Spilling My Guts

  
 People of my generation have a fondness for radio. So when the makers of radio for the digital age contacted us to participate in the production of a podcast, we were favorably disposed.  The subject was Operation Match, the prototype of online dating that emerged in 1966. Anita and I met through this new selection process. (See the blog posting, "The 50th" above).  An audio person came to our house, and set up equipment for an interview with  Emanuele Berry, a producer in New York for Gimlet Media.  Their program being developed is called Afterwords.  The interview was conducted via telephone with Emanuele in NYC.

   It was a long gab but a good one.  I was comfortable in my own house, and that may have led me into some inadvertent and unwise disclosure.  Many of the questions focused on our first date.  Anita's answers were objective descriptions of where, when and how.  They were specific but not overly personal.  When asked why we were compatible, we agreed that our  interest in our college majors--English--was the initial common ground.  I recalled picking her up at her dance rehearsal.  Before we even spoke, I was able to take a seat and reason which dancer was Anita Grimes.  Not difficult since I knew she was a young female, and I knew the color of her hair and she had told me on the phone that it would be in a pony tail.  So I focused on that dancer, unsettled a bit by the male partner she was with who was engineering a slithering slide against his body as her descent from a high lift.  Then I remembered that she had mentioned the male dancers in her troupe were gay.  My mind unclenched.

   As we reminisced and laughed we were back at Tiny Naylor's coffee shop in Sherman Oaks, CA after the rehearsal, passionately discussing the writings of Hopkins and Carlyle.  Then I realized--back in present time--that I had spoken the names of the writers into the oversize microphone in-co-rec-a-tely, referring to Carlyle as William not Thomas.  And this inexcusable shameful flub had been spoken to an internet audience!  Anita had to pick up the slack with the interviewer while I groped for my scattered brain cells.  Little did I know that a far more shocking marconian miscue was poised to pounce.

   My underwear. Say what? quoth the voice in my head.  When I went to meet Anita I remember what I donned after skivvies and socks.  At age 23 I was already on the way to becoming a person of girth.  And thus I was a bit nervous about first impressions.  So I obtained a male corset to ameliorate my adipose accumulation. Yes, a male corset--to make me look less fat.  If I had kept that recollection in memory all would have been well, but instead I voiced it to the interviewer, and to a yet to be determined audience of podcast listeners from one end of cyberspace to the other.  Wider, I'm told, than from sea to shining sea.  Is this not the epitome of TMI?

   I need to have myself seen to.  I need to find a lean-to, well out of sight.  I will fill it with soft straw.  It is time to withdraw and to wane.  Weary and worn am I, enervated by spilling my guts. 
  

Never Trust Me Again

     Events have shown me to be a prevaricator, a speaker of untruth, and a person whose word cannot be trusted.  What I have said I would not do I have done.  I did not intend to lie, but I failed to adhere to my announced plan.  I capitulated.  I caved.  There is no excuse, no pardon should be granted.  No exoneration extended.  The scarlet letter is deserved, the mark of Cain cannot be washed away.  When a person abandons their word, they need to be shunned, ostracized, reviled.   Yes, I know . . .this litany of mea culpas is pathetic.  I must make a full breast of the matter, holding nothing back.  Specifics and detail.  OK.

     Some weeks ago, I became a foster guardian for a female St. Bernard.  This was to be for a limited time as I was working with Illinois St. Bernard Rescue to find a male Saint to adopt.  I knew the skepticism that would emerge from family and friends that I would be able to take this middle aged dog, mistreated by unscrupulous breeders, into my home, and turn her over to a family whisking her into their home permanently.  Predictive chants of “failed foster” were expressed, but I scoffed.  I wanted a younger, healthier dog.  A male.  I had not had a female dog since I was a boy.

