This has been a most difficult year. About a year ago we all became aware that there was a deadly virus spreading around the world and concerned countries took various measures to protect their populations – with greater or lesser success. And the US, as we all know, was unfortunately in the latter category. And, again as we all know, the reasons were clear: lack of Federal leadership and action, the inability of the medical community, with its resources proscribed and limited by corporatized, for-profit systems, to respond sufficiently, and an ignorant and incompetent president who utterly failed to respond and lead.

As individuals, like the nations of the world, US citizens responded differently too. Some heeded the pleas of the medical community and followed the now dreary dicta of masking, social distancing and hand cleansing. And some did not but selfishly went about their everyday activities without protecting themselves and others. And over time it became apparent that states too, responded differently. Some required citizens to practice good medical hygiene and some did not. And many suffered the consequences of that differentiation. By summer and into the fall of 2020 some states, among them our home state of Arizona, were suffering infection rates among the highest in the world. And some, like my adopted state of Vermont (my spouse’s native state) were among the lowest. So, motivated by these differences, we decided not to return to Arizona in November as customary, but to remain in Vermont through the winter, thus making this already “most difficult year” even more stressful.

Yes, we chose to stay in Vermont because statistically it was “safer”. But I had never experienced an entire  Vermont winter and my spouse had not experienced one since she was quite young. And this particular winter, unfortunately, has proven to be among the harshest over the last decade or so. Yes, we had visited our summer home during the winter several times over the approximately eleven years we have split time between the two states, but the experiences had been uneventful – some snow, some ice or some slush. But this winter, which we are still dealing with in early March, has added a devastating and depressing dimension to this already disastrous year. And at our ages, 78 and 70, dealing with a Vermont winter has not been easy.

After a beautiful October, usually one of the finest months of weather in Vermont, we passed through a somewhat unremarkable November – brown grass, bare trees, some rain, steadily increasing lower temperatures, but nothing unexpected. And we enjoyed a pleasant pandemic Thanksgiving holiday with our Florida daughter and granddaughter who had remained in Massachusetts for the same reasons we were still in Vermont.

But in the middle of December we experienced a truly frightening event – a snowfall the like of which I had never experienced. Beginning in the late afternoon of December 16, the snow continued all night, accumulating at the rate of a couple of inches per hour. I arose around my usual time of about four in the morning, turned on the outside light on the front deck and was astonished to see snow accumulations and drifts approaching the top of the four foot railings. And it was still coming down heavily.

In the morning as the snowfall slowed we began to explore what was necessary to get outside. I could not even open the storm door on the front porch because the snow had come almost up to the doorknob and I could not get the door open. The back door was somewhat better – even though the snow had come well above above the top step on the stairway, because there was not a flat porch on which it could accumulate, I was able to open the storm door enough to squeeze out with one of my snow shovels which thankfully were accessible, having been stored in the downstairs garage. In trying to come down the three steps I was astonished to realize that the snow depth was well above my knees and thighs and almost to my waist. I literally could not move, it was simply too deep. So to get anywhere I had to dig a trench in which to walk, so I dug my first such trench out from the porch steps and then around the deck toward the front of the house where my spouse’s bird feeders were located because I knew that she would want to replenish them especially in the midst of such a huge snowfall. Thankfully, despite its incredible depth and quantity, the snow was relatively easy to shovel, being more of the light and fluffy variety rather than the wet and heavy type.

Later that day, as the storm slowed and finally stopped, I gazed at the quantity of snow and actually felt afraid. What if one of us suddenly fell seriously ill, sustained a heart attack or a broken bone from a fall of some kind and had to get to a doctor or hospital. Forget it, there was absolutely no way. Dorset municipal plows had already cleared the road leaving a six foot mountain of plowed snow effectively blocking the end of our driveway. During the winter our driveway has routinely been cleared, even in our absence, by Jerry Merrow, a groundskeeper from Rutland who mows lawns in our area during the summer. Mr. Merrow handles the snow with a good sized gasoline powered snowblower so I wondered how he could handle a snowfall of this depth when the opening on the front of his blower was only about 18 inches high. For the rest of that first full day dealing with this snowfall, we did little more that express concern and wonder at the snows awesome depth.

The next day around noon, with the storm finally gone and a bright sun illuminating the monstrous drifts, Jerry arrived with not only his snowblower, largely ineffective in snow of this depth, but with a helper with a pickup truck and snow blade, along with the customary assistance of his teenaged grandson armed with his snow shovel. Starting with the massive pile at the driveway entrance, and pushing right and left, the pickup truck was able to slowly make its way up the hill toward the house. Now, before leaving in the fall and before the first snow, it has been my practice to insert four foot fiberglass reflective wands every eight or ten feet along the edge of the long curve of the driveway so that it’s marked for anyone plowing or snow-blowing the drive. In this case, however, the markers had virtually disappeared because of the depth of the snow. So the plow, unable to follow the curve of the actual driveway, missed much of it and shaved strips of sod from the lawn and picked up various rocks trimming the edge of the drive and the long curved flower garden, all of which were now lodged in the huge piles of snow created by the plow.

Eventually, the plow got close enough to the house for Jerry and his snowblower to take over, which was quite interesting to observe. His blower simply burrowed into the snow in many places, the depth and quantity even covering the chute blowing out the snow. However, with the help of his snow shovel-armed grandson and some additional shoveling by me, Jerry’s blower was able to create some space around our parked and snow covered Ford Taurus and space up to the garage door finally freeing up our little four wheel drive Suzuki Grand Vitara, making us feel considerably more confident about being able to handle an emergency. Because truly, before the driveway was cleared, we would have been totally helpless if we had to get out or get another vehicle, like an ambulance or fire truck, up to our house.

After the driveway was cleared, I proceeded to dig a trench along where I remembered our walk was, down to the stone steps to the driveway. Bobbie, armed with the other of our two snow shovels decided that she would attempt to dig from the other side of the driveway up to the front porch to free that up. Eventually she finally made her way to the porch and we both cleared off enough snow so that the front storm door could open.

I have to admit, looking back, that this initial snowstorm was quite exciting, despite its massive size and threatening aspects. Both Bobbie and I, along with Jerry, the snowplowing guy and his helpers, had been able to respond appropriately and restore some measure of personal safety. And after having done that, we were able finally to marvel at its remarkable depth and bright beauty, which had effectively obliterated all irregular landscape features, covering them with a smooth stark cover of white.

Wondering what would happen to all this snow was answered about a week later when we were blessed with two very oddly warm days above 50 degrees on which a southern wind blew intensely and we were blessed with large swaths of snow melting and exposing areas of brown grass. During this time I was finally able also to clear the lower deck of virtually all of the snow on it. However, even this big thaw failed to completely melt the huge piles of snow left by the plow on its uneven trip up the driveway. Those piles, full of rocks, driveway gravel and strips of sod from the lawn, remained.

The two days of thaw ended quickly and the real Vermont winter resumed, with all of its numbing cold and continuing snowfalls, beginning with a very deep, heavy and wet snow, which became a foundation layer of frozen slush, to form the first of many snow layers since then, and burying the afore-mentioned several huge leftover piles of plowed snow full of unsightly lawn, garden and driveway detritus.

Since that time in December and after a very quiet and lonely Christmas we have gone through over two months of additional (ten to be exact) snowstorms that required Jerry’s driveway and walk clearing, and dozens of “snow showers”, all of which have deposited their layers of new snow upon the old, in varying thicknesses. This constant blanket of snow has thickened and thinned, because of the sun and some evaporation but has remained at a depth of between one and two feet because of constant unrelenting freezing weather. We’ve had dozens of nights of below zero and single digit temperatures and daytime temperatures also in single digits and teens and even a couple of days when even the “high” temperature remained at or below zero.

And after each snow, we’ve dutifully shoveled as much as we could, again clearing the walks to the bird feeders and down to the driveway, again clearing the upper and lower decks and the front porch. These duties have not aged well and have gotten monotonous and burdensome very quickly. I can see little pleasure in shoveling snow when I know well that more will come again very soon and present the same challenge. And the repeated snows, accompanied by the packing, the occasional slushy wet version and the occasional sunny day contributing some softening and melting, along with the repeated very low nighttime temperatures, have caused what has remained on the walks and driveway to turn to solid ice several inches thick. We have not seen the driveway gravel or any of the flat stones or brown grass of our walks since that pre Christmas thaw. And simply walking down the driveway to get the mail has become a dangerous challenge. The lower deck too over this winter has accumulated unremovable snow and slush to become a coat of thick ice. Recently with some sun and temperatures near freezing, I have been able to pry some chunks loose and toss them off the deck into the snow. I must say, it’s been nice to see more and more of the deck surface reappear.

Our poor Ford Taurus has been coated again and again with a new blanket of snow, which I have brushed off each time, only to be coated again. I have periodically started the car and let it idle for a half hour or so to make sure the battery stays charged. In the meantime, our little Suzuki has stayed snug in our tiny garage beneath the living room and has faithfully taken us through the winter on necessary shopping trips, even a couple all the way to Trader Joe’s and Costco in Burlington.

And our propane furnace and radiator heating system has performed admirably all winter so far (knock on wood), striving mightily to maintain livable temperatures inside the house, although I have not enjoyed paying the last couple of monthly fuel bills of $400 plus which have come over the last months. Oh and incidentally, I have had to accommodate Dorr Oil and Propane’s deliveries by digging and keeping clear a trench from the road to the underground propane tank and marking its location.

The worst aspects of this winter have been the dreary boredom of it all. Sunny days have been rare and gazing out at the dull constant white and shades of gray of this eternal blanket of snow has been quite depressing. The time has passed far too quickly. For example, many times I have thought it to be Wednesday and it was already Friday, or have been astonished that February came and went so quickly and it’s already March. Unfortunately it is a fact that time flies by when activities are constricted and one day resembles another. For time to pass slowly, one needs new experiences, new scenery, new people, new travel, new challenges and new learnings, as it did in our youths or working adulthood. And what of these have we experienced here in this bleak and colorless Vermont winter when today is an exact replica of yesterday and this week was exactly like last week and same with he months?

And during this relentless sameness both Bobbie and I are fighting some depression – thankfully not the serious, debilitating, clinical kind, but the listless boredom, lack of interest in anything kind, during which many required tasks are rarely begun, much less finished and one no longer cares about very much at all. The days are spent in bored computer searches, occasional television news, getting the mail (consisting mostly of catalogues and other junk mail), opening it and allowing it to sit around in ever increasing piles. I mean what kind of life is it when the day’s highlight is going down to get the mail, or replenishing the bird feeders, or emptying the trash and navigating the ice to take the containers down to the end of the driveway to be emptied?

Meal preparation and consumption are boringly the same. Every morning for me it’s been my breakfast “smoothie” of water, yogurt, egg, “Orgain” protein powder and frozen berries and for Bobbie her oatmeal, yogurt, frozen blueberries and almonds. And for lunch it’s eggs in some form and then a salad for supper. Yes, all nutritious but frightfully monotonous. We seem incapable of departing from this simple norm for our meals. We simply have neither the creativity nor the energy required.

Same with the daily chores of maintaining our home – doing the wash, folding clothes and putting them away, filling the dishwasher, putting dishes and silverware away. All just as dreary as the meals, adding nothing different to our daily routines. And all constrained and limited by the boring white and constant bone chilling cold outside – the tasks and the environment conspiring to mesmerize our daily existence and sap our creativity and spontaneity.

Through all of this I’ve managed to maintain my exercise routine, despite developing a desperate hatred for every single phase. First, twenty pushups, then a specified number of arm and shoulder exercises with first, ten pound dumbbells, then the two twenties. Then twenty more pushups and finally climbing onto the elliptical machine for a tedious 30 minutes. But in spite of the relatively sensible diet and the regular exercise my aged and pitiful body has accumulated ten additional pounds of fat around its middle which is still with me and which will require considerable will power and effort to get rid of.

Looking back on this dreadful winter, both Bobbie and I are concerned about its effect on our daily lives. The terrible monotony of every day and every week seemed to smother energy and ambition. Despite having both of my scanners here in Vermont, one working with my Mac and the other with an older but still functional Windows PC, and piles of old photographs and slides to digitize and organize, I never really got going on this extensive project. 

And the best I could do with my blog, to which I used to add pieces at a regular rate, is simply start new articles during rare spasms of interest rather than finish any of the dozens already begun. I simply did not have sufficient enthusiasm and concentration required to put the finishing touches on any articles. Several mostly completed were rendered useless and out of date by changing facts or conditions and had to be discarded. Others, with more timeless and universal import, I just did not have the motivation or energy to complete and publish.

Also quite oddly, I never read a single book all winter. Oh yes, the overall quantity and quality of my reading remained quite high, consuming the Times and the Post each day, along with other favorite websites offering a liberal or radical view and analysis of political, social and academic developments, like Common Dreams, Alternet, Truthout, Public Citizen, Pro Publica, Consortium News, Mondoweiss, Counterpunch, Jacobin and others. But whatever resolve it takes to simply grab a book from our bookcase, sit down and read it, I simply did not have. Oh, I tried but never got past the first several pages before giving in to walking aimlessly about the house looking for something else to interest me.

Although I cannot speak for her, my spouse Bobbie, who was apparently stricken by the same malaise, with each day’s activities so restricted by the weather and covid 19 isolation, virtually the only things she accomplished on a regular basis were replenishing her bird feeders and perusing items on her computer. We both killed considerable time watching television, mostly news programs on MSNBC and PBS and selected offerings from Book TV on CSPAN. Our Roku streaming stick offered some occasional respite from these offerings but even with access to hundreds, we watched precious few good movies. Again….little interest.

So basically, with all the time in the world, we wasted most of it and accomplished very little. Neither of us really realized what was happening, until we read a very interesting article from the Guardian about how the fateful combination of isolation and boredom can do terrible things to the brain. While the article dealt mainly with factors related to the lockdown isolation of the covid pandemic, our condition was exacerbated by the additional conditions imposed by an especially challenging and debilitating Vermont winter. Thankfully, the article made clear that in most cases, the “brain fog” developed under these conditions is temporary and with the resumption of more normal activity and socially interactive lives it dissipates and memory, feeling, passion, ambition and energy can return to former levels.  

On the brighter side, things are finally looking up. Here in mid March, we are both looking forward to obtaining our second covid 19 shots and then at the end of the month driving back to Arizona for long delayed doctor and dentist appointments and to attend to the needs of our house and Bobbie’s little Honda HRV, parked now in the garage for nine months straight. Yes it has a charger on the battery but it should have been started and driven a few times. I hope it has not sustained any lasting damage from such a long period of inactivity. And our house, although son Conrad and special friend Tara have visited a few times, will likely need some serious inspection and  maintenance. 

And best of all, the weather forecast for this week, March 8 – 15 contains some awfully good news – temperatures in the forties and fifties and even a little rain towards the end of the week. Finally, finally, we may see this eternal blanket of dull white snow shrink in size and depth. And finally we may see some stones peak through the ice on the walks and gravel once again appear on the driveway. Perhaps we may see some areas of brown grass emerge from the white on the lawn. And perhaps we can break out of this snowbound and icebound isolation and take a long walk.

I do know this, even though flying would maybe make more sense, I am eagerly anticipating the drive to Arizona and back again in early May. It will be thrilling to again be on the road, watching the scenery, even if only Interstate Highway scenery, slip by and feeling in control of our own destiny again. And will we spend another winter in Vermont again? Absolutely not, we’ve learned our lesson. But will we happily return to spend the summer and fall here. Very definitely.

Today I am compelled by circumstances to offer some additions to an earlier blog entry about my beloved adopted state of Vermont. As I futilely tried to find the weather channel forecast for Vermont late yesterday and realized that the internet was not working….again….for the second time in as many days and tried to phone our company about the problem….again… but ruefully realized that our house phone doesn’t function without internet and so tried my cell phone to call and could not, since my cell phone works here at the house only when the internet is on and I have to drive halfway down Danby Mountain Road toward the village of Dorset to get it to work, I realize that I’m living in what amounts to a third world country – Vermont – where you can never take modern conveniences, like electricity, telephone and internet for granted but must fall on your knees with amazement and gratitude when they do work and can be relied upon.

Yes, two days ago I noticed that the internet was phasing in and out. One moment when I was trying to retrieve an article from the New York Times I got the “cannot reach server” sign and threw my hands in the air and rolled my eyes in frustration, punctuating with a little strong language, and the next moment, when trying to find the same article, there it was on my screen just like normal. Accordingly, I called (when the phone service had phased in and was working) Consolidated Communications, the latest iteration of our constantly evolving telephone/internet company, to complain and was directed to conduct the usual drill – unplug the modem, wait a minute or two, them plug it back in and hope the internet comes back up. Well, I conducted the drill again and again and sometimes the internet came back and sometimes it did not. Finally Consolidated Communications said they would “check things on their end” and send someone out to check here as well. With the internet still fluctuating on and off, a young man in a panel truck arrived and said they had discovered something “on their end” and had fixed the problem, but he would install a new modem for us just in case. OK, the new modem is installed, has functioned for a couple of days but now the internet is off again. Is it “something on their end” again or is the new modem not functioning properly? What the hell is wrong now?

Native Vermonters, like my wife, her relatives and friends here and around Dorset, will tell you apologetically but factually that indeed, such conveniences as electricity, telephone and internet are not always reliable here in Vermont and cannot be taken for granted because of one simple fact – trees by the millions grow here, trees which in a winter snowstorm or summer thunderstorm can be blown down and take some wires with them. Or perhaps the pole itself, transporting those vital functions, will be downed. So this I understand, no problem – trees and their peculiarities are a fact of life here in Vermont. So, I ask, if this is such a problem, why not just put the electrical power underground, as is often done in other locations? Well, the answer to this perfectly reasonable question brings me to another complaint about my beloved adopted state of Vermont – rocks, stones, boulders, whatever you choose to call them, of all sizes and dimensions are underground everywhere in Vermont – sometimes at or near the surface, sometimes deeper, but they are always here, and how well I know.

Last week, in an uncommon burst of generosity, I thought I would indulge my spouse and finally install some much needed edging around some of her flower garden areas to repel the ever advancing invasive grass and weeds from the adjacent lawn. So I ordered a few more boxes of plastic six by eight inch edging pieces that attach to each other and are simply tapped (pounded?) into the ground with a hard rubber mallet. Well, I know what lurks under the ground here so when I begin a task like this I always stretch a string between two stakes, then drive my square edged spade into the ground along the string to get a straight line to form a long groove into which to drive the units of plastic edging. Well, along that twenty foot line, I find only perhaps five places where the spade goes straight down to form a groove for the edging. Elsewhere I get a “clunk” or, worse, a “clank”, when the spade strikes the virtually ever-present rock. So I move my spade slightly toward me or away from me, or to the right or to the left, to find where the spade might go down unimpeded, so that perhaps I can get alongside or underneath the impediment to lever it up and out of the ground. Most times, my sturdy faithful spade is sufficient to the task and up comes the rock so that I can now continue down the line for the edging. But occasionally it is not, so I have to go to the garage and grab the most essential garden and landscaping tool I own – my heavy steel “digging and tamping” bar, which I raise and slam down into the ground combining its considerable weight with what remains of my strength to get underneath or alongside of the much larger object which is impeding my edging job and which my spade cannot dislodge and finally lever it out. 

