St. Louis Sojourn

Goodbye St. Louis

2009-12-26T08:23:00.002-06:00

My request for a transfer back to Syracuse, NY came through in record time. I successfully negotiated with the largest bureaucracy on earth to be allowed to move at a time that better suited my family. My boss threw me a great farewell party and said nice things about me. So why am I blue?

During the 16 months we have lived in St. Louis I have grown quite fond of the city. On balance it is a lively place with many unique features. The city has fabulous public spaces, chief among which is the Gateway Arch. Unique in the world, this monumental building so dominates downtown as to disappear from consciousness. At unexpected times it suddenly appears as a shimmering reflection in windows of an office tower, or a partial view of the north leg from the windows of the office, or in the distance when driving toward downtown. The Arch reminds me I could be in no other place in the world.

We have spent many reflective and renewing hours in the world class parks here. The parks define the boundaries of my St. Louis experience. The two neighborhood parks, Lafayette and Benton, are good ways to come to know your neighbors, their kids and dogs, at least by sight. A bit further afield is the arboretum called Tower Grove, where our kite got stuck in a tree one breezy Sunday, also home to the farmer's market we frequented. Further, but still within an easy drive is magnificent Forest Park, home to the art museum, the history museum, the Zoo, the MUNY and miles of dog walking trails. Downtown, only a few blocks from my office, is the brilliant new Citygarden, a sculpture park unlike any other. Merry has beautifully documented all these municipal gems on her photoblog at http://meredithleonard.blogspot.com/

The queen of all the city parks is the Missouri Botanical Garden. I was completely unaware of this amazing garden before we moved here. Founded in 1859 by Henry Shaw, who made a fortune peddling housewares to passing pioneers, this garden has a look and feel of earthly perfection. We have visited botanical gardens everywhere we have traveled, but only two (Kew in England and Longwood in PA) rival Shaw's Garden. It has historic structures, wonderful sculpture, a 1960s geodesic dome jungle, a kids' garden, a spectacular Japanese garden and an astounding collection of plants from all sorts of habitats. When we visit St. Louis in the future, we will always spend at least part of a day in this garden.

We have spent considerable time searching out the great restaurants of the city. We favor ethnic food, so we didn't eat at many of the well known high end places but we did come to love Vin de Set with its rooftop view of downtown and Chez Leon, traditional French cuisine and a player grand piano to boot. Many weekend mornings we would head for the Mississippi Mudhouse, a funky coffee shop in the Cherokee antique district, for fresh roasted coffee, spicy hot chocolate and breakfast. We tried several Italian places on “the Hill” but generally did not take to toasted ravioli, provel or the heavy pasta here. The single exception is Stelina Pasta Cafe where all the pasta is made fresh daily on the premises. When hungry for reliably wonderful food, we would head for the Tower Grove/South Grand neighborhood and eat at Basil Spice (Thai), Cafe Natasha (Persian) or The Shaved Duck (Barbeque). These are unpretentious spots where the owners treat you like family and the servers remember what you like. We especially love Thai food and the friendly Thai people. The owners of Basil Spice always greeted us warmly, often made us special desserts and even gave us a sweet going away present. I'll miss them.

Of course, a great part of my life here was spent inside 200 N. Broadway where Social Security holds hearings. Before coming to St. Louis I had generally escaped working within any large bureaucratic organization. I was worried that working for Social Security would be soul numbing. In fact, it is psychologically very hard, but the staff who do the work in St. Louis do it with grace. This is certainly due in large part to the efforts of the chief judge, W. Gary Jewell, and the hearing office director, Karen Kumpe. Karen knows everything, can find anything, fix anything, and understands how it all works because she has done every job in the office over the years. Judge Jewell, a true son of Alabama, “Roll Tide,” learned how to motivate people during his military career in the JAG corps. He knows people want to do well but can be lax if you let them. He devises little motivators, walks around the office causing cheerful disturbances and lets people know he cares that they do their work well. He will always step up to help, often taking the extra work on himself. His staff want to get the job done for him. He changed the name of the three staff work groups from A, B, C to Aardvarks, Cobras and Bobcats. I'll forever hear him call out “Goodnight, Bobcats” in my mind at the end of a work day.

And so I leave with a sense of regret for leaving my temporarily adopted city. I'll miss the friendly people and my daily dose of real life as I ride the bus. I'll miss the smell of hops from Budweiser when the wind is from the south. I'll miss my wonderful massage therapist, Cathi, from Indigo, who nursed my sore muscles back from stress and fatigue. I'll miss all of this, but I'm grateful to have had the opportunity to live at the gateway to the west. Farewell.

Eagle Days

2009-12-19T12:09:00.002-06:00

Last winter we made several day trips along the river north of the city to see bald eagles. When our friends from Hamilton, NY, Russ & Sally Lura, visited last January we convinced them to spend a frigid Saturday afternoon with us at Eagle Days.

Bald eagles were plentiful in Missouri when Lewis & Clark camped during the winter of 1803-04 just north of St. Louis. Habitat loss and senseless hunting exterminated the entire population of midwestern eagles by 1890. Missouri’s eagles were already long gone by the time DDT nearly wiped out the rest of the bald eagle population across the country.