     I was fortunate to rise to the top of the list for an unadvertised male Saint not even a year old.  I heard a lot about him and knew how and why his praises were sung.  I met him.  He was brought by my house.  I walked him and saw that all the accolades were called for.  Beautiful dog.  Vibrant positive energy to burn.  Excellent temperament. He could well outlive me.  And I would therefore escape the pain of putting him down in my own last years. He was mine for the asking. 

     Then I turned back to assess Holly.  She was not young, nor free of minor, annoying health issues, and some stubborn  behaviors.  But she had a quality that was essential.  She needed me.  The male dog did not.  He would be adopted in a New York minute by giant breed fans.  When a dog needs me, when I am perhaps one of few adopters open and welcoming of her, then that becomes the dog I need.  So I proved the failed foster voices correct. Earlier this month, I signed the contract, paid the fee, and she’s now my own.  I’m finally mastering referring to her by the correct pronoun, and I slip less often into saying “O’Malley” instead of “Holly.”  She’s the one who is, not the one(s) who have been.  It’s a proud pantheon.  And she is the queen.  Like most servant loyalists, I am at her majesty's beck and call.

The 50th

   Barring death or divorce, Anita and I will celebrate our Golden Wedding Anniversary this year.  December 17th, 2016. (Save the date.)  There are other commemorations on our calendar, public and familial, but this one hovers like a UFO on a full moon night.  50 years?  My Lord, how did that happen?  1966. We were graduating from college and beginning graduate work.  Neither of us had much of a dating history--in part because we attended single sex high schools and colleges.  Anita and I did not know of each other's existence until May of 1966. So our courtship occupied seven months before the December wedding.  Our bright and savvy daughters made note of that and quickly cited the short interval when their mother or father would advise a deliberative approach to date mates.  I also counseled the 30s as time enough for marriage but their arithmetic was too quick.  They knew how old we were when we tied the knot, even before I could think back and recall our ages.

   So how did we find each other in those antediluvian days?  We participated in the first successful computer dating service, designed by Ivy geeks and powered by IBM.  It was called Operation Match.  You filled out a questionnaire, marking it by hand, returned it with a $3 fee, and waited to receive (by snail mail) the contact information from other participants.

Here's a sample of the "match list."  For the whole story of adventurous dating in the 60s, click on the video link below the sample.

http://espn.go.com/video/clip?id=13415984

   You then called and usually talked about how and why the computer matched you up.  The ice was already broken.
   In our case, we were both connected to Catholic colleges, we were English majors, we had compatibility of weltanschauungs; and in terms of our personalities, we were total opposites, proving that yin and yang was where it was at.  Over the years, we asked the question, "Why did you marry me, all those years ago?"  And then the daughters asked, "Mom, why did you marry Dad,?"  And the same question of me in reverse.  In an early version of mansplaining, I answered for Anita, "She found the perfect husband.  Make sure you do the same."  My quip was too clever by half, and received an eye rolling response--as it deserved. 
   I don't know if this further item is known.  There are letters secreted in the cross timbers of the attic--the love letters of our courtship--that we plan to exhume this year. The letters are frank and passionate.  Too intimate for progeny or posterity.  So of an evening, when that hovering moon is full, we will repair to our patio deck and read these epistles to each other.  Next to us will be stoked embers in the belly of the Weber kettle.  The script directs: Read, laugh, cry--and immolate the yearnings of our young hearts, page by page.  I don't need the letters to remember why I married Anita.  I fell in love with her.  And she said "Yes."
   Friends can link you, computers can attest to your mutual suitability, or your souls can align with the music of the spheres, but marriage is a promise and a path.  Pray or send vibes that the rest of the road from now to year's end delivers us intact to the half century milestone.

I'm Voting for Trump!

