May 26th, 2024

As I write this, the lyrics to an old song drift through my mind.

“Someone told me it’s all happening at the zoo
I do believe it
I do believe it’s true…” from At the Zoo by Simon and Garfunkel

My wife, Karin, told me on the Thursday before Memorial Day that we were taking our little grandson, Asher, to the zoo the following day. Apparently, she had spoken with our son, Stefan, about it. Stefan seldom has a day off, but he was between jobs, so he offered to meet us there. Stefan is Asher’s godfather, and also his male role model and mentor.

Being as it was almost the end of the school year, it was likely that the zoo would be busy on that Friday. We hoped to arrive there at opening time. Everyone else did too. There was a line of cars stretching back a couple blocks from the entrance to the zoo. Interspersed between the cars were a number of school buses. Never a good sign. Stefan and his wife, Mikaela, were sitting in his pickup truck somewhere in that endless queue. Traffic crawled forward toward the bottleneck at the gate.

Honestly, the people working at the entrance were remarkably efficient. They snatched money from the visitors and tossed them maps and receipts in return. Drivers jockeyed to find parking spaces as close as possible to the gate into the zoo proper. Once parked, the cars disgorged small children and strollers. A school bus emptied a load of boisterous kids, all of them wearing identical t-shirts to make it easy for the chaperons to track them down. Somehow, each bus contained children with shirts different from every other bus. It was like each group had coordinated with the others before embarking on this end of semester field trip.

Using her cell phone, Karin communicated with Stefan and Mikaela. She told them to meet us at the penguin exhibit. Once we got through the gate, we discovered that the penguins were not on display. That whole exhibit was under construction. We told them to find us near the flamingos.

We waited near the birds as they all stood on one leg and ignored us in their pink and orange finery. Asher was disappointed that he couldn’t see the penguins. Stefan approached him and showed Asher the tattoos on his arms. Stefan has an entire menagerie inked on his arms from the wrists to the shoulders. The images are packed tight together and drawn in such a way to show them interacting with each other on Stefan’s skin. The tattoos remind me of old Ray Bradbury stories, like “The Illustrated Man.” The casual observer almost expects the beasts to move around and mingle.

Stefan smiled at Asher and told him, “Look at the pictures. Pick an animal to see.”

We went to see the apes, and then moved on to the other animals.

My mind recalled more song lyrics as we wandered past the exhibits:

“The monkeys stand for honesty
Giraffes are insincere
And the elephants are kindly
But they’re dumb

Orangutans are sceptical
Of changes in their cages
And the zookeeper is very fond of rum

Zebras are reactionaries
Antelopes are missionaries
Pigeons plot in secrecy
And hamsters turn on frequently”

I don’t know if Paul Simon’s words accurately describe our experience. Maybe monkeys do stand for honesty. We did see an orangutan who was totally unimpressed with his accommodations. The giraffes we observed did not seem to be insincere. I don’t know if any of the zoo personnel like rum, but after watching some of them swap out the cages, I can easily imagine that lighting up a blunt during break would be very tempting. Perhaps hamsters are not the only ones turning on.

Stefan had informed us that early on that there was a line of thunderstorms heading our way from the west. It was due to hit just before noon. The skies grew gradually darker as the morning progressed. We were at the farm section of the zoo, looking at cows, when we heard the first rumbles. Stefan wanted to grab some ice cream from the dairy building. Asher got a cone of some evil neon-colored rainbow confection. We moved rapidly toward the exit. Just before the parking lot, I noticed that Asher was wearing more of the ice cream than he was eating. Much to his dismay, I tossed the cone in the trash while promising him more and better ice cream at home. It was impossible to wipe his face clean. Even now, there are traces of blue food dye on his lips.

We hustled over to our vehicles. Thunderheads blackened the western sky and there was an occasional flash of lightning. We got Asher into his car seat and shoved the stroller in the back. The storm broke literally as I was turning the key in the ignition. There were a few big drops on the windshield and then a deluge.

As I drove through the pounding rain, I heard in my head Simon and Garfunkel sing,

“What a gas, you have to come and see
At the zoo
At the zoo
At the zoo
At the zoo
At the zoo
At the zoo
At the zoo
At the zoo!”

