Sing Your Song

I know why the caged bird sings. The answer is pretty obvious, now that it has been pointed out to us. When we look at a situation like this whether it is metaphorically or literally, we can't help but see the truth in it. What else would you do, if you were a caged bird?
There are plenty of potentially caged birds who would say that they would never sing because they don't want to give their captors the satisfaction of sitting on a perch, behind bars, and acting like they had nothing but wide open space around them. Still other birds would insist that they would screech and squawk, making those who kept them in a cage regret that they had made such a foolish mistake. Then there are those birds who would say that they would sit in silence, not making any sound.
I know why the caged bird sings. Don't you? If you didn't sing, you would be denying what you are, locked up or not. If you screeched and squawked you would only give the cage more strength. Singing is freedom, even if it is from that perch inside a cage. Once you have made your song, you have a voice.
“I've learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.” The irony of this quote from Maya Angelou is that I remember it. It was part of her song. She gave the world her voice and anyone who took the time to listen couldn't help but remember it. She was an inspiration to generations. If you could just take the wisdom she had within her and spread it out over the globe, there would never be a need for another commencement address. “You may encounter many defeats, but you must not be defeated. In fact, it may be necessary to encounter the defeats, so you can know who you are, what you can rise from, how you can still come out of it.”
And now that voice is stilled. Thanks to Maya Angelou, I know why the caged bird sings, and I learned that the important thing is not the cage, but the song. Aloha, Maya. You stomped on the Terra. 

The View From Back Here

The story around my house goes like this: We used to be able, the three of us, to walk past ice cream stores without having to stop. When my son would ask my wife and I what that sign says, we would simply explain that it read, "Poisonous Gas - Keep Moving." And that's what we did. This worked well enough until we taught him how to read. Then we started to get all kinds of questions that we hadn't been getting before he got all literate on us. Suddenly we were stopping at ice cream shops, comic book and video game stores, yogurt stands and anything else that happened to catch my son's beginning reader's eye.To say that our progress down the avenue was slowed would be a gross understatement.
We eventually relaxed into the reality of having another person in the family who could decode the mystic runes that surrounded us. It had some very practical applications, allowing our son to become involved in finding those ice cream shops and toy stores that we might have carelessly glossed over. The more words he learned, the more useful this skill became. Soon he was bringing home new information for us by the bookful. Suddenly, my wife and I were learning new things even though I had sworn off reading for ourselves years before.
This was very similar to the path we took when it came time for my son to learn how to drive. I had effectively given up driving some time ago, and as terrifying a thought as having my teenage son behind the wheel of a large automobile, the eventual relief I found from not having to drive all the way to Anaheim from Oakland was gratifying. Since I have long-haul responsibility in my family, it was a treat to be able to sit in the back seat from time to time. The view from there is very interesting, and gives one a glimpse of just exactly what the driver is doing. This also affords one the opportunity to make comments and discuss openly the challenges and limitations of the person operating the motor vehicle. I know because I have used that position to direct and correct problems I have seen in my son's technique. I did this right up until I found myself with our positions reversed, and now he was looking at my skills. He knows when the light is red that it means stop. He knows what that double yellow line means. I can't just shine him on anymore.
That's why I'm going to let him drive to the ice cream shop from now on.

Yum Yum

You know how some things are good in moderation? My wife insists that her grandmother, or was it her aunt, used to insist that you had to eat a pound of dirt a year. That turns out to be just a little more than an ounce a month. You don't probably need to run around with a dustpan and a broom to keep up with that average.
This brings to mind the five-second rule. You know the one: where if a cookie or a bit of salami falls on the floor, and you're able to snap it up before those dreaded five seconds elapse, you're still sitting pretty with an extra piece of salami or cookie that could have just been so much detritus. Germs and bacteria are notoriously lazy and slow on the uptake, especially when matters of gravity are concerned. An object at rest tends to stay at rest unless acted on my an outside force, and as long as that object happens to be a particularly quiet piece of chocolate cake, all those microorganisms will just lay there. Single cell organisms lack motivation. That's why you've got that five second cushion. Or maybe I don't understand the science the way I should. The Mythbusters guys explain it best. Even though they busted that myth, it gave Jamie and Adam a chance to get their pound of dirt. Good for them.
As long as you remember to wash your hands before you eat that pound of dirt, you'll be fine. Just don't use antibacterial soap. It turns out that Triclosan, a chemical found in antibacterial soap has been shown in studies to cause hormonal imbalance in animals. That's worse than a little dirt, right? It also turns out that Triclosan may also be contributing to the rise of deadly, antibiotic-resistant superbugs. Superbugs? They won't just jump on that dropped potato chip, they're going to climb up into the cupboard, tear that bag of Lay's open with their genetically engineered razor sharp teeth and then go looking for some dip. 
Better to just go ahead and take your chances with a little bit of dirt. Nice, gritty, healthy dirt. 

