Thoughts on Maryann's Voice and the Essential Nature of the Earth

During my life, there have been certain insignificant things that I felt that I ought to remember, although the reason why has never been clear. The memory became useful when the image of the future that the memory required actually materialized. Only when the memory became a true memory, something in the past, no longer something that I knew would happen, was I permitted to forget it. 

I did mostly forget these moments and as I've gotten older, fewer new ones have happened. 

I do remember one incident though that happened about fifteen years ago. I call it "remembering Maryann's voice." Maryann worked for me for a period of 2-3 years, I couldn't say exactly how long or when, but she was never more or less than a good person to me, a good worker, a good mind, an attractive face, with whom I formed no special emotional attachment, but for whom I felt respect and by whom I felt respected. She left me amicably and responsibly.

Here's the strange thing, when she left, I felt sure that I would need to remember her voice, that its sound had impressed itself on me in a unique way. There were probably 40-50 other employees who worked during that time, all of whom stood out in many ways, their voices, their personalities, their faces, but somehow I knew that I would need Maryann's voice for a specific phone call that I would get from her someday. I didn't know what for, only that it would happen.

As it turned out, after she'd been gone ten years, completely gone, no contact whatsoever, as so many people leave the first jobs of their lives, she called on the phone and I knew her voice instantly because it was the exact moment I had foreseen. I was not experiencing deja vu, in fact it was the exact opposite. The moment was significant not in what had happened, but in that it had happened at all. I was doing exactly what I had foreseen. The content of the phone call was incidental.  I had been waiting for it and it had happened.  There have been a handful of very similar incidents in my life.

I was awestruck by its occurrence because it fulfilled a prediction that I had unwillingly made about my own future. A knowledge that simply came to me, unbidden. It was the event that I had already seen happen. A prediction that all along felt more like a certainty than a prediction. Meaningless as it was, it was important in that it actually happened and gave me reason to believe that the future and the past happen simultaneously, or at least that knowledge of the future is not out of the question.  

After I heard Maryann's voice I had another "revelation", namely that I would never need to know her voice again. I won't be able to prove that until I die, furthermore it is hardly startling, but still, it is what I saw.

I have also seen this. I have seen that the earth will go dormant, bereft of humanity and then it will seed again. Meaningful life, earth life, evolving life, sentient life will rise again. The earth will bear fruit; it is in its essential nature.  

Cashier

Thirty years at a cash register, you might think that it was tedious, but far from it.  Touching hundreds of thousands of hands was a privilege, among day to day exchanges, rare in its intimacy and its replication.

Here's my story:

Customer: I want to buy this food that you have made and are selling, here is my money.

Me: I want to accept this money that you have made and proffer, here is good food.

Our hands touch and the deal is sealed.  The food from my and my fellows' hands is eaten.  Don't pass quickly over the word "eaten." Break it down. It is extreme touching, often with fingers and always with nose and tongue, smelling, touching with lips, putting food into one's mouth, rolling it around, feeling the texture, the temperature, the flavor, squeezing it between the teeth, the smell again, the comfort in its ingestion.  Hunger satiated.  Food eaten.  Touch is never more intimate, more complete, literally taking into oneself from the hands of another, an act that in its frequency, is often taken for granted.  It is the true essence of touch and ought never be taken lightly except when trust allows, because it is only trust that allows true intimacy to be taken for granted.

If all goes well, the privilege of the exchange, the consummation of the relationship gets repeated.  Once in a while, once a month, every week, every day, twice a day...truly, an expression of confidence and comfort, an act of free will that exemplifies the meaning of trust. With some people, I shared this trust for thirty years!  Each event the most narrow expression of love.  All the events, an overwhelming repetition of the simplest, clearest and dearest exchange, often simply on a recommendation or reputation...this restaurant can be trusted.  We were.  I was.

On Marriage

I have a friend who has led an interesting and satisfying life.  She is very happy and can take credit for having been successful at marriage, no mean feat.

She is a teacher and recently responded to a student who was feeling bitter toward marriage in general and her father in particular.  Here is her eloquent reply to her student.

