Frank is Emptiness

October 13th, 2024

Almost every morning, I take my grandson to a playground. Asher is nearly four years old, and he likes to play with other children. He doesn’t differentiate between genders. He is oblivious to race and ethnicity. He doesn’t even ask the other children their names. He is only interested in finding somebody who wants to be with him.

The nearby playgrounds have an eclectic mix of people. I sometimes talk with the other caregivers. They come from all over the world: Qatar, Norway, Mexico, India, Iraq, Japan, you name it. These adults all have different backgrounds and different histories, and yet their kids are all in the same place running and around and laughing like crazy people.

It wasn’t like that when I was young, or even when my children were little. The population then was much more homogenous. People looked the same and sounded alike. Things have changed. Our world is more diverse, and in some ways more divided. We interact with individuals who may not speak our language or share all of our values. Yet, we need to get along with one another.

I look at the kids and I see what the future holds. These little ones don’t share my prejudices. They don’t have my experiences. When they play together, they’re just kids. They laugh and cry and make up games. They may fight bitterly about a toy, but after a couple minutes they are best friends. They haven’t learned to hate. God willing, they never will.

All the children I see at the playground share at least one thing. Each of them is there with an adult who cares for them and protects them. Every child I see is loved, and they know it. That is what these kids have in common.

October 9th, 2024

I had a long conversation with a friend who thinks deeply. We were discussing diversity in the United States. He maintained that America is far too diverse to qualify as a nation. He sees our country as having too many religions, too many ethnicities, and too many cultures to be unified in any real sense. In particular, he noted the absence of communal values among the U.S. population. He mentioned that if you bring up any major political issue, be it abortion, 2nd Amendment rights, LGBTQ, religion in public schools, et cetera, you find starkly contrasting viewpoints. There seems to be no common ground.

It made me remember something I did many years ago. I used to be involved as a volunteer with a program that tried to help families with troubled teenagers to function better. Once a week for twelve weeks, a group of us would discuss an issue that affects how family members interact with each other. One week we always talked about family values. As part of the discussion, we had an activity to get people moving and thinking.

The activity was called “Values Voting”. It was rather simple. On one end of the room, we placed a sign that said “Agree”, and on the opposite side of the room we put up a sign that said, “Disagree”. We instructed the family members to listen to a statement and then decide if they agreed or disagreed with it. If they agreed, they moved to side of the room with the “Agree” sign, if not, they walked over to the side with the “Disagree” sign. If they couldn’t decide, they stood awkwardly in the middle of the room.

We, the facilitators, actively sought out controversial or inflammatory statements to give to the participants in the exercise. We said things like “gays are bad” or “abortion is a human right”. We did not necessarily believe any of these statements ourselves. We just wanted to see where each family member wound up.

After the family members chose a position, one thing became apparent. To the shock of many participants, they found that some of their loved ones had very different opinions on certain topics. That was the first learning moment. It is often assumed, especially by parents, that the members of the family all agree on most things. Not.

We then asked each participant why they were standing where they were. We asked each of them what core value lies beneath their position. There was often a long pause while the individual thought about these questions. The person sometimes had never even considered why they held a certain opinion. Many of them had to dig deep to explain their viewpoint. We did not judge any expressed value as being good or bad. We just wanted each person to reflect on why they were standing in a particular place. More than one individual was surprised with what they discovered about themselves.

So, what does any of this have to do with our country’s values? Well, what do we actually believe in? Freedom? Everybody in America loves freedom. Find me two people that have the same definition of the word. People in America say they want a strong defense. What does that mean? What is a strong economy? Is there any consensus as to what that looks like?

What we need is a room the size of the United States where everybody can state their views and then explain why they hold them. Then maybe we can sort this out.

This may take a while.

October 6th, 2024

I often go to Qdoba when Karin or I are too tired or lazy to cook supper. The restaurant advertises itself as a place that serves “Mexican eats”. I’m not sure about that. The people there use a lot of tortillas, salsa, and guacamole, but that does not necessarily qualify their product as being authentic Mexican food. The employees are friendly. Their service is fast, and the food is plentiful. They operate an efficient assembly line. Qdoba provides an industrial version of Mexican cuisine. They always ask the customer to select a “protein”, and that is a term that somehow reminds me of the old sci-fu movie, “Soylent Green”.

