Food for the Spirit and the Soul

Incense and Sons: A Family Tragedy

For sons – and the parents who both love and endure them

Today is Lunar New Year’s Eve, and throughout the world people are celebrating the arrival of the Year of Ox in the company of family and friends. I, too, am filled with joy during this happy season, though my festive mood on this day is always complicated by the memory of an event that happened long ago on a Lunar New Year’s Eve in China.

It was my immense good fortune to be able to teach for a year at Chung-Hsing University in Taichung, Taiwan, Republic of China. I have always had excellent students, but those whom it was my pleasure and honor to teach at Chung-Hsing were simply extraordinary in every meaningful way. However, they play only an incidental role in what proved to be my New Year’s Eve calamity.

In order for this tale to have any sort of cautionary value, which I certainly hope that it does, readers need to know that when I went to teach in Taiwan it was in the company of my pregnant wife and our two-year-old son, and this boy is at least partly responsible for the tragic mistake that I made in a temple on the advent of the Year of the Rooster. I know that engaging in stereotyping is always risky, but this child has aggressively red hair, and in his temperamental character and wayward behavior he confirmed everything that my wife and I had been told to expect; he is also left-handed, and so many intelligent individuals reading these words are already asking, “Why did you keep him?” I do not mean to avoid responsibility in this matter, but for some reason his mother is fond of this boy, and so, despite the evidence of her senses and my constant pleas for her to allow me to set him adrift on the Arctic ice floes, she insisted on feeding him and letting him sleep indoors. My Asian readers will understand when I state that this child was misfortunate enough to have been born in the Year of the Horse. He even has a Chinese name – “Heavenly Mountain” – and he has certainly continued to dominate the horizon of our family life.

Our first semester in China did little to disabuse this capricious brute of the notion that he was the most important being on the planet. Every time we would push him in his pram through the market or down the street, people would come up to him, rub his hair, and give him treats. He soon began accepting these tributes as his due, and his carrot-topped arrogance reached a pinnacle of insufferability when, as a courtesy, several students insisted on taking the Little King for a walk each day, so that my wife could rest in the late afternoon. This might sound immensely considerate on their part, and it was, but it also had unforeseen consequences. One day the boy returned home from his walk, demanded a piece of candy, and when my wife said “No,” he got a puzzled look on his face and asked, “What is ‘no’?” It turned out that the students were buying him any confection that he pointed to, and he simply could not imagaine anyone contesting his imperial whims.

At any rate, the point of this digression is that we already had a son, a profoundly problematical son, and so we very much wanted our second child to be a daughter, not the least because we feared that a second son would push our family life beyond disaster and into outright calamity. I will now move forward to New Year’s Eve, but readers must keep in mind the stupendous hardships that my wife and I had endured in trying to raise a red-headed, left-handed, Horse child.

One of my students courteously invited us to spend part of our holiday vacation with her family in Taipei, and on New Year’s Eve, one of her uncles took me to the city’s magnificent Lung Shan – Dragon Mountain – Temple to witness the evening’s festivities. As we entered the temple, we each purchased a huge bundle of incense, and as we proceeded down its many corridors, we would place an appropriate number of incense sticks in the urns standing before the icons of deities and important historical figures. The urns in front of the City God, Lao-tzu, Buddha, and Confucius were enormous, but I made certain to pay my respects to all the Worthies, including and especially the God of Literature. My guide, a very successful businessman, urged me to place a large number of sticks in the urn reserved for the God of Wealth, and I did, though to no discernable effect. We had been in the temple for more than three hours, it was very early in morning of the first day of the Year of the Rooster, and I was tired, and so my fatigue contributed to my making the disastrous error which would forever change the course of my life.

We were approaching one of the temple’s many exits, and I was placing one or two incense sticks in the urns of some minor deities, when I noticed that the next urn was actually a full-fledged conflagration, since it was filled with so much burning incense that people actually had to stand back and toss their sticks into the fire from a considerable distance. My guide urged me to throw my remaining sticks into this urn, and since I had so many left, it seemed like a good idea. I looked at the figure of the deity above the urn, but I did not recognize him, and I had grown too sleepy to bother asking who he was. I therefore tossed about twenty incense sticks into the inferno, more than I had offered to Lao-tzu, Buddha, and Confucius, and then turned to ask my student’s uncle who it was that I had just so deeply honored. “Oh,” he casually replied, “this is the god who assures that you will have only male children.”

I immediatly jumped into the urn, in a desperate and futile attempt to retrieve my incense, and in the process singed my eyebrows, scorched my shirt, and torched my hopes for a daughter. Two months later our second son was born, we named him “Heavenly Ocean,” and we began our slow but inevitable family journey beyond disaster and into calamity. My students tried to console me after my disappointment by telling me that I was probably too virile to father female children – a claim which my wife inconsiderately disputed – and while I have no doubt that these wise young scholars were in some measure correct, in subsequent years this suggestion proved to be but a small crumb of comfort. However, I can at least claim that one of my sons is Chinese, and if you doubt his ethnicity, he will be more than happy to show you his tattoo, which reads “Made in Taiwan,”
though skeptics should also be warned that its location on his body is somewhat unorthodox.

I wish that my chronicle of folly ended there, but it does not. When we returned to the United States, I decided that the influence of the god who assures that you will have only male children could not possibly extend beyond the precincts of the Middle Kingdom. My pride was, of course, appropriately punished, and in 1984 we moved beyond calamity and into catastrophe with the birth of our third son, “Heavenly Aspiration,” though as in the case of his older brothers, the term “Heavenly” in his name has come to have decidedly ironic implications. This boy at least has the Chinese-sounding nickname “Chan,” though this is small compensation for my having had to endure the vagaries involved in helping to raise Moe, Larry, and Curly.

