Category Archives: My Story

Drinking

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I don’t drink.  I am coming up on three years alcohol free.  I don’t know how many other times I have quit, starting when I was seventeen.  I started drinking when I was fifteen, if you count Coors 3.2 beer as alcohol.  It isn’t very strong, so I just drank more.  I started and stopped several times after the first time.

My mother was an alcoholic, my father drank quite a bit.  Their entire social circle revolved around drinking.  One of my mother’s best friends choked to death on her own vomit on the kitchen floor.  One of her kids found her.  Alcohol was the culture I grew up with.

One of the issues I live with is ADD/ADHD.  Growing up, I knew something was wrong – always in trouble, unable do do schoolwork I wasn’t interested in, lots of other stuff.  I thought of it as the Fatal Flaw.  I have managed to lurch along with the ADD, but it affected all my life.  My college transcript is mostly A’s and F’s.  It helped ruin my first marriage.  The deal with it, I drank and did dope.

I used to buy pot by the quarter pound.  I never bought booze in less than 1&1/2 liter bottles, beer by the case.  A friend and I would go to the beer joint and drink seven pitchers in an evening.  I smoked three packs of cigarettes every day, more when drinking.

All the drugs and alcohol were self medicating.  I was heavily medicated for a long time.  I started therapy more than 30 years ago.  It seemed to help in a lot of areas, but the addictions remained. One day in a therapy session the therapist stopped and asked me if I had ever been evaluated for ADD.  Well, no.  That evening I did a checklist.  I was 48 out of 50 questions.

That is when my life began to change.  It all took a while, I didn’t stop drinking for about fifteen years, but I was doing better in lots of other areas.  I can now do tasks I was previously incapable of even starting.  It took a lot of cognitive therapy and the stimulant medication to get my prefrontal cortex working without stirring up a bunch of drama.

You are aware alcoholics go to lots of meetings.  I go to two meetings every week.  They are a tremendous help as other alcoholics share their experience, strength, and hope.  We humans need to associate with others  and the meetings are healthier than bars.

I am fairly sure I will never drink again.  That’s good, because it would kill me.  My stomach doesn’t like alcohol and kicks up a real fuss when I drink.  I like not having my stomach hurt.

I don’t agree with all the concepts of the program, but I can live with it.  Spending time with a bunch of sober alcoholics is a constant reinforcement for my sobriety.  As we say at the end of meetings, “Keep coming back, it works if you work it.”

Posted in ADD/ADHD, Addiction, Alcohol, Alcoholism, Craving, My Story, Stories

The Colorado Flag

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I like the Colorado State flag.  I guess you could say I am proud of the flag.  Here in Colorado you see the flag all over the place.  Flagpoles, of course, bumpers, hats, t-shirts, marijuana stores, on the iPad I’m writing this on, window stickers, building foyer floors, notebooks, backpacks, patches on jackets, tattoos, hoodies, on state highway signs, and lots of other places.

One place it isn’t on are Colorado State Line signs.  There are the venerable wooden Welcome to Colorful Colorado signs.  They were there when I was a kid.  I always felt a bit of a thrill when we passed the one on US 6&50 coming from Utah.  They’re rustic and distinctive.  The one on I-70 coming from Wyoming has had a No Vacancy sticker from time to time.

Recently the state government made a mistake in adopting a new logo. It is a triangle which can be paired with a state agency.   The triangles so small as to be unreadable from any distance.  The logos are an example of committees going too far.  Why not the Colorado flag with the agency name on a separate sticker?  Denver does it with success.

The flag colors represent blue sky, red earth, and golden sunshine. I think the gold also represents the gold responsible for attracting settlers in large numbers back in 1859 and 1860.  The gold brought people, wealth, farms and ranches to feed the miners and a fascinating mountain railroad history.

Along with the gold rush came a big mess.  Gold mines, mills, smelters, huge waste dumps, polluted streams, and superfund sites scattered throughout the mountains and in Denver.  We will always have the sad legacy of exploitation with no regard to the future.  It’s ironic one of the most famous photographs is a mine building in the canyon below the Million Dollar Highway.

