What am I?

October 19th, 2025

“Identity dispersion refers to the extent to which an individual’s self-concept is fragmented, inconsistent, or lacks coherence across different roles and contexts. In psychological and sociological terms, it describes a state where the meanings a person attaches to “who I am” vary widely depending on the situation — for example, feeling like one person at work, another at home, and someone entirely different among friends. While it’s natural for people to adapt aspects of themselves to fit different environments, identity dispersion becomes problematic when these variations feel disconnected or contradictory, leaving the person without a stable, integrated sense of self.”

The paragraph above describes the psychological concept of “identity dispersion”. My therapist has spoken to me about this topic. He in fact sent me this definition of the term. I tend to feel that the condition applies to me to some degree. Since I talked with the clinician about the subject, I have been thinking quite a bit about “who I am” and “who I was”. Identity is a difficult thing to understand. It’s like grasping at smoke.

I will start with Zen Buddhism. I started Zen meditation back in 2005, and although I almost never meditate with the sangha anymore, the teachings I received while I was actively engaged with Zen still resonate with me. One thing that I remember distinctly is the mantra that was suggested for sitting mediation. As a newbie, I learned that I could focus during meditation by softly asking, “What am I?” on my inbreath, and then saying, “Don’t know” on my outbreath. The mantra is deceptively simple. First, it asks a question for which there is no clear answer. Secondly, the response to the question is not “I don’t know”. It’s just “Don’t know”, because there is really no I that doesn’t know.

Zen assumes that there is no real identity. Who or what I am is just a constantly churning mix of the five skandhas, different aspects of a personality that fluctuate and morph constantly. I am not the person I was twenty years ago. I’m not even the person I was twenty seconds ago. My identity is a moving target, something I can’t maintain.

After thinking about it, I see that often my identity has been a function of my relationship with other people. There is a song by Paul Simon called “My Little Town.” It’s about a boy growing up in a dying industrial community. One verse goes like this:

“I never meant nothin’, I was just my father’s son
Savin’ my money
Dreamin’ of glory
Twitchin’ like a finger on the trigger of a gun”

That was my youth. That was me. I was just an extension of my dad’s life. My job was to work hard, be successful, and make him look good. Especially after I was accepted to West Point (United States Military Academy), I was somebody he could brag about at work or at the tavern. I can recall him often telling me, “Make me proud! You got my name, you know!” He was a “Frank”, so that’s what I became. I was always “Frank’s oldest boy”. Nothing more, nothing less.

Now, many years later, I am generally known as “Asher’s grandpa”. At the playground or at the Waldorf school, people often don’t know my name. However, they know I am Asher’s grandfather and caregiver. I’m okay with that. At this point in time, Asher needs me. He’s not quite five years old, and I provide him with love and stability. My life revolves around this little boy, so my identity is deeply connected with his.

I was a soldier. During that period of my life, my identity was often determined by my rank and my profession. I was “Captain Pauc”, an officer and a helicopter pilot. That was a time when I really did feel disconnection and contradiction in terms of what I was. A military officer by definition is an expert in the management of violence. I was never comfortable with that role. I couldn’t make that jive with my moral values. Alcohol abuse made the contradictions blur somewhat, but I that particular identity was a bad fit and I eventually was encouraged to find a different career path. I’m glad that I did.

Over the years, I have been many things: soldier, peace activist, father of a combat vet, husband, pilot, dock supervisor, advocate for migrants, representative in a parish council, non-Jewish member of a synagogue, Zen practitioner, marginally competent bass player, etc. The list goes on and on and on. I am different things to different people. Maybe that’s not a bad thing. I can relate to a diverse population.

The input about my identity that I get from others with whom I interact is often confusing. I have had some people tell me that I am a good person. I have also had others enthusiastically declare that I should burn in hell. So, who’s right? Who’s wrong? Are maybe both parties right to some degree?

So, what am I?

Don’t know.

Grieving Alone

October 10th, 2025

I visited a guy from Dryhootch yesterday. The man’s name is Levi and he works at Dryhootch, which is a veteran’s organization headquartered in southeastern Wisconsin. The group runs a number of coffee houses catering to vets in the Milwaukee area and in Madison, Wisconsin. They also operate a peer support network for veterans. Running peer support is Levi’s main responsibility, and it is a huge one. I offered to write an article about Dryhootch, and Levi convinced me to wait a bit. He wants me to go through their peer support training before I write about Dryhootch’s mission. That makes sense. The truth is that I don’t yet know enough about what the organization does to write a competent essay. So, this piece that I am scribbling now is not about Dryhootch. It is about a long and thought-provoking conversation I had with Levi in his office.

