Play Dates

March 8th, 2026

“When is she going to be here?”

That was Asher’s endlessly repeated question on Friday. Asher and his kindergarten classmates had Friday off from school. I had spoken to the mother of one of the girls in Asher’s class a few days before, and the mom had suggested that her daughter and Asher have a play date. After school, I asked Asher what he thought of the idea, and his eyes widened as he grinned. He exclaimed,

“Yes! Yes! It will be my first play date!”

Asher thought it was a really big deal, and actually it was. The first play date is a milestone of sorts for a little boy or little girl. It is a major step in how they socialize with other kids. It’s true that our grandson, Asher, went to class every day with this girl, and they interacted while they were in school, but a play date is something different. It’s an unstructured meeting, or perhaps it’s just structured differently. In any case, the children come together in a new environment with new possibilities. That’s exciting. It’s also an opportunity for potential growth, whether or not the kids see it that way.

When I was in kindergarten, eons ago, there were no play dates. You saw your schoolmates in the classroom, but not anywhere else, unless they happened to live in your neighborhood. My parents did not like the idea of me or my six younger brothers interacting with other children, even when we were much older than Asher is. Our family had kind of fortress mentality. Outsiders were looked at with suspicion and sometimes hostility. We were rather isolated, maybe more so than other children of that time.

Our kids had friends from school, and they did sometimes get together with them. I don’t know if we ever had anything that we called a “play date”. The meetings our children had with others were more informal and haphazard. Maybe, it was better like that. I don’t know. Those were different times. Now, it is rare for any parent to stay at home to raise a child. A generation ago, my wife was home with our kids while I worked. My experience with the caregivers of the students in Asher’s kindergarten is that they are all working/studying fulltime. Asher is almost unique in the sense that both of his caregivers, Karin and me, are retired and we can be with him all the time if need be. I doubt that any of his classmates are in a similar situation. Because the adults are so busy with their jobs, it is necessary to carefully schedule any meeting between the children. That means we have to organize play dates, whether we like it or not.

In any case, Asher was enthusiastic about seeing the little girl. The weather forecast to be rainy on Friday, so meeting at a playground was out of the question. We determined that it would work best if the mom and her daughter came to our house for a visit. Asher was ecstatic. As I mentioned, he kept asking,

“When is she going to come?!”

My answer was, “In (fill a number in the blank) hours.”

Then Asher would ask, “Is that a long time?”

That depends on who you are. For me it wasn’t very long. For Asher, whatever I told him was an eternity. At last, his classmate arrived. It took a while for her to get out of the car and into our house since she insisted on putting on a dress over whatever else she was wearing. She looked great when she walked through the front door.

Her mom brought a pizza in with her. We all sat at the dining room table and ate. The girl and her mother often talked together in Spanish, but they spoke in English to Asher, Karin, Asher’s mom, and me. The kids played with Asher’s overabundance of toys. Karin and I sat with the mother and had a long conversation with her. I think that was important to do. The children need to get to know each other better. The caregivers need to do that too. We need to understand each other in order to build trust and a sense of community. It is hard to do that at the school. The adults often seem harried, and it is hard to have any kind of meaningful discussion while a parent is dropping off their child just before class begins.

The Friday session went well. Asher and his friend had a good time, and Karin and I learned some things about the girl’s mom. I feel confident that we will eventually set up another meeting.

Yesterday, I got a text from the father of another of Asher’s other classmates. Asher is very fond of this girl. The dad was excited about getting Asher and his daughter together. Since the weather was supposed to be good, the father and I decided to meet together today at the playground of South Shore Park on the edge of Lake Michigan. I told Asher about this development. At first, he was thrilled. Then he started complaining that he really didn’t want to go to the playground. He wanted a play date with the girl, but I think he wanted her to come to our home. I explained to him that the dad wanted us to meet at a playground. Asher repeated to me that he didn’t want to go here. He was very upset. He started sobbing. I said,

“Okay, I’ll text her dad and tell him that we can’t come for the play date.”

Asher replied firmly, “NO. Don’t do that. It’s fine.”

He still had tears on his cheeks, and he continued, “It’s okay. I should go. I don’t want her to cry.”

