Category Archives: Life

Work

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My 16-year-old niece took the SAT on Saturday. Unlike me, she seems capable of planning her life. Without any regard for my abilities, limitations, or personality, at her age I was impractically focusing on Indian studies, international relations, or even — I’m not sure how this occurred to me — physical therapy. I was certainly not thinking about what I would be doing in six years. I’m told that she has looked into a career that interests her, at least now, and even how much it pays.

What I was going to do with the rest of my life, and how I was going to support myself, didn’t occur to me until the Monday after graduation, and then only because I woke up with nowhere to go for the first time in my life.

That was 23 years ago. As I’ve written elsewhere, nothing has changed, that is, I have not changed. I will retire long before I know what I want to do with my life. I will mostly likely die first, before I have lived.

It was nearly 30 years ago, but I remember what it was like to be 16. I wanted to be liked and respected. I worked hard at my classes. I didn’t think of good grades as a ticket to college; I didn’t think of them at all. They were something to have. At some level, I must have thought of them as a way to get attention and praise — to be noticed, to rise above the hoi polloi. Others were noticed for their athletic abilities, their looks, their personalities, their money, their social standing and relationships, or even their criminal records — all things I didn’t and couldn’t have.

The only thing I could claim were a few limited academic abilities and interests, so I made the most of them.

I also wanted to please my dad. Perhaps because my mother had been left adrift once, he believed that women should have an education, equal opportunities, and the ability to support themselves. We take all that for granted now, but 30 years ago this was not the usual thinking for a man born in 1913. As for me, I knew I wanted to be independent, or that I would have to be, but I did not understand what that meant in practical terms.

I also did not know anything about graduate school; a career in academics never occurred to me, nor did I know much about specialized professions. Aptitude tests indicated I was suited for a counseling or teaching type of career, but for some reason I never considered the former and was too stubborn to pursue the latter. I did not want to do that which was expected of me.

Then, as now, there was nothing within my abilities that inspired me. I remember other kids who seemed bright and interested in the sciences who became salesmen and accountants. What about sales and accounting inspires them that the stars did not? Or are they more like me than I realize, in their case doing what they are expected to do but not what they could wish?

Most of us seem destined to live exactly like those before us did — doing jobs that have no real significance other than in the very short term, sustaining the way things are rather than creating what could be, enjoying the comforts and travel that money buys, frustrated by the senselessness of how the work world is structured and by the politics, and wishing for the courage to make a meaningful change — but ultimately resigned to what seems inevitable and unchangeable. Our dreams remain in our beds.

Each of us lives for himself, and often and naturally we take the easiest way that allows us to enjoy the most. Academics rarely make anyone rich, and research funding is at best uncertain. Working in the corporate world provides a reasonable assurance of reliable income, benefits, and retirement. With the myriad of egos, the pointless assignments and initiatives, the work that is rushed through only to be put on hold, the changing whims of decision makers, the back stabbing, and the general pettiness of office life day to day, it’s surprising to me how many people are willing to spend one-third of their adult lives taking orders in return for some personal comfort during the decreasing amount of personal time that actually remains. For most of us, the idealism of youth, the sense of a greater purpose seems to diminish in proportion to the hardening of our arteries.

Villagers might work together to make sure the lands are cleared and filled, the animals are fed and cared for, the laws protecting the individual and the community are upheld and enforced, and the enemy kept out. We are so many, so diverse — what common goals can we have? We assume — or hope — that the government and the military will defend us against terrorism and other horrors and the justice system against crime. Food, clothes, and toiletries appear almost magically on our shelves, produced far away and shipped almost invisibly. For product or service support, we call an anonymous soul in a country that is an ocean or two away. Many children do not realize that hamburger comes from a once-living animal. It is a pre-packaged world in which it is not our sense of community that connects us, but our sense of economy. We are as need-driven as the people of a village, but it is not our neighbor who fills our needs. It is the garment worker in China, the support staff in Bangladesh, the farmer in Honduras. Our only community may be that which we find at work. That is why it seems so important to find the right work, and to make it mean more than a small problem solved today, a paycheck, and a commute home. Someday we as a community may need to drop our desire for comfort and work together to solve larger problems — environmental degradation and change, overpopulation, weapons proliferation, genocide — all those things that have the capability of killing us all. That has not happened yet, and will not until there is a crisis that no one who is left can deny.

I know that many have richly rewarding professions — nurses and other health care providers, teachers, clergy people, that is, anyone who can see their effect on individuals and on the surrounding community, or those whose work will have an impact on the future. I know that others enjoy what they do because it satisfies a need to solve problems or to expand on knowledge. Then there are those who can brush off the bad things that happen and enjoy the simple things.

The rest of us, the stressed and unhappy and trapped, keep the world spinning on its well-worn, tired axis, ourselves feeling just as worn and tired. Knowing now what I didn’t know when I was 16, 21, or even 31, I would not have sought this life, but I do not know what I would or could have done differently.

Either I have missed my calling, or I was never qualified for it. And now I feel alone, isolated — no longer part of the community, realizing for the first time how I never really belonged to it or contributed to it. After all that I have done, learned, and tried, the most I can say for myself is that I exist. It doesn’t seem enough.

