Wednesday, August 29, 2012

Just a Few Inches.

An incident on Monday left two Sheriff's deputies shot, when a person sought in several counties for several crimes decided to shoot his way out of his vehicle at a traffic stop.
Both deputies are doing well.
In an article today about the shootings Monday, one of the detectives working on the case was interviewed by a newspaper reporter. During his comments, he held up his thumb and index finger and implied that sometimes life comes down to just a few inches.
To their colleagues who face this danger daily, a few inches can make all the difference between life and death.
It's difficult to think about being in a situation where it would be necessary to either give oneself up to the law or shoot your way out. The idea of turning a weapon on another human being, let alone an officer of the law is repellent to me. But there are those out there who have no qualms with this kind of behavior. Those who make these sorts of choices daily.
Everyday we face thousands of decisions that affect ourselves and our families but rarely do we consider the reality of some of the consequences of those decisions. It is hard, perhaps because of human nature, to think about how each and every one of our choices will pan out. To think too deeply on them would seem like unhealthy deterministic obsession. Yet, if we consider briefly that any one of our choices could go terribly wrong at any time as a simple result of poor planning or distraction (and there are so many today), we tend to look a little harder at the consequences of those choices a little harder.
I'm not suggesting that each of us is master of our own destiny. Somethings that happen to us are completely arbitrary. A friend's friend who lives near Aurora, Colorado and who decided at the last minute not to go see the particular screening of The Dark Knight Rises on the night when the tragic shootings took place, found that his decision saved his life. A woman driving home recently found herself pinned under a huge tree that simply fell at the moment her car went by. None of her decisions had any affect on that tree falling. She survived, and after an extremely exciting few hours was safe at home with her family and friends.
No one knows when we will face death. Some of us won't even know that it happened. Such is nature.
I believe, though, that it is good to keep our minds at a level of thought that reminds us frequently that our actions and the actions of others can and do have a direct result in the lives around us.
The deputies did their jobs very well. They encountered a fool who had grown accustomed to making poor decisions and his consequences will not be pleasant. Those two men knew when they left for their shifts, that they might not come home. It is a daily aspect of their jobs. One that I know I couldn't face. I'm extremely conscious of the fact that these two men are not just deputies. They are sons, fathers, brothers, cousins, grandsons, uncles and friends. They are as human as the rest of us. And everyday they face countless situations that could end badly.
I'm extremely grateful to them and all of our law enforcement officers the world over who perform their duties honorably and selflessly to protect us every single day. Some of those days, like Monday of this week, life comes down to just a few inches.
The best that we can do for these men and women who risk so much for our protection and safety is to be conscious of our own decisions. We must remember to think. We must remember to be aware that some of our decisions will not only affect ourselves but those around us.
There will always be fools who cannot make good choices, but they will invariably be victims of their own poor choices. As our youngest frequently says, "You've got to think!"

