Frank is Emptiness

December 6th, 2017

“Buy the ticket, take the ride.”

-Hunter S. Thompson 

“The dream is over
What can I say?
The dream is over
Yesterday”

-John Lennon, from the song “God”

“I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed: ‘We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal.’ ”

-Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

 

We were riding in a cramped bus through the December darkness along the Ohio Toll Way. We were all on our way to Washington, D.C., for a political rally to support a clean Dream Act. Fifty people were crammed into tiny seats, and for most of the ride I was surrounded by loud talking and music. I sat next to Ron, an older gentleman with a pony tail and a bad left knee. His knee caused him great discomfort during the bus ride, as there was no room at all to stretch out or move his leg. Sometimes Ron would painfully get up and walk toward the back of the bus, where he would stand for a while. I stayed in my seat and stared out the window, watching the shadows of the landscape flow past me in the moonlight.

Moonlight is conducive to remembering and dreaming. This wasn’t my first bus trip to D.C.. I had been on a similar bus almost eleven years ago, tracing the same route eastward through the night. It was in January of 2007. I was with a group from Peace Action Wisconsin. We were going to the Capitol to protest against George W. Bush and the Iraq War. On that earlier journey, the bus had been filled with anti-war activists of all varieties: aging hippies, Che Guevara wannabes, radical feminists, Vietnam vets, and the Skinheads for Peace. The two skinheads were my favorites; they dressed just like their rightwing comrades, but they were totally against the war. There was one other person on that peace bus who was important to me: my son, Hans.

As I sat on this newer bus, I thought about Hans. He had been sitting next to me on the trip we took eleven years ago. He was nineteen at the time. His memories of the journey are different than mine. He claims that I conned him into going to the peace demonstration. I remember him whining that I was going to Washington, but he wasn’t. In any case, we both wound up on that Peace Action bus. We both sat there for hours on end, alternately observing the scene and attempting to catch some sleep.

The population on this week’s bus was different from the one I took all those years ago. Ron and I were riding with a group of high school students from Racine, Wisconsin. They were mostly Latino, and they were all somehow affiliated with YES, Youth Empowered in the Struggle. YES works to promote social justice issues, primarily the rights of immigrants. The students had all the hallmarks of youth: boundless energy, intense idealism, and a total inability to focus. The few elders on the bus were excited about the rally, but we also exuded a sort of melancholy. As Ron stated, “This isn’t our first rodeo.” We had all been places and done things. Some of the kids probably had never even been out of Racine before. Did having a mix of old and young mean that we had experience versus enthusiasm? Maybe experience combined with enthusiasm.

A multi-hour bus ride gives a person a chance to engage in lengthy conversations. Ron and I did just that. Ron told me about his time as a pastor in the Church of the Brethren. He also went to law school and worked as a corporate lawyer. I told Ron about my time at West Point and my years as a Army helicopter pilot. We talked about our families. Ron told me about how he very nearly joined the military back in 1967. He changed his mind after speaking to a high school classmate who had just returned from his first tour in Vietnam. Several of Ron’s friends had gone to Vietnam, but he didn’t. Ron spoke with a certain amount of sadness because those separate paths divide him from his friends, even today.

In the pre-dawn hours we stopped for a break at a rest stop in western Pennsylvania. The students went to the bathrooms, and then sat down in small groups to chat and to gaze intently at their smart phones. I wandered aimlessly past the closed food kiosks, and I stood by the main entrance, simply grateful for the opportunity to stand for a while. Elliott was there too. Elliott is a thin, young man with glasses and an infectious smile. He was the captain of the bus, although he shared that duty with Valeria, a young Latina from Racine. Neither Elliott nor I had any desire to get back on the bus just yet, so we struck up a conversation.

