Raccoons Are So Cute . . . and Deadly

May 25, 2016May 25, 2016 ~ If You Want My Opinion ~ 2 Comments

What could be more adorable among wild animals than a raccoon? With that signature black mask that looks like a small child dressed for Halloween and that distinctive striped, bushy tail, these waddling mammals are quite often photographed and recorded on video as they make their way through suburban neighborhoods, and even large cities, looking for an easy meal. Considering how adaptive they have become to residential areas and how broad their diet is, most meals are probably fairly easy indeed. They are mostly nocturnal, spending the hours after dusk raiding trash cans or prowling around for frogs and crustaceans. Watching them rub their faces or stand on their hinds legs with their front paws extended forward, observers are lured into thinking that raccoons are practically tame and even friendly. Plenty of people have made pets of young raccoons, and as long as their diet and other environmental conditions are strictly controlled, they are probably harmless for the most part. Nevertheless, the raccoon is not a domesticated species — it is wild. Here lies the problem.

In captivity, raccoons can live up to 20 years; however, in the wild they rarely live more than 3-4 years. That’s quite a significant spread. They have very few natural predators, and humans are not as nearly interested in their pelts as was the case several generations ago (alas, Daniel Boone and Fess Parker have been dead for a while). They are hunted for sport, but not widely. What accounts for the difference? Disease and infection are the greatest threat to longevity for raccoons, and because they share environments with humans, they are a greater risk than most people realize. YouTube is full of videos of raccoons wandering around in backyards, playing in sandboxes, or even swimming in pools. How cute! How dangerous!!

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has an entire section of its website devoted to risks associated with close encounters with raccoons. In addition to rabies, giardia, and leptospirosis, raccoons also spread the Baylisascaris infection from a specific type of roundworm. The roundworm eggs are sometimes found in the feces of raccoons, and if ingested, they can cause a deadly infection. Raccoons need water for digestion, and they also feed on amphibians, so they are naturally drawn to water, even swimming pools. Frogs often gather along the waterline of pools and in the skimmers, which offers a feeding opportunity for raccoons. They are creatures of habit, so once they start visiting a pool and find food, they will likely return. Another habit they have is pooping in water, and they will often do so in the shallow walk-out sections of swimming pools. If the feces is infected, it can introduce roundworm eggs into the water. And the real kicker is this: chlorine doesn’t kill the eggs or the parasite!

It is simply not a good idea to attract raccoons to where people live, especially by intentionally feeding them. Young children have a tendency to place their hands and objects in their mouths, which puts them at significant risk if they are playing in areas where raccoons are roaming around freely. As cute as they are, raccoons are something you want to see on a hike through the forest, not in your backyard.

Evangelicals and the Problem of Free Will

May 20, 2016May 20, 2016 ~ If You Want My Opinion ~ 1 Comment

Having been raised as a Southern Baptist, I was taught from a very early age that the Bible is God’s holy word, that it is infallible, and that it presents humanity with essentially a road map of how to live on earth and how to ensure one’s soul goes to be with God in heaven for all eternity after life on earth is over. The central truth of the Bible is the work of God’s only son, Jesus, on the cross. The only source of salvation and forgiveness of sins is through his death and resurrection. This is still the basic creed of all Christian evangelicals, not just Baptists. As the Christian fundamentalist movement swept through the South in the 1970s, the dogma became more emphatic, especially the concept of the Bible being inerrant. I can remember pastors only half-joking when they stood in their pulpits, held the Bible up over their heads, and said, “I believe every word of this book. Even when it says ‘genuine leather’ on the cover, I believe it!”