This absolutely essential (in Vermont) tool, I had originally purchased to assist in a huge project to which I had committed several summers ago – the construction of a post and rail fence along the frontage of our property. To dig the holes for the posts, I had optimistically but foolishly rented a gasoline powered post hole digger which once here, had to be wrestled into position and the revolving auger digging blade lowered into the ground. While this machine may have worked well for the first few inches of the hole, it would inevitably strike a rock and just sit there and spin, halting its progress downward. When more weight was applied to the auger side of the machine by me or my wife by sometimes actually sitting on it, the digger might finally dislodge and regurgitate a medium sized stone and proceed downward. However, inevitably it would encounter a more sizable obstruction and just sit and spin regardless of any additional weight applied. So then I would have to withdraw the auger, push the machine aside, turn off the engine and dig the stone out manually and this is best done with a bar and a spade. So ultimately, having learned that a powered post hole digger was useless here on our property, I returned it to the rental place in Manchester and resigned myself to completing the entire job manually with my steel bar and a spade. I think that the powered post-hole digger helped me minimally with only four of the total of 25 or so holes.

Some other example of struggles with Vermont rocks – in spite of my impassioned pleas to stop buying items to plant and instead just maintain the beautiful flourishing gardens we have already started and nurtured, my spouse had insisted on purchasing a couple more items – a magnolia tree, which we hope will survive in this harsh climate and a really pretty butterfly bush. So after making excuses and delaying, I was in an optimistic mood recently and so finally consented to plant the magnolia. But as usual, the spade went in a couple of inches, then stopped…a rock. Ok, well I’ll try a little over this way, but again clank – a really big one I guess. Forgetfully armed only with the spade, I made the trip to the garage to retrieve the steel bar. By the time the hole was  dug, I had not only a pile of dirt but had removed also a pile of rocks. 

And the whole process was repeated a few days later with the planting of the butterfly bush – me starting out optimistically and happily but in no time sweating and swearing and prying out rocks. 

And then there are the roads here in my beloved Vermont. I have never driven on worse roads. State route 30 from where we live to Manchester has asphalt patches on the asphalt patches. And all are cracking and coming apart. Time to patch up the the patches on the patches. Yes I know how damaging the severe winters are on these paved roads. But comparing Vermont’s roads to those in other states that endure equally severe winters, there is no comparison. Why? Is Vermont behind in the science of road building and repair? My guess is that they’re building and repairing roads the same way they did fifty years ago. There have likely been some advances – time to learn about them and apply them. I really do think that a favorite Vermont adage uttered by every road crew boss, every tradesperson, every town manager is, “Well, that’s the way we’ve always done it….”

And then there are the deer. I mentioned in my previous article about Vermont how important deer hunting season is here. It seems like virtually the entire state shuts down for these several weeks. However, there seem to be more deer than ever here, and it appears that most are unfortunately concentrated near our modest little property. Perhaps drawn by the several old apple trees that border our lawn which drop their bounty each fall, deer seem to frequent our place far more than should be normal. And our plants suffer as a result. They love to eat the tops off of the bluebell plants that are in the woods around our grass. We moved a quantity of them to our gardens this year and they strolled through and ate the tops off of them there as well, so no beautiful blooms. Worst of all, we were shocked upon our return from Arizona this spring to see that they had rendered a dozen or so of the lush arborvitae trees along our fence virtual arboreal skeletons. And I still don’t know if I should wait and see if they come back or simply remove them and replace with something deer-proof or if impossible, at least deer-resistant. 

And a few other complaints about other occurrences that seem inexplicable except in terms of third world countries. I buy a gallon of regular milk every so often to use in my coffee and an occasional bowl of cold breakfast cereal. I use it slowly but it’s usually gone by the expiration date. However, just the other day, I was shocked to have it turn sour (yes, I had put it into my coffee that morning and was disgusted to see little curdled bits floating around as I mixed it in) a full week before the expiration date. Hey, I had hustled home and put it into the refrigerator promptly and had never left it out. So is there yet another third world condition here – inadequate refrigeration? Hey, my refrigerator works well and I have verified the inside temperature. So is the problem at the dairy, at the transportation or packaging facilities or at the supermarket? And this was not the first time my milk has gone sour quickly. It’s happened at least a half dozen other times over the past few years. What the hell is going on here?

And one other thing before I end this article. Vermont seems not to care about customer service. When I’m here I miss so much the humor, the helpfulness, accommodation, the obliging manner of retail clerks in Arizona, where the customer is valued and is always right. Here it seems to be just he opposite. I am made to feel that I am a troublesome intruder, an inconvenience. I do realize that retail clerks can be way too attentive and that drives me nuts too. I remember a few years ago when every clerk, shelf stocker, and cashier at Home Depot was evidently forced to greet every customer with a cheery “How are you today?” It got on my nerves so much that I was tempted to reply, “None of your damned business how I am. Just tell me where I can find the nails”. But I am tired of being ignored by unhelpful retail people. The other day when I bought groceries, I not only had to put up with a silent sullen cashier, but had to bag all my grocery items myself. So in Vermont, it seems that the customer comes last. Who’s first? I don’t know but the customer be damned – from dishonest tradespeople to lazy and unresponsive retail clerks, no one seems to care.

And with a Ford car this time in Vermont I decided to obtain the much needed oil change from a local Ford dealer after the long drive to Vermont, in order to set up a relationship where I could feel that my needs would be looked after. What an ordeal. Upon entering the service department, one guy was on the phone and another was on his computer. I chose to stand in front of the computer guy’s desk to be waited upon. Yes, I waited and waited until he finally and begrudgingly got off his computer, apparently put out at my presence, and asked what he could do for me. Finally, I was able to explain that I had an appointment and would leave my car and be back in a couple of hours to pick it up. When I returned, that guy’s desk was empty and the other guy was again on his phone. So guess what – a service mechanic came through the door and offered his help, took me to a desk where I could pay the bill – but that lady was on a lunch break so he took me back to the guy who was on his phone, finally off, and I paid the bill and collected my keys. I’ve been to all kinds of auto dealers in my life but have never experienced anything like this. But thank God for the mechanic, who, greasy hands, smudged uniform shirt and all, did seem to care. How does this dealer stay in business, pray tell? Must be selling a lot of cars – I don’t think there’s many repeat customers in the service department.

And finally, on the negative side of the ledger, I have to mention the bugs. Whenever I venture into the coolness of a pleasant Vermont evening, I have to coat my exposed skin with some kind of repellant to prevent being assaulted by bugs. A particularly troublesome insect is the notorious “no see-um” or “biting midge”, a tiny bug whose bite seems much worse than that of a mosquito. A “no see-um” bite somewhere on my scalp or back of the neck raises a bump like I had been hit  with a hammer. And that bump itches too. Evidently, the tragic insect die-off caused by  overuse of chemicals on farms, lawns and gardens has not affected these nasty little insects. Actually, I’ll bet that their numbers have been augmented by the demise of natural enemies. Whatever the cause, the lure of a warm humid evening is easy to resist here in a Vermont summer. However, all bugs have their seasons, so hopefully they’ll go away soon. 

And then there are the ticks. These nasty, sneaky and dangerous creatures fall off their original hosts, the ubiquitous deer here and wait to attach themselves to us unsuspecting humans and infect us with any number of tick-borne  diseases, the most notorious of which is Lyme Disease. I have received my share of bites, two just this summer, neither of which have apparently infected me. And I have received them in the past. During the summer of 2017 I came down with a frightening attack of arthritis. It seemed that every joint in my body was swelling and painful, as if I had been injected with some kind of poison. Of course I suspected Lyme so finally had the blood test which was negative. I’m still fighting the arthritis, which  rheumatologists in both Vermont and Arizona still insist is “osteoarthritis”. Nevertheless I am convinced that those tick bites have something to do with this condition and so plan to get another test, since it’s only about 80 percent effective anyhow. I am always troubled and confused by Lyme Disease because the more you read about it the clearer it becomes that it affects different people in different ways and at different times. A prominent example is Kris Kristofferson, whose recent memory loss and confusion was blamed on dementia, presumably Alzheimers, until some enterprising doctor ordered a test for Lyme which turned up positive. It became apparent that Kristofferson had likely received a tick bite while filming “Disappearances” in 2005. Where? In Vermont. So I’ve not yet finished researching the cause of this sudden encounter with arthritis. I’m convinced its cause is Lyme.

But…on the other hand, I should reinforce and add to the many compliments I offered my adopted second-home state before. Experiments in socialism are alive and well here in dear old Vermont. My spouse’s favorite mail order company for her gardening needs, Gardener’s Supply, the company from which I had purchased the afore-mentioned  boxes of plastic edging, is wholly owned and operated by its employees. Yes, its gracious salespersons, stockers, maintenance and office people work hard to increase company profits, which accrue directly to them and their families, not to a Jeff Bezos, a David Koch, a Walton or an amorphous army of wealthy stockholders. At Gardeners, the employees are the Bezoses, the Kochs, the Waltons and the stockholders, which adds to the pleasure of shopping there. This is how it should be, is it not? If employees work hard, they should receive a fair share of the profits.

And Vermonters are well ahead of the curve in other crucial areas as well. Shortly we will become the first state to outlaw plastic bags. And to prepare, I am now carrying cloth bags in the car for grocery shopping, although I often forget that they are there. And also, Vermont is moving toward keeping organic matter out of landfills and will at some point in the near future, actually require residents to deal with their own organic throwaway garbage, preferably by composting. We’re thankfully ahead of that curve already too, being the proud possessors for some years now of a “Green Johanna”, a barrel type of composter made in Sweden. Our little box garden in the back produces some pretty good vegetables, thanks to the rich compost that has been mixed into its soil.

And I should add to my previous compliments about politics here in Vermont, that this little state still produces Republicans that think and care. Yes, just like our staunchly Democratic neighbor to the south, Massachusetts, we do elect a Republican governor occasionally, the latest incarnation being Governor Phil Scott. Along with Massachusetts Governor Charlie Baker, these guys are a throwback to Republicans like Mark Hatfield or Nelson Rockefeller, principled people who were practical, sensible, honest and honorable. Actually politicians like Scott and Baker are middle of the road governors, closer to Democrats actually in the way they govern, than the more radical prominent Republicans of today.

And Vermont continues to be significantly ahead of other states in the recognition and legalization of alternative life styles, characteristics with which many of our fellow human beings are born and over which they have no control and thus should be entitled to the same rights and privileges which the rest of us enjoy. Yes, Vermont was the first state to allow civil unions for gay couples, a remarkable achievement accomplished way back in 2000. Congratulations, Vermont.

Well there, I’m done with my second article about Vermont, my complaints and my compliments. And in spite of everything, I really do enjoy the people, the weather, even the roads and the rocks here and wouldn’t want to spend my summers anywhere else. Good old Vermont.

I love Vermont and the state’s recent courageous approval of a GMO labeling requirement has inspired me to write about it and describe why it is a truly unique state.

I live here for about six months a year. My spouse is a native Vermonter and our little house sits across a dirt road from the house where she and her brother grew up. Mountains rise nearby on both the east and the west. So the rising sun doesn’t strike this house until about 9:00 AM, and the sunset, because of high horizon to the west, is always early.

There are trees everywhere. When my spouse points out where the barn and silo, or the “night pasture” or her grandmother’s house used to be, I get very confused because all I see are trees. When you take a walk around Scallop Drive, about two miles of brisk and scenic walking, first north about a half mile, then west uphill for a mile or so, then a turn to the south and finally east downhill back to home, all you see are trees. Yet this is where the hayfields, pastures and cornfields for the Baldwin dairy farm used to be. If you go into the woods directly east of the house, eventually you encounter the rusty skeleton of a manure spreader, the wood plank construction long since rotted away, trees growing up through it, and the rusted frame barely recognizable as the remains of a farm implement. This is the only evidence I have seen of the farm that used to be here.

The area around the house is typical of what you see everywhere in Vermont – Green Mountains. On a drive to anywhere in any direction, you encounter beautiful countryside,  gorgeous endless vistas of wooded hills and mountains, prosperous farms and pastures full of contented cattle, always punctuated with very small to small charming towns and villages, each with their requisite display of colonial houses and the single church steeple that typify the New England town or village. And you almost always see a main street with local family owned businesses.

About the weather – it has been said that Vermont has two seasons – winter and July. That’s a bit extreme but it’s to the point. The winters are generally very cold and snowy, spring and fall can be quite cold and the summer here is short. Occasionally, someone’s tomatoes will be killed by an August frost. The day after I arrived in Vermont this spring, April 14, I was greeted by a four inch snowfall. Today, May 31, as I am writing this the temperature is 70 degrees. I think we have had only a half-dozen days this spring that have reached or exceeded this level. Vermont just saw the end to one of its harshest winters in the last decade when all previous records for cold weather in March were broken. There are pleasant days here to be sure, but since they are rare they seem uncommonly and extraordinarily beautiful. At times during the summer the weather can turn uncomfortably hot and humid. The fall, especially October, is probably the best time of the year, with blue skies, crisp mornings and cool nights and colorful leaves. But in October of 2012 it rained for virtually the entire month. The caravans of “leaf peepers”, people from other states visiting Vermont to enjoy the fall color, were stalled in clouds of fog, mist and driving rain. I think there were but three days the entire month that were good for enjoying the beautiful fall color.

Vermont is one of the smallest of the states, actually number 45 in area and 49 in population. It is also one of the whitest states – very few faces of other hues and shades are seen. Its population of African Americans is less than one percent, making it the 49^th state in percentage of black population, right before number 50, Montana. When considering all minorities, it is still among the whitest, with 95 percent of its population of 640,000 falling into that category. Vermont also has a very mature population with the second oldest median age in the country, right behind Maine. This is surprising because one would think that Arizona or Florida with all their retirees would rank quite high, but they in fact are far down on the scale. However, this high median age is an indication of a problem the state is trying to address – that young people are leaving the state.

Taxes are high in Vermont. Our little state is the ninth highest in the country, collecting 10.5 percent of average income for both local and state taxes, an average tax burden per capita of $4351. Property taxes vary according to where you live, as do the benefits received from the state or the local government from that tax. Here is Dorset, a high tax town, the bill for our humble little house on an acre of land is well over $4000. And with our own water supply and septic system, and paying a private company to pick up our refuse, our only benefits seem to be having the dirt road graded periodically and the privilege of using a small library in town. Oh, and also the privilege of listing “Dorset” as our address.

One of the useful nuggets of advice offered by my son who spent three years in Vermont going to law school, was, “Dad, never be in a hurry when you are driving somewhere or you will go crazy”. This was great advice, although I have had difficulty heeding it. Speed limits here are a throwback to the past, usually 40 miles per hour, with some (rare) stretches of roadway 50, and usually 30 or 25 through towns and villages, of which there are many, and even on  the rare stretches of Interstate Highway, you are limited to 55 or 60. Since most of the roads are two lanes without a shoulder, if someone is turning left, you stop…and wait…and wait. And if you are lucky enough on a trip to town to not encounter this, you may instead find guys in both lanes with signs saying on one side “Stop” and on the other “Slow” who are paid by the phone company or electric company to guide traffic around some repair work, often being done by one person: three people being paid but only one doing any useful work. Or you might see a  policeman, an expensive police vehicle, the same two guys directing traffic and only two men filling potholes.

The largest town (or city if you wish) in Vermont is Burlington, population 42,000. If you want to go to the state’s only Costco and only (recently) Trader Joe’s or Guitar Center, you travel to the Burlington area. So from here in Dorset, a shopping trip to Costco and Trader Joe’s, and maybe the Guitar Center, approximately a 200 mile round trip at an average speed of 40 miles per hour, is pretty much a tedious and frustrating all day affair. And simply getting to a Home Depot from here in Dorset requires a 56 mile round trip north to Rutland or a 60 mile round trip to Bennington. Burlington “International” (my quotes) Airport is a sleepy little terminal that claims international status because of a few weekly flights from neighboring Canada. I don’t think that flights from Paris, Berlin or London land at Burlington International.

Vermonters are remarkably community oriented. Church suppers and fire department pancake breakfasts are alive and well in Vermont. After the severe damage caused by Hurricane Irene in 2011, the state of Vermont did not wait for help from the Federal government. Neither did local communities wait for help from the state. Every able bodied person pitched in to rescue stranded neighbors, to repair washed out roads and clean up flooded buildings. Since a major exit on Interstate 89, near Montpelier, the Vermont state capital, was impassable, an enterprising Vermonter, drove off the interstate between exits and created “Exit 11-1/2”, in order to reach his community isolated by the storm damage.

Vermont is a state that values education. For such a little state, it is amazing to find 24 colleges and universities here, from big University of Vermont in Burlington, to distinguished Middlebury College in the middle of the state to small Bennington College in the southern part. Vermont Law School in the little community of South Royalton, which my son attended, is one of the better law schools in the country. Sixty percent of Vermont high school students attend post secondary schools. One third of Vermonters have at least a bachelor’s degree.

As is common in New England, Vermont provides much in the way of culture. Art museums, including our own Southern Vermont Art Center in nearby Manchester, abound and music concerts are plentiful, especially in the summer. Drama is easy to find in Vermont also, again particularly in the summer season – from our very own Dorset Players here at home, to the nearby Weston Playhouse, to the many offerings at Vermont’s many colleges and universities.

Many native Vermonters speak with a distinctive accent that is very difficult to describe or imitate. At times I even had a great deal of difficulty understanding my spouse’s father, his accent was so pronounced. And I was quite embarrassed when, after meeting a spouse’s cousin’s wife in northern Vermont, I afterward asked quite innocently what country was she from. I had a real problem understanding her as well and didn’t realize that she simply had an extraordinarily severe case of the Vermont accent.

Hunting is really important in Vermont. There are an unusual number of hunting seasons: approximately twenty separate seasons, ranging from “Bow and Arrow Deer”,  “Deer Muzzleloader”, “Moose” and “Black Bear” to “Gray Squirrel”, “Ruffled Grouse”, “Woodcock” and “Crow”. Don’t expect to get your car repaired, your house re-roofed or your appendix removed during the big one, the 16 day regular deer hunting season, because it seems that every able bodied Vermont man, plus many women, have deserted their posts and are all out hunting or in their “camps” drinking and telling stories.