Reality TV

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Tell me that I’m not the last person left in the United States who has not seen a so-called “reality” TV show.

Recently, I saw that one of the actors from The Jeffersons sitcom had died. This set me to thinking about television of the 1960s and 1970s. I don’t remember much of the 1960s directly, but later I watched reruns of comedy programs like The Dick Van Dyke Show and dramas such as The Twilight Zone and Alfred Hitchcock Presents.

In the 1970s, TV programming ranged from the tacky and tasteless (game shows like The Gong Show, the safe yet funny (The Mary Tyler Moore Show, Rhoda); the not quite edgy (M*A*S*H); the sweetly nostalgic for times-that-never-were (The Waltons, Little House on the Prairie); and the ubiquitous police/detective/doctor/hospital shows (Starsky and Hutch, Baretta, Police Woman, Hooker, Barney Miller, Emergency) to the politically incorrect Lear oeuvre (All in the Family, The Jeffersons, Maude). Most are dated, but some still have a following today.

I haven’t watched much TV since the mid to late 1980s. Most shows seem claustrophobic, having been videotaped on tiny, over-lit sets that look like nothing I’ve ever seen in a home. Those series that included an outdoor setting are invariably set in Los Angeles, which is alien and uninteresting to me. Worst, most dramas (and many comedies) seem formulaic to me. While this could make them comforting, like other things that stay the same in a changing world, it could also make them boring and tedious., if there was nothing to set them apart.

I suppose it’s the nature of episodic television; there’s only so much time to produce so many episodes, which does not allow for creativity or originality, which the audience may not even desire. The main reason to keep watching would be if you liked a character or characters, or the actors who played them. How many people watched Happy Days because they liked Ron Howard’s Richie Cunningham or Henry Winkler’s The Fonz?

I liked the Star Trek series because the characters were interesting and well developed, and their growing relationships were well drawn and explored; the acting was generally good; and the plots were often thought provoking, such as “The Measure of a Man” and “The Drumhead.” Occasionally, a bad main or subplot would sink an entire episode, but then loyal viewers could at least enjoy the performances. Babylon 5 had its own momentum, with its focus on a five-year plot line rather than on unrelated episodes.

Somewhere along the line, I gave up watching television. The new series never appealed to me, and the actors even less so. As I got older, there seemed to be less time and better ways to spend it. Part of it may have been a symptom of my unnoticed hearing loss; perhaps I subconsciously tuned out television because I could no longer hear it very well.

So now I don’t watch TV except for an occasional BBC sitcom or an episode of a favorite old series like The Avengers. I don’t listen to popular music, either. My disconnection from the people and the world around me seems nearly complete. Without popular entertainment to connect us, what is there to debate and to discuss? That seems to be the way of life now.

So I find myself in meetings with coworkers listening to what seems to me the unreality of reality TV. What is real about reality TV? The talk is nearly always about how badly, unbelievably the subject behaved. They were silly, boorish, greedy, whiny, defensive, shallow. In every way, the people watching deride the people performing. Reality TV gives them someone who is as two dimensional as any fictional character, someone upon whom they can look down, someone to whom they can feel superior, someone who is willing to be bullied remotely, from a distance. The new entertainment requires no plot, only drama and comedy without substance, without resolution, without depth, without meaning. For college-educated professionals across the country, there no issues to discuss, such as a program like Law and Order might raise; there is only, “She said that?” “He did what?” “Why’d she dump him?” “Why’d he pick her?” “It was so stupid.”

It was so stupid, but millions of people plan their lives around reality TV and watch it and talk about it every week. Is this all there is to life — work and reality TV, TV that proves to us that we are not as silly, boorish, greedy, whiny, defensive, and shallow as the show’s participants, participants who are liked or despised, depending on how the viewer’s perception has been been manipulated, participants who are (supposedly) people just like us? Is this the best use we can make of our too-short lives?

A producer of some of the best-known of these shows will appear this year at an international communications conference, where he will speak and be honored by the communications profession. The conference’s promotional material states that “reality television has revolutionized the entertainment industry and raised the bar for audience expectations and participation in television programming.” Raised the bar? Or lowered it even further?

Reality TV is not new; it’s been around since Candid Camera and This Is Your Life. And it is still a low, voyeuristic form of entertainment that appeals to our sense of superiority — the very sense that proves we are not as superior as we think.

I find myself wondering why it appeals to so many, so much so that an international organization of corporate communicators is bypassing surely more worthy candidates so that it can honor a reality TV producer. I find myself torn between a couple of old ideas — that the inmates have taken over the asylum (and the popularity of reality TV is proof), or, looking to the always dependable bard, that “All the world’s a stage, and all the men and women merely players.” What is my role? Where is my script? And why am I so poor at playing this role of human being, of interacting with the other players? And is that why I am in the chorus, where I observe the performance of the principals, but feel very little stake in it?

I think I will go back to watching Star Trek. Reality TV as I wish it were.

