Who's Going to Win?

I was reading a blog, Catman's Litterbox, and he reminded me of a game that students played when I first started teaching, Assassin.

The rules were fairly simple.  You bought into the game with some cash. Names of the participants were drawn and assigned to be assassinated by other players.  Slowly the "living" players would be whittled down to the winner, who would collect the pot of cash.  At first the boundaries were virtually unlimited, but the school put a end to that as classes were being interrupted with assassinations. Young people are smart though, and the school was made "off limits" and the game went on.  Assassin was active for a few years in our town.

I remember at the time having some envy as I wished I could participate; I dreamed of winning the game and having money to spend. I figured as an adult I could outsmart the students and be mercenary enough to come out on top.  I quietly listened to the students talk to other students about who had recently been "killed" and their speculation about who was going to win.

Two events happened because of this game that caused me to rethink the innocence of all of the players and the suitability of the entire adventure.  One night two "assassins" sneaked up to a house and tried to enter in the dark to "kill" their next person.  Unfortunately for them they were greeted by an armed father with near disastrous results.

The second event happened at baseball practice one day. Two individuals interrupted practice to talk to one of our players. Besides being told multiple times to stop, to leave and to talk after practice, the intruders refused.  They were looking for the person holding the pot of cash and one of them was the "winner" of the most recent Assassin game.  A baseball player afterwards mentioned that they needed the money to buy drugs. Not that baseball is so important, but the insistence of those young men to get their question answered was an object lesson as to what people looking for drugs will do.

At the time I had an epiphany as to what self-motivated people with low morals and high greed will do. In reflecting about the "winner" and the relative goodness of other students I knew that were playing the game, I concluded that  many innocents had been taken of their money.

Reading the blog this morning and remembering my thoughts of that long ago game made me reflect again about humanity and what may happen when society breaks down.  Some innocent and good folks will be lost to self-centered, greedy assailants.  Some will do what ever they can to get what they want.

For me, the questions to answer are, how much have I changed from that envious young teacher eavesdropping on students, and how have I prepared to put into action the lessons that life has given me?

Some Old Thoughts

"It is often said that power corrupts. But it is perhaps equally important to realize that weakness, too, corrupts."

 "We cannot win the weak by sharing our wealth with them."

 "Particularly baffling has been the petulant and often sneering response to our [The United States'] unprecedented outpouring of money, food, raw materials, machines and military aid."

 All from The Ordeal of Change by Eric Hoffer. This is a collection of essays starting i 1953 and published in 1963.

Some Words About Some Books

In the last week I finished reading these books. The Good Life is actually a pairing of the Scott and Helen Nearing's two books, Living the Good Life and Continuing the Good Life. Living the Good Life chronicles their homesteading in Vermont for 19 years. This journey began in 1932 near Sratton, and the books defines what the "Good Life" is to them and tells what they did to accomplish that goal. Continuing the Good Life tells of their choice to move to Maine and continue their homesteading journey, what they continue to call the"Good Life."

 You must understand a bit about their background and the history of the times to appreciate what they did. Scott was a college teacher in the new field of economics, but his Socialistic and Communistic views were contrary to the establishments. He was dismissed from the University of Pennsylvania's Wharton School of Business in 1915, but continued teaching for a while at Toledo University. He became a much in demand speaker for labor unions, socialism, communism and child labor laws. These struggles eventually led he and Helen to buy a farm in Vermont and move there. He did continue to speak and they traveled the world in their off seasons.

 I heard of the Nearings and their book in the 70's. It was mentioned in The Whole Earth Catalog as the "bible" of the back to the land movement. It was one of those books I wanted to read. In the late 1981 Warren Beatty made the movie, Reds, about John Reed, the only American buried in the Kremlin. In the movie was a collection of interviews about Reed and one of the speakers was 98 year old Scott Nearing. It has struck me that Scott Nearing was involved heavily in the 20th Century and had a big impact in some circles.

 The short story is I never read the books until recently. It took me my typical few months of reading between other tasks and just plain pondering to finish the books. My thoughts ran many places as I read. There are some ideas and ruminations that kept me going in reading the books.

 This was a man who was confident in following his own path. Who else at the age of 50 changes their entire way of living, and again at 70 change locations and start over constructing stone buildings. In both cases the Nearing explain their reasons. Both books are very detailed, and the style of writing is so detailed it is almost to a fault. The descriptions of the Vermont farm are precise enough to be a blueprint of how to follow their footsteps. The writing about the Maine farm is less detailed about the farm, but has more specifics about other topics.

 After the first book was published in 1954 and especially in the 1970's, the Nearings became famous in their own way. With fame comes seekers, and these looking didn't always have the discipline of Scott Nearing. A entire chapter is called, "Visitors and Helpers." They write, "Never before in our lives have we met so many unattached, uncommitted, insecure, uncertain human beings." That seemed to sum up that time and in many ways become a prologue to our current times. It is worth the time to read these two as many may be heading back to that way of life.