I generally order grilled quesadillas for my wife and myself. I go through the line and have the server load up the tortillas to overflowing. The quesadillas usually suffice to more than two meals. The prices are inexpensive, so getting takeout at Qdoba is cost effective. As I mentioned, the assembly line is efficient, and people get their orders quickly. It takes a bit longer with quesadillas because they have to grill them for a few minutes. I’m not in a rush, so I don’t mind the wait. It gives me a chance to observe the clientele.

Most customers are like me. They are there to grab some takeout, and the restaurant is designed accordingly. It’s not a place where I would want to sit and relax. It’s too noisy and too busy for my tastes. The only people who hang out there are the students from the high school across the street. They get a soft drink and some taco chips and talk smack with their friends.

As I waited for my order, I saw eight young guys sitting together at a table. I’m guessing that they were about sixteen years old. If they had driver’s licenses and cars, they would probably have been somewhere else. In any case, they were talking and joking and basically being teenagers, everything age appropriate. They all looked happy and innocent. I felt a surge of melancholy as I watched them. I have half a century more life experience than they do, and I thought to myself,

“These boys have no idea what they are in for.”

That’s probably a good thing. They seemed to be living in the moment, and more power to them for that. I’m sure that they have their worries, but probably not the existential adult-sized versions. They are still protected to some degree. I remember my youngest son, Stefan, telling me,

“When I was a kid, I thought that adults knew what they were doing.”

It’s a cruel realization to find out that those whom you thought to be older and wiser were just older. There is no operator’s manual for life. Everybody ad libs the whole thing. We fake it as best we can, but sometimes that’s not good enough.

What will these young men grow up to be? The possibilities are endless. One of them might fall under the spell of a smooth-talking military recruiter and wind up fighting a war in a country he has never heard of before. One might become a rich entrepreneur. One might end up as a homeless addict. Most of them will settle into a “normal” life: find a job, find a partner, find a home, raise a family, retire, and die. High schools are designed to train worker bees and most of these guys will be just that. They will be cogs in the corporate machine. I was one for a long time.

Perhaps one of them will step onto the roller coaster of adulthood and embark on a grand and terrifying adventure. I don’t think many boys do that anymore. I did that. I’m still on that ride. I can’t get off until it comes to complete stop.

Do I envy these young men?

No.

I take comfort in knowing that I have already made most of the big decisions. Now, I just live with the results. I would never want to do it all again.

September 28th, 2024

Someone once said that the new immigrants to the United States were “beaten men from beaten races, representing the worst failures in the struggle for existence.”

Who said that? Was it Trump? Or was it Vance? No, it was Francis Walker, the president of MIT, who wrote those words in an article in 1896.

The bigotry and hate we see in today’s society were evident back at the end of the 19th century. My ancestors came from Austria-Hungary around that time, and the American public in those days railed against the Poles, Jews and Italians who were coming to this country. Today, some of our national political leaders slander Haitians or Palestinians, causing the same sort of fear and rage that existed over a century ago.

Nothing has changed. Despising the immigrant is an American tradition.

The essay above was published yesterday as a letter to the editor in the Capital Times (Madison, Wisconsin) under the title “Immigrant Bashing a Tragic American Tradition”. It was also published in the Chicago Tribune as “Hating Immigrants is an American Tradition”.

September 26th, 2024

We got home from church just before noon. As I pulled up to the driveway, I noticed that something was missing in the front yard. I couldn’t immediately think of what it was, and then it hit me,

“The yard sign is gone.”

Once we got out of the car, I walked to the front yard and looked around. It rained hard earlier in the day, and I thought that maybe the wind had caught hold of the sign, even though I had the stakes buried pretty deep in the ground. Nope, it wasn’t lying in the ditch, and I didn’t see it anywhere along the street. I concluded that somebody with an opposing political viewpoint decided to remove it.

I told my wife and my daughter that the sign was gone. My daughter asked me eagerly,

“Do you want me to order another one?”

“Uh yeah, sure.”

“How about a flag too?”

“Sure.”

A couple minutes later, she said, “The flag will be here tomorrow. You could put it on the door or hang it on the house above the garage door.”

“Let me think about it.”

I called the police to report the theft. I knew that they probably couldn’t do anything for me, but I couldn’t let it slide either.