Evangelicals believe that God loves his creation and that he also has desires, the strongest of which is for humanity to return his love. Humans express this love by obeying God’s commandments. But, above all, humans demonstrate their devotion to God by believing that Jesus is his only son and that accepting his sacrificial death as atonement for their natural sinful state miraculously repairs the fallen relationship with God (Adam, Eve, rotten fruit, etc.). Again, for evangelicals this part of the plan is crucial. It is only the cleansing power of the blood of Jesus that can bring God and humanity together, which not only empowers humans to obey God’s commandments but also grants their souls an eternity with Jesus, who is actually God in human form just to complicate matters further. The alternative is rejecting God and facing an eternity in hell — complete separation from God with a whole lot of torture, anguish, teeth gnashing, ill-tempered serpents, and the like. God wants humans to love him, and by its very definition, love is something that has to be voluntary. God doesn’t force humans to love him, which wouldn’t be genuine love. Humans have the freedom to either love God or reject him, another key component of the whole arrangement.

Another part of the Baptist training was embracing the perfect nature of God. The Bible is infallible because it is inspired, if not ghost authored, by God himself. God is omnipotent and omniscient — there is nothing God cannot do, although he certainly elects not to do plenty of things. All options are open to him. He knows everything that has ever happened and will happen, past and future. In fact, everything that happens ultimately conforms to God’s will. So even the most mortal sins committed by humanity, although contrary to God’s wishes, eventually fold into the greater plan of God for the universe. God’s will is unavoidable. When I was growing up, it would have been inconceivable that there could be anything that God didn’t already know. The evidence for this concept for evangelicals is found in the Bible in Jeremiah 1:5. “Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, before you were born I set you apart; I appointed you as a prophet to the nations.” Putting aside the fact that this verse refers specifically to the Hebrew prophet Jeremiah, my fellow Baptists cited this verse as proof that God knows individuals, and individual souls, before they are conceived and born. Remember, time is irrelevant for God. Past, present, and future are all in his command.

Now we come to the problem that is free will. As stated earlier, evangelicals adhere to the principle that God loves humanity and wants his love returned. John 3:16 is probably the most important verse in the entire Bible to evangelicals: “For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.” People are given the option to believe that Jesus is God’s son and that his sacrifice is the source of their salvation and relationship with God. However, it is painfully obvious that millions, if not billions, of people do not accept Jesus as their savior and therefore miss the salvation boat altogether. Which brings us to the troubling question about the true personality of God. If indeed God knows everything, and if he is not constrained by time, and if he knows all that is going to happen, then it reasonably follows that he knows which individuals will return his love and which ones will reject him, before they are even born. Given this premise, it follows that the God who can do anything actually chooses to allow people to be born even though he knows they will ultimately reject him and thus be cursed to an eternity in hell. Is this lais·sez-faire approach the only means by which God can secure the love of humanity? Do billions of people have to be cast into hell to gather a minority of people who will love God, accept his gift of salvation, and share eternity with him?

Evangelicals who adopt this paradigm are faced with a God who is at once all-loving while also being extremely negligent of the majority of those he apparently loves. In the case of humanity’s free will, God is obviously electing not to impose his omnipotence and letting humanity chart its eternal course. Is this a situation where God is simply choosing not to know something? Keeping secrets from himself? If we think about this for more than a minute or two, we must come to terms with a God who is “writing off” a significant portion of the population as damned, when he could have easily spared them an eternity of torment by not allowing them to be born in the first place. As a father, I would do anything within my power to prevent my son from committing suicide, especially if I could ensure that he had a bright future. What kind of father would I be if I didn’t attempt to intervene? Given the same circumstances, most fathers would do the same. If parents could know, without a shadow of a doubt, that they were going to conceive a child who would suffer horrific pain for an entire lifetime, would they elect to have such a child just for the sake of starting a family? Are we more compassionate than God? Free will doesn’t seem like such a valuable gift when we consider the stakes. If this is God’s plan for getting the love he wants, what does this really tell us about God? Something’s missing here. It’s a problem.

Building Ponds and Waterfalls

May 17, 2016May 18, 2016 ~ If You Want My Opinion ~ 3 Comments

Since starting this blog over a year ago, I have written several posts about waterfalls my family has visited in recent years. I am attracted to water. Some of my best memories from childhood through the present involve vacations at the beach, tubing down rivers, kayaking on ponds and lakes, and swimming in pools. There are very few sounds that are more calming to me than waves crashing against the shore. I love the music that water makes as it moves in nature — creeks, rivers, cascades, and falls. I like how water divides land, how it reflects the sky and sparkles like diamonds with bright sunlight. It is cliche to say that water is the source of life, and yet it is an indisputable fact that life on this planet would be impossible without water.

