My wife is lovely. Next subject. She goes to the farmer’s market every Saturday morning after breakfast. This morning, after breakfast, she asked, “Are you going to the market?” For rookie husbands, this is not a question. “Of course”, I say. “Right after I do the dishes.” This is a sign of experienced husbanding. I know that what she is really asking is; “when are you going to the market?” Also unstated, is the declaration that she is staying home to rest her sore knee, and since she is not going to the market, I should go to the market since our family must be represented in supporting our local farmers. The, “after I do the dishes”, comment demonstrates my experience in not only understanding that no question was asked, but that I deserve brownie points for doing the dishes as well. You can see how I am setting myself up for success.

My lovely wife is about to have knee surgery. In preparation for the surgery, she was prescribed physical therapy to strengthen the muscles in her leg. Sounds like sound medical advice, I thought without understanding the consequences that her physical therapy would have for me. After her third or fourth visit, she was eager to share with me that despite her daily walks of two+ miles each morning, she had extremely weak glutes. She proceeded to demonstrate her newly prescribed glute exercise which consists of lying face-down on the floor and then slowly raising one leg off the ground without bending the knee. Even though this reminded me a little of a sleek steelhead flopping on a river bank, I could see that this was a bit of a challenge. Raising one’s leg off the floor, beginning with the hip joint, while keeping the leg straight seemed like it shouldn’t be quite so hard. Lift, relax, lift, relax, lift, etc for ten repetitions with the left leg and then lift, relax, lift, relax, etc for ten repetitions with the right leg. I’m pretty sure I didn’t chuckle or laugh at this point, but my mild amusement must have carried through the ether as she rolled over onto her back and said, “Ok. Now you try it.” Always up for a challenge, I slowly creaked my old body down to the floor and proceeded to lift my left leg. “No”, she exclaimed. “You are bending your knee. Keep your leg straight.” I tried again, concentrating on lifting my leg without any knee bending. “You’re rolling onto your right side. You must only use your glutes to raise your leg. Keep your body straight!”, she ordered. Right away I could see that my agreeing to attempt this was not a good move on my part. I struggled to lift my left leg and got it about 1/2 inch off the floor. “Good”, the drill sargeant commanded. “Now, 9 more reps and then do your right leg.” “Right”, I say. “Now that my technique is perfect, I think I will have a glass of wine and maybe practice tomorrow.” “Wimp”, she said. And so, to save face and avoid further ridicule, I completed the assigned task. The next morning, as I was walking our dog, Cyrus, my butt felt like it was permanently cramped. Every step was agony. I didn’t know how I could have butt muscles that have never been used, but apparently I have them. I thought, as I continued to walk painfully down the hill, that wagu beef is so tender, because those cattle have never really exercised. I thought, if I were to meet up with cannibals, my butt would be highly prized.

I much prefer to write about the silly, inane, comical mishaps and missteps of life, like attacking acorns, or the dog eating my ballot, or the joys of husbanding; but today my head and my heart are filled with such a deep sadness over the pervasive hatred of one people against another, that I find it necessary for my own mental/emotional health to put on paper what I am feeling. What is the end game for this war of terror between Israel and Palestine? How can peace possibly be achieved from the slaughter of children? The interview of the 57 year old Palestinian grandmother who angrily declared that it was perfectly alright to kill Jewish children so that they did not grow up to kill Palestinian children shocked me, saddened me, and angered me. How could any grandparent feel this way? How can such vile hatred be felt and expressed?

The reactions around the world generating hate crimes toward Jews and Palestinians alike are sickening. Some blame it on religion, yet the God of Abraham is the same for Muslim, Jew, Christian, Baha’i, Samaritanism, Druze, and Rastafari. Some blame it on Great Britain who controlled the Palestinian mandate until it was divided by the UN into Jewish and Arab states in 1948. Some blame the UN. Some blame the Romans for their massacre of Jews in 73 CE and the subsequent siege of Masada. Some blame the Nazis for the holocaust and their attempt to exterminate the Jews. Some blame the Jewish state for their disproportional response to Palestinian terrorist attacks. Some blame Hamas for their campaign of terror. The blame. The shame. The violence is circular. Who wins?

Why would Hamas attack Israel in such a savage way, knowing how Israel would respond? The Hamas attack was carefully planned for months and the savagery was intentional. What would such a brutal attack accomplish? Was it to shore up support from Palestinian citizens to show that the mass investment in weapons and tunnels was worth the sacrifice of the people? Assets that could have gone to building homes, businesses, and schools? Was it to deter Saudi Arabia from normalizing relations with Israel, which might further isolate Gaza from the rest of the Muslim world? What is their end game?