This afternoon, Karin, Asher, Asher’s mom, and I met with the girl, her sister, and their dad at the park. It went swimmingly. The kids ran wild. The adults talked and got more familiar with each other. We were at the playground for two hours. It was a good time, truly.

Asher told me, “This is the best play date ever!”

I’m sure it was, at least until the next one.

Haifa Republic

March 3rd, 2026

There is war again in the Middle East, which at this point in history feels almost normal. Israel is fighting with Hezbollah in Lebanon as well as attacking targets in Iran. Iran is returning the favor by striking Israeli sites. The odd thing is that all this mayhem is shifting the focus away from the endless violence in Palestine. The conflict between Palestinians and Israelis is suddenly second page news. That’s too bad because the violence between Jews and Arabs is not going away. In fact, it just seems to get worse.

A friend of mine from our old synagogue lent me a book a few days ago. It is Haifa Republic, written by Omri Boehm. It was published in 2022, a year before the Attack in Israel by Hamas. The author argues for fundamental changes in the politics of Israel, actually in the very nature of Israel, in order to resolve the festering hatred in the Land between the River and the Sea. It’s a tall order.

Boehm argues that Israel cannot be both a Jewish state and a liberal democracy. Israel can’t have it both ways. There is a tension that will eventually tear the country apart. It is a country where some people are more equal than others. Boehm sees this situation as being unsustainable.

A central theme in this book is that both Jews and Arabs must “remember to forget”. That sounds like an oxymoron, but perhaps it isn’t. He argues that the memories of the Holocaust and the Nakba trap Jews and Arabs in the past. Trauma does that. Anybody who has experienced intense trauma in his or her life know how hard it is to move forward, to start life again. Remembering to forget is not about erasing the past and pretending that nothing happened. It is about accepting and learning from that past trauma and then using the lessons to build a better future. Memories can be a prison. Forgetting can be a release.

Boehm writes, “If the establishment of a Jewish state is part of the Holocaust’s history- this is a fact that no Israeli would deny- then the history of the Nakba is an inseparable from the Holocaust’s history.”

It’s a package deal.

So, what to do? Boehm suggests the founding of a Jewish/Arab federation in Palestine. It would be a place where all people are citizens with equal rights and responsibilities. Jews and Arabs would have autonomous communities within the framework of this federation. Boehm notes that the early Zionists proposed just such a federation. Also, Menachem Begin, of all people, drafted a plan for a similar federation in 1977 while negotiating a peace treaty with Egypt. It’s not a new idea.

Today, this plan seems almost absurd. Since October 7th, 2023, things have gotten much worse. Boehm’s book is in many ways outdated. However, what are the other options? More ethnic cleansing? More terrorism? More hate?

Peace always seems like a pipe dream. Until it happens.

Iran

March 2nd, 2026

Now that the United States is at war with Iran, the number of possible outcomes to this conflict seem endless. Some of the consequences are more likely than others. I would suggest that we can dismiss one result out of hand. I am referring to the chance of a regime change without American boots on the ground. Trump and the Pentagon have frequently said that we won’t send troops into Iran. Perhaps they won’t, but I can’t see how there will be the installation of a friendly government in Iran without an invasion.

After World War I, a number of military theorists, like Billy Mitchell and Giulio Douhet, promoted the importance of airpower. They stated that control of the skies was essential in any war, and some advocates of airpower even contended that airpower alone could bring victory. World War II gave everyone a reality check. The Americans and the British bombers pummeled German cities. They incinerated Hamburg and Dresden. They turned Berlin into rubble. However, the Germans didn’t surrender until the Soviet Army hoisted the red flag atop the Reichstag.

Why didn’t the Germans quit?

I have a book, The Last Battle, by Cornelius Ryan. It describes the final days on the Nazi regime and the bloody Götterdämmerung in Berlin. Much of the book explains the actions of the Soviet and British/American forces. There are also some very disturbing accounts of the events inside of Hitler’s bunker. Most of the members of the Nazi hierarchy that were holed in the bunker never even considered surrender. They knew better. They knew that they were marked men. They could either die at the hands of the vengeful Soviet troops or die by their own hands. These high-ranking officers hung on to what little power they had until the bitter end.