I sometimes curse the god who assures that you will have only male children, though silently, to be sure. I try to look on what I call the bright side of things, by which I mean the less dark, of course, by thinking of how much worse it would have been if this cruel-hearted deity had decreed that our last two sons would be twins, but this is not something that I can contemplate for very long without either weeping or seeking solace in strong drink. At any rate, I concede that this is not really a very effective cautionary tale. If its point is something like “always keep your wits about you when in a Chinese temple on New Year’s Eve,” few people would find my advice worth heeding. If I were to state that its message is “don’t have sons,” I run two risks: Happy couples – by which I mean those without sons – could not possibly appreciate the depth of my sincerity and would likely regard me as a sort of Ancient Mariner who wanders the planet uselessly and annoyingly recounting his tale of woe to people who don’t want to hear it; conversely, misfortunate parents already burdened with sons have nothing to learn from my narrative, though I do hope that they give some thought to taking their boys for a “vacation” on the Arctic ice floes. Despite my disappointment in this matter, I do offer people who want to have sons (called “fools”) and parents who have sons (called “martyrs”) a last bit of advice that could someday prove useful. I once saw a wonderful Chinese painting called “Drowning the Unfilial Son,” and I have thought about it often while suffering the countless provocations of my offspring, and if I am ever able to find reproductions of this masterpiece, I will send a copy to each of my deserving sons. I urge both those who want sons and those who already have them to consider doing the same.

I wish everyone a Happy New Year, but I wish especially good things for all sons and for the parents who love them so deeply.

Television Romance

Like many boys, I developed a crush on a television star when I was about ten years old. In my case, the beauty who captured my heart was Elizabeth Montgomery, who played Samantha on “Bewitched,” and I remember how her poster decorated a wall of my room. I loved many things about Samantha – how she talked, her sense of humor, and the way her nose wrinkled when she worked her magic. To my great surprise and delight, I have recently developed a similar though less obsessive affection for a different television personality – Special Agent Dana Scully (Gillian Anderson) from “The X-Files.” I have no poster of Scully on any of my walls, but I do like her conversational style, and I find her wit and hard-nosed intelligence irresistible. I want to use my admiration for Scully to help me write this posting, in which I will describe some excellent wines.

On “The X-Files,” Scully is justifiably skeptical of irrational beliefs, but she would consider it a mark of sanity if any wine lover were to praise Dry Creek Vineyard Dry Creek Valley 2004 Merlot, and I do not think that anyone needs extrasensory abilities to appreciate how wonderful this wine would be with grilled meats or savory stews.

Not even all the detective skills that Scully learned at the FBI Academy could help her to find a bottle of Rafanelli 2005 Zinfandel in Arkansas, for this extraordinary wine is not available outside the winery.

I have already indicated how much I like to hear Scully talk, and I am equally pleased with a very eloquent wine – Dry Creek Vineyard Clarksburg 2007 Chenin Blanc. Even the technologically advanced extraterrestrials who are a regular feature on “The X-Files” would be impressed by the artistry evident in this altogether charming wine.

If I were lucky enough to cook dinner for Scully, I would serve it with a bottle of Beringer Napa Valley 2005 Private Reserve Chardonnay, and I would certainly suggest offering this exquisite wine to all the special people in our lives – and not just Special Agents.

I know that Scully is, alas, merely a television character, and this fact precludes my ever taking her to the movies, buying her flowers, writing her a poem, or having a romantically meaningful conversation with her by candlelight. On the other hand, there are certain undeniable advantages in such a relationship. Scully will never sulk because I forgot our anniversary, whine about the insufficient attention I pay to her “affective self,” or complain because I watch too much football. I am happy to accept this “trade-off,” and I will continue to adore Scully from afar. Actually, the more I watch her, the more I think that Scully does, in fact, look and act a great deal like Samantha. In any case, I am happy to admit that I am once more bewitched by a lovely woman and delighted to discover that it is still possible for an intelligent and witty lady to work some magic in my life.

This posting first appeared as a wine column in the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette. I have changed the names and updated the vintages of the wines. Despite the passage of many years, I continue to admire Special Agent Dana Scully, and I still sometimes wish that I could take her to dinner.

The Poetry of Place

Most of us understandably regard maps as practical objects, and we usually consult them either to locate a place or to determine the surest and shortest way to reach it. However, a map can be interpreted not only as a guide but also as a text. Recently, I “read” an Arkansas map as one might study a sonnet or a story in order to divine its meanings. I immediately discovered a wealth of place names that are eloquent with historical resonance and poetic implication.

To better explain my meaning, I ask readers to conduct the following exercise. Recollect any interesting landscape that you have visited, and allow your inner eye to roam imaginatively over its topography, assuming for the sake of this task that you are the first person to visit this location. What name would you give to this place and why? That is, what on your imaginative horizon inspired you sufficiently to confer the place with its name? A meandering river? A verdant mountain? The play of sunshine and cloud wrack dancing in shadow-shifting patterns on a field of clover? Did something in the scene have affinities with another place – actual, mythic, or literary – that evoked a powerful and sympathetic reminiscence?

We take this process for granted, of course, but perhaps we shouldn’t. For instance, most Arkansans have heard of Springdale, but how many of us have pondered the inherent beauty of a dale in which it is always spring that might also be a grotto graced by gently flowing waters? It matters not a whit whether this city, or any city, does or does not currently bring to mind the image suggested by its original name; the important fact is that for some individual or group it once did. Seen with what might be regarded as the original eye of faith, we are free to express our wonder: “Springdale – what a lovely name!”

In this posting, I am going to make a brief literary excursion to some Arkansas locations blessed with notably graceful and lyrical names. On this journey, I will neither be confined by the boundaries of time and space nor restricted by the lines of latitude and longitude so dear to cartographers. Instead, I will invite readers to travel with me in and through the imagination to destinations eloquent with the poetry of place.

The names of many Arkansas towns pay homage to the history and mythology of Greece and Rome. We have an Alexander, which by definition must be a great town, and a Carthage, but happily no Rome, and we are thus spared having a state representative from the Roman district ending each of his official speeches with, “Carthage must be destroyed!” Perhaps we can boast no Athens, but we do have a Parthenon, and while we have a Hector, we lack an Achilles; nor do we have a Troy, before whose wind-swept walls the citizens of Hector and Achilles would presumably have been compelled to fight. Unlike Homer’s imprudent characters, Arkansans were shrewd enough to keep Paris and Helena far apart.

It must be a joy to live in Aurora, for its sounds like a town ever-graced with a freshening breeze that makes every moment seem filled with the possibility of doing or creating something new and wonderful, just as life in Amity would be peaceful and friendly.