Odds and Sods, With an Homage To The Peach

Another week of the "vacation" that isn't really a vacation.  As a teacher I've heard the comments about "having three months off."  Now it's really about two months, and for me it's not really close to that.  I'm not complaining, really.  The life my family and I have created means I almost always teach some form of summer school, as well as just catching up on tasks around the house and things put off until after the baseball season is over.  It's a lifestyle, as threadbare as that phrase sounds.  I enjoy tinkering, weeding, patching things and picking vegetables.  We have to spend our time doing something. So here are some thoughts for this day.

The sod I laid for the dogs is a big disappointment.  The area that is in the open and unshaded is about 70% green and growing.  Dog urine and bad sod accounted for the 30%.  In the shady area the good, green grass is about 10% of the area. In both places some of the dead grass has rooted and should come back.  On to Plan C in the re-grassing efforts.

I recently made a nighttime trip to Los Angeles. Did you know the complete name of the city is El Pueblo de Nuestra Senora la Reina de los Angeles del Rio de Porciuncula?  I'm more amazed that the city never seems to sleep.  We traveled to LAX for a early morning flight, so you would expect the airport to be open, but many businesses were also. Road construction clogged the 405 in some places.  We were also slowed to a crawl in Bakersfield on the way down. Gave me pause to think about what will happen in natural and man-made disasters.  Made me start planning more.

I have to admit I'm struggling a bit with the new class I'm teaching. Crafts is what I do when I tinker around the house and yard.  To teach it is trying to formalize part of my life. I definitely will be leaning towards the "folk" arts as my execution of skills is usually rough and utilitarian. I like to call it my version of Wabi Sabi. Form follows function.

The larger struggle is the mess of the Crafts shop.  There is one large room for the students to work and room for some stationary tools. There are three smaller rooms for storage and other tools.  One room houses the pottery kilns and assorted pottery needs.  The middle room is an office of sorts.  And the third room, the biggest, is a collection of flotsam and jetsam from the previous two teachers and spans a timeline of over 30 years.  Each of the rooms has their own collection of choices of what to do as I wade through the good and bad. I recently found three rolls of mil-spec OD webbing.  Old-New stuff with the tags attached. How was this to be used?  1000 brass rivets?  A box of bound copies of the National Geographic magazine from the 1940's?  I'm a packrat and frugal to the extreme, but there is no room for all of the materials I'm looking through.  It will be an interesting half month until school starts figuring out what to do.

As I sit here in the morning the house is quiet.  I've fed animals and some have returned to bed.  Children are in bed as well.  I await my mother-in-law waking.  This signals the second beginning of the day.  Food, coffee and her needs will be met and everyone else will arise.  Cool summers morning like this remind me of my teenage years.  Child labor laws were fewer and I worked on local ranches doing the odd tasks of the farm.  Weeding, hoeing, pruning, picking fruit, irrigating, or just plain work.  The ranches I worked for grew different kinds of trees.  Walnuts, plums, and peaches being the most common.

Walnuts weren't harvested until after I was back in school, but I didn't really like the nuts.  I do love the smell of dew on a walnut tree,  the drying of the nuts, and the sweet fragrance of a fresh cut walnut limb for firewood.

Plums likewise didn't cross my palate much.  They have always seemed to be too much of a sticky mess to go through the effort to eat.  I do like the plum barbecue Maureen makes.

Peaches though are special.  In the tumultuous times of my high school years, my father and I shared a quiet time in the morning eating peaches. The men I worked for would allow us to pick some fruit to take home, and my father would peel the fuzzy skin off, slice the sweet flesh before he and I would sit in the cool quiet eating the peaches before work. I felt grown up as I prepared to do labor, but I felt more grown up because my father and I shared these moments.

Mas Masumoto wrote Epitaph for a Peach about the Sun Crest peach. Maureen scoured nurseries looking for a tree and eventually found one hours away near the coast. We planted the bare root tree and it has grown. And this year it has produced quite a bit of fruit. I few days ago I ate my first peach of the season. It melted in my mouth. The flesh held colors that no Tequila Sunrise can match. The taste moved me to another time. I sliced a peach for one of our sons.

Here's Your Sign

I don't believe in accidents or luck.  It would take too long to explain it now, but I promise I will sometime.  If you accept my premise, then our lives are full of signs or consequences.

I traveled to the neighborhood market to buy some ice this morning; on my bike as I usually do.  It's a couple of blocks away and it's a nice day so far.  My bike, you have to understand, is over 35 years old; a great over-the-internet trade deal with a gentleman in Colorado.  The paint is fading and scratched, there is a rack on back and a basket in front.  Other than the wonderful leather Brooks saddle, it can stay in the rain and not be too affected.  A great town bike that my children like to make fun of, but each will secretly ride.

After arriving at the market and paying for the ice, the owner walked outside with me to unlock the ice storage chest.  We talked as we usually do about various things and I took the ice from the chest and set them on the ground in preparing to put them in the basket.  She looked at me and exclaimed, "You're doing this on a bike?"

I answered something to the effect of, "Yes."

She then got a big smile on her face and said the bike reminded her of the bike her father rode in their native Indian village, and the happy memories of him cycling through the village.

Which is my sign:  I have more in common with an older man riding his bike?  Or am I prepared to survive in a developing culture?