The state of Vermont’s economy is remarkable. Although manufacturing companies which employed many Vermonters have packed up and left, the state still has an amazing 3.3 percent unemployment rate, second only to booming North Dakota. Maybe this number is artificially lowered up by the fact that many Vermonters may be looking for employment in other states, thus reducing the number of people ranked among the unemployed. But the economy of this mostly rural state is still amazing. Vermont’s dairy industry, despite many small farms being sold, closed or consolidated with others, continues to be healthy. Its cheeses (Cabot) and ice cream (Ben and Jerry’s) are sold throughout the country.

Another noteworthy characteristic of Vermont is its local character. By this I mean that “local” is valued. Local family ownership of motels, restaurants, retail establishments is alive and well in Vermont. Motel chains and fast food chains are not very welcome here. Where other parts of the country are full of Days Inns, McDonalds, Appleby’s, Taco Bells, and Dunkin Donuts, such establishments are relatively rare here. The “Weathervane Motel”, “Ho Hum Motel”, “Mrs. Murphy’s Donuts,” “Little Rooster Café” and “Garlic John’s” are doing fine in Vermont. It is likely that God had to intervene for Costco and Trader Joe’s to set up shop in Vermont.

Related to this “local” value, it is interesting that many companies choose to include the state in their names because “Vermont” seems to connote high quality, sturdiness and tradition. And it works. What do you think of when you hear the names “Vermont Castings”, “Vermont Teddy Bear Company”, “Vermont Sandwich Company”, “Vermont Flannel” or “Vermont Country Store”? Yes, the name “Vermont….” does seem to mean considerably more than just the name of a state.

This little state is amazing politically. Our Governor, Peter Shumlin, is a man whom you know was elected for his brains and leadership – surely not for his looks. Governor Shumlin has been a fine governor, providing outstanding leadership during the Hurricane Irene crisis and leading the state to its legislative accomplishments in other areas.  Its small (just one Representative) congressional delegation is quite liberal. Although Senator Patrick Leahy and Representative Peter Welch do the people’s work very well in Congress, the most notable member of the delegation is Senator Bernie Sanders. Serving first as the mayor of Burlington, then elected for three terms to the House of Representatives, and now in his second term in the Senate, Senator Sanders has called himself a socialist and an independent at different times in his political career. He continues to speak up bravely and honestly for the common man and the middle class against the corporations and big money. It is hoped by many that Bernie will run for President. Although his chances for winning would be slim, since he accepts no corporate money and lobbyists have given up on him, the country needs to seriously debate the issues and progressive solutions espoused by Senator Sanders.

The state of Vermont has led the entire country, even progressive California, in several very crucial areas. First, the state is planning to set up the first single payer health care system in the country.  Although being fought every inch of the way by health insurance companies and drug companies, it appears the state will succeed. Second, as mentioned earlier, good old Vermont had the courage to pass a law requiring that foods containing genetically modified ingredients say so on the label. Not surprisingly, the state is now being sued by Monsanto, the industrial agriculture giant. Third, Vermonters should be extremely proud of their legislature’s recent mandate for a minimum of 10 hours per week of quality instruction for all three and four year olds in the state. Obviously, little Vermont leads the country in caring for its people.

So there is my own personal description of the Green Mountain State, where I live for six months each year. Even considering the negatives, Vermont is still a great place to live during the late spring, the summer and the early fall. It is served well by its people, graced by its beautiful scenery and strongly led by its responsive and sensible politicians. I am happy to be here.

It is with pride and confidence that I and my family can claim a special relationship with the Grand Canyon. I first saw the Canyon in 1964 and was struck speechless by its glorious beauty and immense silence. The many other times I saw the Canyon – most recently in the winter of 2012 and just this past March of 2022 – I was also speechless. The Grand Canyon defies description and understanding. Something so vast and so beautiful inspires and requires reverence and contemplation. Human voices seem sacrilegious and out of place. Smiles and sighs are appropriate.

I have also experienced the Canyon in a way many observers have not – I have hiked, not only down to the bottom and back, but also rim to rim to rim: from the South Rim down, then up to the North Rim; then back to the bottom and up the South Rim again. I have to say that hiking is truly the only way to completely experience the Grand Canyon, to touch it, be enveloped by it, to be surrounded and inundated by its beauty.

Early encounters

In 1964 I took a two week – 16 days including weekends – summer trip with my then wife Elaine to the southwest, an area of the country which as New Jersey natives, we had never seen. The dry air, hot sunshine and fluffy white clouds against the bluest of skies were new and spectacular, as was the New Mexico and Arizona scenery. Seeing southwestern vegetation for the first time, especially the archetypical Sahuaro cactus in Arizona, was thrilling. But nothing matched the drive steadily ascending the Kaibab plateau, first through piñon and juniper and finally Ponderosa pine and then suddenly the plateau falling away and exposing below us and all the way to the horizon the most beautiful rock formations and colors I had ever seen – the Grand Canyon, certainly one of the greatest, if not the single greatest, natural spectacle on our planet. 

We stayed several days, enjoying the Canyon from its many South Rim viewpoints and taking dozens of pictures, the first of hundreds taken over the years. In 1966 we returned to the southwest on another two week road trip and saw the Canyon again and loved it again, wondering how we could move to Arizona permanently to be close to the many natural spectacles in this lovely state, especially our beloved Grand Canyon. 

Prior to this second visit, we had read an account in the the New York Times describing the mule trip down to the bottom, lunch at Phantom Ranch and then the trip back up. Accordingly, prior to our car trip we scheduled this event about six months in advance and enjoyed the experience during this 1966 visit. However, we were a bit embarrassed – there we were, two healthy young people in their twenties, riding down and back in a mule caravan passing group after group of fit and suntanned hikers, making us feel a bit lazy and wimpy. Actually though, being a naive easterner I didn’t really realize you really could hike the Grand Canyon at all. Indeed I thought the only way down and back was on these mule trips. Anyhow, that was the first time I had really experienced the Canyon from the inside instead of the top – a great experience, and easy too!

The opportunity to move to Arizona presented itself in 1968 when, after three years of teaching in New Jersey, I responded to a recruitment advertisement my mother had told me about and obtained a teaching job with the Bureau of Indian Affairs first in Pinon and then Rock Point, Arizona from 1968 to 1970. During these two years, we drove all over Arizona and New Mexico to enjoy the many sights and of course, visited the Grand Canyon several more times, enjoying it just as much as the first, and still finding ourselves struck speechless at each visit. 

Later visits

After a decade of being single I met Bobbie Keches at my school in Duxbury, Massachusetts, the woman I would eventually marry. On a trip west to meet my parents and brothers, Bobbie and I visited the Grand Canyon for the first time together.

We stayed several nights in one of the rustic cabins in the Maswik Lodge housing area and enjoyed the Canyon from many viewpoints, especially Yaki Point. It was there where we clambered down the dangerous remnants of an old trail or stairway, hanging on to trees, bushes and a few chunks of old rebar and concrete, to a now inaccessible viewpoint, a wide flat promontory about 50 feet below the main viewpoint, upon which was perched a large but climbable hamburger shaped tan rock. Bobbie and I sat on this rock, removed and apart from the Yaki Point view area far above us, drank a couple of cans of Coors as we shared a cheese sandwich and as the sun went down I proposed to her and she said yes.

This special place will always be dear to us and is something we always seek out on all of our trips to the Canyon since, just to take another look. It is of course unchanged from when we sat on it back in 1981 but has now been rendered completely inaccessible by the park authorities. Every trace of what we then employed to climb down is now gone.

Early in our marriage we took the children to the Canyon several times, including the North Rim. On one trip Bobbie attended an educational workshop scheduled at the Canyon, so of course we all came along. And during that visit, since this was before Park authorities had rendered it inaccessible we could still climb down to “the hamburger” at Yaki Point, our personal little viewpoint. we somehow got the children down also and took some memorable pictures at this special spot where, in 1981, we decided to get married.

Also, there was one time when we traveled to stay several days at the Grand Canyon in the wintertime. In early January when the  South Rim was entirely snow covered and very cold, we stayed in the Bright Angel Lodge. Since we wanted to experience a sunrise, we got up before daylight, went to the restaurant and got our thermos filled with hot coffee, bundled up in our down coats and watched the sunrise in the below-zero temperature and sipped our coffee.

And on one more recent wintertime visit to the Grand Canyon we encountered a rude surprise. The shortest way to the Canyon from Phoenix is to drive straight to Flagstaff from Phoenix on Interstate 17, the take US 180 from there to where it meets State Route 64 which continues north to the Canyon. US 180, it should be noted, ascends to a fairly high altitude as it goes north, leaves the city and skirts the San Francisco Peaks. On this disastrous occasion, we traveled on a snow packed highway, not noticing that there was little to no traffic. We obviously had missed a warning sign of some kind because US 180 abruptly ended at a barrier and a huge pile of snow and a “Highway Closed” sign, perhaps 15 miles north of the city. Accordingly we had to turn around, drive all the way back to Flagstaff and go west on I-40 to the town of  Williams and State Route 64, which eventually brought us to our destination, several hours later than we had planned. So on subsequent winter trips to the Grand Canyon, we have assiduously avoided US180 for fear of encountering another such unexpected closure.

First Rim to Rim to Rim Hike

Sometime during the fall of 1989 I learned from my friend and professional colleague Hugh Callison that he and his wife had successfully hiked the Grand Canyon rim to rim to rim the previous year, having been invited by a friend who worked for Honeywell and was a member of a group who took this hike annually on Columbus Day weekend. Having expressed interest, Hugh invited Bobbie and me to join the group that fall. Accordingly, we made reservations for Friday night at Yavapai Lodge on the South Rim and for Saturday and Sunday nights in a cabin at the Grand Canyon Lodge on the North Rim. Friends and spouses not hiking but wishing to join the hikers on the North Rim, would drive there via US 89 and Arizona 67 and bring extra clothing and other equipment. so we hikers did not have to carry much with us.

Hugh had advised us on how to equip ourselves. A fanny pack with water bottles was essential, as were moleskin and small scissors for any blisters that might be incurred. A light nylon warm-up jacket and pants to wear over the hiking shorts for the very cold first part of the hike were desirable, as were flashlights since we would be hitting the South Kaibab Trail before daylight. A good supply of trail mix and energy bars for snacking along the trail were advisable. Also suggested was some ibuprofen to keep the joints from aching too much. And some money for snacks at Phantom Ranch at the bottom. 

So, having driven up to the Canyon and staying the night at Yavapai Lodge near the South Kaibab Trail trailhead at Yaki Point, we were up very early, dressed and ready to go at about 4:00 AM. We drove to the trailhead, parked and joined the rest of our group of hikers and began the trip as a procession of twinkling flashlights. Far below us, we could discern the faint moving light of other flashlights from a group or two who preceded us. And as we descended we could also see moving lights far above us from individuals or groups that had began their descent after us.

As the sun rose and it got lighter and warmer, the workout pants and jackets came off and were stowed in the fanny packs or tied around the waist and we could enjoy the sun and breeze in shorts and T-shirts. Hiking down the South Kaibab trail was obviously quite easy since you were going downhill, not up. The only strain was on the thigh muscles, which you stretched since each step was lower than the previous one. Also of course, though easy hiking, blisters still sometimes occurred, requiring a pause to sit on a rock, remove the offending boot and sock, locate the completed or developing blister, cut a piece of moleskin, apply to the area, pull on the sock and boot and get back on the trail.

As the sun rose, we were able to enjoy some of the broad vistas of the Canyon, first from Ooh Aah Point where we could finally see the east side of the Canyon and later from Skeleton Point where we could get our first glimpse of the Colorado River, still far below us. Other highlights encountered on the South Kaibab Trail were Cedar Ridge, a wide flat area on the trail which contained some primitive bathrooms and a good look at O’Neill Butte, which loomed before us during a good part of the hike.

After crossing the suspension bridge over the Colorado River we arrived at Phantom Ranch, the perfect place for an extended rest before the strenuous uphill hike in front of us. Here we bought a souvenir or two, wrote a few postcards for friends which would be postmarked “Phantom Ranch”, munched on a couple of handfuls of trail mix or energy bars, downed a couple of ibuprofen tablets, refilled our water bottles and got back on the trail. 

The North Rim of the Grand Canyon is about a thousand feet higher than the South Rim and the North Kaibab Trail is significantly longer than the trail we had just left.  It begins at Phantom Ranch and ascends gradually at first on the way to the much steeper trail up the North Rim. Our first rest stop was at Ribbon Falls, about five miles up the North Kaibab Trail. After hiking through “the box”, where the trail goes through the black Vishnu Schist, a metamorphic rock that is some of the oldest exposed rock on the face of the earth, and a very hot part of the trip – low altitude, dark color and little exposure for a cooling wind or breeze.

A short hike on a minor trail to the west brought us to the falls, a lovely area at which a fairly substantial stream falls about 60 feet onto some beautiful moss-covered rocks. Behind the falling water is shady and cool, a great place to grab a snack, drink some water and rest a few minutes before returning to the the main trail and resuming the hike up to the North Rim.

Continuing the hike, the next rest stop was a campground called Cottonwood which provides tent sites for hikers wishing to camp overnight and provided us day hikers with water with which to refill our canteens, some picnic tables at which to sit for a short rest and basic toilets if needed. So after a short stop it was back on the trail for the last seven or so miles to the North Rim.

Now, tired from the hike down to Phantom Ranch and over to Ribbon Falls and back, these last miles are the most arduous of all, with the trail becoming steeper and steeper. At one point the hiker has the opportunity for a detour to Roaring Springs, the point from which the pipeline for bringing water to the South Rim originates. You can hear the water – it’s not called “roaring springs” for nothing – and imagine what it looks like but I have never taken the short trip off the main trail to see it. I’ve always been too tired for a detour and trying to save the rest of my energy for the remaining uphill miles.

A few other highlights of this part of the north rim hike bear mentioning. First, there is the “red wall” part of the hike, where the trail is blasted from a sheer wall of red rock. Above one sees hundreds of feet of smooth rock, and the same looking down. And needless to say, the views from anywhere on this part of the trail are spectacular.

And another section of the trail is especially vexing because, as you are heading up the steep trail, praying that you’ll have the strength and stamina to keep putting one foot ahead of the other, and thankful for every foot of altitude gained toward reaching the rim, suddenly you find the trail going downhill, sacrificing and effectively erasing much of that progress. Yes, the trail actually descends, in order to cross the Red Wall Bridge, built over the chasm created by Bright Angel Creek. After crossing the bridge, the trail ascends again, regaining the altitude you just lost, and taking you steadily up the remaining 3.5 miles to the trailhead. 

Another landmark on the trail is the Supai Tunnel, pleasant to go through because its passage means you are just 1.7 miles to the top, although a rather daunting 1385 feet in altitude. Also, going through the tunnel, although quite short, takes you from the lush vegetation and trees of the North Rim, to more of a desert landscape. The tunnel marks the terminus also for the North Rim mule trips, which unlike mule trips from the South Rim, do not take the rider to the bottom of the Canyon. And the amount of mule manure and urine deposited on the floor of the tunnel provides ample impetus for the hiker to get through quickly.

Finally at the trailhead after your exhausting hike from the South Rim via South Kaibab Trail to the North Rim via North Kaibab Trail, you are not yet home. It is approximately two miles from the trailhead to the North Rim Lodge, where presumably a nice dinner and a much needed night’s sleep are waiting for you. Most hikers, our groups included, usually have non-hiking friends or spouses driving around to the North Rim and ready and willing to meet you at the trailhead a give you a welcome lift to the Lodge.

On this first 1989 rim to rim to rim hike, after dinner at he lodge, the welcome day’s rest, another restful night’s sleep in our cabin, and the long hike downhill to Phantom Ranch, Bobbie and I decided to return to the South Rim via the less steep but significantly longer Bright Angel Trail. Hugh and Nina Callison and the rest of their party had returned the same way they came, on the South Kaibab Trail and drove to the trailhead to help celebrate our last few yards up the trail and memorialize the end of this adventure with a photo. With that one day’s rest in between, we had hiked over 44 miles down and up both directions during this first Rim to Rim to Rim experience.

General Notes and Observations

I should parenthetically note some other aspects to hiking the Grand Canyon. About the trails – the main ones are Bright Angel Trail and South Kaibab Trail on the South Rim and North Kaibab Trail on the North Rim. There are other minor trails that are frequented only by more experienced and daring hikers but generally, when you “hike the canyon” these are the trails you use. 

When deciding which South Rim trail to take either up or down, the potential hiker needs to consider some serious differences between the two. Since it is longer, 7.8 miles from the Rim to the Colorado River plus a hike of an additional mile or so along the River to Phantom Ranch, the Bright Angel Trail is not as steep as the South Kaibab trail which is 6.3 miles. Also Bright Angel starts out a little lower in altitude, descending 4460 feet to the River, while the South Kaibab descends 4800 feet. In addition, it should be noted that the views are better from the South Kaibab trail because the trail mostly follows ridges and promontories and trail segments cut into cliffs, while Bright Angel follows stream beds and other more natural courses. Obviously this means that the hiker is exposed to the sun and the elements on South Kaibab trail but hikes in significantly more shade on Bright Angel. One more serious difference is that the South Kaibab trail is the main route for the mule trains which carry day trip passengers between the South Rim and Phantom Ranch and which carry supplies down to and waste materials up from Phantom Ranch. And the rule for hikers when overtaken by or meeting a mule train is to stand on the outside edge of the trail, allowing the mules to traverse the inside, quite frightening when there may be a significant sheer drop from the outside of the trail. Also of course, since both the South Kaibab and upper segments of the North Kaibab serve as mule routes, there is the problem of avoiding the considerable manure on the trail. A final major difference between the trails is that Bright Angel has several shaded rest stops along its length, including Indian Gardens, where water may be obtained. South Kaibab has absolutely no water and the only shade is that occasionally rendered by the attitude of the sun on the cliffs cut into by the trail.

Another parenthetical note about hiking the Grand Canyon that might be useful is to mention how different canyon hiking is from mountain climbing. When you hike to the top of a mountain and return in one day, the first part of the journey, the ascent, is quite strenuous and you become exhausted but can look forward to the return when you are descending which is comparatively quite easy and much quicker: tough part first, easy part last. But in canyon hiking, the first part is deceptively easy – you can truthfully say – wow, that wasn’t bad at all. But now, the really difficult part of the journey is still ahead of you – getting back to the top: easy part first, difficult part last – just the opposite of climbing a mountain. And generally speaking, a descent of either a mountain or canyon is usually about twice as fast as the ascent.