The development of extractive industries also

Old Mine on the Million Dollar Highway

created a boom-bust economy.  The silver panic of 1890 closed mines and left ghost towns.  More recently, the big oil and gas downturn of the 1980’s severely damaged the economy.  There was a bumper sticker saying “Please God, bring another oil boom, I won’t waste it this time”.  Weld county, just north of Denver is densely populated with oil and gas wells creating an environmental crisis.

Maybe the Colorado flag should incorporate a black stripe.

 

Posted in Colorado, Colorado Flag, Flags, My Story, Stories

The Squirrel War

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We have a bird feeder in the back yard so we can watch birds from our sun room.  When we started there was trouble.  Squirrels.  They are fun to watch in their own right, but they are voracious little creatures.  In addition, they seem to do fine without being fed.  On the other hand, we have noticed an increase in the bird population when we feed them in winter.

I should say we feed finches and sparrows.  At first we inadvertently fed pigeons, but many modifications to our feeder we got them to stay away.  I tried shooting the pigeons with a pellet gun, but it is illegal in Denver.  As a kid I shot lots of pigeons in Fruita, but Fruita was not a city.  It is now. After several years and many squirrel proofing modifications the feeder finally wore out.

The new feeder is not squirrel proof, even though it was billed as such.  The little vandals leapt from the tree.  We moved the feeder.  They now shinny up the pole and jump over to the feeder.  I think our resident female squirrel also leaps up from the ground, but we have yet to see her in the act.  I can raise the feeder if she is jumping up.

To stop the pole shinnying I put a slick pvc pipe over the one inch steel pole. It didn’t work, it makes shinnying easier.  The old feeder had a woven wire cage around it the birds could pass through but kept squirrels out.  This one has the perches in the open air.  I have thought about electrifying the pole, but it seems extreme.

I have also considered some kind of barrier between the pole and feeder, but it would be ugly.  I could also install a motion activated noise cannon.  No, the neighbors would disapprove.  How about some kind of moat?  No, it would freeze in winter.  A dog or cat?  Yes, they would do the job when outside, but not all the time.  They would also be hard on the garden.  The rabbits are enough critters in the yard.

Some kind of trip wire apparatus would work, but is too complex.  Besides, what would they fall into?  I think my next try is a ½ inch spaces woven wire disk on the pole, suggested by a guest at Thanksgiving.   They would try to climb around the ends but if the disk is secured so it will tilt with weight on it, it might throw the squirrel off.  if you have any ideas, let me know.  Just remember our adversaries are clever, athletic, and persistent.

Is resistance futile?

Posted in Bird Feeder, Current Activities, Gardening, My Story, Squirrel War, Stories

Greed

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Gollum

Greed is the prime mover for most of the bad things happening on our world.  The bulk of criminal activity is motivated by greed-people taking what is not rightly theirs.  Wars are motivated by a quest for power.  Performers want recognition and fame.  Addictions arise from attempts to mask pain or discomfort.  They are a means to feel better, if only briefly.  The root cause of greed is an attempt to satisfy something missing in a person’s life. Their belief is acquiring something: wealth, adulation, power, health, or sexual gratification will fulfill their need.

The needs are based on believing acquisitions will lead to happiness and contentment.  This can be temporarily true, but discontent always lurks in the wings.  Our consumer culture is based on greed.  Buy the right car, drink the right beer, take the right medication and all will be well.  Not so, folks.

From birth, people strive to meet their basic needs.  Babies cry when they are hungry, cold, wet, Ill, or alone.  When they cry, needs are met.  When they smile and laugh, needs are met.  They learn strategies to meet their needs.  If discontent arises for some reason, they apply the strategies to assuage the discontent.

Problem is, fulfilling survival and acquisition needs does not satisfy all we humans need for a fulfilled life.  Love, friendship, helping others, creating, and learning are also needs all people share.  The difference is they are truly fulfilling because they are meaningful accomplishments, not mere acquisition.

We are animals with animal needs.  Twisting animal needs into greed is ultimately a dead end because the animal will inevitably die and all that stuff is meaningless.  As Americans, we are somewhat challenged.  Most have the basic needs met, but we are inundated with messages telling us how important it is to acquire to be happy.  Barring living in a cave or on the street, it is almost impossible to avoid the selling.

I am sitting here in the coffee shop with my high priced coffee and a pastry.  Coffee at home and my granola-muesli mix would be healthier and a lot less expensive.  I had a birthday yesterday and now I am wearing a cool wool vest I have desired for several years.  I think about cars, tools, fancy food, and gear.  Gear I will never use.  I buy books and keep them, some unread, when the library is just down the street.  I am always looking for the right hat to put on my bald head.

