Hog Island report #2

I had hoped to report to you from Hog Island a couple times, but work on the book was so engaging that I let the flow take me over and, well, I figured the blog entries could wait.  But I’m home now and figured an update was in order. 

I have to admit, I’ve never had four weeks quite like this last month.  When I’m just going about the business of living my life, all kinds of stuff pops up in the course of a day.  Grass cutting.  Junk email that looks kind of intriguing.  Grocery shopping.  Riding bikes with the grandson. 

But on Hog Island, all of that melted away and the book was before me all the time.  I guess I wasn’t sure just how that would work, but I have been in the process of working on the darned thing for so long, given the chance to focus on just Nature’s people worked for me.  When I was in Cumberland over the winter, I didn’t know if the book would come to me or not.  Over the first couple of days there, I just felt stressed about it.  Not so on Hog Island this time around.  

One thing I have learned about my book writing process, as I’m sure I already mentioned in the last blog, is that my ADD brain truly benefits by shutting out the outside world while I’m trying to assemble the book ‘puzzle.’  Full sequester kept me calm and after my library and notes were set up, I just ‘dropped in’ and progress happened any number of ways.  And for that I am very grateful.  Next sequester is the month of October back at Cumberland where I hope to do some damage to two more chapters.  Next January/February is currently lined up for the fourth sequester, which I hope gets the book into good final draft format.  

Aside from writing success, though, I wanted to write today about working in the very place that Mabel Loomis Todd built.  It was not intimidating, and no, I never felt the presence of ghosts, though Mrs. Todd had to have died in the very room where I worked.  Story is she collapses on the porch and died a couple hours later.  Surely Frank Lailer and Howard Hilder, her caregivers who were on the island at the time, brought her into her loved ‘living room’ where she was made as comfortable as possible over her last hours.  I find it touching, too, that Hilder inscribed her last diary entry as a way for closure in that precious daily document.

Though I didn’t feel her presence particularly, I did speak to her often.  I thanked her and the building she built for my ability to be present to do the work I was doing there.  I refrained from playing music to ‘fill the house’ until late in the day both for my own concentration and entertainment factors.  And when I did play some music, it was ‘New World Symphony’ and some Mozart.  And, yes, I did play a bunch of my patented annual collections.  I remember once explaining to her who Roy Orbison was.  I hope she would have enjoyed that music, as well.  I visualized her dancing to some of the livelier pieces.  

But I’m home now and hope to get some work done on the book before October.  Still, it’s hard to tell.  I must admit I am not quite overwhelmed with life since my return, but yesterday was pretty full catching up with stuff in front of a wifi-powered computer, putting stuff away, sorting out dirty clothes, and cutting grass in a big yard that was weeks overdue.  Life at home jumped right back into full impact.  In a way, such disappoints me, but on the other hand, it is what my life is:  house, family, gardens, etc.  It’s tough to dismiss life if that’s the way you live it, you know? 

Such an amazing month on Hog Island, that much I can tell you.  I mentioned somewhere that it felt like walking into a time machine every morning going to work in Mrs. Todd’s summer space.  Air flowed, birds called, red squirrels rattled, rain fell.  And I worked through it all, doing my best to put myself in that place when she would have been present.  I told her I hoped my story telling would do honor to the work she did in her life.  Such is my goal.  I hope she agrees when all is said and done. 

Today’s elder idea:   

We always knew that the island is like Paradise in many of its delightful characteristics, but this morning when I came to the little lobster house, I found the beach literally paved with shining crystal.  It was like a pavement of cobble stones, only instead of the unknowing stone “whose coat of elemental brown, A passing universe put on,” the individual stones were of the purest, most transparent clear glass.  As the rising sun shown more and more clearly on this fairy floor, iridescent colours shot here and there making the whole beautiful substance more exquisite than imagination could have pictured.

Mabel Loomis Todd

on jellyfish from her unpublished Epic of Hog

image:  Mavooshen’s front porch at sunny sunset. 