Levi plans to eventually massage our chaotic discussion into a coherent podcast. I wish him luck with that. We covered a wide range of topics that may or may not have a common theme. During the course of our chat, we talked about the struggle that veterans have transitioning from the military to civilian life. Levi remarked that there was a sense of loss for the veterans. He went on to say,

“A vet grieves, and he grieves alone.”

That hit me hard. I had never really thought of leaving the service as being cause for intense grief, but now I see it that way. There truly is a loss involved when a person departs from the military. The veteran may grieve for a number of things. It may be the loss of their youth and innocence. It might the loss of their health. It may be the loss of good friends. Relationships built up over many years may be sundered. Yes, I can see how a veteran may need to grieve, and now in retrospect, I see that I spent years grieving without even realizing it.

In conjunction with our discussion of grief, Levi and I also talked about the idea of a “tribe”. What is a tribe? It’s hard to say. Indigenous peoples often live as tribes. Street gangs can be considered to be tribes. I had a good Jewish friend who often referred to his religious community as “the tribe”. The best source of information about the subject is a book written by Sebastian Junger that is appropriately called Tribe. It’s a short book and a quick read. However, Junger makes some excellent points in it.

From my reading of Junger’s book, a tribe is a group of people who totally depend on each other for survival. The tribe is more important than any individual. There are no loners in a tribe, because they generally don’t live very long. A member of a tribe is responsible for the wellbeing of every other member. There is absolute trust between individuals in the community. There has to be. In addition, a tribe has rules and values that only apply to tribal members. These mores have no bearing on the lives people outside of the group. In fact, these regulations and customs are often unintelligible to anyone on the outside. This particular way of life within the tribe only makes sense to the person inside of the magic circle.

The military qualifies as a tribe. That seems obvious to me. I never fought in a war, but if a soldier did, like my oldest son, Hans, then he was definitely part of a tribe. His life and the lives of his comrades depended on the success of the tribe. They had to have each other’s backs all the time. That sort of experience builds an unbreakable bond of trust. It is something sacred.

I was an Army aviator during peace time. My work was by definition dangerous, although not as hazardous as being in combat. Even for me, my experience was that of a tribal member. When flying, I depended on the competence of my copilot and the crew chief, not to mention being dependent on the mechanics who maintained the helicopter and the troops in the III/V platoon who fueled the aircraft. Likewise, any troops that we transported in the helicopter put their lives in our hands. In order to perform a mission successfully and safely, we all had to rely on each other. We were a tribe.

Going back to grief, so why does a veteran grieve? He or she grieves because they have lost their tribe, and that means they have lost their community. For whatever reason, they have left the service and have entered the civilian world, which is a world with alien values and customs. In the civilian world there often little trust and it is seldom that anybody has your back. How can that transition be anything but traumatic? Suddenly a person is no longer part of a cohesive team. Instead, they are in a cutthroat culture that worships individualism. A veteran may be glad to be rid of the military madness, but they still have reason to feel a profound loss.

So, why does a veteran grieve alone? It’s because there are so few of us. Who can we talk to about our loss? Who can we find who gets it? Often, there is no one. We wander alone in a strange world, and we shut down. That’s the tragedy of it all. The drugs and violence and suicide all stem from that isolation. I’m convinced of it.

I will talk to Levi more often. At some point, I will write about Dryhootch, but only when I understand it.

Old Men Talking about a Boy

October 13th, 2025

The old man sat across from me in his apartment. His wife had gone for a long walk when I arrived. Maybe she needed some air, or maybe she just didn’t want to be part of our conversation. I can understand her wanting to be elsewhere. It wasn’t a terribly pleasant discussion, but perhaps it was a necessary one for us to have.

The elder and I were talking mostly about my grandson, Asher. The old guy, who is my father’s age, couldn’t understand Asher’s strange behavior in their home when we came to visit a couple weeks ago. The old man is a Ukrainian Jew. I know him from the synagogue, and we have been close friends for several years. He has had a hard life by any objective standard. He and his grandfather fled to Kazakhstan just after the Nazis invaded the Soviet Union. Both of his parents were officers in the Soviet Army during the war. The old man knows all about hunger and poverty. He knows about fear, having grown up during Stalin’s regime. He’s experienced raw antisemitism. He immigrated to the United States with his wife after the Soviet Union collapsed and attempted to start a new life here at the age of sixty-five. The man has been through hell.

Asher had behaved badly while we were visiting the old guy and his wife. The man and his wife love Asher dearly. They really do. The man had found a small model school bus to give to Asher as a gift. At first Asher wanted it, but then he got annoyed and frustrated. He refused the present. I told Asher that we would take it home with us. The little boy got angry and argued with me. He became more and more upset, to the point where I couldn’t control him. The man’s wife had prepared a lunch for us, and Asher saw nothing that he liked. Eventually, he ate a single slice of bread and then we left. I did not take the toy with us. I think at the end Asher gave the old guy a hug, but overall, the visit was painful for the elderly couple.