The cop showed up a few minutes later. It was Sunday afternoon during a Packer game, so he probably wasn’t very busy. He asked what happened.

I replied, “I had a yard sign in front of the house and now I don’t.”

“Somebody stole it?”

“Yeah.”

“When did you last see it?”

“It was there when I went to bed last night, but it was gone when I came home from church this morning.”

“What kind of sign was it? Biden/Harris?”

“No, Biden isn’t running anymore. It was Harris/Walz.”

The officer nodded, “Yeah. you’re right. How much did you pay for it?”

“I don’t know. Maybe seventeen dollars. It’s not much to report.”

The policeman said, “A theft is a theft. Anything else you can tell me?”

“Not really.”

“Do have a camera on your house?”

“No, sorry.”

“Do you have any issues or conflicts with your neighbors?”

“Oddly enough, no I don’t.”

“If we catch the guy, do just want your sign back, or do you want him arrested?”

I chuckled. “I don’t think you’ll find the guy. If you do, you don’t need to arrest him. Just put the fear of God in the guy.”

“Got it.”

I told him, “The main reason I am reporting this is because whoever stole the sign probably is stealing other signs. I’m probably not the only person missing a sign.”

The cop nodded. “Here’s my card. This is the case number. If you need to do so, call my number and mention the case number.”

The officer left. I thought to myself,

“This is so chickenshit.”

What kind of person sneaks into somebody’s yard to take a political yard sign? It’s just totally gutless. This is what a coward would do.

This is democracy in America in 2024.

New improved sign

September 25th, 2024

Asher likes monster trucks. I think most little boys like them. Asher has several model trucks. He has the “Gravedigger” and the “Northern Nightmare”. He loves to take them to the playground. He rolls them down the slide and looks to see if they land in an upright position. He will do that over and over. He can only launch them down the slide when there aren’t many other kids around, because they want to actually slide down the slide. Asher and I tend to go to Kayla’s Place early in the morning. It’s less crowded and he has more time opportunity to toss his monster truck from up high.

Yesterday, there was another little boy at the playground. He too had a monster truck. He looked to be Asher’s age, maybe three or four years old. Asher saw him and wanted to play with the boy, and probably his truck. The boy’s father encouraged his son to play with Asher. Asher waited expectantly for the little guy to do that. The young man had no interest in playing with Asher. He turned away from him, and despite his father’s urgings, refused to have anything to do with Asher.

The dad got irritated by his boy’s behavior. He told,

“If you won’t play with the other boy, then we will just go home.”

His son refused to interact with Asher, so the dad said,

“Okay. We’re going home.”

The little guy didn’t like that, but his father picked him up and headed to the parking lot.

Asher stood there and watched his potential playmate get carried off. Asher looked utterly defeated.

He asked me, “Where did the boy go?”

I answered him, “He and his daddy went home.”

“What will I do?”

“There is another little boy here. You could play with him.”

“I don’t want to play with another boy. I want to play with that boy.”

He started crying quietly.

Then he asked me, “What can I do?”

I felt a twinge in my heart. Maybe it was from a half-remembered event like this one. Maybe it was because of something I felt at some playground six decades ago when some other little boy refused to play with me. I felt empathy for Asher. He wanted to play with a particular person, and that person for reasons unknown rejected him. There was no explanation for it. Asher did not understand why the other boy wouldn’t play with him. I didn’t understand it either.

I was sitting on a bench. Asher came up to me and dried his tears on my t-shirt. He looked up at me and asked,

“What can I do?”

“Do you want to go to the library for story time?”

He perked up. “Yeah.”

“Okay, let’s go.”

“You have to carry me to the car.”

“Why do I have to carry you? Are you a lazy butt?”

Asher smiled and said, “Yeah. Carry me.”

I did.

September 18th, 2024

Hallelujah (/ˌhæləˈluːjə/ HAL-ə-LOO-yə; Biblical Hebrew: הַלְלוּ־יָהּ‎, romanized: hallū-Yāh, Modern Hebrew: הַלְּלוּ־יָהּ‎, romanized: halləlū-Yāh, lit. ‘praise Yah‘) is an interjection from the Hebrew language, used as an expression of gratitude to God. – from Wikipedia

Jeff Buckley only recorded one album, Grace. One of the songs on the album was written and originally sung by Leonard Cohen. The song is titled Hallelujah, and it has been covered by other artists besides Buckley. However, Buckley’s version is, at least for me, by far the most poignant.

