Dogs vs. Cats

I have noticed recently that most of my friends and I have something in common—more than just bad judgement in choosing friends—we are dog-owners. This is not to say that I have no cat-owning friends, just that the vast majority of my friends and acquaintances have dogs. As I write this, I think of my sister and one of my nieces who own cats and I’m sure they will take exception to what I am about to write. Indeed, one of the hot button topics that probably should be avoided at family gatherings in addition to politics and religion is the whole dog vs. cat thing. People are pretty dialed in with regards to their opinions where this topic is concerned, so there’s no way to write about it without running afoul of someone’s tender feelings. But that sort of thing has never stopped me before.

I had lunch with one of my rare cat-owner friends the other day. We got to talking about this topic and he shared that one of his objections to dogs is the fact that their owners are expected to follow them around picking up their feces and placing it in small, paper-thin plastic bags—a ritual that he found disgusting beyond measure. I looked at him with the incredulous face of someone encountering the worst argument ever made against dogs and for cats. I looked at him for a second and then replied, “Ok, so you prefer cats—who defecate and urinate—in your house??  Thus began a spirited back and forth:

Friend: Yes, but they are trained to do so in the litter box which is stowed away in the utility room!

Me: Who in the name of all that is holy came up with the term LITTER BOX?? A cat owner, that’s who. It’s not litter that gets thrown in there. Your cat doesn’t throw soda cans and gum wrappers in there. He poops and pees in there, in a box full of God knows what kind of carcinogenic particles that make your entire house smell like cat poop and pee tinged vaguely with lilac.

Friend: Maybe. But at least I don’t have to pick up after him.

Me: Are you kidding? Who cleans out the litter box?

Friend: That’s what wives are for dude!

I almost resorted to my dog vs. cat ending argument, but decided that he had suffered enough, especially after he described the feline in question. It’s basically his wife’s cat. He tolerates it. He described the animal to me in the sort of way one describes a particularly wayward child. “He means well…” he began. “He was quite cute as a kitten. But then his eyes opened and all hell broke loose. He loves my wife. I say this due to the fact that he has never tried to gouge her eyes out, and he only hisses menacingly at her if she is late with breakfast or dinner.” So after that, I let it go. No need to rub salt in the wound.

But here’s the thing. I have never understood the basic value proposition that a cat brings to the table. With dogs it is self evident. To your dog, you are the greatest person in the entire universe. You hang the moon and the stars. When you leave in the morning they count the minutes until your return where they greet you like a conquering hero. Cats are emotional, spiritual and physical free agents. Your value to them is utilitarian. If you feed them promptly, they allow you to live. If you annoy them in even the slightest way they will hold a grudge for weeks. A dog doesn’t even know what a grudge is.

And then there’s the undeniable fact that cats will not be allowed in heaven.

I can hear the plaintiff cries from all of you cat lovers out there in the Blogosphere as you rend your garments at my words. Let me explain.

From the time you bring your adorable puppy home from the breeder/pound/rescue shelter, that little fur ball comes to believe that you are God. You are the source of all good and great blessings in his world. In much the same way as we worship God, dogs worship us. Cats, on the other hand, very early on in their tenure as the new owners of your house, come to the realization that they are God. And as we all know, the sin of pride is number one on any list of things that God cannot abide. Since no blasphemy can enter heaven, the cats will be left to their own devices.

I’m not trying to make the case that all cats are maniacal creatures and all dogs are benevolent angels. But do the math, people. How many people have been saved from burning houses by…cats? How many burglars have been foiled by the bone chilling sound of a…hissing cat? How many drowning children have been pulled out of raging rivers by heroic…cats? How many times have people been pulled out of collapsed buildings by the tenacious and fearless ethic of life saving…cats? When is the last time you saw a bomb-sniffing cat at the airport? On the other hand, what percentage of allergy-related deaths are caused by cat dander? 

I rest my case.

Now it’s time for me to sit perfectly still and quiet so Lucy will feel safe enough to eat her dinner. That is—if the ghosts flying around the living room ceiling fan will stop distracting the poor thing.