The old man talked about that visit with me. I would have preferred to forget the entire episode, but he didn’t want to do that. He asked me,

“Don’t you think you should teach Asher to be grateful and thank people for gifts?”

I apologized for the fact that Asher had been rude to the man. He went on,

“No, I don’t mean just to me. That is nothing. I mean in general; shouldn’t he learn to be polite?”

I told him, “Asher is a wonderful boy. He is a good kid.”

“Yes, yes, of course he is. But he must learn how thank a person.”

I thought to myself, “Yes, he should learn that.” Then I said, “We try to teach him that, but he has been through some terrible things already. He has been through a lot of changes, especially with the new school. He struggles to control his feelings.”

The old man asked me, “What feelings?”

I replied, “He’s scared.”

“But scared of what?”

“He’s lost people in his life already. It’s hard for him to be with strangers.”

The old man said, “But I am like his uncle. I am no stranger.”

The truth is that almost everyone is a stranger to Asher. He has me, my wife, and his mama. That’s it.

The old man softened his voice. He told me,

“My wife and I, we often talk about you and your family. We know it is hard for you.”

I nodded.

He said, “I think of you as a beacon to your family. I think I am using the right English word. You have to show the way.”

Do I show anybody the way? If I am a beacon, I often have a dim and flickering light. I try to figure things out, but I am in the dark.

The old man continued, “You have to keep things together for your family. You have to do this for Asher, for your wife, for his mama.”

I don’t want to be the one to keep it all together. I don’t know if I can. I don’t know if I am strong enough. But if I don’t, then who will?

There was no more to say about Asher. We both stood up. He shook my hand and put his other hand on my shoulder. He said,

“We think of your family every day. You are always in our hearts. You understand?”

“Yes.”

“Tell the boy that his uncle will have another toy car for him the next time he comes.”

“Okay. I will.”

I haven’t told Asher yet. He needs time. So, do I.

Crush

October 10th, 2025

Asher and I were early getting to school. Traffic was remarkably light driving north on I-94, and we arrived at the Waldorf school almost fifteen minutes ahead of schedule. Also, we left home sooner than we usually do because Asher really wanted to go to school. This is a new development. For weeks, my wife and I had to threaten and cajole the boy to get up, get fed, and get dressed. Suddenly, that’s all changed. Now, there is strong motivation for Asher to start his morning in kindergarten.

This motivation has straw blonde hair, and she wears it in braids.

When Asher and I finally parked the car near the school, he got out of his child seat and scurried out of the RAV4. I grabbed his backpack. We started walking down Franklin Street toward the parking lot where the students and faculty would gather before calls began. Asher asked me,

“Are the cones up yet?”

The staff puts up numbered traffic cones in the lot to help the kids find their class and line up each morning. I told Asher,

“I don’t know. We can look.”

Asher saw that the lot was still empty.

He said, “The cones aren’t up. We should take a walk.”

He put on his backpack, and we strolled around the block. He kept looking around. He asked,

“Is she here yet?”

“No, I don’t see her.”

“Where could she be?”

“She is probably with her mom, and they are probably on their way to school.”

“I hope she gets here soon.“

I glanced toward the opposite side of the street. A car pulled up and stopped. A young woman opened the rear door and two girls got out of the car. I asked,

“Asher, is that her?”

“YES! THAT’S HER! SHE’S HERE!”

The mother and her two daughters crossed the street and headed our way. The girl from Asher’s kindergarten smiled at him. He melted. He hid partially behind me and grinned back at her. She in turn hid behind her mama and peeked out at Asher. Asher was at the brink of blushing.

All of us walked to the parking lot together. The cones were out. The teachers were starting to herd their students. Asher and the girl got in line and began talking excitedly. Suddenly, he remembered that I still existed. He rushed out of the line and hugged me. Then he said,

“Grandpa, you can go NOW! Goodbye!”

He waved frantically.

“Grandpa! GOODBYE!”

I waved back.

“GRANDPA! BYE!!!”

I turned and left him. I smiled.

Festival of Courage

October 2nd, 2025

Karin and I went to Pulaski Park at 9:00 AM. The sun was shining, and the weather was warm already. We strolled to that tiny greenspace from Brady Street to help set up for the festival. We found out that most of the prep work had already been completed. Banners had been hung and tables laden with snacks. The kindergarteners, including our grandson, Asher, were going to show up at 9:30. They would walk the two blocks from the Waldorf school to the park with their teachers. In the meantime, Karin and I, along with some other caregivers used our artistic skills to make chalk drawings on the ground near the children’s obstacle course that had been erected in the tennis court. We drew multicolored trees, flowers, stars, suns, whales, and spirals. The little kids would have a chance to view the drawings later in the morning when they navigated the obstacle course.