Transformations

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One morning I logged onto a webcam about 20 minutes before the local dawn. This Webcam is in a semi-rural area, where there is artificial light but not like in the city, so the field of view was dark gray. I left the window open and returned to it five minutes later. It was still grey and amorphous, but now I could see the movement of a train — not the train itself, no details, just the movement.

I forgot about it for a while, then came back to it a moment or two after sunrise. It was an overcast day there, but in only 20 minutes all had become brightly lit, with sharp details. It was night and day, literally and figuratively.

Only a few days before, I had been observing the area through the same webcam an hour before sunset. In what seemed like no time at all, the view, which had been glaring with sunset, became impenetrably dark.

In both cases, there was a great sense of change, of something remarkable having happened. Yet it occurs every day, twice a day, night transformed into day, day into night. It is so regular that we take it for granted. It is so extraordinary that the experience is both amazing and moving.

Those who miss it because they are asleep, at work, online, watching television, or otherwise occupied, miss one of the few natural opportunities left to the urban/suburban dweller — the rhythm of the planet, the solar system, the stars, the galaxy, the universe. No matter how tedious our lives become, how smothered by the mundane and the senseless, even the hopeless, there is always the wonder of the sunrise, slowly waking the diurnal world, and the sunset, slowly waking the nocturnal one. Even if we cannot change everything that troubles us, whether it is work, family, spouse, money, or the simple boredom of everyday life, the sunrise and the sunset remind us that there is beauty in change and that we can experience the wonder of that beauty every day if we choose.

When Scarlett O’Hara says, “Tomorrow is another day” in Gone with the Wind, she’s refusing to give in or give up. I don’t have that indomitable spirit of optimism, of belief that tomorrow will be better or even that it could be better. I no longer have faith that it will hold opportunities that were not available today. That has not been my experience, and my spirit has lost its elasticity, its ability to bounce back and to shake its fist at the world.

But tomorrow is another day — another day with the mystical transformations of light, transformations that prove that change is not only possible, but that it is inevitable. And beautiful. And that makes me ache for it even more.

I will be up before dawn tomorrow.

Pain management

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“Take two aspirin and call me in the morning.”

The other night I was on the phone with a friend when suddenly I felt cold. Cold to the bone. Corpse cold. Complete with uncontrollable shivering and chattering teeth. The room’s temperature was 72ºF, but I turned on the heat, put on socks, and wrapped myself from head to toe in a quilt and two blankets — and shivered for another hour or two before falling asleep briefly. Then I woke up hot. My skin felt like I’d been broiling over an open flame. I shed the blankets and socks, turned off the heat, turned on a fan, and took my temperature. It was just short of 102ºF (for me, normal is about 96.8ºF). I took a Unisom (at about 2 a.m.) and woke up long enough to call in sick.

I went through the same thing later in the day, around 1 p.m. — chills, shivering, chattering, inability to warm up.

Naturally, when I felt like I could crawl out from under the blankets, I staggered to the computer and looked up things like “chills,” “shivering,” and “fever” on several health care sites, which helpfully suggested that “shivering” and “chattering” should prompt an immediate call to my doctor’s office, as though this were a serious medical condition.

Except that my doctor is not available at 10 p.m. or 2 a.m. or most of the other times that my body stages one of these rebellions. He’s also not available on Wednesdays, or during several other weekday hours. Physicians spread themselves out among offices and hospitals and rarely seem to have established, 9–5 hours at any of them. They tend to be elusive at 2 a.m. as well.

In fact, the only way for me to see a doctor immediately would be to go to the emergency room. Of course, you shouldn’t go to the emergency room unless you’ve been shot in the head or a vital organ, protruding bones are making dressing and other daily activities difficult, your body temperature has ignited a three-alarm fire, or your heart is in the throes of arrest (in which case I’m not sure you how you motivate it to tick long enough to get you to emergency).

I’ve heard rumors of “urgent care” centers at hospitals for serious, non-life-threatening illnesses and injuries, but I can’t say I’ve witnessed any in action. I did go, admittedly in desperation, to the doctors’ office center at my hospital (which I shall not name) with such searing pain in both shoulders that several people in the waiting area were alarmed by my (presumably blanched) appearance and offered to get help. The woman at the desk, professional that she is, was unimpressed by my pleas. “You can’t see a doctor without an appointment,” she said firmly. If I had fainted at that point, my odds might have become slightly better, but I am not sure.

The same hospital has a sign posted with patient rights, one of which is: “You have the right to have your pain managed.” This is true — but only after you’ve made an appointment with your doctor and your time has come.

I did try to go through channels once, when I had a fever and a strep infection. For hours, it felt likes someone was twisting a pumpkin carving knife in my throat and inner ear. I’ve discovered that, for me, pain is cumulative — I can stand a high amount for a while, but after a few hours and after nausea has set in, my fevered mind starts to wonder if there will be an end to it that isn’t a self-inflicted end to all pain and if there isn’t something someone could do for me — say, a doctor.