Why didn’t the German people rise up to overthrow the Nazi regime when the Allied air forces were blowing their homes to smithereens? My father-in-law was in the Luftwaffe in WWII. He and my wife’s uncles fought for Deutschland until they were utterly defeated. Many of the Germans feared the Nazis, but they feared the Red Army more. During their reign, the Nazis had eliminated all political opposition in the country. There was no resistance movement with the power to oust Hitler and his followers. The war didn’t end until the Allied forces occupied Germany. Airpower clearly helped the Allies to win, but they still needed boots on the ground.

Look at Iran. The United States has decapitated the regime, but the Iranian military forces are not giving up. The Iranian hierarchy won’t surrender for the same reason the Nazis didn’t. Surrender means death for them. Is there an alternative armed force in Iran that can oust the government? Not right now there isn’t. The civilian population may rebel, but do they have the weapons to topple the mullahs? Probably not. Will the civilians in Iran view the Americans as liberators if we blow up most of their country? I kind of doubt it.

If Trump really wants regime change, he will have to send in troops.

That will be ugly.

The Fall

February 28th, 2026

The story of the Fall in the Bible is read during the season of Lent in the Catholic Church. It has always irritated me. Before I start ranting, allow me to post an abbreviated version of the narrative.

“The Lord God took the man and put him in the Garden of Eden to work it and take care of it.  And the Lord God commanded the man, “You are free to eat from any tree in the garden; but you must not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, for when you eat from it you will certainly die.” Genesis 2:15-17

“Now the serpent was more crafty than any of the wild animals the Lord God had made. He said to the woman, “Did God really say, ‘You must not eat from any tree in the garden’?”

2 The woman said to the serpent, “We may eat fruit from the trees in the garden, 3 but God did say, ‘You must not eat fruit from the tree that is in the middle of the garden, and you must not touch it, or you will die.’”

4 “You will not certainly die,” the serpent said to the woman. 5 “For God knows that when you eat from it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.”

6 When the woman saw that the fruit of the tree was good for food and pleasing to the eye, and also desirable for gaining wisdom, she took some and ate it. She also gave some to her husband, who was with her, and he ate it. 7 Then the eyes of both of them were opened, and they realized they were naked; so they sewed fig leaves together and made coverings for themselves.” – Genesis 3:1-7

The story attempts to explain the effects of sin and the why there is evil in the world. To my mind, it explains very little, and it produces more questions than answers to the fundamental problems of life.

I am looking at the text as somebody who is responsible for raising a small child, namely our five-year-old grandson, Asher. As caregivers, my wife and I have to teach and protect our grandson. In the story God doesn’t really do much of that. Since, prior to eating the forbidden fruit, Adam and Eve do not know good or evil. They essentially have the moral consciousness of toddlers. They know that “Daddy” told them not to eat the fruit of the tree because they will die if they do. However, at that point nobody in the world has ever died, so what does it mean to them when God talks about death? They apparently have adult bodies, but they are literally babes in the woods (or garden).

To phrase it modern terms, it is like God telling Adam ,

“Hey, Adam, go ahead and eat any fruit you like, but not from that tree in the center of the garden. Yeah, you know the beautiful tree with the really cool looking fruit. Leave that one alone! If you eat, you are going to die. Let Eve know too. Okay, I have go away for a while. I’ll be back in the cool of the evening. Be good! You hear me?”

That would be like me telling Asher not to play with the power saw in the garage while I go shopping. It’s a recipe for disaster. In the human world, God would be charged with gross negligence. Now, God’s instructions are exceedingly strange seeing as he already knows what will happen. He is omniscient, omnipresent, omnipotent, and a bunch of other omni things. This clearly a set up. God, for some reason, wants to get the kids out of the garden. We can blame the serpent or Eve or Adam, but God is still in charge.

Does any of this even matter? I guess it does if the Church insists on reading this story every year. The Church tells its followers that all humans tend to sin because of the disobedience of our first parents. How is fair to punish the children for the sins of the fathers? Why would God want to have endless generations of flawed people? Where is his quality control? The official answer to my questions is that it is all because of our gift of free will, which we continually abuse. Depending on who you read, be it St. Augustine or John Calvin, the basic Christian message seems to be that we all suck.

During the Easter Vigil Mass, the holiest liturgy on the calendar, the priest recalls the Fall and speaks of it as the “felix culpa”, the happy mistake. I find that remarkable and encouraging. The message is that God would not have fully entered the world without Adam and Eve disobeying the Lord. History did not start until the Fall.