Trusting Men

by Helena Halperin

Everything you say is perfectly logical, but I disagree. I am writing as one who has been very happily married for 47 years. That’s rare. My husband is much better than average in many ways, and we have not had unbroken, consistent bliss. No one does.

Love does often follow lust, and, like lust, may not endure. However, love founded on deep friendship can endure the waxing and waning of lust.

Can you “completely trust” a man? Can you “completely trust” yourself? In either case, I think the answer is “probably not.” Does it matter? Maybe not.

I don’t think “compatibility” is the most important criterion for whom to marry. You won't remain “compatible” as each of you changes in unpredictable ways on an inconvenient schedule.  When I married, going off to Africa for a year wasn’t part of what either of us imagined, and was clearly outside the bounds of what a responsible spouse should do, but it was an important part of my life path. Choose flexibility always. And be extremely flexible yourself.

Most people marry with promises of sexual fidelity and intend to keep them. Many people fail there. Maybe those promises are unrealistic. I think it’s easier to stay married if you also try to stay “faithful” in the sexual sense, but I find it sad when straying sexually, giving in to lust that is usually temporary, destroys an otherwise good marriage.

People usually marry when they are still young, then change greatly in the following 60 or so years they will live. If change seems like betrayal, the marriage will be too confining. If the marriage can accommodate great changes in each partner, unpredictable changes, changes that may sometimes seem like a betrayal of original assumptions, and if it is founded on great respect, good friendship, lots of laughter, and good will, it may become the best friendship imaginable. It is wonderful to come home at night (it doesn’t have to be every night) to share your triumphs, defeats and insights of the day with one who knows the context.

It is wonderful to raise children with someone whose love and good sense you can trust. It is wonderful to grow old with the person who knows your history, your children, your joys and sorrows very well. It is wonderful in later life to share memories of so much. It is so helpful when conflicts and uncertainties about your children may still plague you, to have their other parent as your partner.

I suppose a childless marriage, with all the flexibility and good will in the world, could also work, but it seems to me like half a life.

I invite your response.

Helena Halperin

2000 Words About Salem

I’m embarrassed to say that up until a week ago, I had never been to Salem. Let me modify that, I had a business meeting there several years ago that lasted about two hours, but I had never been there just to relax and look around.  I had never been to Salem to see Salem.  Recently, thanks to the new economy, relaxing and looking around have become my favorite pastimes and I’m here to tell you that Salem is worth every valuable minute of your time. 

Boston, my hometown, is a messy place to drive.  The legendary traffic might gradually slow to a crawl on the interstate. A five-minute trip can become a forty-five minute curse, and you’ll never find out why. Parking is hard to find or expensive, sometimes both and never neither.   In Salem, the locals think traffic is heavy when they get stuck at the same light twice.  They have a point, and I’ve heard it gets much worse in the month of October, but I was up there recently during midweek and I can tell you, the lack of traffic alone made me feel like I was on vacation. It wasn’t rural calm.  Nope, there’s plenty happening, people going here and there, obviously an industrious place with lots of restaurants and shops, things to do and lots of people doing them, maybe a delay when a parking lot empties, but traffic?  Not a problem. And parking? Plentiful.

Truth be told, I had mixed feelings about Salem.  It might seem impossible to have feelings about a place I had never been, but Salem is part of our national consciousness.  Most of us learn at a very early age, before we are even capable of understanding, that Salem is that notorious colonial place where a real “witch hunt” took place. Foolish young girls playing on the fears and superstitions of an entire community claimed that they were cursed by some of the townspeople who they didn’t like.  Religious extremism and group hysteria combined to drive people mad and blind them to their own hypocrisy while they sought scapegoats to purge themselves.  The girls were eventually discredited, but not before several innocent people were “convicted” and hung for their “crimes.”  Today, it seems impossible to imagine.  And since I paid attention to history I asked myself, what was wrong with the people of Salem? 

During the decades after the witch trials, New England grew into its heyday, a world-class center of industry, whaling, importing, exporting and fishing.  Capitalizing on its own fine harbor, albeit small by later standards, Salem became one of New England’s wealthiest seaports, which was saying a lot.  By 1790 it was the sixth largest city in America.