Another factor worth remembering, especially where the Grand Canyon is concerned, is the temperature differences between the rim and the bottom of the Canyon. Beginning a summertime hike in the deceptive coolness of the 7000 foot altitude of the Rim, becomes an over 100 degree ordeal at the bottom. That’s why our rim to rim to rim hikes were always scheduled in the fall, to make the bottom temperature tolerable. Really, going from the rim to the bottom is like going from Flagstaff, Arizona to Phoenix, Arizona in climate difference – about 30 – 40 degrees. 

Another note is that it’s wise to take one or two “tuneup hikes” on some other canyons or mountains before attempting hiking the Grand Canyon, either down and up one of the South Rim trails or definitely attempting to hike rim to rim to rim. Such preliminary hikes can stretch out and strengthen the thigh and calf muscles which will be sorely stressed on the real hike and make the inevitable soreness after the Grand Canyon hike much more tolerable and less debilitating.

1990 Hike with Conrad

One of the highlights of a long and happy relationship with my son Conrad was the Grand Canyon hike we took together, just the two of us, in 1990 when he was almost eight years old. We had reserved a night at the Bright Angel Lodge and two nights at Phantom Ranch in the bottom of the Canyon near the Colorado River. As I recall we had scheduled this event during the still cool weather of the April spring break.

We began the trip with a leisurely sight-seeing jaunt through Flagstaff and environs, including some clambering around the huge cinder beds near Sunset Crater National Monument and a stop to inspect the spectacular ruins at Wupatki National Monument on the way back out to Highway 89 north of Flagstaff. The Sunset Crater area is quite interesting – most prominent is the crater itself, a readily recognizable cinder volcano cone, surrounded by wide areas of cinder mixed in with a few other dormant volcano remnants. When I had first seen Sunset Crater, tourists were allow to go up to the rim of the crater on a long cinder trail which wound up the cone. But since the annual army of hikers had caused significant erosion the trail was closed in 1973.

On the morning of the hike itself, we took it easy and bought a nice hat and a walking stick for him at the Bright Angel Lodge store. On this particular morning, contrary to the rim to rim hike I had taken, there was no particular hurry. We only needed to get down to Phantom ranch in time for dinner. The only thing we had to carry was our fanny packs with some snacks and water, and our backpacks with changes of clothing for our stay at Phantom Ranch. So we drove over to Yaki Point to the South Kaibab trailhead, parked the car and started our journey.

The trip down was, as always, spectacular. The South Kaibab Trail takes the hiker down into the canyon on a route with perpetually great views.  The other major South Rim trail, Bright Angel Trail, which I have only taken once, on the return trip up from the Canyon on my first rim-to-rim hike, takes a more gentle but longer route, one which follows a number of stream beds in smaller branch-canyons, thus limiting the hiker’s views. In contrast, the South Kaibab is cut into canyon walls and follows ridges and promontories, thus the  broad views of the grandeur of the Canyon. But the South Kaibab is definitely steeper and more of a physical strain when going up; however, I have always claimed the the more severe grade is balanced by the fact that it’s significantly shorter.

We enjoyed our hike down, pausing for drinks and snacks occasionally and to take some pictures. After crossing the suspension bridge over the Colorado River, we made it to Phantom Ranch well before the dinner hour, so after registration we were able to stroll about and enjoy some of the scenery there at the bottom of the Canyon. After a marvelous steak dinner, we went to bed early and after our hike down, slept well. At bedtime we encountered a thin old gentleman who had just arrived, having hiked the latter part of his journey in the darkness. It turned out that he has been “hiking in the dark” for a number of years, enjoying the pronounced silence of the Canyon at night. He was quite elderly, which really impressed us. I of course hoped to be still hiking the Canyon when I got to be his age.

The next day after breakfast was served in the Ranch dining room, Conrad and I availed ourselves of the delicious box lunch provided by the Phantom Ranch kitchen, put them in our backpacks, filled our fanny pack containers with water and hiked the five plus miles on the North Kaibab Trail to a beautiful spot – Ribbon Falls. On our rim-to-rim hikes, a detour to this lovely area off the main trail was a requirement for it is truly a magical spot. A good sized stream flows over the edge of a small canyon wall, falls about 60 feet and sprays a magical “ribbon” of water on huge moss-covered rocks. 

Although a “day hike” from Phantom Ranch, the trip is fairly strenuous. Even though the trail appears flat, there is a gradual but significant increase in altitude of about 1200 feet. Also, in going to Ribbon Falls one will have traveled about one third of the way to the North Rim in distance, although certainly not in altitude or difficulty. Also, the first three or so miles on the trail takes you through “The Box”, the area walled in by the black Vishnu Schist at the bottom of the canyon that retains much heat.

Eventually, we arrived at the falls, climbed about, took some pictures and found a nice cool spot behind the falls to sit on some rocks and have our lunch. After lunch we hiked back, a total distance of about 11 miles, mostly through “The Box”, so we were quite tired and took a little rest on our bunks before dinner. However, poor little Conrad, having hiked down the South Kaibab trail the day before,  and endured this 11 mile hike the day after he arrived, fell into a deep sleep from which I chose not to rouse him. So I went to dinner alone, ate my steak took most of his meal back to the bunkhouse for him but he never awoke until the next morning. 

The next day he was feeling great so we had a big breakfast and began our hike out, again on the South Kaibab Trail. We got to our car at the Yaki Point parking lot at about three that afternoon and headed back to Phoenix, flush with pride and pleasure at what we had accomplished and shared. This trip will live in my memory as one of the greatest things we ever did together as father and son, among many.

Other Experiences

Several of our rim-to-rim-to-rim hikes were made memorable by certain conditions or incidents. On one such hike, I cannot remember the year or any other distinguishing features, I realized with horror that I had forgotten my hiking boots and would have to hike the Canyon in the sneakers that I had worn for the trip. Ordinarily this would have been no big deal if the sneakers had been of better quality and provided adequate support for my feet. As it turned out, while I could feel no pain or abnormality while hiking, after the hike, I discovered that I had seriously injured my feet by not having the sturdy support usually provided by quality hiking boots. A visit to a podiatrist revealed that I had developed plantar fasciitis and was fitted for custom orthotics which, after wearing for a few months, healed the foot problems. This experience forever underscored for me the importance of wearing appropriate footwear while hiking. 

Over the years we took scheduled these hikes, our group’s membership evolved, taking on an identification of its own instead of Honeywell’s. On several occasions, superbly conditioned Washington School District teacher and tennis friend Adrian Young, colleague accompanied us. Adrian usually led the way, literally bounding down and up the trails and always arriving first at the destination. My then teenage daughter Katharine, once accompanied by lifelong friend Jennifer_____, then on another hike, another friend, Tiffany_____. Son Conrad, seasoned by his first hike to Phantom Ranch and back in 1990, came along several times as well on the entire rim to rim to rim hike. Bobbie came along once or twice more as well.

On another rim-to-rim-to-rim hike, this one as I recall in 1993, we were hit with something never experienced before or since on these hikes – bad weather. Generally we could always count on reliably sunny days for these hikes – the only problems being the frigid start of the hikes because of cold early morning temperature on the South Rim, the heat reflected off the walls of “The Box” when beginning the trek on the North Kaibab Trail from Phantom Ranch, and the steadily declining temperature as one began the steep ascent up the last several miles of the trail, accentuated by the exhaustion and energy drain one feels toward the end of the hike, when cold in felt most keenly. 

But on this particular hike, which included the Callisons, a friend of theirs, son Conrad, then 10, colleague Adrian Young, and, for the first time, my close friend, art teacher and tennis partner Joe Arpin, it clouded up and began to rain as we began to ascend the more difficult parts of the North Kaibab Trail. Our already tired legs had to lift boot-clad feet, now made significantly heavier by mud adhering to the soles, and the rain on the mule manure on the trail changed this normally dried and unconcerning material to a sticky, noxious mess. There was some relief from those conditions on certain better-protected parts of the trail, including the Supai tunnel, but we got steadily wetter and colder as we ascended, presenting the very real danger of hypothermia for some of us. And to add insult to injury, the rain became flurries of cold snow that evening, though accumulation was insignificant.

This time Bobbie had chosen not to hike, lucky her – she stayed dry and warm – and met us, along with Adrian’s wife Kathy and son Aaron who had also driven around, cold and wet at the trailhead with nourishing drinks and the prospect of a warm ride to the North Rim Lodge. After two nights, a full day of rest and clearing weather, most of us were ready for the hike back with the exception of Joe, who chose to hitch a ride with Bobbie on her drive back to the South Rim to meet us at the end of the day.

Every time I hiked the Canyon rim-to-rim-to-rim, I was part of a fairly large group of anywhere from six to a dozen people. And since not all spouses hiked, there was always someone driving around to the North Rim, a long four hour drive, to take people’s “stuff” – overnight bags with changes of clothing, favorite coffee pots in the Callisons’ case, snacks and so on. Also these other people, whoever they were on a particular occasion, were kind enough to greet us at the trailhead, when we were exhausted and freezing cold, the sip of hot chocolate or the gulp of whiskey provided was most welcome. For actually, when you finally emerged onto the level ground of the North Rim trailhead after an exhausting day of 22 miles down and up, there were still a couple of miles up the paved highway to the lodge, so we hikers were so thankful to be sitting in a warm car, truck or van sipping something reviving and giving our feet and legs a rest.

But on one such hike, with my son Conrad in 1994 when he was 12 years old and I was 52, there were just the two of us. There was no one driving around to the North Rim so we had to carry much more that we were used to – not only our fanny packs with water containers and snacks for the hike, but backpacks as well with our extra clothing, socks, underwear and so on for our two nights and a day at the North Rim Lodge. Furthermore, there was no one to meet us, once we staggered up those last few yards on the trail, totally exhausted and freezing cold. So we had no choice but to head up the paved road to the Lodge where we had a cabin reserved and hold out our thumbs for the several cars that passed us. But no one stopped so after this brutal hike we had to walk an extra two miles in the waning light and waxing cold, and got to the lodge just when it got completely dark. Unbelievable.

However, after a dinner at the Lodge restaurant and a relaxing day the next day, we were ready for the long trek back. But this time we sought the help of some other hikers we met and obtained a ride to the trailhead at 5:00 AM. So we rode in the back of someone’s  pickup truck huddled against the cold to the trailhead. But at least we rode and didn’t have to walk. The hike back was uneventful and although daunting, from the North Rim to the South is lots easier than the other direction – more of the miles are downhill rather than uphill. We found the car parked in the space in which we had left it. I produced the car keys from somewhere and we drove back to Scottsdale. This was the last time Conrad or I hiked the the Grand Canyon.

Now finally finishing this article – the most difficult part of which was locating the proper photos  out of hundreds taken at the Canyon over the years, I am now 80 years old. I am in relatively good health and sometimes I am tempted to do this hike again. But the nightmare of something happening to me – failing limbs or muscles, a fall or tumble, something broken and the required helicopter rescue that makes the local evening news, has been an emphatic deterrent. At this point in my life I am content to simply and fondly remember and relive these Grand Canyon adventures through simply sitting here, writing about them and looking at pictures. I will leave additional hikes, whether simply down and back or rim to rim to rim, to other family members with younger, more pliant and dependable limbs, like my veteran Grand Canyon hiker spouse Bobbie, eight years younger than I, or an equally seasoned and skilled hiker, our son Conrad.

Addendum

Bobbie and I just returned from our most recent trip to the Grand Canyon. Although Bobbie and daughter Katharine and granddaughter Valentina had met Conrad on a brief trip to the Canyon for Mothers Day in 2015 (I think I was already at out summertime home in Vermont) this was the first time for me in a dozen or so years.

Our first glimpses were thrilling of course. You have to “listen to the silence” of this great natural wonder and always hope and pray for similarly inclined observers looking on with you. And again, so amazing for that time of year, early March, with daytime temperatures barely above freezing and a strong wind blasting through our light jackets, virtually all the viewpoints were quite crowded. And we had to take one of the every fifteen minute buses from the Park Headquarters to many of the viewpoints and to enjoy the view from our favorite spot, Yaki Point. 

And yes, as expected, there was our oft-noted promontory just below us, where back in 1981 Bobbie and I had decided to get married and where a few years later we had taken some lovely shots of the children. Well, what did I expect – that the slow passage of geologic time had finally eroded it away after just 41 years, after it had doubtless been there for thousands of years and will likely be there an equal amount of time hence? No, it was there alright and all the memories of what had occurred there so long ago, came flowing back readily. But, amazingly, there was one significant change – a small tree which was not there forty one years ago, nor any of the times we had seen it since, was growing upon the promontory. 

Accordingly we walked around Yaki Point, which is, incidentally, very near the South Kaibab trailhead and a variety of stables for the mules which in warmer weather make the trip with tourists on their backs like Elaine and in 1966 or bags of provisions on their backs to supply the needs of Phantom Ranch from spring to fall as it hosts the many riders and hikers who make the trip down to the bottom, we tried to get a few different shots of our special place. We prevailed on the good will of some fellow tourists to  get a couple of shots of us with “our” promontory featured between us.

So as this article makes clear, our little family has indeed maintained a special relationship with this mightiest and most beautiful of all natural wonders on our globe. And if wife Bobbie and son Conrad accord me one of my final wishes and toss my ashes into the Canyon from Yaki Point, the relationship for me will finally conclude in a most appropriate fashion. 

In March of this year I celebrated my 80th birthday in the warm and welcome company of my wife, my son, brothers and one remaining sister. I had invited them all fearing that perhaps several would be unable to attend. But I was pleasantly surprised to see them all there, with spouses and a couple of my nephews, save my brother Robert who lives in Germany. We shared a dinner at a restaurant very special to Bobbie and me – Gertrude’s, located in a heavenly location in Phoenix, the Desert Botanical Garden. And the next morning, all were able to join Bobbie and me and son Conrad and his fiancee Tara at the Scottsdale house for breakfast.

Now that I’m 80 years old and breathing the rarified octogenarian air enjoyed by but approximately five percent of the US male population, I must pause a moment, reflect and take note.

Looking back on these 80 years, there is much to regret – I should have made a different decision here; I should have worked harder on that; I should have been a better politician there. But that’s all over and whatever happened I cannot change any more than I can change the character or personality traits that influenced these decisions. And one more regret, the manifestations of which I still wrestle with today – I wish I had stopped to smell the roses more often, taken the time to relax, enjoy myself, sleep late, linger over my morning coffee, sit and read poetry or a novel. But it seems that I’ve been locked into a duty and task-driven existence that has controlled me with its weight and momentum.

But on the other hand there is much to feel good about. I’ve had a reasonably successful career and, while certainly not wealthy, own a few assets and have earned and enjoy a decent retirement. I’ve worked in education all my professional life, a field that I have loved and a fact that I’m quite proud of. All of my experiences dealing with children, parents and teachers for every one of those 45 years in education have brought me much joy and fulfillment.

I am thankful to say that physically I feel pretty good for a guy in that five percent. All the organs seem to be still working okay. Recent tests have revealed persistent elevated levels of cholesterol which I am trying to bring down. Other numbers have revealed some potential kidney problems, not uncommon as we age. And I continue to deal with the BPH problem with which I have wrestled for a decade or so. Additionally, recent tests related to my heart function have been satisfactory.

The large joints, despite (or maybe because of?) years of running in my 30’s, 40’s and 50’s are working adequately. Yes, I am stiff from time to time and I still encounter pain in my left knee, on which I have had several surgeries over the years and now my right, which to now has never bothered me. The arthritis which assaulted me several years ago while in Vermont and to which I attributed to Lyme Disease is noticeable in several finger and toe joints and has likely affected the knees. Lyme tests (2) were negative but I am well aware of the capricious and inconsistent nature of Lyme test results and of Lyme disease itself, so I still have some lingering suspicion. At any rate, shoulders, elbows, wrists, hips, knees (for the most part) and ankles seem to be functioning despite occasional pain.

Thankfully I have exercised for most of my life. During my 30’s I got into running through my association with a good friend and managed to continue, mixing it with hiking, gym visits and other exercise to a greater or lesser degree through my 40’s and 50’s and into my 60’s. That bad left knee forced running from my life in my 70’s but I have managed through gym membership while in Arizona and some dumbbells and an elliptical machine in the basement TV room here in Vermont to keep the exercise up. Yes, on some days it’s  absolutely the last thing I want to do but somehow I have forced myself to keep going and it’s been good for me. I do think that it’s an important reason for my relatively good health at this age now. As I enter the upper reaches of old age I have tried to heed the maxim promoted by a friend from my Scottsdale gym who, even while hobbling in three times a week on a cane, says, ”Ralph, at our age we just gotta keep moving”.

Weight is another thing entirely. Despite the exercise, I have always struggled with weight and have given in to a steady gain over the decades. Around 160 in my 20’s has grown to 170 in my 30’s, and given way to 180 plus in my 40’s to now, Presently I am striving to get down to 185 and it’s been tough going.

And one more thing about health at eighty. It could be my imagination but I really do discern a change in how doctors and other medical personnel deal with me. There appears to be a change in attitude – a reticence, resignation, nonchalance, disinterestedness, almost lackadaisicalness, when emerging or worsening health concerns appear. It’s rather like they are all thinking, “He’s 80 years old, what does he expect?” or “Improving this or that condition is unrealistic; things can only get worse – look at his age” “or “There’s little we can do about that – you’re 80 years old and your recuperative powers are limited”. Yes, it could be me thinking these thoughts and unfairly attributing them to the medical people but the feeling is unmistakably there, regardless of whom it is coming from.

A more positive aspect to dealing with medical problems at 80 is that my age gives me license to be more discerning and selective regarding the drugs that are prescribed for me. If the potential side effects of a particular drug, whether prescribed or over-the-counter, concern me, I can accept or reject the drug. I’ve made 80 already – that’s pretty good – I can accept the risk of taking or not taking that drug, or rejecting the drug entirely in favor of a more natural remedy that I think may work just as well. I mean, what can happen ? – I’ve already made 80.

And one more observation about turning 80. Decades ago, when certain frailties and concerning physical conditions first reared their heads, I worried about them perhaps developing into truly life altering or life threatening conditions as time went on. Well, it so happens that time did go on and the conditions did not get appreciably worse, nor did they seriously affect my quality of life, and (obviously) did not kill me. Here I’m talking about chronic conditions like Reynaud’s Disease, encounters with skin cancer (I’ve had two melanomas removed from my back), digestive problems, joint problems, heart concerns, clinical depression and others. Thank goodness, they’re all no worse or no greater concerns now at 80 than they were decades ago when first encountered. So basically, I’ve outlived the effects of those potentially life altering maladies.

And, when one turns 80 thoughts naturally turn to a radically diminished future and how many years of life remain. So of course, quite naturally, there are thoughts about death. A dear friend, also my age, mentioned that men turning 80 can generally look forward to about eight more years of life. He didn’t mention what the statistics say about the quality of that life – I would assume that a few of those additional eight years of “life” may consist of an inexorable spiral downward, rife with pain and deterioration of joints, organs and bodily functions. But after those eight years? Yes, death. 