Buckley uses only his guitar and his voice for the song. That’s enough, more than enough. The austere arrangement creates an intense mood that draws in the listener. He starts quietly and then suddenly his voice grows strong. This happens again and again with each verse.

Buckley begins by singing about King David, a warrior king who composed the psalms:

“Now I’ve heard there was a secret chord
That David played, and it pleased the Lord
But you don’t really care for music, do you?
It goes like this, the fourth, the fifth
The minor falls, the major lifts
The baffled king composing Hallelujah”

“Hallelujah, Hallelujah
Hallelujah, Hallelujah”

Buckley pauses briefly and then sings again about David. He sings about David’s love for Bathsheba, the wife of his general, Uriah. David committed adultery with her and then had Uriah killed in battle. David’s love almost destroyed him and all that he had built.

“Your faith was strong, but you needed proof
You saw her bathing on the roof
Her beauty and the moonlight overthrew you
She tied you to a kitchen chair
She broke your throne, and she cut your hair
And from your lips she drew the Hallelujah”

“Hallelujah, Hallelujah
Hallelujah, Hallelujah”

Buckley changes Cohen’s lyrics at this point to make a more personal statement.

“Baby, I’ve been here before
I’ve seen this room, and I’ve walked this floor

You know, I used to live alone before I knew you
And I’ve seen your flag on the marble arch
And Love is not a victory march”

“It’s a cold and it’s a broken Hallelujah
Hallelujah
Hallelujah
Hallelujah
Hallelujah”

To me, Buckley is saying that love, be it his love or that of a king, is a terrible thing. It’s a reason to grieve and yet still a reason to praise God. He goes on:

“Well, there was a time when you let me know
What’s really going on below
But now you never show that to me, do you?
But remember, when I moved in you
And the holy dove was moving too
And every breath, we drew was Hallelujah
Hallelujah
Hallelujah
Hallelujah
Hallelujah”

Buckley is remembering something about love. It is glorious, and it is also in the past. He sings the last verse with pain in his voice.

“Maybe there’s a God above
But, all I’ve ever learned from love
Was how to shoot somebody who outdrew you?
And it’s not a cry, that you hear at night
It’s not somebody, who’s seen the light
It’s a cold and it’s a broken Hallelujah”

Buckley has a voice that is full of both joy and anguish. I understand what he means by “It’s a cold and it’s a broken hallelujah”.

When I listened to this last verse, I remembered the times I have been wounded by life. I remembered when my eldest son told me that he killed a man in Iraq. I remembered when my grandson’s father abandoned his little boy and left us to raise him. I remember when our youngest son sobbed as he talked about his wife leaving him.

I looked at my hands and imagined holding my beating heart in them. I knew that all my tears would never wash the blood away.

All I could say was, “Hallelujah”, a cold and broken hallelujah.

Buckley sings the word over and over, until he fades out.

“Hallelujah
Hallelujah
Hallelujah
Hallelujah
Hallelujah
Hallelujah
Hallelujah
Hallelujah
Hallelujah
Hallelujah
Hallelujah
Hallelujah”

September 13th, 2024

Cudahy is strange town. It’s by no means a bad place to live, but it has seen better days. The city was founded by Patrick Cudahy back at the end of the 1800’s when he started his meat packing plant there. The meat packing plant still exists, although “Patrick Cudahy” meats got bought out by Smithfield several years ago. The plant still cranks out tons of bacon and sausage. Animal carcasses go in and lunch meats come out.

Cudahy was a classic industrial town. When I was young, it was not unusual for a kid fresh out of high school to get a good paying job at a factory in Cudahy. Manufacturing made the city prosperous. Besides Patrick Cudahy, there was Ladish on Packard Avenue. The factory there still covers several city blocks along the west side of that road. At one time the factory had the largest forge hammer on earth. They made all sorts of metal parts, some of them enormous in size. The environment in the factory was incredibly loud and hearing loss was common at Ladish. Across the street from Ladish were (and are) rows of taverns. There is an old joke about three guys coming out of the factory at the end of their shift:

One guy says, “It sure is windy today!”