Retirement Status Update

My first full month of retirement is now in the books. Almost everyone I know when they see me they ask, “How’s retirement?” My answer is always some version of “Great!”. Of course, it’s only been one month, so no definitive answer is available at this point. I should also point out that retiring in the middle of winter isn’t optimal. If I had a do-over I might have retired the end of March or something when I could have celebrated by playing golf or going to an opening day baseball game. But, that ship has sailed. Still, January has been, despite the cold and snowy nonsense, quite fun. Here are a few of the highlights.

I got to attend my daughter’s 20 week sonogram. I found out his name, which is at this point still very much top secret. I have managed to remove three carloads of junk from our attic, which represents approximately 7% of the junk in our attic. This means that in a mere eleven more months I will be done! I have had six shifts at Hope Cafe plus at least that many paying customer visits which I spent mostly writing and engaging in harmless mischief. I might have made a couple videos to cheer up a sick friend, which featured me disparaging the already suspect reputation of my friend, Tom Allen. Speaking of writing, I wrote my first post-retirement work of fiction, a short story called Clara and Vincent. I distributed a dozen hamburgers to the volunteers at Hope Thrift and some Krispi Kreme doughnuts to the teachers at River’s Edge Elementary. Pam and I went to an awesome baptism at my church on a random Tuesday night. I gave Lucy a bath. We picked out and purchased all new exterior lights for our house and I hired real honest-to-God electricians to install them. I shared a fair number of top quality Dad Jokes to my many breathless fans. I met all of my siblings for lunch at Cracker Barrel in Fredericksburg. I fielded numerous phone calls and answered many texts from the new owners of my business who needed clarification on this thing or that. Most of these calls and texts began with the phrase, “Doug, I mean…what the hell?” I logged 48 miles on the stationary bike and another 10 miles walking the neighborhood when it wasn’t too danged cold. I also managed to do 705 pushups, curls and lateral raises (Yes, I keep records of such things). All of these healthy activities has resulted in me losing 2.8 pounds. I read two books. I have not shaved the beard yet but probably will the end of February. I have prepared only one dinner. 

There are several things I have not done since I’ve been retired. I have not checked on the travails of the stock market 100 times a day. I have not felt the weight of responsibility for the financial health of 300 people. My total “screen time” has decreased 42%…or so I am told by my cell phone’s analytics. 

All in all, a wonderful month.

Clara and Vincent… Part III

“How long were you and your husband together?” Vincent asked without looking up from his plate.

“I met him in Middle School.” Clara answered. “We started dating in high school and then got married right after graduation. We were married for 58 years.”

Vincent took off his hat and looked at her for a second before asking, “Any kids?”

“We never had children, no.” Clara turned away from his unwavering gaze, turning her attention to the neatly trimmed flower beds along the back fence for a while. “It was the greatest disappointment of our lives—not having children. But it just wasn’t meant to be.”

Vincent took the last fork full of potato salad then wiped his mouth with the linen napkin beside his plate.

“How in the world is it possible to be married for 58 years?” Vincent smiled and shook his head from side to side in genuine amazement.

Clara smiled back and asked a question of her own. “Are you married Vincent?”

It was his turn to avert his gaze to the freshly tended back yard. It would be best if he just made up a lie. It would have saved him the embarrassment of having to admit to such a colossal failure. Clara would have no frame of reference for what it was like today. She wouldn’t possibly have been able to understand. Her generation stayed together forever. He didn’t want to face the judgement that was sure to come his way if he told the truth, no matter how kind her eyes felt when she looked at him. It would be a repeat of the night that he told his parents that his second marriage was over less than 18 months before it started. They had cut him off, ashamed of his moral failings and tired of being disappointed. 

But when he opened his mouth to answer, the words had surprised him, “Not anymore, Ms. Clara.”

“So you’re divorced?”

Vincent glanced down at his hands folded neatly in his lap. “Twice.”

