I am not a “boomer,” so I respectfully suggest that people stop referring to me in that way. I am older than a boomer, actually, because that group didn’t start until WWII was over, and I was born before it all began. I also respectfully ask that people not blame me for that war, it was not my fault. I was a baby and I didn’t know any better.
Now that we’ve got that out of the way, let’s get on with more important things.
If you are streaming the television that you watch, there is an amazing richness of opportunity in places like Netflix (perhaps especially Netflix) to engage with material about and by people of color. Go to the company site and search under “black stories,” or “black lives matter,” and see what a treasury comes up.
Now not all of you may know this, because I am a modest and shy boy of Minnesota origins, but I am a white person. In fact, one day in the past my old friend Rich Kaplan said to me: “Jon, you are the whitest person I know.” Out of not quite knowing what he meant, I never asked Rich to clarify that statement.
At any rate, I have no excuse for there still being a gap between what I should know and what I do know with regard to race, racism, injustice, et al. The information is out there. All I have to do is take a deep breath and dig in. I know two things, that I will be the better for it and that I will find it hard to watch or read.
It’s not that I am completely clueless (although my children might argue with me on that). At age fifteen my cultural education really began with reading “Century of Dishonor,” a book about the horrific treatment of Native Americans by Europeans. In the early seventies I worked at a ghetto clinic in Buffalo NY, where nearly all of my patients were black. In the eighties I worked at a clinic on a Lakota reservation in Nebraska.
But looking back I realize that I didn’t take full advantage of what were wonderful opportunities for learning. My thought processes tended toward the clinical, as if I were an anthropologist and observing on a very superficial level. Instead of taking the clumsy instrument that my mind was and letting it probe deeper into what the experiences and lives of the patients … the people … that I met might be like or what they meant. Or at least trying to do so.
Not only do I not claim to know what it means to be a black person or a Native American or Hispanic or Asian, I even have trouble knowing what it means to be a white guy sometimes. But I can look at a specific situation and ask myself: What if that happened to me? How would I feel?
I strongly suspect that I would be angry … no, furious … all of the time.
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Fighting the Good Fight Department
Tell the Truth and Shame the Devil! by Charles Blow
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Monday morning I found myself humming songs from Carole King’s excellent album of 1971, Tapestry. Robin and I talked about how really perfect the group of songs were, and the tune You’ve Got A Friend is the best song about true friendship that I’ve ever heard.
Apparently our opinion is shared by a few other people because it’s one of the largest-selling albums of all time.
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Wednesday through Friday we’re headed for the old Silesca Ranger Station for a getaway. The building dates back to 1937, and was in use by the forest service until 1954 . At any rate, civilians can now rent them and spend time alone in the forests of the Uncompahgre Plateau. We are looking forward to sharing the space with the ghosts of another era.
I will bring back photos of my own, but here’s one of the cabin, taken from the web.
The cabins have a shower, flush toilets, and an electric stove. Really, not “roughing it” at all. During the day we will likely be occasionally annoyed by ATVs buzzing around, but the evenings should be great. It’s fifteen miles from civilization and Covid-free. Nothing to do but read, sit quietly, watch the forest animals parade by, and if one is uncommonly motivated – take a hike.
Ahhhhhh, Wilderness. The word reminds me of a saying by a Native American that I read decades ago, and have long since forgotten the source.
What the white man calls wilderness, we call home.
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Little Home In The Valley 
What’s that dark shadow behind the outhouse?
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Sharp eyes you have. I think it’s most likely a forest elf, well known for their trickery such as making your compass go nuts and getting you impossibly lost.
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You hope!
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