Second guy, “It’s not Wednesday. It’s Thursday!”

Third guy, “I’m thirsty too! Let’s go to the bar!”

That kind of sums up life in Cudahy decades ago. Men busted their asses in factories in probably unsafe conditions. At the end of a long shift, they went directly across the street to their favorite watering hole and held down a bar stool for a while. They earned enough to own a ranch house or a bungalow in town. They raised their kids, loved their wives, and eventually got a full pension.

It’s different now. Many of those manufacturing jobs are gone and they aren’t coming back, no matter what the politicians say. Manufacturing may come back in some form, but the jobs won’t be the kind where a man or woman can have a middle-class lifestyle. As it is now, Cudahy has a number of half-empty strip malls. The neighborhoods are still nice, and the park on the lakefront is beautiful, but the money isn’t in town anymore. Even some of the bars are closed. In this part of the world, if a tavern can’t make a profit, things are rough.

There are some interesting startups in Cudahy. One of them is Twisted Plants. It’s a vegan BBQ joint within shouting distance of the meat packing plant. The restaurant is a hole in the wall operation. There is a tiny dining area, but I have never seen anyone actually eat there. Their money is made in take-out food. The walls of Twisted Plants are plastered with posters from stoner movies. Most of the items on their menu have names from these films: “Pineapple Express” and “Up in Smoke” for example. It is idiosyncratic that a vegan burger shop that extolls the joys of weed exists in Cudahy. Also, almost all the people working there are Black. That too is odd for Cudahy.

A friend of mine turned me on to Twisted Plants several years ago. My friend is an Orthodox Jew who maintains a strict kosher diet. This means that for him dining out or getting take-out food is problematic. He has found that eating vegetarian meals helps him to simplify the kosher diet enormously. So, a vegan BBQ place is perfect for him. He loves the food.

There is a lot to love at Twisted Plants. Their food rocks. Seriously. The waffle fries are to die for. I’m a big fan of their burger, “Up in Smoke”. It has grilled onions, smoky plant-based bacon, BBQ sauce, pickles, twisted smokehouse sauce, lettuce, tomato, plant-based patty, American cheese (plant-based), and onion rings on it. The sweet, tangy aroma of the sauce is overpowering. It’s sloppy eating. The bun barely holds in the contents. I usually wind up using a fork and knife before I’m done with burger.

A few months ago, I went to get take-out from Twisted Plants. My wife is not a meat-eater, so she loves the “Pineapple Express” burger. I generally call in the order early. I don’t go there too often because the prices are not cheap. However, you get what you pay for. When I got to Twisted Plants, the food wasn’t quite ready. I struck up a conversation with the guy at the counter. I told him how much we loved the food. Then I told him about how my wife and I are raising our toddler grandson. He listened. Then he grabbed a plastic card from behind the counter and ran it through the register. He told me,

“Bring this with you the next time you come in.”

I didn’t ask him what the card was for. I thought that maybe it was a card they used to keep track of your purchases, and that after you buy a certain number of burgers, you get one free. I put it into my wallet and forgot about it.

Until yesterday.

I went to Twisted Plants yesterday afternoon to pick up an order. I dug out the card the guy had given to me, and I showed it to the young woman behind the counter. I said,

“I got this here the last time I came in. I don’t know what it does, if anything.”

She looked at it and said, “It looks like a gift card. How much do you have left on it?”

“I have no idea.”

She ran it through the register, and she used it to pay for about half of the order. I paid the rest with my debit card.

She handed me the paper bag full of warm, tangy goodness. I walked out and thought about the guy who gave me the card. Why did he give me a gift card? He didn’t know me, and I don’t know him. He just decided for reasons of his own to do me a solid.

God bless him and Twisted Plants.

September 10th, 2024

It was Asher’s first parade. He’s almost four years old, and this was his initial experience with marchers and banners and floats. I am not a big fan of parades. My time in the Army cured me of any interest in that sort of thing. However, it was the Labor Day parade, and our youngest son, Stefan, was going to march along with comrades in the Ironworker Union. Stefan is Asher’s godfather, and he wants to help raise us the lad. Stefan sees the boy as a budding Ironworker, eager to cheat death up the steel beams. Asher adores his strong uncle, and so we decided to let Asher see what Stefan does and who his friends are.