At 2 a.m., as noted, non-emergency doctors are scarce, so I did the next best thing; I called the CIGNA hotline or helpline or Nurseline (I don’t remember the name; I was sick). Between fits of pain-induced nausea and involuntary tears and sobs, I explained the problem and how it was hindering things like breathing, sleeping, etc. I think I conveyed a sense of urgency and even anxiety about the pain. She (correctly) told me it didn’t warrant an emergency room visit, but I could take aspirin/acetaminophen/ibuprofen and cough drops (“the numbing ones, like Sucrets”). And I should drink something warm and soothing. This sounded wonderful in theory, but the usual OTCs aren’t that effective at a certain threshold of pain. I didn’t happen to feel up to taking a stroll down to the 24-hour Walgreens for Sucrets just then, and the effect of any liquid or other substance in my throat was similar to that of salt on freshly flayed flesh. The nurse was kind and understanding, but kindness and understanding don’t produce a physician with a prescription pad.

“Call your doctor in the morning.” I did, because it was one of the days he was in. There weren’t any times available that day, but I was fortunate to get an appointment for late afternoon the following day. He took a peek in the offending ear and down my raw throat, and produced the magic prescription pad. After three doses of antibiotic, I could breathe and drink without crying or feeling nauseated. I was virtually pain free.

I did have a right to have my pain managed, after all.

Waiting your turn

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Once again, I’m writing about parents and children.

I had a visitor over the holidays, which prompted visits to the aquarium, zoo, and museums — the best places for an old, childless curmudgeon to observe parents and their offspring in action. It wasn’t too bad, if you don’t mind out-of-control children running into you (or over you, if necessary) or little feet kicking the back of your theatre seat for 40 minutes.

Up to a certain age, children are not empathetic creatures. They often do not realize how their behavior and actions affect others. For example, the young son of a friend didn’t know that being pinched is very painful until someone pinched him. The child behind me in the museum theatre may have been annoying from malicious motives, but it’s possible he didn’t know. Kicking chairs is just fun. So is running through crowded areas, screaming, and plowing down strangers.

This is where parents come in, or should.

Many, however, seem to have forgotten that child rearing does come with certain responsibilities beyond basic housing, clothing, and feeding — teaching and disciplining, for example.

I was waiting in line for the women’s room when an adorable little girl slyly tried to sneak past everyone in line, one by one. She did not lack empathy, however; she carefully looked at the face of each woman in line to see her reaction. Her mother, who was immediately behind me, timidly asked her to return to her place. She did, but soon snuck up again; her mother called her back. It was a game of seeing how much she could get away with, both with her mother and with the women in line. This went on for a few minutes. Everyone seemed indulgent and tolerant, perhaps because she was so adorable — which she clearly knew. Finally, her mother said flatly, “Hasn’t Ms. Mary taught you about waiting your turn in line?” “No,” the girl replied (which may or may not be true). “Well,” said the mother, now showing the slightest sign of irritation, “Ms. Mary and I need to have a little talk about that.”

About what? Judging by this and the rest of the conversation, I would guess “Ms. Mary” to be a teacher or in a teaching role. While she could be expected to reinforce good citizenship in the context of a classroom, e.g., “Don’t steal your neighbor’s crayons!” and “Wait your turn in line!” it’s neither her role nor her responsibility to teach her charges the basics of good behavior. That’s what parents are for — to teach their children about right and wrong and the difference between them, how to behave in a social setting, what is acceptable and what is not, and so forth. “Ms. Mary” can reinforce what the kids should already know, but she should be allowed to focus on teaching — ABCs, 123s, art, music, and so forth.

This mother clearly felt that her child’s behavior was not her responsibility. More than that, she undermined “Ms. Mary’s” authority by criticizing her to one of her charges — the charge for whom she herself is responsible.

It’s all very neat. The child isn’t responsible because she didn’t know any better, and the mother isn’t responsible because manners fall into the teacher’s domain. And now “Ms. Mary” will get to face a clever child whose mother has affirmed that “Ms. Mary” is in the wrong.

I don’t envy “Ms. Mary,” who probably faces an entire classroom of similarly empowered children every day. Maybe she doesn’t mind, but it could be possible that this is one of the factors that make good people shy away from the teaching profession.

When I was an education volunteer, I assisted with a family workshop. The first half of the paid program was held at my institution; the second half took place at another institution across the grounds and then across the street. Each volunteer was assigned a group to escort. Unlike the others, my group was a single family — father, mother, and two boys who appeared to be a year or two apart in age. A staff person pulled me aside and said, “We hand picked you to lead this family because they’ve been here before and can be, ummm, difficult, and we decided you would be the best person to handle them.” I didn’t know whether to feel flattered or hoodwinked (or both!).

It was a chilly, rainy day. Once outside, the boys started running, splashing, and screaming. We had 10 minutes to get to the class, but after a few minutes we were only about one-quarter of the way there. When I looked at the parents, they would talk about previous visits but made little if any effort to appeal to their offspring, not even timidly.

Faced with high expectations of my abilities and unthwarted childishness, I resorted to an unplanned secret weapon: my own childishness.