And what about beyond death? Is there anything there? I don’t share the religious faith that so many friends and family members profess – that somehow we live on or our souls live on after we die. This is all reflected in an earlier article I wrote about life and death so I won’t add to it. But some recent articles I’ve read make a lot of sense and add some additional dimensions to what I wrote earlier.

One, composed by that brilliant writer who authors “The Marginalian”, formerly “Brain Pickings”, Maria Popova, offers some really sensible and reasonable explanations in her article “What Happens When We Die”. In her article, Ms Popova quotes extensively from the work of physicist/poet/novelist Alan Lightman. When we die, whether we are buried or cremated, our remains, composed of  the basic elements and their billions of atoms, are eventually scattered around the world and join the air, water, and plants which nurture further life. In that regard I guess, we are indeed immortal, but in a strikingly different way than theologians would have us believe. 

Philosopher George Yancy, in a February 2022 posting of Truthout discusses the complexity of death and its contemplation, in the context of the almost (then) one million covid deaths in the US. He laments the tragic extinguishing of the unique and singular lives of so many people killed in the pandemic and otherwise. No one has come back from death to explain its mysteries to us; we strive to understand death exclusively from this side and can understand only that death is an essential part of life. It can be said that death defines life. Everything we know that lives, also dies.  Yancy notes that all major religions are based on their own explanations of death: they attest to “our human capacity to be touched by the fact of death, to make sense of it, and to respond to its mystery in deep symbolic and discursively differential ways.” But despite its universality, death remains a mystery. And it’s interesting how, when we’re young, the notion of death rarely crosses our minds. It is only with the creeping infirmity and inevitability of old age that we begin to contemplate death, which is really the final phase of life.

I encountered the phrase, “what’s remembered lives” while watching the recent award winning movie “Nomadland” on a streaming channel and was affected by the notion. I was struck by the fact that my sister Barbara and my parents, and various close relatives and a few friends, though having passed away, are quite alive to me. I can hear their voices and their laughter, recognize their mannerisms and movements and enjoy their company and companionship….in my memory. But when I die, they die with me. Well, maybe not profound, but nevertheless interesting. They are alive to me in the individual idiosyncratic way in which I remember them. And they will live as long as my own capacity to recall them exists.

And I do wish so much that they, particularly my parents, as I deal with the travails of old age, were still alive to talk to. I long to ask how it was for them as they got older – how they felt about it, how they thought of their respective lives and their children’s. As I mentioned in another article, I wish that I had asked them so much more about their lives growing up in Missouri (Dad) and North Dakota (Mom), and much more about how they both came to meet in the Pillar of Fire church and schools. And I know little about their struggles as a young couple in the church and how the arrival of each child affected their lives and work.

But most affecting for me are the memories of my parents’ personalities – their voices, their laughs, their casual banter with each other as my parents and much later as retirees in their home in Westminster, Colorado. Very alive for me too is the feeling of security and love I felt when I was visiting. Dad never showed the love as demonstratively as Mom. He always maintained a comfortable (for him) distance, unlike the tactile love Mom always showed – the hugs and the kisses which she bestowed so liberally on all of us children.

I cried myself to sleep last night. Well…not exactly, but I did get a bit choked up and shed some tears. For some reason, instead of sleeping, I had begun thinking about how I would like to die, and decided that I would like Conrad and Bobbie next to me, holding my hands and reminiscing about our lives together. And thinking about those years together – the high points and the lows of our shared lives – is what brought the tears (and is bringing a few now as I type).

With Conrad, I would mention and invite his recollection of throwing a football back and forth between us in the back yard of our home at 4919 E Altadena in Scottsdale. What a thrill it was to me to see him reach up and grab the ball while in full stride…if my throw was a good one and had led him sufficiently. I would also remember with Conrad, while at the same house, during one of our memorable Christmases, of his joyfully opening a gift I had wrapped for him – a huge Costco-sized box of Cheez-Its.

And so many of our father-son trips together between Colorado and Arizona are very pleasant to remember. Like the time we camped in Canyonlands, I think in the Ford Explorer, then made hot chocolate to warm us in the cold morning on a little stove we had brought along. Or the several times we traveled in the pickup/camper while little Conrad played “coins” in the back or on the front seat. And of course our wonderful ultimate father-son experience – hiking the Grand Canyon down to Phantom Ranch, staying two nights, then hiking back, both directions on the South Kaibab Trail. Then too, our shared car trip right before he turned 16 from Frankfurt, Germany to Vienna, Austria and back, during which we visited the sights in Nuremberg, Munich, Salzberg and Vienna, including the Belvedere Museum and its collection of famed paintings by Klimpt, Kokochka and Schiele. And later that summer spending time with various Friedlys in Missouri, seeing the gravestone of his namesake, the first Conrad Friedly in the US. And what a thrill it’s always been to work hand in hand on special projects with him – I would ask him to recall helping me with the new floor in Scottsdale, with the basement renovation in Vermont while he was in law school there, and me assisting him with the new floor in his Gallup, New Mexico house. And I could go on and on.

And while holding Bobbie’s warm little hand, I would invite her to join me in recalling some of the precious highlights of our lives together – our first date after I had called her home and asked her out, horrifying her little daughter Liza, then seven years old, who knew me only as her elementary school principal. Then we’d recall our first trip west together, meeting my parents and brothers in Colorado for the first time, and our trip to the Grand Canyon, where we befriended briefly a little puppy that we encountered outside our cabin and where I proposed to her on a now-inaccessible promontory below Yaki Point. We’d recall together our marriage ceremony in Duxbury, Massachusetts, her parents and my parents attending and the loading of a 26 foot U-Haul with what we deemed as “keepers” and necessities gleaned from our two households. Then our “honeymoon” driving the U-Haul across the country to Arizona, later to be joined by Bobbie’s daughters and the formation of our first family home together at 3152 West Kings in Phoenix. And certainly, we’d share memories of Conrad’s birth, our move to the “horse property” home at 6340 W. Surrey in Glendale. And we’d recall together other highlights like the move to Scottsdale, our foray overseas to work for the American School of Kuwait, and all the exciting travels emanating from that and other overseas ventures. And I could go on and on.

But perhaps I won’t be this fortunate. It’s much more likely that like so many people, I will die suddenly with a heart attack, or in the the crushed metal and flame of an auto accident or like yet many others, slowly in a hospital bed succumbing to the ravages of some disease or in a haze of numbing drugs to relieve the pain of failing organs and physical deterioration.

In addition to thoughts outlined above, another thing that I’ve noticed about myself lately is that I’m spending more and more time thinking about the past and recalling significant events in my life, also likely a symptom of old age. Much of my communication and correspondence with old friends and relatives consists of recollection of events from our shared pasts, sometimes complemented with old photos, and opinions and observations about common acquaintances or former colleagues. And if congruence of political opinion allows, we may discuss the current state of politics in the context of what politics used to be when we were younger and should be today. I have to say that these connections have become most meaningful, almost essential, at the age of 80, part of clinging to my identity, my place in the world and my importance as all slip away in old age.

And with a past that stretches back for decades and a steadily diminishing future for us, the same tendency permeates the discourse between my wife and myself. While we dwell on the developing lives of our children from time to time, it does appear that we also linger on the past – our own and the childhoods of our children more and more with advancing age. We have a few aims for the future but certainly many fewer than we had in our younger days. And most focus on the immediate future – this summer, this fall, next year, but not much further. Oh, and it seems that we talk about the weather more than ever.

Since we travel back and forth between Arizona and Vermont, we’ve attached a few goals to those trips, achieving several this past spring – sharing Zion and Bryce National Parks for the first time, then also finally getting to see and enjoy Yellowstone. We still intend to see Yosemite and the Redwoods and get to the Pacific northwest while we’re still physically able, perhaps on next spring’s trip from Arizona to Vermont. Also at some point it would be very pleasant to travel through southern Canada east or west on one of these trips.

My own personal goals, hopes and aspirations during a steadily diminishing future center on maintaining and perhaps even improving our lives in these two homes in which we live and on reading and writing. But maintaining two homes gets increasingly challenging. I don’t look forward to improvement projects the way I used to when I was younger. And everyday home maintenance – cleaning, washing windows, repairing broken faucets, fixing roofs or painting walls and ceilings, gets very dreary and tiresome. Maintaining our gardens and lawn in Vermont too is sometimes a grind – I do get tired of planting trees, mulching the gardens and mowing the lawn.

Other activities used to include music but my arthritis has taken much of the pleasure out of playing the guitar so mostly I just listen. But they still include writing and those goals keep me going each day. I have 30-40 articles in various stages of completion so finishing them one by one, plus adding a few on other topics along the way, give me some tangible and achievable aims for the future. I know I’ll never be the writer I want to be but whatever I can produce gives me pride and pleasure and some motivation for the next attempt. And although I write primarily for myself, along the way a few other readers have enjoyed some of what I’ve written.

So this is where I am at 80 years old – still plugging along and trying to live as full and as complete a life as I am able, living day to day, week by week and month by month until we move back to Arizona, then its the same there until we move back here, always trying to live as best we can, squeezing some pleasure out of our day to day tasks, our occasional sightseeing, communication with children and travels. We’ll see how long it all lasts.

And finally, there’s a wonderful Cheryl Wheeler song about an elderly couple that seems in many ways to reflect what and where we are today. These few lines from “Quarter Moon” summarize much of what I’ve written above and provide a fitting conclusion for this article:

“And they speak about their lives as almost gone
Waiting for the sunset
From an old and distant dawn.”

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Yes, just the other night, watching Monday Night Football, there was that horrible TV commercial featuring a pathetic Joe Namath and his “Medicare Coverage Helpline”. And early this morning, while working out at my local gym, three of the six TV screens displaying programming from six different channels were simultaneously showing similar commercials in various stages of play.

Are you as sick as I am of these TV commercials featuring Namath or other washed-up celebrities like former “Good Times” star J. J. Walker of “dyn-o-mite!” fame, long-retired boxer George Foreman, or now bonafide Blue Origin “astronaut” Willian Shatner, (for whom no testimonial fee is too small, having shilled for dozens of corporations over the years) offering to “eliminate copays, provide eyeglasses, dental care, dentures, transportation, meals, even to put money back into your Social Security check”? 

 And these irritating TV commercials have only scratched the surface of the flood of other invitations to call the “Medicare Advantage Hotline” or to obtain your Medicare through Blue Cross Blue Shield, Aetna, Humana, the healthcare corporate behemoth, United Healthcare, or a mere upstart like WellCare, based in Florida. Even in little old Vermont, our second “home state”, another upstart is soliciting for medicare advantage enrollment. Yes, “from two trusted names – UVM Health and MVP Healthcare” comes “a new kind of Medicare Advantage plan” – UVM Health Advantage, bolstered also by the tired cliche trope “You spoke. We listened.” I seriously doubt that any opinions were either solicited or heeded and I don’t think that the healthcare vultures are listening. This new Vermont company  was simply intent on grabbing yet another chunk of the  hefty profits accruing to companies offering Medicare Advantage plans. 

I have received a flood of Medicare Advantage invitations in my daily dose of junk mail, random emails and even the other day, an invitation from my own credit union:

IT’S A GREAT TIME TO REVIEW YOUR MEDICARE PLAN

Many major carriers have lower rates and Desert Financial makes shopping for your Medicare easy. Some of the reasons you may want to switch to a different policy include:

Your plan premiums have become too expensive. You’re paying for benefits you don’t need. Your benefits needs have changed since you turned 65. You’re dissatisfied with the service your current insurance company provides.

Desert Financial Insurance Services is here to help you review your individual situation. We’ll shop the market to help you find the right coverage for your needs at the best price available.

Since 2003, we have helped over 6,500 members find better solutions for their Medicare insurance needs. We promise to do the same for you!1

Call (602) 336-5531 (Option 4) or click below to put one of our licensed and certified advisors to work for you.

CONTACT US

And a pop up ad on my computer this morning invited me to “Compare Medicare”, that is, to “compare top rated medicare plans”. What? I thought that Medicare was a government program started by President Lyndon Johnson and his Democratic majority back in 1965. I thought that everyone when turning 65 or whatever the age is now, could stop worrying about medical insurance from their employers, or worrying about ceilings on coverage, pre-existing conditions and all the limitations that private insurers place in their plans. I thought that Medicare was a government program which we all helped pay for through our income taxes and deductions from our Social Security stipends. How on earth did private insurers get into “providing Medicare”?

Why this flood of solicitations and advertisements, obviously quite expensive, to solicit your purchase and enrollment in Medicare Advantage? And what is medicare advantage anyway. Why are we taught to think that now, rather than enrolling directly in Medicare when we reach the qualifying age, we should instead rush to Humana, Aetna or any one of hundreds, now maybe thousands of companies advertising “Medicare Advantage”? How did a Federal program become so corporatized? Well, there’s an easy answer to that question – profit. And moreover, it’s profit from direct government subsidies, the best kind – not properly earned profit, the result of comprehensive research, increased investments, new products or a daring business plan – just government money – direct from taxpayers to corporate coffers. 

How did Medicare Advantage begin? Well, the seeds were planted by President Clinton with his “Medicare Choice” legislation, part of the Balanced Budget Act of 1997. Then after spending much of his two terms trying to privatize Social Security and Medicare, George W. Bush did the next best thing to Medicare with the “Medicare Modernization Act of 2003, formalized Medicare Part D and replaced “Choice” with “Medicare Advantage”. Accordingly “risk adjusted” large batch payments then began a year later, paying private companies to take care of Medicare-eligible enrollees. So this semi-privatization of Medicare has thrived, enrolling more and more people because of the massive advertising blitz described above.

But these seemingly interminable flood of advertisements are essentially dishonest and purposely deceiving. When you enroll in a Medicare Advantage program you are essentially dis-enrolling from Medicare itself, giving up all the protections of this government program and placing yourself at the mercy of a health insurance corporation whose sole objective is profit, not keeping you well, although indeed your continued good health means profit for them since they will not be paying very much on your behalf from the money they are receiving from Medicare. However, if you get sick, it’s another story. Let’s look at how Medicare Advantage works.

When you leave Medicare, yes, you have to file your treasured Medicare card away, that card that you waited your whole life to obtain, that card which banished all worries about the effects of chronic illness and fears of potential bankruptcy, that card which finally rescued you from the vagaries of employer provided private insurance and made you more like a Swede or a Dane or a Canadian in that finally, with Medicare your healthcare became a right, not a privilege. Finally, that government which you supported all your working life with your tax dollars is going to return the favor and take care of you and your health with Social Security and Medicare.

So….you file away your Medicare card and sign up for a Medicare Advantage plan. Technically that private insurance company is supposed to provide everything traditional Medicare gives you – that’s part of the bargain. But read the fine print, dig into the details and you will find caveats for your care: huge out of pocket maximums, limits on which doctors you can see and the areas in which you can see them. And God help you if you get seriously ill. This is when medicare advantage enrollees discover the real limitations of the program they are relying upon. Forget the promise of “0 copays” – you will run up a huge bill seeing specialists. Diagnostic tests and lab services will cost a lot. And surgery and hospital costs are exorbitant as well, all totally glossed over in the commercials we see. 

You see, when you are in Medicare Advantage, instead of Medicare taking care of you, Medicare pays the corporation for taking care of you. And how much do they pay? Well, it averages about a thousand dollars per month so if you stay healthy, the corporation puts this into their pockets, sends dividends to its investors and provides bonuses for its executives and CEO. Great business plan. 

But this amount can vary based upon what’s called a “risk score”. If the Medicare Advantage company can claim that a percentage of its enrollees are high risk, maybe chronically ill, maybe showing signs of heart trouble or at risk for diabetes or kidney problems, then they can increase the risk score and obtain more money from Medicare.

Many Medicare Advantage programs provide a once a year “home visit” by a registered nurse as a “benefit” of the program. However, these often redundant visits, ostensibly to keep you well, have another purpose – to discover previously hidden conditions or propensities with enrollees so that the overall risk score can be raised. And many of these visits do exactly that.

Okay, you find yourself quite ill, needing repeated tests of all kinds, repeated hospital stays and multiple visits to specialists and you are going broke and approaching bankruptcy, even while enrolled in a Medicare Advantage program, and you wish to return to traditional Medicare. Well, it’s really not that easy. First, you have to wait until the next “open enrollment” season rolls around. Second, you need a “medigap” policy that will cover what traditional Medicare does not, and if ill, it could cost you much more than if you had purchased the coverage when you first enrolled in Medicare.

And what about the other benefits promised in the myriad TV commercials we’re forced to watch.Yes, dental, vision and hearing coverage, plus “transportation and meals”. Well, all of these are quite meager and subject to severe limitations, such as a maximum amount per year, or per procedure in the case of dental. And the hearing benefit may cover tests but hearing aids may be limited to a specific amount per multiple year period which comes nowhere near paying the full cost. “Transportation and meals?” Read the fine print.

Other problems with Medicare Advantage are simply that it costs taxpayers far more than traditional Medicare, even factoring in the monthly premium most enrollees pay. And this significant step toward total privatization of Medicare again exposes, just like Obamacare, the folly of using government money to pay corporations for what the government could do much more cost effectively. Basically the question to ask is this – why should taxpayer money be devoted to providing profit for corporations and filling the pockets of their investors and CEO’s? Again, it’s a pretty simple procedure – moving money from Medicare to hospitals and health providers to take care of the elderly. Why have the middlemen raking in their profit to do exactly the same thing?

But all these millions of dollars invested in the TV ads, the print ads, the mailings, email pop-ups and the rest, have really paid off for our for-profit healthcare industry. In 2020, private insurance companies offered an estimated 3,148 Medicare Advantage plans, according to the Kaiser Family Foundation (KFF). And of those that Kaiser reported, the following are the companies that welcomed the most Medicare Advantage enrollees in 2020:

• UnitedHealthcare: 26%
• Humana: 18%
• BCBS plans: 15%
• CVS (Aetna): 11%
• Kaiser Permanente: 7%
• Centene: 4%
• Cigna: 2%

So this tsunami of advertising has really paid off and after this year’s inundation during “open enrollment” we can rest assured that next year’s will be worse. And we can also assume that millions more elderly qualifying for Medicare will have signed over their healthcare to a for-profit corporation.

But guess what, many of these deceptive ads will not stop, even though the Medicare “open enrollment” period ended December 7. Because for the next few months, although those eligible for Medicare cannot any longer register for Medicare Advantage or move back into original Medicare, if already enrolled, you can switch from one “advantage” program to another. That period is until March 31. So I do expect many of these deceptive ads to continue. We shall see.

Addendum

For those concerned with continued privatization and corporatization of the already largely for-profit US healthcare system, there is another nefarious plot being carried out as I write and as you read. 