May 24th, 2024

I went out for coffee with Rob last week. I’ve known him for probably twenty years. We were in a Bible study together for quite a while. I had my grandson, Asher, with me at the coffee shop. Asher is three years old, and my wife and I are his fulltime caregivers, so the lad is always with my wife and/or at my side. As usual when I am someplace with Asher, I have to focus on what the little boy is doing, as opposed to concentrating on other matters. Conversing with Rob was kind of haphazard. I often needed him to repeat whatever he had just said, because Asher was actively destroying a cookie or smearing chocolate on the tabletop. At one point, Rob smiled at me and said,

“Frank, you’re living your faith. That’s good to see.”

I was taken aback by that comment. I don’t often think of myself as living my faith. What ran through my mind was,

“I’m just doing my fucking job.”

That’s the way I see it. As Asher’s caregiver and legal guardian, I am not doing anything heroic. I’m just doing what needs to be done. To me, this is so blindingly obvious. The kid has no father in his life. His mother is very sick. The boy needs somebody to raise him, and that person is me. That person is also my wife, Karin. We are all he has.

It causes me pain to know that I live in a culture where doing what I am doing is somehow considered exceptional. As far as I can see, the purpose of life, at least my life, is to help people who need help. What else is there? Money? Power? Fame? Love God and love your neighbor. Everything else is meaningless.

Sometimes, I would much rather be doing something besides watching over Asher. Caring for him qualifies as work. Much of my time is spent doing things that are mundane. However, there is often great joy and satisfaction in being with Asher, even when he is crying or yelling or generally being unmanageable. I never expected to be his mentor and protector. He came into my life, and I accepted responsibility for his wellbeing. I made a conscious decision to be with him, and I have no regrets.

I just laid him own for a nap. I held Asher in my arms until his eyes closed and his breathing became calm and regular. I felt his body relax and I knew his mind had drifted far away. I got up and tucked him under the comforter.

What more could I want?

May 23rd, 2024

It was in a dream. It was night, maybe just before dawn. I was somewhere in New York State close to West Point, my alma mater. I was with a number of my classmates from the military academy, although we weren’t actually classmates yet. We were waiting for a bus to take us to our first day of training. The strange thing was that we all simultaneously young and old, innocent and experienced. Each of us was both puer and senex. In the dream, our bodies were those of teenagers, but our minds were those of old men. We were just beginning our adult lives, but we already knew where we would be and who we would be forty-eight years later. Dreams have their own peculiar internal logic. Somehow, we could be two things at once without any paradox.

The bus arrived.

I recognized a once and future roommate in the group. I asked him,

“Knowing what you know now, are you going to get on, or are you going to go back home to Baltimore, or are you going tell everyone to fuck off and do something completely different?’

Maybe, he asked me the same sort of question. I don’t know, because I woke up.

Asher was in bed with me. When he sleeps with me, I am hyper-alert even after I doze off. I felt him stirring, and then he rolled toward me. Asher is only three years old, and he is a restless sleeper, often troubled with uneasy dreams. He lay next to me, and he placed his left hand on my right arm. He silently ran his little hand up the arm from the wrist to the shoulder, and then back down again.

He commanded, “Grandpa, get up.”

“Why?”

He said softly, “I want to go in the kitchen.”

“Why?”

“I want to drink a bottle.”

I got up. Asher reached up and wrapped his arms around me. I carried him to the kitchen.

I was on the bus.

May 19th, 2024

“When men choose not to believe in God, they do not thereafter believe in nothing, they then become capable of believing in anything.”

G.K. Chesterton

I had a conversation recently with a friend and we talked about how politics divides our society. He remarked that now it sometimes happens that a family will get into an uproar if a member of that family, usually someone young, decides to marry a person who belongs to an opposing political party or who advocates partisan views that the family finds abhorrent. Maybe this sort of thing has always happened, but I don’t think it was as common years ago. I remember that political arguments were loud and passionate in my parents’ families, but I don’t recall that political disagreements were ever enough to tear a family apart.

I do remember how religion could and did tear families asunder. My wife is from Germany, and her parents were in a mixed marriage. Karin’s mother was Lutheran (Evangelisch) and her father was at least nominally Catholic (Katholisch). The parents of Karin’s father were extremely upset that he married a Lutheran woman. In my own family, it was unheard of in my parents’ generation for a Catholic to marry a Protestant. It simply did not happen.