Her response was direct but flowed freely from her without a hint of judgement or disapproval, “Goodness. How is it possible to have been divorced twice before age 30?”

“If you answer my question, I’ll try to answer yours.”

“I’m sorry, my dear, what was your question?” 

“I asked you how it was possible to be married for 58 years.”

“Oh yes, now I remember.” Clara stopped for a moment to think before offering an answer to such a question. It was not something she had spent a lot of time pondering. She had been too busy with living life which had left little time for deep thoughts about the whys and hows.

“I’m not sure I know the answer to your question Vincent. I suppose the best I can offer is that we worked hard at it. There were wonderful times through our many years together…but we had our share of heartache and disappointments. In the end, we loved each other warts and all.”

Vincent believed her. But her words had wounded him. The truth was that he had never loved anyone more than he loved his own desire, his own way. He had discovered too late that his brand of selfishness wasn’t comparable with marriage. He decided to tell the truth.

“Well, the way you manage to have two divorces before you’re 30 is to get caught cheating on both of your wives. Yeah. So it was my fault. Both of them. Not proud of myself. But that’s the truth.”

Clara looked deeply into his eyes. The clouds of trouble hanging over him had darkened. He took a final drink of his tea. Clara reached across the table and grasped his hand in hers. “How about we have some ice cream?”

Before he could answer she had made her way inside the house leaving Vincent to make sense of what was happening to him. What was he doing here at this old woman’s broken down house confessing his sins to a complete stranger? Why had it felt good to admit to this kind old widow what an absolute bastard he was? He had another job to get to, an actual paying job, he didn’t have time to eat strawberry ice cream with an octogenarian…but here he was listening to another question—“Do you have children?”

“Yes. Two girls. Both with my first wife.”

“Oh my…” Clara, for the first time, looked disappointed. “How often do you get to see them?”

“Just one weekend a month. They live with their mother up in Cambridge, a little over an hour away.”

“I’m sorry, Vincent. I imagine that its quite difficult for you.”

“Don’t feel sorry for me, Ms. Clara.” Vincent answered honestly. “I was a cheater, remember? I brought it all on myself.”

“Yes. You did.” Clara’s face changed expression. Her eyes had taken on a pensive distance, along with the beginnings of tears. “I cheated on Harold once.”

Vincent couldn’t help himself. “What??”

A brief playful smile played across Clara’s face for an instant. “I am an old woman, Vincent. I will excuse you for not thinking me capable of infidelity.”

Then the distance returned and she began to tell her story.

“We had only been married for a couple of years when Harold enlisted in the Army. I begged him not to but my Harold was a patriot through and through. All I was thinking about was the war. But there was no changing his mind so off he went to Fort Dix for basic training. It was the first time in my life that I was alone. Before long he was shipped to Vietnam where he stayed for over two years. He got shot twice but the fool kept re-upping. I was angry and inconsolable for most of those two years.” 

As she was talking it occurred to Clara that she had never before this strange moment shared her story with another human being. As she spoke, the memories that her words released swept over her.

“One night I found myself in a bar that Harold and I used to go to after we were married and who should I run into but Burt Wilks, Harold’s best friend and the best man at our wedding. Burt was a year behind us in school but the two of them had been inseparable growing up. I hadn’t seen him for quite a while at that point so we sat together and caught up…and drank quite a few beers, not that that’s some kind of excuse. Anyway, I just remember feeling dangerous and angry. Before I knew it there we were back in my tiny little apartment waking up the next morning and going at it again. It went on for a week or more until we both had had enough. After that we went our separate ways, and I was never again unfaithful to Harold.”

Vincent had been mesmerized by the tale and by Clara’s willingness to share it but it felt unfinished. “What did Harold do when he found out?”

“He never found out because I never told him.” Clara’s voice was unwavering and unapologetic. “It was a week of weakness and selfishness on my part and nothing more. I didn’t tell him because it would have served no purpose other than breaking his heart.”

“But what about Burt? They were best friends. How did that work out?”

