On typing

I won’t call it keyboarding–I’m too old for that. I learned to type on a small portable Remington while working at a small 100 watt am radio station near Minot, North Dakota. There was really nothing else to do, so I learned to type, even though I had nothing to either write or say. Some might say that is still true today. What I liked about typing was the physicality of punching the keys and watching the letters appear on the paper–an actual piece of blank, white paper–without looking at my fingers or the keys. I developed the same muscle memory that piano players had, but instead of 88 keys, I only had 52, each key was identified with a letter, not a note. I couldn’t play cords, but I could write words in spite of knowing little and saying less. Banging on the keys of a typewriter in order to pound out an essay on post-structuralism is really more satisfying that most existentialists understand. The physical action of punching down the key with one of your fingers give one a very personal connection with the written word. I don’t get that same feeling from contemporary electronic keyboards found on most laptops or connect by wires or bluetooth to a desktop (which are becoming increasingly archaic, just like me). Kids entering college today may have seen a typewriter, but I’m sure they have never used one. Typewriters, along with rotary telephones and cathode ray tube televisions, are relics of the past, inventions that have been dumped on the ash heap of history along with cassette players, eight-track tapes, and 35 mm cameras that still used film to take pictures. A pity.

On vacation

It comes around about twice a year: a moment when I don’t have to get up in the morning and go. That doesn’t sound like much, but after weeks on end of nothing but deadlines, meetings, and the rest, one really appreciates a little down time. For me, vacation is less about going to the beach, or climbing a mountain, or visiting a foreign country than it is having some time to myself when I can do what I want to do. This sounds a lot like complaining, but I’m not complaining. I love my job and when vacation is over, I’ll be right back in the saddle fixing problems, answering emails, and teaching class–happy, in other words. My problem, everyone’s problem probably, is that the day-in, day-out, stress of the routine starts to wear on the nerves after awhile. Breaking free of the office for a few days is, however, great for moral. Sometimes getting away from it all gives you that new perspective that will make everything easier when you return. That is why vacation is such a good thing to do. The daily grind can be a backbreaking routine that just sucks the life out of your spirit. Whenever I get the chance, then, I do something to break up the routine, and believe me, it makes everything a whole lot better. So this is my chance to catch a breath of fresh air, to do some things for myself, be creative, cook a little, take a long winter’s nap. I don’t need excitement or strange places, odd food or dangerous past-times. All I really need is a fresh log to throw on the fire and somewhere to rest my weary feet.

On vacation

It comes around about twice a year: a moment when I don’t have to get up in the morning and go. That doesn’t sound like much, but after weeks on end of nothing but deadlines, meetings, and the rest, one really appreciates a little down time. For me, vacation is less about going to the beach, or climbing a mountain, or visiting a foreign country than it is having some time to myself when I can do what I want to do. This sounds a lot like complaining, but I’m not complaining. I love my job and when vacation is over, I’ll be right back in the saddle fixing problems, answering emails, and teaching class–happy, in other words. My problem, everyone’s problem probably, is that the day-in, day-out, stress of the routine starts to wear on the nerves after awhile. Breaking free of the office for a few days is, however, great for moral. Sometimes getting away from it all gives you that new perspective that will make everything easier when you return. That is why vacation is such a good thing to do. The daily grind can be a backbreaking routine that just sucks the life out of your spirit. Whenever I get the chance, then, I do something to break up the routine, and believe me, it makes everything a whole lot better. So this is my chance to catch a breath of fresh air, to do some things for myself, be creative, cook a little, take a long winter’s nap. I don’t need excitement or strange places, odd food or dangerous past-times. All I really need is a fresh log to throw on the fire and somewhere to rest my weary feet.