I married a Lutheran. Karin was raised in her mother’s faith, and I was raised as a Catholic. My parents weren’t thrilled with the situation, but they accepted our decision to wed. They assumed that eventually Karin would convert to Catholicism. Actually, she did, but that was after seventeen years of marriage, and not due to any evangelizing on my part. The general attitude when we got married forty years ago was that somebody would convert, or the marriage wouldn’t last. The theological and cultural differences between Catholicism and Lutheranism seem miniscule now, but at that time they often presented insurmountable obstacles to a stable relationship. Nothing was negotiable. Each belief systems had aspects that could not be reconciled with the other.

Now that our own children are adults, religious differences do not factor into their decision to marry, if they choose to marry at all. Young people may choose partners based on a wide variety of reasons, but religious affiliation does not seem to be one of them. Religious preferences hold the same status in a relationship as favorite ice cream flavors.

Previous generations placed great emphasis on religious beliefs partly because they provided the foundations for understanding an irrational universe. These beliefs were the scaffolding for a meaningful life, and maybe a pleasant afterlife. People had a strong faith and, right or wrong, understood that they had the truth. That meant it was impossible for others to believe different things and also have some part of that truth. Religion was a big deal, sometimes the only deal.

For better or worse, attitudes have changed. Not many people assume that they have all the answers, at least with regards to faith. Religion is no longer a big deal. Members of my children’s generation may have a belief system, but they don’t fight about it. My generation doesn’t argue about it much either.

What do we fight about now?

Politics.

Apparently, humans need something, anything, to believe in wholeheartedly. In our culture we have traded religious dogma for political zealotry. It is probably a bad bargain. Religion has many negative aspects, regardless of the tradition. However, religions have been practiced and refined for centuries, in some cases for millennia. Any belief system with a moral code that can last for thousands of years must have some validity. Politics, on the other hand, is ephemeral and is only tangentially related to morality.

Political views and partisanship are our new religions. There was a time when we founded our political views on our religious beliefs. Now we choose our religion based on our politics. We put our faith in parties and movements, none of which will be relevant a century from now, or perhaps even a decade from now. We have abandoned our history to grasp at a nonexistent future. We hate and ostracize other people simply because they don’t like our favorite candidates.

Is it all worth it?

May 11th,2024

It has been over a week since I posted my essay about my visit to the encampment of student protesters at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee campus. Based on the responses I have received since the article’s publication; I have to assume that I have managed to piss off people on every side of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict in Gaza. I’m okay with that. I am tempted to quote the Lone Ranger at this point and say,

“My work here is done.”

However, I feel the need to say a couple more things. I have to respond to the responses.

First, I received one email from someone I don’t know who was livid that I failed to mention the 30,000 civilian deaths in the Gaza in my essay. Why is it necessary for me to mention the number of casualties? The woman who spoke with me at the encampment mentioned the 30,000 deaths shortly after introducing herself. Every article I have read since the war began in Gaza has prominently pointed to the current body count. It would seem that my referring to it would have been at best redundant.

Joseph Stalin was a ruthless murderer and a cynical bastard, but he was spot on when he said, “One death is a tragedy. A million deaths are a statistic.” I can have a relationship with a particular human being. I can grieve for someone I know. I cannot find the emotional energy to be outraged by 30,000 pointless deaths, simply because these people are unknown to me. I cannot wrap my head or my heart around this statistic.

A while ago, I got an email from a Palestinian friend who is very active in the local Muslim community. She sent me a long and thorough account of the killing of civilians in Gaza, and she did happen mention the death count at the time of writing. She also described in gruesome detail the deaths of personal friends at the hands of the Israelis. The number did not move me. The story of the deaths of people she knew and loved tore my heart open. I was motivated to do something to help, and I did. In order to get me in any way involved required my friend to talk about real individuals with names, faces, and souls.

If the pro-Palestinian movement wants to change hearts and minds, they might do best if they keep the issue up close and personal. Maybe, they are already doing that to some extent. They need to do more of it.

Second, in my conversations with pro-Palestinian activists, I find they rely heavily on moralistic browbeating. They are eager for the world to know that they hold the high ground in this fight, and that their opponents are twisted and evil. Maybe they are right, but that’s not a good way to sell it. The Catholic writer, Thomas Merton, had this to say about it:

“The concept of ‘Virtue’ does not appeal to men, because they are no longer interested in being good. Yet if you tell them that St. Thomas talks about the virtues as ‘habits of the practical intellect’, they may, perhaps, pay some attention to your words. They are pleased with the thought of anything that would seem to make them clever.”