My appreciation for the gifts of water led me to begin contemplating about ten years ago how I could incorporate water into my garden. I had seen ponds at homes and in public places, but I had never thought about creating one for myself. Then I got divorced. When such an emotional life-changing event occurs, some people turn to abusing alcohol, taking drugs, or other reckless behavior. But, I have two sons who were both teenagers when my marriage ended. They needed me to be sober, responsible, and engaged in their lives as much as possible within the limits imposed by the breakup. Besides, addiction is not a problem for me, nor is it how I combat stress, anger, sadness, or any of the other strong feelings that accompany the dissolution of a marriage. I needed a distraction, something that could occupy my mind and muscles while getting me out of the house. So I started digging a hole in the backyard.

It took me several days just to dig the hole, and almost that long to get the sides level. I read books. I watched videos. I drew pictures and diagrams. I had a fairly steep embankment running down the side of my house (I ended up keeping our house) that extended into the fenced back yard and somewhat leveled out beside the posts of the back deck. I envisioned a cascading waterfall built into the bank, where I had planted an assortment of shrubs several years earlier. I consulted with a local landscape supply store about liners, flex hose, pumps, skimmers, and rocks. The rocks I purchased were generally no larger than a honey dew melon, and I didn’t have a lot of money left after buying the mechanical supplies. My property was bordered in the back by woods and a small creek. Fortunately, my younger son was quite enthusiastic about the project as it developed, and was more than willing to help me drag rocks from the creek bed and up the hill to the pond site. We moved a LOT of rocks, some of which were quite large. My back will never be the same. It took several weeks to finish, but the end product was really beautiful. I even bought a few fish to complete the package. Furthermore, the process of building the pond gave me the distraction I desperately needed and an opportunity to spend some quality time with my young teenager when he really needed my attention.

When my second wife and I got married, I moved in with her to a house located on a Georgia Power Company lake. Even before we got married and I moved away from my house, I was already missing my pond. Of course, there were several million gallons of water within a stone’s throw of our back door, and we had huge, clear windows looking out on the large cove where we lived. I could fish in our back yard, climb onto a jet ski right off our dock, and go swimming without leaving home. We were planning to get married on the patio looking out over the lake, and I was determined the sound of running water was going to be the music for our ceremony. I went to work a couple of months before the wedding. This time, I didn’t have a steep slope to work with, so I created a small “hill” for a waterfall using the dirt I removed for the pond. The setting didn’t look as natural as the first pond, but I was able to landscape and plant sufficiently around the perimeter to make this second pond attractive.

Now we have left the lake house behind, along with our former jobs, and have moved to live and work in the north Georgia mountains. I’m not sure my body could have taken the punishment of building a third pond. It is quite grueling, especially digging the hole and then hauling and positioning the rocks. But my wife and I both love water. We seek it when we go on hikes. We soak it up when we make our annual trips to the coast. We spend many hours during the warmer months on nearby lakes cruising around in our kayaks. We needed water at our new home, but there were no streams in sight of our property. So we splurged. We hired someone to build a pond and a waterfall for us at our new home. It took the better part of a summer, but our contractor is an artist. He took great care preparing the location behind our house, even though we were certain there wasn’t enough room for the size project we had in mind. He made it fit, and he made it magnificent. Once again, we are mesmerized by the sound of a cascading waterfall for at least seven months out of the year. True, this third pond doesn’t look quite as authentic or natural as the smaller ones I created, but it has most certainly exceeded all our expectations.

Pool

The Desert Garden

May 11, 2016 ~ If You Want My Opinion ~ Leave a comment

The title of this entry may at first seem like a mistake. “Perhaps he really meant ‘The Dessert Garden,’ which conjures up images of fruit trees.” Most people don’t associate gardens with deserts. By definition, deserts are empty places. They are barren, usually having sandy or rocky soil and little or no vegetation. When we say a place is deserted, we mean it is empty or uninhabited. By contrast, we often think of gardens as lush, green spaces teeming with life. Until I married someone who had lived for almost two decades in the Southwest, I didn’t think I would like spending much time in that region of the country. I don’t mind hot weather that much, especially if the humidity is low. But green is my favorite color, and I love gardening. Nothing grows in a desert, right?