Why did God allow the Fall to occur? Genesis doesn’t say. If the act of creation did not end after six days, if it continues even now, then maybe God wanted cocreators working with him. Maybe he wanted some apprentices that He could train. Maybe God is still working on the ultimate work of art, and he wants us to participate in it, even if we are like kindergarteners fumbling with our finger paints. Maybe it’s not such a terrible thing to struggle and suffer if we are helping to build the universe. Maybe it’s actually all okay.

Finish the Story!

February 19th, 2026

“Finish the story!” is the first thing that Asher says to his grandma (Oma) in the morning when he sees her.

Asher is five years old, and he loves stories. More specifically, he likes the stories that Oma tells him. Actually, the various stories are just small parts of one huge, never-ending epic. The stories are tales that Karin makes up as she goes along. However, they are never just her ideas. Asher often interrupts her and changes or embellishes the narrative. They are both endlessly inventive, so the story careens from one plot twist to another with enough characters to fill a Russian novel. I have been told to record the story for posterity, but I don’t see that being possible, since I am not there with Asher and Oma all the time. I catch snippets of the tale while I am in earshot, but then I lose the thread when I am absent. So, the best I can do is give you bits and pieces.

All the characters are animals, some real and some fantastical. Like Adam in the Book of Genesis, Asher gets to name all the animals. One of the animals is a zebra named Black Stripe. The main characters are three young elephants, Grey, Blue, and Teal. They are named that way because those are their respective colors. The three elephants are with their parents on holiday. They are at a campsite, and they start their adventures there.

Seeing as Asher demands his story at the beginning of the day, Karin starts by describing what the elephants are having for breakfast. Since Oma is a German who likes her traditional “Hafergrütze” (cooked or soaked oat groats), that is what the elephants eat. Oma adds strawberries, apples, and bananas into the bowl, so the elephants get to enjoy those things in their meal. They also get golden yoghurt in the mix. There actually is such a thing as golden yoghurt. It’s made by Clover Meadows, and it contains maple syrup and vanilla. It comes in a bottle with a gold-colored lid, hence the name.

The elephants frolic at the campsite. They have interesting visitors. Unicorns show up, of course. One of them is named Sparkle. That seems to be a common name for unicorns. The unicorns take the elephants to Unicorn Land, and there they do magical things. At one point, Unicorn Land is invaded by dinosaurs. Asher wanted to know if the unicorns and elephants are going to be okay. Karin told him that the T. Rex is a nice dinosaur except when he gets hungry, so the elephants keep him well fed. They all eat rainbow-colored pancakes shaped like themselves.

Then a dragon rudely enters Unicorn Land. He causes havoc for a while. The unicorn fire department tries to put out his flaming breath but then decides to let the dragon be like a small blowtorch to light campfires so that everybody can roast marshmallows.

And it goes on and on and on…

The saga reminds of the book The Neverending Story by Michael Ende. That story is in many ways similar to the tale of Asher and Oma. Ende is one of the most imaginative authors who ever lived. His book often veers off on a tangent and briefly hints at other fascinating subsidiary plots. However, Ende always reels himself back in and simply dismisses the nonessential details by saying,

“But that’s another story and shall be told another time.”

I am still waiting for “another time”.

Oma’s tale has many side stories, and I expect those will also be told “another time”.

A Squirrel and A Six-speed

February 17th, 2026

We own a 2017 Toyota Corolla iM. It’s a good car. We’ve had it nine years and logged 119K miles on it. The Corolla has taken us all over the United States: Dallas, Los Angeles, Seattle, Niagara Falls, you name it. Our insurance totaled the car after the Corolla got pummeled with hail last May, but we kept it anyway, because it runs great. Or at least it did.

The Corolla is not the only stick shift that I ever owned. Back in 1982, when I was stationed with the Army in West Germany, I bought a brand-new BMW 320i. That car was a silver two door with a four-speed transmission. It was truly a sweet ride. When I was dating my wife, I used to drive to her parents’ home in the Beemer along the autobahn. It handled well at 100 mph.