In addition to the obstacle course, there was to be face painting, a sack race, and other activities. There was a playground at the park, and it was expected that the little ones would flock to that eventually. The kids would be able to munch popcorn, chew on apple slices, and eat dragon bread smothered with butter (vegan or dairy) and blackberry jam.

Dragon bread is something that probably needs to be explained. It reminds me a lot of challah bread, except that instead of being braided, it is molded into the shape of a dragon. See below:

That isn’t the best possible image, but you might get the idea. Why does the festival have dragon bread? That requires me to give some background on the whole event.

Waldorf education is a little over a century old. Rudolf Steiner, the founder of Waldorf schools, harked back to medieval religious holidays to help the children stay in tune with the seasons of the year. Years ago, when our own children were attended the school, the festival was called Michaelmas, which was and still is a special day marked on the Catholic Church’s calendar. Michaelmas is the feast of Michael, Raphael, and Gabriel: archangels. The archangels are considered to be examples of courage. They combat the forces of evil in the world. There used to be mural in the school showing St Michael slaying a dragon, the dragon being a sign of chaos and darkness. Are archangels real? Even if they aren’t, they symbolize the courage to do the right thing. Now, in more secular and diverse times, the event is called the “Festival of Courage”, which has always been the theme.

Asher and his classmates arrived dressed for the occasion. They all wore yellow capes, and on their heads, they had orange bands that looked like crowns or halos. Once the members of all three kindergartens and their caregivers were gathered, we all formed into a large circle around a low, grassy knoll in the park. Halle, one of the teachers, led everyone in a short song:

“Morning has come, night is away, we rise with the sun and welcome the day.”

Then she told a story/poem about picking apples. This included a lot of hand and body movements. People participated in movements to the extent that they could. Asher stood next to Karin and me in the circle. Close by was Maggie, a little girl in the class, who is friendly toward Asher. He feels the same way about her.

Once the poem was completed, the crowd dispersed, and the children did their thing. They threw their shooting stars into the air (the shooting stars are dark blue cloths wrapped around a small object and tied with brightly colored ribbons. the kids make them in class). Then Asher got in the line to run the obstacle course. It consisted of several activities. He had to crawl through a tunnel made up of a series of small tents. He needed to throw a ball through a hoop (he got it in on the third try). He had to walk on a balance beam. He had to have his grandma (Oma) hold his hand to get across. Asher was rather nervous about walking the balance beam, but he did it anyway. Courage does not mean that a person is not scared. Courage means that a person, like Asher, tries to do something even when they are afraid. Courage also means being willing to accept help in order to do something that may be scary.

What do St. Michael and the dragon have to do with courage? How does this festival teach children about that virtue? Well, it’s done with stories and games and physical reminders. It does it with things like dragon bread and capes. The story of St. Michael tells a small child how to be brave in a fight. The fight depicted is a battle with something outside of themselves. It’s something they can understand.

The adults learn too. I don’t think that courage is innate. I think it is a virtue that has to taught and practiced for an entire lifetime. Courage comes in many forms. St. Michael is a warrior. We assume that warriors are brave. However, the bravest person I have ever met is an individual battling an addiction. It can be easy to fight for our own rights, but how do we defend the rights of others? How do we get up each morning and slay the dragon within ourselves?

Graffiti

September 27th, 2025

Around the Waldorf school on Brady Street there is always some graffiti scribbled on buildings and signs. In the bathrooms of some of the coffee shops on the street there is often more writing than there is blank space on the walls. Sometimes, there is even graffiti written on top of other graffiti. The graffiti in the neighborhood near Asher’s school is not excessive, but it’s always popping up no matter how many times the messages or drawings are erased or painted over. After a while, the words or symbols become invisible to the people passing by them. That is, unless they are somehow thought provoking in an unusual way.

Occasionally, graffiti can be thoughtful and literate. I took a piss in a bathroom where somebody had taken the time to write down a quote by Atticus Finch from To Kill a Mockingbird. It was about what it means to be brave. They wrote:

“The true meaning of courage is not whether or not you are afraid. It is whether or not you do it anyway.”

I was impressed by that.

Most graffiti are boring. Cryptic gang symbols are of interest to only a small subset of people. To me, and probably to many other folks, the images mean nothing. I have a Catholic Worker friend who told me once that national flags are just glorified gang symbols. I think he’s right. A flag is a kind of graffiti. It sends a message or tries to do so. For some individuals a flag may have deep emotional meaning, but for others it’s just a colorful rag flapping in the breeze. A couple houses in the area fly Palestinian flags. Those particular forms of graffiti are obviously important to the residents of the home, but they may offend or signify nothing to the person walking underneath them. An American flag can have the same effect.