After the decline of New England’s industrial importance and the need for deeper and bigger harbors, Salem gradually became a cultural and financial backwater.  A third class cousin to Boston which had already taken a back seat to New York, Salem would eventually realize that it could make money on its heritage, its wits and charm and on its historic shame. Through clever marketing, Salem became and is today the Halloween capital of the nation as if its witch trials bear a resemblance or are somehow related to our fastest growing costumed holiday.  The entire month of October is taken up with a pasteurized, polished, well-publicized and fantastic illusion that has absolutely nothing and everything to do with Salem’s sordid past.  If you’re interested in that sort of thing, I hear it’s quite a show.

Frankly, for me, it was a reason not to go.  I am not a gawker. I don’t want to stare at the hideous. I am not a big fan of Halloween. Why would I go to that place?  Of course, my denial of Salem, based on vague notions and faulty logic, was as silly as Salem’s promotion of itself. Perhaps Salem is to blame for me not knowing it, but the reality of Salem is far different from its image, and I’d say, far better. 

We arrived on a Wednesday afternoon and checked into the Salem Inn, an historic brick structure of three adjoining townhouses which was originally owned by Captain Nathaniel West, one among hundreds of well researched and interesting Salem characters, himself a victim of a very public and particularly sordid divorce trial.  Because of our national obsession with new and better, in many towns West’s townhouse would stand out as a unique historic feature.  Not so in Salem.  Perhaps it was the shame of the witch trials, but more likely it was the sheer magnitude of Salem’s wealth, whatever the case, Salem got this part of its historic preservation completely right.  West’s house and history, although very fine and interesting, are just another dot on a thoroughly researched map of perhaps the finest historic district in the United States!  The McIntire Historic District, so named because many of its premier examples are the work of Architect and Housewright, Samuel McIntire, is an area of over four hundred Federal era homes around the Inn that have been preserved and maintained, many in their original splendor.  To be sure, some of these homes are museums, but by and large they are living, vibrant 21st century domiciles that do not reek of mold or dust.  Salem is alive! 

As if that weren’t enough, there are three other historic districts in Salem: Derby St., Lafayette St. and Washington Square.  Although none of these districts are contiguous, Salem is so conscious of its heritage that when walking from one district to another you’ll be hard pressed to know when you’re out of an historic area. Homes are often and prominently labeled with construction dates, builder, homeowner and/or the trade or profession in which they worked.

Without consulting a guidebook, my wife and I began to get an idea of who these people were, what they did for a living and what kind of community Salem was, but unlike at an historic re-creation or in Boston, we were not being spoon-fed a scripted story, or conducted on a history trail that is burdened by the intensely modern city around it.  With the help of a couple of brochures from the Inn’s supply, we imagined the streets, unchanged except for their surfaces, gauged the proximities, we spent the entire day on foot, and considered the tradesmen, whose lucrative work might have seemed hopelessly archaic except that the smells of the very same sea still fill the streets of Salem.  And a tall sailing ship sits at one of its wharfs. 

Not your typical coastal village with miniature streets,  Salem grew up as a commercial hub, with wide avenues and a thriving commercial center, the place where the region’s great traders made their homes.  These were not crusty old fishermen.  They were young, educated, powerful, smart, handsome, and brave men.  They were also despicable, cutthroat, scandalous and depraved men. In short, they were in some ways just like us, but they were more capable.  They moved mountains of goods and resources by sea on sailing ships. They amassed great wealth.  Walk around historic Salem, you’ll see where they lived, and guess what, all the sights are free. The traders already paid for it.

Before you exhaust yourself, check in at the Peabody Essex Museum.  This will cost you a little bit of money, but it is well worth it.  It is certainly one of the state’s finest museums.  It is well-staffed. The curators and other personnel are professional and courteous; there is no barrage of info or herding. We saw one art exhibit and an artifact display, but I most enjoyed the Yin Yu Tang House, the premier exhibit in the museum’s permanent collection.  First I want to point out that this house, an actual home built and lived-in in China up until 1980, is very aptly suited to the museum because of Salem’s interest in and preservation of its own old homes.