I got the BMW because at that time in history cars with automatic transmissions in Germany were about as common as unicorns. True, there was sometimes a rare American-made car on the roads, but that was because GIs could bring their POV over from the States. Once in a while, the troop sold his car and left his vehicle in Deutschland. So, it was perhaps possible to find a ’77 Chrysler Newport or some other gas-guzzler the size of a pocket battleship. However, if a soldier wanted a German car, especially a sportscar, he or she needed to know how drive stick, or quickly learn how to do so. I learned. It was ugly. Germans had no patience with a bumbling “Ami” who stalled out his vehicle in the middle of a busy intersection. German babies don’t play with rattles. They are all born with a stick shift in their hands.

I am convinced that it is impossible for a person to teach somebody how to drive a stick shift. It’s like learning to swim; you learn by doing. A person learning to drive a car with a standard transmission has to fully become one with the vehicle. The driver has to feel how the gears mesh when they work the pedal. They have to listen to the sound of the motor RPMs. They have look at the traffic around them. Sometimes, they have to smell the stench of burning clutch. It’s a total Zen experience. No thinking. Just doing.

I like driving a stick. This is not to say that it is always a fun experience. When I was stationed at Fort Ord, California, I took a trip to San Francisco. I had stop on a steep incline right at the top of a hill. When I looked out of the windshield, all I could see was the stop sign and blue sky. I had the parking brake yanked up into my right armpit. I was wondering if I could move my right foot fast enough from the brake to the accelerator to avoid rolling back into the Bay. I did. Barely.

I brought the BMW to America, and we drove it for eleven years. Finally, the transmission went to hell. Also, Karin and I had three little kids, and it’s hard to get three children in the back of a 320i. We needed a bigger ride. I sold the BMW to a guy for $400 cash. That stung. but the car was out of my life, or so I thought. Years later, each of my two sons cursed me out for selling the car. They told me,

“Dad, why did you sell the BMW!? I could have pimped it out! Do you know how much a car like that is worth?”

No, I don’t know, and I don’t care.

There is a movie called Boyhood, starring Ethan Hawke. The movie chronicles how a boy ages and matures. In the film Hawke plays the father of the boy. Hawke foolishly tells his small son early in the movie that he can have his daddy’s muscle car when he is older. Later in the show, the boy becomes a surly teenager and reminds his father of that rash promise. Hawke tells his son that he sold the cool car to buy a minivan. The adolescent son is not amused. I remember this part of the movie because the scene is spot on.

Oh well, I was going to tell a story about the Corolla. I got sidetracked.

Here we go…

Three days ago, I was driving the Corolla and discovered that it was really hard to shift gears. I had sudden flashbacks of the dying BMW. Fixing or replacing a transmission is expensive. I was irritated because the car is a Toyota. The engines and trannies in a Toyota are supposed to be bulletproof. They last forever. That’s why I bought the car in the first place.

I took it into the dealer for a maintenance inspection. I talked to service manager who was a good ol’ boy. He was baffled by the problem. He encouraged me to keep the car and fix it. That’s what I wanted to do anyway. He promised to call me back when he had an answer for me.

He called me while I was driving Asher home from school in our RAV4. He told,

“Francis, you’re going to be tickled when I tell you what the problem was.”

“Try me.”

“Well, the mechanics found a walnut wedged in the lineage between the shifter and the transmission.”

I thought to myself, “Those fucking squirrels.”

Actually, I was tickled by his answer to the problem. The mechanic removed the walnut, gave the car a test drive, and as the manager told me, “Now, it slides like butter.” It cost me $200. A bargain at twice the price.

So, I still have a working six speed.

As Neil Young said, “Long may you run.”

Flawed Hero

February 13th, 2026

I’ve been sick the last few days. It’s been just a cold, cough, and sinus infection, but it’s been enough to keep me down. My wife, Karin, has taken on the duties of caring for our little grandson, Asher. We watch over the boy fulltime, and it is difficult for just one of us to handle him. Karin is just now getting over the same virus that I have. She got it from Asher. His kindergarten class is a petri dish for growing germs and exchanging them among the students. Asher’s immune system has had a workout this winter. So has Karin’s and so has mine.

While I have spent more than the usual amount of time lying around in bed, I have been reading. I dug out a used book from my shelf that I bought a while ago but never felt the urge open up, until a couple days ago. I am of the belief that a book comes into the hands of a specific reader at the just the right time. Now is the time for this book and me to come together.