Our state contains numerous cities that bear the names of natural objects, especially flowers. For example, I suggest that the best Mountain View would be from Cherry Valley, since the latter is suggestive of delicate, pink-tinted blossoms. For similar reasons, the most desirable Valley View might be the one from Violet Hill, a place carpeted with the shyest of flowers.

Arkansas has a Tulip and, appropriately, a Holland, though the citizens of these places
probably don’t live in windmills or wear wooden shoes. Our state also has a Daisy, doubtless a town filled with unpretentious charm, as well as the lyrical Woodberry and Mayflower and the various Walnut towns – Ridge, Hill, Springs, and Corner. Who would not want to visit delectable Wild Cherry, luscious Strawberry, or sweet Appleton? And how could any sensitive person decline a visit to Rosebud, from which he could depart laden with fragrant petals? Outside Roseland, he could stand by Back Gate and watch the fireflies gather in Evening Shade as Mist rises in the glades of Green Forest.

Wine lovers have much to savor in Arkansas place names. They could start in Vinery Grove, proceed to Grapevine, and conclude their tour in Possum Grape. Bottled in Beverage Town, the rare vintage that would result from this imaginative trip would truly be, in the poet’s words, “a beaker full of the warm South.”

In addition to those on our state flag, several stars appear among Arkansas place names, including Bright Star. Happily for our state, we have both a Morning Star and an Evening Star, names which describe the same celestial body, the planet Venus. The Chinese consider Venus to be a symbol of perfection, since it is present at both dawn and sunset, and this fact bodes well for Arkansans.

What a delight it would be to live in Birdsong, a town in which citizens would begin each day by awakening from dreamful slumber to the melodious caroling of larks, wrens, and mockingbirds.

Naturally, Arkansas has towns that bear names found elsewhere, including Denver, Dallas, London, England, and Jersey, the last place perhaps named after the isle off the British coast, itself named in honor of mightly Caesar. Of course, Jersey might also be named after the breed of cow, especially since Arkansas also boasts a Guernsey. Does Hollywood, Arkansas hold an annual film festival? Surprisingly, there is a Greenwich Village in Arkansas, and I wonder if the place is filled with the same sorts of disreputable coffehouses in which I dallied away so much of my callow youth.

Perhaps there is no sure means by which to determine just how far it is from rags to riches in America, but in Arkansas, Ragtown is just thirty-two miles from Rich.

Pause for a moment to contemplate the enormous prudence and good will that were almost certainly involved in naming Middlebrook. I certainly admire the spirit of compromise that informed the decision.

Jasper might be a modest town, but its name conceals an unexpected depth of historical resonance. After all, jasper is a form of chalcedony, a stone named in honor of the town now called Kadikoy, located on the Bosporus. Thus, a town in quiet Newton County is an indirect tribute to one of the major cultural and commercial gateways linking Europe and Asia.

Some of the most beautiful place names in Arkansas are derived from Scripture, and their presence is a testimony to the hopes of countless spiritual pioneers who were determined to transform a rude wilderness into a semblance of the Holy Land. Perhaps I will never visit the Near East, but I can travel Arkansas byways and arrive in Palestine, Zion, Bethel, Damascus, Jericho, and Jerusalem. The Christian pilgrims who named these places clearly possessed a belief in the power of the word to transform the land, as well as human hearts.

Our journey over, we touch down, as an aircraft might, but we do more than simply land. From time to time, we should all literally reach down and touch the one and only place that we call home. Someone long ago decided on its name, and we continue to share and affirm the dream behind it every time we speak aloud the name of our town, city, county, or state. In fact, our imaginative journey should prompt us to recollect that America is a collective dream that is always in progress, revising its hopes and meanings as it unfolds. Place names provide a record of our evolving self-understandings, and they can be read, therefore, as forms of casual but nonetheless meaningful narrative, akin to the richly allusive brevity of haiku.

I think that this textual dimension of maps is well worth considering, since it reminds us of who we are and where we have been, and we thus discover that beneath its pragmatic surface, a map is actually disguised biography. Letting our finger wander along the Arkansas map a final time, we pause on the place that whispers “home,” and in doing so perhaps we can recapture some faint sense of what first compelled one of our ancestors to choose a name, root it in the soil of a place, and thus invest with meaning and poetry the landscape, himself, and his heirs.

This posting first appeared as an editorial in the  Arkansas Democrat-Gazette. 

Quoth the Raven

After watching the AFC Championship football game between the Baltimore Ravens and the Pittsburgh Steelers last night, I suddenly remembered that many years ago I had written a wine column, the frame of which concerned the Ravens, which had just become a new franchise. While many NFL teams have mascots that resonate historically and culturally with their home cities -especially, perhaps, the Packers, Patriots, and Cowboys – none of them has the sort of literary association that exists between Baltimore and the Ravens, though the New Orleans “Saints” does come close. What follows is my wine column re-worked and edited for the occasion, and I offer it as a tribute to the Baltimore Ravens and their fans.

While I rarely wrote about sports in my wine column, and just as infrequently quoted poetry in it, I could not resist doing so when I first learned that the team formerly known as the Cleveland Browns had become the Baltimore Ravens. What a “quaint and curious” choice for a team mascot! Surely, I thought, not that “Ghastly, grim and ancient Raven wandering from the Nightly shore.” It is impossible for me not to associate this “ominous bird of yore” with the great poem bearing its name, which is exactly what the Baltimore management, in an act of uncommonly creative imagination, doubtless intended, and so I have decided to employ “The Raven” to help with my wine evaluations.

If, like me, you sometimes find yourself trying to borrow from your books “surcease of sorrow,” maybe a better strategy would be to put down your “volume of forgotten lore” and take up a glass of sprightly Sauvignon Blanc. After sipping this tart, palate-cleansing wine, you might even hear the footfalls of seraphim tinkling on your “tufted floor,” though it might only be the sound of the bell on your cat’s collar.

I don’t know whether or not there is hope of “balm in Gilead,” but I do know that a few sips of good Pinot Noir always serve to restore my spirits. With its silky texture and generous fruit flavors, this wine will certainly provide “respite and nepenthe” from bad memories of all sorts.