On recycling

Most people probably get recycling, although for some the trash is just everything you want to throw away, and that means everything–every container, can, bottle, box, and paper goes into the trash, no discrimination. I think those days have long since past, however, when we can afford to just throw it all away. Recycling is about knowing that the planet’s resources are finite, and that we must reuse and recycle almost everything that we can. Recycling seems like an obvious response to the insanity of filling up an endless string of landfills with valuable resources. These are moral and ethical choices we are making that affect us now and will affect our children in the decades to come. Recyclable materials, whether they are metal, glass, plastic or paper, are valuable commodities that with a little effort can be turned in to new products. Yet, when driving around my own neighborhood on any given Friday morning when the trash cans have been wheeled out to the curb one can find lots of recyclable materials protruding from the gray bins whose contents will be going to the landfill. Perhaps I am wrong in assuming that the general public understands the finite nature of natural resources and how quickly we are using them up. No paper or cardboard should ever go into the general trash, yet one might spot a huge cardboard box roughly jammed into the top of the gray trash bins as if it were a corpse with the feet sticking out. Why would anyone throw away an aluminum can when the metal dealers will give you real money for the empties? Let’s say one is addicted to diet sodas: a real drinker might turn all of those empty cans into some real money by the end of the month, but lots of cans just go into the garbage, or tossed onto the side of the road, or left in the gutter for someone else to pick up. Our relationship with our garbage is an unhappy one, marked by dysfunction and bitterness. Wouldn’t it be better to just keep two bins at home? One for organic waste which has little value and should be disposed of, and one for all of the materials that can be recycled. The volume of the organic waste is very small, but all of the bottles, cans, boxes, and paper take up an enormous amount of space. In order to recycle one must be proactive and make an effort to distinguish between what is, or is not, trash. Of all the things we throw away, very little of it is actual trash, and if we could compost that without attracting vermin, we could reduce our solid wastes to almost nothing. The time will come when natural resources give out and we will have to dig up the dumps and land fills to “mine” all of the precious materials that lie smoldering away, buried years ago by a society that put no value in recycling. There are those people who do not look to the future, don’t really care about the planet, don’t understand how we are polluting our environment with landfills and such, don’t believe in global warming, and, in general, just don’t care about anything or anyone but themselves. The choice to not recycle, then, turns into a moral decision to just wallow in filth and ego and not care. I am not idealistic enough to believe that recycling will solve our problems regarding the use of natural resources, manufacturing, pollution, or greenhouse effects, but I do think there will come a time when it will be illegal to dump recyclables into the trash, a time which has already come to some communities across the USA. This is no longer a question of whether recycling is a good idea, it’s a question when we are going to take it seriously. Now? Or when we no longer have the choice?

On recycling

Most people probably get recycling, although for some the trash is just everything you want to throw away, and that means everything–every container, can, bottle, box, and paper goes into the trash, no discrimination. I think those days have long since past, however, when we can afford to just throw it all away. Recycling is about knowing that the planet’s resources are finite, and that we must reuse and recycle almost everything that we can. Recycling seems like an obvious response to the insanity of filling up an endless string of landfills with valuable resources. These are moral and ethical choices we are making that affect us now and will affect our children in the decades to come. Recyclable materials, whether they are metal, glass, plastic or paper, are valuable commodities that with a little effort can be turned in to new products. Yet, when driving around my own neighborhood on any given Friday morning when the trash cans have been wheeled out to the curb one can find lots of recyclable materials protruding from the gray bins whose contents will be going to the landfill. Perhaps I am wrong in assuming that the general public understands the finite nature of natural resources and how quickly we are using them up. No paper or cardboard should ever go into the general trash, yet one might spot a huge cardboard box roughly jammed into the top of the gray trash bins as if it were a corpse with the feet sticking out. Why would anyone throw away an aluminum can when the metal dealers will give you real money for the empties? Let’s say one is addicted to diet sodas: a real drinker might turn all of those empty cans into some real money by the end of the month, but lots of cans just go into the garbage, or tossed onto the side of the road, or left in the gutter for someone else to pick up. Our relationship with our garbage is an unhappy one, marked by dysfunction and bitterness. Wouldn’t it be better to just keep two bins at home? One for organic waste which has little value and should be disposed of, and one for all of the materials that can be recycled. The volume of the organic waste is very small, but all of the bottles, cans, boxes, and paper take up an enormous amount of space. In order to recycle one must be proactive and make an effort to distinguish between what is, or is not, trash. Of all the things we throw away, very little of it is actual trash, and if we could compost that without attracting vermin, we could reduce our solid wastes to almost nothing. The time will come when natural resources give out and we will have to dig up the dumps and land fills to “mine” all of the precious materials that lie smoldering away, buried years ago by a society that put no value in recycling. There are those people who do not look to the future, don’t really care about the planet, don’t understand how we are polluting our environment with landfills and such, don’t believe in global warming, and, in general, just don’t care about anything or anyone but themselves. The choice to not recycle, then, turns into a moral decision to just wallow in filth and ego and not care. I am not idealistic enough to believe that recycling will solve our problems regarding the use of natural resources, manufacturing, pollution, or greenhouse effects, but I do think there will come a time when it will be illegal to dump recyclables into the trash, a time which has already come to some communities across the USA. This is no longer a question of whether recycling is a good idea, it’s a question when we are going to take it seriously. Now? Or when we no longer have the choice?