Elliott and I talked about the rally in Washington. I told him about how Hans and I took this same path a decade ago. I told him about the crowds there, and how Hans spent his time in the museums while I stood around listening to leftwing rhetoric. I frowned when I mentioned the aftermath of the journey. I told Elliott about how, just two years later, Hans joined the Army, and how he went to Iraq in 2011. I felt a wave of sadness when I told him that Hans killed people in the same war that I wanted to end. The irony was bitter.

Elliott listened. He said that we can’t expect that this demonstration will get us all that we want. We might not get a clean Dream Act. Our efforts may be for naught. Then he said,

“But what is the alternative? Do nothing?”

He went on, “I want us to succeed. I want to be smart and get results.”

I want us to succeed too. Both Elliott and I realize that this long trip may not achieve that. However, we both also know that it may be a catalyst for other things. We may succeed in ways we don’t understand and that we can’t imagine. Sometimes, the intention is the most important thing. Sometimes, we just need to try.

Much later, after the rally was over, and we were all walking around in the dark near the Tidal Basin, we stumbled on to the Martin Luther King Memorial. The lighting made the image of MLK seem heroic. I was astounded by the detail in the stone. I could even see the veins in King’s hands. I read some of the quotes in the wall behind the stone carving. Martin Luther King had not achieved his dream during his lifetime, but he hadn’t failed either.

A dream achieved is no longer a dream. It is reality.

I’m home again. Hans called me on the phone last night. He wanted to tell me that it was snowing like hell down in Bryan, Texas. He said that Gabi, his bride-to-be and a Texas native, loved it. I could hear her laughing in the background.

Hans asked me, “Where did you go?”

I told him, “I went to Washington for another demonstration.”

Hans sighed, “What was this one about?”

“Immigration. We were trying to keep undocumented kids from getting deported.”

Hans said, “Yeah, they should have a law that lets people stay here if they got brought to this country when they were little.”

“Well, yeah. That’s what we were trying to get Congress to do.”

“That’s okay.”

There was giggling in the background again.

“Well, Dad, I just called to tell you about the snow. Talk to you later.”

“Bye Hans.”

“Yeah, Bye.”

Hans remembers our trip to D.C.. He wants his own kids. He has his own dreams for them.

 

 

 

December 3rd, 2017

Another Sunday, another trip to the Kenosha County Jail. It’s amazing how quickly we adjust to new patterns in our lives. What initially seemed horrendous is now the new normal. An arrest and incarceration of a family member is shocking at first, but then it just becomes an accepted part of our reality. The visits to the jail are just as much part of a typical Sunday for us as going to Mass is. Now, it’s just what we do.

Karin and I went to the jail early, but we were not the first ones there. There were already two other people in the lobby, and they seemed a bit confused. I don’t think that is all that unusual. The jail is an environment that breeds confusion. Visiting hours are usually only on the weekend, and there is often nobody available during that time to give direction and guidance to the people who are showing up for the first time. It’s not a good system.

A woman in the lobby of the building spoke to Karin and me as soon as we walked into the place. She said,

“Whatever you do, don’t use the stairwell!”

“Ooooookaaaay…”, I replied.

She went on, “I was here on Friday, and tried to use the stairs. I got myself locked in the stairwell!”

I wondered about that. There are signs in the hallway indicating where to go. The signs clearly direct a visitor to the elevator that goes to the second floor of the jail. Why would this woman use the stairs? How did she get out of the stairwell? Why was she even here on a Friday?

I shook my head to clear my mind. The lady kept up her monologue. It was pure stream of consciousness. I tuned out most of what she was saying. We all took the elevator to the second floor. We walked down another hallway, and she said,

“Look! The office is closed! There is nobody at the window!”

“Uh, no…that’s not the correct window. We have to go a little further down this hallway.”

“Are you sure?”

“Yeah.”

We arrived at the window where we had to fill out a small slip of paper and show our ID cards. The woman had clearly never been to this place before. It was all new to her. I kept wondering, “So, where was she on Friday, if she never made it here?”