Near the end of the Trump administration the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Innovation (CMMI) decided to begin a program, with no input from Medicare enrollees and no oversight from Congress, a program called DC (direct contracting). In fact, this program has provoked barely a whisper in the media, though it has healthcare corporations and Wall Street private equity firms “lined up like pigs at a trough”, all eager to get their filthy hands on some more taxpayer money and further privatize our healthcare systems. So far 53 companies have signed up as DCE’s (Direct Contracting Entities) to administer the program – a mix of healthcare corporations and private equity firms.

Already, without them realizing it, thousands of Medicare enrollees who thought they were enrolled in traditional Medicare, have been quietly and subtly moved into this program, along with their primary care physicians, with the promise of greater Medicare reimbursements for the doctors and more “managed” and “focused” care for the patient. In reality, the program does little to nothing to improve care. What it clearly does is raise the Medicare price for taxpayers and give money to private companies.

What all this boils down to is just what do the American people want for a healthcare program for the elderly. Do they want a no profit government program or do they want a program farmed out to corporations who make profit from the government funds they receive. I know where the American people are. It’s their legislators in Congress who are the problem because private healthcare corporations have been contributing to their PAC’s and reelection funds for decades, corruptly buying their support. We should be furious about this – our legislators should be fighting for us but they’re not. What a country! What a political system! Thank God for the few legislators and the organizations that are fighting back on our behalf – organizations like PNHP (Physicians for a National Health Program) and legislators like Senator Bernie Sanders and Representative Pramila Jayapal.

And we need to ask about the role of this special Medicare office, Center for Medicare and Medicaid Innovation (CMMI). Truly it seems that their role is simply to surely and steadily turn Medicare over to corporations, while increasing the outflow of Medicare money to pad their pockets and increase their profits. What kind of “innovation” is this anyhow? This office needs to be investigated by Congress and I guarantee that they’ll find that the office is populated by ex- corporate healthcare executive doing everything they can to help their former employers and waiting until the Washington revolving door spits them out again to repopulate the healthcare industry.

From a very early age we were taught about voting and how whoever gets the most votes wins. Oh yes, when running for class president, whoever got the most votes won. And my New Jersey governor won because he received the most votes and the senators and representatives who represented my state in Congress were sent to Washington because they got more votes than their opponents. Thus power is bestowed on those who receive the most votes in an election. 

But wait…why is this not true on a national level? Chief executives in every democracy in the world win and serve their people when they receive more votes than other candidates. In every democracy, that is, except ours. Our former chief executive, Donald Trump, came in second. His opponent, Hillary Clinton, won far more votes that he did. And in 2000 Al Gore received more popular votes than George W. Bush. Yes, the reason Gore and Clinton lost was the dreadful Electoral College with its  state by state “winner take all” rules set up by our genius “founding fathers”. Perhaps if we could have included some “founding mothers” in that august group that wrote the US Constitution, their sense of fairness could have prevailed and our presidents would have been elected with the popular vote. Just think if Gore has been elected instead of Bush. The trillions of dollars and thousands of lives wasted in Iraq and Afghanistan  wars would still be with us. And I am sure we would be leading the world in saving the climate as well, considering Gore’s long held convictions concerning climate change. 

And what if Hillary Clinton had won the election in 2016? Yes, news of Bill prowling around the White House looking for things to do would not have been pleasant. But he could have been appointed by his wife the President to some new position, perhaps  “Ambassador to the World” or something like that, just to keep him occupied and out of trouble. But our government institutions would have been left intact, we’d still be participating in the Paris accords for climate change and the Iran nuclear deal would still be extant. We’d still be serious players on the world stage. And the clown show led by Donald Trump and his entourage of fools and incompetents featuring Ivanka and Jared would not have occurred. And perhaps most important of all, the scourge of the Covid 19 pandemic could have been contained and hundreds of thousands of lives could have been saved.

But, because our country is ruled by a minority, the Republic Party and its leader Donald Trump had a grand time promoting disaster in Washington. How has this happened in a “democracy”, where the majority supposed to rule? Let’s take a look.

First of course is the aforementioned “Electoral College” method of electing our chief executive. Ostensibly put in place by our genius Founding Fathers to protect the power of small states, which it indeed does, in fact, this quirk of American presidential elections was put in place to also protect the power of slave states. The “three fifths person” designation for slaves was enough to give slave states enormous power in the Electoral College through significantly increasing their representation in the House of Representatives, even though these hundreds of thousands extra “3/5” people could not vote. 

Also simply giving small state a minimum of three votes in the Electoral College, gave them an advantage. And the recent anomalies of George W. Bush becoming president even though his opponent Al Gore had a half-million more popular votes and Hillary Clinton winning the popular vote overwhelmingly yet losing to Donald Trump, has given the Republican Party tremendous power, even though a minority party at those times. Thus it’s no wonder that recent polls have revealed that a huge majority of Republicans want to retain the Electoral College, whereas a majority of Democrats want to elect our president with the popular vote.

Another negative aspect of the Electoral College is that it reveals the apparent uselessness of voting in certain states and the phenomenon of “swing states” in others. With the statewide “winner take all” character imposed by the Electoral College, if one votes in a presidential election in overwhelmingly Democratic New York or California or in overwhelmingly Republican Wyoming or Idaho, that vote, whether Republican or Democrat, does not matter much, since the result is largely already determined. But in states like Michigan, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania or Florida, one’s vote is extremely valuable since the result could go either way. For example, my wife and I could have voted for president in Vermont last November. But why, since the state would vote overwhelmingly Democratic anyhow. So we made sure we voted in our home state of Arizona, which has become a “swing state” and really needed our Democratic vote. The simple result of all this is that is if the president were elected on a nationwide popular vote, every single vote would count and voters would eagerly participate, no matter where they lived. A Vermont vote would be every bit as valuable as an Arizona vote. There would be no “wasted” votes.

The perverse power of Republican minority rule is also exemplified in our Congress and the way it conducts its business. The membership of just one legislative body in Congress, the House of Representatives, is based upon population and is therefore quite democratic. The other, the Senate, since every state gets two senators, is terribly undemocratic, revealing the anomaly of tiny states like Wyoming or South Dakota having just as much power in the Senate as populous states like California and New York. Today, each Democratic Senator from California represents 371 million American citizens, while each Republican Senator from Wyoming represents but 289,000. On a macro level, the undemocratic nature of the Senate is illustrated by the fact that, now divided 50-50, Democratic Senators represent fully 42 million more citizens than the Republican half. In fact, though in control of the Senate many times since 1996, that year was the last that the Republican party actually represented a majority of Americans. Yet Senate Republicans, representing a minority of voters, have effectively blocked a hugely popular minimum wage bill  and passed extremely unpopular tax cuts for the wealthy and corporations.

Another way that the Republican Party, a minority party, mind you, retains power is through gerrymandering. Over ten years ago, while the Democratic Party was foolishly focusing its resources into ensuring the reelection of Barack Obama, Republicans, led by Karl Rove and financed with millions of dollars from the Koch brothers and other right wing billionaires, wisely set their sights on control of state governments, especially state legislatures, which in most states have the power to draw legislative districts after each decennial national census. So after the 2010 census results, Republican legislatures across the country began some very serious gerrymandering, guaranteeing a growth in Republican House of Representatives seats that would last through multiple elections. So even in the House of Representatives, which is by far the more democratic of our two legislative houses, although millions more voters voted for Democrats than Republicans in 2020, Republicans dramatically increased their share of seats.

In the same way that my own part-time residence in a heavily Democratic state like Vermont renders my vote superfluous – whether I vote Democratic or Republican, either way it’s wasted, gerrymandering strives to render certain votes useless as well, by “packing” or “cracking” legislative districts in order to render them uncompetitive. Cracking involves breaking up groups of voters who usually vote a particular way in order to deny them the power of voting in a block. Packing involves drawing districts in such a way as to concentrate voters of one persuasion or another in such a way as to maximize “wasted” votes or to maximize the power of your party’s voteAnd now in 2021, it appears that Republicans, who again control most state legislatures and who again do so right after a census year, are perfectly positioned to take control of the House of Representatives in 2022, even though their total votes will likely not increase and may even decrease. The Republican controlled state legislatures are poised to take their new census information and very precisely and scientifically, create legislative districts across their states that will enable Republicans to win a majority of House seats with a minority of votes. Their plans are well outlined in this New York Magazine article. Ari Berman states for the article that “Republicans could pick up anywhere from six to 13 seats in the House of Representatives — enough to retake the House in 2022 — through its control of the redistricting process in Georgia, Florida, North Carolina, and Texas alone”. No need to work hard to earn more votes, or come up with programs or policies that voters prefer – gerrymandering will be sufficient.

And additional examples were offered by NYTimes columnist Jamal Bouie who noted that North Carolina’s Republican-controlled legislature has passed a new map that would, in a state that is pretty much 50-50 Democratic and Republican, give it 10 of the states 14 congressional seats. In Ohio, a proposed map would provide Democrats with but two seats out of the 15 allotted to it after the 2020 census, only 13 percent of the total. And this in a state that is only slightly more Republican than Democratic. In both cases, these two states would have to achieve blowout, supermajorities of Democratic votes in order to be proportionately represented. Ari Berman’s prediction noted in the previous paragraph is already coming true. And the minority party’s triumph for Congressional dominance has already been determined as noted by a NYTimes article just this week And as if the Electoral College and gerrymandering were not enough, just the transfer of population from several norther “swing states” to Republican strongholds in the south as revealed in the new 2020 census,  will further cement Republican minority strength in presidential and congressional elections.

One might reasonably ask why Democrat-controlled legislatures and Democratic governors are not doing the same thing right now – redrawing districts to make sure that they sent more Representatives to Congress. Well as it so happens, other than present efforts in Illinois and New York, when the Democratic Party controls state legislatures and the redistricting process, instead of drawing legislative districts to benefit their party, it instead tries to establish independent commissions to draw legislative districts. Thus by striving to be fair the Democratic Party is shooting itself in the foot.

Another way that we are ruled by a minority party is through voter suppression.  Presently the Republican Party is doing everything it can to limit the votes of poor and minority voters. Under the guise of “election security”, promoted by the “big lie” – that Donald Trump actually won the 2020 election and rampant voter fraud gave the election to his opponent, Republican controlled legislatures and Republican governors are making it more difficult to vote. They are doing so by limiting mail in voting, requiring specific types of identification for both in person and mail in voting,  limiting voting days and a variety of other changes to make voting more difficult. Georgia has even made it a crime to bring water or food to a person in a long voting line. And who does voter suppression hurt the most? Poor voters and people of color, who usually voted Democratic, again helping the minority party, the Republicans.

In addition and much more serious is that many Republican-controlled state legislatures are changing how votes are counted and who does the counting. While typically a state’s voting operation is under the supervision of a secretary of state, some state legislatures are wresting control of elections from state and local election supervisors and placing it directly under their control. If this had been the case in Georgia in the 2020 election, the state legislature could have declared Trump the winner, instead of the steadfast Republican Secretary of State, Brad Raffensperger refusing to accommodate Trump as he did. 

It’s important to note that simply because of the way the Electoral College is set up, with it being composed of electors equal to the Congressional delegation of individual states, even without all the shenanigans listed above, the minority party retains a 3.5 point advantage there. And in the Senate, because of each state having two senators and a minimum of one representative regardless of size, the minority party maintains a five point advantage. Thus, even after winning millions more votes that Republicans in 2018 and 2020, the Senate is evenly split and Democrats have but a narrow four-seat advantage in the House.

Yet another way the minority party is limiting the influence of the majority party is through packing the courts with conservative Republican judges, picked from the ranks of the Federalist Society. With the help of then majority leader, Mitch McConnell, Donald Trump filled over 200 vacancies on the Federal bench, including 53 vacancies on Federal Appeals Courts. This was the highest total of any first term president since Jimmy Carter. And of course this includes the incredible number of three Supreme Court justices appointed by a single one-term president. Amazingly just two Republican presidents who were elected by a minority of the popular vote have appointed four of the justices on the Supreme Court, ensuring a conservative majority for at least a generation. And the Supreme Court, as the final arbiter in election law, has done its best to ensure minority rule, with far reaching decisions on the role of money in elections (it’s “free speech”, not corruption) and in voting rights enforcement, to name but two decisions which have further entrenched the minority party.

And finally, the filibuster, the Senate rule not in the Constitution, enables the minority party in an evenly divided Senate to repeatedly block any legislation it does not like, by requiring a 60 vote majority, very difficult or well nigh impossible to achieve in our evenly divided Senate. Consequently Republicans used it recently to block the Voting Rights Bill, called also the For the People Act, which would have constituted the largest federally mandated expansion of voting rights since the 1960’s. It would have standardized voting procedures in all states, allowing mail voting and same day registration, banned partisan gerrymandering, and limited the role of money in our elections by forcing super PAC’s to disclose major donors and creating a new public campaign financing system. Yet because of the filibuster, the Republicans in the Senate were able to keep the bill from even being debated on the floor. 

So it should be obvious that America is indeed ruled by a minority – the Republican Party. And why? It’s pretty much our lousy constitution which badly needs to be changed. It established the Electoral College, determined that each state regardless of size should have two Senators and a minimum of one Representative. It allows anti-majority rules like the filibuster. It determined that elections, even federal elections, should be a state function and it made Supreme Court justice a lifetime job, subject to the vagaries of old age and death, regardless of who is in the White House or which party controls Congress. All these factors enable one political party, a minority, to effectively thwart the will of the people and wield majority power. If the US is to remain a democracy, this must change. 

I have a real obsession with faces. I see them everywhere. When gazing absentmindedly out of the bathroom window here in Vermont, suddenly a face will emerge from the irregularities in the grass on the lawn or from the bark on a tree. Yes, there are the two eyes, between them what passes for a nose and yes, below the nose is what could be a mouth. And sometimes there’s even the hair, a forehead or the ears or a chin. I don’t ever really look for a face but when my eyes will relax and go out of focus for a moment or two, it just sort of comes out. If I look away toward some other object in my view I may lose that particular face, but another may appear when looking a different direction or at a different surface. And when this occurs, it’s always a face, nothing else.

Faces are obviously important to me. If I meet a new person, perhaps the friend of a friend or a new service person who comes to my house to do a job, I will look intently at his or her face and eyes, trying to gauge what kind of person they are. I look for a kind, understanding face or perhaps one expressing respect, resolution or confidence. I think that faces are the passageway to the inside of a person and show what kind of person they are.

Now, from a developmental, evolutionary point of view, faces are even more important. We absorb a face into our memories, not a name, explaining why when we definitely remember a face we often forget the name. In ancient times, it was the face that identified a friend or foe, certainly not the name, reinforcing why faces are so important.

In my precious former profession, education, when interviewing teachers, I became accustomed to paying attention to teaching candidates’ faces, always looking for an expressive countenance, because I had noted over my career that the most successful teachers were those whose faces were mobile and expressive, who “wore their hearts on their sleeves” and were able to show children how they felt. Teachers with expressive faces were always the best disciplinarians. Their faces showed students that they cared, through easily showing pleasure, disappointment, surprise, concern and humor through their faces and body language. I have always claimed that good teachers control their children with the raised eyebrow, not the raised voice. Children inherently want to please us and we have to constantly demonstrate an appropriate response.

As an elementary principal I supervised many teachers over the years who never had a single discipline problem and also had a few that failed utterly at running good cooperative, joyful classrooms. Or one group of children would be “full of troublemakers” according to their teacher that year but the exact same group would go on to the next grade and be the “best class I’ve ever had” to another teacher. Why? The teacher’s expressive face, demeanor and body language, but especially the face, meant the difference.

With regard to remembering faces I should relate an amazing story about face recognition. Many years ago while at a Mexican restaurant in Tucson, Arizona, I was struck with the familiarity of the face of a waitress working there. I knew that face from somewhere in the past but could not remember where or how. After glimpsing her several more times as she conducted her job and noting her voice and body language I finally decided that I must know her from Cambridge, Massachusetts. I was convinced that she had been a cashier at the Harvard Coop, where I regularly went to buy LP records for many years after I had been a graduate student. She specifically had manned a cash register in the record department. But….how could this be, how could I be sure, after being so far removed from that Massachusetts memory, both in distance and in time? How could that face belong to someone whom I encountered in this somewhat insignificant role at least five years ago in the past at a place over two thousand miles removed from Tucson?

Upon mentioning this conviction to my wife, who shook her head in surprise and disbelief, claiming that I had to be mistaken, I resolved to approach the young lady and ask her about my strong belief that she once worked in the record department at the Harvard Coop in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Finally summoning my courage, approaching her and asking the question, she beamed with surprise and pride and said that yes, she had worked for several years in precisely that establishment before moving to Tucson. Absolutely amazing, the depth, power and memorability of a face. Oh sure, the fact that his young lady was attractive probably had something to do with my memory of her, but nevertheless, I will forever be amazed at this incident.

And speaking of faces, I have to discuss that of our President, Joe Biden. Listen, I’m awfully happy that he won the presidency. I shudder to think what our country would have been in for had our fascist friend Donald Trump won a second term. But of course I would much rather have had Elizabeth Warren or Bernie Sanders as our leader because of their authentic “for the people” propensities so evident in their careers and campaign proposals. 

Unfortunately there is little authenticity to former machine politician Joe Biden who for 34 years represented the Cayman Island-like state of Delaware, save the now hackneyed declaration that “he’s a good man” and that he is genuinely empathetic because he has “suffered loss”. Indeed, losing the loved ones President Biden has lost over the years would soften the hardest of hearts and souls and he wears the empathy badge quite genuinely. And I do think that he genuinely cares.

And during this horrible pandemic that has now killed well above half a million of our citizens and thousands more world wide, it has been wonderful to have a leader who can say the right words to us, to be a credible “comforter in chief” as it were. His recent speech on the subject, sympathizing with those millions who have lost loved ones, was impressive, made even more so by knowledge of his personal experience with loss.

But when watching our president during any kind of emotional outpouring, something is missing. Perhaps I’m being petty, but I don’t see Joe’s face reflecting any anguish, sadness or empathy. Whether he has been outlining legislative goals on the campaign trail, accepting the results of the election, or extolling the virtues of the nation and pledging to uphold its values during his inauguration speech, Joe’s expression is pretty much the same – the same beady eyes, the same immobile mouth, turned down at the corners in a perpetual grimace, and of course, the same blindingly white teeth, big and lots of them…when he smiles.

As I noted above in a different context, I think the face is everything in human communication. The frown, the raised eyebrows, the smile, the knitted brow, the eye roll, the clenched teeth, can often convey emotion and understanding that words cannot and can certainly punctuate words and phrases and give them emphasis, additional meaning and emotional impact. Look again at President Biden’s speech about the pandemic – the words are perfect and quite meaningful, but we are left hanging without validation from his expressionless face. 

