Mulberry season 2016

Funny, isn’t it, how we sometimes identify people with certain times, places, or things.

In the alley behind our old family repair shop there is a row of mulberry bushes which have been there for years. My grandfather would, in the late spring or early summer when they were in season, always stop and treat himself to a few of the little fruits as he went to and from work.

Little? Well, mulberries are small compared to most fruits. In context, they’re like raspberries who have spent a lot of time in the gym; a scant few are a handful. They’re juicy and sweet, and Grandpa Joe liked them. I remember vividly his picking and popping them into his mouth as he made his way down the alley, as though he were a kid again.

Time passes, and so, sadly, did Grandpa Joe. Yet the mulberries still grew, and I couldn’t help over the years but develop a liking to them myself. As I hike to and from work nowadays I’ll stop and have a few. As it were, my daughter also came to know and like the mulberries too. Often we’ll take bowls and go fill them with the little purple black fruits, snacking as we pick, and my wife will make pies out of those which make it back home. I like the idea that three generations of a family have been able to enjoy those berries ripening on the same bushes.

Now, I’m not all that naive; I know that Joe Cosgriff was ornery and arbitrary, with a hair trigger temper. I know it from the tales my Dad and his siblings have told, and from the personal experience of having worked with him for a good 15 or 18 years. I know too that there was a part of him which was somehow kind and appreciative, and that there were moments when these came out despite, perhaps, himself. There were good times and trying ones, and lasting impressions. I find as I grow older that, in the end, it is the good times which matter more than the difficult, even if it seems there were more tough days than easy. I believe too that the smallest, almost innocuous, memories can also be the greatest insights into the honest character of someone.

What prompts me to write this? It’s June, and the mulberries are in. And I’m thinking about you, Joe.

Not what the doctor ordered

Dad's doctor, whom I'll call Dr. Smith simply to be generic even as it unlikely any of you would actually know the man, one day walked into the examination room where Pops waited for him, looking down. "Why so glum, Doc?" the old man asked.

"Oh, my wife and I had a little spat last night," He replied. "I arrived home from a long day at the office and she immediately went into a long diatribe on her day. She went on and on and I just stood there staring at her. Finally she asked, well, are you going to say anything?"

'In a minute, I replied," said Dr. Smith. "I first have to determine the important from the unimportant information." He looked at Dad and said, "Not a smart thing to say to your wife, Bill."

"I imagine not," Pops laughed.

Remember June 6

D-Day: June 6, 1944. Seventy-two years ago today began the largest amphibious landing of an armed force in world history. As Allied troops hit the beaches at Normandy in the wee hours of the morning, at points code named Utah, Omaha, Gold, Juno, and Sword, the liberation of Europe was begun. The high point of the Greatest Generation was underway.

The Greatest Generation stands now at its wane. Its members are virtually all in their 80s now. The celebrations of their accomplishments are becoming fewer, smaller, and less intense. Even with improvements in medicine and diet, only a mere handful will still be around in fifteen or twenty years. Many if not most of their numbers are gone already.

It is no small compliment to call them the greatest. Has their been any other challenge successfully met by anyone else in any other time? True, we are dealing in immeasurables when we say such things. Yet it's still pretty clear that nothing anywhere close to the magnitude of World War II has occurred in all of human history. Might a greater threat and a greater harm possibly rise? Yes, of course. But to date this is it.

What can we learn from these people? We can learn perseverance, we can learn faith; we can learn to believe that, when a serious threat to home and hearth nears, humanity can rise to meet and defeat it. We can learn the humility which so many of the Greatest have displayed when speaking of their efforts in later years. We can learn that all of history teaches us to respect and remember what those who have gone before us have done for us. We can remember that our lives are here today only because of what they did with their lives, and against terrible odds under unspeakable conditions.

We can learn to respect heroism. We can learn to revere the heroes.

Never forget.