I stopped in my tracks and announced loudly, “I am NOT moving or taking anyone anywhere until you two settle down and walk with the rest of us.” I had the comfort of an umbrella (no one else did), and I’m sure I looked and sounded like I meant it. I did. Mostly.

The little boys recognized a winning ploy when they saw one and, for the most part, walked the rest of the way with us in a docile manner. They even seemed to enjoy the program more, now that they had been persuaded to focus on it.

Meanwhile, I couldn’t tell if the parents were relieved, or upset that I had spoken so to their children. I believe I told the staff what I had done in case there were repercussions, but there weren’t.

My approach was spontaneous; it was the simple result of frustration. Yet it worked on a couple of levels. First, it pulled the boys up short. They were in run-play mode, and I put them into think mode. Then, more importantly, it put the onus of choice in their hands. They could either continue to run and scream, which they could do anywhere at any time, or they could get to participate in a special program and see, touch, and learn about interesting things.

I wasn’t cruel or mean to them, and I didn’t scar their self-esteems for life. I gave them an opportunity to make a choice, and, like most intelligent children, they made a good one.

I’ve no doubt that raising children is daunting and difficult. I was a child once, and I remember many of the tricks very clearly — carefully gauging how much I could get away with, playing my parents against each other, persisting until I got my way. I see kids test their parents; all too often, though, parents fail to realize they are being tested and manipulated, or their desire to be “friends” with their children rather than parents takes precedence over their common sense.

I don’t think these children will grow up to be serial killers. I do believe, however, that we feel the effects of having raised a generation of children who ruled their homes.

My English visitor commented that “random car horn honking seems to be quite popular here.”

It is — with those unable to wait their turn in line.

Wayne C. Booth and Ned Rosenheim

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Wayne C. Booth
February 22, 1921 – –October 10, 2005

I was privileged to have had both Wayne Booth and Ned Rosenheim as professors. Unfortunately, I was too young but mostly too ignorant, too out of my element, too overwhelmed, too dysfunctional, and too depressed to appreciate and make the most of a truly once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. I remember both of them fondly and regret that I did not learn as much as I could from them because I wasn’t ready.

Mr. Booth taught my first-year humanities course. I struggled less with than with courses in other disciplines, like social science, but I still struggled— — through Plato and Aristotle, among others. Even then, I read slowly and tired easily, and had difficulty following ideas that were presented in any kind of complex or wordy fashion. I had problems with philosophers in general because so many seemed to present their personal perceptions as fact, which made no sense to me, and to meander on with no useful point in sight. (Although I don’t like structure and objectives, I require them from my reading, oddly enough.)

Something I’d read in Plato made me ask a theoretical question about a man on an island and civilization. It was perhaps the first and only time I had a basic insight into the purpose of philosophy. Mr. Booth liked the question and posed it to the class. He explored it and found the flaws in it. He made a great effort to get me to talk more, to pull me out of myself. He seemed to think that I had something to say, and he even said once or twice that I had potential — —I assume he meant potential to be a thinker. Once, someone sitting next to me in the class was bothering me. Mr. Booth caught us whispering and genuinely believed I had something significant to share with the class. I insisted I didn’t, and we moved on. It was an embarrassing and humiliating moment, not because I’d been caught being disruptive, but because I felt I’d revealed my true, foolish, unworthy self to someone who had shown confidence in me and who had encouraged me to be something I knew I couldn’t be. After that, I felt I’d lost his respect. That could have just been the remnants of adolescent angst rather than the reality; I’ll never know. I may have lost some of my own.

Mr. Booth had a gentle sense of humor. In our class, there was a student from Jamaica named Geoffrey (the “correct spelling,” he insisted). One morning a nasty snowstorm hit Chicago. Geoffrey did not appear for class. The rest of us were excited about the storm; it was one of those where big, puffy, distinct flakes fell thickly. Mr. Booth said, “Does anyone want to bet that Geoffrey can’t make it in through the snow?” We laughed. Geoffrey did arrive for the last five to ten minutes of the class, covered with snow and saying, “Wow! Brrr!”

We liked Mr. Booth and our class so much that, at the end of it, we held a party. I think he and his wife played a duet for us. I do remember a lovely evening and a sense of sadness that something wonderful was over, like the feeling actors have at the end-of-run cast party. An experience had ended that could never be repeated — an experience I’d had, yet not had.

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Edward “Ned” Rosenheim
May 15, 1918– – November 29, 2005

The class I had with Ned Rosenheim was perhaps two to three times larger— — at first. The subject was “Fiction of the 1930s,” which Mr. Rosenheim claimed he was uniquely qualified to teach at the University of Chicago because “I read all these books when they were bestsellers.” He made a lot of humorous, self-deprecating comments about his age. He was a few months older than my mother.

“Fiction of the 1930s” was a popular class, one that students slept out for, but I didn’t have to because English language and literature majors had priority. The classroom was crowded the first day, almost like a chemistry lecture class. I remember Mr. Rosenheim making jokes about the size of the class and wish I could recall what they were; I think he said something about people being in the wrong place because it was not a popular class. He tried to convince us it would be a difficult one, noting chemistry and physics majors began by thinking English and other humanities classes were quite easy compared to, say, organic chemistry. Indeed, I found that was the consensus of the class.