On the pastoral

Is the countryside really nicer than city life? I’ve lived in a big city or two with underground trains, tons of surface traffic, people everywhere, concrete canyons and paved right-aways, neon lights, smoke and fog, buses, trucks, and cars. The steady drone of city life is like a huge upset beehive with lots of angry bees. Horns honking, people shouting, trucks groaning, movers moving, venders selling, distributers delivering everything. The white noise can be a little overwhelming for the senses, and I don’t even want to talk about the smells or the unsightly stuff that one might witness. I love the city where you always have a million things to do at a quarter to three in the morning, but it can wear on your nerves. The countryside, however, is a little different: noise stand out because of its absence. Birds singing, a brook gurgling, wind fanning the trees, sunshine on your shoulders, and absolutely no people, When I’m up in the woods of northern Minnesota, and no one is around, every step you take breaks the silence that reigns over the area. Waves lap on the shore of the lake, kicking up a little foam. Another breeze rustles the branches of a small tree that stands next to you. A fish jumps in the lake, a loon flaps heartily across the surface of the lake as it takes off, a wolf howls at sunset, calling his troops home. The urban environment of the city is home to conflict and discord, noise and chaos, straight lines and concrete paths. The forest and the lake are the dialogic opposite to the pressure of the city. Time stands still and only reluctantly passes as the sun slowly slides across the sky. No one is in a hurry. A squirrel suns himself on a rock before heading off to find more acorns. The smell of grass, leaves and forest, a pungent mixture of wetness and decay, a lazy multi-layered perfume that Mother Nature shares with everyone. There is no sense of urgency, the paths are crooked and unpaved, the ground is uneven, a boulder juts from the ground like a stranded iceberg. Wild raspberries grow in unorganized clumps, and you have nowhere to go, no neon, no noise, no trucks, no delivery vehicles. There are no phones ringing or cars or stoplights or crowds. Life in the country is both simple and uncomplicated; the complete opposite of the way the urban crush can be 24/7. Nobody cares what time dinner might be, so the sun comes up and it goes down, creating a natural rhythm that is unaffected by neon, noise, and nattering neighbors. The forces of nature of much larger than anything man can create–buildings, streets, bridges, and artificial parks. In the cities, we use parks to remind us of the country in case we forget or get nostalgic about the peace we have left behind in the wilderness, creating artificial ponds and fake forests, trying to find the peace we sacrifice the fast-paced life under the lights. The country, wilderness, a forest, a mountain meadow, a dry dessert, a quiet river valley, an empty canyon, the prairie, these are the places where time stops and a person might recollect their thoughts and remember that not everything is a schedule, landscapes are not always created with straight lines, and that mud, rocks, grass, trees, creeks are natural and intriguing. Nostalgia for natural places will probably lower your blood pressure.

On the pastoral

Is the countryside really nicer than city life? I’ve lived in a big city or two with underground trains, tons of surface traffic, people everywhere, concrete canyons and paved right-aways, neon lights, smoke and fog, buses, trucks, and cars. The steady drone of city life is like a huge upset beehive with lots of angry bees. Horns honking, people shouting, trucks groaning, movers moving, venders selling, distributers delivering everything. The white noise can be a little overwhelming for the senses, and I don’t even want to talk about the smells or the unsightly stuff that one might witness. I love the city where you always have a million things to do at a quarter to three in the morning, but it can wear on your nerves. The countryside, however, is a little different: noise stand out because of its absence. Birds singing, a brook gurgling, wind fanning the trees, sunshine on your shoulders, and absolutely no people, When I’m up in the woods of northern Minnesota, and no one is around, every step you take breaks the silence that reigns over the area. Waves lap on the shore of the lake, kicking up a little foam. Another breeze rustles the branches of a small tree that stands next to you. A fish jumps in the lake, a loon flaps heartily across the surface of the lake as it takes off, a wolf howls at sunset, calling his troops home. The urban environment of the city is home to conflict and discord, noise and chaos, straight lines and concrete paths. The forest and the lake are the dialogic opposite to the pressure of the city. Time stands still and only reluctantly passes as the sun slowly slides across the sky. No one is in a hurry. A squirrel suns himself on a rock before heading off to find more acorns. The smell of grass, leaves and forest, a pungent mixture of wetness and decay, a lazy multi-layered perfume that Mother Nature shares with everyone. There is no sense of urgency, the paths are crooked and unpaved, the ground is uneven, a boulder juts from the ground like a stranded iceberg. Wild raspberries grow in unorganized clumps, and you have nowhere to go, no neon, no noise, no trucks, no delivery vehicles. There are no phones ringing or cars or stoplights or crowds. Life in the country is both simple and uncomplicated; the complete opposite of the way the urban crush can be 24/7. Nobody cares what time dinner might be, so the sun comes up and it goes down, creating a natural rhythm that is unaffected by neon, noise, and nattering neighbors. The forces of nature of much larger than anything man can create–buildings, streets, bridges, and artificial parks. In the cities, we use parks to remind us of the country in case we forget or get nostalgic about the peace we have left behind in the wilderness, creating artificial ponds and fake forests, trying to find the peace we sacrifice the fast-paced life under the lights. The country, wilderness, a forest, a mountain meadow, a dry dessert, a quiet river valley, an empty canyon, the prairie, these are the places where time stops and a person might recollect their thoughts and remember that not everything is a schedule, landscapes are not always created with straight lines, and that mud, rocks, grass, trees, creeks are natural and intriguing. Nostalgia for natural places will probably lower your blood pressure.