I drive to my spiritual group meetings.  I go on somewhat costly retreats when I can read and meditate at home.  My teacher says retreats are “upper middle” activities, but the messages imply they are important for reaching a spiritual goal.  What happened to meditating in a cave.  Well, drive to the cave and use a Jetboil stove from REI to cook rice and ramen.  Use a solar panel to recharge the smartphone.

Another word for greed is desire.  The fancy bicycle I don’t ride has a sticker saying “Trapped On the Wheel of Desire”.  Ice cream, chocolate, cheesecake, boots, the right blue jeans, wool socks, merino t-shirts, coffee, good movies, the right tires, Geology books, Dharma books, Harry Potter books and movies, my leather chair.  It seems I have a lot to let go of.

For me, an outgrowth of desire is obsession.  I don’t just want stuff, I obsess about it.  A large portion of my day goes to obsessing.  I guess I obsess to avoid feeling bad.  I don’t need to let go of obsessing, it’s feeling bad.  After all all the stuff I feel bad about is gone.  The only place it exists is in my mind.  I need a brain vacuum.

Greed and desire is not all of me.  I enjoy nature, I rejoice when the sun comes out after rainy days.  I love my life.  I have good friends and relatives, I like to learn, I like to write.  In fact, after 76 years, I think I am on the way.  It’s just a matter of more letting go. Breath in, breathe out.

 

Posted in Addiction, Craving, Depression, Greed, My Story, Obsession, Stories, Suffering

Legs

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I am a limper.  I limp more than most people.  In my younger days I was always spraining an ankle.  High school football marked the start of my knee adventures when I partially tore my anterior cruciate ligament.  I was born with chondromalacia, meaning my kneecaps are somewhat askew, leading to arthritis at a relatively young age.  I had arthroscopic surgery on my right knee in my late 40s.    

In the meantime, I hiked, hunted, backpacked, played killer volleyball in the Army, and climbed over twenty fourteeners, mountains over 14,000 feet elevation.  I always experienced some pain during all that, but I just kept on truckin’.   

Sunshine and Redcloud Peaks

It all changed when I climbed Sunshine and Redcloud Peaks in the San Juan mountains.  It started as a fine day in country mostly new to me.  A great climb, with a lot of time sharing  the alpine tundra with the resident Pika.  It started clouding up as we dropped down from Sunshine on the way to Redcloud.  On the summit of Redcloud we were in a whiteout with horizontal snow.  We got scared when I took my hat off and my hair stood on end, what there was of it.

We headed down as fast as we could, having experienced lightning above timberline before.  People die that way.  We moved straight down, sort of loping down a scree field.  By the time we reached timberline I was hobbling, both knees screaming.  That was the end of my climbing and backpacking days.  I did climb Quandary Peak some years later, but I was climbing with people twenty years older than me and it is an easy climb for a fourteener.  

As a substitute I bought a motorcycle.  I had ridden in my younger years, but got away from motorcycles.  I have always sought out activities I have no business engaging in. I was repeating a risky activity beyond my ability.    

Posterior Cruciate Ligament

My first ride into the mountains was up Golden Gate Canyon, one of the many canyons carved down the face of the Colorado Front Range.  The canyons are all winding, scenic, and steep, making for great motorcycle rides.  There are hazards.  Wildlife, crazy drivers, bad weather, and debris on the road.  I went down sliding on some sand . My right knee hit the road, my tibia and fibula stopped, but my femur continued long enough to tear my posterior cruciate.  Ow, Ow, Ow.  After things healed a bit I kept riding and crashing without too much damage.  

One day at work I was walking along and SNAP, my ACL finally gave up.  The MCL was also gone so the only things holding my leg together was skin and muscle.  I now have a titanium knee. It works fine.  My left knee is not so good.  Most of the cartilage is gone and arthritis has set in.    

I get injections in my knee from time to time, and they help.  Some.  Mostly I live with some pain, cycling from mild to hobbling.  I will get another knee replacement some day.  I fall down.  I always have have to some degree, lacking much coordination.  Now it is worse as my balance is increasingly rocky.  I fall off ladders, down stairs, and even on level ground.    