Within a few weeks, the class had shrunk dramatically. I couldn’t tell you why. I don’t know how many papers we had to write, but I suspect part of it was the reading. Reading eight to ten substantial novels like The Late George Apley, The Grapes of Wrath, and Studs Lonigan is not an easy feat, on top of two or three other courses. The holdouts were primarily the humanities majors, which was probably more comfortable for Mr. Rosenheim — —that is, teaching people who shared a love of reading rather than those trying to get by easily.

Because of his jovial manner and cherubic appearance, most people seemed to think Mr. Rosenheim would be an easy grader. I picked up either a paper or an exam and had received a high mark and assumed everyone else had as well. I discovered later that there were only a couple of As and Bs, many Cs, and a healthy amount of Ds. To me, that’s how it should be, because if C means average, it should be the most common grade, while there should be very few As (outstanding) in proportion. I found this impressive because it demonstrated to me that one could be a witty, “nice” person, yet still be demanding and tough where it matters. (It didn’t hurt that I had received one of the high marks!)

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Dallas was a very popular television show at the time, and I had a silly T-shirt— — actually unrelated to the show or the show’s merchandise— — that said “Ewing Oil” with a tagline. Mr. Rosenheim noticed it one day and made a comment about it (another that I can’t recall!), then had me stand up and model the shirt for the class, even having me turn around. I wondered if he did it because I was always trying to hide, and that was his way of making me visible. It was another embarrassing moment, although the embarrassment quickly faded into a happy memory.

At the end of the quarter, I was going to be late writing the final paper — —so late that Mr. Rosenheim would not be at or returning to his campus office. He gave me his address, a lovely apartment at 58th and Blackstone, and told me I could bring it to him there. It was kind of him to offer me that chance, and he was gracious when he met me (I was nervous).

It seems terrible that I can’t describe these professors’ classes or the discussions in detail, as though I did not get much out of them. At the time, I was too overwhelmed by the entire experience of campus life to take it all in, and I had not adapted very well (and never did). But each did have an impact. Both gave me confidence that I had ability and even potential, at least in the humanities. Mr. Booth made me believe in questioning everything— — including Plato and Aristotle, including everything we assume is true because it has always been accepted as such. Mr. Rosenheim helped me appreciate the subtleties of literature, to explore the text and the subtext.

As 18- to 20-year-olds, we no doubt thought Mr. Booth and Mr. Rosenheim ancient, at least 70 if not 80. I did, and in spring of 2001 it occurred to me that they must have already passed on, although I had not heard anything specific. Then I must have seen something about Mr. Booth, because realized that he was not only alive, but still active at the university. I visited the University of Chicago website on the off chance he might have an e-mail address—. He did! I wrote to him knowing that there was little likelihood he would write back. He did!

He said he remembered me, although the memory was admittedly “dim,” then suggested that I get together with him and his wife for lunch while they were still in town. He also said that, for some reason, my note had sparked him to pick up The Age of Innocence by Edith Wharton. I was stunned by the offer and the comment, which came at a time when I felt overwhelmed by the sudden decline my father’s health was suffering. (He died July 28, 2001.) For whatever reason, Mr. Booth and I never did have lunch or the conversation about what was on our minds, as he put it. Another missed opportunity, another regret.

When I read of Mr. Booth and Mr. Rosenheim’s deaths, I was surprised to learn they were both younger than my father. During all those years I had carried the impression picked up as a youth that they were very old men, and in reality they were only in late middle age and at the pinnacle of their academic careers and intellectual lives. What an odd thing perception is in the young, and how long it lasts.

Thank you, Mr. Booth and Mr. Rosenheim. You influenced so many of us in ways that others, such as politicians and other so-called leaders, can only envy. Thank you for making us think for ourselves, like the natural philosophers we are. And thank you for proving that the discussion and debate of even the most sensitive ideas do not need to be vicious or mean-spirited, and that they can be and are exciting and enlightening.

We’ll miss you and your wisdom. And our lost opportunities.

O Tannenbaum

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A friend told me about getting a Christmas tree this year, and I started thinking about how, very early in my life on my own, I put up lights, sprayed “snow” on my windows, and put up a few decorations along with cards, but that lasted only a season or two. I couldn’t tell you then why I stopped, or when I started trying to ignore Christmas, trying to turn it into nothing more than a mid-winter respite from work.

I think now that decorating made me feel lonely. It couldn’t bring my mother back; it couldn’t bring my father’s vitality back; it couldn’t transport me back to my family life; and it couldn’t be a substitute for a family. “You can’t go home again.”

Some of my favorite Christmas decorations were a plastic Santa in a chimney (going down, as his bag was full), a tiny Nativity scene that went on top of the skirt under the tree, and a string of green bells we hung between the living room and extra room. There were others, but even now my memories are fading.

For me as a child, these decorations, along with the snows that we usually had, symbolized the specialness of the season. At night, with the lights off and the colored tree lights on, I felt that the trailer looked as warm, comfortable, and cozy as any home, more so than at any other time of the year. It was truly a magical transformation.