If some visitors should suddenly “come tapping” on your chamber door, I suggest serving them a glass of Chardonnay. In fact, two glasses of this eminently friendly white wine might just give you “dreams that no mortal ever dared to dream before.”

Should you find yourself faced with a “midnight dreary,” a late-night glass of Merlot will almost certainly improve your mood. In fact, a well-made Merlot is all but guaranteed to deliver you from all unhappy mental states – even those best described as “unmerciful Disaster.”

If after pondering some of life’s darker mysteries – the existence of crab grass, for example, or the unnecessary abundance of left-handed people in the world – you should find yourself “weak and weary,” you will find your strength replenished by quaffing a glass of Zinfandel, surely the best and noblest of red wines.

Cabernet Sauvignon can be impressively rich and complex, and if you take the time to savor such a wine, it is likely that when you subsequently find yourself in the company of friends you will say, “Ah, distinctly I remember . . .”

I think that the owners of the Baltimore Ravens should take two measures that would deflect at least some of the bad luck usually associated with the dire bird that is their namesake. First, the Ravens have a cheerleading squad, and I suggest that these “rare and radiant maidens” should be called “The Lenores,” though, alas, after last night’s contest each of them would temporarily be a “lost Lenore.” Second, the team would be wise to place a “pallid bust of Pallas” just above the locker room door, but they should beware of allowing any “ebony bird” to perch upon it.

I know that many readers will find it strange for me to mix sports, wine, and POEtry in this way, but I recommend that they consider the wine references as suggestions for upcoming Super Bowl parties. At any rate, I hope that I have not imPOEsed too much on anyone’s good nature, and I assure everyone that this will be my last such POEsting, for I promise to do so – Nevermore!

Searching for Charlie Chan

For “Katie” and for Corrigan Hayward Neralich, my own Chan – never stop searching, my son

Just over two decades ago, I found myself in a Chinese cemetery in Hawaii, partly because one of my uncles had given me an incense burner in the shape of a red dragon on my tenth birthday.

That is a complicated beginning for a posting,
and that’s the point of it: the unexpected and mysterious ways in which we become and discover who we are. I asked questions about the dragon which my family could not answer, and so I went to the library, where my researches led me to books about China, and I began my love affair with its culture.

Buddhists accept the reality of karma, and so they would say that, as I searched among the stacks, I was destined to find the detective fiction of Earl Derr Biggers. A few months later, I began watching the movie versions of his novels that featured the wonderful Warner Oland playing Charlie Chan, and that’s why I became an Asian studies teacher, though I first had to be confounded among oriental tombstones. Is that clear?

I am a bookish man; my college degrees are in history and literature. I have an abiding faith in the ability of reason to unwind nearly every raveled mystery, and I have an equally strong belief in the power of language to explain most of the world. One of my philosophy teachers once declared that if he knew all the facts, he could solve any problem. This man convinced me that a rigorously logical approach to questions would almost inevitably bring successful results, and perhaps that explains why I and so many other people adore detective fiction, since it affirms that we are, finally, rational beings who can untangle the knots of chaos that occasionally threaten to constrict our ambitions and joys.

To some extent, I still hold this comforting view of things, though it has been tempered by my visit to a cemetery.

One day, as I sat in my study in the hills above Waikiki, I decided that it would be an appropriate tribute to Biggers and, more importantly, a fitting honor to the man who inspired his novels, if I were to burn some incense at the gravesite of Chang Apana, the Honolulu detective who solved a series of notorious crimes during the 1920s.

By the time I arrived in Hawaii, I had studied Buddhism, though mostly through books, and I knew about the famed “koan” of the Zen sect – the word puzzle that a teacher gives to his student in order to help him break his enthrallment by reason and language and experience enlightenment.

I had found a Buddhist teacher in Hawaii, though I was a poor student, and when I told him of my plans to locate Chang Apana’s grave with the help of a map and a guide, he said, “What makes you think that everything is on your map? You are burdened with too many facts to realize your goal.”

He was always saying things like “You must seek to comprehend the whole and not merely analyze the parts,” and “Who is it that is doing the seeking?,” but, as I already stated, I was a notably incompetent disciple and rarely understood him.

Detective Chang was buried in a Chinese cemetery located in the lovely Manoa valley, and I set off with my guide early in the morning of a typically beautiful Hawaiian day. She was a woman of great resolve who had lived in the islands for years. One of her friends had told her the approximate location of Apana’s resting place. “We will definitely find him,” she said, and her conviction was contagious. A small dragon, carved of red stone, greeted us on the threshhold of the graveyard, and, after consulting our map, we entered the gate and set out in search of Charlie Chan.

But despite our map and our systematic search, we met with no success. Biggers once said that if you understood a man’s character, you can predict what he is apt to do in any set of circumstances, but he was wrong. After a long morning of fruitless questing, my open-natured, unflaggingly cheerful guide suddenly became inscrutable; she refused to talk about Charlie Chan, and soon she lapsed into sullen silence.

We took a break, and I began questioning my presence among the dead. What had led me here? As I traced my route backward – through libraries and red dragons and time – things became less and less clear, my track more and more uncertain. My confidence in many things had been shaken; in the course of a few hours, I had become a far less arrogant man.

Naturally, given my own character, I was frustrated and angry, but then I experienced something so unexpected that it would have surprised Biggers as much as it startled me: I started to laugh.

And I laughed for a long time – so long, in fact, that my guide joined me, regaining her usual good humor. I laughed, truly, at the mad perfection of it all: a German-Slavic man and a Japanese-English woman searching for the grave of a Chinese-Hawaiian detective whose character was portrayed in films by a Swedish actor. What a quest! I could hear Buddha laughing with us.

Happy to have moved beyond the need for success, we abandoned our search, sat down amid flowers and tombstones, and ate our lunch. An invigorating breeze swept down the valley, and we rested, content in our failure, experiencing a moment that was utterly complete; for a glorious hour, the world and I were whole, and there was nothing to seek. “We can return some other day,” said my sweet-natured, ever-optimistic guide. But we never did.

The great detective, who had solved so many mysteries, eluded me – as so many other things have frustrated my best efforts to investigate them. As we left the cemetery, I paused, lit incense, placed it at the gate, and bowed. The wind carried the smoke across the tombs – and back, far back, in my memory.

