional appearance, his fingernails were dirty because he spent his spare time working on cars and motorcycles, and his idea of humor was to make rude noises. He was a whiz at armpit farts and he could make a basso profundo foghorn noise that seemed to resonate in his lower intestine.

During the first week of school he showed up looking like a bad imitation of a 1950's beatnik in black jeans and a black T-shirt; so some of the guys started calling him "Dad" (as in Daddy-O, the then-passe beatnik version of Dude).Jack embraced the nickname as a term of endearment.

Another day he showed up  wearing huge, scuffed motorcycle boots that hadn't been fashionable around campus since . . .  ever. One of the rich kids walked by with a bucket full of sarcasm and said,  "Nice boots."
"If you think these are wild," Jack replied, "wait until you see what I'm wearing tomorrow!" The kid was clueless.

After someone commented on his lousy haircut, he said, "My dad cuts it. He has to catch me and tie me to the chair before he does it." And he laughed.

It turned out that trying to insult Jack was futile. He would not accept a snarky remark as an insult.
And to the confusion of the polished round pegs who claimed ownership of the lab school's academically engineered round holes, Jack looked like and acted like a square peg; but  somehow he began to fit without changing who he was - like he was made of Silly Putty ^TM instead of stone.
It wasn't long until kids gave up trying to embarrass him and started calling for a Jack Thorton foghorn to punctuate a bad joke,  seeking his counsel about car problems, and - for a piece of locker room performance art - one of theintellectuals would strike a match to light a Jack Thornton fart.

Within a few weeks Jack had woven himself into the fabric of our class so seamlessly that it seemed like he'd always been there. He was, of course, human. He had frustrations and a few shouting matches and was wounded - as were we all at that age -  by incomprehensible disappointments in adolescent romance.
But he became a role model for some of us who entered our teens feeling the pressure to go against our own nature to be like the popular kids. He made us realize that people can't laugh at you if you are laughing too, and he taught us that we need not be embarrassed by things that are not important or things about ourselves that we can't change. Save your rage for things where it might make a difference.

Make fun of my mother and you've got a fight on your hands. Make fun of my shoes? Well, the fact is, no one cares what kind of shoes you are wearing when you cross the finish line.

Would You Do it for a Million Dollars?

In the early 70's, I was a wet-behind-the-ears news reporter at a Miami TV station, making roughly the same wage as a municipal garbage collector. At the end of one long day, I got a call from the assignment desk telling me to swing by the home of a young girl who had been missing for several weeks. The girl's body had been discovered earlier that day, and ours was the only local station that didn't have film of the grief-stricken parents in the story on its six o'clock news. The producer wanted me to get an interview with parents for the late news. 

Shortly after I'd joined the station, one of my colleagues asked the provocative question: "What would you do for a million dollars?" Answering that question became a regular post-work exercise at the neighborhood bar.  

It usually started with someone's complaint about an awful assignment. For instance, one night a diminutive, minority reporter with a swollen eye got us started by describing what happened when he'd carried out an assignment to stage an abduction on a busy street corner to see if anyone would try to help the victim. They did, forcefully. Then the question arose, for a million dollars, would you do that in a redneck neighborhood? Would you do it in a redneck neighborhood naked? And so it would build. 

But what created the fascination wasn't the bizarre, imaginary task. It was the fantasy that a person could sell out big once - abandon all pride and principle on just one monstrous occasion - then never have to compromise again. This was profound talk for reporters in a town where cannibalism seemed to be the only act everyone could agree was off limits when chasing a news story, and everyone knew they were just one botched assignment away from unemployment. 

To hang onto my job, by age 22 I had already chased a mob enforcer around a parking lot with a camera, climbed onto the roof of a stranger's car in little Havana to film through the window of a factory that assembled "Saturday night special" handguns, driven onto an operating runway at Miami International Airport and ticked off a lot of cops. But I really, really did not want to add knocking on the door of that heartbroken family's house to my resume. 

I suppose if standing on principle were easy, the principles worth standing on wouldn't be so damned narrow and slippery, and the turf underneath wouldn't look so inviting. 