There Oughta Be A Law

Amid all the noise and chatter surrounding the killings in Santa Barbara last Friday there was a voice: "Why did Chris die? Chris died because of craven, irresponsible politicians and the NRA. They talk about gun rights, what about Chris' right to live?" he continued. "When will this insanity stop?" he said. "When will enough people say, stop this madness, we don't have to live like this? Too many have died. We should say to ourselves. Not one more." It was the father of one of the victims, Richard Martinez.
This raised the requisite number of gun-rights discussions, rants and raves, filling comment boards with the usual rhetoric, most of it centering on the question of what methods the deranged nitwit used to dispense his twisted vision of justice. His first three victims were stabbed to death. "I guess we should outlaw knives," insisted a number of posts. Still more suggested that we outlaw cars, since a number of people were wounded when the nitwit's BMW careened through the streets of Santa Barbara. That's when I got snarky myself: "I would be fine with a Constitutional Ban on BMWs," I posted just below the snark of my fellow members of the Internation. 
I was kidding, but that's my response to the horror these days. Here's the thing, for me anyway: I wouldn't really ask Congress to promote or consider a law outlawing expensive foreign cars, or cutlery for that matter. If somebody wants to kill someone, a car or a knife or a hammer or their bare hands will do the job just as effectively as a gun. The right to own a BMW or steak knives are not protected by our Constitution. I looked it up. 
That was me being snarky again.
Two semi-automatic handguns and hundreds of rounds of ammunition don't make this a gun issue. It's a human issue. If someone who is an advocate for guns can explain to me how we can live together in a world that has this much anger, pain and mental illness in it without adding more weapons of any sort to the mix, I'm all ears. If you think we should throw the Second Amendment out with Slavery and Prohibition, please explain how we get all that evil back into Pandora's Box. I'm fresh out of ideas.

Restless Sleep

The phone rang at seven in the morning. Saturday morning. My wife looked at the caller ID. "New York," she mumbled. I asked her to pass the phone to me. When I put the phone to my ear, a polite but automated voice was informing me that someone had recommended that I receive a free medical alert system. Everything was paid for, and shipping had been arranged, all I had to do was press "one" and speak to a representative. Which is what I did.
The representative's name, or at least the one she gave me, was Daphne. Daphne asked how I was feeling today.
In a very frail voice I replied, "I'm tired."
Daphne said she was sorry to hear that. She went on to reassert that someone had recommended me for this gift of a medical alert system, to which I asked in that same weak voice, "Who recommended me? Was it my doctor?"
Daphne told me she didn't know, but she did know a lot about the medical alert system. It came with a bracelet that had a microphone, and a base that could be easily connected.
"What does it connect to?" I fretted.
Daphne assured me that it would be simple enough once I received the machine and started paying the thirty-four ninety-five a month for the service that would keep the system running. I wanted to know what the machine would connect to. Daphne let me know that I shouldn't worry, and did I have any questions. I wanted to know what the thirty-four ninety-five was for and Daphne assured me that it was the service that made the free machine I was getting work. Did I have any more questions, Daphne asked.
"Just one," I said with my voice finally filling out into full-throated indignation. "How do you sleep at night?"
What sort of vile enterprise was this, preying on the fears and sympathies of anyone dull or scared enough to give up their name and address to a company that would send their On-Star tracking system for the elderly and infirm because "someone" recommended that they should. Or maybe they won't send the electronics at all. They'll just get the personal information, credit card number included, and that will be that.
How do they sleep at night?

Mile Marker

Well it took me years to get those souvenirs 
And I don't know how they slipped away from me. - "Souvenirs" by John Prine
It's been decades since I ran with my father. The last time we were together, we went for a run. Well, the last time we were together and he wasn't in a bed in a burn ward.
Sorry for that juxtaposition, folks, but it's the one that gets stuck in my head every Memorial Day. My dad was the active one. He's the one who talked me into running my first race: The Bolder Boulder. I still have the shirt from that one. It was the fanciest shirt I ever got from a race: all maroon nylon on top and a white mesh on the lower half. It's not one that I wear much since it seems every bit as dated as those short-shorts I used to wear back in the day. But it's still in the drawer because it reminds me of that time and place.
I carry a picture in my wallet of my father and I crossing the finish line together. We ran that race for a lot of years, but only once did we manage to finish at the same time. It was so long ago that when we received the proof for the photo, it wasn't a digital thumbnail attached to an e-mail. It was a wallet-sized real-life picture that wasn't suitable for framing, but was completely acceptable for carrying around in a wallet. For a few decades. For a few hundred miles. I've worn out more shoes than I can count. I've retired a good many shirts, but I've got that one in reserve. 
All that running made it hard to look at my father, or the shell that had been my father, lying in that hospital bed. It's not that all of the memories of I have of my father are him in motion. He was a champion sleeper. But he snored like a buzzsaw. My father could be still, but he really couldn't be quiet. On Memorial Day, I think about all the running and snoring and how I miss them. Sometimes I snore now, just to keep up. 
I still go running with my dad. These days we almost always cross the finish line together.

Choppers

I heard the helicopters overhead. Once again they were making slow circles in the air over my school. The good news was that most of our students had gone home for the day, but our afterschool program was still going on and those kids were looking up to the sky, trying to discern what the threat level was. If they had been listening, it would have been obvious.
Through a loudspeaker hovering above us, the police were telling a group of young men that the dirt bikes they were riding up and down the streets around our school were not legal. "Get off the bikes and park them," barked the voice from the sky. The nasal whine of the motorcycle engines continued as they raced up and back, seemingly oblivious to the commands they were being sent from on high.
That's when I thought: If I were sixteen, riding my dirt bike up and down the streets near my house, would I stop just because some guy was yelling at me from a helicopter? Even if it was a police helicopter? Why don't they come down and make me?
When I used to race my Kawasaki dirt bike up and down the streets in front of my house, they weren't streets. They were dirt roads, and my house was a mountain cabin. And if there was a helicopter in use by any law enforcement agency anywhere near my location, it was being used to spot forest fires, not to spot the periodic teenager on a motor bike. Now I wonder which times and situation are more enlightened.
My youthful rides were probably no less annoying to the people who lived in our vicinity. Probably even more disturbing, since I was providing a near constant barrage of engine noise in an otherwise pristine setting. Who is going to notice a couple of dirt bike engines above the din of your standard Oakland afternoon din? Above the roar of the helicopter's rotors? And that loudspeaker?
Eventually, the dirt bikes stopped, and the helicopter went away. I knew they would be back, but the voice from the sky had won that round. Thanks for keeping us safe and sound, but not necessarily safe from the sound.