We walked home slowly and without speaking, as I pondered the meaning of my day. I had not found Charlie Chan, but surely I had discovered something. My philosophy teacher had not been altogether right in his rationalist faith, for despite having the facts, I had encountered an intractable problem; as my Buddhist teacher never tired of saying, some mysteries in life are not to be solved but to be experienced – beyond libraries, books, and words. I had found my koan – and it was me. I had not been enlightened, but I did feel lighter, having been unburdened of the delusion that I could know and explain everything. My head was filled with delightful confusion, and I could hardly recall my own name.

The next day I visited my Buddhist teacher, and he asked me about my quest. I told him that I had failed, and he shouted, “How marvelous! Let us drink some wine to celebrate your success.” He filled two large glasses, and, as I lifted mine, I offered a silent toast to red dragons, oriental detectives, and writers and seekers of all kinds; then I drank deeply. The wine was sweet.

I no longer live in Hawaii, but I became a better student there, and I remember well my lesson in the cemetery. I continue to teach my own students about the value of reason and the importance of clear language, though I am always careful to suggest that there are experiences that lie beyond the boundaries of ideas and words.

Sometimes, watching their happy, intelligent, totally confident faces, I wonder about what life has in store for them. What books, movies, people, and distant horizons will call them out of the clear and simple certainties of youth and into their complex and ambiguous destinies? When and how will each of them encounter the true nature of his or her identity? But I know better than to ponder such thinbgs too precisely. They will eventually begin searching, as we all do, in various ways and in various places. From time to time, I still look for Charlie Chan, but not among tombstones. I find a clue and set out on his trail, even though I know that I will never find him. How marvelous!

This posting was originally published as an editorial in the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette. Many years after we had left Hawaii, my Number Two son (shown above)returned to the Chinese cemetery in order to look for the grave of Chang Apana. His quest was as fruitless as my own. Again – how marvelous!

Heirloom Diseases

While driving in my car recently, I discovered a radio program on which listeners would call the station and ask a physician sitting in the studio to comment upon their ailments. As I listened to people detailing their symptoms, I was struck by the banal nature of the exchanges; most of the callers described rashes, and the doctor predictably recommended salves and ointments. The entire proceeding was quite tedious.

When I later reflected on the matter, I concluded that our world sorely needs a new group of alternative diseases to replace the current ones that are losing their fashionable edge. Very few people are presently inclined to discuss mumps, measles, or even the heartbreak of psoriasis. Since most revolutions are in some sense restorations, I have decided to initiate a campaign to help restore the legitimacy or at least the popularity of some traditional physical disorders that have been unfairly relegated to the categories of pseudo-science and folklore.

For example, while scrofula is an actual disease, it has lost the immense prestige that it once had in England, largely because it was known as the King’s Evil, since it was widely believed that the reigning monarch could cure it with the touch of his royal hand.

Since he has to deal with a sometimes contentious state legislature, perhaps Governor Huckabee should claim the ability to heal canker sores, though he might also consider making diaper rash the official “Governor’s Evil,” since doing so would afford him ample opportunities to kiss babies and thereby garner votes.

All authentic medical theories should be supported by evidence derived from rigorous scientific research, and that is why I recommend that we immediately reinstate the Four Cardinal Humors as a basis for understanding human physiology. After all, the notion that the balance of blood, phlegm, choler, and bile in our bodies determines the state of our physical well-being is at least as plausible as the claims made for aromatherapy.

Skeptics are wrong to dismiss the assertion by aromatherapists that there is scientific proof that confirms the influence of smells on our moods. In a little-publicized experiment at an obscure university east of Hackensack, New Jersey, aroma researchers divided fifty subjects into two test groups, based on their astrological signs and preferences in clothing textures. The first group was placed in a large room and exposed to the combined fragrances of roses and violets; after ten minutes, they unanimously declared the experience to be “pleasant.” The second test group was locked in an airtight broom closet along with a pile of smoldering automobile tires, and when the door was opened three hours later, the two subjects who remained conscious stated that the aroma did not in any way “make them feel good about themselves.” I insist that the scientific evidence supporting the theory of humors is just as compelling.

For those unacquainted with humors, I will provide a brief overview of the subject, starting with blood, which is, of course the fundamental element in humor science. Alas, an excess of blood can cause many problems, including an uncontrollable desire to discuss Bela Lugosi movies in public places, and so the new generation of humor doctors would routinely and wisely bleed their patients into a state of well-balanced torpor. In fact, this happy practice is the reason that “leech” was once synonymous with “physician,” though today, of course, the word is usually associated with “lawyer.”

Phlegm is the humor that can cause someone to become dull or impassive, and these indications of its disproportionate presence bear a striking resemblance to the sluggish behaviors of people who, while surfing the Internet, accidentally enter a “Star Trek” chat room.

Too much choler in a person’s system can cause him to be irritable and quick-tempered. All red heads are permanently burdened with an excess of choler, and that is the reason for their many character deficiencies. To date, no hair dye has helped to improve the dispositions of these misfortunate beings, though humor-trained cosmetologists might effect a cure.

Finally, too much bile in a person’s system can plunge him into profound melancholy, a depth of despair otherwise known only to those who have endured the dissonant vocalizations of Keanu Reeves.

I will now provide a brief descriptive taxonomy of some other neglected disorders, beginning with gout. After all, this bizarre affliction has a decidedly brisk, even postmodern tone, and its renewed popularity would certainly increase sales of heavily padded footstools.

One of the most promising alternative diseases is a mainstay of Southern lore – the fantods. Since the victims of this disorder display a restless anxiety, I suggest that it afflicts most adolescent shoppers in malls, as well as people who cannot leave home without their cell phones. Furthermore, parents who wish to avoid taking responsibility for raising their children could succeed in doing so by blaming this disease. After all, it sounds so much better to say, “Alas, little Bubba has the fantods” than it does to admit, “Since for years I have allowed televison to be my son’s principal babysitter, he now has the attention span of a caffeine-addled shrew.”