On one of my trips down the stairs I bruised my left hip.  I figured it would heal, not being broken but no luck.  It’s sore, a lot, but aspirin and BenGay are helping.  The orthopedist I have gotten to know pretty well says there is arthritis and not much cartilage there.  She looked at me and suggested a hip and knee replacement.  Well, maybe someday.  

I look at these health issues as teachers.  Stuff doesn’t work well, it gets plugged up, it doesn’t want to flow, and it hurts. It is all likely to get worse.  My job is to adapt.  Life involves change.  It involves pain.  It is endlessly rewarding.  The pain may be limiting, but it does not necessarily lead to suffering.  After all, I can still look at car crashes in Russia on You Tube and make up lies for you to read.

Posted in Aging, Change, Current Activities, Falls, Health Issues, Knee and Hip Injuries, Motorcycle Crashes, My Story, Pain, Stories

Ego

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Seeker

As I have mentioned before, I am a seeker.  I have always wondered about the hard stuff.  Is there really a god?  Does that teacher really know what he is talking about?  How many subatomic particles are there?  Why is the human brain so complex?  Why is the universe expanding in defiance of gravity?  Why do Republicans exist?  What is the difference between eukaryotic and prokaryotes and how can prokaryotes have flagella?

Vegetarian animals have their eyes more to the side of their heads in order to see predators, who have their eyes in front to see prey.  Therefore, should humans always be carnivorous?  What about biblical prophesy?  Are these the last days?  Is existential despair the true human condition?  Is there enough time left to reverse global warming?

Do you see what I mean?  I have lots of questions and not many answers.  In my college days an art major and I were scrubbing wax off the baseboards in the student center during semester break.  I asked him about the meaning of life as artists always have a different vision about the nature of things.  His reply?  “ Everything is what it is.”  We’ll, yes, but not very satisfying.   Artists look and render what they see.  I look and wonder why?

The Meaning of Life

This defect of my character has led me to seek out those people and traditions who purport to know the answers.  I was raised a nominal Methodist.  I found only felt figures on a felt board.  I did like the doxology, but hated the jello salads in the basement.

I had a profound period of existential despair after my mother’s death my junior year of high school.  Camus, the Blues, and Tchaikovsky’s Sixth Symphony.   Being afraid of girls was no help at all.

The winter of my senior year I was the wrestling team manager.  I wasn’t much of an athlete (another reason for existential despair) so the wrestling team was great fun.  I was able to help and even make a difference.  The scourge of wrestlers is boils.  Sliding on those mats means abrasion, and bacteria find their way into the skin.  Evil, those boils.  As  team manager,  I insured there were no  boils because I kept the mats disinfected.  No pus and blood on my watch.

There it is, the answer to despair.  Stay engaged.  I prevented boils, Camus enjoyed success with the ladies.  There is almost always a way.  Still, I sought.  On a wrestling trip to Salt Lake I bumped up against the Mormons.  I read, studied, listened, even dated a Mormon girl.  One night during an attack of angst I realized I didn’t believe in that stuff.

I then embarked on a career as an agnostic, annoying all the believers I knew by challenging their beliefs.  I continued my search with little success for quite a few years.  I think I substituted addictions for having any meaning.  If you are getting off, the need to keep it up takes over, even while knowing addiction is fruitless.  I had read Kerouac.

Saved

Then, during a dark night of the soul after a divorce, I was living in a basement apartment in Lasalle Colorado with my black dog.  I was working in the Greeley sewage disposal plant and the Maintenance Foreman was a deacon in an Assemblies Of God Church.  I went to his bible study, prayed, and got saved.  I asked Jesus in and felt this overwhelming feeling of being wrapped in love.  I got involved, had many experiences of the Holy Spirit, the addictions went away for a year, and I thought I had found the Meaning.

But, life interfered, as well as knowing all that Fundamentalist stuff made no sense.  I couldn’t stay with the holy rollers and ended up an Episcopalian.  For me, my higher power manifests as Jesus.  I couldn’t, however stay with the organized church.  Churches are instruments of power and control, contrary to what Jesus taught.  I did learn how to pray, and prayer is what grounds me.  No answers to the Big Question, however.