Ridiculous. The desert is full of life, and the diversity of plant species is staggering. There are about 2,000 different kinds of cacti alone. The six cactus genera with the largest number of plants, and hence most likely to be encountered, are cereus, cylindropuntia, echinocereus, ferocactus, mammillaria and opuntia. In addition to cacti, there are grasses, shrubs, trees, and wildflowers. One of the best places to get a clear picture of the desert’s splendor is the Desert Botanical Garden in Phoenix, Arizona. With more than 4,000 species and approximately 27,650 individual plants, the Desert Botanical Garden is home to one of the world’s most spectacular living collections of the world’s desert plants.

Desert Botanical Garden, Phoenix, Arizona

We spent some time several years ago during a visit to Phoenix to wander through the Garden. Perhaps the most striking feature is the endless forms and shapes that the plants in the desert take. They have evolved over millions of years to take full advantage of the limited resources available, and water conservation dictates so much of the characteristics of desert flora. Flowers tend to be less numerous but so much more striking in color, shape, and size than those found in other environments. The Garden offers permanent trailside exhibits, temporary art exhibitions, and seasonal activities too.

Sometimes it’s difficult to look beyond the familiar and seek the undiscovered, and I certainly found that to be true about the desert. There’s green everywhere! I have visited the Southwest several times now, and I am always ready to return. It is wild, rugged, and even harsh, but it possesses a charm that can be found nowhere else in the country. The Desert Botanical Garden is not to be missed.

Self Portrait with Tree by Jaume Plensa

May 2, 2016May 3, 2016 ~ If You Want My Opinion ~ Leave a comment

Public art is a standard feature in most large cities across the U.S. and in much of the world. Art that is made freely available for everyone to enjoy in public places takes many forms: painting, photography, architecture, sculpture, graffiti, and even performance. Like many tourists, I tend to take photographs of public art when I am visiting cities, and I have collected images from New York, San Francisco, Phoenix, Seattle, Washington, D.C., Rome, and London to name a few. One of the more interesting pieces I found may not be so well known, although the artist is rather prolific. One evening in 2011 when my wife and I were walking the streets of Chicago headed out for dinner, we wondered through a section of the city known as Streeterville, a neighborhood roughly east of the Magnificent Mile that serves as the gateway to the Navy Pier. I was struck by a piece of bronze sculpture we saw at the northern end of Streeterville, at E. Chestnut Street next to the landmark Hancock Center.

When I first saw Jaume Plensa’s “Self Portrait with Tree” on the sidewalk, my first thought was to make a joke, an annoying habit of mine. I turned to my wife and said, “Now that is truly a man of letters.” My apologies — please keep reading. Plensa is one of the featured artists of the Richard Gray Gallery. With its main location on North Michigan Avenue and another on Madison Avenue in New York, Richard Gray Gallery is mostly a collector’s gallery and focuses its attention on attracting buyers. According to the gallery’s website, Plensa is one of the world’s foremost sculptors working in the public space, with over 30 projects spanning the globe in such cities as Chicago, Dubai, London, Liverpool, Nice, Tokyo, Toronto, and Vancouver. He was born in 1955 in Barcelona, where he studied at the Llotja School of Art and Design and at the Sant Jordi School of Fine Art. A significant part of Plensa’s work is in the field of sculpture in the public space. Installed in cities in Spain, France, Japan, England, Korea, Germany, Canada, USA, etc., these pieces have won many prizes and citations, including the Mash Award for Excellence in Public Sculpture.