Tuesday, August 28, 2012

And Now the News

I am a recovering news hermit. For a very long time I kept myself isolated from any form of current event in any form of major news media. I occasionally listened to NPR, and even that was rare; always preferring shows like ‘A Prairie Home Companion’ or ‘Car Talk’ to news programming.
I lived, as my wife will tell you, under a news blackout bubble. She came to this conclusion because when she would come home and start a conversation about some big news event in the world, I would look at her lamely, shrug and generally appear like someone without the slightest clue of what was going on. She would sigh, then proceed to update me on all that had happened.
This second (and sometimes third or fourth) generation news update was something I could deal with. It didn’t come with gruesome pictures of violence or ravaging fires and was very often done quickly and concisely. As an author and columnist, Micki has her finger on the pulse of what is news, and so her review of those events was more pleasant to me than any other news media.
For the most part, though, I prefered to ‘be in the dark’ about most all events. Looking back across 35 years, I have a glorious bubble of darkness where I’m sure many noteworthy events occurred both locally, nationally and internationally.
The reasons behind this voluntary self sequestering are many.
First, as a child, one of my great heroes of ‘The News’ was Jim O’Brien, an anchorman and meteorologist who was killed while skydiving.
At that time, I knew that when I grew up I was going to be just like him. His sudden and shocking death hit me very hard.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o7FnrFP9t2M
After that, seeing how difficult it was for his colleagues and family, I began thinking that the life of a TV news anchor was perhaps too much in the public eye. An unusual sentiment for a six year-old boy. The next tragedy that made me dislike the news, hit much closer. My father, an electrician, was terribly electrocuted while working in underground utility tunnels in Reading, PA. He lived, thankfully, but I’ll never forget the local news reports and how terrified I was by all of it.
Finally, just after I moved here in 2001, Micki called me from work to tell me that a plane had hit one of the World Trade Center towers. [In respect to those who lost their lives in the 9/11 attacks, I will not post pictures of the towers or other pictures from that week. I find it insensitive of newspapers and news agencies who continue to do so.] 
I switched on the news, watched for many hours along with every other American and then I switched it off for good. After that, I had trouble with any form of news. If we watched it before bed, I invariably had nightmares. I tried to listen to brief sound bites, but after everything else, the news just seemed like a whole lot of bad and not a lot of good (with the exception of the occasional water skiing squirrel.)
For the next several years, I excused myself from conversations regarding the news, and except for reading Micki and Warren’s columns on Saturday mornings and the Sunday funnies, I avoided any form of news media. If there was something incredibly important or noteworthy, Micki would relay it to me.
Now, however, I can no longer afford to be ignorant of the news. When you work in a Library, as I do, you are a guardian to the gateway of information. You have to be able to speak intelligently about local, national and international news; know what’s new in books and movies, and keep abreast of current events in the world. With the growth of social media, internet news and smartphones, I’ve been able to control the input from media sources to me to prevent news burn out, and to keep myself involved just enough to be able to do my job well.
Every morning I look at the paper, check out the Yankee’s scoreboard (and sometimes the Red Sox, just to be sure they’re not gaining), read the comics, the ‘Law Log’, skip happily over ‘Dear Abby,’ glance skeptically at my horoscope and dig in to the Op-Eds and movie reviews and weather.
I’m in no way a ‘news addict’ and I never will be. I still love and miss the hermetic silence of my self-willed exile and I still seek it out now and again. I have to admit, though, that here is something empowering about being ‘in the know’.
In the long run I still prefer to hold tight to the old adage: No news is good news.

Wednesday, August 22, 2012

Back in the (Guitar) Saddle Again!

There is a tendency among participants in certain hobbies to give up that hobby for awhile, and then come back refreshed after a certain period of time. I don’t know what it is per se, suffice it to say that I am recently on the other end of such a sabbatical.
I’ve been playing piano by ear since I was eight. When I was fourteen, I taught myself to play drums. When I was eighteen or nineteen, I started to mess around with a guitar.
It’s easy enough to play the piano. Given enough time, a person completely unfamiliar with the instrument can pluck out a tune. Drums took a little more time and practice, but the result was a big amount of pleasure at being able to attain more and more proficiency.
The guitar is another animal altogether.
A lot of people can play guitar, but real proficiency with a guitar (should I perhaps say intimacy?) is a lifelong pursuit. While I played regularly and practiced regularly, I got pretty good. I found the satisfaction of becoming better was ten times the level of pleasure that drumming allowed.
For me, at least.
This is a difficult thing to illustrate. I love to play drums, and I know that I’m good at it. Given a little practice, the rust would shake free from me, and I’d be hot again. But drumming compared to playing guitar, in my case, is like a dear friend compared to a passionate lover. While drumming and I will always be very close chums, the press of my fingers to wood and steel is like deep love.
So I hurt my own feelings a few years ago, when I suddenly lost the desire to play. Sure, I would take out one of my guitars to strum a bit with Micki, or with our group of friends, but it seemed I had lost that passionate feeling which was frequently the cause friends and family seeing me with a guitar almost anytime I was sitting down.
I tried and tried to rekindle the relationship, but something was different. And, almost as if in unison with my sudden lack of desire, my guitars became quite popular and went to stay with my boys, who also began to teach themselves to play. I was happy that the instruments had regular use, and that my boys were striving to be musicians. But, I was sad the my desire was gone.
So, for the duration that it lasted, part of me was beyond playing guitar, and slightly heartbroken.