I knew a woman who was asked, during an interview for a consumer reporter job at a big city TV station, if she would have a problem not reporting on the misdeeds of companies that bought advertising on the station. I don't know if she paused to think about it, but I do know that she said, "No problem." She got the job and was subsequently promoted to co-anchor of two of the station's newscasts. I would like to think she still feels an occasional twinge of guilt, but who's to say? She makes a good living. 

On the other hand, a friend of mine - a single mom with two young children - walked away from her job as regional head of a national cable news network after the head office decreed that all stories about a political campaign in her region must begin and end with positive mentions of a specific candidate. She's making less money now, but she says she's happy in her job producing documentaries on issues that she thinks are important.  

There is one other story I want to tell before getting back to my own.  It caught my attention when it came over the AP Wire more than 30 years ago. 

The dispatch began, "Shrimp peelers in Thunderbolt, Georgia, have won an unfair labor practices lawsuit against their employer." The second paragraph reported that the workers had jeopardized their livelihoods to file suit to prevent their employer from forcing them to drop their work and perform a song and dance rendition of The Shrimp Boats Are A'Comin' whenever a tour came through the fish house.  

I remember parking a half-block away from the bereaved family's house in South Miami, just as the sun was starting to set. I stared at the house long enough to give my conscience a chance to quiet down, then I told my cameraman to grab his gear. I reached for the handle on the car door; but for the first time I could remember, my inner cowboy refused to mount up. I could not make myself get out of the car. Instead, I called the assignment editor and told him that the parents of the dead girl didn't want to cry on camera for us, so we were coming back empty. 

But would I have gone to their door for a million dollars?  

As it turns out, that's not the question at all. The odds that anyone who doesn't already have a few million dollars will ever have to make a decision like that are roughly a gazillion to none. But most of us face the prospect of creating a new scrape on our conscience every month, sometimes every day, in exchange for the price of another month of food, clothing, shelter, cell phone, cable TV, high speed Internet, and a few bottles of passable wine. 

In the end, did I win a courageous, if minor, victory on principle? Um, no. What I did was turn weasel and lie. And to my annoyance, and its credit, my hyperactive conscience has never cut me any slack for that.  

On the other hand those Georgia shrimp peelers probably understood exactly what they were risking to preserve their dignity, and they had the courage to lay it on the line for no money at all. 

Power to the peelers.

Dinner at the Desperation Cafe

My experience in the food service business lasted only 9 months. My mother told her friends I was a professional chef. The Pancake House called me a fry cook and paid me 15% less than the minimum wage.  In those days the kitchen was a male domain and the front was run by women, Front and back it was a tough way to make a living. But on its worst night it was nothing like the place my wife and I nicknamed the Desperation Cafe after dining there last week.

The intense competition in the industry makes restaurant owners try hard to distinguish their establishment from others and provide a unique experience. That can be hard on the staff.

Prior to last week, the worst I'd seen was a barbeque joint on SW 102 Ave in Portland where the wait staff was shod in cowboy boots and the manager periodically cranked up Isaac Peyton Sweat on the PA system and the staff had to drop everything and do the Cotton-Eyed Joe.

But neither my wife, Susan, who was once the project manager for a company that created theme restaurants in the midwest, nor I were prepared for our experience in Kent, Washington, at a place I'll call Bobby's.

As we approached front door of the restaurant the hostess practically leapt over the reception counter to jerk the door open it for us, as if she was afraid we might veer off at the last minute. Bobby's was billed as a sports bar with a difference. The difference was that it didn't look like a sports bar, have hot wings on the menu or a selection of beers that compared favorably to the average convenience store.

The wait staff was uniformly young, female and dressed in black outfits that left no doubt that they were young and female.

Our waitress, Hannah, rushed to greet us as we were seated. “Is this your first time at Bobby's?” She asked, bright eyes flashing. Yes, we were just overnighting and catching an early plane out of SeaTac.

“So you've never had our ahi tacos?” She touched us both with her young, beautifully manicured fingers and told us she would was going to put her considerable charms to work on the chef to see if she could convince him to slip us a couple of free ones. She came back a couple of minutes later wearing a worldly smile and reported that she'd been successful. I half-expected to see her straightening her clothing.