Plensa has used the theme of the seated figure for many installments, and he has repeated the tree-hugging sculpture in various locations around the world. Some of the pieces are colossal. Another thread running through Plensa’s work is the use of letters and symbols to fabricate the figure. For these particular pieces, he works in an assortment of materials including bronze, stainless steel, and stone. The Self Portrait in Streeterville is especially interesting because of the letters in full relief on the seated figure’s body, like the type hammers of an old manual typewriter. The technique lends a bit of nostalgia to the piece. You can learn more about the work of Jaume Plensa at his website at http://www.jaumeplensa.com/.

The Independent Bookstore: A Reader’s Oasis

April 25, 2016February 19, 2018 ~ If You Want My Opinion ~ Leave a comment

The last Saturday in April is designated as Independent Bookstore Day, and according to the U.S. Census Bureau, bookstore sales increased 2.5 percent from 2014 to 2015. The American Booksellers Association, which represents independent sellers, reported 1,712 member stores in 2015, up from 1,401 in 2009. These figures should put to rest the notion that books made of paper are soon to be replaced by electronic forms. I realize there are plenty of readers who still hold great affection for traditional books — the paper kind. There are scholars who have argued that reading physical books is a completely different experience than reading eBooks. Most bookstore owners would probably agree. Both formats seem to be doing fine, which should be good news to all readers.

Once a medium of information is introduced, it tends to survive no matter what other “new and improved” medium follows. Some platforms may become obsolete (stone tablets, 8-track tapes, Beta videotape, etc.), but in general, new forms of information delivery don’t dispatch previous ones. The written word has never stopped people from telling stories or stage acting. Motion pictures certainly didn’t do away with reading. Radio didn’t destroy movies, television didn’t stop radio broadcasts, and the availability of videos hasn’t destroyed the television industry. One could argue that computers have only facilitated many of these delivery methods rather than replacing them. More importantly, none of these has killed the book, regardless of how we decide to read.

There is no question that the last few decades have been tough for small, independent bookstores. Many of the ones that survived the advent of the mega-bookstores were finally wiped out by the online providers. Electronic books no doubt delivered another crushing blow to bookstores, but the truly creative entrepreneurs figured out a way to stay relevant and competitive as a niche market. One approach is to create a salon-type atmosphere that welcomes the reading shopper and provides a sanctuary, a respite from the fast-paced grid that characterizes so much of our society. Nicole Sullivan, owner of Denver’s BookBar, was quoted in a recent article in The Denver Post. “As it gets harder for brick-and-mortar businesses, hybrid businesses become more important,” Sullivan said. “It’s either get it fast and cheap online, or come into a store and have an experience. That’s what indies have to offer, a more personalized experience and that sense of community we’ve lost a lot of over the years.”

I have fully accepted the convenience of eBooks and have been an Amazon Kindle customer since the first year they came on the market. I’m sure some of my library colleagues were horrified by the introduction of virtual books, but now eBooks are a big part of library holdings. For fiction and other books that rely very little on illustrations or graphics, I actually prefer eBooks. However, I treasure the large, hardbound gardening, history, and travel books that fill our shelves at home. Not even iPads or desktops are acceptable for those titles for me. I also prefer to browse through slick-paper magazines by physically turning pages, not touching a screen. Because we live in a rural area, the chances of an independent bookstore surviving for very long are slim, so we order many of our books online. We also go to the web to shop for household goods, clothes, and equipment. But, when we travel to places like San Francisco, Chicago, and New York, I almost always make a point to visit an independent bookstore. To me they all seem to have their own “personality” that makes them unique. If a book is the door that leads to imagination, then a bookstore is a hallway with almost endless possibilities.

A Dining Experience at Casanova

April 18, 2016April 18, 2016 ~ If You Want My Opinion ~ 1 Comment

I have seen and heard restaurant owners for years use the phrase “dining experience” to describe what it is like to have a meal at their establishment. For a long time I considered the phrase to be poor marketing at best and false advertising at worst. If I wanted an experience I would go see a good movie or play, not eat a plate of ravioli with a side Caesar salad. However, my attitude changed several years ago when my wife and I took a trip to San Francisco, which also included a drive down the coast on Highway 1 to spend a night at Carmel-by-the-Sea. We were only there for a short time, and we wanted to have a good meal before heading out the next day. We began searching for restaurants online and decided on a place called Casanova in the little village of Carmel. Nestled among the shops and galleries there, Casanova is a quaint, unassuming place with a simple façade that would be easy to walk past unnoticed. And that would be a mistake.

