60 on 60

 

It came.

When our 60th high school reunion was cancelled because of the pandemic, they put together a booklet with write-ups which included things we might have said had we met in person. We graduated in 1960.

We grew up in Reading, MA in an almost "Leave it to Beaver" community. Women didn't work outside the home (I had one teacher claim if they did, the children would be delinquents--my mother worked, I wasn't a delinquent), poverty was minimal. Divorce was rare.

There were football games, church groups, Rainbow, DeMolay, dances. We dated, broke up, took SATS, felt unpopular, felt popular, went ice skating on ponds. We had study halls, detention, did homework--in other words did the things that kids do in a middle class environment.

A majority of my classmates went to university. Those that didn't, developed trades and did well. 

The world changed. Somethings were better, some not.

One of the things that amazed me was the number of my classmates that had long marriages. As a class we didn't match the national divorce statistics.

Some stayed in Reading or New England. Others drifted across the country. Only myself and a boy I went to a dance with left the U.S. permanently. He's in Australia.

We lost only one classmate in Vietnam. His body wasn't found until the 1994 www.virtualwall.org/dh/HoltRA01a.htm. That was one too many.

In the booklet, we made comments about grandchildren, pets, hobbies, the pandemic, savoring life and having time to do what we really enjoy now. We deal with illnesses, grateful we still can do things we want to do. 

A lot of work went into the booklet. The editor was my literary co-editor of the yearbook. 

Probably we won't have another reunion. If we don't, it was a pleasure looking at 60 on 60. 

A Serial Killer

Carol Dixon does not fit the profile of the average serial killer. She takes great pleasure in planning her kills in Russia, Scotland, England and the United States.

Nor does she fit the profile of a hit man or woman. She's independent wealthy.

It's no wonder that Annie Young has trouble trying to help an old school friend whose husband was one of Carol's victims. https://encirclepub.com/product/murder-in-edinburgh/ Also available in Kindle on Amazon https://www.amazon.com/Murder-Edinburgh-Third-Culture-Mystery-Book-ebook/ and other e-book sellers.

Losing people

 

"I'm sorry I don't know any Jimmy Boudreau," my mother said to the voice on the telephone.

I don't know what my father answered, but she quickly remembered Jimmy Boudreau was her ex-husband and father of her two children. It was also someone she had thought about very, very little for many years. To her dying day, my mother swore that she wasn't playing a game.

I often think how it is we can be so close to someone, be it a spouse, but a friend, partner, co-worker, roommate. We share hopes, dreams, ideas, good stuff, bad stuff sometimes on a daily basis. Then it can disappear.

Sometimes it disappears in a huge blow up that may or may not make sense at the time or even now years or decades later. That can leave scars and sadness.

Sometimes tiny little hurts, intentional or unintentional cut away at the fabric of the friendship until there's nothing left.

Other times, that person can drift away as life happens without hurt or trauma.

No matter how it happens, it is a loss.

Tech dream/nightmare

 I have a dream.

A tech dream.

I want to go one day where everything works. All day.

Each day something goes wrong with one or more of the following: wifi, the landline, TV, the mobile, bank, etc. Some days the dishwasher and washing machine contribute to a glitch, although less frequently. Even my iron has gotten into the act by deciding to steam when it feels like it regardless of setting.

I even had a Nikon camera that only worked 10 days before the shutter jammed forever.

Most of our appliances are relatively new.

As for the wifi, it is rumored we will get fiber July 7th, which would mean we could have two or more connections on at the same time rather than check to make sure the other computers and mobiles are off when one of us needs to be on.

I don't think I want to go back to the old days when as a child, I picked up the phone and I could tell the operator, whom I knew, the number I wanted. Then again, it always worked.

I love the idea of what technology is capable of doing it. If only it would do it. Every day.

Critical Race Theory

 

                                                 Cartoon from the Duluth News Tribune

Some parents do not want Critical Race Theory (CRT) to be taught. They claim it is anti-American, Marxist and teaches hate.