Because we were new, she leaned over the table and insisted on giving us a “tour of the menu”. The menu itself was large and unwieldy, but there was a lot of white space and the print was as large as the “E”  on the first row of an eye chart.

Susan ordered salmon with grilled veggies and crispy mashed potatoes. I ordered the featured salad – mixed greens, goat cheese, chicken and savory croutons. Hannah moaned and gushed over our selections until I could almost hear her taste buds writhing in sympathetic anticipation.

The tacos arrived, with two pairs of chopsticks and a vat of what appeared to be wasabi sauce. Not quite sure what to do with the chopsticks, I used one to smeared a little wasabi on the tuna and bit into the taco. Then I dipped a chopstick in the sauce and licked it off. It tasted like Miracle Whip ™.

“Isn't that incredible?” Hannah asked. Yes, incredible.

Hannah went to take care of another table, and we relaxed and admired the place. It had a nice, dimly lit décor, though the multiple TV screens near the bar seemed a little out of place.

After a few seconds a smiling young man with short hair, a white shirt and black tie appeared and stood by our table. He had very good posture. “I understand this is your first visit to Bobby's,” he said. We confessed that the rumors were true. He took some time describing what a joy it was to have us dining with them and how he hoped we would make Bobby's our headquarters whenever we were in town. We smiled and tried to minimize eye contact.

Our food arrived in good time. It was fine, but uniformly bland. I couldn't detect any vinegar in the vinaigrette. The croutons in my salad were the size of small hamsters, so I had to break them up with my fork before they became food. Susan said her salmon was a little dry, the crispy mashed potatoes were plain mashed potatoes stuffed into a thin rice wrap and fried a bit. Her grilled vegetables were rubbery.

Hannah returned. “How is everything, perfect?” We were both chewing, so we nodded and broke eye contact as quickly as possible.

Just as we began to chew more easily, the hostess who had endangered life and limb to open the front door interrupted our conversation to tell us that word had spread that we had never eaten at Bobby's before and she wanted to make sure that we had gotten our complimentary ahi tacos.  She'd ratted out Hannah. But after the hostess left, we talked it over and decided that since Hannah had said she was new at Bobbies, perhaps she really thought that she had to give it up for the chef in order to score appetizers for a couple of virgins.

“Is your salmon exactly right?” Hannah was back and she looked like she really, really needed positive feedback.

It made me want to say, “Relax. You are young and beautiful, you have great smile and dark eyes that reflect the candlelight. Just make eye contact from time-to-time, we'll let you know if we need anything.” But I didn't.

“And everything else is perfect?” She asked.

That was one step too far. I started to feel like we were in a wine press and some ungodly force was pressing down on the staff, trying to squeeze superlatives out of us.

“Hannah, nothing is perfect,” I said. “And that's okay. We just want a place where we can relax and eat and drink. Good – better yet – nice is all we want. Comfortable, not perfect.” Hannah smiled, but she looked a little panicked, and left quickly.

As we were leaving, the hostess rushed past us to open the door and she begged us to come back soon. It felt like she was handing us a to-go bag full of stress.

I tipped somewhere between 15 and 20 percent. I probably should have left more. They were all working hard. Too hard.

But I can't write about wait staff without mentioning a neighborhood pub in St. Louis that was famous for its disinterested servers. The servers were so unintrusive you wondered if they were paying any attention at all, except that somehow someone would appear when you were ready to order, your drinks got refreshed and your food arrived before you started to get restless.

They never offered conversation; and unless you asked, you never learned their names. It was a small, intensely comfortable place in an old neighborhood. Susan and I went there the evening after I'd walked out of a nasty meeting at work and given two-days notice. 

After I'd finished my shepherd's pie and a bottle of Newcastle, and Susan her burger and Chardonnay, she asked me I was going to have dessert. I said, no, we'd better economize since I was going to be out of work.

A few moments later our waiter appeared with a slice of hot apple pie topped with white cheddar. He nodded toward the host at the front of the restaurant who was smiling back at us and said, “If it's okay, Joe and I would like to buy you dessert tonight.”

