Sensory Deprivation

Sunday morning we all are to meet at the top of Mount Evans.  Just family this time.  It is many miles to the summit with many dizzying turns and switchbacks.  Many cyclists pass us like machines; inhuman, indomitably peddling to the top.  We get above the tree line and mountain goats and their small goatees are nibbling the sparse foliage the mountain offers.  The family gathers and moves out of the summit lot to an overlook on passes strewn with snow fields.  We are led by a woman of Nepalese decent and she and another white man with a Hindi accent lead a ceremony in the Lakota language of the Sioux.  Kathy’s ashes were brought in by Natalie.  They are in a box that reminds me of a mailbox that is contained in a mauve, cloth bag.  Her presence is felt, according to our spirit guide, who had prefaced the ceremony with a plea for openness.  We could take from it what we wanted and were not urged to believe one way or the other.  We sit in a circle and a dish of burning sage is passed which we all invite to our nose with our hand.  Some berries and bits of Bison jerky are dropped in the box for Kathy and then passed to each of us.  High-pitched song rings out and the drum is lightly pounded.  We are silent.  We think of Kathy and I hear only the sniffling of people as they prepare to cry.  It dissipates, gently into a mountain wind that teases at the back of our bowed heads.  The circle is navigated again for sound and words are said by most members of the family.  Handshakes and hugs are then exchanged as one end of the circle slowly coils to the end and begins again…like life   

five finger discount

                “Thou shall not steal,” is perhaps an antiquated sentiment ?  One must ask oneself whether that was written when there was something worth stealing.  The theft has parameters, ramifications, and consequences for the victim.  Is the victim a nameless, faceless store; a store that might think nothing of overcharging a customer or not refunding them for faulty merchandise?  Or is it an individual who would undoubtedly feel the loss and possibly endure hardship as a result?

                According to the commandment theft is theft.  Petty theft from a large department store chain is different, I think, than theft from an individual.  I don’t believe stealing is always wrong .  I do however believe in karma.  I follow “the golden rule” in life and do to others as I would want them to do to me…someday.  Reciprocation is never an expectation.  If it comes, it comes.  If not, the path to follow such a rule is illuminated more.

                No one claimed the perfect gloves.  They were the only item on the locker room bench looking so inviting to me as I came from a wok out with my torn gloves.  The owner had obviously left them behind in his haste.  For a fleeting moment it went through my mind to pinch the gloves and replace them with mine.  I thought of how I’d feel if someone did that to me; how mad I’d be if a note wasn’t left and my only recourse was a guilty conscience.  I immediately abandoned my plan.

                On the other hand, if a brand new pair of gloves had fallen from a rack and I was cleaning up the store late at night, I might not be so honorable.  To be sure, you should not steal your way through life.  But consider who is victimized, how much loss will be felt and how it will inconvenience them.   I believe in karmic cycles in life, but I tend to question a commandment that was written over 2, 000 years ago.  At that time livestock, for example, was probably the commodity people chose to steal.  It was in short supply, needed for daily living and its absence would certainly cause dire problems.  Maybe the commandment should be amended to read: Thou shall not steal from an individual.

They wagered on Intrepidly

                Once a friend bet me that The Star Spangled Banner was written in 1861 in front of Fort Sumter.  I knew it was written by Francis Scott Key during the war of 1812.  It was written to comment on the prevalence of Fort McHenry, particularly its flag, after the Battle of Baltimore September 13-14^th, 1814.  Most 7^th grade students should know at least who wrote it and in front of what fort and when.  It is a well-documented fact and found in well-thumbed pages of any elementary history book.  My friend, who had received poorer grades in High school history than I had, insisted that he was right and I was wrong.  I think he knew better.

Bar bets are usually made in haste; perhaps only to waste a dollar or 3 on a beer.  Some are made just to prove a prowess and to weigh ego over bar swill.  Often they are made in a final attempt to prove some trivial knowledge that is glibly offered up in contention for an alcohol holding capacity has come up short.  Whether one is right or wrong the truth will never be known.  Ever since apple first introduced the ipad in 2010 people have been able to settle these ill-conceived bet without their hand leaving their beer mug.   Still, with the ascertainable facts in the palm of the other hand, bets are made and beers are often put on stranger’s tabs.