I doubt if any of those objectors could give me a line-by-line comparison how CRT is Marxist or even what the two subjects are in any depth.

If teaching the negative things that really happened in the U.S. is anti-American, they may have a point. I suspect that they only want the nice parts to be taught to their kids. And although they are many nice parts, there are many bad, horrible things the U.S. did over the centuries. Not teaching them, doesn't mean that they didn't happen and the fall-out can affect their lives today and tomorrow.

And it does deal with hate and the bad things hate leads to. I don't see how learning about hate leading to destruction of lives, is a negative. It strikes me as a role model for what not to do. 

CRT is about a lot more than hate. It is about a reality that existed.

Kids today are tomorrow voters. Having them grow up ignorant of their country's past good, bad and in between actions will mean they will be less apt to be manipulated by powers that do not have their interests only their own.

 

False Pride

 

 

Texas doesn't want the reasons for the new Federal Holiday Juneteeth to be taught in schools, saying it goes against Texas Values, which I suspect they mean white supremacy. I'm not sure how much kids pay attention to the reason behind patriotic holidays, but it is a chance to expose them to history. Good history only.

Unfortunately kids are never taught bad history, the things the U.S. did wrong and shouldn't be repeated. That's why people freak when a football player kneels at the National Anthem to point out injustice. That's why they support war when the U.S. is the aggressor. Or they never recognize the part the U.S. has had in the immigrants at the southern border. They have been exposed to partial lies/partial truths.

They just don't know the whole story.

It's like the wife who thinks she has the perfect marriage while her husband is banging his secretary or secretaries.

Pride in things done well should be celebrated. But pride that ignores things that need to be corrected or even admitted as not being right, is false pride, is ignorance and/or even delusion. It can lead to wars for soldiers to die for a fake cause. 

False pride in a country, any country, is dangerous.

Homeowner's associations

Facebook had a posting by a man who had to destroy the tree house that he built for his kids because it was against the Homeowner's Association Rules. The photo is not of that tree house.

The reaction was two fold.

• One, he agreed to the rules when he moved in. (true)
  
• Two, refusal to ever consider living in a place with a homeowners association.

My husband pointed out where he lived in Texas you could have a trampoline, but there were limits on pole height and color.

I'm of the second school. I wonder if people living within the HOA happily wore masks instead of shouting about taking away their freedoms. Not being able to select a trampoline pole color certainly isn't freedom.

We are barraged with messages on what to buy, what to think. In school we are told to obey or it will go in our permanent record. We get jobs and have to wear certain clothes, time our lives around working areas.

Years ago I had an IBM typewriter. Our repair man followed all of IBM's strict clothing requirements. However, they said nothing about shoes, so along with his suit, white shirt and tie, he wore sandals. He claimed it kept him an individual.

Over the years, I played the rules game where I had to. I drew the line on playing it with my home.  There are reasonable rules in life related to safety and health. Not allowing a fire that catches a neighbor's home might be one of them. Or wearing a mask to help stop the spread of a disease that has killed over 500,000 people in the U.S. could be another. Driving rules a third. 

Consideration of others could be guidelines not rules for living within a community.

The color and height of poles for trampoline? I don't think so.These are soul stealing and creativity stopping.

Homeowner's Associations in gated communities with MCMansions are an upgrade of Pete's Seeger's "Little Boxes" song.

Little boxes on the hillside,
Little boxes made of ticky tacky
Little boxes on the hillside,
Little boxes all the same,
There's a green one and a pink one
And a blue on and a yellow one
And they're all made out of ticky tacky
And they all look the same.

And the people in the houses
All went to the university
Where they were but in boxes
And they came out all the same
And there's doctors and lawyers
And business executives
And they're all made out of ticky tacky
And they all look just the same.

And they all play on the golf course
And drink their martinis dry
And they all have pretty children
And the children go to school,
And the children go to summer camp
And then to the university
Where they are put in boxes
And they come out all the same.