One year at the public library there was a caroling event. With snow on the ground and a few flurries in the air, voices raised in song, and little lights all around, I felt more of the Christmas spirit then than I ever have — that the world is a beautiful place, and that all really was right with it. I thought then that I would be able to repeat that experience and that feeling many times, not knowing what it means to be an adult and how rare that feeling would be when I grew up.

The store displays that move native Chicagoans as part of their traditions leave me cold. To me, they have no associations with my childhood, and instead appear to me as the worst of commercialism — expensive, gaudy, overdone, the kind of thing that impresses with size and scope rather than with originality, simplicity, and meaning.

Only once have I felt like a happy child again. It was a few years ago in downtown Oak Park, in the midst of the small, quaint shops decorated with charming scenarios, where I was strolling with a friend. The stores and streets were softly lit, snow was on the ground and then in the air, and for an elusive moment the world itself seemed to be at peace with itself. I can’t describe the scene or the mood or evoke it in anyone else; I can experience it, and that only rarely and unexpectedly.

I’m tired of people who run down Christmas. As I wrote last year, you choose what Christmas, any holiday, or any occasion means to you. You can choose it to mean frequenting malls and listening to bad music, out-shopping the Joneses (or your mother-in-law), getting into debt, hating the gifts you receive (or don’t receive), and resenting half your family if you’re lucky enough to have one. You can choose to spend Christmas whining about the problem that you are part of and contribute to. You can bellyache about everything or try futilely, as I tried, to create or capture the impossible, and make yourself miserable when the magic doesn’t work.

Or, instead of stressing yourself out by trying to create joy and being crushed by the inevitable and invariable disappointment when you fail (and getting angry that no one is cooperating with your efforts), you can understand that moments of true joy, of epiphany, are unplanned and unexpected. Let them happen and savor them forever when they do.

In the meantime you can bring joy to yourself by bringing it to others — those out who have no money to spend, no one to buy for or to outdo, and no family to fight with.

Happy Christmas to all, and to all a good-night.

Diane

Error of my ways

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When I moved to the Flamingo I upgraded to digital cable, which required a box. A “trained technician” was dispatched to perform this intricate installation. When he was done we tested it, and the cable and TV appeared to be working. Then I had the idea of testing the VCR (yes, I still have a VCR), which didn’t work. The technician played around with it for a few minutes, then said, “It doesn’t work; the movers must have dropped it.” I told him the movers had never seen or touched it; a friend and I had personally carried it over from the old place a block away — and that it had been working earlier that week. “Maybe you dropped or bumped it, then,” he said. No, I think we would have noticed that. It was not a point worth arguing, however; the VCR didn’t work, and the technician was unable to help or to admit he didn’t know how to. He left, having placed the blame squarely on me.

A few days later I looked at the setup and decided that something didn’t look quite right and that switching a couple of the cables around might work. It did; voilà — a working TV, cable, and VCR setup. And I’m not a trained technician.

When something goes wrong or doesn’t work, the first reaction seems to be, “Did you . . .?” that is, to avoid responsibility and shift the blame to someone, anyone, else. At work, if there is a mistake in a report it must be the fault of the assistant or the junior staff person, even though they are not the reviewers who sign off.

Even our political leaders refuse to admit their errors, no matter how obvious they are or how thoroughly they have been demonstrated. The question is, do the leaders set the tone for the rest of us, or do we choose and support them because they reflect the standards we embrace?

To me, the ability to admit mistakes is courageous, while the inability to admit them is cowardly. It takes strength to face up to errors and their ramifications; it takes only stubbornness, arrogance, and bravado to deny culpability.

In our world, though, a leader is “strong” when he or she clings to their own errors and prevarications, as though wishes were horses. People perceive them as having the “strength of their convictions” — no matter how flawed the convictions. Those who confess to mistakes and errors in judgment are seen as weak, tentative, and indecisive — even though they have been brave enough to face the people and the consequences, whether it’s mere humiliation or a more serious outcome, such as a trial and potential conviction and sentence.

In everyday life, we blame someone else for our failings; if children don’t learn, it’s the teacher’s fault; if there’s a mistake on the printed page, it’s the printer’s fault; if a team performs badly, it’s the weather or travel. So it’s not surprising that we vote for leaders who are just like us, fallible yet self-righteous and frightened of punishment. When they do prove to be wrong beyond doubt, we abandon them like proverbial rats. It’s not our fault for choosing them. How were we to know?

Edmund Fitzgerald

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October 15 — I was listening to one of my favorite songs from my adolescence, the eerie, haunting “The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald.” I think I’ve always assumed Gordon Lightfoot’s 1976 tune was about a shipwreck that had happened long ago, but today I decided to find out more. To my surprise, two of the best sites dedicated to the Fitzgerald have been developed by young people who weren’t yet born in 1975, which I learned is the year in which the Fitzgerald sank in Lake Superior, killing all 29 members of her crew.