“It didn’t.” The very first tears of the telling appeared. “Burt followed Harold to Vietnam where he was killed five months into his tour. For the longest time I felt a measure of guilt for his death—like maybe he was too reckless a soldier because he had betrayed his best friend…with me.”

They both fell silent gazing at the reinvigorated back yard. Vincent felt a knot rising in his throat. Then he heard his unrecognizable voice—“why did you tell me that story?”

Once again Clara leaned forward to hold Vincent’s hand across the table. “I told you that story because you need to understand that you can’t let your very worst moments define you for the rest of your life. We all have it within us to do better, to be better. We just need a little encouragement, that’s all.”

Vincent looked at her with tenderness and gratitude. He hoped that it was true. He hoped that she was right, that better was possible.

He helped Clara clear off the table. They carried the dishes into the kitchen. He watched her stack them on a rubber mat next to the sink, noticing that she had no dishwasher.

“So, you live in this big old house all by yourself? Who looks after you?”

Clara placed a plug in the drain and began filling the sink with warm water. “Just me. Most of the time I do alright, but every once in a while I find that I must rely on the kindness of strangers.”

Vincent picked up the dish towel that was hanging on the stove handle and began drying the hot plates in the dish drain. “In this city, relying on the kindness of strangers is probably very hit or miss, I would imagine.”

Clara smiled as she scrubbed the ice cream bowls. “Well, just a week ago you were a stranger. So, I guess some days are better than others.”

Clara walked Vincent down the front sidewalk to his truck, thanked him for her beautiful yard then gave him a tender hug. Vincent reached in his pocket and placed a business card in her hand. It had the logo of Bianchi’s Landscaping across the front. On the back Vincent had written out his cell phone number. “Listen Clara, I want you to promise me that if you ever need something you will call me on this number. I don’t live far from you and it wouldn’t be any trouble at all. Ok?”

Vincent drove away, glancing back at her through the rear view mirror, with tears in his eyes.

Clara and Vincent…Part II

Clara stood over her stove stirring the bubbling pot of soup, thinking about the young man with the troubled eyes. He had been so kind to her, so concerned about her shaking hands, but there was a shadow about him, what Harold used to call a cloud of trouble. When they sat at the small table in the bistro he hadn’t had much to say about himself. He had asked her full name and where she lived and she had answered him with no fear that he might show up one day to rob her blind. Harold would have been appalled. But when she had asked him what he did for a living all he said was, “a little of this and a little of that,” changing the subject as fast as he could.

But her encounter with him had stirred something. It had given her a lift to be seen, to have been looked out for by a stranger. It had changed her, boosted her spirits. For the first time since Harold had passed she took her lunch out on the deck, sipping her soup in the warm sunshine. She listened to the birds and thought about the year they had visited Paris. She smiled as she remembered the flakey croissants, strong coffee and the melodic sound of softly spoken French words drifting through the evening breeze.

The next week she ventured out to the drug store to pick up some reading glasses, then took a cab to the library and checked out several books she had read when she was younger. She was older now. Maybe she would receive the words differently. It felt good to have something to look forward to. Revisiting the Yorkshire moors with Heathcliff, reentering the charged atmosphere of an Alabama courtroom with Scout, and lingering over the electric charge that always ran through her at the introduction of Phoebe into the dark and foreboding house of seven gables. The more she read the more her appetite returned.

Clara and Harold lived on an old neighborhood street three blocks from the main thoroughfare that led into the city. It was a street lined with 100 year old craftsman style houses with a broad porch across the front overlooking two square shaped yards divided by a sidewalk coming up from the street. In front of the porch were bedraggled flower beds. Harold had kept up the grounds before he got sick, but now it was a mess. Once or twice every summer one of the neighbors would show up and cut the grass without any explanation, but Clara knew that the reason sprang not from some altruistic impulse, but rather from the fact that her yard had become a neighborhood eyesore, which might bring down property values. Every year she would retrieve a half dozen landscaping advertisements taped to her front door. She had called one of them the year that Harold had passed. They wanted $75 dollars a month for their entry level plan. Clara had been mortified at the audacity of the price. So the grounds of the house she had lived in for over 40 years had fallen into disarray. The yard hadn’t been cut, the flower beds tended in months, and for reasons that were confusing to her, it suddenly mattered. Maybe it was the descriptions of the gardens in her old books. Perhaps it was all the time she was spending taking her meals outside looking out over the chaos of her back yard. Something was stirring in her soul, she knew not what.