The Yin Yu Tang house was built around 1800 and was the continuous home of eight generations of the Huang family before being sold and transported in its entirety to Salem. The Huangs were shopkeepers and tradesmen, not the wealthy aristocrats of Salem, but still a respectable and financially secure family.  What is most remarkable about the Huang family home are its dissimilarities to our own homes.  It has doors and rooms and roofs and windows and stairways, but that’s about where the similarities end.  This is like no place I have ever been.  It is a literal and metaphoric door into another world.  I could not have dreamed it up.  I am not interested in spoiling it for you.  Go.  See it.  Take your time.  I’m going back.

We were only there for 26 hours, but somewhere in that timeline we drove to Winter Island, a small harbor island connected by a bridge on a very short manmade neck.  In addition to a handful of homes, the island sports a roomy Victorian mansion home for wayward boys (I wonder what the recidivism rate is) and an oddly named Wakiki beach.  

Next land mass over, at the Salem Willows the remnant of an old style amusement park seems to be growing a little wilder, a little less interesting for its honky-tonk entertainment value and more interesting for its truer recreational potential, which I think is as a seaside pedestrian park. When we were there, all the shops were shuttered for the winter. The park was snow covered, even the trees looked cold so we decided to stay in the car, but then I spotted a fox.  After it went down the boat ramp to the beach, I followed it on foot from a considerable distance.   Fortunately I had my camera with me.  What’s cool is how easy it is to keep an eye on a fox on a beach where there are only rocks to hide behind.  And if I stood still when he looked toward me, he couldn’t see me.  Back home in Hyde Park, a coyote (we have a surprisingly large population) will slip out of view in seconds, if he feels like it. The fox had a mangy looking tail, which is a bit of a disappointment considering how luxurious a good fox tail can be, but just the idea that I was sharing the beach with a fox made me feel good, not so inescapably trapped in the urban. Looks like another place I’ll be seeing again.

Finally, and fittingly we stumbled on one of those incredible restaurants that plug away day after day serving a hundred or two people with very little fanfare but with a tremendous amount of grace and true class.  It was an accident.  One of us said she was hungry.  We turned to read the menu on the storefront wall and the man walking in front of us stopped, held the door and practically ushered us in.  His manner implied that there was no place else we could possibly be going.  He was right.  Red’s Sandwich Shop is just about the best restaurant I have ever found by accident.  I never saw an ad, never read a word, never heard a review, a comment, a whisper or a clue.  No sir.  This was pure luck. It just so happens, I love sea bass, my wife does too.  Seared sea bass, 6oz at least, cold beet and fennel salad on a bed of raddichio, a cup of unseasoned, perfectly cooked brown rice...$6.95  We’ll take two.  No joke, Feb 18, 2010.  $6.95  I wanted to order four and take two to go, but I decided not to indulge my greed.  Even more amazing was that there were about eight other specials on a par with that one.

Their menu says that they won an award for the best breakfast in Salem for 23 consecutive years running and in fact there was a fellow diagonally across the aisle, an obvious regular, who ordered bacon and waffles, but I didn’t even care...the lunch could have been half as good for $6.95 and I’d go back.

Then we went home. Less than an hour away by car, around a gallon of gas, about 20 miles.  I can do it on my bike in less than 90 minutes.  Goodbye Salem.  Hello Salem, now I know you’re there.

One more thing Salem, for ignoring you for all these years, I want to say I’m sorry and thank you for taking me back, no questions asked. Would you mind ditching that Halloween costume?

Hats Talk

When I was still a young man, I realized that I would go bald.  My father was bald, my mother, sparse.  My father’s father, a cue ball.  My oldest brother, ten years my senior, was hairless by the time he was thirty.

I liked my hair but I was going to lose it.  Not that I had much choice, but I decided to embrace it.  That was made easier when I realized that the most important women in my life all loved bald men.  

My hairline began to recede in my early twenties, right on schedule. By the time I was twenty six my hair was half gone.  I bought a pair of electric clippers and learned to cut what was left as deftly as a barber.  No more appointments for me.  I washed it with bar soap.  Later, on the advice of a dermatologist, I switched to a mild dish detergent.  I don’t think it made a difference to my scalp, but it was cheap enough; a single two dollar bottle lasts almost two years.  When it’s shorn close, the wind caused by stepping out of the shower blows it dry.  