Hog Island report #1

Well, for starters, let me say progress on the book has been good over the last couple of weeks here on Hog Island.  I hoped to get two chapters and the preface in better shape, and have had good success.  The chapter on Maine as ‘vacationland,’ placing Hog Island therein, reached a conclusion two days ago.  That one will need more work, of course, but at least it’s in good draft format.  The other chapter about life in this historic family camp is budding with rereading old published and unpublished documents from the archive at Yale. Today I’ll be looking at the master outline and rejiggering how all the puzzle pieces might fit together for chapter 5.  So all is good with the book.  

Before I got here, I had asked Camp management to be sure I would have recharge capability at this remote, primitive camp.  Sounds like an impossibility, but Audubon’s Puffin Project, who runs programming on this island, has used solar power for years on the bird islands in the Gulf of Maine to repower computers for record keeping.

Two days ago was nicely rainy up this way with some fog early and late.  I worked right through the day on my Mac with its lousy internal battery life.   Whenever I get low, I hook it up to the solar cell newly installed on the building and the magic just keeps on coming. 

I was a bit concerned yesterday because under full sun, it would appear the cell was not recharging the marine battery that holds the magic.  Hmmm.  Usually when I leave the cottage at night to ascend to my sleeping quarters, the red light on the device blinks a couple of times telling me stored power is down, as expected.  By the time I get back to my work in the morning, the light has turned green and all is well.  Yesterday morning, not so.  By today, though, all appears to be well.  Looks like the solar array needed a whole day to restore juice to the marine battery.  I do like crafting my poetry by hand, but putting the next chapter on paper (instead of my Mac if the power never came back) was a disturbing alternative.  

I sit here this morning at a large open window, looking west into spruce and balsam fir with the water and mainland beyond, writing at the very desk attributed to Millicent Todd Bingham.  I don’t know if her mother, Mabel Todd used it.  There is one picture of Mrs. Todd working out the porch, though I can’t tell what the typewriter is sitting on.  But Mrs. Bingham used this desk, so says a very weathered note tacked to its right front corner.  Writing my book about Mabel Todd and Millicent Bingham at the same desk Millicent used to, perhaps, work on her Emily Dickinson publications is something to appreciate.  

I learned so many things recently, rereading stuff I’ve collected over thirty years.  Yes, I’ve read much of this before, but now with what I know I am more aware.  Pieces are fitting together in ways they did not before.  Feels good to see the narrative unfold right in front of me.  

The writing process is working well for me here in this beautiful and historical place.  I am grateful and sense the grace around me.  As the power on my Mac fades, I will sign off for now and post this later at the Audubon Camp where I can plug in and get a wi-fi connection.  

Good work continues.  Thanks for stopping by to catch up.  

Today’s elder idea:   Millicent Bingham published four books on Emily Dickinson and other texts related to her PhD in geography.  But she had this to say about Audubon’s program on Hog Island:  

‘The work of this camp gives me more satisfaction 

than anything that has ever happened to me before.’ 

Millicent Todd Bingham / 1938 

images: top: Camp Mavooshen’s main building this summer.

later:  Restored and refurnished interior.  Darned comfortable, if I don’t say so myself.  [pics by yours truly]

Return to Hog Island

Summer and grandparenting have kept me from writing much here of late, let alone making much progress on my book.  I recognize all of these as important parts of life to pay attention to, however.  Still, I surely thought I could find a better balance, but such has not been the case. 

I have concluded that one of the most important lessons I’ve learned this year about working on a project as big as Nature’s people, is that my brain does better when my body is sequestered.  I hate to admit it, but little (if any) text has been put on paper since my return home from Lake Cumberland at the end of February.  Trust me, I’m thinking about Mrs. Todd and her island crew every day, but putting my butt and brain in a seat in front of the laptop to put 500 words a day together just doesn’t happen. 

From a more positive perspective, though, I recognize that over the last few years I have understood something about ‘getting away’ to push daily business aside for the practice of gathering thoughts and writing.  I’ve done a handful of short get-aways in my little Coleman trailer to John Bryan or Old Man’s Cave State Parks, and written a few things in the process.  A couple winters ago, if you recall, I put in a week at a cabin at Lake Hope.  All of that seems to have lead me to recognizing that if I can get away, some writing might happen.  Don’t get me wrong:  Thinking and writing still happens at my house, but it feels a bit different of late.  The book has ascended to the top priority, so when nothing on the book is getting done, not much else seems to get written either. 