In fact, I think I have given up on finding the Meaning.  It’s a mystery.  These days I practice Insight Meditation with all its Buddhist trappings.  The good thing about Buddhism is that it does not purport to answer those questions.  I fact, the Buddha mostly ignored all that stuff, saying the sole goal is to end suffering.  With our big brains, we look for reasons.  We think up explanations or buy into someone else’s explanation and create a world.  Almost always the core of that world is desire.  We want stuff, pleasure, a sense of belonging.

No way, dude.  It is all illusion.  Let it go and find emptiness.  That emptiness harbors the true meaning, a sense of being one with the Universe.  Well, I think so, anyway.  I haven’t even come close.  Maybe I need a Bodhi tree to meditate under.

My meditating has borne fruit.  I am finding equanimity.  I am less frustrated.  I am less angry.  I don’t feel as much despair.  I have periods of true happiness.  My addictions are losing their grip, especially if I do my part in my daily practice.  Can’t tell you about the meaning of the cosmos, but my cosmos is more peaceful.

 

 

 

Posted in Buddhism, Existential Despair, Insight Meditation, Jesus, Meaning, Meditation, My Story, Stories

The Meaning Of Life

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As I have mentioned before, I am a seeker.  I have always wondered about the hard stuff.  Is there really a god?  Does that teacher really know what he is talking about?  How many subatomic particles are there?  Why is the human brain so complex?  Why is the universe expanding in defiance of gravity?  Why do Republicans exist?  What is the difference between eukaryotes and prokaryotes and how can prokaryotes have flagella?

Vegetarian animals have their eyes more to the side of their heads in order to see predators, who have their eyes in front to see prey.  Therefore, should humans always be carnivorous?  What about biblical prophesy?  Are these the last days?  Is existential despair the true human condition?  Is there enough time left to reverse global warming?

Do you see what I mean?  I have lots of questions and not many answers.  In my college days an art major and I were scrubbing wax off the baseboards in the student center during semester break.  I asked him about the meaning of life as artists always have a different vision about the nature of things.  His reply?  “ Everything is what it is.”  We’ll, yes, but not very satisfying.   Artists look and render what they see.  I look and wonder why?

This defect of my character has led me to seek out those people and traditions who purport to know the answers.  I was raised a nominal Methodist.  I found only felt figures on a felt board.  I did like the doxology, but hated the jello salads in the basement.

I had a profound period of existential despair after my mother’s death my junior year of high school.  Camus, the Blues, and Tchaikovsky’s Sixth Symphony.   Being afraid of girls was no help at all.

The winter of my senior year I was the wrestling team manager.  I wasn’t much of an athlete (another reason for existential despair) so the wrestling team was great fun.  I was able to help and even make a difference.  The scourge of wrestlers is boils.  Sliding on those mats means abrasion, and bacteria find their way into the skin.  Evil, those boils.  As  team manager,  I insured there were no  boils because I kept the mats disinfected.  No pus and blood on my watch.

There it is, the answer to despair.  Stay engaged.  I prevented boils, Camus enjoyed success with the ladies.  There is almost always a way.  Still, I sought.  On a wrestling trip to Salt Lake I bumped up against the Mormons.  I read, studied, listened, even dated a Mormon girl.  One night during an attack of angst I realized I didn’t believe in that stuff.

I then embarked on a career as an agnostic, annoying all the believers I knew by challenging their beliefs.  I continued my search with little success for quite a few years.  I think I substituted addictions for having any meaning.  If you are getting off, the need to keep it up takes over, even while knowing addiction is fruitless.  I had read Kerouac.

Then, during a dark night of the soul after a divorce, I was living in a basement apartment in Lasalle Colorado with my black dog.  I was working in the Greeley sewage disposal plant and the Maintenance Foreman was a deacon in an Assemblies Of God Church.  I went to his bible study, prayed, and got saved.  I asked Jesus in and felt this overwhelming feeling of being wrapped in love.  I got involved, had many experiences of the Holy Spirit, the addictions went away for a year, and I thought I had found the Meaning.

But, life interfered, as well as knowing all that Fundamentalist stuff made no sense.  I couldn’t stay with the holy rollers and ended up an Episcopalian.  For me, my higher power manifests as Jesus.  I couldn’t, however stay with the organized church.  Churches are instruments of power and control, contrary to what Jesus taught.  I did learn how to pray, and prayer is what grounds me.  No answers to the Big Question, however.In fact, I think I have given up on finding the Meaning.  It’s a mystery.