Baldness is a cinch.  To me, a man without hair looks just right, while a man with hair looks odd, almost artificial.  I’m not passing judgment, just saying, a head of hair on a man over fifty makes me laugh.  Sorry guys, your hair is lovely, but I feel for you: cut, color, comb, what a pain in the neck.  I’m not surprised that more people don’t shave their heads, but not having hair was a pleasant surprise, and is a genuine pleasure.

Still, despite acceptance, baldness comes with a few minor insecurities.  Do I look older than I feel?  Does my wife like my baldness as much as I do?  How about women who’ve never met me?  Is the skin on my scalp healthy and attractive? Do I have a pleasant shaped head?  What about corners or points?  How about bumps?  But easily the worst thing, in fact, the only drawback exclusive to being bald and what occasionally makes me wish I had hair is cold weather.  

I knew this problem was coming because I had all those role models.   So being a former boy scout who likes to be prepared (yes, I wore one of those vintage boy scout hats that are pointed at each end and come to a peak), I started wearing hats long before I lost my hair.  It gets cold in New England.  I bought no-names and brand names: Stetsons, Kangols, Capas, and every style I could lay my hands on.   I wore dress hats, cowboy hats, fedoras, caps, crushers, outback hats, skullcaps, headscarves, do-rags and stocking caps.  They were cotton, felt, wool, leather, linen, canvas and hemp.  Anything.  Everything.   Hats from Russia, India, Nepal, Pakistan, Europe, Africa, North America, South America, anywhere, everywhere.  Almost.  

Of course, if you know me, you know where this is going.  No hat was right.  None of them felt like hair.  I was always aware of having a particular one on and they each made a statement that I didn’t want to make.   Embarrassing or serious or funny.   Take baseball caps for example.  If you wear one everyday, after a while it becomes part of your persona.  I couldn’t be so casual, so acceptable, so ordinary.   I wanted people to look at me and form an opinion, even a bad one.  I couldn’t be just another guy in a baseball cap.  Every other hat seemed to have its own personality too, and after trying each one out, I decided I didn’t like it.  This went on for years, so I gave up a lot of hats.  Some I wore for a while, some just for a day, or a week.  Some I wore until they fell apart, but not too many.  Of course I still have some because they are special or perfect for a particular job or event.  On the coldest days I still wear a nice thick stretchy wool hat that pulls way down over my ears.  In the brightest summer sunlight I like a broad brim that keeps the rays off my head and neck.  I can picture myself in Mexico, sleeping against a whitewashed wall, white cotton everything, droopy straw hat and three-day’s growth of beard and mustache.  What a hat that would be!  Under my bicycle helmet I wear a red headscarf, scorpion adorned, and to a funeral I will often wear either a black or a gray fedora with a black hat band.  Hats talk.

Probably because I like being bald, I didn’t realize how much I wanted a main hat, a hair substitute.  One brilliant, sunny day on Cape Cod, my wife and I were walking around the Wellfleet flea market with our kids.  I was about thirty.  My hat obsession was well into its seventh year.  As usual, we were looking over the hat table and to my shock and dismay she picked up a beret and handed it to me.  I shook my head and put it down, not a beret, I had ruled them out a while ago, I had a navy blue one at home in my closet.  I circled around the table a couple of times and then went back to it.  I picked it up again, showed it to her as if she hadn’t already given me her opinion, hoping she would say no, I even gave her my sad eyes, but she nodded.  Yes, she said.  Try it on.  

You have to understand, not only was this a beret, something I considered too French and effeminate, but this particular beret was red, --no, gorgeously, unashamedly, magnificently, in-your-face red.  How could I wear that?  I looked around, hung my head a little, saw that no one was paying any attention and slipped it on.  I adjusted it with a little twist of the wrist, tipped it jauntily down toward my right ear and then was distracted by my kids.  As you might know, kids in a flea market require a lot of attention, especially toddlers, so I did my job and that’s when the miracle happened.   