The vapors, a debilitating disease of the abdominal nerves once largely confined to maiden aunts in the South, has now reached near-epidemic proportions among groups especially vulnerable to uncontrollable stomach
exhalations, such as taco eaters and people who drink cheap beer while watching NASCAR races on television. Once misdiagnosed as hypochondria, the vapors have now achieved
an order of pestiferous magnitude at least equal to the frets and sometimes even surpassing the dread willies. In fact, sincere but incompetent forensic anthropologists now speculate that the vapors might be partly responsible for some of history’s most puzzling events, such as the decline of Mayan civilization and the disappearance of the Dallas Cowboys’ offense.

The vapors should not be confused with either palpitations or queasies, though the initial symptoms of all three disorders can be remarkably similar. The vapors often burden victims with depressed spirits, while palpitations invariably produce what vocabulary-deficient
health professionals call “quivers” and “flutters.”
Though not nearly as serious a condition, the nauseating queasies can become chronic in people who watch video tapes of Adam Sandler trying to be funny on “Saturday Night Live.”

Needless to say, any doctor who confused the fantods with heebie-jeebies would obviously be a quack, since heebie-jeebies are virtually confined to people who spend too much time watching storm reports on the Weather Channel.

Finally, the American South, source of so many useful afflictions, has given the world the versatile diagnosis “stove up,” as in, “I was doing fine until my knee stove up,” or “He’s home in bed, all stove up.”

I am convinced that restoring these venerable diseases to the center of medical theory, training, and practice would create a scientific renaissance in our Republic. Internet users could delight in phlegm-related Web sites and peruse the heady offerings at fantods.com. Medical schools could establish heebie-jeebies and queasies departments and endow Professorial Chairs in Choler and Bile. Future Nobel laureates would come from the ranks of dedicated researchers laboring to discover cures for the vapors and being stove up. I deeply regret that P.T. Barnum is not available to further the goals of my worthy campaign by serving on the Bush administration cabinet as Secretary of Alternative Diseases, since he would have relished the appointment.

This posting first appeared as a column in the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette on January 14, 2001. I quite naturally intend to approach President-elect Obama with this proposal, despite the fact that it was ignored by President Bush, although he did make several cabinet appointments that would have delighted P.T. Barnum. I note that the offense of the Dallas Cowboys continues to be afflicted by the vapors, and I suggest that Jerry Jones should help fund the search for the cure of this terrible disease. Perhaps Terrell Owens and Tony Romo would agree to be the co-poster children for this effort, and Jessica Simpson convinced to be its spokescelebrity.

Giving the Devil His Due

In 1906, Ambrose Bierce published The Cynic’s Word Book and then reissued the text in 1911 under the more evocative title The Devil’s Dictionary. After having lived through the wanton self-indulgence of America’s Gilded Age, Bierce was delighted to broadcast his cynicism, and he offended many of his readers by having the effrontery to ridicule their cozy illusions.

It is tempting to suggest that our era resembles the one in which Bierce lived and wrote, but to do so would be misleading. Nothing in his experience could have prepared Bierce for the appalling moral evasions of political correctness, the ethical bankruptcy of multiculturalism, or the intellectual vacuities of postmodernism. The veneer of cant that gilds the tawdry hypocrisies of our smile button society has thickened considerably since Bierce’s day, and proclaiming that our cultural Emperor is wearing New Clothes has become a growth industry in America.

In homage to Bierce, I will offer a few of my own Devilishly amended defintions of some currently fashionable words and expressions, in part because anything that furthers the cause of irony in our relentlessly simple-minded and literalist age is worth attempting. Alas, I cannot claim that the following list was very hard to generate, since with so many deserving targets available, the posting almost wrote itself.

Postmodern Christian: A heathen who attends church.
Postmodern Jew: A Buddhist who enjoys eating lox.
Postmodern Buddhist: A Unitarian who wears love beads.
Postmodern Unitarian: A Unitarian.
New Age Seeker: A spiritual pilgrim whose religious practice consists of never going to the Mall unless something is on sale.
Spiritual Pilgrim: Someone whose most deeply-held religious convictions derive from whatever self-help book he has read most recently.
Scented Candles: New Age incense.
New Age Spirituality: Consumerism inflected as self-worship.
Self-Esteem: What whiners have instead of character.
Diet Book: An excuse not to exercise.
Cell Phone: A mobile communications device that enables people who have nothing interesting or important to say to do so more frequently.
Necessary: A word formerly employed to describe something essential; now synonymous with “I want it.”
Liberal: A political Peter Pan.
Conservative: A political Captain Hook.
Education: What one studies in college in order to avoid being educated.
Physical Education: What one studies in college to avoid being in college; most P.E. courses have academically resonant names like “Principles of Coaching.”
Principles of Coaching: A loud whistle.
Optimist: A person without children.
Pessimist: A parent.
Fatalist: A parent with adolescent children.
Teacher: Someone to blame when your child fails at school.
Executive: A business term for someone whose father owns the company.
Administrator: An “executive” in public education who is usually a failed teacher.
Meetings: The favorite workday activity of incompetents.
Wit: Intelligent humor; now virtually extinct.
Pre-nuptial Agreement: Divorce.
Little League: A form of organized baseball in which young people learn good sportsmanship from each other on the field and bad sportsmanship from their parents in the stands.
Soccer Mom: Satan.
Soul: Formerly the immortal part of a human being; now a word used by authors in the titles of their books to help them become bestsellers;
“soul” now conveys a sense of “something vague but very important,” rather as “sex” did a decade ago.
Soul Mate: A person one searches for as a “spiritual justification” to cheat on his spouse.
Popular Culture: Stupidity.
Unpopular Culture: Literacy.
Virtual Reality: What passes for life in Los Angeles.
Computer: The favorite acquisition of irresponsible parents, since they can use it as a baby sitter for their hapless children without feeling guilty by convincing themselves that it’s “educational.”
Spring: Nature’s compensation for technology.
Shopping: The opium of the people.
Saturday Morning Cartoons: The means by which advertisers teach children to want.
Hippie: Someone frozen in time.
Trekkie: Someone frozen in space.
Alternative Music: Noise.
Alternative Medicine: Quackery.
Failure of Nerve: A political compromise.
Failure of Power: Daily life in California.
Organic: Over-priced.
Fusion Cuisine: Slops.
Irish Stew: Fusion cuisine with a potato.
Breakfast Cereal: Candy.
Organic Breakfast Cereal: Over-priced chaff.
Ideologue: A person who has liberated himself from having to think.
Pagan: Someone who doesn’t go to my church.
Pagan Suckled in a Creed Outworn: English Major.
Role Playing Game: Life for people who lack one.
Monopoly: Formerly, a board game; now, Republican economics.
Candyland: Formerly, a board game; now, Democratic economics.
Coffee: The only legal antidote for morning.
Tea: Coffee for sissies.
Herbal Tea: Woodstock Uber Alles!
Marxism: A discredited social philosophy; it’s historical failure proves what smart people always knew, namely, that Karl was the least talented of the Marx brothers.
Temperance: Originally a synonym for “moderation,” but now corrupted by religious zealots who employ it incorrectly to mean “prohibition.”
Prohibition: The period in American history when organized religion helped to bankroll organized crime; its latest manifestation is called “The War on Drugs” or, on the coca plantations of Columbia, “prosperity.”
Sloth: Formerly one of the Seven Deadly Sins; now, “watching television.”
Convenience: Sloth with a bit of attitude.
Books: Outdated versions of laptop computers.
Information: What people with “non-literate learning styles” confuse with knowledge.
Change: The mantra of pseudo-pundits; fools think that they are being profound when they describe change as “inevitable.”
Progress: Change of which I approve.
Pradigm: Consequent to linguistic abuse, this word has little definable meaning, but for poorly educated people, paradigms are always “shifting.”