On dead batteries

Is this the most annoying thing to have to do on a regular basis? Our lives are filled with electronic gadgets that need batteries: flashlights, remote controls, garage door openers, watches, security systems, cars, smoke alarms, hearing aids, cameras. What is annoying about having a dead battery is pretty obvious: the car won’t start, the flashlight is dead, the garage won’t open. Murphy’s Law of Dead Batteries suggests that when a dead battery event occurs, you will not have a backup at your location. A corollary of that axiom suggests that the event will occur when it is totally inconvenient and will cause the most trouble. You will, for example, have a dead battery in your flashlight when you get a flat tire at midnight on a lonely country road on a night with a new moon–dead blackness. Your garage door opener will go dead on a very rainy day when you are wearing a new suit and new shoes. You may never know that your smoke alarm battery is dead. You will find out that the backup battery in your alarm clock is dead that day when the power fails and you oversleep for work. When the remote control fails because of a dead battery, you are trying to watch two things on two different channels at the same time. Since you don’t have replacements at home, you have to get in the car and go get some, but your car won’t start because the battery is dead. After you appeal to your neighbor to give you a ride, you find out that the store is fresh out of the batteries you need and won’t have any new ones until next Tuesday. You check your watch to find that the sweep second hand has stopped moving and is no longer ticking. They are out of those watch batteries as well. You ask when they might get those again, but the old guy helping you can’t hear because the battery in his hearing aid has just quit on him. So you do finally get a new battery for your car, but the fittings on the battery are metric and your tools are standard American. You put two new double AA’s in the remote only to find that the cable is experiencing a temporary outage, and you can see nothing but snow. You call your mother to complain, but the battery in your cell phone is dead, so you plug it in and charge it. Your car with the dead battery sits in the driveway, motionless, in front of the closed garage door. The smoke alarm chirps a weary warning that it’s battery is about to die as well. You rummage through a drawer filled with dead batteries, a cemetery of unfinished projects, hoping to find a good one you might have overlooked. Your flashlight sits on the counter, waiting for you to re-install its energy system, but you are out of D cells. You drop two old batteries into the flashlight, and a pale yellow light shines in your hand.

On dead batteries

Is this the most annoying thing to have to do on a regular basis? Our lives are filled with electronic gadgets that need batteries: flashlights, remote controls, garage door openers, watches, security systems, cars, smoke alarms, hearing aids, cameras. What is annoying about having a dead battery is pretty obvious: the car won’t start, the flashlight is dead, the garage won’t open. Murphy’s Law of Dead Batteries suggests that when a dead battery event occurs, you will not have a backup at your location. A corollary of that axiom suggests that the event will occur when it is totally inconvenient and will cause the most trouble. You will, for example, have a dead battery in your flashlight when you get a flat tire at midnight on a lonely country road on a night with a new moon–dead blackness. Your garage door opener will go dead on a very rainy day when you are wearing a new suit and new shoes. You may never know that your smoke alarm battery is dead. You will find out that the backup battery in your alarm clock is dead that day when the power fails and you oversleep for work. When the remote control fails because of a dead battery, you are trying to watch two things on two different channels at the same time. Since you don’t have replacements at home, you have to get in the car and go get some, but your car won’t start because the battery is dead. After you appeal to your neighbor to give you a ride, you find out that the store is fresh out of the batteries you need and won’t have any new ones until next Tuesday. You check your watch to find that the sweep second hand has stopped moving and is no longer ticking. They are out of those watch batteries as well. You ask when they might get those again, but the old guy helping you can’t hear because the battery in his hearing aid has just quit on him. So you do finally get a new battery for your car, but the fittings on the battery are metric and your tools are standard American. You put two new double AA’s in the remote only to find that the cable is experiencing a temporary outage, and you can see nothing but snow. You call your mother to complain, but the battery in your cell phone is dead, so you plug it in and charge it. Your car with the dead battery sits in the driveway, motionless, in front of the closed garage door. The smoke alarm chirps a weary warning that it’s battery is about to die as well. You rummage through a drawer filled with dead batteries, a cemetery of unfinished projects, hoping to find a good one you might have overlooked. Your flashlight sits on the counter, waiting for you to re-install its energy system, but you are out of D cells. You drop two old batteries into the flashlight, and a pale yellow light shines in your hand.