The Cheap Seats

A good friend died last Thursday, a profound shock. The days since then have been just that, a daze , filled mostly with thoughts of his absence. If I were a younger man, I doubt I'd be ruminating on the nature of death and loss as much, just one of the many prices we pay for growing older, I suppose. And like so many of life's unplanned moments, death seems to be one of those things that come at us in waves, with long intervals in between where these stinging waters recede and leave us in peace. Of course, these interludes shrink as we get older, perhaps nature's way of steeling us for the coming years that are more filled with sorrow than we could have realistically borne in the sunnier days of our youth. He was a good man, my friend. Unfailingly generous, quick with a joke and imbued with an unwaveringly positive spirit, he was a tonic to every person who knew him. And now that he is suddenly gone (and far too soon), those he left behind—his family, the love of his life,

I feel very fortunate that there were a number of teachers I had during my childhood who made a real difference in my young life. Naturally, they probably never knew this, as the lessons they passed on were only recognizable with the passing of many years. One of those teachers was William Meisner, who passed away last week at the grand old age of 94. Mr. Meisner taught English in his 30+ years at Carlton High School, though I dare say  Shakespeare  was probably his favorite. I had the good luck to be in the last Shakespeare class Mr. Meisner ever taught in the Spring of 1984, his final year at CHS. He was unforgettable. Even now I can see him at his desk reading one of the parts from any number of plays, his hands gesturing, his chin jutting out, his words transformed by the characters he portrayed. In a bold move on my part, I tracked Mr. Meisner down to a Cloquet nursing home two summers ago because  I wanted to give him a copy of the book I wrote, Addie Braver . In that story, Mr.

*Fair warning...this is not for the squeamish or faint of heart, but it is an entirely TRUE STORY. At the very least, you will be disgusted. Your nose and upper lip will scrunch together involuntarily, trust me. Okay, now that I have your attention, let us begin. I've used a good deal of headspace in the last ten months trying to put my finger on just the right metaphor to summarize the year that we all just crawled through. A ship and an iceberg came to mind, but was quickly rejected as being too obvious. The relationship between science and masks seemed appropriate, but was also discarded because it was (sadly) not obvious enough.  So, as this year of misery mercilessly churned towards its ending, I gave up my search. The blogosphere would have to do without the musings of one more middle-aged blowhard. I know...tragic, right? And then, in two parts, it happened. For Part 1, let's rewind a few months back to late September. A good friend and I (masked and distanced, so save y

'Twas a month before inauguration in the great white North, Where Santa could be found pacing back and forth. You see, the old guy had just received an odd, angry note, From a strange orange man raging about some "unfair" vote. Letters should be from children , Santa distractedly mused, Not grown ass men, bitter about who the voters had choosed. Besides, Kris Kringle wondered , peering through his bifocal glasses, These words are unreadable, did this bozo fail all his classes? Still, St. Nick sat down figuring, Oh, what the heck, I've got a few minutes to read some of this dreck. After all , he chuckled, taking a long sip of his cocoa, A letter from an adult is nice, though this one seems loco . "I won by a lot!" it began. "The election wasn't even close!" And other false claims, all crazy and bellicose. "If those ballot counters had the right priorities, They would have tossed out the votes of those ethnic minorities!" Old Claus chok

* Our great abiding national myth is this: We are a chosen people who threw off the yoke of our colonial oppressors to forge a new nation out of the wilderness by pulling ourselves up by our bootstraps, rugged individualists who tamed a continent through sheer grit and determination. A meritocracy where anyone, no matter their color or creed, can rise as far as their talent and gumption takes them. Furthermore, we have welcomed "huddled masses yearning to breathe free" from the far-flung nations around the globe.  Here,  we told them,  here in America is where you too can taste a freedom that grows nowhere else on Earth.  This myth suggests a unity of purpose that utterly belies basic human nature. We are a savage species; distrusting, selfish, greedy, wasteful, often barbaric. Our " better angels " are almost exclusively reserved for people who belong to our same tribe, whether that tribe be religious, political, or ethnic in nature—more often than not some combina

  I grit my teeth all the time now. Don’t you? I didn’t always, but when everything about existence that I used to reliably count on got flipped on its head, what’s a guy to do?   Don’t get me wrong, I have never been an unwavering, Love it or Leave it "patriot" about the United States of America. Far from it. As a lifelong student of its history, I can find all of its warts, scabs, and cancers with a critical eye. Kind of sucks, actually. You see, we’re a two-steps forward, one-step back kind of nation. We always have been. Broadly shared gains seem to always be followed by bitter, aggrieved setbacks. Emancipation leads to Jim Crow, Civil Rights spawns White Citizens’ Councils, Barack Obama is succeeded by Donald Trump. Our “better angels” have been taken to the woodshed time and time and time again. All pessimism aside, I still believe what Dr. King espoused, that “ the arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends towards justice .” The ongoing struggle he spelled ou