There was a already a crowd of people waiting in the narrow hallway, and visitation didn’t even start for another ten minutes. The seats were all taken, so Karin and I stood next to the wall. Karin took out her drop spindle, and started to spin raw wool with it. A man near us was rather impressed with Karin’s skills. Karin always has some knitting or spinning with her. She is never bored.

The visits started. Each person only got ten minutes with an inmate, so things went fast. I saw our loved one first, then Karin came into the room immediately after I was finished. Our family member was in good spirits, relatively speaking. There wasn’t that sense of utter panic and hopelessness. I was grateful for that.

On our way out, I stopped at the kiosk to put more money into our inmate’s commissary account. When I finished using my credit card, a black woman came up to the computer kiosk to do the same thing. She had never used it before, so I stayed and walked her through the process. Like everything else in the jail, this device is not user friendly. I was lucky that somebody held my hand when I first tried to enter money into the account. Otherwise, I am sure that I would have eventually given up in despair. I took the woman through each step. Even so, it was still a tedious task. I get the impression that this kiosk was designed by somebody who knew that it would be the only option available to people, and that there was no need to worry about them taking their business elsewhere. Monopolies don’t have to be concerned with customer service.

We’ll try  all this again next Sunday.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

November 30th, 2017

Nada brought her homework to me. I’m not sure what grade she’s in, but it looked like something that a middle school student would be studying. She had some geometry to do. We finished that up pretty quick. The lesson was mostly about comparing rectangles of similar shapes, but different sizes. We had to determine size ratios. Nada is good with math. She’s sharp that way.

Then we worked on some physics problems. Nada had a sheet of word problems to solve. The idea was to match the event described in each problem to one of the three Laws of Motion. One scenario was that a student had left her homework on a desk in a classroom, and nobody had made any attempt to put the homework elsewhere. The student had returned to the classroom and found her homework exactly where she had placed it.

I asked Nada, “What law goes with that?”

She pointed to the Third Law: “A force exerted on a body is matched by an equal and opposite force”.

I shook my head and said, “Uh, no.”

Nada gave me that puzzled look that said, “Why not?”

I told her, “Well, think about it. Was there any force exerted on the girl’s homework?”

I got the blank stare. This is where the language issue raises its ugly head. Nada doesn’t know English well enough to understand me all of the time. I know a smidgen of Arabic; enough to make small talk, but definitely not enough to teach science. I needed to try this explanation another way.

“Yeah, well, did anybody move the homework?”

“No, she replied.”

“Did a breeze from a window blow it around?”

“No.”

“So, did anything at all move the homework from the desk?”

“No.”

I pointed to Newton’s First Law: “A body at rest will tend to remain at rest, and a body in motion will tend to remain in motion, unless acted upon by another force.”

“Does that match up with the story about the girl’s homework?’

Nada smiled, “Oh yeah!”

“Good. Let’s try the next one.”

Nada and I would have made significantly more progress with her homework if there had not been constant interruptions by her siblings. Any house containing eleven kids will have a high level of chaos. I know this sort of thing from experience (I had six younger brothers). Nada’s little brother, Yusuf, kept coming to the table to show me things. He smiled and laughed, and demanded my attention. At one point he tried to climb up some rickety shelving, and I told him firmly to get down from there. I didn’t want to test the Law of Gravity, and have Yusuf bang his head on something.

Nisrin came to me also. She wanted help with her math. Nisrin isn’t as good with numbers as Nada is. I tried to explain some multiplication problems to Nisrin, and she nodded that she understood when I knew full well that she had no clue what I was talking about. Once again, the language barrier was there. I just don’t know how to explain a math problem in Nisrin’s Syrian dialect, although I suspect that she might not have understood even if English was her native tongue.

Amar, one of their older brothers, brought me my hot, sweet tea. Amar is an intelligent young man. He learns quickly, and I sense that he is street smart. He think he has had to be that way in order to survive this long.