All of this navel gazing here today is meant as an attempt at personal catharsis.  Fact is, I write this entry on the road from home back to the place where it all began.  It was many moons ago in 1981 when I first set foot on Hog Island in Muscongus Bay, Maine after a short first visit to Emily Dickinson’s hometown of Amherst, Massachusetts. It was after only a couple hours on the island that I realized both places were tangentially connected — and my life was changed.  Indeed, such is the origins of the book I now am trying to write.  

So with that in mind, it’s back to Hog Island in just a couple days.  I’ve been back plenty of time since, but this return is extra special.  Seabird expert and Hog Island Audubon Camp director Steve Kress has agreed to let me serve as writer-in-residence for the next month, and what makes it extra special this visit is that I will be able to reside at the very place where Mabel Loomis Todd made her summer retreat/family camp.  Nobody has summered there for decades.  But now I get the chance to be there and work on a book about that very place.  Yow.  

My term as WiRes will last from 18 July through 19 August.  During that time I imagine I’ll chat with Audubon campers about Mrs. Todd, her camp, and her connections to Emily Dickinson, but my primary focus is drafting a couple chapters of Nature’s people.  

Gives me goosebumps just thinking about it.  

But today I have ‘miles to go before I sleep’ as I traverse New England on my way back to Hog Island.  I’ll be making some blog entries over the next month to keep you posted on book and life progress.  Feel free to pass along any messages as I do.  [tom@earthspeaks.org]

Wish me luck.  

Today’s elder idea:   This island is so beautiful it really makes my heart ache!  Why, it seems to me God's own heaven can hardly be more perfect. 

                        journal of Mabel Loomis Todd

                        August 9, 1924

image:  The ‘writer’s cottage’ at Mrs. Todd’s Camp Mavooshen was built as residence for her daughter, Millicent Todd Bingham.  Such will be my ‘digs’ over the next month.  How cool is that?  ;-)

Tending Wild Grace

Sorry for my absence here of late, but one of my excuses is that I’ve been both busy and enthralled with tending Wild Grace.  There is so much that can be said about that simple statement.  Let me attempt to peal away a couple of layers, and in the process sing the praises of this planet we call home. 

First, I like Ohio in winter.  I’m sure that isn’t a big surprise to many gentle readers of The Back Porch blog.  Part of my affection for this place in the cold can be traced to Wendell Berry, the Kentucky farmer/poet who celebrates the human/personal connections to all the places we call home regardless of the season.  

One of Berry’s biggest criticisms of contemporary society is that we have lost touch with the rich, rooted connections to the earth that, over time, shapes who we are and what we will become.  He is a proponent of taking gobs of time to learn that place where you live.  Canoe the rivers.  Walk the woods.  Take time to identify a flower.  Listen to bird song. 

One of my favorite Wendell Berry poems is ‘The Sycamore.’  The opening lines speak his truth more eloquently than I can: 

In the place that is my own place, whose earth 

I am shaped in and must bear, there is an old tree growing,

a great sycamore that is a wondrous healer of itself.

The poem goes on to speak of how this beautiful old specimen has absorbed the tests of time, from fences being nailed to it to a lightning strike that will eventually cause its death.  But not now.  Not yet.  For now the lovely sycamore stands in the only place it will ever know, drawing energy from the soil and serving as a model citizen of the planet.  

Wendell Berry encourages us all to know our Natural place — our home — like the sycamore has.  And for me at this time in my life, my place is Wild Grace. 

As I write this, last winter is a melted memory.  While it’s been plenty warm for a while, summer will make its official arrival in a couple days with the sun reaching its northern most pinnacle in the sky at midday.  

All of this and so much more come together in my study and awareness of Wild Grace.  A few weeks ago I transplanted a few iris bulbs into a flower bed along the back patio, knowing that these purple beauties like lots of sun.  Yesterday I noticed that at noon the transplants were in full shadow, shaded by a tall shrub.  Can’t be good, thought I.  But then I reasoned that the sun is about to start heading back south, and within a couple weeks those bulbs will be free of the shade and should get a good dose of summer sun.  I trust they’ll be okay, but I’ll keep an eye on ‘em. 