                He sits thumbing his mug nervously.  I get the impression that for some reason I intimidate him and he always has the frustrating habit of changing or evading the conversation if I appeared to him to be too intelligent.  I had an extensive knowledge of the Beatles as did he.   He is 60 and has told me once that he saw them when they came to the Met Center in 1965.  I entered the world that year, maybe destined to grow up and contend Beatle trivia with him 47 years later.  I am Jewish; he did not know that.  I am not practicing; I’m not steeped in everything Jewish, but I would claim that I know better than a gentile whether someone is Jewish based on their name, if nothing else.   I sat with my beer foaming and my intelligence insulted as this guy tells me Ringo Starr (AKA Richard Starkey) is Jewish.  First, having studied the Beatles much of my life; and second, being a Jew I think I would know if one of the 4 were Jewish.  It would be glaringly apparent in the heavily Anglican influenced Liverpool.  The fact that Brian Epstein was Jewish was greatly emphasized in everything I’d read and if any member of the Beatles was also Jewish I’m sure it would have been equally, if not more highly, emphasized.

                The bar-fly was illuminating his side of the bar with facts each time I saw him.  But on our few encounters the lessons were always contrite as he turned to his beer or his lady for refuge from any intelligent comments I might make.  Often I’d hear him make a bet with the barkeep.  Or he’d simply ask them a factual question that was trivial and could never be answered to his satisfaction.  The bar tenders patrolled the bar keeping customers satisfied with inebriates while eavesdropping on inane chatter with a passing vested interest.

                Feeling emboldened by the drink and the slow dimming of lights by his perception (which corresponded to his dimming of my wit) he tells me that Freddie Mercury was Jewish.  I know that Mercury was born Farrokh Bulsara on the island of Zanzibar, Africa.   He was a Parsi, referring to a member of the larger of the two Zoroastrian communities in  South Asia, the other being the Irani community.  He grew up in Zanzibar and in India practicing the religion of Zoroastrianism.

                On both claims of Semitic heritage I negate his entire premise.  He, like most bar-betters, is adamant in his assertion, even if it lacks all plausible logic.  He says he will buy me a beer if I bring proof that either of them are gentile.  That night I look on the Internet for answers to these two questions.  Search engines rarely provide a satisfying yes or no answer.  At best they supply you with what others have written.  Of course what I found supported my claim and increased my suspicions of this man’s insecurities and fat ego.

                I come into the bar and see my foil holding court; regaling his acquired cronies with facts many of them probably doubted.  I walk past and nudge him, “you owe me 2 beers.”  He looks surprised that I even remember and slowly replies “bring me proof.”   It sounded like the wizard asking Dorothy to bring him the broom of the Wicked Witch of the West.  If I’d brought a printed web page from a search engine that offered no official answer the contention would remain.  I wave my hand facetiously at him and order my beer.

the vodka glass half full

                He told me about life in Russia after 1991.  He said Putin was the best premier in his lifetime.  America, with all its economic woes, all its inherent inequalities, all the things people want government to do, he claimed is better that Russia on a good day.  Inflation he said was the trouble with Russia.  You could see a car for 20,000 and the next week it might be double that. 

                Beer flowed freely and the taps were clean.  Vodka was not on the menu.  He orders his food to go and quaffs a 25 oz. mug as he waits smacking his hands again and again to punctuate his politics.  Smack!   He punches his fist into a hand dry and worn from manual labor.  He tells me when he came over here he worked 3 jobs for the first 2 months.  Then he had appendicitis.  What cost him a total of 1,000 dollars here would cost 50 at home.

                The consensus, between us, was that, at its core health insurance in this county is a scam.  We, the insured, will always lose.  The system is designed to make a 3^rd party rich by exploiting our misfortune and directing the provider.  He takes another swig of beer and smacks his palm once more.  Like a boxer fighting alone in lights that cast no shadow his accent traces his love of this country.  I ask whether he has health insurance and he looks at me like it is a question no one should ever have to ask.

                                The most expensive thing the average healthy individual would have for medical expenses is a night in a hospital.  Something must be very, very wrong and sever before a hospital will admit you and keep you over night.  Many insurances carry very high deductibles.  In some cases the bill must top 3 grand before the insurer even pays.   The big ticket items, the ones that could make the insurance start paying, are never well within our reach.  It is a scam like I learned Columbia record club was.

                When I was 14, 15, 16, Columbia records sent ads saying you could get 9 records or tapes for a penny.  The proviso was that you buy 5 more within the year at “regular club prices.”  Trouble was that they were always on sale and never at the regular prices.  The hucksters always win.

                He orders another and says the providers are at the beck and call of the companies and HMOs.  Drug companies dope us with pills, according to him, that never fix the problem and keep us coming back for more.  It is a grand scheme and the net result is that HMOs get rich off of us.  Is this right?  Of course it’s not.  Still we quaff our beers and silently thumb our noses at the system.  The irony is that a baby is born somewhere  in this country every day and threatens to prove P.T. Barnum right.  However childbirth's costs surely surpass any deductible and the blessed event is sometime covered entirely.  This fact makes childbirth possibly the most worthy reason to have insurance.