Books

Friday, January 28, 2011

My shame has been my ignorance concerning computers. I don't know how they work, nor do I particularly care. And I probably should.
Instead, I treat computers as fancy typewriters that can answer many of my questions without need of a reference work.
Then I went to the doctor for an injury, and the doctor told me to see an orthopedist. The injury was to my shoulder, and the orthopedist said he would operate.
I said that's great, but I just happen to have a more significant injury concerning my hand. The ortopedist said: I'm a shoulder guy. You need to see a small bone doctor.
And that made me realize that I am living in a body -- a machine -- whose functioning I no more understand than do I that of a computer.
But whereas you have to be a particular kind of smart guy to understand a computer, the really smart guys -- the doctors -- don't understand their bodies in detail any more than I do. They may understand knuckles, for example, but the probably can't tell you about warts.
And yet, I'm able to use both my computer and my body with some degree of skill, regardless of my limited intelligence.
So now I'm content in my ignorance concerning computers. Same goes for bodies.

Tuesday, January 25, 2011

I was two years old when I first pulled the trigger of a firearm.
It was a leafless time of the year -- spring or autumn, I don't remember. What is vivid in my mind is the walk into the woods behind our house in rural Massachusetts. All four of us -- my mother, father, sister and I -- crossed the small, southern-facing field that tilted uphill to the right and then entered the fringe of the woods that started before the rim of the valley. The path to the valley floor was steep and passed a huge boulder on the left and then, below the boulder, a sheer rock cliff ten to twelve feet high. At the bottom of the cliff, the land sloped down gently to a swamp. Slender maple trees grew there among the hummocks of grass, and a seasonal stream flowed around the hummocks during the leafless months and into budding springtime.
My father, known to all as Archie, carried the weapon, a .22 calibre Colt pistol nicknamed the "Woodsman". My mother could have carried it just as easily. Before Janet and I were born, my parents hunted together in the forests of northern New Hampshire, and our mother wore a .38 Special, another, larger Colt pistol, strapped to her thigh.
I would have to assume that our trek out behind the house that day when I was two was part ritual, an event designed to indoctrinate me in the family bias for firearms and my father's belief in the wisdom of the Second Amendment to the Constitution of the United States.
If that was the purpose, it apparently achieved half of its goals.
I no longer own a firearm of any sort, having made a decision against ownership many years ago.
But I believe that the Second Amendment guarantees an important right in any representative democracy.
My good friend Elaine Foster recently introduced me to a quote by James Madison, the fourth United States President, who is credited with being the author of the Bill of Rights. He said, in part, "Liberty may be endangered by the abuse of liberty, as well as by the abuse of power."
The wisdom of Madison's observation can be seen in the recent events in Arizona. In a gun-friendly state, the alleged assailant had no problem buying a firarm and ammunition. His abuse of his right to purchase those items is now being used by those thoughtful individuals who believe firearms should be more heavily controlled.
(I make no comment on his mental health. Gun control advocates would no doubt argue that the question of his mental stability did not enter into the decision to sell him a weapon, and that it should have.) The desire of gun control advocates is, of course, to take away one of our liberties because they see it as a threat to society.
I do not own a firearm because I have seen how the availability of such a weapon to one whose judgment is temporarily or permanently impaired can lead to tragedy.
But I believe that I should be able to own a firearm and that government should not be able to prevent me from ownership.
An armed citizenry is a psychological check on government officials at every level, a reminder to them in brute terms that it is the public who elected them or their bosses and the individual members of the public who, ultimately, are their bosses.
We have sufficient laws that make the improper use of a firearm illegal. The proof is on display in Arizona. The alleged assailant is in jail, facing a life of imprisonment.
But there is a natural, and understantable, reaction to that young man's actions, a thought that had he somehow been prevented from acquiring a weapon, his attack would never have come about. The easy method to prevent his acquisition of a gun is at hand, one thinks. Pass a law.
But you cannot prevent insanity -- either temporary or permanent -- with a law. If guns are manufactured, they will be available. If they are not, then our Arizona assailant could have accomplished his initial purpose -- an attack on a member of Congress -- with a hatchet.
You cannot prevent human imperfection with laws.
On that leafless day in the swamp behind our house, Archie took an empty tin can and placed it upside down on a stick he had jammed into the mud. Then, twenty feet from the can, he wrapped his arms around me. He closed my small hand around the grip of the pistol, placing my right index finger on the trigger. He told me that we were shooting down, into the swamp, because then the bullet, when it passed through the can, would disappear harmlessly into the mud. He told me you never shot a weapon if you did not know what was behind your target. And he told me to never, ever point a weapon at another person.
Then he told me to pull the trigger.
What I remember most vividly is the smell of burned gunpowder. It was a wonderful smell.
And then there was the sight of that small hole in the can, our target.
In the years to come, I looked forward to getting my own firarm. It happened to be a Mossberg .22 calibre carbine with a carrying sling, like a military rifle. I believe I was fourteen when I received it -- probably as a birthday present. (There was a BB gun before that.)
I was allowed to roam the woods and the rural roadways with my rifle, for by then I had been taught an appreciation of the dangers it posed. I'm absolutely certain that my possession of that rifle, or the shotgun I got later, or of my father's 30/30 rifle that I took deer hunting in Vermont when I was in college, never was a threat to any other human (and very few animals.)
I don't know whether my mother ever shot anything more animate than a tin can. By the time I knew her, she was more intersted in looking at nature than in killing it. When she went in the woods, she brought binoculars with which she hunted birds to identify and put on her life list.
I probably was influenced by her when I decided I didn't need or want a firearm in my home.
But like James Madison, who authored the Second Amendment, I want to be able to have one, and I don't want a law in our land that tells me I can't.

