Season's Bleatings -- 2015

Consider the cow. Personally, I love cows. They're delicious. Hindus love cows, too, but in a spiritual way. They’re adored for their gentleness and tolerance… bovine role models for the rest of us. But the great majority of us loves them when they’re kaput, medium rare, and slathered in ketchup.  We demand them with such enthusiasm that great swaths of the planet have become devoted to their care.  What good are millions of acres of Amazon rainforest when they can be cleared for grazing?  But all those sweet cows fart and poop in such cataclysmic quantities that their discharges wind up melting glaciers and suffocating coral reefs. It's true. While there's an outside chance the world's governments can put a tourniquet on carbon emissions, there's NO WAY to thwart the ceaseless hordes from inching forward in drive-thru lanes to pick up quarter pounders with cheese. Hindus consider the living cow an honored beast. But now, thanks to a movie*, I can't stop pondering the world’s industrialized cattle, 1.5 billion strong, so darned delicious, swinging their cheerful tails to mooing melodies of a sinking Titanic. I didn't want to know this… my mind’s become infected as a rump roast tainted by E. coli.

Geez, sorry. That’s no way to start a Christmas letter. No, it's best, if you're upwind of the vast corrals of eastern Colorado, to consider the Spartans... not the Spartans of Sparta, but the mighty Spartans of East Lansing who are (drumroll)... IN THE NATIONAL PLAYOFFS! Our beloved team consists of brawny Rhodes Scholars, Hindus mostly, saints across the board, whose first mission is to swirl Nick Sabin's head (the traitor) in a toilet of crimson tide before advancing to bring home the bacon. Go Green!

My Christmas gift to Sue is to pay off her gambling debts. You would think that someone so prepared and organized would be more adept at picking winning NFL teams. In fairness, she has spent countless hours this football season piecing together exquisite quilts… TO GIVE AWAY.  If she would merely charge a fee for supplies, she could pay off her own damn debts. In her spare time, Sue watches endless reruns of NCIS and raises hell with her fellow retired dinosaurs, thus far avoiding arrest.

My Christmas gift to Brendan (32) is a cookbook of pheasant recipes. His hunting dog, Sadie, is expert at converting hidden birds into sitting ducks. Both Brendan and his wife, Jodi, have become seasoned foodies, and with all those fowl in the freezer, I'm sure they'll welcome some culinary pointers. My precious little boy has a receding hair line and loves his job at Fifth Third Bank in Grand Rapids.

Come to think of it, you never see a cow cast as a villainous cartoon character. They’re so irresistibly nice. But you also never see the livestock and dairy industries cast as bad guys. Hey, that’s the ticket: let’s show our grandchildren the devastating reality of our planet’s unsustainability on Saturday morning TV. Sponge Bob to the rescue!

My Christmas gift to Elizabeth (30) is a tune-up for her Subaru. She teaches English at Baker College in Cadillac, a long journey to and from the house in Traverse City she shares with her FIANCE, Levi, and his seven year-old daughter, Keira. That's a lot of miles for the old buggy. She left Austin in May for new adventures here in her old stomping grounds. She also assists a local travel writer and artist with her projects, so... Liz’s master's diploma in fine arts, once regarded as kitty litter lining, is paying dividends after all.

I’ll share a Christmas dream:  I dream that before every Republican debate, instead of the candidates doling out hollow introductions, we view a scene from Animal House: John Belushi is in a cafeteria assessing imminent chaos and with a mounting and crazed expression, screams "FOOOOD  FIIIIIIIGHT!!!"  

I continue to wander around northern Michigan in my social worker hat, plying the delicate service of infant adoption. For better or worse, the call for pregnancy counseling has dwindled.  As I stare down the barrel of Medicare eligibility and with the adoption phone mainly silent, I am happy to be semi-retired. Meanwhile, my fantasy football team has advanced to the playoffs and I’ll be glued to my laptop this Sunday as the points add up. Just think: I could win enough big bucks to buy a case of Omaha steaks. 