And the boys go into business
And marry and raise a family
In boxes made of ticky tacky
And they all look just the same,
There's a green one and a pink one
And a blue one and a yellow one
And they're all made out of ticky tacky
And they all look just the same.

All the same...Yuck!

Masks

 

 

The mask is no longer required on the streets of France. It seems so strange to be without it. I had the medical masks, fashion masks, even a mask with my dog Sherlock on it.

No it didn't take away my freedom. It kept me safe as well as meeting my responsibilities not to endanger others in case, unbeknownst to me, I was carrier.

That the mask was turned into something political, even causing violence, made me wonder if the human species had to many insane members.

Mostly the mask made my nose itch. I wonder how surgeons go hours and hours with masks.

I thought I'd look for mask quotes. 

“Something happens to people when they’re masked. They become too free, uncivilized. They may do anything.” ― Alexandra Ripley

"Do they love you or the mask you put on every day?” ― Shimika Bowers

“If you want people to love you for who you are, take the mask off.” ― Quetzal

“Love has a powerful way of removing the mask we all insist on wearing.” ― Jessy

“Ironically, when we own the shadow aspects of our self and put down our masks – this is when we become truly lovable.” ― Jane Monica-Jones 

“We have always been wearing masks its just that it has become mandatory when one’s own life is threatened.” ― Amit Abraham

“Man is least himself when he talks in his own person. Give him a mask, and he will tell you the truth.” ― Oscar Wilde

“They say truth is hidden behind their masks, but I believe Truth comes out when they are masked!” ― Twinkle

“Give a man a mask, and he’ll tell you deeper and darker truths. But he’ll also be more abusive, unaccountable, and demonic.” ― Cory Duchesne

“What I wear on and off stage is my mask. You see, a mask doesn’t hide you, it exposes you.” ― Nuno Roque

“In a mask, we are faceless and classless, ageless and anonymous. Masks reveal the primal urge to behave like the beast in rut that leaps on the stranger or waits in the penumbra to be leapt upon.” ― Chloe Thurlow

“Masks reveal the shape of your soul and the state of the world and, in today’s world, everyone wears a mask.” ― Chloe Thurlow

“Masks reveal. They don’t conceal. Masks reveal your cravings, your passion, your deepest most secret desires.” ― Chloe Thurlow

“The mask in which you choose to disguise yourself uncovers who you subconsciously are or want to be. Masks reveal in the eyes the face that lies hidden as if the mask is a dark glass mirroring your soul.” ― Chloe Thurlow

“No one reveals himself as he is; we all wear a mask and play a role.” ― Arthur Schopenhauer

“Modern man has too many masks to wear. We must unmask and be ourselves, sincerely, earnestly and live truly as we are.” ― Gyomay M. Kubose

Dreams

 

Rick brought back a scrapbook from his daughter's home in Texas. It contained newspaper clippings of his early golf days. In one he was said to be among the best 150 junior golfers world wide. 

He selected his university around golf and he dreamed of being a pro. 

Life happened. He married and settled into the ordinary American life of building a career to have money to acquire things that you are suppose to want or because the neighbors want. He even wanted some of them himself, but it didn't have to be an either/or.  

More than once he expressed that he wished he had least tried to become a pro golfer. If he had failed, at least he would know if he could have done it.

As for his career, he was/is successful within his industry. In his retirement years, he has been able to go back to golf, hickory golf, continuing his earlier passion. A good thing he didn't die before returning to his first love.

From a young age I dreamed of being a writer and living in Europe. I thought I was on my way my ex-husband was assigned to an Army band in Stuttgart. His tour ended and I found myself stuck back in my hometown.

As a child I thought you had to get married, got your hair short, have a station wagon to drive your kids around and have a white washer and dryer. And in my family vote Republican and like Ike. Buy a house, have two cars, the American dream. For me it seemed like a bad dream.