Then, a few weeks ago, we went on vacation and came up with a plan for how we would spend our mornings. It’s slightly odd that a solid week away from your regular surroundings and routines can make you see your non-vacation life in a new light. We decided we would be getting up an hour earlier each morning so that we wouldn’t be rushed, could read the paper and enjoy a nice breakfast together, before readying for work.
It just so happens that the very next day after our return from vacation, our middle boy needed to be back at college. So he had already begun to get some things ready and on the chaise longue by the door for easy loading. Among those bags and shoes was my oldest guitar.
I’ve had that particular friend since I was my youngest son’s age; a sophomore in high school.
I strummed, and plucked a little, recognizing that she needed new strings and good wipe down. It felt remarkably good to sit and play, and so I did, for nearly two hours, while the rest of the family were out buying school clothes.
The next day, fingers delightfully sore, I bought new string and picks and went up and retrieved my favorite guitar (not the same as my oldest) from the oldest son’s room, cleaned it, restrung it and the next day, after breakfast, while Micki wrote, I played.
I’m still rusty, but I’ve been playing almost every day since, and it’s been wonderful. Whatever occurred between myself and my guitars has passed and we’re back together.
Today, I even came up with a little ditty which, while it needs more work, will be the first song I’ve written for years and years.
It’s remarkably good to be back with my guitars again!

School Year Interference of Solar Year Resolved

[Warning: The following Blog Post  is rated EG and may be offensive to some Educators who are starting school today or tomorrow. Educator Discretion is Advised!]

For eight long years, I worked for the local city school system. In that time my body became steadily more conscious of a different set of seasons and routines. The school year warped my appreciation of the seasons and the solar year.
I longed for June and dreaded August; hoped for December and April’s breaks and tried not to think about early spring and the awful “Long Haul” between New Year's and Easter when there was nothing but school days without interruption as far as the eye could see.
When June finally arrived (and for some, May) the ‘Countdown’ would begin. Teachers are giddy and exhausted, the children are no longer able to contain themselves, the warm temperatures and buzzing bees and pretty flowers all call everyone in the school building to leave behind our books, SmartBoards and calculators, and go home.
Summers for me, then, although a distinct relief, were also full of part-time-job-hunting and penny-pinching. Since I was only a ten month employee, I didn’t get paid during summer break, so other work was not only a good idea, it was necessary.
Invariably, vacation and visits from family, along with weekend celebrations make the entire summer break flash by like no other part of the year. And soon it’s time for teachers and staff to “Go Back” with only a week before the students- universally and ominously known by school staff as ‘Them’ or ‘They’- return.
For me, a lover of the season of Autumn, school starting always filled me with a desire for chilly, leaf changing days. I always imagined myself going back to school in my sport coat with leather elbow patches and scarf, cheeks rosy and leaves falling. Since school starts in late August, however, it’s still unpleasantly hot outside and it feels for all the world like you’ve been gypped out of the rest of your summer.
Finally, last year, I had enough. I could no longer hold myself up against the storm of that job, its stress and it’s low pay.
When summer arrived and I was free, I knew in my heart of hearts that I wouldn’t ‘Go Back’ in August. Instead of working for the summer, I created a rigorous daily schedule, so that I could get some big jobs accomplished at home and look for a new job. In mid-July, I found one and I went back to work.
Educator colleagues might complain that I had a truncated summer vacation. It’s true, but I was so happy to not have to ‘Go Back’ in August, that I never thought twice about it.
Busy learning the ins and outs of my new job, I didn’t pay much attention to the start of the new school year outside of our own boys' experiences and I really only noticed that school was out when more children began to show up at work during typical school hours.
A full year later, I’ve noticed something else very interesting about my perceptions of the seasons and the year now that I’m no longer looking at it from the perspective of an educator. I actually enjoy the seasons more fully as they proceed without the distortion of the school year. Certainly, I now work all week every week all year long, but that allows for such a great appreciation of the natural clockwork of a solar year that I don't mind at all. 
The breaks and holidays and choppy feel of a school year as it sits within the solar year actually undermines the ability to appreciate the seasons as they progress naturally.
I now notice the subtle changes, beginning in mid-summer that will eventually blend into Autumn. The first blooms of Spring as they strain up and out of the cold, wet mud and the last leaves of Autumn that meander down; the first snowflakes and the last coldsnap, the heat waves and the thunderstorms are no longer lost on me.
While my educator friends moped around for the last week before school began, trying desperately not to think about all the time they wasted in June and July, I happily strolled back and forth to work, enjoying the weather and breathing deeply the long, slow descent into Autumn, never once wistfully longing for Thanksgiving or Christmas to 'hurry up and get here'.
While they impatiently think towards the holidays, I’m still looking forward to a long weekend at Labour Day, while enjoying cooler mornings and evenings and glorious greenness of late summer; something that until this year, I hadn’t noticed since before I worked in education.
In six weeks while they scramble to get report cards done, I’ll be thinking about our 11th Anniversary and Fall Festival. In twelve weeks, with only a week until Thanksgiving, I’ll be thinking about how wonderful a sweater feels and how pretty the evening sky is. It’s a freedom I cannot explain.
It is true that I don’t get as much time off at Christmas or Easter as I used to, but I now get enough vacation time to take a week off when I can actually enjoy it with the whole family and still get paid for it.
I hope that my former colleagues won’t resent me. I know now, after a year away, that I couldn’t ever go back to that lifestyle. Perhaps someday the Education System will think of a way to lessen the effects of solar year distortion by the school year. I hope so, for my former colleagues’ sake. I really do hope so.

