I have developed that most annoying of illnesses. One that makes me feel miserable but is going to disappear on its own in a short handful of days. Because of this I get not nearly as much attention as I would like, and way less sympathy than I feel I deserve.
I have a cold, even worse, a “common” one. I suffer such things poorly.
Since I stopped practicing pediatrics and thus have had much less contact with those most dangerous spreaders of all sorts of disease – children – I rarely get colds, or any other contagious illness, for that matter. While there are kids living in our neighborhood, I discourage friendly relations with them. Should one of them approach too closely * I make a face or say something mildly unpleasant and away they go to tattle on me. Better to be called “mean old man” than dealing with unnecessary episodes of my present affliction is my calculus.
I think that a parent of any sniffly child who lets them go out to play should be required to make them wear a garment with a symbol imprinted like the one in the picture so that the rest of us can more easily avoid them as the hazard that they are.
Too harsh, you say? My response is that i have already gone through 1 1/2 boxes of Kleenex with no sign as yet that the disease is waning. My nose runneth, my eyes ache-eth, and my patience weareth exceedingly thin. I am quite the self-pitying mess this morning, completely deaf to pleas for logic, fairness, or compassion. Did I not tell you? I have a cold.
*Too close = less than the radius of viral spread in a sneeze. Research has shown that sneeze particles travel at 100 mph for a radius of 23-27 feet. Yes, real research.
******
Bob Seger and I are kind of littermates of different mothers, with him being just a few years younger than I am. His career really got going in 1969, which was the year I got out of residency training and went out into the world.
Bob rode a motorcycle, I rode a motorcycle. He plays straight-ahead rock ‘n’ roll. I like straight -ahead rock ‘n’ roll. He occasionally has objectified women in his songs, while I blush to admit to that same fault … but only very rarely, you understand. After all, I am a card-carrying member of a benighted generation of men.
(How benighted? There was a period of a year in my life when I was a member of the Catholic Church. One of the causes of my falling away was that on Saturday evening I would go to confession, lay out my not very original sins, and receive absolution. Sunday morning I would line up for communion to receive the sacrament and then I would notice the awfully attractive legs of the girl ahead of me in line and before you knew it my mind was no longer in a state of grace and I had to go back to the pew and sit down.)
When I look back, I enjoy his music as much as or more than any other artist I’ve listened to. Bob played humble. He never suffered from the “big star” syndrome. Even when he could fill a stadium, he was still writing songs about the common man and about the life they had.
The lyrics of his songs changed as he aged. Night Moves was about fumbling in the back seats of cars at drive-in movies. The Ring was about marital despair. Like A Rock was about looking back on one’s life, wistfully.
All of it good stuff. I attended a concert of his forty years ago. The auditorium was filled with fans who were totally into his music. When the band played Like A Rock and that first beautiful guitar break came along, suddenly all of the stage lights went out except for a single perfect spot playing on the lead guitarist. It was a moment.
******
We are daily bombarded by bad behaviors from our leaders. So much so that a visiting alien’s takeaway would almost certainly be that humans are incapable of honesty, if their opinion was based on media reports.
Former president Cluck is the premier liar right now, and sets a new low bar each time he opens his mouth. Most of the Republican Party leadership repeats his big lie about a stolen election. But President Biden also keeps the fact-checkers busy as he stretches and embellishes in his statements. I’m not suggesting equivalence here, just that lying is a bad habit of a lot of folks.
From the University of Rochester Medical Center comes this nice summation of why lying in general is not praiseworthy, but that there are exceptions to that rule. You all know this stuff, but it’s worth reviewing from time to time.
******
A moment ago a thought crossed the great barren space I call my mind. Our present socio-political-ethical situation in the U.S. is like a gigantic abscess rearing up red and angry and so painful that a healthy mind recoils from it.
Perhaps at some time in the past we could have better dealt with the problem, when it was smaller and more approachable. But now we are moving toward the ugliness of having to lance that thing, suspecting uneasily that none of us will come away clean from the operation.
******
Since we bought those beautiful new sit-on-top kayaks a month ago, we’ve been able to get out on them only twice. Rain, wind, family events, and travel have taken from the time available. But looking ahead I can see spaces that might work for exploring with them.
Last evening Robin, Jill, and I walked around Lake Chipeta. It was a perfect early summer evening, warm and scented by things blooming and growing. We spotted a pair of ospreys hanging around the lake, moving from treetop to treetop periodically whenever humans got too near. I wasn’t able to spot the nest that I suspect is close by. Such nests are large and messy-looking affairs and usually not hard to locate.
We encountered a family group of eight people fishing together, further on we passed a gaggle of teen-aged boys who carried fishing rods but seemed more interested in punching and insulting one another. There was a pair of oldsters were out on the lake in small kayaks, trying to add rainbow trout to their dinner choices.
All in all a menu of small-town scenes for us to appreciate that evening.
******
Little Home In The Valley 