Author’s Notes

In 2017, a friend suggested I read Margaret Atwood’s, “The Hand Maid’s Tale”.  The story is a dystopian world where women are enslaved in a country dominated and controlled by religious fundamentalists who are intolerant of any dissent.  Atwood doesn’t describe how this society developed, but it made me wonder how such a situation may come to be.  The story caused me to reflect on America’s current circumstances, history, and cultural development. 

For example, New England was founded by Puritans exiled from England.  They emphasized education, local political control, and the pursuit of the greater good of the community which often required self-denial.  Or, the mid-Atlantic with a focus on global commercial trading while incorporating a multi-ethnic, multi-religious, materialistic, and mercantile emphasis with a profound tolerance of diversity and an unflinching commitment to the freedom of inquiry.  Or, Middle America founded by English Quakers who welcomed people of many nations and creeds to their utopian colonies.  They were pluralistic and organized around the middle class with moderate and often apathetic political opinions.  Or, Virginia and North Carolina which are fundamentally conservative with a high value placed on respect for authority and tradition and very little on equality or public participation in politics.  Or, Greater Appalachia, founded by wave upon wave of settlers from Northern Ireland, northern England and Scotland who were intensely suspicious of aristocrats and social reformers; stubbornly locked into tradition, and evangelical fundamentalism.  Or, the deep South founded by slave lords from Barbados and the West Indies who created a bastion of white supremacy and aristocratic privilege where democracy was the right and privilege of the few and enslavement the natural lot of many.  Or, the states bordering Mexico, where Hispanic language, culture and societal norms dominate.  Or, the Left Coast, which combined Yankee faith in good government and social reform with a commitment to individual self-exploration and discovery.  Or, the mountain West, colonized by ruggedly independent people that tend to revile the federal government for interfering in its affairs, while demanding it continue to receive federal largess.

Each region so unique.  So different.  Yet united under a common constitution and a common flag.  At the same time, the political boundaries of each region seemed to harden over time, fueled by a 24-hour “news” cycle designed to provoke outrage in order to magnify viewership and therefore advertising revenue.  Perhaps radio first created the angry opinion as news reporting with inflammatory commentators, but television quickly recognized the profitability of rhetoric tailored to each subset of regional culture.  And so, the divisions within the nation have become wider.  Long before Marjorie Taylor Greene called for dissolution of the United States, America was unraveling, fueled by the widening chasm of income disparity, drug use, closure of mental health institutions, lack of respect and funding for education, the secularization of western society, and lack of accessibility to adequate affordable healthcare.

These trends, drove my research and interest in writing the novel, Dissolution.  I reread the Constitution, over and over and over.  I studied the European Charter of Local Self Government.  Could it be time for the U.S. to consider a major reimagining?  Could there be a better way for America to organize and govern itself?  Could MAGA nation be the force that drives America apart? 

I began voraciously reading editorial columns of both liberal and conservative writers; clipping and filing columns from newspapers.  I read Deaths of Despair, by Case and Deaton, On Tyranny, by Timothy Snyder, Dark Mirror, by Gellman, Atlas Shrugged, by Ayn Rand, reread The Third Wave, by Toffler, and Hot Flat and Crowded, by Friedman, The Next Civil War, by Marche, Collapse, by Diamond, People’s Republic of Walmart, by Phillips and Rozworski, and Shadowland, by Horn.  I spent hours diving into the dark recesses of the internet to try to understand the whole QAnon movement.  First to Reddit bulletin boards which led to 4Chan and 8Chan.  They, in turn, led to other sites that were incredibly disturbing.  This dark underbelly of American culture was so filled with violent rhetoric and racial hatred, that I was totally appalled and began to understand that there are significant numbers of people with weapon caches that are simply waiting for a general to rise up and lead them in an assault on American democracy, while incoherently (at least to me) screaming God Bless America.  So-called patriots ready to destroy the country they profess to be fighting for, militias actively practicing their drills while digging caverns and stockpiling food and supplies for the war they expect to come.