All of the above serves as testimony to the understanding that I love being the tender of Wild Grace.  I’m not nuts about the sweating and the volume of work that never seems to get fully completed, but being present to the work of the dirt and rain fills me in ways that I’ve never known quite like this before.  

I started this blog writing about winter primarily because it is that season that keeps me inside, looking at the world and Wild Grace from behind picture windows. But with the first warm puffs of late winter zephyrs, the quiet earth awakens and a new season of biological miracles begins.  On the fresh, new canvas of ‘spring’ comes crocus and hyacinth first, then daffodils and iris, dandelion and maple tree sprouts.  

By mid-May I stand flabbergasted on the back porch witnessing the growth spurts of hostas, bleeding hearts, and ferns.  Where just a couple weeks ago there was seemingly bare ground, now these pretty perennials stand lush and green in their place, just like Berry’s sycamore.  I could swear that if you sat long enough you could actually watch the bleeding hearts grow, they come so fast.  It is a miracle worth observing. 

Lots of stuff gets cut at Wild Grace.  I must have removed dozens of little maples in the back yard this year so far, leaving the individuals I figure are situated to do best.  My goal is to groom Wild Grace to be as Natural as it can be.  Honeysuckle and garlic mustard are two invasives that will take over if not removed.  They don’t last long here anymore.  Native maples do very well. 

I do, indeed, love to tend Wild Grace.  I’m out there every day doing something, whether plucking a green interloper from the brick walk, which is lovely in moss, or cleaning the water intake of the pond pump.  Many days I brush out of the bird bath from the residue of robins.  (They are truly the ‘dirty birds’ of the neighborhood.)

Most of the time, however, I just sit on the front porch or under the my back porch canopy with a bottle of water and binocs and bird book, intent on just being present with the Natural residents of this lovely plot we call Wild Grace.  It is my home.  It is my place.  It has so much to see.  And I have so much to learn.

Today’s elder idea:   The closing lines of ‘The Sycamore’ are powerful indeed.  

I recognize in it a principle, an indwelling 

the same as itself, and greater, that I would be ruled by. 

I see that it stands in its place, and feeds upon it, 

and is fed upon, and is native, and maker. 

from ‘The Sycamore’ by Wendell Berry.  

Collected Poems, 1957-1982.  North Point Press, 1984.

images:  From Wild Grace, spring 2014.

Enduring marriages

 Back in the early 1970s, those of us baby boomers who were coming of age began making life-long commitments to partners in wedding ceremonies.  Over time, some of us found our marriages broken and tried again.  Others divorced and stayed single, while some have lost their partners to death.  Some of us still survive and thrive in that first marriage made with promises in front of friends so many years ago. 

Back in the day when it seemed we had a wedding gift to buy every month and a ceremony and reception to attend, some of us offered various ‘gifts’ to the newlyweds that couldn’t be purchased at Rike’s or Elder-Beerman or Sears.    Old friends will remember a band I used to sing in, Collage, joined by John Lauer, Steve & Marty Doody, and Jeff White.  (We had a few different drummers over the years, including good buddy, Bruce Gunnell, and my brother, Ted, among a few others.)  

Fact is, Collage got organized as a musical gift to a friend who wanted some ‘different’ music at his wedding.  It’s impossible to calculate at this late date how many times our group sang ‘Wedding song,’ ‘First time ever I saw your face,’ and ‘For all we know’ at various and sundry weddings.   

Besides the music, another non-purchasable gift I gave to a few friends was a delightful verse from New Wedding, a 1974 book of fresh ideas from Khorem Arisian.  I remember being so taken by one prose poem included that I typed up my own copy and filed it for posterity.  My copy resurfaced a month or so ago as I went through old files, paring many into the recycle bin.  

But not the New Wedding excerpt. I still find this verse about house and home hopeful and full of beauty.  This time around I ‘re-typed’ it into my computer for further safe keeping. 