Casanova is a family owned and operated restaurant that serves rustic and classic cuisine, obviously with an Italian flavor. Ingredients come from local, small organic farms and fisheries. The world-class wine cellar is managed by a certified wine educator. The chef’s menu selections range from veal dishes to lamb, beef, and seafood. They have inside and outside seating. We were seated outside in a small courtyard area with plastic sheeting and heaters. It wasn’t closed off enough to keep small birds from flitting in and out looking for crumbs on the ground left by diners, which we decided was charming instead of a deterrent or distraction.

Our meal was exquisite, from appetizers all the way through the courses to dessert. We were there for almost two hours but never once felt like the evening was dragging. We were not in a secluded, dimly-lit corner of a dining room, but the setting was still completely romantic. We could easily forget that there were other diners around us, which was made possible by the most professional waiter I have ever had the pleasure of meeting. I don’t recall his name. I do remember that he was a middle-aged man who was extremely well-spoken, impressively knowledgeable about the restaurant’s offerings and specialties, and very skilled at his profession. He was attentive without hovering, interesting but not intrusive. The food and our waiter turned that dinner into a true dining experience that I will not forget. I never had a meal in Rome, Italy, that was better than what we had at Casanova.

The restaurant’s website now announces that they have acquired the table at which Vincent Van Gogh enjoyed his meals at the Auberge Ravoux. The arrival of the table marks the beginning of a cultural exchange between these two artistic communities: Carmel-by-the-Sea and Auvers-sur-Oise, France, where Van Gogh spent the last days of his life. Dining at Casanova involves much more than just enjoying a delicious meal. It is about being transported from the malaise to the magnificent! As they say in the book reviews: “highly recommended.”

Restoring My Soul

April 11, 2016 ~ If You Want My Opinion ~ Leave a comment

Sometime in February while I was scrolling through Facebook, someone posted a short video of himself playing his guitar. In the message that accompanied the video, he mentioned that he was on a solo retreat in a cabin. It had never occurred to me until then that a weekend of solitude and reflection could be so attractive. A wise scholar and friend recently observed that, like she and her husband, my wife and I are “well married.” It’s a phrase that we had not used before but now fully embrace. We are indeed well married. We have been together nine years and married for eight of them. We enjoy each other’s company. We like working at the same place, coming home for lunch together and having dinner together, either at home or at a restaurant. We love to travel; we love to hike; we love working on projects; we enjoy our time at home, especially our evenings and weekends. My wife has some friends and colleagues that she will occasionally meet for lunch or dinner, and sometimes she makes it an overnight trip. It is good and healthy for her to stay connected to these people because they have been so important in her life and her profession. Sadly, there are more such connections in other parts of the country where she has previously lived, and it is difficult to see them regularly, but she makes an effort to do so when possible.

I have a good friend who lives not too far away from us – someone that I have been close to for over twenty years now. We see each other about once a year or so, and I enjoy catching up with him. We also stay in touch by phone, texts, and Facebook. I don’t have as many good friends as my wife does, that is, people I have maintained a close relationship with through the years. As gregarious as I probably appear to colleagues and acquaintances, the truth is I am a bit shy around people I don’t know, unless I am speaking to groups professionally or performing music. I was in a band for ten years, so I’m sure there are folks who would scoff at the idea of my being bashful in any shape or form. There are times, and only for brief periods, when I truly cherish being alone.

When I saw that Facebook video post, I began to think about what it would be like to have a solo weekend, something I have not done in decades. I started thinking about what I would do for 36-48 hours away from my bride, my sons, my job, our home – away from anyone I know. I could read, write, study, play music, think . . . and think some more. I was a bit nervous about pitching this idea to my wife, because the last thing I wanted her to think was that I don’t adore her company. This woman who clearly loves me unconditionally thought the idea was marvelous and whole-heartedly supported my decision to find a cabin in the mountains for an early spring mini-sabbatical. Now, as I write this blog entry, it is Saturday afternoon. I am looking out the window of my retreat cabin in the high country of North Carolina less than a mile from the Blue Ridge Parkway.