Sometimes graffiti is political in nature. On the Brady Street bridge protesters love to write things on concrete with colored chalk. They sometimes write, “From the River to the Sea, Palestine will be free.” I have also seen the statement, “Israel: your victim card has expired.” The slogans are eye-catching, but they probably only interest the people who already agree with what is written. The comments in chalk are mercifully temporary. A good rain erases it all and cleans the slate for the next author.

Graffiti can have religious messages. “Jesus saves” is an example of that. I have seen entire verses from the Bible written on the sidewalk. This kind of graffiti can be inspiring, or it can be very negative. Or it can be both, depending on views of the person reading the message.

Graffiti is too often obscene. That seems to be part of our culture. There was a time when if somebody wrote the word “fuck”, it grabbed the attention of the observer. That is no longer true. I, at least, am too jaded to give that sort of thing a second look.

There is one unique specimen of graffiti that I see every time I pick up Asher from school. All it says is,

“Entropy will triumph!”

That always makes me smile. It reads like a radical manifesto from a science nerd. Of course, the statement is true. In the physical world, things tend to move from order to disorder. This is not true in every case, but in the end the universe will probably suffer heat death, a state where there is only thermal energy and there is total disorder. The universe won’t go out with a bang. It won’t even go out with a whimper. So, the person who used a Sharpie to scrawl this message obviously knows something of thermodynamics, and they also have a dry sense of humor.

Thermodynamics has three basic laws:

The first law, also known as the law of conservation of energy, states that energy cannot be created or destroyed, only transformed from one form to another.

The second law states that the total energy of an isolated system can never decrease over time.  

The third law states that as the temperature of a system approaches absolute zero, the entropy of a perfect crystal approaches a constant minimum. This law implies that it is impossible to reach absolute zero in a finite number of steps, and it proves insight unto the behavior of systems at very low temperature.

(Note: these laws were found in Wikipedia).

What does all this mean? I once found a version of the three laws that was translated into layman’s terms. It said,

  1. You can’t win.
  2. You can’t break even.
  3. You can’t quit the game.

That pretty much is what the graffiti artist was saying. I like that.

Is It Worth It?

September 23rd, 2025

My grandson, Asher, woke up this morning around 6:00. It was still dark outside. He called to me,

“Grandpa!”

“Yeah, I’m coming.”

I climbed on to the bed next to Asher. He was lying there with his head buried in the pillow. He didn’t bother to look up at me. Asher asked,

“Is today a school day?”

“Yeah.”

“I don’t like school days.”

I sympathize with the boy. He will have probably fifty or sixty years of saying, “I don’t like school (or work) days”. Asher has never had to follow a regular schedule before in his life. Now, he is in kindergarten, and his world is topsy turvy. Asher is growing up, and some of that is unpleasant.

I told him, “Sometimes, we have to do things that we don’t like.”

“Grandpa, I don’t like school days.”

“I get it, but you still have to go.”

“I don’t like school days.”

“Asher, get up now.”

The boy remained prone on the bed.

I put my mouth close to his chest and said, “It’s time to get up!”

He giggled, and said, “Stop it.”

I did it again. He laughed and said, “No!”

“Asher, do you want to eat breakfast first, or get dressed first?”

“Breakfast.”

“Do I need to carry you to the kitchen?”

“Yes.”

I lifted him out of the bed to go where Oma was making breakfast.

This sort of thing happens every school day. There are variations on the theme, but it’s always a struggle to get Asher up and running. It is also a struggle to keep him focused once he is upright and moving.

He had Goldfish. a smoothie, and a waffle for breakfast, and then he took his vitamins. We brushed teeth. After that, I got him dressed. Actually, for the most part, he dressed himself: underwear, socks, sweatpants and a sleeveless t-shirt. He put on his jacket on his own, but I had to zip it up for him.

Then we grabbed his backpack containing his water bottle and lunch, and it was into the car. Asher was in his car seat, and I drove. Asher likes to give me guidance from his place in the backseat. I’ve grown used to it.

I find the drive from our house to the Waldorf school to be stressful. It’s 19.2 miles, mostly on the freeway. On a really good morning, we make it to the school in half an hour. On bad days, the amount of time doubles. Class officially begins at 8:00 AM, but we need to be there by 7:50. I try to pull out of our driveway by 7:05.

Timing is everything. If I make it to the Mitchell interchange by 7:20, we are usually okay. The interchange serves as a funnel heading north in the morning. During rush hour, which we always hit, cars from five lanes condense into three. It’s a bottleneck, and traffic inevitably slow down. At 7:20 the cars slow down, but they keep moving. Ten or fifteen minutes later, nothing moves, or the vehicles just barely crawl. I try to hit that sweet spot, so my wife and I are adamant that Asher be in his car seat by 7:00. That has to happen.