The book is titled Three Cups of Tea and is written by Greg Mortenson and David Oliver Relin. The book is about the life and adventures of Greg Mortensen. His story is inspiring, and it is meant to be. The authors describe Mortenson as a daring mountaineer and a selfless humanitarian. Mortenson comes across as a hero. In fact, in his book he is described by others specifically as a “hero”.

So, was he a hero?

Well, we have to define what a hero is. The person who probably best able to say who qualifies as a hero was Joseph Campbell. In his books, The Power of Myth and The Hero with a Thousand Faces, Campbell delved deeply into that topic. In The Power of Myth, Campbell says this:

“Even in popular novels, the main character is a hero or heroine who has found or done something beyond the normal range of achievement and experience. A hero is someone who has given his or her life to something greater than oneself.”

Did Mortenson give his life for something greater? It would appear so. He spent most of his adult life building schools for impoverished children in the mountains of Pakistan and Afghanistan. In his book, it says that “As of 2009, he had established eighty-one schools, including fifteen new schools in Afghanistan.” I am certain that Mortenson was a hero to the families he helped. He made a difference.

Campbell maintained that hero stories are universal. They exist in all cultures at all times throughout the world. The variety of narratives is endless, but they all share common traits. A hero often has a miraculous birth or at least an unusual childhood. Mortenson grew up in a missionary family in Tanzania. He climbed Mount Kilimanjaro at age eleven. He was fluent in Swahili. That qualifies as unusual.

A hero goes through a series of trials and failures. Mortenson started his career as a school builder after failing to scale K2 in Karakoram Range of Pakistan. He struggled mightily to find funding to build his first school. He knew next to nothing about the culture and politics of Pakistan when he set out to build a school in the mountain village of Korphe in the region of Baltistan. Mortenson faced obstacle after obstacle while trying to build schools, including a fatwa from a local mullah. Somehow, he eventually succeeded.

In the hero myths the struggling hero often receives a “boon”, a gift or some important wisdom from an elder or a supernatural being. Mortenson received sage advice from the village chief, Haji Ali. He received funding from an unexpected source, which allowed him to start the Central Asia Institute (CAI) to do his work. Mortenson got his boons.

I was impressed by Mortenson’s tale. I have some personal reasons for that. I knew people who ran a group called Voices for Creative Nonviolence who did educational work similar to that of Mortenson. Brian, Kathy, and Sarah made extraordinary efforts on behalf of young people in Kabul, especially girls. Mortenson emphasized the education of women. I was slightly involved in helping the people I know to resettle Afghans after the Taliban overran Afghanistan again 2021. I have stayed in touch with at least one Afghan refugee.

I was also impressed by the fact that after 9/11 Mortenson spoke out publicly in defense of Muslims. He insisted on reminding Americans that not all Muslims were terrorists. For his efforts Mortenson received piles of hate mail. At that time I published numerous articles similar to what Mortenson said. I too got plenty of angry responses in the mail. I know how he felt.

After I read the book, I went on Wikipedia to find out what happened after he told his story. What I learned was unsettling, but somehow not surprising.

In the hero mythology, the hero is usually flawed and he often overreaches. Hubris takes its toll and the hero meets his downfall. The examples are countless: Oedipus, Achilles, Samson, David, etc. Sometimes, the hero makes a course correction. Sometimes not.

In Mortenson’s own book there is a telling quote from one of his associates. It is as follows:

“Let’s be honest, says Tom Vaughan. “The fact is that the CAI is Greg. I didn’t mind rubber-stamping whatever it was he wanted to work on. But without Greg, the CAI is finished. The risks he takes in that part of the world I understand-that’s part of the job. But I began to get angry about the terrible way he took care of himself. He stopped climbing and exercising. He stopped sleeping. He began to gain so much weight that he didn’t even look like a mountaineer anymore. I understand that he decided to pour everything into his work”, Vaughan says, “But if he drops dead of a heart attack, what’s the point.”

Despite rapid the growth of his operation, Mortenson kept it a one-man show. Apparently, he attitude was “I got this”. He didn’t. In April of 2012, the Montana AG found that he had mishandled six million dollars of the CAI’s money. Mortenson agreed to pay back one million dollars. No criminal charges were filed.