So, I began to write.  I wanted to tell a story of America divided by a disparity of wealth, health and education as a warning of what our future might be like if the forces of religious hatred were to rise unrestrained.  I envisioned Congress desperately seeking a solution to avoid civil war by dividing the country into its historical cultural regions and drafting a new Charter For America.  To dramatize this potentiality, I created two families whose lives are entwined over many decades.  Raymond Thomas, born poor, rises with the help of a self-made scion of industry, to create a dynasty of family and business that generates enormous wealth and power.

And the Randall family of solid working-class stock who are proud mill workers whose generations decline as timber resources are diminished and millwork is automated.  I follow them through World War I, World War II, and the Vietnam war.

I compare and contrast the Thomas lives of privilege with the Randall’s lives of struggle through marriage, education, and the twin drivers of opioid use; pain and despair.  The book is purposely dystopian; a possible prelude to The Hand Maid’s Tale. 

Dissolution tells the story of just one province; but life in the province of Ameriwest isn’t so perfect either as will be told in the sequel.  The intolerance of “Woke” culture, warming acidifying oceans, the desperate ocean mining for rare minerals to power the electrification of the world’s power grid, and other delicately “spinning plates” create a balancing act upon which the future of humanity may lie.  Perhaps there is an economic/social model that makes sense in this rapidly changing world of the future.  Who knows?

I’ve never had a high degree of social skills or sense.  But even so, I can imagine that it is bad form to write about one’s wife’s boobs.  But nevertheless, I have found the notion of bra fittings to be somewhat amusing.  My late wife, Linda, (it’s somehow less threatening to discuss my late wife’s boobs) her sister, Kathy, and I (why I was included in this I can’t remember; perhaps it’s because I had never been in a Victoria’s Secret store before) went bra shopping for Linda.  I remember feeling a little embarrassed by being the only guy in Victoria’s Secret, but I was also intrigued by all the options.  I had no idea how challenging it was to get a bra that fit, that’s why they employ professional bra fitters.  It occurred to me that line of work might be more enjoyable than what I was currently doing and that I might possibly be quite talented in that particular area.

But before my imagination could explore this line of thinking further, it was time for Linda’s appointment.  She and her sister went with the professional fitter into a little room.  I started to follow and was politely encouraged to wait outside.  That seemed quite unnecessary to me.  After all, I was fully acquainted with those particular body parts, but I suppose there wasn’t really room for four people in that little fitting room.  So, I amused myself with all the lacy things surrounding me.  Suddenly there was laughter coming out of the fitting room.  Kathy was laughing, Linda was giggling, and even the professional chuckled a bit.  Now I was very curious and thought that surely there was enough room for four of us, but I’ve also gotten the “eye” before, and the “eye” can be quite frightening, so I remained among the lace.

Linda had six sisters.  None of the sisters were particularly busty, but if you lined all of the sisters up by bra size, Linda would always be on the short end of the line.  It is fair to say she would never pass the “pencil test”.  How do I know about the pencil test, you ask?  Because my current wife, Virginia, recently had a bra fitting and even though I wasn’t invited, she explained the pencil test to me.  There is so much to learn, even at age 74.  Out of extreme fear for my own personal safety, I think that is all I can say about that.

“Men are terrible searchers. All men are just the same. The bacon is right here.”

“Where did you find it?”, I say.

“In the meat drawer, where it always is”, she says.

“I looked in the meat drawer. I didn’t see it”, I say.

“All men are just the same.”

I scratch my head, incredulous that the bacon was in the meat drawer. I’m sure it must have been hidden someplace else. “Your comments are sexist”, I say. “I thought you just finished taking a class in sexism and gender identity stuff. You should be more inclusive”, I say.

“I’m being very inclusive,” she replies. “I said, ‘All men are just the same.’ You are all included”, she says.

“You are perpetuating gender myths”, I say.

“It’s not a myth if it’s true”, she says.

There is no chance to win this argument. Men are a disadvantaged minority. Perhaps, all men are just the same.

When I was about six years old, I was sitting on the top step of our back porch with my right arm around Susie.  Susie was a wise old collie and was quite content to just sit with me and listen to my silent musings.  I mused a lot for a six-year-old boy.  It was summertime and the sun was warm upon my face.  At this particular moment I was thinking about the world and wondering if it was real.  What if it were all an illusion?  What if life as I experienced it was really just a dream that one day I would awaken from?  How was I to know that what I saw, touched, and experienced was real or imagined?  It was a dilemma.  How could I truly know?  I asked Susie.  She licked my face.  Her tongue was warm and slightly sticky.  That certainly felt real, I thought. 