In other words, telling your adversary that he or she is wicked will likely get a shrug. Telling them that they are being foolish may get them to think twice about their actions. People don’t like to feel stupid. They don’t mind being assholes.

There is much in the Israeli conduct of this war that is thoughtless and ultimately counterproductive. Hammer on those points. Ease off the “holier-than-thou” rhetoric. Nobody is listening.

May 10th, 2024

Karin and I had an hour to kill. We had just dropped off Asher to visit his mama. We were planning to meet two friends at a brewery/restaurant on Center Street, but we didn’t want to hang out there to wait for them. It was a fine afternoon. It was sunny and breezy, just a bit on the cool side, and perfect for taking a long walk.

We were in the Riverwest neighborhood of Milwaukee. As the name implies, the district is just west of the Milwaukee River. This urban waterway flows south through a deep wooded valley. The city is perched up high on each side of the river. The east side is the home of the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, and it is filled with stately homes that stretch further east to the shores of Lake Michigan. The Eastside is a place of wealth. It always has been. Riverwest is not.

Riverwest is a scruffy working-class section of town. The houses are old and large, sometimes three stories high, and they are squeezed close together on postage-stamp sized lots. Some of the houses are beautiful, and some need a lot of TLC. At one time they were all probably homes to multigenerational families, and now many of them are duplexes or even triplexes. The yards are miniscule but well-maintained. Trees line all of the residential streets and most of the thoroughfares. A close look at the buildings on a certain street gives the passerby a hint as to the religious and political views of the residents. There is a house flying a Palestinian flag. Another has a rainbow banner. Further away, a flag flaps in the wind above a front porch. It bears the image of a crown and Hebrew letters that spell “משיח”, that is “messiah” in English. A few blocks away stands the spire of St. Casimir Catholic Church, a reminder that at one time this neighborhood had a strong Polish flavor to it.

Karin wanted to stroll over to Gaenslen School. It is a public school where one of her many knitting groups goes to meet on Saturday mornings. It was a half mile walk. We took it slowly. We passed by the Woodland Pattern Bookstore, an independent bookshop that promotes local poets. We saw a number of small art studios and workshops. We noticed the Tai Chi Center on the corner of Fratney and Locust. On Center Street we walked across from the Daily Bird, a coffee shop painted an eye-piercing bright yellow that caters to people in recovery. The local economy limps along in Riverwest. There are empty storefronts next to businesses that seem to be thriving. Close to each other are two microbreweries: the Company Brewery and the Black Husky. Being that this is Milwaukee, they are never short of customers.

It took us about half an hour to get to Gaenslen. It’s very close to the river. As we headed back toward the restaurant, Karin got out of breath. That happens a lot with her. It might be from her bout with Covid years ago, or perhaps it’s just that fact that we’re getting old. She took my hand and we walked together. She wanted my support, and I was happy to hold her hand. I almost felt like a kid again, and maybe she did too. We passed a young couple, barely adults. They seemed to be happy and in love. The girl had a punk-goth look and her partner had long hair, very long for a guy. I wondered what they thought of these two old people walking along hand in hand. I wondered if we had been like them all those years ago.

We noticed little things as we retraced our steps. We found a tiny playground nestled in a small park. It was filled with things for kids to climb, along with eclectic artwork. The park had a concrete walkway with inlaid cermaic tiles. The tiles had Spanish words that I couldn’t understand. Maybe it was all poetry.

Many of the homeowners had abandoned the practice of cutting the grass in their microscopic front yards, and instead planted wildflowers and tulips Karin found numerous violets. She loves violets.

We got back to restaurant. Karin needed to rest. We sat down inside.

We will be taking Asher to see his mama tomorrow again. Maybe Karin and I will go exploring on another long walk.

May 7th, 2024

I was at the synagogue on Saturday morning. I sat in the back next to Leonid, the old man from Ukraine. Leonid grew up in Stalinist Russia, and he came to the U.S. after the Soviet Union imploded. He has a number of interesting stories about his encounters with antisemitism. I usually get to the service late because I have to care for my little grandson, Asher. Leonid loves that boy, and he always asks me how he is doing.