Ambrose Bierce disappeared in 1913, and most of his biographers suggest that he wandered off into the Mexican desert to flee from what he perceived to be the intractable absurdities of American life. Perhaps I cannot endorse Bierce’s escapism, for I certainly love my country enough to remain at home and criticize its collective follies, but I also acknowledge that, like many thoughtful Americans, there are occasions during a typical day when I find it hard not to envy the moral resolve that doubtless informed his decision.

This posting first appeared as an editorial in the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette on February 18, 2001. I stand by everything that I have written, though I am – at least for now – going to resist the temptation to expand this definitional list, even though it would be sadly easy to do so.

The Gym

Those of us who have entered the period of our “mature years” are well-acquainted with the nature of bodily aches, and we are also familiar with the equally painful fact that culture changes constantly, a truth that can sometimes make us feel even older. Events occasionally conspire in ways that force us to endure both sorts of bruising simultaneously, and I want to describe one such trial in my life. I know that many other people have had similar experiences of time’s ungentle passing, and so I dedicate this posting to all of my readers who are “aging gracefully.”

About three years ago, harassed by my sensitive and supportive sons, who kept referring to me as “Mr. Decrepitude,” I decided that I needed to become involved in a disciplined exercise program, and so I joined an athletic club.

My only previous involvement with such an institution occured during my teen years, when I regularly visited a local YMCA. But nothing in that earlier experience had prepared me for the discovery that there are immense differences between the gym of my boyhood and a modern athletic club.

At the entrance to the locker room of the Y, sitting behind a grease-stained counter, was Jimmy, the elderly attendant. Jimmy had cold, fish-like eyes, and he always smoked a cheap cigar; he was not an especially friendly person, for despite the fact that I went to the gym almost every week for five years, he never bothered to learn my name. When I arrived, he would stare at me through a cloud of tobacco smoke and ask, “Want a locker?” My athletic club is clean and bright. The friendly young people who work behind the counter of the service desk always greet me by name. The air is clear, partly because no one smokes.

To call the locker room at the Y dingy or dank would be to compliment it; the place always exuded the heady bouquet of rancid socks. The lockers looked as if they had been made out of boilerplate, and they had not been cleaned since the days of the Harding administration. It was best not to look at the floor. The locker room at the club is spotless, and the well-scrubbed lockers even smell clean. I can sit on the floor and do stretches without fear of contracting a disease little-known outside of third-world countries.

Workout clothing has evolved in remarkable ways. When I exercised at the gym, I donned a plain t-shirt and gray cotton sweatpants, there was no such thing as “athletic footwear,” and no one bought a second pair of “running shoes” in which to jog. In those days, everyone wore generic sneakers, and no one “jogged” – he did “road work.” At the club, almost everyone wears attractive workout wear that sometimes looks as if it had been created by fashion designers. Embarrassed by what they call my “troglodyte look,” my sons convinced me to buy more contemporary athletic clothes, but they still don’t want to be seen with me at the club, since I purchased shoes and shirts that bear the logos of “low status companies.”

The gym at the Y was decidedly “no frills”; an aspiring athlete could choose between dumbbells and free weights. There were a few ancient machines with pulleys and weights, but they were always broken. If anyone told Jimmy that something needed repairing, he’d glower and say, “Then fix it yourself.” The club not only has free weights, but it also has incredible cybex machines. I cannot imagine what Jimmy would think of treadmills and exercise bikes, though I am certain that he would never offer to fix a broken one.

If a person had a notably masochistic nature, he could ask one of the YMCA coaches for advice. My coach made just two suggestions, which he screamed at every possible opportunity: “You need to sweat more,” and “I don’t see no bone, and so you can’t be hurt much.” When he wasn’t repeating these coaching mantras, he was blowing his whistle. The club has trainers who actually know what they are doing. None of them has ever yelled at me. If I pull a muscle, one of them kindly offers, “No strain, no pain,” and no one carries a whistle.

And what would my coach make of the new exercise vocabulary? He would understand the “card” part of “cardiovascular,” because he loved to play poker. Yoga? “Nah, anything made of milk gives me gas.” Jazzercize? “What size?” Isometric? “I don’t know no tricks.” Creatine? “You’re callin’ me a what?”

I know that there is one change that neither my coach nor Jimmy could possibly accept: there are women at the club. People of the female persuasion, coach. Those are girls, Jimmy. I saw women at the YMCA only once, during a Christmas food drive run by a local mothers’ group, but females were never permitted in the gym. The atmosphere at the club is sociable; men and women sometimes talk casually while they are working out, and, in consequence, they occasionally fail to sweat. My coach would not approve: “These people are lackin’ in focus.” The club even thoughtfully provides child care for mothers who wish to remain fit. I am sure that Jimmy and my coach would view these changes as proof positive that Western Civilization has entered a period of irreversible moral decline.