Both of Vinny’s two ex-wives had moved away before the ink was even dry on the divorce papers, both to their old home towns, over an hour away, back to the comforts of home where they didn’t have to worry about running into him every time that ventured out. Vinny couldn’t blame them. He had been a horrible husband. The only part of his married life he could cling to as proof that he wasn’t a complete disaster was the fact that he had never once lifted a hand in anger to either of them. As an ex-husband, he had never missed a support payment, even when it meant a diet of Campbell’s soup, peanut butter-jelly sandwiches and the smelly city tap water that had the advantage of being relatively free. They had left because he had broken their hearts. Vinny had sown the wind and now was reaping the whirlwind. His inability to resist the sins of the flesh had cost him everything, including his self-respect. Which was why his encounter with Clara Parker had surprised him so.

In the first moments after he saw her spill her groceries across the parking lot he thought that he had finally found someone more miserable then he was. She had the facial expression and the halting, shaky movements of someone overwhelmed by the world and her tenuous place in it. But instead of fleeing her mess, there he was inserting himself into the middle of it. Maybe it was the tears streaming down her fragile cheeks, or the helplessness of her predicament. Whatever it was had stirred a long atrophied trace of compassion loose in his heart. There he was sitting with her, watching her eating her biscuit, listening to her talk about her dead husband, and watching the color return to her face. He had watched her slowly back her ancient, exhaust-belching Oldsmobile out of its space and drive agonizingly slow through the parking lot and finally disappear around the corner. He felt the odd sensation of warmth as soon as he started his truck. There came an inexplicable realization that he had just done something decent and good, that he had been of service to someone who needed help. In addition to the banishment of the aches and pains which had sent him on this errand in the first place, his encounter with Ms. Clara had brought with it the suggestion that somewhere within him lived a better man.

The very next Saturday morning Clara sat on her rocking chair, this time on the front porch, sipping her coffee and reading the last chapter of To Kill a Mockingbird, when she heard a loud truck rumbling down the street towing a trailer jam packed with lawn mowers, gas cans and weed eaters. When it stopped in front of her house she concluded that the neighbors had finally had enough of the weeds in her yard.

Then she saw Vincent walking towards her on the side walk that split her yard in two. He tilted the brim of his baseball cap up enough to reveal his eyes. “Ms. Clara, I couldn’t help noticing that your yard is a hot mess. Thought maybe I could clean it up a bit, if that’s alright with you.”

Clara was temporarily speechless. The only thing she thought to say was the worst possible thing to say—“How much will it cost?” It came out even worse than it was, like all she cared about was money and not the fact that this bewildering young man was once again offering his assistance with a job that she was ill-equipped to handle by herself. Vinny saved her the embarrassment but answering quickly and with a smile. “Well, maybe you could fix me some lunch when I’m through.”

Clara spent the rest of the morning watching Vincent bringing her old gardens back to life, cutting the grass, trimming all the edges and gathering up all the dead weeds into large black bags. He worked slowly, deliberately, with the practiced skill of an expert. It was like watching the grounds travel back in time, back to when they were regularly cared for, back to a time when she had been cared for. By the time he was through his shirt was plastered front and back with sweat. She offered him a towel and told him that he would have to clean up in the half bath at the end of the hall before she would feed him. For the second time in two weeks Clara found herself at a small table sharing a meal with a virtual stranger.

She brought out freshly made BLT’s along with potato salad and a large coffee mug full of homemade sausage and lentil soup, along with a glass of iced tea. She watched him eat and tried to think of what to say. She was so grateful for him and his kindness but couldn’t summon words equal to the task. So, she ate her soup in silence. 