My writing with a few jigs and jags was more corporate until my 40s when I started writing fiction. The corporate years weren't totally wasted. Corporate helped me give my daughter a start in life. Some of it was fun. But I think of the hundreds of thousands of hours when it was filled with various stupidities of others, of subjecting myself to things I didn't want to do even if I did them well. I will never get that time back. 

I did become a writer www.dlnelsonwriter.com. I continue to write. Because of my corporate skills, I was able to move to Europe. I will always wonder if I could have been a better writer had I not gone corporate. There are no instant replays.

I meet so many adults who say, "I wanted to be a (fill in the blank) but..."

I find that so, so sad. 

We have one life. We also need to make money to live. But what price are willing to pay to have the things society tell us we should have? 

Differences

 

This is not about good or bad habits. Just different. And some people may decide I'm unhinged at worse, OCD at best.

My husband Rick was away for 10 days. He's back today.  I've really, really missed him.

The trash can above comes to my thigh. When he is here it needs to be emptied regularly for the trashman who comes 3x a week. Since he's been gone, I've not filled it once in 10 days. 

This is the can where we keep glass. Normally it fills quickly. We need to take glass around the corner to recycle. There's no pick up. This is what I've collected in 10 days.

Switzerland has spoiled us for chocolate. We call it a salad because it's made from plants and magnesium that's in it is good for us. We only want black and high quality. There's almost always a bar open that we will break off a piece. This bar I opened the day after he left. I have no idea how many bars we'd have gone through together.

My method of eating chocolate is once of twice a day the size of my thumbnail. I put it on the roof of my mouth and let it slooooooooowly melt. Heaven. The pleasure is the same or even better than if I devoured the bar in one of two sittings. And although I have a horror of being fat, this method has nothing to do with calories and everything to do with the intensity of the pleasure.

As I said there is no right or wrong, but I'm amused at the differences. We adjust to one another.

 

 

 

 

Mass shootings

 

                             This map doesn't include this weekend's shootings*

The news said today there were 270 mass shootings for far this year in the United States. Six just this past weekend.

Two were in Texas, one in Dallas where my husband was visiting his daughter, son-in-law, granddaughter and grandson.

I didn't want him to go to Texas because of the guns and gun nuts. The other shootings were in Chicago and Savannah.

I so wanted him to see his family who lives there.

I was in the kitchen when I heard the TV say one of the shootings was in Dallas. I literally stopped breathing for a second. It is the same thing that when their was a crash at Logan airport, friends in different part of the world called to make sure I wasn't flying that day. 

After this he goes to Orlando, FL which just has recognized the fifth anniversary of the mass shooting in a nightclub.

I asked him to call the place where the conference he will attend to ask about their security. However just because there's security, it doesn't mean some unhappy employee won't decide to make headlines with an AR-15. 

Yes, I know statistically more people have NOT been shot than shot. Some of the shootings are family issue related. Yet there are still too many that are the result of random violence. And innocent people including children get caught in the crossfire.

Before I left the states, two people I know were murdered.

One was in Lexington. Kathleen Dempsey was stabbed in her home. She called 911. The police thinking it was joke didn't respond. She could have been saved had an ambulance come in time. https://www.mass.gov/info-details/kathleen-dempsey

The other was Sharon Galligan https://www.masslive.com/opinion/2012/12/murders_mix_with_yuletide_chee.html, the brilliant daughter of a co-worker. Her body was stuffed into her car, her feet on the headrest and no one thinking it odd enough to call the police.

Both those murders came too close to home. But that was one-on-one, not a mass murder. 

I almost wish I hadn't asked him to buy me grits and Constant Comment. I didn't want him anywhere there are guns at fingertips. However, he bought both and got out alive.

A civilized country does not have mass shootings on a regular basis.  

*Map from the New York Times.

 

Dream

 

Please don't psychoanalyze this dream.   

I wanted to talk to this man (unknown). He wanted to talk to me.