Now, we should ask why is this? Why is our president’s face so empty of expression…of whatever kind? Anger, laughter? When looking back at the many pictures and videos of Joe in the past, it is clear that his face has changed – dramatically. Remember his famous aside to President Obama after the Affordable Care Act became law? “This is a big f——-g deal!”, he chortled in the president’s ear, his whole face smiling and reflecting his glee.

Other pictures and videos from his many years in the Senate, show a face full of expression, able to show sarcasm, surprise, concern, or embarrassment quite easily. Actually, even when then Senator Biden ran against Hillary Clinton for the Democratic nomination in 2015, his face was fine. But something happened to that face between his run against Clinton and his run for the Democratic nomination in 2019. 

Now, we all know about the vanity of politicians and Joe Biden was never an exception. As a balding senator, in fact the victim of a very unseemly process, where the hair seemed to thin severely but uniformly, no bald spot or receding hairline for Joe, his vanity response was his famous hair plugs – swiped from his neck and various other places where the hair was thick and then inserted into his scalp. Okay, baldness assaults the best of us and we all deal with it in different ways, including the famous “comb over” (https://ralphfriedly.com/2016/07/04/the-comb-over/). But Senator Biden’s answer for his problem was quite radical and obviously quite expensive. 

Well, all this was fine – we got used to the “hair plug look”, but why mess with the face. Joe’s face, aside from a sagging double chin or wattle, was always fine. His smile and his hearty laugh were always engaging, as my son Conrad can attest, when Vice President Biden visited with and thanked his Peace Corps group in Jordan in 2008. Really, Biden’s engaging personality, favorably supported by those expressive characteristics, was one of his finest attributes. But apparently his vanity expanded unwisely well beyond those hair plugs after he ran against Clinton in 2015. It was during his run against Sanders and Warren for the Democratic nomination, that his supporters and we voters noticed a fundamentally altered face and its resulting negative characteristics.

Yes, Joe Biden is old. Hmm, well maybe not so old since he was born in the same year I was, 1942. I’m already 79; President Biden will turn 79 in November. But he is without doubt the oldest person to become a US president. The closest to him was Donald Trump, who when he was elected in 2016, was 70 years old. But to me that’s not a good enough reason to change an engaging and expressive face to one that’s most times a complete cypher, in an ill advised effort to look younger. His wife, “Dr. Jill”, should have advised against it.

But President Biden, a devoted exerciser, is trying to ensure that his body is up to the exhausting role of US President. He’s been known to challenge opponents to push-up contests, among them President Trump. And yes, he would have easily won. But in my humble opinion he should also have exercised, not excised, his charming and distinguishing facial characteristics, retaining the expressive face of the “lunch bucket Joe” that we grew to respect and love as Senator and Vice President.

Addendum

Another story about facial expression that I wanted to share but that would not fit easily into any of the above, concerns a Mark Twain book, me and my father.

I mentioned in another article that many of my favorite books were purchased at a used book booth at Packard’s Farmers Market on route 206 in Somerset County, New Jersey when I was a youngster. One of them, an ornately bound first edition of Mark Twain’s “Innocents Abroad”, was quite special. I remembered some clever illustrations in the book dealing with interpretation of facial expressions that I wanted to consider for this article but of course this precious book was on a bookshelf in my study in Scottsdale so I abandoned the idea.

But, would you believe it, after idly typing the title and author into google, a scanned version of exactly my first edition came up and after looking through the chapters and pages, I found the exact page, illustration and text that I wanted. Both the illustration and Twain’s text describing the expressions caused lots of uproarious laughter from both me and my father when sharing them. They still don’t exactly fit into the article but here they are, along with the text – I hope you enjoy them:

Twain’s text:

There is an old story that Matthews, the actor, was once lauding the ability of the human face to express the passions and emotions hidden in the breast. He said the countenance could disclose what was passing in the heart plainer than the tongue could.

“Now”, he said, “Observe my face – what does it express?”

“Despair!”

“Bah, it expresses peaceful resignation! What does this express?”

“Rage!”

“Stuff! It means terror! This!”

“Imbecility”.

“Fool! It is smothered ferocity! Now this!”

“Joy!”

“Oh perdition! Any ass can see it means insanity!”

 

Faced recently with the need for a new jar of mayonnaise, the two opened containers in our refrigerator rejected by my spouse because of expiration dates (another questionable issue), I went to our local supermarket to pick up a few things which included that new jar of mayonnaise and also a box of Cheerios, for many years my favorite cold cereal. We try not to buy foods that have “added sugar” so I read the ingredients on each brand of mayonnaise, looking for one without sugar. Amazing, I could not find a single brand that did not have that unneeded and unacceptable ingredient.

So on to the breakfast cereals section where I grabbed a box of Cheerios and out of curiosity checked those ingredients also. I could not believe that sugar was one of the ingredients. I mean, when I was a kid, I was allowed that little spoonful of sugar sprinkled on the corn flakes or Cheerios before the milk and I presume that many people continue to sweeten their cold cereal in this way. So why is sugar already in the Cheerios rendering that teaspoonful redundant? And how long has General Mills been adding sugar to my Cheerios?

The same goes for so many breads in this supermarket. I usually buy the best bread I can here – La Brea Bakery whole grain loaf – brown, crisp crust, not packaged but in a simple bag and not sliced. I checked the ingredients – yes, whole wheat flour, millet, flaxseed, sunflower seed and all the other good things in a quality bread, and all non-GMO to boot, but then I blinked – there it was – sugar – in my otherwise very healthy bread. Why on earth is sugar needed in bread?

And have you ever tried to find peanut butter without sugar? It’s really difficult – all the major brands contain sugar. And, how interesting, when you do happen to locate a lesser known brand that contains no sugar, the ingredients are very simple – there’s only one – “peanuts”. Why on earth can’t all the major brands make peanut butter in this way? There is absolutely no need for sugar or any other added ingredients in something as simple and delicious all by itself as peanut butter.

Oh, and how about that bottle of salad dressing in your refrigerator? Check the ingredients and you will almost always find sugar. And really I can’t understand why. Normally on my salad I will simply use olive oil and lemon juice. The last thing I would want to add to a delicious and healthy salad is sugar, in whatever form or quantity. Same with the aforementioned mayonnaise. I usually have to go to Trader Joe’s to buy mayonnaise without sugar which I have tasted and compared with a little Hellman’s or Best Foods’ (both have sugar)  – I can’t really tell them apart – they all taste like mayonnaise. So why do food processors and packagers feel they have to add sugar to everything? Oh and let’s not even mention all the pasta sauces arranged on your supermarket shelves that contain sugar. 

And just today I was shocked to discover that the delicious multigrain snack chips I just brought home from Costco to enjoy with hummus or Vermont cheese, contained sugar. What a shame to discover that these otherwise nutritious chips – with flaxseed, sunflower seed, sesame seed and quinoa supplementing the stone ground corn – were contaminated with sugar. But wait, it says “cane sugar” to distinguish it from other sweeteners like high fructose corn syrup so it must be okay. Yeah, really?

Obviously it’s extremely difficult today to find any processed or packaged food (that’s the key, I guess) without added sugar in it. Genuine foods, unadulterated by added sugar, are mainly in the fresh fruits and vegetables section or in the dried or dehydrated state – dried fruits, beans and so on. But of course, even here we have to beware of GMO foods or foods contaminated with pesticide residue unless we buy bona fide organic foods.

I recently read a piece by the columnist and editor of the New York Times editorial page, David Leonhardt, that provided the impetus for this little article. Mr. Leonhardt had gone for a month without eating any “added sugar”. Why? Well, first he wanted to test the difficulty of finding foods without added sugar – very hard indeed – his guess was that about 75 percent of all packaged foods contain that dreaded ingredient. Also he wanted to test how he felt without that sugar in his diet and to see how he might change his eating habits. Mr. Leonhardt found that avoiding all the added sugar in our packaged and processed food was difficult but rewarding in terms of feeling better and reducing the craving for sweets. He also formed new habits – reading ingredient labels and accordingly striking some foods off his allowed list, adding others and generally eating more healthily, totally changing his breakfast and snack menus. As an example he draws a contrast between the snack crackers Triscuits and Wheat Thins, both made by Nabisco – the former containing simply wheat, oil and sea salt and the latter containing, as he put it, “an ingredient list that evokes high school chemistry class, including added sugars“.

The sugar industry over the years has done a masterful job of promoting its product – “only 18 calories  a teaspoon”, “‘pure’ cane sugar”, “sugar for quick energy” and so on. In the late 1960’s it even paid three Harvard researchers to review several cherry-picked studies which purported to absolve sugar of any responsibility for cardiovascular problems and shift the blame instead onto saturated fats. It also has come up with a dizzying array of euphemistic names for its sweeteners such as “evaporated cane juice “ or “brown rice syrup”. And as noted above it has managed to get sugars into a remarkable three-quarters of all packaged foods in American supermarkets.

I recall vividly as a child in the 1950’s hearing a brilliant gentleman from our church community, Reverend Wesley Gross, later to become my sister Barbara’s father-in-law, deliver a short lecture on the evils of refined sugar, which he labeled “white poison”. Mr. Gross was certainly prescient in warning of the harm that comes from eating sugar, decades before many contemporary nutritionists, doctors, scientists and journalists made a similar case. Appropriately, my sister and her husband Daniel carried on Mr. Gross’s battle against refined sugar as owners and managers of Gross’ Natural Foods in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, a tradition now continued proudly by their daughter Sheila and husband Greg Henkel.

 And exactly what is that harm? Why is sugar bad for us? I finally got around to reading the seminal book on sugar, “Pure, White and Deadly: How Sugar is Killing Us and What We Can Do to Stop It” by British nutritionist John Yudkin, first published in 1972. After sketching its grim agricultural history starting with the cruel slave based production of sugar cane, he describes the detailed experiments he conducted which demonstrated that sugar is indeed related to various diseases, including caries (tooth decay), diabetes, cardiovascular disease and yes, even cancer. Yudkin’s methodology was soundly criticized by US nutritionist Ancel Keys, whose own research claimed that heart disease was caused by consumption of saturated fats. Virtually the entire medical and scientific community then sided with Keys, causing dietary fats to be largely accepted as the major contributor to cardiovascular disease. That pendulum of opinion has only recently swung back to sugar, not saturated fat, being a cause of heart trouble as well as many other health problems.

Many somewhat health conscious people, including myself, were caught up in dietary recommendations illustrated by the US Department of Agriculture’s food guides, which have evolved over the years along with scientific and medical opinion. And those recommendations in the 1980’s were responsible for thousands of people, including myself, eating processed foods that while “fat free” or “low fat” were loaded with sugar. I can clearly recall buying “low fat” brownies and cinnamon rolls from an Entenmann’s bakery outlet in Phoenix, close to my work, and taking them home for the family to eat. I couldn’t believe how good tasting they were, prepared with little or no shortening or butter. But of course they were delicious – they were packed with sugar. But the fact that fat was limited or absent allowed us to think that we were actually doing our bodies a favor.

And interestingly, John Yudkin also tied sugar to a condition with which I have been struggling since my teens – acne, or more specifically, sebaceous acne. Although he admitted that more research is needed, many studies he examined did in fact link sugar to this condition. In my twenties and thirties I endured the shame of occasional sebaceous cysts on my face and neck which often required dermatological surgery from which I still have the scars. I recall one such notable doctor in Boston, Kenneth Arndt MD, who treated me numerous times for this problem. I certainly wish that Dr. Arndt, as well as the many other dermatologists I have consulted over the years, had advised me that sugar could have been the cause of my chronic skin problems. 

While the medical and scientific communities have vacillated about the causes, the fact that our country has a serious obesity and related diabetes and cardiovascular diseaseproblem is unassailable. Presently about two thirds of American adults are overweight, and about half of those, yes, actually one whole third, are classified as obese. Approximately one in ten Americans has Type II diabetes, a huge number, accounting for billions of dollars in medical expenses. And over one third of adults and over half of adults over 60 have metabolic syndrome, a constellation of conditions occurring together which include increased blood pressure, high blood sugar, excess body fat around the waist, and abnormal cholesterol or triglyceride levels, that is a precursor to diabetes, heart disease and cancer.

But is sugar really a “poison” as Mr. Gross called it way back in the 1950’s? And is it “deadly” as John Yudkin so boldly asserted in 1973? Well, based upon research described by one of the major journalistic critics of sugar, Gary Taubes, author of “The Case Against Sugar”, the answer is in short, yes. Here’s why – the way we metabolize  fructose in our digestive system is apparently responsible for the build-up of fatty deposits in the liver, followed by insulin resistance, then metabolic syndrome and from there, potential development of diabetes, heart disease, obesity, and yes, even cancer.

And no, becoming overweight and dealing with related conditions is not simply the result of “caloric imbalance”, as many nutritionists would have us believe. One hundred calories of glucose from potatoes or bread is metabolized quite differently than 100 calories of sugar, which is half glucose and half fructose. The fructose from sugar or from high fructose corn syrup is metabolized mostly by the liver while the glucose from sugar and starches is metabolized by every  cell in the body. Therefore consuming sugar (fructose and glucose), means more work for the liver, particularly if it is consumed rapidly, as in a sugared soft drinks or sweet fruit juice. An equivalent amount of fructose consumed by eating several apples also hits the liver but much more slowly. And if lots of fructose hits the liver quickly the liver will convert much of it to fat, eventually inducing insulin resistance. And this is the condition, one part of metabolic syndrome, that leads to obesity, heart disease and type II diabetes.

John Yudkin’s claim that sugar could be responsible for the development of several kinds of cancer was dismissed as a stretch of the data at the time. Yet, recent surveys and research do in fact support sugar being a cause of cancer. This occurs because insulin resistance causes the secretion of more insulin. And this additional insulin, plus a related hormone called “insulin-like growth factor”, according to Taubes, actually promotes tumor growth. How? Without the additional insulin and its accompanying “growth-factor” hormone pushing them to absorb more and more blood sugar, most pre-cancerous cells would never develop the mutations that turn them into malignant tumors. So if it’s sugar that causes insulin resistance, then the conclusion is hard to avoid that sugar causes cancer — some cancers at least, mainly those of breast and colon. In Taubes’ words – “The connection between obesity, diabetes and cancer was first reported in 2004 in large population studies by researchers from the World Health Organization’s International Agency for Research on Cancer. It is not controversial. What it means is that you are more likely to get cancer if you’re obese or diabetic than if you’re not, and you’re more likely to get cancer if you have metabolic syndrome than if you don’t. “

Another of the notable warriors against sugar today is Dr. Robert Lustig. He continues his battle with a variety of videos about sugar, including a Ted Talk, and has written polemics about its harm. His YouTube video, “Sugar: the Bitter Truth”, has been viewed millions of times. And Dr. Lustig has also provided the introduction for the recent  edition of John Yudkin’s book that I just finished. His own best selling book “Fat Chance: The Hidden Truth About Sugar, Obesity and Disease” joins the Taubes book as the two most popular and authoritative accounts of the dangers of sugar and its relationship to obesity and disease.

It is very important to note that these sobering truths about sugar do not apply to sugar found naturally in fruits and vegetables. Even though the naturally occurring sugar in an apple or orange contains the same ratio of fructose and glucose as simple refined table sugar, it is wrapped in water, fiber and a variety of other nutrients so the fructose component is metabolized in the liver and the glucose in the rest of the body, much more slowly. I don’t think that anybody ever got fat from eating too many bananas, although they contain significant sugar. Nor has anyone developed diabetes from eating too many oranges and tangerines. And to my knowledge apples have never rotted anyone’s teeth.

As if all the above problems with sugar are not enough, sugar may also be addictive. We’ve all had or at least heard of that proverbial “sweet tooth” when that one can of Coke wasn’t quite enough, one cookie has to be followed by another and another until they’re gone or one Reese’s peanut butter cup creates a desire for many more. Or that leftover Halloween candy gets quickly eaten up. There definitely is something real in that “sugar high” that feels so good when you finish off that ice cold Sprite. Yes, all that sugar or the more concentrated high fructose corn syrup from that sugary drink not only gives the liver a jolt but the brain as well, by activating the pleasure center and dumping some of that feel-good neurotransmitter, dopamine. And it seems that after a meal we often crave something sweet – thus the tradition and habit of dessert after a meal. 

But the issue of whether sugar is truly additive is still being debated. Certainly it is not in the class of truly addictive drugs like cocaine or heroin. And thankfully whatever addictive powers it does exert on us can be thrown off far more readily than that of real drugs. The desire for something sweet, more a craving than an addiction, can be controlled and ultimately erased by employing a little will power. And this craving for sugar is not dissimilar to the general craving for carbohydrates generally that many of us possess or have experienced that is also diminished and controlled by adherence to a low carbohydrate diet.

So where are we as a country, as a population, on the sugar issue? Per capita consumption of sugar in the United States, at approximately 100 pounds per year, continues to be startlingly well above the level of the other major sugar consuming countries. And interestingly the United States also leads the world’s developed countries in obesity. Shouldn’t this tell us something about the relationship of sugar to obesity? Actually if you compared a table of the most obese developed countries to the table below, there will be a surprisingly accurate correspondence to the rate of sugar consumption to the rate of obesity.

 

And also, if we take a look at the graph of the growth of sugar consumption in the United States during the last couple of centuries, I am sure we could superimpose a graph of the growth of obesity or the growth of the incidence of Type II diabetes over the same time period and again obtain a reasonably accurate correspondence.

 

Why are we a leader in these dubious categories? One reason has to be, as described early in this article, the inclusion of “added sugar” in so very many of the foods we regularly purchase at the super market and consume in the home. The other has to be the huge consumption of sugary beverages in the US. Stop at any convenience shop and take a look at literally walls of shelves of sugary carbonated beverages and sugary so-called sports drinks. And incidentally, Gatorade or Powerade or any of the other sports beverages, which are consumed by many teenagers as healthy alternatives, are as full of sugar as most other sugared beverages. And the sugar contest of these popular beverages is truly astonishing, ranging a little above or below 10 teaspoons per 12 ounce container.

So how can we reduce the sugar in our diets and limit the diseases that are obviously caused by sugar. One way is to tax sugary beverages to reduce their consumption but these efforts have been beaten down by the beverage corporations and the sugar industry and their well paid lobbyists. And, need I mention it – our Congress has been totally unresponsive to the public health threat posed by sugar. So it is up to each of us to dramatically reduce the amount of sugar in our diets and most who have done so, like Times columnist Leonhardt, mentioned earlier in this article, have been rewarded by significantly improved weight control and vastly improved overall health.

So was Mr Gross right decades ago when he called sugar “white poison” or was the term too cynical, too hyperbolic or too pejorative? Absolutely not. As shown above, he was incredibly prescient and, along with Yudkin, Taubes and Lustig, he was right on the money. If a “poison”, defined in my Apple computer dictionary is “a substance that is capable of causing the illness or death of a living organism when introduced or absorbed”, refined sugar definitely meets that definition.