Okay, maybe we’re not so doomed, not doomed at Christmas anyway. Enjoy your turkey and cranberry sauce. We’re opting for prime rib, medium rare. Delicious.

* Cowspiracy, streaming on Netflix. Do NOT watch if you value sustainable human life or feelings of inner peace.

The White Hurricane

On a Thursday night, January 19, 1978, in Benzonia, Michigan, in the Crystal Lake Elementary School gym, I went up for a jump shot.  I know it was a Thursday night because in those days my friends and I always played pick-up basketball on Thursdays.  I know I played that particular night because what happened after that jump shot has affected me ever since. I know it was January 19, because I was on crutches the following Wednesday, the day the Great Blizzard of '78 ravaged the Great Lakes and Ohio Valley.  I was 27 years-old.

It wasn't a wise move, that jump shot. Jeff Forrest was on me pretty close as I went up for the shot on a full run.  Jeff went up with me, and when I came down, a pop like an ejected cork echoed from the rafters.  My right foot went sideways as I landed on his and I crashed down in a heap, screaming bloody murder. I tried to drag myself by fingertips as the others came to my aid.

I don't remember much about the ride to the emergency room, the x-rays, the doctor's gaze.  It was a badly torn ligament, they wrapped it tight, and sent me on my way with crutches, a small portion of pain killers in hand, and doctor's orders:  no weight on the ankle for six weeks.  I do, however, have a clear memory of an unopened bottle of beer on the back seat of our Pinto wagon.  My wife, Sue, was called and she transported me to the hospital in that car. As usual, I had stashed a quart in the back to relieve my post game thirst. But I feared the shame if I had told her I needed that drink in such a desperate time as that. So I stayed quiet and craving.

We lived then in a cottage near the north shore of Crystal Lake, a cozy and modern abode. In the winter it seemed somewhat remote as the tourist population had long since gone. I was a substitute teacher and often whiled away unemployed days in a fish shanty off of Beulah, jigging for perch and drinking beer. Jeff Forrest, a few other friends, and I had hauled a long-abandoned outhouse out of the woods, a roomy two-seater, set it on the ice, and equipped it with a small wood-burning stove and chimney. It became a clubhouse of sorts where we drank together in shirt sleeves, fed the fire and occasionally caught a fish.

Now on crutches, I hobbled around the cottage and finished off the painkillers. Marooned on the couch, I had gone an entire weekend drinking beer without the company of friends. No playing pool at the Ten Pin Lounge. No gatherings to watch college basketball on TV.  Those walls felt like a jail cell, and by Tuesday, feeling isolated and angry, I created a frozen silence against my wife.

But Wednesday offered a reprieve. That was the night we congregated on the ice, and against her common sense protests, I persuaded Sue that I could manage on crutches the snow-covered driveway and manage the icy path out to our shanty, all the while keeping my ankle hoisted and dry. "But there's a bad storm coming," she argued. "Not until morning," I argued.

Jeff picked me up at dusk. I managed to navigate the driveway but that two hundred yard trip out across the ice, with its sharp divots of imprinted boots, was very slow-going. Through the twilight, I could make out our distant destination with the lanterns inside shining through the seams. The sky above was a solid slate of fading gray stretching down to the western horizon.  But there, a band of black was rising, not the rising night of the east, but out over Lake Michigan, a great storm as promised. As I placed one crutch tip after the other, foot by foot, it began to snow.

My two other comrades sat astounded when I struggled through the door. I had come ice fishing on one leg! We hoisted beers to celebrate my escape, threw the empty cans down the two toilet holes, and topped it off with shots of Old Bushmill's. By God, this is what I missed, this is what I needed. But soon we heard a crescendoing rumble overhead. In silence we looked up, and through the low ceiling above, heard the moans of an oncoming roar. We reeled in our lines, threw on our coats, doused the lights, and started for home.