The only way we could communicate was taking words written on shiny white cardboard from this type of burlap bag. Every word in the English language was included as well as many copies of commonly used words such as verbs is, was, had etc. 

I woke before either of us had expressed ourselves. It was a natural awakening. The dog decided to straddle me, his get-out-of-bed-I-want-to-go-out message. He didn't need any of the words from the bag.

Writing husband YES!

 

The drive from Geneva to Argelès takes between 6 and 8 hours depending on stops, meals and sightseeing.

We listen to music, I nap and we chat on all kinds of subjects. One of the topics today was a problem I was having with Anatomy of a Novel: Lexington and Concord, the working title.

"I was able to do a show/tell combination with Lt. Col. Alexander Leslie, reporting his failure to find the missing cannons on his mission to Salem. James, was witness to Leslie's report so he could report the scene in real time."

My husband, is always quick to encourage, but he is also quick to point out what needs to be better too. He needed more information. "So what's the problem?"

"I need the story to cover February to the April battle in Lexington and Concord. I suppose rather than deal with the history, I could build on his interest in either Molly Clark or Annie Brewster, but I don't want to make the novel look too much like a romance."

We were having the discussion on a beautiful sunny day and were making good time on the French autoroute. At Grenoble we came to a tunnel that ran thought a mountain. We stopped talking as my husband executed the tunnel.

Emerging on the other side, it was pouring rain. Only when it let up did we renew the discussion.

"Did James go to Lexington, prior to the battle?" he asked.

I had James doing some spying in Boston earlier in the novel, I told him. "He accompanied General Cage on trips to Salem and communities surrounding Boston, but never to Lexington."

We then started playing with possibilities. Why not? James is a a fictional character. As long as the history is correct, James can do whatever I want him to do. That is the fun in writing. I can bend the characters to my will as long as it rings true.

1. James could stop at the Wayside Inn. Since being back in Argelès, I've checked to see if that was the name of the Inn in 1775. It was probably Howe's Inn. I sent an email to the foundation for the inn asking for the name in February 1775. 

2. By having James stop at the Inn, it would also deepen the relationship between the modern part of the novel and the historic.

3. I could have Dr. Benjamin Church, Gage's spy and member of the Committee of Supply, recognize James. Writing how both react should build some tension. 

4. I need to mention that the inn was not named Wayside when Daphne and Florence, my modern characters eat there. A single line should do it.

5. As much as I would like to go into Longfellow's Tales of a Wayside Inn, it is not time appropriate and would like I was trying to show off my research.

I am in the final stretch of the first draft.

Hickory golf

 

I watched my husband transition from jeans to plus fours. Adding in a bow tie and cap, he now looked ready to appear in a Hercule Poirot mystery along with David Suchet.

He was off to play golf with hickory golf clubs. Always a passionate golfer, he knew about the clubs in theory. Only when we were in Scotland and he went to play at Musselburgh Golf Club, the world's oldest golf club in continuous existence (1567 - http://www.musselburgholdlinks.co.uk/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=3&Itemid=9), did hickory clubs enter his consciousness as an alternative to modern clubs. Because he was renting clubs at Musselburgh, he was offered the hickory.

He came home converted. Research revealed he was not alone. There are some three thousand or more hickory golfers throughout the world.

For a Christmas present, I told him I would buy him a set of clubs. He decided he wanted to support Joe Lauber, https://www.jblgolf.com/english/ because he was Swiss. We went to St. Gallen, where Lauber has his shop.

We learned that there were small groups of hickory golfers around the world. When they play, they stay true to the time period by dressing as if they were on the links in the 1920s.

My husband then started looking for, finding, and playing in hickory tournaments. He was elected to the board as European representative of the international Society of Hickory Golfers (https://www.hickorygolfers.com/) and is now secretary of the group.

In September at the Montreux Golf Club, Canton of Vaud, he will host the Swiss Hickory Golf Match Play championship. We are also planning, pandemic rules allowing, to play other tournaments or events in Scotland and other countries.