At this place in time when old friends are approaching 40+ years of marriage, I offer this fragment from New Wedding one more time to those in love.  I wonder how we feel about the verse now that we’ve had our chance to live out many of our wishes and hopes? 

from New Wedding 

We wish for you a home, not just a place of stone and wood, but an island of sanity and serenity in a frenzied world.

We hope that this home is not just a place of private joy and retreat, but rather serves as a temple wherein the values of your lives are generated and upheld.

We hope that your home stands as a symbol of humans living together in love and peace, seeking truth and demanding social justice. 

We hope that your home encompasses the beauty of Nature — 

that it has within it the elements of simplicity, exuberance, beauty, silence, color, and a concordance with the rhythms of life. 

We wish for you a home with books, and poetry, and music —

a home with all the things which represent the highest striving of women and men. 

Finally, we wish that at the end of your lives together you will be able to say these two things to each other: 

Because you have loved me you have given me faith in myself. 

Because I have seen the good in you, I have received from you a faith in humanity. 

***

My wish is the same for you all on this day.   ;-)

***

I wanted to mention here, too, that Cindy Lou and I were able to take my mother a week ago to Louisville to meet with one of her dearest and oldest friend.  

Both Mom and her friend were classmates at St. Anthony’s school here in Dayton until the fifth grade when, in the middle of the Great Depression, Betty’s father took a job in Cincinnati.  Many moves and many children later, both girls have worked hard over decades at staying in touch.  

And here they are at age 93 still caring for each other.  It is hard to imagine any friendship lasting so long.  They’re still cute, too!  

I like to call this image ’80 years on…’

Gertrude Zimmer Schaefer and Betty Perry Beckman  (1934/2014)

Today’s elder idea:  On this Earth Day, I offer a thought from one of America’s foremost Naturalists: 

Heaven is under our feet, as well as over our heads. 

Henry David Thoreau

.93 of a century

A couple weeks ago I achieved my 64th birthday, an event celebrated by playing the Beatles ‘When I’m sixty-four’ countless times.  I have been assured by Cindy Lou, by the way, that she will, indeed, still ‘need and feed’ me at this juncture in my life.  Thank you, my Dear!   ;-)

I’d like to think, too, that as I advance in age some elements of wisdom are working in me.  Currently I am dealing with recurrent issues with my two daughters that make life more difficult.  Both seem unable to hear Cindy and my calls for more words, more loving interaction, more caring.  My newly enhanced wisdom doesn’t seem to be making much impact on the Generation X front. 

Looking in the other direction, though, I must conclude that as local chief care-giver to my nonagenarian Mother, I perform a similar body of services for her I would like to get a glimmer of from my own children.  Spending time with Mother does get me to consider getting really old.  Sixty-four is one thing, but 93 is something completely different.

The other day I had the poetry-starting idea of comparing my Father’s age at his time of passing to where my Mother now finds herself.  Surely lasting into her ninth decade of Life is worth celebrating, at least on most days.  She currently has a rash on her arms that is setting her nuts and doesn’t know what to do next.  We see her doctor tomorrow for a better idea how to treat it.  And to be honest, the rash is just the tip of her ‘need to tend’ iceberg.

In any case, I took that first-line idea and let it grow into a narrative poem the other day.  I’m sure this could be revised and sharpened, but it works pretty well as is.  

And so, my blog entry today is a Tribute to Gertrude: 

My father died at age 79. 

My mother is still getting along at age 93.

I used to think Dad got the worst end of the Time deal. I figured he had a decade or more subtracted from his era on the planet.  I was disappointed for him and me and all the great-grandkids who would never learn to fish under his knot-tying tutelage.  Lives have been diminished because of this.

My mother, fifteen years now a widow, has learned to move through her Life more slowly

while keeping a close eye on how much milk is in the refrigerator, knowing that when it’s gone, she is out of luck.  She must always be thinking about tomorrow’s breakfast.

She has lost the freedom of movement she shared with Dad and must now await a willing soul deliberately paying attention to her schedule and asking what she needs.  Sometimes it’s a resident where she lives, but most often it is a son or daughter or granddaughter.  