Vincent had never tasted anything so good as the soup in the white coffee mug. For one thing, he was ravenously hungry. He hadn’t had a plate of food this generous in a very long time and he tried not to embarrass himself by wolfing it down like some kind of homeless vagrant at a soup kitchen. But the spicy warmth of the soup and the crispness of the bacon tasted like some kind of miracle. He looked across the table at Clara, wondered about the vagaries of fate which had brought him to this sun splashed deck on a Saturday morning as the smell of freshly mowed grass hung heavily in the air.

Clara and Vincent

Clara was 80 years old and living alone after the death of her husband. Although he had been sick for a long time, his passing was a surprise leaving her adrift for the first time in her memory. They had never had children and she had outlived her only sister. Most of their friends had either passed or moved to Florida, leaving her alone in a neighborhood she no longer recognized. But Clara kept reminding herself that she was reasonably healthy, warm and dry. She didn’t want to spend her last days wallowing in self-pity. She didn’t want the light to go out of her eyes. But some days were harder than others. Some nights were dark beyond knowing.

The city wasn’t a place for old people. The pace was too fast, the sidewalks cracked and uneven. All of the old stores were gone, replaced with gleaming shops with names she couldn’t pronounce. Everything was so expensive. The aisles were cramped and she bumped into things more than she used to. She didn’t know anyone at her grocery store. Gilbert Owen had run the store for as long as she could remember, but he had sold out to a younger man who she had never met. She wasn’t sure she had ever seen him in the place. He had hired a young Indian man to run the place and had installed self-checkout lanes everywhere. Clara struggled to work the scanner. She had trouble lifting the heavier items and placing them in the flimsy plastic bags. Grocery shopping took up half the morning these days.

Clara felt lucky to still have a car and her driver’s license, but she knew that eventually she would have to give up both. Her eyesight was going. She didn’t think she could pass the eye test the next time she had to renew her license, just two years away. She would just have to take the bus after that, something she wasn’t looking forward to. It was dirty and far too loud. But there was no point borrowing trouble, Clara thought to herself as she drove to the grocery store. She reminded herself to stop fretting over things she couldn’t control…which seemed to be everything now. She needed to concentrate on the task at hand. She hadn’t wanted to go to the grocery store on a Saturday but somehow she had let the pantry empty itself out and there weren’t eggs or milk or bread in the refrigerator. She hadn’t been paying attention and now she would have to fight the manic weekend crowds. The hardest part was remembering everything she needed. She had recently started making a list but her handwriting had gotten so poor she could barely read it anymore. She was planning on making soup. One pot would feed her all week. She hoped she could find tomatoes that were fit to eat. The produce under the new management was terrible. She chided herself for such uncharitable thoughts. 

It was Vincent’s first day off in over a year. His two jobs kept him busy during the week and his Uncle’s landscaping business provided him as many jobs as he wanted on the weekends and he took them all. He needed the money, for one thing, and for another, when he was working he had less time to think about the hash he had made of his life. He was only 28 and on his second divorce, with two children he only saw once a month. The friends he had left called him Vinny and blamed him for both divorces, but no more than he blamed himself. Most of his money went to his exes for the care and feeding of children who no longer felt like his. 

He had taken the day off because he felt like hell. He woke up with a splitting headache and a sharp pain running through the middle of his back. He had strained it the day before lifting a sack of fertilizer from the back of his truck. Now he could hardly get out of bed. He managed to make a pot of coffee in the midst of his agony and then sat at his kitchen table rummaging through the medicine box looking for the Tylenol. It was empty. Of course it was empty, he thought, why wouldn’t it be?