According to Wikipedia, the state attorney general at the time, Steve Bullock, wrote,

“Mr. Mortenson may not have intentionally deceived the board or his employees, but his disregard for and attitude about basic record-keeping and accounting for his activities essentially had the same effect.”

That’s a hard fall. Mortenson died in October of 2024.

So, once again, was he a hero? To the kids in Pakistan, certainly. To the donors to the CAI, not so much.

Heroes are often tragic figures. They have flaws.

We can identify with that.

Reunion

February 8th, 2026

I received a letter a week or two ago from a couple high school classmates. They are busy organizing a 50th anniversary celebration for the Class of 1976. I find it almost impossible to wrap my head around this development. Based on the letter, there has already been a massive amount of planning and preparation involved with this event. They have arranged a tour of the old high school. The organizers have a dinner and party set up at a local hotel. There are detailed instructions in the letter about how to pay for reservations. Still, I have lingering questions:

“Why? Why do all this? Why bother?”

At the risk of stating the obvious, fifty years is a long time, and at least in my case, a lot has happened during those years. What do I have in common with these classmates from five decades ago? What do I even have in common with the person I was back then?

Probably not much.

I have kept in contact with a grand total of three of my high school classmates. I’ve only seen two of them during the last decade. If I went to this soiree, I doubt that I would recognize anyone. I expect that nametags will be necessary for any sort of socialization.

The letter asks people to “meet us in the Grand Ballroom at 4:30 for dinner, conversation, reminiscing, dancing, cocktails, meeting old friends, and making new ones.” Dancing? Seriously? How many cocktails will people need for that?

What about reminiscing? This implies that a person wants to talk about what it was like back in high school. I am hard pressed to recall much that is worth remembering, much less discussing. Do I really want to converse about the days when I was young and stupid? I once read an interview within which John Lennon was asked about getting the Beatles back together. He sarcastically replied to the interviewer that it would be like going back to high school. I can understand Lennon’s viewpoint.

When I look back half of a century, I don’t feel nostalgia. I recall most of all that burning desire to get the fuck out my hometown. I wanted to see the world and have adventures, and that I definitely did. When I really think about it, it is clear to me that almost everything I did while in high school was part of an effort to go somewhere else and to be somebody else. Paul Simon best described my feeling at the time in his song, “My Little Town”. The lyrics go like this:

“In my little town, I grew up believing
God keeps his eye on us all.
And he used to lean upon me as I pledged allegiance to the wall.
Lord, I recall, in my little town,
Comin’ home after school, flyin’ my bike past the gates of the factories,
My mom doin’ the laundry, hangin’ out shirts in the dirty breeze.
And after it rains there’s a rainbow and all of the colors are black.
It’s not that the colors aren’t there, it’s just imagination they lack.
Everything’s the same back in my little town,
My little town, my little town.

Nothin’ but the dead and dyin’ back in my little town.
Nothin’ but the dead and dyin’ back in my little town.

In my little town, I never meant nothin’,
I was just my father’s son. mmm.
Savin’ my money, dreamin’ of glory,
Twitchin’ like a ginger on the trigger of a gun.

Leavin’ nothin’ but the dead and dying back in my little town.
Nothin’ but the dead and dyin’ back in my little town.
Nothin’ but the dead and dyin’ back in my little town.
Nothin’ but the dead and dyin’ back in my little town.
Nothin’ but the dead and dyin’ back in my little town.”

That song tells part of my story. Eventually, years later I returned from California to my place of birth. I came back a very different person. I came back mostly because my wife and I had a baby boy and he needed more family than just us. Was it a good decision? I have no idea, but that’s what we did.

We live within ten miles of my old school. We live within ten miles of the hotel where they want to have this shindig. I could easily attend. Sure, Karin and I would have to find a babysitter for our little grandson, Asher, but we could figure it out if we wanted to do so. I don’t want to.

Faulkner once said, “The past is never dead. The past isn’t even past.”

He’s right. My past is an integral part of my identity.

I don’t need to go somewhere and wallow in it.

Waddle

February 4th, 2026

Asher wants stories. He does not want to hear stories from books. He wants my wife and I to make up stories extemporaneously. We try to oblige. Often, he asks for a story when one of us is busy. It’s difficult to come up with coherent tale when you are driving on the freeway or cooking supper. So, we do our best and Asher is sometimes dissatisfied with our feeble efforts.

