The Vigilists

It's just a pile of stone and glass. It's not supposed to be responsive. Yet, just like falling snow can make an entire city quieter, early Sunday mornings do something to a hospital.

Outside the entrance three middle aged people who look related are standing aside, speaking softly. A young woman paces back and forth, talking on a cell phone. As you pass by she's saying, "I didn't expect all these questions. It's kind of overwhelming you know." In the lobby a teenager is sleeping in a chair, her purse for a pillow and a denim jacket for a blanket. These are the vigilists.

Most are strangers to one another and will remain so, but they have one thing in common. Just right now their lives are frozen in time, waiting for news. The day may pass without news. The news may come and confirm their worst fears. Less than a mile away the world remains its dizzying diversity of activity. Less than a mile away someone feeds the cat then reads the morning paper. Less than a mile away Starbucks employees are arriving at work. In this place though, early Sunday morning is mostly about the vigils.

Of course it's not uniform even here, now. Over by the elevators a family group is all smiles, perhaps discussing a late night delivery from the Stork. Life goes on.

Edwards Group-think

I'm reading articles about how John Edwards is now and ever shall be as popular as a tattoo artist with Parkinsons' and something strikes me odd. I wasn't in a coma during the 1990's and the name "Monica" still rings a bell with me. Yet Bill Clinton will be speaking at the Democratic convention.

So why the difference in how the two affairs are seen? Is it that time has led people to forgive Bill, while the freshness of the Edwards thing won't get him a pass? Nope, it's not that. I remember what people were saying when Clinton was in trouble. They were saying, "It's a private matter, nothing to do with solving the nation's problems." I've every reason to believe Clinton supporters were sincere in their reaction. Yet now some of the very same folks seem equally sincere in their desire to ban Edwards from the planet. I've been wondering about the difference in reactions all weekend.

It could be argued the response is a self-serving effort to cull a rival from the 2012 or 2016 Democratic race. I don't think it's that.

I think the difference in response lies in the personalities of the wronged spouses. Elizabeth Edwards is a mother who has buried one of her children. As a man, I can only approach about a third of the agony that must be to a mother. And Elizabeth keeps battling the cancer that will eventually kill her. A very sympathetic figure. Obviously there is steel in that woman, beneath the soft exterior.

With Hillary, all the steel is on the outside. Nobody can feel sorry for Hillary; she wouldn't allow it, unless it got her votes. That's the decision Hillary made a long time ago, and she's to be respected for it. She's a tough bird in a tough world. But she made a choice she must live with. When Bill cheats on her it's not the same as John cheating on Elizabeth.

Hillary is just a cold person, and she took that course to survive, but she is cold. If all the ice up in the Arctic ever melts like Al Gore predicts, Hillary should be sent there and the place would freeze up immediately. She's a smart, capable woman. She might actually make a good President. But she chose to be cold, perhaps unknowingly. So that's why John Edwards is not welcome at the Democratic convention, but Bill Clinton will speak.

In my De-fence

Here is the way I see it. Should I wake up tomorrow with a burning desire to speak Italian fluently, I hope I try. I may not get there, but I'll be better for the trying. So I took fencing lessons. It didn't work out as a lifelong pursuit, but that's fine. It's not that I want to be a fencer, it's that I want to be a person who is open to new experiences. As we get older our horizons contract, unless we launch a massive counter attack.

Learning about fencing was lots of fun. For one thing I learned that sword fighting in the movies is a bunch of crap. All offense and no defense. A trained swordsman would kill Errol Flynn in fifteen seconds. I also got to meet some interesting people, and was privileged to view a fascinating culture. Now it's time to move on. That's always been one of my faults; I don't "move on" well.

I'm 51 and I'm trying to learn stuff here! Oliver Wendell Holmes said, "Men don't stop playing because they get old. They get old because they stop playing." So I agree with that. There's more important stuff to learn than how to hold a foil, or proper footwork. For me, I have to learn to say, "Well that was nice, what's next?"

Driving in Memphis

That was a great tune by that guy, the guy with the song, whatshisname...
"I was driving in Memphis, knuckles white on my steering wheel.
Yeah I was driving in Memphis, watching out for all of the automobiles."

Or something like that.

Well, I wasn't watching close enough at 7:15 on 7/17/08. Sitting there at the red light minding my own business. WHAM! right in the back end. Then a car that looked as if it'd been to several demolition derbies pulled around on my left, straight through the red light. I wasn't angry at getting hit, but the getaway kind of defeated my composure. The getaway was not to be.

When the light turned green I followed my new friends closely, and dialed 911 to relay the license number. Following them wasn't very hard. Their front fender was crumpled against the tire. The tire was smoking like an AA meeting, and looked like 35mph was best they could manage.

The 911 operator was telling me not to follow them but that was a waste of her time. They finally stopped at a Target parking lot (kinda ironic in a way) and the passenger took great pains to assure me they weren't running really. Well OK, maybe, I guess. When the Police came I explained I was just too excited when talking to the 911 lady; they didn't actually hit & run, they just hit.

So now my wife's car is in the shop. I'm glad nobody got hurt, they make cars every day... well, not in Detroit I mean. But somewhere on this great planet, somebody makes cars every day.

"I was driving in Memphis"....

Owning our actions

All organizations are similar in some respects, and things like this happen at factories too. Drawing on a decade of managerial experience, I predict the investigation will yield the following responses.

5. No, I clearly remember Bob saying, “I’ll get the door.”
4. If you’d just let me hire more people…
3. Well, what I hate most is it turned out to be a false alarm.
2. But on the positive side, our response time has really improved.


And as a manager, I can guarantee the following response will be heard:

1. This never would’ve happened if you’d have let me buy the shorter truck.

About George Carlin

He was in a way, a sort of H.L. Mencken for our age. Guess we would disagree on many points, but I can still respect him.

In his later years much of Carlin's material wasn't particularly funny; in fact some of it was downright mean. Only he knew why he got like that I guess. To me though? Majority of human cases we should as our hearts allow, let a man's failings pass with him and remember something good.

George was a really funny guy when he was younger. Sure, as he grew older he morphed from comedian into a self-styled observer of culture. Such observers often don't have the value they assign themselves, and they're not correct as much as they think, but still? I will miss funny George. Heck, I started missing him 10 years ago.

Father's Day

Barring some breakthrough in biology (which I'm sure someone is working on right now) everybody has a father. A distinction there is our level of access to that father. Hate it when shallow minds address deep topics, but here I go anyway.

Expand the meaning of "level of access." It really means more than Dad is passed away, or Dad's in prison for life and that's a good thing, or Dad was last seen in the family station wagon with a Hooters waitress, crossing the Mexican border.

Your father can live right next door to you, and you still may have no access to him. Some fathers are cold and emotionally distant, while others are just too busy with their stuff to be accessible.

My dad passed when I was ten, yet I've never once felt lack of access, all these years. No man gets to choose his father, but all get to choose what kind of father they are. Just my opinion, but "high-access" father is the best way to go, though it's hard work. Such fathers deserve a day of honor; the rest deserve a swift kick in the arse.