There are differences between the old-fashioned and modern clubs, including the care of the wood vs. metal. Some hickory players want to use only the original clubs, while others are happy with the newly-produced replica clubs. It doesn't matter really, and my husband now has both, having acquired a ‘playset’ of originals from Sweden, Netherlands and the States.

It is all in fun as he shoulders his clubs, kisses me good-bye and is off to play in his 1920s costume, looking more like he is on his way to a movie set.

I have noticed that whenever there's a golfing scene in a Hercule Poirot program, the golf clubs are made of hickory

Veggie Burger

 

I've been trying to convince my husband to try veggie burgers or meat substitutes.  Never an adventurous eater, he has cited his willingness to try new (and dangerous to him) foods. Many he liked.

Today we tried a newly opened restaurant. I ordered the veggie burger, he ordered the traditional.

Mine was so close to regular hamburger, that I wasn't sure that they hadn't made a mistake and served me real hamburger.

"Try it," I suggested to my husband.

He shook his head. 

Sherlock was under the table. I dropped a piece of the veggie burger for him to try.

You can see his response in the photo. The sample of the veggie burger is next to his tail.

I suspect that my chances of my husband ever trying one went from 0 to -10.

Rick's version is at https://lovinglifeineurope.blogspot.com/2021/06/the-verdict-on-meatless-meat.html

Abortion

 

With the right to a safe abortion under threat, I am republishing an article I wrote that appeared in www.Commondreams.org Sept. 15, 2018. I spent a year writing Coat Hangers and Knitting Needles, a very depressing year listening to the tragedies of abortion when it was illegal.

Attempting to stop abortions by outlawing them will be as unsuccessful as prohibition was in stopping the making, sale, distribution and drinking of alcohol. That doesn’t seem to deter judges, legislators and crusaders from thinking that overturning Roe v Wade will magically eliminate abortion.

Abortion has always existed. In ancient Egypt, women inserted crocodile dung in their vaginas to abort unwanted children.

Beliefs about it have varied. Anselm of Canterbury, a Benedictine monk and philosopher in the 11th century, did not think abortion before “quickening” (fetal movement) was murder, an opinion echoed by Thomas Aquinas almost two centuries later.

In the Twinslayers Case in 1327, a man beat a woman so badly she lost twins. He was released because the death of the fetuses wasn’t considered murder.

In the American colonies, pre-Revolution, it was only after a baby “quickened” that it was considered an abortion. Before that women sought artificial means to “restore the menses,” even if a fetus was expelled.

The first U.S. trial for abortion was held in Pomfrey, CT in 1745 after Sarah Grosvenor died from an abortion performed in her fourth month.

Throughout the 1800s abortionists such as Madame Restell in New York ran lucrative practices.

Abortion-producing cures could be ordered directly by mail. Advertisements appeared in newspapers.

Later in the 1800s, the American Medical Association worked to take abortion out of the hands of amateurs.

Anthony Comstock fought for laws to go beyond making abortion illegal. He successfully campaigned to make almost any mention of sexual topics subject to prison or heavy fines. Even medical textbooks with information about sexual organs sent through the mail could be cause for imprisonment.

Birth control information was illegal for women, married or not.

Estimates on the number of women who died from botched abortions are impossible, but information from various sources give an idea of the horror.

Dr. Louis Gerstley,Chief at Philadelphia General Hospital (1956 to 1976), in the film Motherless, said the hospital kept 32 beds for patients who had botched abortions. His comments are echoed by other doctors from the period who cited the number of beds in their hospitals reserved for women dying from botched abortions.

Knitting needles, bicycle spokes, anything metal might have been used, Dr. Gerstley said. He described women who used substances that literally melted the vaginal canal. Such experiences were reported by other doctors throughout the U.S.

Dr. Gerstley expressed regret that he could not save more women.