And one final note – if the dangerous qualities of sugar and what it does to our waistlines and our metabolic systems isn’t enough, one might also consider the cruel history of its agriculture and harvesting to be enough alone to reject it. Slavery and the slave trade were strongly linked to the sugar industry in its infancy as illustrated in a current New York Times article and conditions today relating to its production aren’t a whole lot better.

“Our democracy itself is in the crosshairs. Free and fair elections are the cornerstone of our democracy and it has become clear that they are the target of our adversaries who seek to sow discord and undermine our way of life.” These words were spoken by the Trump administration’s Secretary of Homeland Security, Kirstjen Nielsen, in early August 2018. And in recent months, how often have we heard  and speculated about the serious harm that Russia has caused to US elections, that Russia is responsible for Trump becoming our president, that Russia will tamper with the upcoming midterms and somehow again subvert US “democracy”?

Well, guess what – the Republican Party and the US Supreme Court have done far more harm to US elections in recent years than Russia could have ever dreamed of doing. What’s that Secretary Nielsen said -“Free and fair elections are the cornerstone of our democracy”? Well, if that is so, why don’t we do all we can to make our elections “free and fair”, instead of corrupting them by making it steadily more difficult to vote and warping election outcomes?

In probably the most important election of our lifetimes, we went to the polls in November 2016 and voted for a new president. Well, at least some of us voted. Depending on what state you lived in, you may have had to present a picture ID which you maybe didn’t have; you may have found  early voting times reduced, lines impossibly long, registration restricted, polling places reduced or locations changed. Or you may have been stunned to find that your name had been removed from the voting rolls. 

What could be more fundamental in a democracy than the right to vote? Isn’t voting the foundation of representative government? Why then do we have a patchwork of voting regulations throughout the states? Why can someone register and vote the same day in some states and not in others? Why do voters have to show a picture ID in some states ? Why are there more stringent residency requirements in some states than in others? Why can you vote early in some states or vote by mail but maybe not in yours? HBO’s John Oliver captures and describes many of these problem in his usual profane and humorous way.

Some additional questions about voting in the United States – why is Tuesday, of all days, the election day everywhere? Why a workday, which places a major burden on working class voters and voters working on hourly contracts who can’t afford to take time off? Why not a weekend day when it would be easier for most people to vote? And why are national elections held in November? Perhaps summer might  be better for everyone. In most of the world’s democracies, voting is held on a weekend day or on a special voting holiday to make it easier for its citizens to vote, but not in the United States, the “world’s greatest democracy”.

All of these questions and concerns, all of these obstacles and impediments to voting have been instituted by us, not the Russians. Republican governors and legislatures have striven mightily to limit the vote, not extend it, because in limiting the vote by requiring a picture ID or limiting locations where you can vote, or other measures, means limiting the vote of minority populations which vote predominantly Democratic. 

And these same Republican governors and legislatures have effectively gerrymandered voting districts in many states, resulting in candidates choosing their voters, rather than voters choosing candidates and thus rendering many districts uncompetitive. The “blue wave” anticipated by many in the 2018 midterms may not happen at all, despite an expected upsurge in Democratic votes. As a recent Times article noted, in 2006 a five and a half point lead in the national vote was enough to pick up 31 seats in the House of Representatives. But now, because of partisan gerrymandering accomplished in 2010, an increase of this size would net only 13. In the upcoming midterms Democrats will need an 11 point margin nationally to win back the House, a very difficult margin to attain.

The corrupt effect of partisan gerrymandering is perfectly exemplified in North Carolina. Republicans in 2016 won 10 of the 13 House districts – 77 percent – despite getting just 53 percent of the statewide vote, nearly the same result as in 2014. The Ohio vote from 2016 provides another example. Republicans won 12 of the state’s 16 House seats with just 56 percent of the vote. Since being gerrymandered by its Republican legislature after the 2010 census, the GOP has won the same 12 seats with Democrats winning the same four seats in each of the last three elections, despite a narrow margin statewide. The pernicious effect of gerrymandering, which really is disenfranchising a sizable portion of a state’s electorate is graphically explained in this Washington Post video.

A different kind of question people may ask is why vote at all? Many vote faithfully like good citizens should but nothing seems to change. In an era of billion dollar campaigns and apparently limitless campaign contributions by corporations, millionaires and billionaires, a person may be rightfully skeptical of what their individual vote can accomplish. Is my Representative or Senator going to heed my call, letter or email or attend to the call, letter or email from Jamie Dimon, Charles Koch or Sheldon Adelson or a member of the armies of  lobbyists representing other corporate interests?  In addition to voter suppression, cynicism resulting logically from these conditions certainly contributes to our disgracefully low level of voter participation in elections, usually around 50 percent.

But political optimists really do believe that the vote can dramatically change politics. After all, the Citizens United decision by the Supreme Court could be reversed by a constitutional amendment and such an amendment would be passed by voting. Money could be taken out of politics in the same way if we voted to do so. The ballot could limit use of the media for election purposes as it is in most EU countries. And public financing of campaigns similar to European countries could be established through the franchise. Our useless Congress could again govern and actually pass some helpful laws through debate and compromise, if we placed the right individuals in office through the vote. And gerrymandered congressional districts described above which are responsible for much of our congressional paralysis could be rendered illegal through the vote. 

So the vote, the franchise, the ballot, are fundamental to the functioning of our government and many feel that we should be doing everything we can to make voting easier and get more people to vote. But instead what we doing is making voting more difficult and more complex. Indeed, voter suppression has been called the “Civil Rights Issue of this Era” 

Another perennial voting issue concerns who should vote – a tension set up by the writers of our constitution between the “Hamiltonians” and the “Jeffersonians”, whether the franchise should be  granted solely to the educated and propertied citizens or to everyone regardless of education or wealth. Last year, the New Yorker featured an article  about selected first time voters and who they have chosen to vote for and why. And reading about the guy who was voting for Donald Trump because “Hillary will take my guns away and I need them to hunt every year for my food” made me wonder why the impact of his vote was the same as mine. Yes, historically there have been proposals from time to time to more heavily weight the votes of educated voters over those of the uneducated which seem tempting. However, all considered, I strongly support everyone voting, regardless of education, wealth or social standing. I really do think that  a majority of the population as a whole has a great deal more common sense to ultimately lead us in the right direction than people of wealth and property who will simply vote their narrow interests. The wisdom of the general populace is validated in nationwide polls on such major issues as healthcare, taxation, education, the military budget, to name but a few. In fact if Federal laws were established by national plebiscite, rather than by a congress beholden to big money and special interests, we would likely have a much better country.

Which brings me back to another concern about Election Day. Why on earth is our participation so shamefully low? Come hell or high water, “the most important election of our lifetime”, or whatever, voter participation in the US hovers around 50 percent, and that is for presidential election years. In off-years, voter turnout is far worse, usually 40 percent or so. In 2012, another of the many “most important elections ever”, voter turnout was an anemic 53 percent of eligible voters.  We boast to the world about our “vibrant and thriving democracy”, an example the rest of the world should follow. Well actually based on participation in our democracy, the very definition of the term, our democracy is barely breathing. 

During the 2016 election, there were over 224 million American citizens over the age of 18 in the United States, and yet only around 157 million were registered to vote. And of these registered voters, only 58 percent bothered to vote in this “most important election in history”.

Well again, rather than make voting easy, we seem to do all we can to make it more difficult and more complex. Most people think that to vote in the US is simple – if you are a citizen, if you are over 18 years and registered, you can vote. But in fact, even if you meet this criteria, you may be turned away at the polls. Presently, 34 states maintain laws that request or require citizens to show arbitrarily specific forms of identification and in ten of those states the laws are very strict. So many Americans who do not have the time or the money to obtain these forms of ID are unable to vote. In fact, Wisconsin’s Attorney General claimed that his state’s strict voter ID law was responsible for throwing that crucial state’s electoral vote to Trump in 2016.

Voting integrity is certainly another reason for low turnout. Why should I bother to vote when my vote may be inadvertently discarded by unreliable voting machines run by incompetent officials? Last May the Georgia Secretary of State office reported a precinct in northeastern Georgia as having 276 registered voters ahead of the state’s primary elections in May. After the election it reported that 670 ballots were cast, a quite amazing 243 percent turnout. Later, the numbers were changed to 3704 registered voters, reflecting a likely more accurate turnout of around 18 percent. Who is his right mind can trust a system this faulty? This fall 43 states will use voting machines that are no longer manufactured and consequently for which spare parts are difficult or impossible to find. Thirteen states use voting machines that do not provide a paper record of votes cast. Good luck if machines break down or a recount is needed. Also, Georgia’s entire voting structure, yes, Georgia again, which was outsourced to a private company, Center for Election Systems, was shown to be extremely vulnerable to hackers. If I were a Georgia voter, I’d stay home. Wait a minute, also in Georgia’s Randolph County,  where 60 percent of residents are black and nearly a third live in poverty, announced their intention to close seven of the nine polling places because toilets and parking facilities were declared non – ADA compliant, requiring some voters to take a 30 mile round trip to one of the remaining two precincts. Really now – we are supposed to believe that officials were motivated by compliance compassion rather than voter suppression…..in a mostly black community…..in Georgia?

Another significant source of voter suppression is not allowing ex-prisoners to vote. Over six million Americans were barred from voting in the 2016 election because of “felony disenfranchisement”. In virtually every one of our states, Vermont and Maine being the only exceptions, citizens with a criminal conviction are permanently or temporarily denied their right to vote. So even if people convicted of a crime have paid their debt to society, they are generally stripped of this right of citizenship. And the array of obstacles placed in front of any ex-prisoner wishing to regain this privilege of citizenship is often very difficult to navigate. The seriousness of this type of disenfranchisement should not be underestimated. Florida, which has one of the harshest laws and also some of the most difficult barriers to surmount to regain this right, has had well over a million potential voters disenfranchised in this way during the last several presidential elections. If criminals who had served their term and had their full citizenship restored, it’s quite likely that George W. Bush would not have become president and we would not have had a trillion dollar war in Iraq nor the apparently eternal war in Afghanistan. HBO’s John Oliver discusses this problem in his usually profane and humorous, yet quite effective, manner. Relative to this, because of these laws, one in 40 American adults is ineligible to vote, nationwide, one in 13 adult African-American adults cannot vote. In Kentucky, Floria, Tennessee and Virginia, more that 20 percent of African-Americans are ineligible. It would be interesting to speculate about all the white collar crooks that are never prosecuted, but instead routinely pay huge fines for their crimes and misdeeds. I wonder if they can still vote? Incidentally, we are one of just four countries in the world that enforces post release restrictions on voting, the others being Croatia, Belgium and Armenia. 

A lesser known way that Republicans have succeeded in disenfranchising voters is by preventing people from voting because they owe legal fees or court fines, of course affecting mostly poor (and likely Democratic) voters. Republican legislatures have now passed such laws in nine states with not insignificant effect on voters. For example, in Alabama more than 100,000 people who owe this money, about three percent of the voting age population, have been stricken from voting rolls. These laws are unconstitutional because they really represent a modern day kind of poll tax. Why should owing money to a government agency or being too poor to pay ever be reasons to lose voting privileges? 

Many of these efforts at voter suppression have been conducted under the guise of “preventing voter fraud” which is virtually non-existent. Efforts to prove widespread fraud have been futile, the most recent being Trump’s “Presidential Advisory Commission on Election Integrity”, headed by Mike Pence and the perennial king of voter fraud claims who has come up empty time after time, Kris Kobach, former Kansas secretary of state and now candidate for governor. This commission, now thankfully disbanded, had one major objective – to prove that the huge gap in popular vote totals between Trump and Clinton were the result of “massive voter fraud”. The most extensive and painstaking examinations of voter fraud have shown it to be so small as to to totally insignificant. 

The Brennan Center’s seminal report on this issue, The Truth About Voter Fraud, found that most reported incidents of voter fraud are actually traceable to other sources, such as clerical errors or bad data matching practices. The report reviewed elections that had been meticulously studied for voter fraud, and found incident rates between 0.0003 percent and 0.0025 percent. Given this tiny incident rate for voter impersonation fraud, it is more likely, the report noted, that an American “will be struck by lightning than that he will impersonate another voter at the polls.”

Our voter fraud friend, Kris Kobach, was also the author and main proponent of a program called “Interstate Crosscheck”, which stripped voter rolls in participating states on the pretext that citizens were double-registered. Crosscheck has tagged an astonishing 7.2 million suspects, yet no more than four perpetrators have been charged with double voting or deliberate double registration, and even those were likely accidents rather than serious efforts to influence an election.

Interesting how some Republicans have let the cat out of the bag concerning the real reason for voter suppression – Glenn Grothman, Republican of Wisconsin, predicted that the state’s photo ID law should weaken Hillary Clinton’s chances of winning the state in 2016; prior to the last presidential election Mike Turzai, Republican leader of the Pennsylvania House of Representatives, predicted during the 2012 campaign that their voter ID law would “allow Governor Romney to win the state of Pennsylvania, done”; Don Yelton, a North Carolina Republican Party county precinct chairman, told an interviewer that in 2013 , the state’s voter ID law would “kick the Democrats in the butt”. In 2012, Jim Greer, a former Republican Party chairman, said outright that voter ID laws and cutbacks in early voting were done for “one reason and one reason only” – to suppress Democratic turnout. So it’s perfectly clear why Republicans want to suppress the vote – they want to reduce the poor and minority vote, usually Democratic, so they can retain power, while all the while lying that it’s about voter fraud. 

In the meantime, some states are doing their best to make it easier to register and easier to vote while others continue efforts to repress the vote. Illinois recently became the 10th state, along with the District of Columbia, to enact automatic voter registration. Under the new law, all eligible voters will be registered to vote when they visit the Department of Motor Vehicles or other state agencies. which could add as many as one million voters to the state’s rolls. And at the other extreme, consider Texas, which is pushing relentlessly in the opposite direction. Republican lawmakers there passed in 2011, and continue to defend today, one of the nation’s most restrictive voter-ID laws. Supported by Republican Texas Governor Greg Abbott and vociferously defended by Senator Ted Cruz, this law requires a state issued picture ID for all voters but will accept a Texas handgun permit while not accepting photo college ID’s. Good old Texas – it’s easy to see why in 2014 this state ranked 45th in voter registration and dead last in voter turnout.

Incredibly, our own US Supreme Court has exacerbated the the voting problem in the country. Clearly, this “final arbiter” of legislative and constitutional conflict should rule to protect democratic practices and institutions like voting. But as we have seen over the last decade or so, a majority of Justices, their uniform plain black robes failing to obscure their pro-corporate, anti-democratic leanings, have consistently ruled against the vote and consequently against democracy. Starting with the Citizens United decision, which allowed unlimited money to influence elections under the guise of “free speech”, and continuing with the McCutcheon v. FEC decision which removed the limits from individual contributions to political parties and campaigns, our Supreme Court has continued to destroy our democracy. On June 25, 2013, the Supreme Court’s decision in Shelby County v. Holder effectively gutted the Voting Rights Act’s requirement that certain states with racist pasts had to have voting changes “pre-cleared” by the Department of Justice. Basically, Chief Justice Roberts wrote in the opinion, this protection was no longer needed because racism was over. “Over”? Come on, we all know this is nonsense – what kind of rose colored glasses is Roberts wearing? And of course, immediately after the decision, a number of these states, including Texas, immediately acted to strengthen voter ID laws to make voting more difficult, especially for the poor and people of color.

The Supreme court has refused to rule on Ohio’s egregiously gerrymandered House districts, allowing the state to continue sending a 75 percent Republican delegation to Congress supported by only slightly more than 50 percent of the vote. Also conservatives on the Supreme Court recently upheld Ohio’s strict method of removing infrequent voters from the rolls, a process that challengers of the law say disproportionately affects poor and minority voters. With its ruling in the case of Hustad v. A. Philip Randolph Institute, the Court’s activist majority in effect gave other Republican secretaries of state a go-ahead to resume the antidemocratic practice of purging fully qualified voters from registration rolls, just like in Ohio.

The Supreme Court also largely upheld Texas congressional and legislative maps that a lower court said discriminated against black and Hispanic voters, saying that the lower court was wrong in how it considered the challenges, and, according to Justice Alito, who wrote the opinion in the 5-to-4 decision, “did not credit the Texas legislature with a presumption of good faith”. The Court sided with the challengers over only one of the legislative districts in question.

On the issue of voter purges, a la Ohio, over the past year researchers at the Brennan Center examined data from 6,600 jurisdictions and found the median rate of purging across the country has risen from 6.2 percent of voters to 7.8 percent since 2008. That jump may seem small, but it’s statistically significant and cannot be explained by population growth. It amounts to an additional four million people being struck off voting lists.

All of this is underscored by a Harvard study that ranks American voting the worst in the western world for free and fair elections. In the “2015 Year in Elections Report”, the Electoral Integrity Project, conducted by 2000 election experts from Harvard University and the University of Sydney in Australia, defines “electoral integrity” as “agreed international principles and standards of elections, applying universally to all countries worldwide throughout the electoral cycle, including during the pre-electoral period, the campaign, and on polling day and its aftermath”. Conversely, ‘electoral malpractice’ refers to violations of electoral integrity.” In a massive study of 180 national parliamentary and presidential contests held between July 1, 2012 to December 31, 2015 in 139 countries worldwide, U.S. elections scored lower than Argentina, South Africa, Tunisia, and Rwanda — and strikingly lower than even Brazil. Specifically compared to Western democracies, U.S. elections scored the lowest, slightly worse than the U.K., while Denmark and Finland topped the list.

Clearly, for our democracy to thrive we need to change our systems of voting. Democracy should not be defined by allowing only those who are capable of figuring out how to get through a complicated system to vote. It should instead be defined as allowing the entire eligible population to vote and have a say in their government.

In order to increase voter participation and revive our dying democracy we need to Federalize all voting laws and make them apply evenly to every single state and to every citizen of voting age.  They should include simple methods of automatic voter registration, removal all voting restrictions and ID requirements, regulation and standardization of methods adjusting rolls when voters move or when they die, establishing a convenient common voting day, standardizing reliable and robust voting machines impervious to hacking, requiring a paper trail for voting, universalizing early voting and voting by mail. 

The removal of cynicism concerning voting and forcing our government to be responsive to the people who put them in office will require another, more difficult set of conditions – public financing of elections, total removal of private and corporate money from politics, limiting time for campaigning, limiting the use of media and making gerrymandering illegal so that every vote counts. It’s likely that we will need to drastically change the Supreme Court to accomplish this or pass a Constitutional amendment. Whether we have the will and the means to do either remains to be seen.