Vinny was rapidly coming to the end of his rope. He felt like he was living someone else’s life, one that had no future and no point. How had it come to this? Yes, he had made a few bad decisions, most of his mistakes were self-inflicted. But the price he was being made to pay seemed too dear, too much to ever pay. His boss at the distribution center where he worked at night had asked him, “where do you see yourself in five years, Vinny?”  Vinny had said—“hopefully better off.” But on his way home that night he pondered the question over and over in his mind and the only answer that felt true was—“dead.” But he knew he was too much of a coward to kill himself. The worst nights of his life were always the times when he thought about running away, making a break for anonymity, leaving all of his mistakes in the rear view mirror. He would take on a new name and craft a new identity, and try his best to stay one step ahead of his past. But each time he imagined this new life all he could see were the faces of his children. He had brought them into the world. What about them?

Clara made it to the self-checkout station and fumbled with the scanner. It had taken her over an hour to find everything. She crept through the store like thick syrup as all the young people sped past her on all sides. They seemed in such a hurry. It was like they couldn’t even see her, as if she were invisible. Everyone moved so fast now. She could hear the noise they made as they passed her in the aisles, like a spring breeze. And now she could feel their growing impatience as they gathered in the line behind her at the checkout station. They had places to be and people to see and when in the world was this old woman ever going to finish? She finally placed the three paper thin plastic bags in her cart and moved away from the checkout station. It had cost $100 to barely fill the three small bags, and as soon as she sat them in the cart, each of them fell open and cans of beans and her tomatoes rolled around every which way. How she hated it when the store had done away with paper bags.

There was a wide walking lane painted with bright yellow lines on the blacktop that led to the parking lot. Even though it was a walking zone Clara always stopped and looked both ways before venturing out. Then she would proceed on her way, slowly and methodically, much to the frustration of the men and women in their SUV’s waiting for her to cross. She had never noticed how slow she was until Harold had gotten sick. Once he no longer was able to go with her, she felt unsure of herself out and about. By the time she made it to her car she was sweating and her hands had begun to tremble ever so slightly. She noticed a truck idling in the lane down from her car with its blinker on. Was he waiting for her? Why had she come shopping on a Saturday? Clara fought back against a rising tide of tears as she gathered up her tomatoes and canned beans, shoved them into the plastic bag and lifted it out of the cart. When the bag ripped open sending it all crashing to the pavement and rolling across the parking lot she burst into tears.

Vinny saw the old woman, saw her groceries spill and for just a moment thought of throwing the truck in reverse. He didn’t need this. He needed some Tylenol. But then he paused and closed his eyes. For the first time in years he thought of his long dead grandmother. He opened his eyes and saw the old woman crying. He placed his truck in park, turned on the emergency flashers, got out of the cab and began gathering cans of beans and boxes of pasta. 

Clara was embarrassed when he approached her and a bit scared. He was a young man, powerfully built and sloppily dressed. The expression on his face looked weary and she couldn’t tell if he was angry or tired. 

“Looks like you’re having trouble,” he said without changing expression. 

“I’m so sorry,” Clara said.

“No need to be sorry. It’s not your fault. It’s these cheap-ass plastic bags!” The young man managed a hint of a smile.

Clara had stopped crying, but her hands were still shaking. She had gotten into the habit of skipping breakfast, drinking only coffee and a small glass of water. Her appetite had never recovered after Harold passed. But going grocery shopping with nothing in her stomach had been a mistake. Now her head began to ache and she suddenly felt as weak as water. The young man had gathered all of her runaway groceries and placed them in her trunk. Now he stood next to her, his dark eyes staring out from under his baseball cap.

“What you need are a couple of those special bags the store sells with sturdy handles on each side. At least they stand up in the cart.”

Clara thought to answer exactly how Harold would have had he been alive, “yeah…but they charge you two dollars each for those bags! First they take away the paper ones, replace them with the worthless plastic ones. Then they offer to sell you bags for two dollars. It’s a scam.”

Vinny smiled down at her. “Well, I’ve got a bunch of them behind the seat in my truck. How about I get you a couple?” 

Clara watched him go back to his truck, park it in an available space and return to her with three wrinkled bags emblazoned with the store name—Uncle Willie’s. He handed them to her and noticed that she had lost her color. He saw her hands trembling and then heard himself say, “Ma'am? You don’t look so good. Are you alright?”