Nada and I finished up the physics worksheet. It was an arduous process. I downed four glasses of tea, and felt like I was floating. We read a short book together about a kid and his pet housefly. That was oddly disturbing. Then I went downstairs to say goodbye to Um Hussein and the other children.

“Ma’a assalaama”, I said.

“Ma’a assalaam”, they answered.

 

 

 

 

 

November 29th, 2017

There is apparently no universal standard for how jails operate, at least with regards to how they manage visits to inmates. Over the years, Karin and I have visited a family member in three different jails, and each facility has had its own peculiar way of doing things. Each jail has had its own quirky system.

This is not to say that there are no similarities between the various lock ups. They all suck. That is consistent. Visiting a prisoner is always a hassle. Even when the guards are relatively friendly, the environment is intimidating. The buildings are universally cold and austere; usually lots of concrete, locked doors, and tinted glass. The seats are apparently designed to be uncomfortable. A jail is by its very nature ugly and forbidding. A reasonable argument can be made that jails are unpleasant so as to deter people from committing crimes that put them in there. However, I am convinced that nobody wants to be there; not the prisoners, not the guards, not the visitors.

Karin and I first visited our loved one when she was in the Milwaukee County House of Correction. At that facility a friend or family member has to register for a visit 24 hours in advance. The visit can last up to 30 minutes. A visitor can come to the jail on any day of the week, except Tuesday. Visits at the Milwaukee County House of Correction are all done by video. The visitors never actually get to see the inmate. They view the inmate on a screen. That is about as impersonal as a visit could possibly be. I found it interesting that I was required to go through a metal detector at the House of Correction prior to entering a locked room in order to watch the inmate on a fucking TV. That must have been a Sheriff Clarke idea. The only advantage of video interactions for a family member is that a visitor can speak and view to the inmate online (for a price) from home.

The Walworth County Jail was a bit more humane. There you had to register for a visit 48 hour in advance, but a person could visit on most days, and stay for half an hour. The visits were face to face. True, the conversations were conducted by telephone, but the visitor could physically see the inmate. That makes a difference. You could almost touch the other person. Apparently, in the last year, Walworth County has also gone the video route. More technology, less humanity.

The Kenosha County Jail is kind of chaotic. You don’t make an appointment for a visit. For us, it’s first come, first serve on a Sunday afternoon from 1:00 to 3:00. It’s a free for all. A person comes up to the service window, fills out a form, shows an ID, and waits…and waits…and waits. The visits are only ten minutes long, so the turnover is quick. Ten minutes isn’t very long, but sometimes it feels like an eternity if I can’t think of anything to talk about. I find that I remember all the things that I wanted to say just as soon as I put the phone down and leave the little booth. In Kenosha an inmate gets to see each visitor only once a week, so you have to make those ten minutes count.

When I was in the Las Vegas jail back in April, the thing that bothered me the most was the fact that I couldn’t let my wife know what was happening to me. I wasn’t in the jail long enough to need a visit, but I could already feel the isolation and the powerlessness. There was a sense of being totally disconnected from the outside world. A visit makes a huge difference to a prisoner. For some reason, jails often do their best make visits difficult and/or impersonal. That is the opposite of what they should be doing. Inmates need to know that somebody gives a damn. A visit is the best way to do that.

 

 

November 27th, 2017

About twenty-five years ago, I had a friend named Mike Macy. He and his wife had their child in the Waldorf School of Milwaukee at the same time that Karin and I had Hans in that school. Our children were in the same class, and we sometimes met at school functions. Eventually, Mike and his wife moved away, and I lost track of him. However, for a while, we had a number of interesting conversations.

Mike had worked overseas, I believe with the State Department. For a time he was stationed in India. Mike would tell me stories about his life there. I have forgotten most of his tales, but one sticks in my memory.