At the end of the service, the president of the synagogue gave a few closing comments. When she was done, Alex, another immigrant from the former USSR, spoke briefly about the student encampment at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee campus that is just a block away from the shul. Alex said in his heavy Slavic accent,

“These students, these pro-Palestinian protesters, they don’t talk with anyone. They have been told not to talk with other people. They have been trained, very well trained.”

That comment struck me as odd. The students are there to advance their cause. Why would they refuse to interact with curious visitors?

Leonid leaned over to me and said, “My friend, have you seen this encampment? Huge Palestinian flags. Signs. Everything is ‘Down with Israel!’.” He frowned and waved his hand in disgust.

I drove Leonid and his wife home after the kiddush. Leonid pointed out the encampment on the UWM grounds. He said,

“Look there! You see that? Everything is about Palestinians and against the Jews! It is all antisemitism. I think the only people there are the Palestinians and some students who are poorly educated. These Palestinians, they are not a nation. They are Arabs! They are like the other Arabs.”

I told Leonid, “When I was at West Point, I studied Arabic for four years.”

He looked at me, “You know Arabic?”

“I did. I don’t remember much anymore. I learned about the Arabs and the Israelis, the history of that conflict. There are no good guys in the story. Everybody did something.”

Leonid was silent. Then we talked about Asher.

I spent the weekend thinking. I thought about a woman at the synagogue who said that she understood how the protests were “stylish”. “Stylish” is an interesting adjective to use. It implies a sort of faddish appeal and a lack of substance. I thought the same as her. The whole movement felt like a fad.

I told my wife, Karin, that I wanted to go to the encampment to talk with the students for myself. She asked me,

“Are you planning to argue with them?”

“No”.

“Really? Maybe, subconsciously, you want to argue?”

“No.”

She knows me well. Years ago, I went to Nevada to a demonstration, and I told Karin that I had no intention of getting arrested. I did. She remembered that episode.

Yesterday, Monday, I dropped Asher off to visit with his mom. On the way home, I stopped at the UWM campus. I walked a couple blocks to the encampment. It was a busy place. Lots of young people. There were big Palestinian flags flapping in the breeze and numerous signs. One of them read:

“Anti-genocide does not equal antisemitism!”

I expect that Leonid would disagree with that statement for several reasons.

I approached the entrance and was swiftly intercepted by a woman in her thirties (I’m guessing at the age). She got between me and the students, most of whom were wearing masks. The woman was thin and wore gold wirerimmed glasses. She had the look of a librarian who was ready to ask a child why they tore the pages out of a book. She wasn’t rude or impolite, but she was all business.

“Can I help you? Do you have questions?”

I told her, “Yes, I have questions.”

She replied, “What are they?”

I had to think. “Where do I start?”

Then I told her, “Let me introduce myself. I’m Frank. I’m a member of Peace Action. I’m also a vet. I am concerned about what is going on here. I have been to protests. I was at an antiwar demonstration in Nevada seven years ago, and I got arrested there. We had an encampment across the road from Creech AFB. So, I know how this stuff works.”

She asked me, “What exactly was the protest about?”

“We were demonstrating against the use of drones in Pakistan and Afghanistan.”

I paused and asked her, “So, why are you here?”

She asked me, “Do you mean us, or me personally?”

“You. You personally.”

She thought and said, “I support this action to oppose the genocide in Gaza. I want the killing to end. I am here to help the students and keep them safe. There have been counter protesters coming to the camp, and also others trying to disrupt our work. Police activity too.”

I thought to myself, “So, you’re their chaperon.”

I asked her, “Do the students know any Palestinians?”

“Of course.”

“Do they know any Israelis?”

She nodded, “I’m sure they do. We have had Israelis and other Jews come to visit and extend their support.”

I told her, “I read an article about students at other places protesting and getting arrested, and then complaining that they have an arrest record.”

She shrugged and said, “Somebody is always complaining.”

“I just get the feeling that some, not all, but some students are just playing at this.”

She replied, “There are always some who want it to be ‘all about me’, and we are continually trying to refocus the students on our mission.”

I explained to her, “My oldest son, Hans, fought in Iraq. That did not go well for him. He told me years afterward that he and his comrades only cared about getting everyone back home alive. It wasn’t about the oil. It wasn’t about democracy. Everything they did was based on getting their buddies home okay.”