Tuesday, August 14, 2012

[NOT] By Any Other Name...

I am David Daniel Bare. That is my given name. It is on official documents and resides comfortably in my mother’s scrawling script on my birth certificate.
To nearly everyone, though, I am and have always been Dave.
That said, here are some guidelines for using this name correctly since it might get a little confusing.
My parents and grandparents always called me David. So, if you hear someone of that generation call me David, it’s okay. I don’t like to be called David regularly, unless I am simply being respectful. My Mother-in-Law calls me David, so does my father, so if you’re from near their generation, then I don’t mind.
Everyone else calls me Dave.
Micki can call me David in an emergency or basically whenever she wants. She can also call me Honey, Sweetie, Dear, Darlin’ Davey-Wavey or whatever other love name she can think of. That is a fundamental right of spouses.
Our boys (except one) call me Dave. They are my stepchildren, so ‘dad’ is out of the question. I never called my step dad ‘dad’ either, so I don’t mind in the least. I said that they call me Dave, mostly, except when they’re mad at me; then I’m Dude, ‘HIM’ or ‘Grunt’.
Our middle boy refers to me affectionately as Daniel. It is my middle name, so that’s okay. But, please don’t try it. He’s earned the right.
My peers know that I want to be called Dave. And, except for a brief period where I desperately wanted to be called ‘Larry’ in college (please don’t ask) have always been Dave or other various friend names.
You can call me Dude, but we better be tight. If we’re thick as thieves, you can call me any friend names. Dude, Bud, Buddy, Pal, Brother, Man, Kid and to my Best Childhood Friend, Pally O’Mally.
If we aren’t close, or if I don’t know you, please don’t call me Buddy. I’m not your buddy. Also, don’t call me ‘son’. I’m not your son, either.
I’m Dave.
Please don’t call me Chief. We have one of those in this town, and he retains the right to be hailed with that moniker.
If I work with you, the same rules apply: If you are within fifteen years of my age either way, you call me Dave.
Not David.
Not Davey.
Certainly not ‘Davey-Boy’. 


When I worked for the school system, I was Mr. Bare. I still am.
Whenever I see a former student, or comrade from those old days, I am Mr. Bare. I don’t have the heart to tell those rapidly growing children who still remember me from their time in elementary school to call me Dave. So, to those children I am and will always be Mr. Bare. As far as I’m concerned that is the only group who can use it. Otherwise, Mr. Bare is my father or my brother.
My brother is one of those people who retains some liberty in labeling me, as well. He was there when they brought me home from the hospital, and he’s twelve years my senior and the closest person in my life, other than Micki. That grants him a lot of freedom. He calls me Dave, David, Bro, Brother, Little-Brother and Davey.
His children and all my nieces and nephews call me Uncle Dave. It is a title I wear with great pride and humility. To be an Uncle, after all, is a majestic thing.
When I get to be of an age when our boys come home with girls they want to marry, those girls, if we find them collectively good enough for our boys can call me Dave. Their children can call me Pop-pop or Grandpop, or if they want, Grampa Dave. Please no PawPaw, Papaw, Peepaw, DeeDaw, Dadaw, Papa, Grandfather (said with an English Boy’s Choir Soprano) or Grandiddy. I live here in the South, but I do not wish to be affixed with a Southern patronym.
I am, have been and always will be Dave to everyone else.
Please use it carefully. 