Mike bemoaned the fact that in India punctuality was an alien concept. While he was working there, Mike would make appointments for meetings with various Indian officials. Typically, the Indians would show up late, or perhaps not at all.  Mike told me of one incident when an Indian bureaucrat arrived very late for a meeting, and Mike asked him in exasperation why he was so tardy. The Indian calmly explained to Mike that he had unexpectedly met an old friend on the way to the meeting, and that he simply had to stop and talk with this man. He couldn’t just blow the guy off. In fact, the Indian and his old friend had tea together, and the Indian felt that he could not leave his companion until the conversation had run its course. Mike was dumbfounded by the man’s story, and the Indian could not understand Mike’s puzzlement. What could be more important than spending time with a friend?

Yesterday I met Rob in the produce section of the grocery store. He is an ER physician, and his schedule is erratic. We literally bumped into each other at the store. Rob and I have known each for a long time. We are close friends, but we hadn’t been together for nearly a year. We stood around, blocking the bins of lemons and kiwis, for the better part of an hour. Other shoppers looked at us with a certain amount of disdain. We were impeding the flow of their shopping. We didn’t care.

Rob said to me, “We really ought to get together. Do you want me to stop by this afternoon? Or do you want to come to my house for coffee? Maybe we could go to that Mexican restaurant again, wherever that was.”

I actually had plans for the entire afternoon. I was going to Kenosha to get some personal effects from somebody’s impounded vehicle. Then I planned to go to a demonstration in favor of the DREAM ACT and immigrant rights. The demonstration was to be held in front of Paul Ryan’s office in Racine.

I thought for a moment. If I put off meeting with Rob, then we would never hook up. Some things need to be done immediately or they don’t get done at all.

I asked Rob, “What time will you be home?”

He replied, “In an hour and a half.”

“I’ll be at your house then.”

I met Rob at 1:30 PM. He made tea for us both, and we sat in his kitchen. We talked, and we talked, and we talked some more. No one checked the time. I only realized that it was getting late because I saw the sun going down through his window.

We accomplished nothing during the three hours that I was there. We solved no problems. We just told each other what was in our hearts. We listened to each other. We joked sometimes. We grieved sometimes. We were just there for each other, as completely as we could be. That needed to happen. That had to happen.

Today I went to Kenosha and emptied out the impounded car. I will surely go to another demonstration in the near future. Some things can wait a while. Some can’t.

I understand the Indian.

 

 

 

 

November 26th, 2017

Visiting hours at the Kenosha County Jail are generally from 1:00 to 3:00 PM on Sundays, but not for everybody. I have found that every jail, in every county, has a different set of rules for visits. Kenosha has a particularly Byzantine set of regulations, one that is possibly confusing even to the people who work at the jail.  Karin and I can only visit our incarcerated family member on the 1st, 2nd, and 4th Sunday of each month. Other people get to visit their loved ones on the 2st, 3rd, or 4th Saturday. Some can only visit on the 1st Saturday of the month. Some get to come on the 1st Saturday and the 3rd Sunday of each month. I’m not making this up. You can go online and look for yourself.

Karin and I arrived a little after 1:00 PM. We passed through a narrow hallway full of people who were waiting. Some sat, but most people were standing. There were a few seats, but not enough for everybody who was there. We walked to the man behind the glass window at the end of the hall. He had us fill out a slip of paper and show him our ID’s. Then we sat down until somebody from inside the locked room called us.

While we waited, a heavy-set black woman came in with her three small children. She went up to register with the man at the window, and they entered into a lengthy discussion.

The woman asked the man, “So, when I go in, can I take all three of the children with me?”

The man looked at a sheet of paper covered with rules, and explained that the lady could only make the visit accompanied by one child.

She replied to him, “I called here before, and they said that I could bring them all. What am I supposed to do with two of them if I can only take one child into the room with me? I ain’t got nobody to watch them other two children.”

The man behind the glass shrugged.

Then the woman asked him, “Well, if I have to leave two of the kids out here in the hall, can I go in three times, once with each of the children?”

The man patiently explained that she could only make one visit for a total of ten minutes. One visit with one of the kids. She wasn’t allowed to have three visits for a total thirty minutes.