She nodded.

I went on, “So, how much of this is about freeing Palestine, and how much of this is about the students sticking together with their friends?”

She didn’t answer immediately, so I gave her another example.

“Okay, when I was in Nevada, we blocked the entrance to the air force base. The cops gave us five minutes to move out of the way. The guy next to me, Ray, who was a Vietnam vet, put his hand on my shoulder and said, ‘Frank, I’m glad that your here’. That was at four minutes and fifteen seconds into the protest. I had not planned on getting arrested, but I couldn’t just leave this guy. So, I got busted with him. I didn’t go to jail for the kids getting blown up by our drones. I went to jail to support Ray.”

She nodded and understood.

She told me, “These students are aware that they may be arrested. Some of the students have volunteered to get arrested if the police show up. Those people will be in front of the rest of the students. However, they all know that they are in danger of going to jail.”

“Do they understand what that all entails?’

The woman said, “They do.”

“You don’t really know what getting arrested means until it happens. They held me for only fourteen hours. You can learn a lot in fourteen hours.”

She smiled a bit.

I told her, “I think about the Israeli soldiers fighting in these urban areas. They are doing what my son did in Iraq. He kicked in doors and cleared buildings. He stabbed a guy to death. That messed him up. That is going to mess up these Israelis.”

She replied, “Yes, they will have PTSD, and so will thousands of Gazans.”

“I agree. I am not denigrating the suffering of the Gazans. It’s just that Israel will have a long-term problem. Hans and his comrades all got back home okay, but then some of them committed suicide. Hans tried to blow his brains out, and he only failed because he had a bad round in the chamber.”

She flinched. Then her face grew calm again.

She quietly said, “I’m sorry.”

I sighed, and asked her, “Why Gaza? Why do you care about this war? There are other genocides. What about the Rohingyas? What about the other killings?”

She nodded. Then she said, “The difference is that this is the first war, the first genocide, that is being livestreamed. These students are watching videos of horrific violence as these events occur. They have a visceral reaction to what they see and hear. They are participants in a sense.”

There was a brief pause, and I told her,

“I just want to know in my heart of hearts that these students don’t think all this is a game.”

She stated firmly, “They don’t think it’s a game.”

Then she said, “I have a friend who was in Iraq.”

“How’s he doing?’

She shrugged, “He’s doing.”

I mentioned to her, “I’m not a Jew, but I go to the synagogue down the street.”

The woman smiled, and said, “I knew there was one nearby.”

Then she told me,”Thanks for talking.”

“Thanks for listening.”

We shook hands and I left.

May 2nd, 2024

May 1st was a fine day for a rally. Spring was in the air. It was warm and breezy. The trees were finally starting to sprout leaves. Yards had flowers blooming. The morning sun shone brightly.

I had my grandson, Asher, along with me. We walked a couple blocks from where we had parked to the site for the May Day gathering. The rally and march were being organized by Voces de la Frontera, a local group that promotes the rights of migrants and workers. Voces is located in the Walker’s Point section of Milwaukee. Walker’s Point is an old neighborhood, going back to the mid-1800’s. It was home to my grandparents one hundred years ago, when the population there was all Slavic. Now, Walker’s Point is primarily Latino. It’s always been an immigrant community, and it probably always will be. Voces is in the right place.

Asher didn’t want to walk for very long. He held my hand for a while, then he got tired of it. Before we arrived at Voces, he wanted me to carry him. He’s only three years old, but he’s big boy, and he gets heavy after a while. I didn’t plan on staying at the rally with him for very long. I expected that he would get bored, and then we would leave and find a playground. There really wasn’t much there to entertain a little kid.

I didn’t go to the rally to get involved politically. I have done that plenty of times in the past with Voces de la Frontera. Years ago, I was a marshal for one of the May Day marches, but I don’t do that sort of thing anymore. It’s too hard to be active in the organization when I am the fulltime caregiver for Asher. Mostly, I wanted to see if there any people wandering around that I knew from the old days, when I taught the citizenship class and escorted undocumented migrants to their court appearances. I miss some of them, and it is difficult for me to maintain relationships.

When Asher and I got to the site, there was still a lot of prep work going on. The march had to be organized. The sound system had to be tested. The media was setting up their equipment. A few motorcycle cops were on hand to escort the marchers. Slowly, participants began wandering into the area, some of them with flags and banners. There was a kind of benevolent chaos, a nervous but happy sort of anticipation. Voces has hosted May Day marches for decades, and it is always still the same unruly operation. There were way too many moving parts.