What if God created this imaginary environment to test me?  What if life as I experienced it was just some kind of cosmic test?  Would it affect how I behaved?  Would I still fight with my brother?  He was older, bigger, stronger, and always bested me, but there were moments when I felt I had to fight.  Would I choose to fight if I knew this life was a test?  Or would I choose another path?  All of these thoughts whirled in my brain, and occasionally as I aged, I would hit “replay”, and the little boy thinking about God and life would come rushing back. 

Sometimes when life has been hard, I wonder if it is all an illusion.  If so, it is tolerable because the pain isn’t real.  Or maybe the pain is real, and somewhere in the pain there is an undiscovered solution.  What is the lesson?  Perhaps truth comes out of pain.  Can you live life as a mystic and experience truth?  I wonder.  I haven’t progressed much since age six.  I still am in a state of wonder.

The snow sparkles in the early morning sun.  The world is hushed under a comforter of white crystals.  The tops of branches glow in the sun, while their undersides shiver in the dark.  All is quiet but for the whir of a hummingbird darting to the feeder hanging from the eave outside our window.  Gratefully she bows before accelerating into the oaken forest.  The dogs are curled up next to their humans.  They’ve dashed through the snow, greedily eaten a delicious breakfast of the same brown nuggets they get every day, and now, sated, curl next to a warm body on the sofa.  There is peace in the world.  Perhaps not everywhere.  Perhaps not all the time.  But now, in this moment, in this place, the tiny world that surrounds me is at peace.

Volume 2: Episode 3

Being a husband isn’t just about being a good spouse.  No, there are many other aspects of husbandry that are crucial to success.  Housekeeping, dishwashing, handyman stuff, dog training and more.  The housekeeping thing I am notoriously bad at.  I can live in a mess and I do.  It would be helpful if I inserted a photo of my home office at this point.  It is nearly identical to my office when I was gainfully employed.  There are papers strewn everywhere.  Photographs are lying flat, scattered across a dresser because whenever I close a drawer, one or more falls over.  And yet, I choose not to move them or remove them because each is important to me.  It may not appear so to the casual viewer since they have nearly all collapsed into a heap, but never-the-less, they are important, and must be there even if they aren’t properly displayed.  Photos of my kids and grandkids and wives.  All whom I adore.

But what inspired this chapter of Husbandry is my complete failure at dog training.  My dogs are my companions.  That’s it.  We hang out together.  I have two dogs.  A big one named Max and a small one named Cyrus.  They are self-taught.  Neither my lovely wife nor myself have spent more than ten minutes training our dogs and as a result they are happy-go-lucky, do-as-they-please animals.  They can both ‘sit’ on command if they are offered a treat.  And they will both happily go into their crates when we go somewhere; again, if they are offered a treat.  But other than that, they are totally untrained.

That means that when my wife and I are gone, our dogs are crated because their behavior is less than perfect when we are out of sight.  Max is a natural hunter.  Or, more accurately forager.  He is nearly deaf at this late stage of his life, but his nose is still very skilled at locating food sources.  Butter, if left on the kitchen counter, is fair prey for this ferocious forager.  Anything resembling food, or what maybe used to be food, but is now a waste product destined for the landfill, is fair game for Max.  And Cyrus is very content to follow Max’s lead since he is too short to get to a table top or kitchen counter.  He depends on Max to drag food off the counter to the floor where the two of them can share it.  So, when we leave the house, our dogs cheerfully get into their crates because they know they will receive a treat.

As I age, it seems I spend more time in the bathroom than I used to.  I don’t know why this is true, but it is.  I can complete the Sudoku puzzle, both crossword puzzles, and study the bridge column from the morning’s paper while I am in the bathroom, which gives the dogs a significant amount of time to exhibit bad behavior.  Cyrus is content to rip up his toys and leave a fibrous mess all over the living room.  But lately, Max has developed a taste for paper.  He recently devoured a novel that was left on the hearth.  But last week he demonstrated his new found political bias by eating my ballot.  I was planning on voting for all three measures on the ballot but Max was apparently opposed to them and proceeded to try to prevent me from voting.

To get a new ballot I had to call the County Clerk’s office.  They wanted to know why I needed a new ballot.  Apparently, they aren’t very receptive to mailing out multiple ballots to citizens.  They have a rule:  one ballot per legal voter.  So, I had to explain to them that I needed a new ballot because my dog ate the original.  When the Clerk stopped laughing, she finally agreed to send me a new one.  So, too bad Max; you can’t steal my vote.