Later, when I tried to get off the freeway, a car passed me on the right going much faster than I was. That was disturbing. Asher sensed that. He told me,

“Grandpa, it’s okay.”

I replied testily, “Asher, I don’t like it when I guy blows right past me when I am trying to merge to the right. It scares me.”

Asher said, “Grandpa, it’s okay.“

It takes a kindergartener to calm down an old man.

Finding a parking space near the school is challenging at best. The school is in a densely populated urban area, and parking spaces are rare to nonexistent. I found one today that was a block from the school.

Asher asked, “Why did you park so far away? You should park closer.”

“I couldn’t find anything closer. I’ll try better tomorrow.”

He held my hand as we walked to the school parking lot.

He said, “We have to see if the cones are up. If they aren’t, we have time to take a walk.” (Note: all the students line up in the lot behind numbered cones before class.)

The cones were up, and kids were getting into lines. Asher said, “We got to hurry! I got to be in line before they start singing the verse!”

We hurried. Asher put on his backpack and found his position in the line. A bell rang and the students and faculty members recited the verse together. Then Asher rushed out of the line, hugged me, and found his place again. He told me,

“Grandpa, you can go now”, and he waved.

I left.

Does all this sound like a hassle? It is. Is it worth it? Yes, it is. It’s worth it because Asher’s teacher, Miss Sara, knows Asher and she truly cares about him. So do her assistants, Karina and Chloe. These people have his back. He can depend on them. He can learn from them. Teaching Asher, and his classmates, is a sacred trust for them. They are providing a space for him to grow and become more independent. They let him be a little boy in the best way possible.

For now, Asher is in exactly the right place and with the right people.

So, it’s all worth it.

Afghans in the Park

September 14th, 2025

I just took Asher to a new playground. By that I mean I took Asher to a playground that was unfamiliar to him. Asher is a connoisseur of play places. He loves to explore. This place is in Grant Park, close to Lake Michigan. Asher was excited as soon as he saw all the equipment. I wasn’t so excited, because I noticed right away that there was no parking. The area was reserved for a major gathering, and it was already crowded.

We parked some ways down the road. Asher was pumped about checking out the playground. I was curious about who was having the party. I noticed men who looked like they might be from the Middle East. Near the picnic tables they had a huge Afghan flag on display. Some were in traditional Afghan clothing, baggy trousers and a long tunic (shalwar kameez?). Others were in casual American garb. They were hanging out in the part of the picnic area furthest away from the playground. The women, who were also in traditional dress, sat on rugs in the grass close to the playground. Could it be just coincidence that the moms were near to the kids, while the menfolk were as far away as possible? I think not.

The kids were all dressed up for the festivities. The girls were in beautiful dresses in vibrant colors, with intricate embroidery, and plenty of sequins. Some of them had tiny coins hanging from the hems of shawls or long skirts. The girls, even young ones, had on makeup. Most of them had their long dark hair braided. Some of the boys dressed in tunics and loose trousers like the men. Some dressed like Asher did. All the children initially looked clean and neat. That lasted for maybe five minutes.

Asher experimented with different things at the playground. I kept close to him. I tend to hover when there is a crowd. The Afghan adults remained aloof. The men were out of earshot, and the moms were deeply engaged in feminine conversation. Apparently, that worked for them. Their kids raised a little hell, but nobody suffered grievous injury.

Shortly after Asher and I arrived at the playground, an old Mexican pushing an ice cream cart made an appearance. Almost instantaneously, the word went out that there was ice cream. Asher swept past me, screaming,

“Grandpa, there’s ice cream!”

Indeed there, and it was expensive. The younger children had assumed that the old guy was going to just give them ice cream bars. He made it clear that they needed money that they did not have. Asher was jumping up and down, because he knew I had cash on hand. The old man pointed to the side of his cart and told Asher to pick out what he wanted. Asher selected a “Sonic the Hedgehog” ice cream bar. I asked the guy, “How much?”

He said, “Five dollars.”

It was far too late to haggle, so I pulled a twenty out of my wallet. While I was doing so, a little Afghan boy was lying on the ground sobbing uncontrollably because Asher was getting ice cream and he was not. Maybe I was feeling guilty, or maybe I just wanted the kid to shut up, but I told the old guy,

“Give me two of them. One for Asher and one for the boy on the ground.”

Both boys were thrilled. Suddenly, from nowhere, the boy’s mother appeared. She asked,

“Who bought him the ice cream?!”

“I did.”

She told me, “I want to pay you for it.”