Deby shouted at me from across the street when we got close to Voces’ offices. She has been a fixture at the organization for as long as I can remember. That’s remarkable in that most of the people there tend to be transient. It’s like a caravansary: people come, stay a while, and then move on. I carried Asher to where Deby was, and she smiled at him.

Deby looked at Asher and said, “So, this is the little guy I hear so much about. You have a beautiful smile, Asher. You must love your grandpa.”

Asher gave her a noncommittal look and he buried his face into my shoulder.

I asked Deby how she was doing.

She replied, “Today is my last day with Voces.”

“So, what are you going to do next?”

Deby told me, “Well, I have been thinking about starting a non-profit, but I don’t know if I can handle that kind of commitment. I am sixty-four now.”

I looked at Asher. “I’m sixty-six and I’ve committed to taking care of this boy.”

She exclaimed, “Oh yeah! I know! That’s a lot to take on too!”

We chatted a bit more, and then she hugged us. Asher and I moved on.

We walked past the industrial strength sound system. Simultaneously, the men operating the amps cranked up some Mexican music at jet engine level decibels. That freaked out Asher. He does not like loud noises, and the Latino melodies qualified as being loud.

Tivo yelled out to me. He was organizing the march. He is another person who has been at Voces forever. He came up to us and gave us a bear hug. He smiled and said,

“Brother, it’s great to see you again! Is this your buddy? Hey, I got to show this guy something in the office. Don’t worry, we’ll talk before you go!”

Tivo ran off with a volunteer, and that was the last I saw of him. We didn’t talk again. I didn’t expect that we would. Tivo thrives on being busy. He is in constant motion. I don’t think I have ever had a quiet conversation with him. It doesn’t bother me. That’s just how he is.

Asher and I walked over to talk with Julie. She is a member of Peace Action and that group sometimes partners with Voces de la Frontera. Actually, there are several other concerns that work with Voces on certain issues. For instance, Planned Parenthood had reps at the rally. I’m not sure why, but they did. There was a student group from the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee (UWM) in attendance, and some people from labor unions. These different organizations have diverse interests and May Day is one of the few times that they team up for an event. With more groups involved, the crowd is bigger, but it is difficult to get them all to work together to present a unifying message. It’s kind of like herding cats.

Julie and Peace Action are big into the pro-Palestinian student protests. That’s their gig. Most of the folks from Peace Action and the related student participants wore keffiyeh scarves and some had Palestinian flags. Julie wanted to tell me all about the demonstrations and the encampment on the UWM campus. I told her that I struggled with my feelings about the protests.

She launched into a speech about all the good the students were doing for the cause. I told her,

“I go to an Orthodox synagogue, and the people there have a very different view on these protests.”

She didn’t miss a beat. She told me, “There really can’t be other views on genocide.”

I replied, “There are two sides to this issue.”

She shook her head. “No, we can’t have two sides to genocide.”

That wrapped up our discussion. We weren’t communicating. We were talking past each other, and that is a microcosm of the whole war in Gaza.

I looked away and saw Christine in the distance.

Christine is the leader of Voces. I don’t know her official title, but she is the spokesperson for the group. She was busy doing that when I saw her. Christine was giving a media person an interview, one of many that she would give yesterday. I don’t know Christine that well, but I know her mother. I worked with her mom at Voces for years, and we were close. Now, Christine’s mother is old, frail, and often sickly.

Asher and I met with Christine as she finished talking to somebody on the record. I immediately asked her,

“How’s your mom?”

The answer was not positive. Christine looked at Asher and said,

“You’re the guy we get all the pictures of. Do you want a water?”

Asher nodded. Christine gave him a bottle of water.

She asked me, “Is this his first march?”

I told her, “We’re not going to march. He’s tired already.”

She nodded.

We spoke together very briefly. Christine had things to do. I told her to tell her mom hello for me. Christine went out to the rally.

I picked Asher up in my arms. I looked monetarily at the crowd.

I asked Asher, “Ready to go to the playground?”

He smiled and said, “Yeah.”