When I finished my workout at the gym, I’d head for the showers, if they were working. The showers at the club are, of course, splendid, and an attendant provides everyone with a towel. Before my shower, I can relax in a sauna or soothe my weary muscles in a whirlpool bath. Afterward, I can spend time on a tanning bed. I doubt if my coach had ever heard anyone speak the word “sauna.”

I cannot imagine what Jimmy might say about some of the other items in the club locker room that had no equivalent at the YMCA, but in my imagination I like to ask him provocative questions: “Jimmy, do you think that we should change to a shampoo and conditioner that has more citrus nuances?,” or, “Didn’t you notice
that we’re running a bit low on hand lotion?” What he would reply to my final question does not bear thinking about: “Jimmy, I’m stuck with wet hair; when is someone going to fix the blow-dryer?”

There was a Coke machine beside Jimmy’s desk, but it was usually empty. Naturally, no one dared complain to Jimmy about it, and you never asked him for change: “What do I look like – a damn bank?” The club offers its members bottled water (Jimmy: “Bottled what?”) and a variety of diet soft drinks (Coach: “Dye it what?”). There is a snack bar at the club, and I would rather not speculate about Jimmy’s possible response to the question, “Could I interest you in a banana-mango-kiwi smoothie?”

Occasionally, odd things will revive memories of my days at the YMCA. I’ll spot someone at the club wearing gray sweatpants, or I’ll overhear a person saying, “You need to sweat more,” and I suddenly feel thirty years younger, at least in spirit. But occasionally I feel the tectonic plates of time shifting deep within my psyche, as when a youthful clerk at the desk innocently greets me with, “Do you need a locker today?” I know that the club is immensely superior to the YMCA gym, but sometimes, inhaling its clear, refreshing air, I grow whistful for the smell of a cheap cigar.

The facilities at the club are first-rate, but time has diminished my own “physical equipment” to the point that it is about as run down as the “weight machines” in the Y’s prehistoric gym. I confess that sometimes, when I leave the club, I will ask the attendant to give me change for a dollar, even though I don’t need it. Such is the power of nostalgia to affect the human heart, that when he smiles and graciously hands it to me, against all reason, I am saddened.

This posting first appeared as an editorial in the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette.

Dream Matches

I am sure that most parents of male children are acquainted with the “versus” ritual that takes the form of a question: Who would win in a fight between two individuals or groups? The discussions based on these vital issues generally follow the pattern of traditional Godzilla movie titles – “Godzilla vs. King Kong,” for example, or “Godzilla vs. The Smog Monster.”

The difference, however, is that unlike Godzilla movies, the outcomes of the fanciful matches envisaged by my sons could never be determined, and so they became the subjects of endless dinner table debates. I still remember three of the most heated arguments, all of which were finally settled by majority vote: Alien vs. Predator, Jason vs. Freddie, and Rambo vs. G.I. Joe. For those interested in such things, the winners would be Predator (superior weaponry), Freddie (it’s hard to beat a nightmare), and Rambo (better name).

I don’t know whether these combative speculations are peculiar to sons; perhaps mothers and daughters sit around discussing the possible results of a Madonna vs. Britney Spears wrestling match. In one way, I hope so, for my memories of these charming debates still resonate happily in my heart, and I especially recall many hours of considered attention my sons gave to pondering remarkable “dream matches”: Popeye vs. Mike Tyson, Mighty Mouse vs. Superman, and even the Smurfs vs. the Care Bears.

Now that my boys have grown, we no longer have “versus” debates, though we sometimes reminisce about them when one of us finds an old “action figure” in the back of a closet. After all, these discussions are part of our family history, and despite their inherent silliness, I often become sentimental when I think about them. In fact, there are even times when I miss them, especially on those occasions when I awaken in the middle of the night vexed by questions of who might be victorious in contemporary contests: George W. Bush vs. The Joker, for instance, or Al Gore vs. Scooby Doo. But as so often has been the case in my fatherly life, my sons are never around when I need them.

This posting first appeared on October 18, 2000 as the frame for a wine review in the  Arkansas Democrat-Gazette.

I invite readers to join me in pondering the possible outcomes of a few additional “Dream Matches.”
George W. Bush vs. Gomer Pyle. Confess – your first thought was, “It would be a fair fight.”
Karl Rove vs. Anton Chigurh. Chigurh might win in a gunfight, but if the venue is Liar’s Dice, I predict that Rove would win by a first-round knockout.
Caroline Kennedy vs. Malibu Barbie. Since both contestants are equally qualified, the winner of their bout would become the junior senator from New York.
Joe the Plumber vs. Rosie the Riveter. This blue collar combat would take place in an over-sized lunchbox, and the referee would be Joe Six-Pack.
Rod Blagojevich vs. Al Capone. For obvious reasons, this fight would take place in a federal penitentiary, and the winner would be crowned the Illinois State Champion, though he would of course be expected to sell his title to the highest bidder.
Sarah Palin vs. Bullwinkle. This would be a contest of intellectual equals, though if Bullwinkle won, he would give a better post-fight interview.
Donald Rumsfeld vs. Attila the Hun. Admit it – you’d root for Attila.
Rick Warren vs. James Dobson. The winner of this match made in heaven would have the undisputed right to wear the Bible Belt – literally, of course.
Ann Coulter vs. Satan. Would this fight be considered a form of sibling rivalry?
Bill Clinton vs. Elmer Gantry. Paris Hilton would “officiate.”
John Hagee vs. Female Olympic Heavyweight Weightlifter. If the venue were strip poker, and FOX decided to broadcast the event, it might garner the lowest ratings in television history.
Ozzy Osbourne vs. Kurt Cobain. I’d pay to attend this fight just to hear ring announcer Michael Buffer say, “Let’s get ready to mumble.”
“Playboy” vs. “Penthouse.” Most of the action would take place in the centerfold of the ring.
Rush Limbaugh vs. A Large Balloon Filled With Hot Air. To avoid otherwise inevitable confusions, the contestants would wear differently-colored trunks.
Bill O’Reilly vs. Himself. Both would lose.
You see, dear reader – the possiblities for “Dream Matches” are endless.