Monday, January 24, 2011

If I write a blog entry, it is because I'm at loose ends with no serious work to accomplish, or none right at hand.
I could just as easily begin writing a novel that has been in the back of my brain, fermenting, for at least twenty years. I call it my book about religion. The hero is a smuggler. But the lead character is the smuggler's long lost cousin, an upright, honest citizen who, by accident, meets the smuggler and begins to question his own beliefs and values.
Yes, I could begin writing that, but when I start telling that story, I don't want to be interrupted. And right now, there are things pending, commitments that might impose themselves right when I'm beginning to burn with that novel whose working title is, and has always been, Undercurrent.
Yes, there are boats involved. A kayak at first and then a commercial crabbing boat. But it isn't really a story about boats. Or about water. It is about honesty, I think.
Instead of writing Undercurrent, I could be putting the final touches on our home. My friend and former employer, Bill Haldeman, gave me a suggestion for a quick and inexpensive way to add a touch of class to our entrance hallway. (I guess it isn't an entrance hallway because when you step through the front door, you see a set of stairs straight ahead. The hallway is to the left and leads back to the laundry room, pantry, bathroom and a couple of bedrooms.)
In any case, the ideas is this: You take old five-panel interior doors, set them on edge against the wall, end-to-end, and they give the place the look of paneling.
Bill also helped me acquire seven of the doors. That was about four years ago, and they have been propped against a wall in the basement workshop, gathering dust and supporting a pile of scrap lumber, ever since. This past weekend, I began cleaning the basement, and when I was done, I had unearthed the doors.
I removed all the hardware, and now the doors are ready to install. The job probably will take two or three days, plus painting. But I won't have that much time in one shot until I get back from skiing next week.
Therefore, I am not panelling the hallway, not writing the novel, not doing much of anything except reading. And eating.

Sunday, January 23, 2011

Winter, the time some sailors dream of their boats. Our boats provide material for dreams. Robin needs a thick plywood bulkhead repaired and has sustained damage from banging her caprail and rub rail against the finger pier, probably when a wave slammed through the marina. Bluebird needs repairs to the centerboard winch and to the centerboard pin, which leaks.
So I dream instead of skiing. I've saved videos from the World Cup on the computer, and I've found a channel on the television that daily transmits video from World Cup races.
In a week, I'll drive north to ski a couple of days in New Hampshire with friends Charlie Flagler, who is sharing his time share, and Curt Michael. We did this last year. I came home with a torn rotator cuff. Hoping for different results this year.
A former neighbor, Jim, who is 86, suffered a stroke two weeks ago. He's back in his room at the assisted living place nearby. He is a hospice patient.
Jim had signed a living will that said he would not be given life support. In his case, it means that he is neither fed nor hydrated. I believe in a person's right to assisted suicide. But I'm not sure Jim is getting what he signed up for. I've visited him a few times. He wants to get out of bed, but he's kept there. His existence is too much like that of a prisoner to make me comfortable.
I would think that if he wants to get out of bed, he should be allowed to do that. He has the use of the left side of his body. He can grab the rail on the side of the hospital bed and turn himself up onto his right side. He can move his left leg in a way to maneuver his right leg. Were he on the floor, I don't think he would be able to hurt himself, so why not let him go there?
Because Jim cannot talk -- his tonghe won't respond to his commands -- he can't explain what he's trying to do. He becomes frustrated when he attempts to form words and cannot.
If he could tell me that he wanted to hurt himself, or perhaps to help himself, I would think that he has a sovereign right over his body to do with it what he wants, as long as he is not hurting someone else. If he wanted a glass of water, regardless of what his living will says, I believe he certainly should be able to have it. If he wants a hot dog, he should be able to try to eat one -- whether or not he is able to consume it.
Ah, I'm just not sure what to do with this. I need some help. More than that, Jim needs some help.