There were no nesting pairs of bald eagles in Missouri for nearly a hundred years. In 1972 DDT was banned and it was time for the eagles to return. The Missouri Department of Conservation, in cooperation with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and the Dickerson Park Zoo of Springfield, MO started to release young bald eagles across the state in 1981. By 1990, the eagle was back. Because their old haunts in the cypress swamps of the bootheel in southeastern Missouri had long ago been cut and drained for cotton fields, modern eagles set up housekeeping along the banks of the Mississippi and a few big lakes. It's estimated that the current resident population consists of about 300 nesting pairs.

In addition to resident eagles, the middle Mississippi River Valley hosts one of North America's largest concentrations of migrant bald eagles during the winter. Annual bird counts show an annual influx of about 3000 birds drawn to areas of open water in search of fish, their preferred food. Many of the small towns on both sides of the river capitalize on the eagle migration. On the Missouri side, Clarksville has an eagle festival featuring an auto tour of eagle sites including a tree covered bluff behind the town that becomes an eagle roost in winter. On the Illinois side, festivals are held in Grafton and nearby Pere Marquette State Park that feature views from the spectacular limestone bluffs in that area. The Great River Road runs along the base of the bluffs and the river. We were captivated here last year by the sight of a large eagle riding down river on a block of ice.

We took Russ and Sally to the celebration hosted at the Old Chain of Rocks Bridge by the City of Madison, IL, the Illinois Department of Natural Resources, the Confluence Partnership, and the MO Department of Conservation [but not the MO Department of Natural Resources, which I previously mentioned, thanks to alert reader Dan Zarlenga]. This historic bridge is worth of a visit any time of the year. Built in 1929, it was once part of old Route 66. One of its most distinctive features is a 22% curve in the middle of the river, the curve built to accommodate barge navigation. The bridge closed in 1968 but was renovated in 1999 as a bike and pedestrian walkway connecting trails on both sides of the Mississippi. Just south of the bridge is a line of rapids that insures the water stays ice free all winter. This open water attracts bald eagles looking for easy fishing.

It was cold and clear when we joined the crowds of birdwatchers at Eagle Days last January. We packed into a tent to watch a live eagle program put on by the World Bird Sanctuary and McGuire, an adult male eagle. We trouped onto the frigid bridge where we saw the bare sycamore trees along the banks filled with eagles. At the bend of the bridge in the middle of the river the Audubon Society set up a big heated tent with displays on all sorts of birdwatching opportunities.

Back near the parking lot a camp of four or five canvas tents was set up. Outside the tents stood men in buckskins and funny hats holding muskets. Until that moment I was unaware that Lewis & Clark reenactors existed. One bearded fellow was demonstrating the weapons carried by the Corps, another explained the design and use of period canoe paddles. We stopped to talk to another reenactor who had a fine collection of fur trapping paraphernalia. Among his collection spread on a wool blanket on the ground I spotted a few strings of glass beads. I asked him about them. He picked up some small red ones and showed me their real gold centers. He handed me a string of about ten blue beads with white centers on a rawhide cord. “These were found in a archeological dig along the Columbia River in Oregon. They're the real thing, they are Lewis & Clark trade beads actually carried on the expedition.”

In fact the Corps of Discovery may have been saved from starvation because of these humble blue beads. The Corps brought a trunk load of beads along to trade with the natives for everything they needed from food to boats. The far western tribes were unimpressed with the expensive beads and wampum favored by eastern tribes. Lewis made the following entry in his Journal as he travelled down the Columbia: “[T]he object of foreign trade which is the most desired are the common cheap, blue or white beads, of about fifty or seventy to the penny weight, which are strung on strands a fathom in length, and sold by the yard, or the length of both arms; of these the blue beads, which are called tia commachuck, or chief beads, hold the first rank in their ideas of relative value; the most inferior kind are esteemed beyond the finest wampum, and are temptations which can always seduce them to part with their most valuable effects.”

As I turned the old blue beads over in my hand, I felt history stir.

Eagle days will be held again soon, Saturday & Sunday Jan. 16-17, 2010 at the Old Chain of Rocks Bridge 9 am - 3 pm.

SGA

2009-12-12T11:12:00.001-06:00

Every time I hold a Social Security hearing I briefly reflect on the value of work for pay in our society. Indeed, as I tell every claimant, the point of the hearing is for me to determine, using Social Security's rules, whether it is reasonable to expect that they have the capacity to work for pay. This presupposes that everyone ordinarily has the basic capacity for remunerative work. It also presupposes that a person can lose the functional capacity to work. In essence, a Social Security Law Judge is a person who is supposed to be able to tell the difference.

The unquestioned assumption here is that everyone can and should work if they are able. I suspect this assumption has always existed in human society. The unique feature of the modern era is the role of money in defining the worth of work. The birth of the very idea of work for wages is detailed in Adam Smith's The Wealth of Nations (1776). Karl Marx brilliantly expounds the social cost of wage labor in his giant Capital (1867). The spiritual heritage of wage earning is detailed in The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism (1904) by Max Weber. These three classics form the basis of my understanding of why people work for pay, the social tension created by inequalities of wages and the process through which commonplace wage earning is infused with meaning.