I arrived yesterday afternoon, checked in with the inn keeper in town, drove a few miles to my cabin, settled in quickly, poured a glass of Jack Daniel’s Tennessee Honey and headed to the front lawn to relax in a comfortable chair and take in the view. I followed the inn keeper’s recommendation for dinner at a local bistro, which was an excellent choice. I bought just enough provisions at the grocery store to keep me satisfied for 24 hours, and then I came back to the cabin and sipped more whiskey. A storm came through last night and dusted the surrounding hillsides with snow, just enough to make it pretty but not so much to make it a nuisance. I got up a little before 8:00, put on the coffee, and started reading Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby, a novel I read many years ago and have mostly forgotten. I have been reading news and op-ed pieces from the New York Times. I have had a fire in the fireplace for the last couple of hours, and I have played songs on my guitar that I haven’t attempted in years. I don’t intend to leave the cabin until heading out for dinner this evening. I am enjoying a full earth’s rotation of intense relaxation.

Just now, as I sat down to reflect on this opportunity and record it, I was reminded with great humility and appreciation of just how fortunate I am. When people from my past ask me if I’m happy, I usually reply, “I’m the luckiest guy I’ve ever met.” I am lucky to have a wife who ignores my inadequacies, my rough edges, my occasional crudity, and loves me with a devotion that is almost frightening. It is also a gift to love her more than I have ever loved another woman. I am lucky that my sons seem to be stable and healthy in spite of great tragedy and loss they have endured. I am lucky to have extended family who may not always understand me and perhaps even worry about me, but who also love me deeply and take joy in my happiness. I am lucky to have been raised by parents and grandparents who encouraged creativity, loved to laugh, believed in the virtue of hard work, and exhibited rock-solid faith in their God and their church. While not having the advantages afforded by a higher formal education, my parents made the necessary sacrifices to ensure that I received the advanced degrees I desired and that have opened up so many possibilities for me through the years. I have had some incredibly inspiring teachers.

I have lived almost 56 years with few significant health challenges. I have some modest talents and skills that are fulfilling to me and that I have been able to share with others. My wife and I have a standard of living that is not enjoyed by a large majority of the world’s population. We are grateful, even though we know our generosity does not extend as far as it should. My career path has presented me with so many memorable encounters and experiences, and I know how rare that privilege is. Lastly, we have the resources that make it possible for me to rent a cabin in the Appalachian Mountains to be self-indulgent for a weekend and to contemplate the precious gift of a good life that I’m sure I don’t deserve but for which I am eternally grateful. And to my bride, the love of my life: thank you for giving me this place and time.

Forget the Pencil; Bring Your Pistol

April 6, 2016April 6, 2016 ~ If You Want My Opinion ~ Leave a comment

As of today’s date, the “campus carry” bill has already passed the house and senate in Georgia and has been sent to the Governor for his signature. If the bill becomes law, it will allow students who are 21 or older to carry a concealed weapon on the campuses of state colleges and universities. Although I have many concerns about students carrying handguns around campus, I do understand the circumstances and fears that led to the push for such legislation. One of my major concerns is the rhetoric that always seems to surround issues and legislation about weapons in Georgia and around the country. For instance, when asked why he was supporting this particular bill, a Georgia state legislator purportedly said, “In general, the only people laws affect are those who obey the law. What we put into law is not going to have any impact on criminals.”

I actually have respect for this legislator, although we are not in the same political camp. This statement no doubt expresses his philosophy and that of many of his constituents where this bill is concerned. But, is this how we are to regard legislation and laws in our state in general? If so, then why should the state ever pass any law prohibiting any activity ever again. Why have laws that prohibit the sale of cocaine or more lethal drugs if the only people such laws affect are those who wouldn’t use the substance in the first place? Why have laws against aggravated assault if such laws are only obeyed by nonviolent people. Why have traffic laws or speed limits?