He also said, “The legalization of abortion had almost no effect on the level of abortions…. graph the number of deliveries in the U.S. between the 50s and 80s and you will find a fairly steady line.… Roe didn’t affect the number of deliveries.” However, he added, “There was a marked drop in maternal mortality.”

The Clergy Consultation Service (CCS) was started by Rev. Howard Moody of the Judson Memorial Church in New York, along with 21 ministers and rabbis. They announced that they would help pregnant women. By the time Roe v. Wade was decided, there were 38 chapters throughout the U.S. When the formation of each new local group was announced, the phones were flooded.  Los Angeles received 293 calls in the first 24 hours.

The women were listened to and if they decided they wanted the abortion, they were provided with the name of a doctor, most often out-of-state or out of the country for legal reasons. The doctors were monitored to make sure they followed the high standards; during the years CCS operated, some 300 doctors were removed from their approved list.

Another group called Jane began in Chicago where women could go for safe abortions and emotional support. Their leaders were about to be arrested when Roe v. Wade was handed down by the Supreme Court.

If abortion is illegal, women will still get abortions as they have throughout time. Poor women will once again take poison, shove potions and instruments up their vaginas, go to back alleys where their babies will be aborted in unsafe conditions. People like Rev. Moody and others will break the law to help women. Women with resources will simply go to a country where it is legal.

Abortion can’t be stopped no matter how many laws are passed. What anti-abortion laws will do is kill more women.

---

6 Steps to break the American Bubble

 That the U.S. is in disarray is something the right, left and middle can agree on. Blame abounds.

Although I have strong opinions, I'm amazed that many American who decry either the right or the left automatically, are usually those that have not traveled outside the U.S. If they have, many are of the "If it is Tuesday, it must be Belgium" type of trips. They live in what we call the American Bubble.

There are those that follow The Big Lie CNN or The Election was Stolen Fox news and not much else. Either represent ignorance.

Years ago when visiting my daughter at her job, her colleague asked why I lived in Switzerland. "For one," I said. "Universal health care."

She scoffed. "No country can do that," she said.

She held a masters degree in education. I'm not sure she believed me "that every industrialized nation except the U.S. has some form of universal health care at a lower cost." It's been a few years since then, so maybe she would believe me today.

Several things are needed for people to break out of the bubble.

1. Live in another country and integrate or at least try to. Don't be the type of foreigner who moves to the Swiss countryside and launches a campaign to get rid of cowbells. Look, listen, copy. If entering/leaving an event everyone shakes everyone's hand, don't say it's a waste of time. At the moment with the pandemic, this example might not apply. 

Deal with bureaucracy, join their festivals, share their sports, follow their mores in manners, try and speak their language (probably the hardest to do unless you're gifted).

2. If you can't live in another country for a long time, try something like Trustedhousesitters.com where you live in someone's home taking care of their pets. The longer the better. You'll deal with store opening hours (after 30 years in Switzerland, I still shake my head at the snack bar that closed for lunch because "Our employees need a good lunch, too," attitudes toward space, noise and many other things you might have thought the whole world did. 

The lesson? They don't. 

It isn't better. It isn't worse. It just is.

3. If you can't travel, try and find a person who represents what you can't see in person. Listen to a Latin American refugee tell how and why he fled his country. Let a Syrian describe her boat trip to Europe after her town was devastated by bombs. Invite a Palestinian talk about their side of the conflicts with Israel. 

4. Read. Read biographies, auto-biographies, history--not just the surface crap taught in most schools. And a bit of economics wouldn't hurt.

Yes Thomas Jefferson was a father of the country. Yes his ideas were the foundation of much of the good in the U.S. But he also developed a marketing plan for breeding and selling slaves. I had a teacher who kept saying, "Nothing is all black or all white but many shades of gray."

5. Learn what Communism and Socialism really are and how each has functions both good and bad in different places. Don't just label the whiff of anything with your particular misconception.