   Everything is permitted, Donald Trump will be elected President.  Rethink what you think you know.  Break the ties you have to notions of virtue and verities.  All is different now.
   We used to think that vulgarism, unfettered ignorance, and hortatory racist cant were ungood.  But they have ascended the mountaintop.  The golden calf has appeared again--this time with a comb-over. It is foolish to oppose or resist.  It matters not what the Democrats do; they have a fatal flaw--two candidates who are intelligent, decent human beings. Not good.  And it's too late to find an alternative evil.  Victory resides in realizing that the vote that counts is the upraised middle finger.
   Relish this con man.  Revisit (or encounter for the first time) prototypes in literature and film.  Twain's "The Man Who Corrupted Hadleyburg," Hans Christian Andersen's "The Emperor's New Clothes," Harold Hill in The Music Man; imagine the soothing voice of Shakespeare's Iago, in-your-ear in the polling both. Of course all of these pale when one thrills to the new order that Trump will usher in: everything you fear and everything you hate will be atomized.  All of us who support and vote to make "America Great Again" will be among the elect. It's gonna be incredible.
   This morning I attended a lecture on President Harry Truman.  No president left office with a lower approval rating. No wonder.  Sowed the seeds for the civil rights movement and for medicare.  But now, many decades later he's rated among the top five Presidents in the history of the office. What is wrong with this country?  That little runt did a lot of damage.
   Join me.  Don't be misled by the claptrap from both parties about decency, compassion and vision.  President Trump will transcend those mundane muddles.  He'll kick ass, wall the wetbacks out, machine gun Muslim bastards, and do us proud.  That warmth you're feeling now will glow as you growl. Can't beat it.

  

The Easter Rising and Pursuing the American Dream

In Pursuit of the American Dream: The Great Gatsby and Death of a Salesman

National Moser Center - Naperville

April 11, 2016 1:00 pm

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In Pursuit of the American Dream: The Great Gatsby and Death of a SalesmanTwo twentieth century American writers provide us with major texts on the theme of the attempt to capture the American Dream.  F. Scott Fitzgerald's novel, The Great Gatsby (1925), and Arthur Miller's play, Death of a Salesman (1949), present us with characters who emerge from very different strata of American society, but have aspirations and values that intersect in fascinating ways.  Obtain your own copies of the books and read the first five chapters of The Great Gatsby for the first class meeting.  Our goal is to strengthen our understanding of American culture and to increase our appreciation of American literature.

Dates: April 11, 18, 25, May 2, 9 
Time: 1:00—3:00pm      
Cost: $80.
Instructor: Michael Casey, M.A.
Class code: S16107


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Irish Easter Uprising (Special: One Class Only)

National Moser Center - Naperville

April 12, 2016 1:00 pm

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Irish Easter Uprising Ireland's Easter Rising (Éirí Amach na Cásca), also known as the Easter Rebellion, erupted 100 years ago on April 24, 1916.  The Rising began the end of British rule in Ireland by proclaiming an independent Irish Republic.  This class looks at the six days of the rebellion, and the key figures involved--including the "1916 Poets."  We will assess why this event has achieved an importance that makes it remembered a century after it occurred.

Date: April 12
Time:  1:00—3:00pm
Cost: $ 19.
Instructor: Michael Casey, M.A.
Class code: S16208

My Pal Mal

   "Whatever you do, do not write about dog-death, especially so soon after your own dog's demise.  You'll embarrass yourself."  "I'll take that chance."

• He came into Illinois Saint Bernard Rescue with a bad case of mange.  His adoption would be delayed until the skin problem cleared.  So I waited another month, and brought him home in June 2009. 

•  He was the first rescue dog whose name I did not have to change.  The rescue folks named him "O'Malley."  O'Malley joins Casey.  Luck of the Irish.  I left the name alone.  Good omen.

• A boisterous one-year old, he needed training so we drove him weekly to a center where the owners were trained as well as the dogs.  In these classes, O'Malley was enthusiastic but never aggressive with people or other dogs. 

• He was wary at first as most rescue dogs are, and with good reason.  They don't come into rescue from a "forever home."  They have not been well treated in their life.  They have more reason to avoid people than to engage them.

• In public I always referred to him as O'Malley.  Over time I earned his trust, and would whisper "My Pal Mal" in his ear.  He loved whispering.

