Beyond A Lost Boot

I have an 86 year old neighbor who is about as good as they come. Just seeing him lifts my spirits. My first impression was like something out of boy scout law. You know, friendly, kind, cheerful and so on. He's not a big man, he's slightly built and hunched over. It took a while to get to know him but I'm lucky I do, he truly is a great man.
To start with I've never known anyone his age who was in better mental or physical condition. He rides a bike 60 miles per week and walks every place else. He does most of his shopping using a back pack and he walks to a local high school twice a week to an exercise class. On top of this he cares for his wife who has a serious illness. When asked about her health he replies, "oh her health is fine, she just can't walk all that well." He simply has an unshakable positive attitude.
But if it hadn't been for my neighbors, who have lived here much longer than me, I wouldn't know much about his life because he rarely talks about himself. He is understated in every way.
What the neighbors did tell me was that he was a prisoner of war in Germany in WWll.
Over the years I've managed to fill in some of the details of his experience. In April, 1944 his B24 was shot down with 10 crew members aboard on a bombing run to a ball bearing manufacturing plant in Aschaffenburg. He was the only survivor of the crash. "We were unescorted by fighter aircraft, we were sitting ducks," he said.
He was lucky to have had his parachute on as many of his crew mates did not. After the crash he was rounded up by what he said were farmers carrying shot guns, taken back to a farm house and then turned over to the authorities then taken to Frankfurt. He was finally taken to a prison camp called Stalag Luft 1 where he spent one year before being liberated by Russian troops.
This is about as much as he had told me until last week. I told him that I had seen an episode of Ken Burns new series on WWll. He said he had watched some of it to and it seemed to loosen him up a little bit on the subject. We talked about a few more details when he became slightly more enthusiastic. For the first time I felt that I was hearing something that he felt like telling me.
He said that when he jumped from the aircraft he had lost one boot. He said his suit was heated and his boots were fleece lined which had kept him relatively comfortable. But when he landed he had just one boot on and with the mud and cold it made it even more miserable than it already was.
He said that back at the farmhouse after some time had passed, a young girl came to him. His eyes lit up and he became quite animated. He said that she was carrying his lost boot and she could speak some English and said, "is yours?" which he replied,"yes thank you." This obviously was a pleasant and lasting memory for him.
It's difficult to narrow this down to the single most important thought here so I'll let you come up with your own. I do know that it's timeless and timely to.

A Story About Terrorism

A quick story. I was working on a job recently and had hired two young plumbers named Jimmy and Sean to re-pipe a building. Jimmy was breaking open a wall when he found an old newspaper stuffed inside. It was used as backing for an old plaster patch. He unfolded it and said in a soft voice "March fourth nineteen-seventy-six", then said loudly, "Sean, check it out, they had terrorists back in 1976." They huddled around the paper for a bit reading headlines in disbelief. Sean said,"that was before we were even born, they'll never get rid of those guys." I said, "these were different guys, the IRA," but I could tell it meant nothing to them. I said, "the Irish Republican Army," still nothing. Looking at these kids and by their names I suspected there was a very good chance that one or both had a distant relative that called Ireland home. I felt like tinkering with their perception of terrorists but I realized that making this connection maybe possible in my mind but probably not in theirs.
We talked a bit about the terrorists of today and it was clear that they had strong feelings about it. I'd call it a heart felt hatred for terrorists actually. They told me about where they were and what they felt on 9/11. Being in their teens and early 20's at that time, it was obvious that it was truly pivotal for them.
I remember the Cuban missile crisis and the fear I felt as my neighbor built a bomb shelter especially because my dad didn't. And I did hate the Viet Nam war but it was hard to know exactly who to hate.
My feelings about the 9/11 attack do not include hatred and it's not because hatred doesn't suit me anymore like some wasted energy or something. It's because I have always thought that efficiency was particularly important. Nothing complex, just a strong belief that the most important measure of success is how quickly something gets properly completed. Now, I know that this means different things to different people but since nothing has really been accomplished with a unified hatred approached to terrorism I think thoughtful people would agree it's time to try something new. But instead our Government acts like a couple of 20 year olds feeding off each others hormone induced one upsmanship and dragon slayer fantasies.
P.S The incident was a bombing in a London train station. It was the fifth since IRA hunger striker, Frank Stagg died after beginning his strike 62 days earlier.

Merger Activity

Where did the summer go? Not that there is some big seasonal change here but because I like growing plants of all kinds I see changes underway, pointing to the end of a growing season and cooler weather ahead. Fortunately years ago I became interested in native plants. Interestingly these plants march to a different drummer. With a little rain they perk up-it's almost spring for them now. This helps to mitigate some of the negative effects of winter. Anyone who is into this sort of thing knows how remarkable it is to be able to have plants from around the world in your garden. For me it's just one of the real bonuses of being alive today.
Understandably though, like many personal interests, most others couldn't care less.
Of course I have no bone to pick with someone who doesn't give a hoot about gardening just as long as they give a hoot about something and that something isn't becoming famous or making vast sums of money.
Capitalism has been in overdrive and unrestrained for many years now and our inextricable obsession with it has seemingly created legions of people who are using every ounce of brain power and desire for that pursuit and it's leaving little for anything else.
To be clear, I believe in capitalism as much as anybody because the alternatives are proven losers. But it's become harder than ever to find people who don't define themselves by what they do for a living as opposed to who the are. What's worse is that they are often unaware of it. It's sort of like not missing air conditioning when you never had it.
I think that most thoughtful people anticipated such an outcome but the speed at which it has arrived is a little surprising.
I noticed a television commercial recently where there was a man who relished his good fortune that his business defined who he was and he felt good that he could pass the business on to his daughter so she could define who she was.
Now for a guy who rued the day Eric Clapton did his first beer commercial, this is awfully hard to take. I cut my philosophical teeth in the sixties, so for me each time I hear a formerly iconic song or image being used to sell something it's a little bit painful. I know this is the price of doing business because after all how many communes are still in operation. But completely merging what we are with how we earn is in some ways like what monoculture is to agriculture. Too many eggs in one basket.
There is a huge discussion due here but to keep it simple I'll just say that I consider it proven that there are certain susceptibilities, individually and collectively, that come about as a result of a narrowing of interests for any reason. In agriculture it is the lack of biodiversity that can potentially lead to crop failures. In human beings it sets up basic structures of thought pointing too many people in the same direction. A sort of malignant groupthink can emerge. In either case the outcome is not the optimum and is potentially catastrophic. Let history be our guide.