The first site, S.S. Edmund Fitzgerald Online, has information about the ship, the crew, and the wreck. The second site, 3D Edmund Fitzgerald, features 3D drawings, meticulously detailed and with documentation where details are missing, for example, the hole for the ladder to the crow’s nest. I give these kids a lot of credit for their thoughtful interest in an event that is minor in the scheme of history and that most remember primarily because of Lightfoot’s tribute. Both sites are well done and worth bookmarking.

I won’t get into the details of the Edmund Fitzgerald or the wreck — just visit S.S. Edmund Fitzgerald Online. What the tragedy of the Edmund Fitzgerald reminds me of, though, is what all of us too often forget — the work of those who keep us comfortable and in comfort. The Fitzgerald was carrying iron ore in her hold for the auto industry. Who mined the ore? Who loaded the Fitzgerald? Who would have unloaded her? Who would have hauled the ore to the plant? Who would have processed it? People — people who risk their lives so that we can have heat, food, necessities, comforts, and conveniences. People who may like danger and risk and who are often fatalistic about it. People who work on farms, in mines, in processing plants, in rail yards, in dockyards — and on freighters. How many farmers killed or maimed, miners buried, rail men crushed, how many injured, amputations a testament to the risks of the machine age? How easy it is not to think of the essential work we’ve never seen or experienced, like that performed by stagehands behind the scenes at a theatrical production.

The men of the Edmund Fitzgerald experienced bitter cold, howling winds, and crashing waves — and the knowledge of wrecks that “the gales of November remembered” — November, one of the stormiest and deadliest months for shipping on the Great Lakes.

Today marks the 30th anniversary of the wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald and the deaths of all her hands. No one knows what caused the wreck itself. But we do know a great deal about her crew. For the most part, they were seasoned seamen, as well as family men. One had survived Iwo Jima, while another pursued a passion for learning cooking and baking. A couple, including the captain, were looking forward to retirement. They were ordinary men who knew they could die on the job but probably never expected to, or to be memorialized in one of the decade’s hit singles — or online.

When you take a look around you, at your food, at your clothes, at your appliances, at your furniture, at virtually everything you own, remember the men of the Edmund Fitzgerald — and everyone else who, sight unseen, keeps you warm, fed, clothed, and comfortable. They deserve to be recognized for all they are willing to do — and all they are willing to risk.

On this 30th anniversary, take a moment to think about the men who died and their families, and all who die or are injured performing their work.

International out of sorts day

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I declare today “International Out of Sorts Day.” (If I cite the switch to standard time as one of the causes, I can claim international status.)

I am out of sorts today, which is wretched because this is my respite from the soul-wrenching grind of working life and all that goes with it.

It began yesterday, when “Charles” (a euphemism) arrived three days early and for the second time this month. Just as a blue moon should be rare, so should a second Charles in a month. As a result, I’m tired, cranky, listless, and in pain — for the second time in October.

Then I woke up this morning at what would be 5 a.m., which I do sometimes, especially when Charles is around. Today, of course, it was really 4 a.m. I stayed up. I’ve had three cups of coffee and one cup of tea; I’ve tried unsuccessfully to nap or at least to relax, but I remain tired, cranky, listless, and in pain . . .

I did see a thin crescent of the moon brightly lit, with the dimly outlined glow of the sphere on top, sometime between moonrise and sunrise.

When it was light, I could see that the two trees below my windows are now bare except for one stubborn twig at the end of one branch on each. The leaves of the magnificent horse chestnut across the way in the park are not coloring and falling off so much as turning brown, curling up into a crisp, and dropping. The maples and some others at Promontory Point are half red or orange and half bare. A few trees are still relatively covered with slightly colored or even mostly green leaves. From bare to green, even the trees seem out of sorts.

I’m reading the Claudine novels by Colette and am nearing the end of Claudine in Paris. Claudine is homesick for Montigny and the country; she is disturbed by her discovery of Luce and her new status as mistress to her fat, elderly uncle-by-marriage; her other friends have left school and are getting married or otherwise settling into inevitable adult life; she believes Marcel’s lover to be somewhat of a fraud; mostly, she is 17 and starting to feel caught between a childhood to which she can never return and something — “more than a husband” — that eludes her; she is lonely, tired, cranky, and listless.

Claudine is out of sorts.

And, although in this novel she is 27 years younger than I am, we seem to be out of sorts for some of the same reasons. It’s autumn, and I miss the country and the annual drive with my parents to see the fall colors. I don’t always like the people with whom I am surrounded, and there is no escape from them. I don’t know what to do with myself, or, if I do, I don’t have the energy or will to do it.

As with Claudine, something is eluding me, something I can’t define. I think of things I could do that I might enjoy for a moment, but none of them would scratch the itch that torments but that I can’t find.

Claudine is, to some extent, Colette herself. Colette would live a rich, full, varied life. Was her itch ever scratched? Or, for such a woman, does a new one take its place in the heart?

While no one ever has everything they truly want, which is part of what keeps us going, there seem to be some for whom the hunger is constant, the longing acute, the water and fruit always beyond reach.

To you I say: Happy International Out of Sorts Day.

And may it not last a lifetime.