“No. Don’t. I just wanted to help the kid out.”

She led her boy and his ice cream away from the playground.

It should be noted at this point that these ice cream bars are uniquely inappropriate for small children. They contain some evil food dye that stains clothes in such a way that the spot can never be removed. If the kid gets this ice cream on their shirt, use the garment as a rag or just throw it away. Asher looks like his lips have been tattooed blue. The ice cream seems to melt instantly upon being taken from the freezer. Asher held his ice cream bar upright, causing it to drip down the wooden stick on to his right hand. His hand is also now blue in color.

While we were dealing with the ice cream crisis, the other kids are finding new ways to create mayhem. One boy figured out how to shake up a can of Coke, puncture the side of the can, and then spray the contents all over the girls on the playground. They screamed loudly and ran.

Some of the older boys started an impromptu cricket match. That gradually degenerated into chaos. Some girls decided to kick empty soda cans around the playground. One boy was playing in the sandbox with Asher. Two of his compadres came up to him and said,

“Somebody pooped here! It’s stinky!”

They laughed at the lad and ran off. Then a herd of boys raced here and there; for reasons that are obscure to me. An older girl, looking inconsolable, sat alone on a bench, clutching her smart phone like it was her baby.

One boy approached me and asked, “Are you old?”

I told him, “Yes, I’m old.”

“How old? Are you over one hundred?””

I bent down and asked, “Do you really want to know how old I am?”

He nodded.

I whispered, “I’m sixty-seven.”

The boy repeated, “Sixty-seven”, and shook his head in dismay.

Asher and I were at the playground for nearly two hours. Before we left, I spoke with a couple of the guys from the Afghan group. I told them that I knew a few Afghan refugees. I mentioned one guy who fled from Kabul and wound up in Portugal. I had worked with an organization to get him and his family there.

They asked if we wanted any food. I declined the offer. I just wanted to get Asher home.

I shook their hands and told them, “I’m glad you’re here!”

I really am.

Morning Has Come

September 12th, 2025

Asher and I arrived at the school a bit early. I parked down the street and got out of the car to go around and help Asher out of his child seat. As I walked, a Black lady called to me. She was sitting on a chair near the curb. She looked at me and asked,

“Sir, do you got any change?”

I paused for a moment, and then I dug out my wallet. I had a five in there. I pulled it out and handed to the woman. She thanked me. I asked her what her name was. She replied,

“Tiffany.”

I told her, “I hope you have a good day, Tiffany.”

As I went to Asher and unbuckled the harness on his child seat. He asked me,

“Grandpa, what did you just do?”

“I gave the lady some money.”

“Why?”

“Because she doesn’t have any money.”

“Do you have any more money?”

“”No, not any paper money, but I can get some more.”

Asher told me, “That’s good, Grandpa. I want you to have money.”

The lady smiled at Asher as we walked past her. People often smile at Asher.

We walked down the block to the Waldorf school. The teachers and the aides were busy setting up cones in the parking lot. The cones are numbered to indicate the class. Before classes officially start at 8:00 AM, all the students line up by their respective cones in the lot. There is a certain amount of foolishness and horseplay, but the teachers keep the kids mostly in order.

At 7:50, an adult rings a bell (or shouts) for everyone to settle down. Then everyone is supposed to recite a verse in unison. That’s how every day is supposed to begin at the Waldorf school. It doesn’t quite happen that way. I have yet to meet anybody at the school, even among faculty members, who knows the verse by heart. That is not really a problem. Each person knows enough of the verse that it all comes together when multiple persons recite it.

It goes like this:

“Morning has come. Night is away. We rise with the sun, and we welcome the day.”

That portion is sung, twice. Then the last part is spoken verse.

“I strive to learn, to learn to give, to give my heart to all I see. I see that I, with heart aflame, am a flame of love that can light the world.”

That’s a damn good verse.

A Bridge to Palestine

September 11th, 2025

There is a pedestrian bridge that crosses over Lincoln Memorial Drive in Milwaukee. It connects Brady Street to Veteran’s Park on Lake Michigan. Two days ago, after dropping off my grandson at school, I walked to the bridge. On it I saw three young people hanging a Palestinian flag over the railing for the oncoming traffic to see. I approached the group and then, on a whim, I stood across from them and leaned against the railing on my side of the bridge. They were busy watching the cars below us and waiting for the next honk of a horn.

I asked no one in particular, “So, is this doing any good?”

I asked that because for many years, I protested in a similar way. I was involved with different causes way back when, but the methods don’t really change. I marched and carried signs, and that isn’t much unlike hanging a flag for all to see.

A young woman with glasses and dark hair looked at me and said,

“Yes, it does some good. Why are you here?”