I forgot that I was wearing the hat.  Literally forgot.   No one had noticed me put it on and when I walked away from the table, chasing after my kids, no one hollered.  No one asked me for money, my kids didn’t say anything, my wife was otherwise occupied and I was wearing a completely comfortable, apparently invisible, bright red stolen beret.  Eventually I remembered that it was on my head, realized how natural it felt there and found the vendor and paid him his asking price.  Usually I dicker at the flea market, but the hat was two dollars.  Yup, I found my hair replacement and it cost me two dollars.  I’ve been wearing it ever since.   Little babies love it.  It catches their eye; I’m the only man they know with truly red hair.  As for adults, other men probably hate it, but they admire the chutzpah that it takes to wear it and much to my delight, women know a man when they see one in any color hat, but especially in a red one.

Finally, the first one wore out, and I’ve had to spend a little more since then, but I bought one for five dollars from a street vendor in New York about eight years ago.  Sometime in between I bought one from a retail-clothing store.  It was in the women’s section.  There might have been one other, but I think that’s it.  Twenty five years, maybe twenty bucks, four actual hats and I still have two of them, which is what prompted me to write about this in the first place.  I have two of them and they are different.

One is a little smaller than the other and a little lighter, they’re both definitely red, but you know how color is, the slightest variation stands one out against the other.  I prefer the smaller one.  I like its slightly faded color, its barely wider band, its thicker little nub at the top, they’re like your hair’s characteristics, untamed cowlick, left flip on the right side, widow’s peak, gray roots, but no one else even knows that I have two, that there’s a difference, and that it matters to me which one I’m wearing.  I don’t think my wife knows the difference, or if she does, it makes no difference to her.  But these hats are my hair, I know how each looks and feels, and I prefer to wear my hat just so.  I tease people with hair about vanity, but obviously I’m vain too, it’s just that I can take my vanity off or put it on at will and no one suspects a thing.

Today I washed them both and laid them out flat.   See, look at these.  Different hats.  I probably won’t wash them again for a year.  Right now I have to wait for them to dry.  In the meantime, I’ll be bald.

Brown Study

I thought about voting for Scott Brown.  I wouldn't say that I came close to voting for him, but I considered the idea without horror, so I think I understand why so many people did.  Oddly enough, it is one of the same reasons I voted for Obama; I am not happy with the status quo.

In the Massachusetts senate race the choices, profoundly divergent, were also profoundly limited.  After Alan Khazei, a truly independent voice was eliminated in the primary, we were left with either Coakley, a cipher of the Democrats, or Brown, a Sarah Palin Republican with wit and brains.  Martha, the status quo, or Scott, the attractive symbol of change.  In Massachusetts we like to think of ourselves as being leaders in the fray, keepers of the keys to liberty, wise in the ways of politics, a place for the nation to look when it has lost its way.  We have relished being the birthplace of the Adamses, the abolitionists, the Kennedys, a lone voice against Nixon, a strong arm in the election of Barack Obama.  So why did we elect a right wing conservative?  Change.

After eight wearying years of George Bush during which even staunch Republicans became disillusioned, we needed change.  We were tired of being a rogue nation on the world stage that would sooner die than reach accord on inconvenient ideas like climate change in which we could be singled out as one of the chief offenders.  We were tired of Bush's secrecy, his unlimited spending in a cause we never fully understood or supported, his continued assault on privacy and his imperious disregard of international conventions and the laws of our own land.  We were tired of his handling of the economy, our houses becoming worth less and we were angry that our banks and bankers were acting like rich, spoiled brats with no parental discipline.  We needed change.

Obama promised change and we embraced him with both arms.   Daddy, welcome home.  Father Abraham, where have you been?  Conservatives and liberals slapped each other's backs and gloried in our stand against racism, our historic venture into the vast potential of a post-racial landscape.  Look, world, we are Americans, there is no place like this anywhere else on the planet.  It was a prideful moment, but as pride often has a way of doing, it blinded us to our own motives.  We were looking for Abraham Lincoln when we would have been better off with Franklin Roosevelt.  Although it is still possible, change is a tricky master and Obama has not yet figured out how to lead it.  