Mom worries about messy morning bowel movements when she least expects them.  They always cause stress for her as well as a required clean-up that she thought she gave up years ago with the last batch of diapers in the pail.  Now it is her own panties soaking in the bathroom sink. 

She fell a week or so ago in her bedroom, thankfully not breaking a hip — that bone juncture, when rent, which seems to be the on/off switch of Life.  She is very aware that when friends go down with a hip a funeral is not too far off in the distance. 

Mother has learned to accept Sparky, her fire-engine red walker, as constant companion on any expedition, whether ferried by car to the dentist, or making the block-long trek on foot over to church in the other building.  She talks of someday going without it, but she must know they are wed ’til the end.  

The woman raised seven children and watched over a large handful more.  She values articulate language and judged children on their ability to express thoughts and ideas verbally.  A fond memory is of her sitting with two year-old grandson Noah on her back deck.  While I dutifully cut & trimmed the grass, the two of them carried on quite the discussion over glasses of lemonade.  

Because of that love of language,

all know to avoid calling her between 7 and 8 in the evening because that’s when Wheel of Fortune and Jeopardy! fill her living room with words and questions that both excite and annoy, but above all occupy her space with intellectual involvement.  

Which must make the many other hours spent in 

her small apartment all the more difficult to bear.  

There is no small child to pick up and cuddle. 

No son to sit with to discuss the news of the hour. 

No daughter to chat with while her hair is being cut.  

Just quiet.  Very quiet.  

A few residents have become friends, 

but most have quirks which makes her uncomfortable.  Like Jean, who questions the sincerity of Mother’s Catholic faith because she can not accept Jean’s retelling of her brief transport into heaven, only to be sent back because they weren’t ready for her yet.  

She used to love to play cards, but she competes for keeps and partners burn out quickly in contact with such serious heat.  She likes to read, but fifty years of eye doctoring has left one orb diminished and the other good only with glasses.  Muscles and brain tire more quickly now, which makes reading less the joy she always knew. 

Everybody says she doesn’t eat enough, though 

her weight stays pretty constant.  Her taste buds aren’t what they used to be, but she often speaks of how tasty a gift dessert was or how much she enjoyed her potato soup and lunch salad at Bob Evans. 

If she had her wish, she would be packed up and moved in with one of her children.  Best if it would be the daughter with two little girls still at home.  Oh, she would love that.  But such is not the case.  We all have lives and Mother has a safe place to be with people watching out for her. 

And so, I wonder if my Dad had the better of it. 

He knew he was sick and rode out his cancer treatments with grace, spending months under Mother’s care, his very last weeks under hospice tending. 

He never had to worry about running out of milk.  

Though his knees were blown-out by kicking in 

carpet for a career, he never had to be 

tethered to a walker.  He drove his Mercury until he couldn’t, which was well into his 79 years.  

Dad’s transition took many years fewer than Mother’s.  She has lost so much more since she lost him — so many personal gifts that made up the nectar of her Life. 

I am not so sure anymore Dad got the bitter part of the deal. 

Sometimes I wonder if Mother is jealous of that, too. 

Today’s elder idea:   Getting old is not for sissies.

A personal thought that comes to me often.

image:  Ted & Gert Schaefer around their 50th wedding anniversary.

Internet stream

Pretty often I wish America could return to the good old days of network neutrality and ‘equal time’ to all viable candidates in an election. 

Now we have Citizens’ United where corporations and the One Percent can spend their millions to discredit opponents just so they can get more influence… 

Oh, sorry.  That happens now and then.  The idea that corporations are people who can direct elections then influence who they get elected gives me such heartburn sometimes it just burbles up, you know? 

What I meant to say was that in this new electronic era where there are so many sources for information it absolutely wears me out reading and watching everything that gets pushed my way online, on television, in ‘fricking movie theaters, for Pete’s sake — along highways, and right there in your pocket or purse on that very convenient mobile device one can communicate on, and, of course, on which retailers can reach you while you are shopping.  