Don’t wear it out!

Friday, August 10, 2012

Boyhood Experience Restores Fearlessness in the Face of Sea Storms.

I’m not a rookie when it comes to storms. I’ve slept through them in an ancient leaky house; on a sailboat with all hatches battened and in a leaky tent in the middle of nowhere.
Storms don't unnerve me.
When other children would scamper away in tears, I would always watch calmly as the clouds darkened and the lightning flashed.
You see, I had a very unusual experience with a storm when I was a boy. My companion during that particularly bad weather was not afraid in the slightest, and at six, I guess I absorbed some of his confidence.
An old Amish man with a wooden leg, Kristian was not what you might picture as the ‘typical Amish’ person. He wore a straw hat, rather than a black one; he smoked hand-rolled cigarettes, could swear in both languages and did so with a joyous relish that even a boy of my few years knew was somewhat against Amish doctrine.
Krist, (it rhymes mist, and that is what everyone called him), was an expert barn-raiser. He had many, many giant constructions under his belt by the time he came to be part of our own special crew. One of my stepfather’s carpenter friends recommended Krist because of his vast knowledge of shaping and moving massive timbers. So, when the men were working on rebuilding a two-hundred year old log cabin on our property, Krist was the man for the job.
Rumors surrounded him, though. 

Stories of a collapsed beam pinning him to the ground for many hours. Stories of a house he built with his own bare hands in the hottest part of the year that later burnt down and which he rebuilt before winter and many other legendary tales grew up around him. For a boy my age, you can imagine how much I admired him.
Looking back, it must be how young Jim Hawkins felt about Long John Silver, at least initially.
One day, in the heat of the afternoon, Krist stood balanced on a crossbeam shading his eyes under his straw hat staring out North and West. He puffed his cigarette, spat and said in thick Pennsylvania-German,  “Shturm Kommt”. The men working around the building looked somewhat bewildered by the words he’d used and gazed back stupidly, like dogs waiting for a familiar command .
“Storm is coming,” he said in English.
Suddenly everyone began to scramble to get tools put away and machinery covered. Krist slowly hobbled down the ladder and began to put his tools into a hand-made tool box. Of course I tried to help, since he had a wooden leg, I thought I could go faster and I reverently gathered the scattered tools from the piles of sawdust and shavings. He pointed silently at each tool and I retrieved them.
Thunder cracked overhead. Krist grabbed me up under one strong arm and with his tool chest in the other, he moved with surprising, though jostling, agility from the log cabin to a small shed attached to the back of our house. As we got through the door, rain fell in sheets behind us and lightning flashed.
As we, a mismatched pair of beings in every way, stared out the window, a bolt of lightning sliced down and hit the ground only several feet away from where we were standing. Only the flimsy out-building separated us from certain atmospheric static vaporization.
I jumped with fear at the flash and crack. I remember seeing a blazon of purple before my vision for several hours after. Despite the howling tempest just outside,  Krist stood stock still, fearless in the face of nature’s wrath. His old gnarled brown hand sat gently but reassuringly on my shoulder and my fear left me.
Since that day, I have experienced every storm, regardless of intensity, with grim-faced fearlessness. A part of that old man passed to me and it has always held me firm.
Today, whenever a storm comes through, I’m more likely to be found smiling and enjoying it rather than cowering somewhere.
Until last night.
Last night, as we all trailed off to bed, a storm raged just off the coast. 


By the time our Beach House was dark and everyone was asleep a gale was blowing like mad outside.
Beach houses this close to the water are almost always on stilts. So when winds howl in from off the water they tend to rock the place.
Laying in bed, listening to the thunder and rain and wind, the whole house wiggled nervously below us. With each flash of lightning, I felt the likelihood of the house being ripped off the stilts and flung carelessly out into the water growing.
I took a deep breath, trying to gather my wits in case we were forced to flee the wreckage of a demolished house. Unexpectedly,  I felt a deep sense of calm spread through me, beginning in my right shoulder.
In my mind’s eye, I saw a gnarled brown hand resting there and I knew that the old Amish man with a hitchy gait and a penchant for cussing was somewhere thinking of me too.

I suddenly didn't mind the storm so much.