April 29th, 2024

I have a friend who has been training to become a Catholic priest. I met him several years ago when he was staying at our parish and studying as a novice. The journey to the priesthood is long and arduous. The formation process can take nearly a decade. Not many men are called to follow this path, especially in our times. It entails a lifelong commitment to the service of others, and that sort of thing is not very popular in our culture. There is a reason that there is a shortage of priests.

My friend wrote to me a few days ago. He informed me that, after eight years, he is leaving formation. He discerned, after much prayer and thought, that he is not meant to be a priest. It is not his vocation.

Wow.

I thought to myself, “Eight years? That’s a long time to be working toward a goal, and then to just let it all go.”

Then I thought some more, “Well, I was in the Army, if you count West Point, for ten years, and I left all that behind.”

My friend and I have a lot in common.

He is thirty years old. He has spent nearly a third of his life in highly structured and insular environment. It’s true that he has interacted with “civilians” at times. He has had contact with lay Catholics and his family members, but most of his adult life has been spent with priests and brothers from the Augustinian order of the Church. He has been indoctrinated into a certain way of thinking, and a certain manner of living. He is not the same young man her was when he signed up at the age of twenty-two.

I was twenty-eight when I resigned my commission. I had gone straight from high school to USMA, and from there to the regular Army for six years. I had literally no experience as a civilian. Ten years changed me into a person who was very different from most of my contemporaries.

I wrote back to my friend and told him that I understand his current situation. He is going through a change in life similar to what I did nearly forty years ago. I explained to him that he’ll be okay, but it is going to be a bitch to adapt to a strange new world. He has been subject to a specific type of discipline for a long time. It’s made him who he is now. He might never be ordained by the Church, but he will always be a priest in his interaction with others, just like I am always in some respects still a soldier.

He may leave his vocation and perhaps think sometimes that it was all a waste. I told him that it’s not. No experience is ever a waste, unless a person refuses to learn from it. He has a perspective and a wisdom that few people have. He has a gift to share in the new chapter in his life.

My friend will do well.

April 28th, 2024

I just finished reading an article about some pro-Palestinian student protesters who are lamenting the fact that their arrests at campus demonstrations might negatively affect their futures. After perusing this essay, I had to rest my forehead on the table and moan,

“You idiots.”

Okay, they’re university students, so they probably aren’t idiots in a literal sense, but they clearly did not think through the consequences of their actions. Yes, their actions will have an impact on their lives. That is guaranteed. As my son, Stefan the Ironworker, is wont to say,

“Play stupid games, win stupid prizes.”

I am not saying that these college students are wrong in demonstrating for an end to the war in Gaza. I am not saying they are wrong to protest the injustice that the Palestinians suffer every day. To a large extent, I agree with their views.

However…

I am no stranger to demonstrations, rallies, and protests. I have in fact been arrested for civil disobedience, once and only once. That occurred at Creech AFB in Nevada in April of 2017 (you can look it up if you like). The group I was with was protesting American drone warfare in Afghanistan and Pakistan. We blocked the entrance to the air force base at the time when the shifts changed. The police made it clear to us that, if we failed to move from the entrance after five minutes, we would be arrested and jailed. For reasons that I have explained in depth in previous essays, I stayed in the street with six other protesters, and we all got busted.

Please note that I knew that I was breaking the law. I knew that I was infringing on the rights of people who just wanted to get to work. I knew that I would be arrested. I knew that I would go to jail. I knew that there would be other legal ramifications. I still stayed put, because I thought it was necessary for me to take a stand on an issue that was important to me. I needed to show solidarity with the kids getting blown up by our drones and with my fellow activists. I was ready to do the right thing and then get punished for doing so.

These college students apparently see things differently. They are worried about suspensions and arrest records. They want to do something heroic, but they don’t want their actions to cost them anything. They want to follow in the footsteps of Martin Luther King and Nelson Mandela, but they don’t want to lose their chance on getting their Ph.D. or miss the next Taylor Swift concert. They are demanding amnesty.

It doesn’t work like that.

I personally know peace activists who have spent months or even years in jail or prison for nonviolent civil disobedience. To me, these people are heroes. They put everything on the line for their beliefs. My arrest was at most a minor thing. I got my wrist slapped. The DA in Clark County eventually dropped my charges, and sent me a letter stating in legalese,

“Don’t EVER come back here and do that shit again!”

These young people need to grow up fast. Mommy and Daddy won’t save them.