These days I practice Insight Meditation with all its Buddhist trappings.  The good thing about Buddhism is that it does not purport to answer those questions.  I fact, the Buddha mostly ignored all that stuff, saying the sole goal is to end suffering.  With our big brains, we look for reasons.  We think up explanations or buy into someone else’s explanation and create a world.  Almost always the core of that world is desire.  We want stuff, pleasure, a sense of belonging.

No way, dude.  It is all illusion.  Let it go and find emptiness.  That emptiness harbors the true meaning, a sense of being one with the Universe.  Well, I think so, anyway.  I haven’t even come close.  Maybe I need a Bodhi tree to meditate under.

My meditating has borne fruit.  I am finding equanimity.  I am less frustrated.  I am less angry.  I don’t feel as much despair.  I have periods of true happiness.  My addictions are losing their grip, especially if I do my part in my daily practice.  Can’t tell you about the meaning of the cosmos, but my cosmos is more peaceful.

 

Posted in Addiction, Bible Prophesy, Buddhism, Existential Despair, Happiness, Insight Meditation, Jesus, My Story, Stories, Suffering

Spring

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It’s Spring and the miracles are happening once again.  The grass is growing, the trees have leaves, the flowers are out, and the sprinkling system is all goofed up.

Carol started seedlings months ago and now they are going in the ground.  She asks me to put more water on the chard.  I can’t tell chard from kale.  She rolls her eyes and shows me where.

Winter is hard on sprinkler systems, especially the drip systems supposed to save water.  They get stepped on, kicked, blow apart, and just break.  I get soaked hunting down leaks and missing fittings.  I just discovered a new type of stake with sprinklers built in that may help.  We’ll see.

It’s getting harder to do all the fixing.  Sprinklers don’t work, but some of my parts aren’t in very good shape as well.  I have trouble getting up and down.  My knees hurt.  My back hurts.  I have trouble pressing tubing on fittings with my arthritic wrists.  I am getting lots of practice groaning.  Every year I have to splice the underground hoses because I chop into them with the shovel or axe.

Pulaski

Yes, the axe.  We have trees and shrubs and they have roots.  Right now I am in the process of replacing rock edging with bricks to make mowing easier.  Problem is, it is right next to a maple tree.  Did you know maples have shallow root systems?  I chop the roots with a Pulaski, a wildland firefighting tool with an axe on one side and a grubbing hoe on the other side.  It works well, but that big head is heavy.  I chop for a short time, stop to catch my breath, and chop again.  Carol has suggested I mark where the brick line is to go because my line wavers trying to miss the big roots.  What I have finished looks a lot better than rocks, however.

It’s worth it.  The yard and garden are beautiful, I get exercise, Lowe’s makes money selling me parts, and we will get lots of good stuff to eat.  The spring produce is mostly leafy greens, so I have to eat salads.  The evil woman even sneaks kale into the salads.

The Japanese Beetle War continues.  We applied milky spore to the lawn which is supposed to infect the grubs and kill them.  There is also a chemical grub product that’s only mildly poisonous.  The grubs eat the grass roots, killing it, then pupate and hatch the beetles when hot weather arrives.  The bare spots in the lawn are recovering and we may have a few less Beetles.  If only all the neighbors would do the same thing.

We also have a new rechargeable hand vacuum to suck the little demons off the leaves.  Leaves.  The creatures eat some leaves and ignore others.  They love many roses, ignore others, and love grape leaves.  They like linden tree leaves, but our tree is big and robust.  So much for our grape arbor over the patio.   We are investigating alternatives.  It’s good they don’t eat everything, or we would have to eat them.

In the meantime, beauty reigns.  The raspberry bushes are springing up, flowers are out, and the veggies are growing away.  We also are going to have peaches.  We had three frosts when the tree was blooming, but the frost mostly did a good job of thinning the fruit.

Posted in Gardening, Japanese Beetles, My Story, Spring, Spring Flowers, Stories

Hair

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Bald

Hair is part of my everyday consciousness, because I am mostly bald.  It started going when I was 27, plugging the shower drain every day.  I don’t have to worry about now.  I have fun with my lack of hair: men go bald because their brains push the hair out.  There are lots of other bald jokes, most of them dirty.  There is lots of humor about baldness because bald people are trying to escape from their trauma.