He hit me up for a story this morning just before breakfast. That was poor timing in that we are always in a rush at breakfast. The boy needs to eat, take his vitamins, brush his teeth, and dress within a half hour timeframe. It’s hard to squeeze a story into that schedule. I agreed to give it a try.

Asked him, “What do you want the story to be about?”

He grinned and said, “A penguin!”

“Okay, this penguin…”

“Grandpa, you have to start a story with ‘Once upon a time’.”

“Okay, so, once upon a time this penguin…”

“Grandpa, what was the penguin’s name?”

I made up a name for the penguin. It was wrong. I asked Asher,

“So, what should his name be?”

“Waddle.”

“Okay, so once upon a time, Waddles the Penguin….”

“No, no, no! Not ‘Waddles‘! It’s just ‘Waddle’! That’s what penguins do!”

“Okay, so once upon a time, Waddle the Penguin came from the South Pole to some place warm. He didn’t like it because he was too hot, so he went to a grocery store and snuck into a freezer display case and started eating Cherry Garcia ice cream. Waddle didn’t have a spoon, so it was kind of messy. He had to eat with his flipper. Then a customer came and got freaked out and the customer yelled, ‘I don’t want to buy a penguin! I just want a carton of Cherry Garcia!’. Waddle left the store.”

Asher asked me, “Then what happened?”

“Hmmmm, he walked back to the South Pole.”

“That’s a long way, Grandpa.”

“Yeah, it took him a while. When he got to the South Pole, he looked fo his best friend named Fisher.”

“Why was his friend named Fisher?”

“Because that’s what penguins do. They fish.”

“Oh.”

“Anyway, Waddle gazed around at all the other penguins, but they all looked alike to him. So, he yelled out, ‘Fisher!’, but none of the other penguins answered him. Then he went to the edge of the ice and saw a penguin in the water fishing. Waddle asked him, ‘Are you named Fisher?’, but the penguin in the water said, ‘No, I’m just fishing’. Waddle wandered for a long time, but he finally found his friend, and they were both really happy.”

Asher asked, “That’s it?”

“Yeah.”

He wasn’t satisfied, but it was time for him to eat his oatmeal with strawberries and bananas in it.

He begged me for a new and better story after school. I told him about a man who sailed to the South Pole to sell refrigerators to the Waddle and his penguin friends.

Asher didn’t like that story either.

Hold You

February 3rd, 2026

There are times when out grandson, Asher, wants me to carry him. That is usually not a problem. He’s just over five years old, and he tips the scales at just over forty pounds. The thing that I have to keep in mind is that, with each passing day, Asher is a bit bigger, and I am a bit older. At some point, perhaps soon, I won’t be able to carry him. That’s just reality.

Last night was a rough one for Asher. He sleeps with me. He has done that for years, and he dozes off with his heavy head lying on my left bicep. When he came to bed yesterday, his legs were hurting. He had been playing and kicking a lot earlier in the evening, but I don’t think that’s why his legs were bothering him. He has sudden growth spurts, and when those occur, his legs ache. Sometimes, the soreness is mild. Last night it was fierce. He quite literally had growing pains.

Asher fell asleep in my arms, but he was awake again after only an hour or so. He was crying and moving around. I got up to find him some Children’s Tylenol. My wife and I asked him to take the Tylenol for his pain, but Asher wanted no part of it. He doesn’t like to take pain meds. That might be a good trait for later in his life.

Eventually, Asher settled down and slept again. About two hours later he was up again, once more crying. My wife came to bed to comfort him. Asher laid between the two of us. The tears flowed for a while, and then he calmed down and slept.

This cycle went on for most of the night. Asher would sleep fitfully for a while, then wake up and cry because of his aching legs. Each time, I held him close as he wept. I could feel his body slowly relax and his sobs fade away. I couldn’t think of anything to do anything to ease his pain. I could only hold him so that he would endure it. He did.

The last attack came before 3:00. It wasn’t as intense as the previous bouts of pain. His body was finishing its work extending his bones and muscles. Asher eased on to my shoulder and closed his eyes. He finally slept peacefully.

I stayed awake. I stared at the skylight and thought about the words of a song:

“I can’t carry you forever, but I can hold you now” – lyrics from, Hold You Now by Vampire Weekend