6. Rely on many news sources and preferably from more than one country. Thanks to the internet it is easy to look at newspapers from many countries. News channels also have English URLs. Their viewpoint is not seen through the same prejudices that Americans see.

I'm often accused of being (pick one or many)

• Traitor
• Socialist
• Communist
• Lefty
• Liberal

What I am is tired of people claiming to know the full story of something they only know a small part. Thus, the elephant and the blind men who think they can describe an elephant when they only know a small part, is one of my favorite cartoons.

Brother's and Sister's keeper

The phrase "Am I my brother's keeper," first appeared in the Bible. It's meaning both then and now can be taken several ways.

Many people say no and many have a variation of "I've got mine, tough luck to everyone else." Don't you dare let an immigrant in. Poor? It's your own fault. Why should I pay to educate a kid that isn't mine.

Am I my brothers/sisters keeper?

I am my brother's and sisters keeper.

I know I can't save the world. If I could, there would be no kids in cages on the border, no need for refugee camps. Everyone would have a roof over their heads, food in their bellies, and a way to make money to cover their basic expenses.

I don't have that power.

I have the means to do little things.

I can pick up a paper thrown on a sidewalk so someone else won't have to do it.

I can perform small acts of kindness.

I can give money to a beggar.

I can volunteer for different charities.

We have a friend who every Christmas collects hats, mittens, toothpaste, sanitary products, etc. and makes up bags. On Christmas day she and her daughters hands them out to 25 homeless women she finds at random on city streets. I feel honored to know her.

These small acts don't make us their keepers...maybe we are their borrowers of their pain for a short time and that's all we can do. If everyone was like that maybe there would be just a little less hate in the world.

Cost: How many hours

 Look in your storage room and/or closets.

How many things did you buy that you almost never or never use?

How much did you pay for them?

Did you use a credit card?

If you used a credit card and didn't pay it off at the end of the month, how much interest did you pay on top of the purchase price?

If the item was on sale did the interest charge make the item cost more than the original price?

Now look at your hourly salary even if you aren't paid hourly. How many of your life's hours did you sell to your employer to pay for that item you don't use, probably don't even want?

How many of your life's hours will you sell to pay for your car? Don't forget the interest. 

Is this how you really want to spend your life working for things you never use, want or have overspent?

Think of just two samples of the many things people buy:

Cost of Sofa: $600

• You earn $20/hour -- work 30/hours
  
• You earn $30/hour --work 20 hours
• You earn $40/hour -- 15 hours
  

Cost of New Car Average $39,000

• You earn $20/hour you work 1975 hours or 80+ days
  
• You earn $30/hour you work 1300 hours or 54+ days
  
• You earn $40 hour you work 975 hours or 40+ days  
  

Cost of new sneakers/trainers/baskets $100 or more

• You earn $20/hour you work 5 hours
  
• You earn $30/hour you work 3.3 hours
• You earn $40 hour you 2.5 work hours
  

I have not added in benefits to wages. Nor have I figured that most salaried workers put in much longer hours than 40 for no overtime. I haven't considered the idea of developing careers, which could be another entire blog of wanting a meaningful job against an employer whose interest may only be shareholder returns. There are jobs we love doing. And there are jobs that we start dreading Monday morning Thursday afternoon. All those things could be a book in itself.

Unless we have inherited fortunes where we don't have to work to eat and live, we must work. We sell our time, our skills to an employer. We are the employer's purchase, a commodity.  

As commodities we have only one life to live. Use them wisely.

Gas prices

Americans are screaming about gas prices. For years they had some of the world's lowest prices.

What did they do? 

They bought big cars, big trucks, SUVs.

They gave nary a thought to climate problems and/or pollution. No awareness that prices go up and down.

I'll admit I have little sympathy. Since the canicule (heat wave) in France that left over 10,000 dead, I am tempted to key "murderer" on every gas guzzler I see. I resist.

Signe Wilkinson's cartoon says it as well as I can. Bless the person driving the little car. Bless those with hybrids and electric cars.