It is an ongoing ego blow.  Bald as an egg, chrome dome, cue ball, baldylocks, slick, it goes on.  We are a beleaguered population.  Then there is the discrimination.  It’s mostly unconscious, but people with good hair tend to get selected over the bald.  Just look at today’s  politicians. There are exceptions, but it is a distinct advantage to be telegenic these days.

For example, I once had a boss who was good looking with a nice shock of sandy hair.  When the Water Department was expanding, he was promoted to maintenance supervisor.  He did a fair job at that due to his mechanical skills.  His next promotion was to Plant Supervisor, responsible for running a big water plant with a staff of over twenty.  An affable guy, he did well in meetings and interactions as long as he didn’t have to think.  Problem was, he was only semi literate, unable to compose a coherent paragraph.  It eventually caught up with him and he was lateraled aside into a make-work job and eventually retired.  Good hair will only get you so far.

Look at our presidents.  Eisenhower was bald, but people believed he won World War II for us.  All the other recent presidents had hair.  Our current President, consistent with everything else, has a parody of good hair, wound around his head and dyed yellow.  He is so vain and out of touch with reality he thinks his hair looks good.  Oh, and it is all his.

Hair for women is even more important.  Many older women have thinning hair and go to some lengths to conceal the fact.  Women bald from chemotherapy have their hats scarves, and wigs.  Only a few have the courage to venture forth with a shiny head.  There are women who intentionally go bald.  It’s a guaranteed way to stand out in a crowd.  Also, there are some men who find bald women sexy.  They do have that stubble, however.  If a woman gets a little loopy and takes her hair off, the baldness is the lead headline and photograph.  Britney Spears earned permanent fame for shaving her head.  You have to be crazy to do that, right?

So, be sure to have some sympathy for those of us with shiny heads.  We are another beleaguered and often derided minority.  I often speak to people with really good hair if we can work out some sort of a deal on an exchange but no one has ever taken me up.  Sad.

Posted in Baldless, Hair, My Story, Stories

More on Japanese Beetles

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It is early to discuss Japanese Beetles, the grubs are still lurking amid the grass roots in your lawn.  Here in South Denver we will be heading into our fourth season of the attacks.  They eat roses, grape leaves, linden, peach leaves, buckthorn, Virginia creeper, and raspberry bushes, to list our victims.  The beetles emerge with the hot weather and stick around until sometime in August.  Then the battle begins.

There are limited methods of control, but our grape arbor is doomed.  I conduct a summer long counterattack, using neem oil, soap spray, and physical removal.  I grab the little bastards and drown them in soapy water.  I am supposed to be practicing the Buddhist principle of not harming living beings, but watching the evil bugs struggling in the water is satisfying.

Last evening we went to a meeting organized by the Colorado State University Extension service on the scourge.  It was held in one of the old boathouses in Washington Park, now occupied by Outdoor Colorado.  There is a nice conference room which easily accommodates a couple of dozen people.  About 100 people showed up.  There were people sitting on the floor and standing along the walls.  Overflow went out the door.  It got hot and stuffy.

When the beetles first showed up, we went to CSU Extension, not far away.  Back then we mostly got unknowing shrugs.  Last season, the presenter said almost every call was about beetles.  They had to do some fast learning.  Another impetus for them was watching their flower garden be almost wiped out.

Our own research covered most of the information given in the meeting, there were a few new things and more information about what does not work.  For grapes and most of the vulnerable annuals, resistance is futile.  Grapes and Virginia Creepers are over.  Our linden tree gets lots of destroyed leaves, but it is robust enough to take the damage in stride.

Hand Held Vacuum

With the other stuff, it’s a fight.  Going around with a bowl and stick knocking them into the water is tedious, but works.  The best suggestion we got is to use a cordless dust buster.  Expanding on that, I will try the leaf gathering function on the leaf blower.  The collection bag might get nasty, but they say crushing the beetles doesn’t attract others.

The most important takeaway from the meeting is how many other people are just as angry and obsessed as I am.  I guess Japanese Beetles have become my teachers.  I get the chance to work on obsession, resentment, and hate.

Posted in Beetles, Buddhism, Gardening, Japanese Beetles, My Story, Obsession, Pestilence, Stories
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