“I’m afraid I’m just old and worn out. I’ll be ok once I get back to the house. I should have had some breakfast this morning. Don’t know what I was thinking,” Clara rambled.

Vinny thought of his children. Out of nowhere their bright faces appeared. They were drifting away. He was losing them. Suddenly, desperately, he wanted to be the kind of man who they would one day be proud of. He was still young. It wasn’t too late. He had time to turn it around. He extended his hand. “My name is Vincent. What’s your’s?”

“I’m Clara.”

“It’s nice to meet you, Clara.”

“I’m pleased to meet you too, Vincent.”

Vinny insisted on walking Clara back inside Uncle Willie’s. There was a small bistro inside that served breakfast biscuits and sandwiches. Vinny bought her a sausage and egg biscuit and a glass of orange juice. They sat at the small round table and talked about themselves for a few minutes. Before long Clara’s color had returned, her hands were once again steady. Vinny then walked her back to her car, helped her in safely, then waved to her as she drove out of the parking lot.

For the first time that he could remember the knot inside his stomach was gone. As he got into the cab of his truck he noticed that his headache was gone and the kink in his back had melted away.

“O Brave New World…”

A couple of weeks ago I finished putting together this puzzle. Fifty of the “Best Classic Books.” It was great fun. I took a certain amount of pride in the fact that I had read 31 of the 50 on this list. One of the 31 is Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World. I originally read it back in college when I thought I knew everything. As I recall, it made no lasting impression on me then, but there it was on my library shelf. So I decided to give it a second read. This time it felt different. What I remembered of the plot landed in a far different way for 66 year old me than it did the 20 year old version. Although written almost a hundred years ago, it remains freshly relevant.

The basic story concerns a world civilization from an unidentified year in the future where all human emotions, activities and pursuits are controlled by the State. This control has been achieved through the complete elimination of traditional childbirth, replacing it with artificial reproduction performed at a series of State operated “Hatchery and Conditioning Centers”, where everything from height and weight to intelligence is predetermined. The results of this new science is the division of humanity into several categories from Alphas to Gammas, and the complete elimination of mothers and fathers. The society that is created by such fine tuned humans is one where free unfettered sex and state encouraged drug use—a magic holiday inducing euphoria drug called Soma, insures peace and tranquility. The world controllers are proud of the world they have created which is undergirded by the three word mantra Community. Identity. Stability. One widely held belief of the society is the value placed on consumption, a citizen’s highest calling. One of the slogans pumped through the pillows of developing children as they sleep in the vast Neo-Pavlovian Conditioning Nursery—ending is better than mending…the more stitches the less riches. Its difficult to read this book without a certain level of discomfort!

The timing of having read this book this week has been fascinating. After having read about the strange process of “creating” a human being all the way from a test tube through a birthing decanter, controlling for every variable through scientific manipulation of the process was mind blowing. But then yesterday I sat on a comfortable sofa in a dimly lit examining room watching a television monitor filled with my 21 week old grandson squirming around in vitro, as a highly skilled sonogram technician measured his bones. The jumpy grey images danced around as she moved the probe from side to side. There was his beating heart. Here were the soles of his feet. There is his nose and the undeniable proof of his gender. We hung on every word the technician spoke, and our hearts were calmed with every “completely normal.”

In the Brave New World, society and science has done away with birth defects and by eliminating the traditional family and the possibility of abusive mothers and fathers, insured an easily predictable life for every child. It has also eliminated art, beauty, love, and faithfulness along with the risks of the old ways. Everyone belongs to everyone else. Nobody belongs to anyone.

As I watched the little guy moving around I thought of how all of life is one giant risk. So many things could go wrong. No guarantees exist concerning his future. We hold on to hope that everything goes well. We pray for his safety and flourishing. But, a flourishing life can only come by taking risks. Risk is as much a part of life as life itself. I don’t want a world without risk. I don’t want a life where I have to trade art, beauty, love and faithfulness for personal safety and comfort. There is absolutely nothing brave about such a world.