She went on, “When I called, they told me that I could bring all three children. I wouldn’t have walked all the way over here if I knew that I could only take one child into that room.”

The man got all bureaucratic and gave her the “rules are rules” speech. He wasn’t rude to her, but he was firm. She sat down and tried to keep her children quiet until she had her visit.

Karin got called to go into see the loved one. Now Karin and I had signed up separately, so we got have two visits for a total of twenty minutes. We couldn’t go in together, and that was just as well. Each visitation booth had only one seat and one phone.

While Karin talked behind the locked door for her ten minutes, I sat and observed. Once again, I was a minority among minorities. I was one of two white guys sitting in a hallway surrounded by blacks and Latinos. The other white guy was a lawyer. It was almost impossible not be struck by the twisted demographics in that hallway.

Karin came out, and my name was called over the loudspeaker. I went in and took a seat across from the loved one. We were divided by Plexiglas, and our histories. We mostly talked business. Being put in jail leaves a lot of loose ends. I am helping to tidy up all the aspects of life that the loved one can not handle under the circumstances. There is much to do.

The loved one asked me over and over to help her find a place once she gets released, whenever that happens in the distant future. I promised that Karin and I would take care of that. She would not be abandoned by us. I am not sure that the young woman behind the glass totally believed me, but I will do what I can.

As Karin and I left the jail, I thought about the other people locked up in there. Our family member has us to support her. We can’t fix everything for her, but we are there. I wonder if all the others have people on the outside. What is it like for somebody who has nobody? What is it like when nobody visits, and nobody writes, and nobody picks up the phone? What is it like to know that nobody will be there when you get out?

What is it like to be alone?

 

 

 

 

November 24, 2017

Hans called twice yesterday. The first call was typical for him. He spent a lot of time describing how much his job has sucked during the last couple days. It’s a family tradition for people to complain about their work. He talked about his motorcycle. He told me that the massacre in Las Vegas was really a conspiracy, and that there had been a second shooter. He bitched about all those lazy, entitled Millennials. The call was more of a monologue than a conversation.

A couple hours later, Hans called again.

“Hey Dad, I got a question for you”, Hans said in his Texas drawl.

That made me wary. “What’s up?”

“What would you and Mom say if I asked Gabi to marry me?”

“I’m okay with that. It sounds cool. When are you going to ask her?”

Hans replied, “I already did.”

“So, what did she say?”

“At first she thought I was joking, but then she said ‘yes’ “.

“Well, good. I’ll let Mom know.”

Hans said sheepishly, “I didn’t have a ring or anything.”

“That’s okay. When I talked to Mom, I didn’t either.”

Hans went on, “I wasn’t sure at first, because we haven’t been together very long.”

“Well, Mom and I were only dating for maybe six months or so when I asked her.”

“Gabi and me, we’ve been together for about five months.”

“You’re good.”

Hans said, “It just felt right, you know?”

“Yeah, you got to follow your heart.”

Hans slowly said, “Wellll, I was just calling to find out what you would think. I was just checking.”

“When are you going to do this?”

“Some time next year.”

“Mom and I will come, if you want us to.”

Hans snorted, “Of course, I want you to come!”

I replied, “I was just checking.”

“Yeah, right. Well, I just called to let you know.”

“Congratulations, Hans.”

“Thanks. I love you.”

“I love you too.”

 

 

 

November 23rd, 2017

Today is Thanksgiving. Somebody I love will be spending today behind bars. I am sure that individual will find it difficult to think of reasons to be grateful. I know that I am struggling to feel gratitude in this situation.

Jails are all pretty much the same, at least in the United States. Granted, there are obviously variations with regards to the manner in which prisoners are treated, but all jails have certain common characteristics. I have often been in jails, usually as a visitor, and once as an inmate. After a while, you begin to notice certain things.