Indeed, I find the dumpage of data we all put up with day in day out a real violation of my time.  I’ve got to tell you, I don’t answer the phone much anymore.  I’m usually in the middle of something, and by golly, that’s what I’d like to keep doing right then.  If somebody needs me, feel free to leave a message.  I’m not very good at waiting to see who called, but more often than not its a robo call and no message is left.    

I respect those friends who tell me they have deliberately limited their screen time for emotional reasons.  The lovely Cindy Lou has said for years, after reading the editorial section in the Dayton Daily News, ‘You know, I really don’t like people very much.’  Actually, she used stronger language, but I wouldn’t want you to give the wrong impression of Cindy Lou. 

Okay, so after this personal tirade, I realize that we ain’t going back to no 1960 when we saw a vice-president sweat on television and lost the election.  The more rocks we turn over in the internet stream, the more varied sources we find.  I am sure that in the old days white separatists and the Klan did well enough distributing newspapers and flyers to promote their worldview.  I remember seeing a KKK regional ‘newspaper’ in grade school, an issue that on page 1 compared the cranial capacity of apes to black folks.  But the truth is, I didn’t see many ‘anti-stuff’ publications when I was growing up because those groups didn’t know how to find me.  At least I think so.  Nowadays extreme points of view get equal billing on the internet via interesting and engaging websites and social media posts.   

I can tell you this:  My grandkids have a much easier time finding absolutely anything on the internet whenever they want.  They do, indeed, impress me.  And that’s what concerns me as a grandparent.

My problem is that with all the stuff out there, how do young people learn how to sift through what they find, and how do they evaluate it?  In 60 seconds I can locate on my computer specific data that answers a question in a variety of ways.  How do I assess what to believe?  And heavens:  How do we teach the kids?  Torre and Alex and Ellie and Noah are going to have to assess what is right, wrong, good, bad, just okay, and absolutely excellent in a very short amount of time.  

And if they just go for the first hit, then what?  What bad could come of that?  Pick one.  No need to look any further.  

I could tell them what I do to answer a question these days.  Personally, I’m comfortable with checking at Wikipedia first for an overview of a subject, then visiting a few of the article’s links to see how content holds up.  Kids will be taught techniques to evaluate sources, I am sure, but having been a teacher for thirty+ years, my experience is that many, many students will take the easiest path provided.  If the first couple hits on a subject are unsavory, I’m afraid that’s what the kid will use as a resource.  That’s what the student will learn.  Flowing water finds the easiest path. 

Truth is, I always figured the universe of acceptable facts would get clearer as civilization grew older and more mature.  And as a country, when we realized that social security, Medicare, fair wages for middle class workers, affordable education, taxes that pay for needed infrastructure, and environmental protections were good for us all, Americans would be stepping all over ourselves getting the right programs in place for the benefit of the people.  

But as we have learned, that not how it goes.  Who needs to help citizens requiring health insurance?  That’s just big government.  Screw it.  If people go broke tending a sick kid, that’s a family’s problem, not the government that represents them. 

Shoot, the Republican controlled house just voted for the 50th time the other day to destroy the Affordable Health Care, better known as Obamacare, even though tens of thousands of Americans are better served under its protection over just the last few months.  

How about working for a health care fix?  Not so much either.  Surely the GOP can’t have a President from the other side of the aisle have political success.  The GOP mantra: cut assistance to those people who need it most because it’s the Christian thing to do — folks should stand up on their own — while doing nothing to cut government welfare given to farmers, the oil industry, and other multi-million dollar organizations.  

The idea that groups can pick and choose ‘facts’ that fit their worldview, while the majority of specialists in the field see it another way, sure sounds like a path to bad outcomes for generations to come.  

Surely my two daughters were imbued with my value system as they grew up.  That’s good.  But the world was simpler then.  

Now, with so many ways of hearing about so much alternative reasoning, how do we get kids to learn a reasonable way to think, using the accumulated wealth of the ages to make the right decisions?  

I wish I had an answer.  I surely don’t.  

Today’s elder ideas: The good thing about science is it’s true whether you believe it or not. 

Neil deGrasse Tyson

We are entitled to our own opinion. We are not entitled to our own facts.

Sen. Patrick Moynihan

image:  My Mac at Cumberland this winter.