We got there early and found a place to stand on Chicago Street, near the endpoint of the parade route. The police were blocking off the side streets with some occasional difficulty. A cop who was positioning orange barrels got into a heated conversation with the driver of a minivan who thought he could sneak through the barrier. The officer was livid,

“Don’t you see these barrels?! I don’t care where you want to go! Turn yourself around and go back! TURN AROUND!”

Finally, Chicago Street was cleared out for at least a mile or two. Then the motorcycle cops revved up their bikes and roared up and down their newly opened straightaway. They were having a blast. The police have a union, so this was their celebration too.

Before I go further, I have to explain that, in Milwaukee at least, Labor Day is about the unions. It’s their day to strut their stuff. I know that there are many people who despise unions. I’ve met a few of them. The people marching in the parade have met those kinds of people too (one of the marchers wore as shirt that said, “Proud to be a union thug”). I understand the feelings of those who dislike unions. Years ago, I worked as a supervisor at a trucking company that employed Teamster drivers. It was a painful experience for me. Both sides, management and the Teamsters, spent more time and energy trying to screw the other party than actually get the job done. The work environment was toxic.

On the other hand, I know people, family members and friends, who are in unions, and based on their stories, I have to conclude that there are workplaces that need unions to protect the interests of the employees. Certainly, in my son’s profession as an Ironworker, safety is paramount. People can easily die in his line of work. Stefan’s union forces the contractors to maintain strict safety standards. Corporations, especially large ones, simply have too much power. An individual cannot go to toe with The Man in those organizations. I worked as a supervisor at another trucking company for almost 28 years, and it was a scab outfit, virulently anti-union. There were times during my tenure at that company when people were treated like commodities. I know that I was sometimes guilty of doing that. A union where I worked would have obviously complicated the corporate effort to make a profit, but it would have also given the employers a stronger voice in policy matters. My rule of thumb is: If a company has a union, they deserve to have one.

Back to the parade…

The parade was long. It lasted for over an hour. I was unaware prior to being a spectator of how many unions there were in the metropolitan area. Different groups marched past us in a seemingly endless line. There were unions representing carpenters, laborers, electricians, plumbers, steamfitters, sheet metal workers, operating engineers, teachers, firefighters, nurses, Teamsters, and of course the Ironworkers. There were floats with musicians on board. Asher got his boogie on. The participants in the march smiled and waved. They threw candy to the little kids. Asher scored big. The marchers exuded a feeling of joy and pride, and it was contagious.

The Ironworkers had a float of sorts. It was a long flatbed trailer with several men standing on it. Near the front of the trailer was mounted a large steel beam, exactly like the kind used in construction. Close to the rear of the trailer were a few guys heating up rivets on a charcoal grill. Once the rivets were hot, they gave them to the guys in the front to pound into the holes of the beam. That’s an anachronistic way to secure a beam, but there is tradition at attached to the process. It’s also loud as hell and makes for a good show.

Stefan was marching with his coworkers in front of the trailer. He came over to the us on the side of the street to give Asher a child sized Ironworkers t-shirt. Stefan grinned at Asher, and he smiled back. Then Stefan rejoined his union and finished the march.

I think Asher had a good time at his first parade.

Asher at the parade

Stefan brining Asher his t-shirt

September 6th, 2024

A couple days ago, the Capital Times in Madison, Wisconsin, published a letter from me. It is as follows:

“Dear Editor: I served in West Germany as a U.S. Army officer back in the early 1980’s, when the Cold War confrontation with the Soviet Union was intense.

I always had the feeling while I was there that a nuclear war could start any day. I get the same feeling now with the war in Ukraine. Since the Ukrainian incursion into Kursk began, the feeling has grown stronger. Ukraine clearly has a right to attack Russian territory, but the stakes are incredibly high. The question is: When will Putin get so desperate that he launches a nuclear weapon?

If and when Putin fires a nuclear device, he will cross the reddest of red lines, and it won’t end there. Nukes are like potato chips — one is never enough. The world has a laser-like focus on the war in Gaza. Our attention should be on Ukraine. That’s where the danger lies.”

In my experience, it takes a while for a letter to the editor to filter through the system. I sent this letter, or something very similar, to other newspapers. Maybe another publication will see fit to use it. Even if only one paper used it, it’s a win.