That is no more evident than in Massachusetts where there is already a universal state health insurance plan signed into law by a Republican, where banks have not failed, where unemployment is under 10% and declining, where, until last night, not a single Republican graced its congressional delegation.   Despite all of the apparent good news here, people still want change.  I want change, I can feel it deep and inarticulate burning within me.  The Obama revolution, which promised to speak it, is still burning inside me without a voice.   So I asked myself, what change do I want?  Is Scott Brown going to bring the change I want?  My answer was no, so I voted for Coakley because her party's positions are more closely aligned with my own.  But far many more people, independents like me, said yes.

Yes, they said, we want change.  We don't like the way that our politicians behave.  In Massachusetts we have seen the results when a single party controls it all.  We have watched politics as usual become corruption as usual.  We know what the party can do when the party is the only party.  In Massachusetts, you are either a party member or you are on the outside.  Outside your own government.  There is no dialogue, no loyal opposition, no consideration or deliberation.  It's a lot like George Bush's government all over again; you're either with us or against us.  Martha Coakley embodied that and she took it for granted that that was enough to win the election.  In fact as she began to lose control, a control she never really had, and all of the national Democrats came pouring into the state to rescue her from herself, the Republicans came here for the opposite reason.  They came to ride the wave behind a man who stood up on his surfboard, bronze and tan in the Massachusetts winter and said that he was the new voice of change.

Sadly, people believed him.  Gridlock will go on.  Incivility will continue to fester.  Money will continue to rule.  Perhaps now even more than ever.  Scott Brown is the color of the day, another change in shoes who will no doubt become a part of the business as usual machine.  Scott Brown is not a voice for change because neither the Republicans nor the Democrats can be the voice of change.  They are just different sides of the same old coin.

Tiger Mauls Owner

First, I’d like to make one thing clear: I’m a hypocrite.  No question.  I’m not proud of it and when my kids or my wife point it out, I’m not always easily convinced, but that doesn’t change anything.  I’m still a hypocrite and after a few seconds, maybe a few minutes, sometimes a day or two, I’ll finally come around and recognize how right they are.  Sometimes I repeat the same mistake over and over again.   The lessons aren’t easy to learn, but that’s one of the lessons, right?  Learn from my mistakes.  Grow, mature, improve.  Hopefully.

Does that protect me from further criticism.  No.  So if you don’t like the rest of this commentary, have at it, lay into me.  I deserve it.

Here’s what you deserve.  You’re a fool.  You are disappointed by Tiger Woods, you expected more from Roger Clemens, you can’t believe that David Ortiz took performance enhancement drugs.  You think that Manny Ramirez is a decent man just because he is the greatest natural hitter to play the game since Ted Williams, another splendid spoiled brat who thought that he was a better specimen than the rest of us.  You’re buying it.  You think that there are some people who are so much better than the rest of us at what they do that when they prove susceptible to the illnesses wrought by money and fame, you’re surprised.  Worst of all, it matters to you.  After all, you say, they’re the role models for your kids. 

You’re a fool.  You pay big money to watch the world’s best athletes.  You subscribe to the sports networks, you get a warm feeling when your athlete wins.  You buy products that they endorse.  You think that their name imbues your sneakers with skill, perseverance and grace.  You wear their swoosh where everyone can see, you glory in their image, you admire their likeness.  They mean something to you.  You’re the role model and you are a fool.

Your son or daughter aspires to their fame; that would be one way to get your attention.  You don’t have a library worth a damn but you have season tickets to the Sox.  You skip the PTA meeting because the game is on.  You don’t ask them how they are feeling, what they are doing in school, who they are spending time with, but you soak up everything written about the latest Belichik scheme, the weaknesses in the secondary, the machinations of the people who talk about the people who manipulate the people who play professional sports.  You are a fool. 

Here’s my recommendation to you.  Shut it all off, until you heal and can see athletes for what they really are.  Stop making high school, college and professional sports a transcendent priority.  Don’t buy tickets, heck, don’t take free tickets.  Don’t buy their foolish jerseys, don’t wear their caps, don’t buy the newspaper to read the sports page, don’t listen to sports talk on the radio, unplug ESPN, take up your own sport, play with your own kids, get the skinny on physical education in the sixth grade.  Don’t be such a fool just because Tiger can hit a stupid little ball further and more accurately than anyone ever before.  Can he teach you anything truly worthwhile?  Tiger Woods, the idol, doesn't really matter.