The Kenosha County Jail has the usual physical hallmarks. The place has cinderblock walls, painted in a dull, bureaucratic green. There are few, if any, windows. There are doors, but none of them open. Most of what is posted on the walls has to do with rules and regulations. There can never be enough rules. It is rare to interact with another human face-to-face. Generally, the other person, be they inmate or guard, is shielded by a window made of Plexiglas, and their voice comes out of a speaker somewhere.

It’s all about control. The state has to control the prisoners, and it employs guards for that purpose. The state also uses an endless number of walls and locked doors to maintain this control. Keep the inmates separate from the guards, and keep everybody separate from the public. Maybe separate the inmates from each other. The separation isn’t just about physical contact. Control is also about minimizing communication. Allow only outbound collect phone calls. Only permit brief visits from friends and relatives. Allow only snail mail correspondence between prisoners and the outside world. Watch everybody all the time.

Jails are expensive. I am not talking about the tax dollars required to house inmates. Jails are expensive for the inmates themselves and for those who care about them. I have had several calls with the family member who is currently incarcerated. Each call is about $15 a pop for a maximum of fifteen minutes of conversation. The prisoner needs money from an outside source (in this case the money is from me) to fund a commissary account, so that the person can get basic personal items (soap, paper, postage stamps, pencils, etc.). There is a fee for almost everything. If a person is not broke before they go to jail, odds are good that they will be when they get out.

A person in jail makes few decisions. Somebody else is running that person’s life. That can be oddly liberating at times, but it is also scary. The person I love is scared. She has a history of anxiety and panic attacks. She is not in a place that will make it easier for her to deal with those problems. This person is worried about the future, and it will be months before her path becomes clear. She may be stuck in jail or prison for several years. Her fate is not yet decided. In the meantime, she waits in a sort of limbo. Justice in America is not swift, and often it is not just.

Would it be better if the person I loved was out on bond? I could post it, if I wanted to do that. However, this individual has often managed to harm herself, although perhaps not intentionally. If she were on the street, would she survive? I don’t know if she would, but I do know from experience that I would have no control on her actions. In jail, she is relatively safe, at least for now. Outside, maybe not. What is the better choice: living as an inmate or dying as a free person?

Should she be thankful on this day? I don’t know. The loved one has to decide that.

Should I be grateful. Yes. She is alive. So, there is hope for the future. Things can get better. Maybe they will.

 

November 17th, 2017

 

I went to a symposium. The title of the session was: “Facing the Challenges Together: Climate Change Impacts on Human Health”. I bet that somebody spent hours, or even days, coming up with that slogan. The printed schedule of events had a picture of the earth surrounded by a stethoscope. Nice. The symposium was designed for people who work in the public health area, so it kind of made sense for things to be geared toward that population. I am not part of that group, so I felt a bit left out.

There were a number of speakers. They were all intelligent and knowledgeable. They also tended to speak in jargon. I found it both interesting and amusing to listen people babble on, using words that made sense to them, but perhaps unaware that these same words that would be very unfamiliar to outsiders. I heard a lot about “priority populations” and about “vulnerabilities, resilience, and mitigation”. I basically understood what was being discussed, but clearly this was a language peculiar to professionals working in the public health field.

There were question and answer sessions interspersed between the lectures. One guy asked, “What do we say to somebody who thinks that climate change is actually good?” I can understand the sentiment of somebody who thinks there might be an upside to climate change. Anybody who has lived in Wisconsin knows how brutal the winter weather can be. I worked for nearly twenty-eight years on the dock of a trucking company in the Milwaukee area. The weather conditions on an unheated loading dock are exactly the same as the those of the outside environment. If it is minus ten degrees outside, it is minus ten degrees on that dock. I used to dread the end of January/beginning of February because we would always get a week when the temperature never rose above zero. Zero Degrees Fahrenheit. That’s lethal. That’s not much above the summer temperature on the surface of Mars. Climate change? Fuck yeah!