It's sometimes okay to patronize

As I walked into my tire store (well, not *my* tire store, but the tire store I frequent) wearing my Chief Wahoo Cleveland Indians baseball cap, the guy behind the counter said, "Chief Wahoo, huh? Named after Wahoo Sam Crawford, the ballplayer from Wahoo, Nebraska."

"Really?" I replied. "Interesting. I just wear it because I like it." It was a nice icebreaker that morning as I went in for a tire. And there was only one thing wrong with it. Chief Wahoo is not named after Crawford. He is simply a logo for the Cleveland baseball team, and I knew that.

So, why not correct him? I would rather ask, why correct him? What purpose would that serve?

All right, in not correcting the guy I was patronizing him. Yet I don't see what's wrong with patronization in such a context. He was only making conversation, and I didn't see why I should stick a pin in that. When dealing with innocuous items like the exact nature of a baseball symbol, let him have his fun. There's just no harm done.

Sure, I would kindly correct a friend or family member. But that's a little different; a new angle has been added. Why would I want to allow friends and family to be put in a potentially embarrassing situation of being called out by a stranger on an unimportant point? This guy was only my tire guy. I conversely did not want to embarrass him, so I let it go without censure.

In short, I see no evil in patronizing someone if the circumstances, I will say, merit it. There's no reason to be a know it all, and no reason to burst bubbles, with small talk. Only just don't patronize me by saying you agree with this if you don't.

The bitterer the betterer

I have taken a great liking to IPAs, India Pale Ales, to the point that I begin to wonder whether they're better than stouts. Further, the more I try double IPAs the more I think those wonderfully bitter quaffs may be even better. The best ones are bitter. Noticeably, tongue bitingly bitter.

I also like black coffee. Heavy, deeply bitter black coffee. I similarly like dark chocolate. Dark brown, bitter chocolate. I sense you may know where I'm going with this: I wonder if at heart I'm a bitter guy.

Although I don't believe in it I would be interested to have myself psychoanalyzed just to see if there's something to that thought. In the mean time, pass me that dark chocolate IPA stout please. And make it snappy, lest I find another reason to be bitter.

Words, words, words

There are many things which no one seems to oppose. We're all for peace, correct? Education? The environment? Observing the Golden Rule, perhaps, if such references are not too religious? Yet so often these claims ring hollow. They must, you see: for peace and education are just words. By themselves, they really mean nothing.

It is critically important that we bring up and discuss the questions which must follow these words if our actions are to mean anything; indeed, if the words themselves are at some point to be of value, of good use. WE must ask: peace under what circumstances? Peace for whom? Because of course peace in the sense of a lack of war was very useful for Hitler yet was a rather poor mantra for Austria.

Simply put, the next time someone asks you if you are for peace, or education, or the environment, ask them relevant questions before you answer. Ask them, peace under what conditions? Education to what purpose and in what manner? The environment for whom and how? Before these issues are addressed we have nothing but a shallow and insipid pool of vacuous semi-thought. Yet afterwards, we may actually accomplish things.

Stacking the deck

I spoke a few days ago about how Dad like to play poker. Well, once years ago when he and his brothers and friends played regularly he found himself on a hot streak which lasted several weeks or more. As most games were played at his house, Pops was teased a lot about marking the cards before the guys arrived for a game. So he decided one day to, I guess you'd say call their bluff.

He bought a brand new deck of cards to use for the next Saturday's game. He left it in the plastic wrapping until time for the first deal, which would be his. Dad was going to make a show of how that game would be fair by opening the cards in front of the guys.

So Saturday night came, everyone sat down, and Pops pulls out the new deck. You can all see for yourselves, fellahs, that this is a new set of playing cards which are obviously untouched, he says, or something similar. He gets a knife and cuts the clear plastic wrap, opens one end of the box, and triumphantly fans out the red-backed poker cards for all to see. Well, they were red, except the one blue-backed card (which happened to be an ace of spades) amidst all the others. Sure, Bill, you don't mark deck.

Even Dad got a belly laugh out of that. As poker players might say about such things, 'What are the odds?'