Indeed, why have laws that prevent people from carrying guns into the state capitol? I suspect these particular laws will remain because the state will make sure it has the law enforcement presence and power to enforce them. But securing a college campus with law enforcement officers is much more expensive than securing a few state government buildings, right?

I truly do sympathize with parents of students and the students themselves where campus violence has escalated, especially at places like Georgia Tech. I’m just not yet convinced that encouraging students to arm themselves is the answer. Incidentally, if the law only allows students 21 and older to carry, then how does this law protect the other 50-75% of students on the campus who will not be able to carry legally? Have violent crimes only been committed against college students who are over the age of 21?

I fear that when elected officials admit that civility can no longer be maintained by laws, then we have basically given the masses permission to take law enforcement into their own hands. And, I fear that arming college students sends that message loudly and clearly to young people during a very impressionable period of their lives. I just hope that Georgians, and Americans for that matter, are not moving toward a paradigm of abandoning the role of law enforcement to serve and protect and moving toward a society where self-defense becomes the expectation rather than the act of last resort.

Santa Fe’s Open-Air Opera

March 31, 2016March 31, 2016 ~ If You Want My Opinion ~ Leave a comment

My wife and I made a trip to Santa Fe, New Mexico during the summer of 2014. She had been to the town several times, but I had not. We both love art, culture, and the southwest, and Santa Fe is one of those places where all three intersect. We stayed in a lovely, rambling house just off Canyon Road, which placed us in walking distance from the major downtown attractions and more art galleries than anyone could possibly explore in a year’s time — alas, we were there for less than a week.

We also took some excursions outside the town to places like Taos, a famous haven for artists. I went out to the center of the Rio Grande Gorge Bridge, the 7th highest bridge in the United States and the 82nd highest bridge in the world. We ate incredible, authentic Mexican food at a little roadside taco stand. We flew in and out of Albuquerque, so we were able to see some of the state’s desert landscape on the road between the two locations.

We met up with some friends one evening who live in Albuquerque who routinely make the drive up to Santa Fe to attend the opera located just outside town. They invited us to go with them. I was not raised with any exposure, appreciation, or understanding of opera. I was raised with the music of the Allman Brothers (outside of church, that is); the singing of Elton John; the acting of Robert Redford. The closest I came to an opera performance was a Bugs Bunny cartoon or a Disney movie. Even as an adult, although I am more familiar with famous operas, I still don’t know much about the art form. Unfortunately, my cultural horizons don’t expand very far beyond literature and the thick forests of popular music, theater, and cinema.

For those who fall into this same category, I have good news. There is a place you can go to appreciate opera even if you have no interest in it whatsoever. The Santa Fe Opera House has been attracting audiences to watch performances and take in the magnificent views of the mountain ranges of northern New Mexico since 1957. According to its website, more than 2,000 performances of 164 different operas have been given here, including fourteen world premieres and 45 American premieres. Many singers whose names are now found on the rosters of the world’s leading opera houses began their careers in Santa Fe. The company was founded by the late John Crosby, a young conductor from New York, who had an idea of starting an opera company to give American singers an opportunity to learn and perform new roles in a setting that allowed ample time to rehearse and prepare each production.

The Crosby Theater was built in 1998 and takes the idea of “open air” to a whole new level. The modern structure features white sail-like wind baffles, a clerestory window for light, and a backstage that is almost completely open. The sides of the theater are also open, so the audience can see the mountain peeks rising many miles away. The breathtaking views are enough to distract even the most devoted opera enthusiast, but for someone like me who is a bit less than enthusiastic, this venue became the attraction. We had a lovely dinner on the grounds of the opera before the performance. The show we saw was a comedy, all in another language, of course. There were hilarious parts, the orchestral music was excellent, and I ended up enjoying it more than I had anticipated. Still, I can’t imagine a stage performance anywhere in the world that could be more impressive than the setting of the expansive desert as night approaches. If you love opera, you have to go to the Santa Fe Opera. If you don’t love opera, this is where you need to go to start appreciating it.

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Author: If You Want My Opinion