That was nice.

It's Like Sex . . .

A couple of years ago I led an investigative reporting workshop in Armenia. As is common in that part of the world, most of the class members were women in their twenties, with just a sprinkling of men in their 50's and 60's – veterans of the Soviet days when journalists were well-educated and well-paid, if constrained politically. 

I opened the workshop by saying the premise of investigative reporting is that journalists, armed only with the sword of truth (and the nuclear warhead of inference) can often convince people who are doing bad things to stop doing them by simply revealing their misdeeds to their families, friends and neighbors. Occasionally the law may step in, but most of the time the real power of investigative reporting is the miscreant's own sense of shame.  

As I talked, a fellow named Hamlet (Shakespeare was apparently big in Armenia about 50 years ago) started shaking his head and grumbling half under his breath, “doesn't work here . . . no doesn't work  . . . no.” He might have been griping to himself had he not been griping in English.  

When I asked what he was grumbling about, he grumbled more loudly in Armenian, then English, that he had tried what I was suggesting and nothing happened, and he started to describe some of his stories at length.  

After a couple of minutes of listening, something occurred to me and I said, “Even if you do everything right, you won't always get results. It's like sex, you don't get a baby every time; but if you do it right, you can still enjoy it.” 

Occasionally insight appears in a blinding flash. Some flashes turns out to be nothing more than a flying bucket of dumbass, but I think this was insight.  

Success is a target. If hitting it was easy, winning would be about as thrilling as hunting milk cows with a shotgun. 

A company named US Hole in One writes insurance policies that cover the kind of promotions that offer $1 million prizes to anyone who can sink a half-court shot during halftime at a basketball game, or make a hole-in-one during a golf tournament. The company charges for coverage based on its calculation that the odds of an amateur scoring a hole-in-one are 1 in 12,500. Every golfer who tees off on a short par three anywhere on the planet tries to put his shot in the cup. Has anyone ever quit the game because they are never the 1 in 12,500 who succeeds in holing out? 

I loved every race I ever ran, even through my victories were as rare as kind-hearted mortgage bankers. I even savor the memory of going three rounds in a dorm-basement boxing match with a freshman linebacker named Art “Doggie” Clayton, though I did flinch every time I heard a  bell ring for days afterwards, 

Legendary sportswriter Grantland Rice was right, the whole point of life is how you play the game. The pounding heartbeat, burning muscles,  the exhilaration of discovery, the exquisite pleasure of realizing a moment of perfection in confronting any challenge, physical or intellectual – remain long after the prize money is gone and the faded ribbons and tarnished trophies start to look sad. 

Try as I might, I've never been able to come up with an apt sports metaphor for either investigative reporting, or the totality of life. The problem with calling life a race is that the closer we get to the end, the more we try to put off crossing the finish line.  

So what's the point? Well, it's like sex . . .  

I want to Go Like Elijah

God, would it be too difficult for you to dust off Elijah's flaming chariot and  have it swing by to pick me up when I'm ready? I will call a few hours before I need it. I promise.

According to the Bible, Elijah was able to pick his time, conjure a whirlwind and, thanks to his sweet ride, he didn't have to deal with the messy business of having his mind and body shut down a piece at a time.
For most people who are not Elijah, death is terribly inconsiderate. My father responded to the news that he would die within a couple of weeks by saying, "But I'm not finished yet." He, like I, have the vague notion that people can attain immorality by never getting to the bottom of their to-do list.

When Dad finally made his peace with the idea that death was imminent, he composed a message to his family and gathered us around the hospital bed that the angels from hospice had installed in the family room. He delivered an inspiring message, which started with, "It has been a great ride . . ." and ended with, "but now my time has come to an end." Incredible as it may seem, as those final words left his lips, his breathing became shallow, his eyes slowly closed, and his head fell forward onto his chest. We were transfixed.

A few seconds later, he opened one eye and glanced around. No heavenly host, just the same rag-tag group of kids and giggling grandchildren checking him out. Even my dad, the old professor, couldn't engineer the perfect exit.