I soon lost my friends, or they lost me, but I stayed fixed on a lone house light near where we had parked, and half drunk, I poked a way forward in the face-stinging snow. But as the wind and snow gained momentum there in the dark, I lost sight of the light and inched ahead without bearings but with alcohol-fueled courage. But in a while I could make out the faint shouts of my name, shouted back in return, and headed in their direction. And finally there they were, huddled together near the lake's edge, wondering if I had lost a crutch and was stuck walking in circles.

Sue and I hunkered down while a 36-hour whiteout raged outside the windows. We were poorly provisioned, and over the next few days, ate all the food there was, except for a bag of frozen lima beans and a jar of candied watermelon rinds. The Michigan State Police declared that nearby Traverse City was "unofficially closed" and Governor Milliken declared a state of emergency from what became known as the White Hurricane. Many residents had to dig "up" out of their doors to reach the air. In some areas, only the roofs of single story houses were visible, and in Beulah, enormous drifts choked alleyways. I'll never forget seeing a basketball rim at ground level.

But what I mostly remember was the absence of beer. For several years, I had never gone more than a day or two without drinks, and when I did, it was from trying to recover from near poisoning the day before. This was different although a similar situation happened in 1974. I was living in a country house near the village of DeWitt when a February blizzard smothered southern Michigan. With no beer and no open roads to gain access, my roommate and I borrowed our landlord's snowmobile for the five mile trip into town and a prized case of Wiedemann. My roommate drove and on the way home loved to jerk the machine to the left or right in order to hurl me and the beer riding on my lap sideways into drifts.

But there was no way out of the forced sobriety of 1978. I had not prepared for the historic plunge in barometric pressure. It helped me to feed the fireplace and lose myself in a book (reading was a rarity for me in those days). I wasn't beset by withdrawal or cravings, but existed instead in an odd and unexplored dimension. This strange, new world was encased in a universe of dizzying white where all modes of escape stood guarded. I wasn't in Kansas anymore.

We were marooned for four days before we got a phone call from a friend. Carol and her husband, Craig, had been plowed out near Honor and they offered to drive over and rescue us if we needed anything or wanted to go with them to a party. Did we need anything? And a party? Did we want to go to a party? Oh, jubilation! But because of plugged roads, they would have to park on the corner of Alden Drive and Crystal Lake Drive, which would require, if I wanted to party, that I navigate through deep snow, down our driveway and then down Alden Drive, a distance of one hundred yards.

We soon heard the horn and through the window saw their van idling at the corner. The rescue was underway. Crutches were useless on that terrain as they disappeared down to their tops . So I crawled, or should I say, swam those hundred yards, my right foot held aloft, while Sue waded just ahead, holding my crutches on her shoulder, to carve out something of a trench.  Horizontal and inch by inch, snow grip by snow grip, breast stroke by breast stroke, I made it forward.

When the side door slid open, we met Carol's and Craig's beaming faces and with outstretched arms, they hoisted me up and into the open cab. As I sat back onto the seat, I saw lying on the floor a freshly-opened twelve pack of Miller High Life, cans with golden emblems waiting for liberation. Craig reached down, and without a word, handed me my salvation.

My ankle healed but left a permanent knot on the round bone there.  It is a constant reminder of an ill-advised jump shot and that inaccessible quart in the back seat. I remember pivoting on crutches over perilous ice to reach lost companions hundreds of yards out. I remember that accidental stretch of sobriety in a world without color, blinding white without and dark within. And I remember crawling like a parched and desperate man through that deeply drifted desert to reach an oasis of drink.

Perhaps it was the great blizzard that chiseled the first irreparable chink from my coat of armor. It brought on a new and painful consciousness. Many previous episodes of remorse came and went, like unconnected pieces broken but soon became repaired. But the storm always stayed with me. In a way, it marked the dawn of a new life to come, eleven years on.