• In the back yard, at the dog park and in a warehouse-sized dog care facility, he loved to run.  It was a sight to behold--a giant breed dog accelerating flat out--and then when a collision seemed imminent--O'Malley would hurdle the dog cutting across his path.

• When our first granddaughter was born, we let a couple of months go by till we all brought her downstairs to meet him.  He sniffed, she grinned and gazed, and he did nothing untoward.  Kinley's parents breathed a sigh of relief.  I felt a surge of pride.

• More than once, that surge of pride. I was accustomed to his size and also aware that visually he was a very striking dog.  More than once he stopped a potential fight at the dog park by simply walking between the two who were squared off. 

• He keep me in line.  If I would fly into a rant, he would turn his massive head, fix me in his visage, and his look  said, "Why are you roaring in such an unseemly fashion?"

• Together we moved through his diagnosis, major surgery, and weeks of chemotherapy.  In this seven month period, he enjoyed his life, even though he had lost the use of one eye.  I especially remember after a walk we would sit together on the back porch, and I would sing to him. Crazy stuff.  "Go tell Aunt Rhody," "The Fox Went Out On a Chilly Night," "Tantum Ergo," "Maids When You're Young Never Wed An Old Man."  He didn't howl or tap his paw, but he listened. 

• So now he's gone.  I am a wreck.  People have made kind comments that I have found helpful.  But it's the powerful presence of absence that wracks my heart. I still incline to his ear: "O'Malley does good things, not bad things, he follows the doggie moral law, and he's My Pal Mal, My Pal Mal, My Pal Mal . . .

The Majesty of Middlemarch

                                                         The Invitation

   The greatest English novel was written by a woman—Mary Ann Evans— who found it necessary to adopt a male pen name, George Eliot.  Middlemarch is a rich, absorbing narrative of depth—and length.  At its center is Dorothea Brooke who pursues a full life that energizes her strong independent mind.  Vital questions are posed: What does it mean to live a good life?  How essential to fulfillment are marriage, religion, independence, and knowledge?  Are intellect and emotion opposing or complementing forces?

  Six classes are scheduled with a one week break after the third class to assure steady progress through the 880 page novel.  Obtain the Penguin Classics edition of Middlemarch. Before the first class, read the “Prelude” and “Book One: Miss Brooke.”  Together we can do this, and enjoy an unforgettable reading experience!
  

                                                              Initial Responses

   "What have I gotten myself into here?"  The question nags at the ear of the first time reader of Eliot's novel.  For readers who have picked up the novel before, the voice says, "This time I'm sticking with it!" 

   For teachers, experience with the novel has an added dimension.  Attend to this anecdote from an esteemed colleague of mine who recollects: "In my 30's I held MM as my all time favorite novel, and one of the high points of my teaching career was when a lovely junior came to me for summer reading recommendations. I provided a list. It included MM. I commented that this was my favorite novel. At the beginning of the next school year, before classes had actually begun, she was in the main hall of the building and spotted me at some distance. She shouted down that long hallway: 'I LOVED Middlemarch!'  Perfect."

   Whether it's down a long hallway, or on a hillock behind your condo, or in a text or phone call to family or friend, I yearn to hear tell of your whoop of wonder when you come to the last sentence of this grand and great book.

     Here's the schedule for a labor of love.


                                                Mustering Through Middlemarch

                            Thursday afternoons, 1-3 pm in October and November 2015 


     10/8  Session One  "Prelude" and "Book One: Miss Brooke"


     10/15  Session Two  "Books Two and Three: Old and Young, Waiting for Death"


     10/22  Session Three  "Books Four and Five: Three Love Problems, The Dead Hand"


     10/29  No Class, Break for Continued Reading


     11/5  Session Four  "Book Six: The Widow and the Wife"


     11/12  Session Five  "Book Seven: Two Temptations"


     11/19  Session Six  "Book Eight: Sunset and Sunrise" and "Finale"