Last week my mother followed him Home. Most of her mind and her ability to communicate had left us over the past couple of years and finally her body felt it was time to follow. Hospice helped bring her to my sister's home for the last few days of her life, and family members flew in from all over. Sis put up a table holding old pictures and some of Mom's treasured possessions next to her bed.

Twice over the next few days we gathered around Mom's bed and held hands as she tried to leave us. Her son-in-law, a gifted musician, played her favorite hymns - Rock of Ages, The Old Rugged Cross, Amazing Grace - on an acoustic guitar, and her equally gifted granddaughters sang to her softly and beautifully. We read aloud short pieces of poetry, quotations and Bible verses that Mom had transcribed in her elegant longhand. There were dozens of them on note cards and scraps of paper she had stuck in drawers, books and miscellaneous places where she, and we, would happen upon them from time-to-time.

Twice, Mom's labored breathing calmed and became rhythmic again and her body relaxed as the grandchildren sang, as if she was waiting for an encore. The third time, she succeeded in leaving. By then I was on an airplane, flying back across the country to deal with things that, in time, will seem totally unimportant.

I think Edmund Kean had it backwards when he said, "Dying is easy, comedy is hard." From what I've seen, it can be a terrible struggle to pass through that door.

Though we spend a good portion of our lives in denial, we all know that death will arrive at the time of its choosing, whether we welcome it or put up a fight. Death took my son-in-law's father in an instant as he walked out a store carrying a bottle of wine to have with dinner. His soul was gone before his loved ones could say goodbye. Perhaps the chariot that came for him was running a little ahead of schedule.

If I ever do finish that endless to-do list, it would be nice if God would grant me a graceful, well-timed exit. Though I'm pretty sure I used up my last favor a long time ago.

For all she did for her family and the community, Mom deserved to go like Elijah much more than I ever will. But even if her loved ones couldn't provide a chariot, we are grateful that we had the opportunity to send her on her way with love ... and damn-good traveling music.

Good Times or Good Material?

At my mother-in-law Vina's 90^th birthday party, an old family friend recalled that a little over two decades earlier he and his wife returned to the states for a furlough from teaching in a mission school, and Vina and husband, Art, traveled to Pakistan to fill in for them.

"We swapped houses," the family friend said. "We got a lovely three bedroom-two bath house in Northeast Portland, and they got a bungalow with a spitting cobra under the bed."

Who got the better deal? Show of hands, who would prefer to hear about a nice relaxing year in a middle-class home in Portland?

Fiction writers know that the story doesn't begin until something goes wrong: The new lovable puppy nearly destroys the house, mommy and daddy accidentally leave their 10-year-old behind while they go on vacation, a teenage girl discovers that her boyfriend is a vampire and the hunky guy who has a crush on her turns out to be a werewolf sworn to kill vampires (what are the odds?).

People who play it safe and have stable, uneventful lives may be happy, but I've generally found that they don't have a lot of great stories to tell. A great story has conflict, emotion and often physical danger. People listen instinctively because it teaches survival skills.

I've been lucky enough to have some gloriously bad experiences in my life. I can tell stories about being tear-gassed at a political convention, being dragged out of the Miss Missouri pageant by a hairy-knuckled thug, and - even worse - having Dick Cheney's wife go ballistic at a reception when I referred to President Reagan as "Ron."

During 25 years in TV news, I produced dozens of political debates. Would you rather hear about some of the ones that went off without a hitch or the one that was such a disaster that, when the lights finally went down, I walked out of the control room and collapsed on the restroom floor, praying for the energy to vomit?

My wife and daughter and I had a lovely cross-country car trip a few years ago - lots of wonderful times. So which of the following stories does my daughter tell more often? 1) How we stood in wonder and watched Old Faithful erupt right on schedule or 2) About the time when I was driving through a late-night rainstorm and she asked if I would like to hear more Sting, or perhaps a Beck CD and I shouted back over a thunderclap, "A little silence would be good!"