There were few , if any, climate change skeptics at that symposium. The presenters had a sympathetic audience. It seems to me that the folks talking about climate change do not sell the idea very well. The scientific evidence seems overwhelming, yet people still are not convinced. In order to sell the concept, it has to be made personal. A picture of starving polar bears cubs simply is not good enough. I don’t care about polar bears. They are ruthless carnivores who would gladly kill and eat me if they had the chance. The little balls of white fur in the climate change propaganda are not persuasive.

However, the public health and safety angle is persuasive. If somebody comes to me and says, “Hey, we are expecting people in our county to contract West Nile virus and dengue fever in the next year or so”, I might pay attention. Or if somebody tells me, “Yeah, fifty people may die in Milwaukee this summer from extreme heat”, I might listen up. I may not care about flooding in Bangladesh or droughts in Syria. However, even if I don’t believe in manmade climate change, I will care about real life problems in my own community. I will give a damn about problems that affect my own family and friends. I will care because now it’s personal.

There are clear connections between climate change and public health issues. The climate in Wisconsin is changing. We are getting warmer and wetter. These changes are making a difference. These changes will cause new problems. We don’t really have to care about the causes of climate change, at least not at first. We will need to care about the resultant issues. Caring about the problems caused by climate change will force us to eventually confront the underlying causes. We have to get kicked in the head before we notice the big issues.

Mayor Barrett spoke at the symposium. For the most part, he talked like a politician. Well. that’s his job. However, he discussed the effects of President Trump pulling out of the Paris Accords on climate change. On one level, it sucks that he did that. On another level, it might be a Godsend.

Barrett said that over 380 cities and municipalities, including the City of Milwaukee, have joined “We Are Still In”, which means that these communities are still involved with the Paris Accords. This also means that in the United States there are at least 380 climate change laboratories. There are 380 local groups working to fight against global warming and/or the effects of it. That means there are 380 different possible local solutions to a global problem. That’s actually pretty cool. The Federal government (i.e. the EPA) does not necessarily have all the answers. A bottom-up solution to the problem might be better than one forced on local communities from the top. Ironically, Trump might be doing the citizens of this country a favor.

I had an interesting morning. I learned some things. It was worth my time.

 

 

November 15th, 2017

Shocky was restless.

Shocky is Hannah’s dog. She’s a border collie, and generally adorable. Shocky sleeps in the bedroom with Karin and me. As I was lying on the bed in the dark, I heard the dog jingling the ID tags on her collar. She does that when she is thirsty or when she needs to go outside. It is pointless to ignore Shocky when she does that. Her next step is to whine pathetically, and she won’t stop until her needs are met.

I got up and stumbled toward the digital clock on my dresser. The time showed as 3:30 AM. I threw on some clothes and took Shocky to the bedroom door. Through the door I thought I heard music coming from Hannah’s old room. I opened the door and saw a light at the bottom of her bedroom door.

I thought to myself, “Is she even here? Why?” Somehow, I felt relieved that she was in the house.

Then I got angry. “She’s going to wake up Stefan! He needs to work in the morning!”

I moved toward our daughter’s bedroom. I heard a voice from behind me saying,

“Frank! Frank!”

“What?!”

I felt Karin’s hand on my shoulder. She was gently shaking me.

She said softly, “It’s okay…it’s okay, Frank.”

I pulled my head off of the pillow, and rolled on to my back. Karin moved over to her side of the bed. She settled down to sleep again. She is used to dealing with years of me having nightmares. I was lying on my back, my heart racing and my breath ragged.

Karin’s breathing found a peaceful rhythm. I stared at the skylight and let the contents of my dream ebb away. I was slipping back into sleep.

Shocky was restless.

I heard her shaking her tags. I got out of bed. I stumbled over to the dresser and looked at the clock. Now it said 3:32 AM. I threw on some clothes and went to the bedroom door.

I opened the door, and I involuntarily looked down the hall toward Hannah’s old room. It was dark and empty and silent. I sighed.

I took Shocky outside. I didn’t sleep after that.