“I just took my grandson, Asher, to the Waldorf school.”

The young guy next to the woman asked me, “What kind of name is that? It sounds Slavic.”

“No, it’s Hebrew. His name means ‘Happy’.” The young woman smiled. Then she told me her name. It was Arabic.

I told her, “I have Israeli friends and Palestinian friends. The situation is complicated.”

At that moment, she launched into a passionate monologue with various pro-Palestinian talking points. She made it clear that to her the situation was not at all complicated. Her talk was a bit tedious, because I had already heard much of what she was saying many times before. To a large extent, I agree with her. The killing needs to stop. The Israeli response in the Gaza war is grossly disproportionate. But is what she and her compadres doing right now of any real use?

I sighed, and said, “I am not entirely ignorant.”

Then I asked her, “What about the Israelis? What happens to them in the long run? Do they get displaced? 75% of them were born in Israel.”

The young woman snapped back, “But their parents probably weren’t born there! My people have been there for generations. I am Palestinian and I have just been back there, and it is worse than I have ever seen it.”

The young man in her group chimed in, “The Israelis can just move to the U.S. Most of them have family here anyway.”

“Wow,” I said to myself, “I don’t think he has thought this through.”

The three of them told me more about the situation in Palestine. I knew a lot about it. They peppered their comments with words like “Zionist”, “Imperialist”, “Colonialist”, “Capitalist”, and “Racist”. I hate that. Those adjectives are like “woke”: they can mean nothing or anything. They are just emotional triggers that get people wound up.

After they stopped proselytizing, I explained to them,

“I used to do what you are doing now. I was very much antiwar. I used to stand on a corner downtown in the cold in the winter of 2002 protesting the probable invasion of Iraq. Well, we invaded Iraq anyway. And my oldest son enlisted and went to war there.”

The Palestinian woman said, “I’m sorry.”

“Are you really?” I had pain in my voice.

“Yes, I am. Nobody should get sent to fight this country’s wars.”

I went on, “I got busted for civil disobedience. I went to jail in protests. I did all this. I did not get what I wanted. My point is that all you’re going to get here is maybe five seconds of a driver’s attention. You might get a few honks of a horn. Maybe one out of a hundred drivers will remember your demonstration and maybe write their congressman. Maybe one out of a thousand will get involved. We may all be long dead before there is peace. It might take three generations before things are better. What you are doing is an act of faith.”

The young woman replied, “It’s more than an act of faith. I owe this to my family, to my people. I am living here in the heart of the empire, with all these privileges, and this is the least I can do for the Palestinians.”

I had to respect her. She was sincere. She was standing up for her belief in justice. She was an honorable person.

I told the young woman that I had tutored the kids in a Syrian refugee family. I told he how a Tunisian friend took me to Iftar during Ramadan. She smiled about that.

An older woman came across the bridge. She walked slowly between us. The woman wore an olive drab sweatshirt that said, “Israel Defense Forces”. I had to smile. It was a subtle and silent counterprotest.

I told the young woman, “I donate money to SAMS, the Syrian American Medical Society. I wanted to help the people in Gaza without getting anybody killed.”

She nodded.

Then I said, “I also give money to Magen David Adom, the Israeli version of the Red Cross.”

She frowned. “You know, a lot of the money that is given to these humanitarian organizations flows directly to the Israeli government.”

I rolled my eyes. What she said was the mirror image of what people told me about Palestinian aide groups: “It all goes straight to Hamas.”

I asked her, “Would you prefer that I only donate to Palestinian groups?”

“YES.”

“Well, this is all I can do. I’m not willing to wave a flag.”

She shrugged.

She paused and said, “You’re an empathetic and thoughtful person. We come here a couple times a week. Come over and talk with us some more, if you like.”

“I don’t know if I will. I have to care for my grandson. You know, I believe that names have meaning. A person becomes their name. My name is Frank, and it means ‘Free’, although I don’t know if I match the name yet. What does your name mean?”

She said, “It means ‘A gift of God’.”

“And that you are…and so is everyone else.”

They got ready to leave.

I said to the woman, “Be blessed.”

She replied, “You too.”

Yesterday morning, I returned to the bridge. There was a different team with their flags and banners.

I saw a little blonde girl on her tricycle at the far end of the bridge. A woman, apparently her mother, was kneeling on the bridge drawing with chalk.

I looked down at what she was writing. She had written,

“LOVE, LOVE, PALESTINIAN RESISTANCE”

Below that she wrote,

“DEATH, DEATH TO THE IDF”

I have a friend whose son was in the IDF. I said to the woman,

“I don’t think that helps much.”

She didn’t bother to look up at me. She chanted slowly and softly,

“Death, death to the IDF.”

Then she said, “Oh, this does help.”

I just walked away.