Last week, I attended a dinner party with a fellow who had recently returned from a trip to Vietnam and Cambodia. He traveled first class, stayed at four-star hotels and could not say enough about the quality of the service provided by the waiters, valets, bell hops and concierges in that part of the world: "Top drawer! First rate!"

Coincidentally, another guest at that party has a daughter who is a young attorney also recently returned from Cambodia. She lived for several months on a meager stipend, stayed in a stifling, insect-friendly apartment, and often had to be accompanied by a body guard while she assisted in the genocide prosecution of members of the Khmer Rouge. Even told second-hand, her stories are riveting. The four-star travelogue? It was a little short on drama.

For those of you who would like to hear more about the stories based on events that were more pleasant at the time, I hope you will have the courtesy to sit at another table at our next dinner party.

As we Boomers start to face up to our mortality, I'm hearing a lot of convoluted ideas about what constitutes a successful life. My idea is simple: The person who goes to the grave with the best material, wins.

I'd like to think that when my time comes, my granddaughter will be sitting by my death bed, begging me to please tell just one more story.

Learning to Squint

This is the first column I've ever written on the subject of "being over 55." It's not a stretch, as I have six years experience in the age range; but as an over-55 boomer living in a world of over-55 boomers, I feel a little like a fish asked to do 750 words on water, or a brontosaurus asked to knock out a short piece on extinction.

Age, of course, is a lot different than how old we are.  A couple of years ago I was conducting a journalism workshop in a town in Armenia where most of the trainees were in their early 20's. During a break I mentioned to my translator that I would soon be 60. She protested that I must be kidding and then brought the class to attention to ask if anyone believed I was that old. The consensus was that I must be exaggerating because I barely even looked 50 years old maybe 45.

To put my age into perspective, the 60-year-olds these kids knew had lived through collapse of the USSR which destroyed their economy, left them surrounded by unfriendly countries, cut off their supplies of  gas and heating oil for three frigid years. During that time the people came close to deforesting Armenia to provide fire wood. Then just when it looked like things couldn't get worse, an earthquake killed tens of thousands of people and destroyed nearly one out of six housing units in the entire nation then assassins invaded the Armenian parliament and killed the Prime Minister and several other reform leaders.

Given the wear and tear the average Armenian sexagenarian has endured, the average American 60-year-old is a low-mileage model in like-new condition.

But none of us is totally immune to the decay that comes with each passing year. A couple of decades ago I attended the 50th birthday party of a TV news anchor I worked with. As a career journalist I knew full well that, contrary to popular belief, there are such things as stupid questions, so I swung for the fence and asked him, "How does it feel to turn 50?"

He locked his thoughtful gaze on me, leaned so close that I could feel the pull of his gravitas, and he said, "You don't turn fifty. Fifty grabs you by the ears, kicks you in the groin and throws you on the ground."

I know people my age who are wizened husks who haven't had an original thought in decades, while others, just as old chronologically are still out running marathons and shifting paradigms. This weekend I visited a 66-year-old friend who is leaving the security of a senior position with a billion dollar foundation in Chicago to open a new business. A 70-year-old friend of my wife's here on San Juan Island announced recently that she was selling her house and moving to the mainland because she had "done every unmarried guy on the island" and wanted a larger pool of social partners.

I put myself somewhere in the middle of the age versus aging scale. Sometimes I feel like I'm still a kid and sometimes I'm ready to believe that every time I have a sore joint or aching back,  it's destined to be with me for the rest of my life. Later, when it dawns on me that the pain has gone away, I go out and jog a little, shoot a few baskets, then check the mirror to make sure my youthful spirit isn't being followed around by an old man's butt. I find it helps if you squint.

Ask a fish what he thinks about water and it would probably say, "It's freakin' water, what's to think about?"
 Ask me what it's like being over 55 years old and I'd have to say, "It's just freakin' like yesterday and the day before and the day before that, all the way back to when I was eighteen and couldn't muster the courage to ask Gina Bilyeu to go to the prom until it was too late."

When she told me she had just, moments earlier, agreed to go with someone else, it dawned on me that I would never, ever in this life have another opportunity to ask her to go to a prom with me. That was the day when I started to understand the nature not of growing older but of growing old.