Social Security law is not concerned with such details. There is no mention of meaningful work in the regulations. There is little notice taken of the soul crushing effects of lifelong poverty. For Social Security the inquiry starts and stops with a simple question: can this person be expected to earn enough through work to constitute substantial gainful activity? As of 1/1/10 the regulations define substantial gainful activity [SGA] as the ability to earn $1000 per month from work of any kind. At the minimum wage of $7.25 a person has to work just 32 hours a week to reach this level. We're not talking deeply satisfying work here, we're talking basic survival.

As I rolled these thoughts around in my mind the last few weeks, I occupied my lunch half-hour sitting at my desk reading The Pleasures and Sorrows of Work (2009) by British essayist Alain de Botton. As a rule I dislike books that have a lot of illustrations, but the numerous candid black & white photographs by Richard Baker of people working are wonderful. I also really like the fact that the book closely examines various types of work. De Botton chooses warehouse logistics with an emphasis on tuna fish, cookie making, career counseling, satellite launching, oil painting, electrical transmission engineering, accountancy, entrepreneurship and aviation sales. He seems to see himself as a sort of Michael Moore figure padding around in these various venues asking probing questions of unsuspecting and generally cooperative informants. It's clear that independently wealthy de Botton has scant respect for his subjects. His greatest praise is for the middle aged slightly successful artist who obsessively paints the same tree year after year. His greatest scorn is for the workers in complex enterprises: office workers, factory managers, vocational experts, scientists, engineers, sales representatives and wide-eyed inventors. He sees all of them as mildly desperate souls trying to distract themselves from their own inevitable mortality. Judging from this book de Botton most admires the stoic philosophers.

Nonetheless this is an interesting book. While de Botton is too assured of his own intellectual superiority to be a person I'd ever like to meet, he asks good questions and does succeed in opening up his subjects in a way I've never seen before. His curiosity about the ordinary and commonplace reveals whole new worlds. I never knew there was a society devoted to admiring and visiting the various types of electricity transmission pylons. I had no vision of how the French launch satellites in the jungle of Guiana. The cut-throat competition between biscuit makers was unknown to me before reading this book. I often had to keep pushing through the author's stilted prose and arch commentary to reach his really interesting insights. It was worth it, even though it was often discouraging. I'm not the only one to feel this way about this book as can be seen from the NY Times Book Review from last summer: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/06/28/books/review/Crain-t.html?pagewanted=1&_r=1

It took me about a month of lunches to finish the book in small bites. The exercise left me more deeply appreciative of the value of wage earning. We spend much of our waking hours doing something to earn wages. We usually endow this work with meaning beyond the instrumental value of the money it produces. People are proud of their work and happy when they do it well. This psychic value helps us get up and go to work every day, not just pull the covers up and go back to sleep. If work somehow loses this meaning, people will stop doing it. If a physical or mental injury is severe enough to overpower the meaning of a person's work, the person becomes disabled.

Elephant Rocks

2009-12-05T06:58:00.002-06:00

Geological tourism is subtle. Merry and I love it. Often the sights require special attention because they are not apparent to the casual passer-by. Over the years we have bagged much of the really big game of the geologically motivated: the Grand Canyon, of course; the Utah marvels of Bryce, Zion and Arches along with the lesser known but truly amazing Capital Reef; the stratovolcanos of the Northwest, Crater Lake, Mt. Hood, Mt. Baker and Mt. St. Helens; the magnitude one springs of Florida and Missouri ... I could go on. Many of the most memorable places, however, are of more subtle form. Last Saturday we toured two of the marvels of the St. Francois [pronounced Francis] Mountains.

The St. Francois Mountains are the tallest and only true mountains in Missouri. They run through part of southeastern Missouri beginning about 50 miles south of St. Louis. They are between the eastern edge of the Ozarks and the Mississippi. Any geologist worth his or her salt will tell you the Ozark “mountains” are not proper mountains at all, but a plateau deeply dissected by valleys. The St. Francois range contains the highest point in the state, Taum Sauk, at a modest height of 1772 feet (540 meters). These rounded hills are actually among the oldest mountains on earth having been formed by volcanic activity about 1.5 billion years ago. By comparison the Appalachian range started to lift about 460 million years ago, the Rockies about 70 million years ago and our beloved Adirondacks only 5 million years ago. The St. Francois are so modest today because they've sustained a lot of wear over the eons. They are probably the only area of of the midwest not to have been submerged during the Paleozoic era. Ancient corals along their base indicate they probably were a solitary island chain at the time. They were also never scraped clean by glaciers during the ice ages.

The St. Francois Mountains are the center of Missouri commercial mining. Mineral deposits in and near the mountains yield lead, iron, baryte, zinc, silver, manganese, cobalt, and nickel ores. The area today accounts for over 90% of primary lead production in the United States. I wrote about that in last weekend's post on the Bonne Terre mine. Granite has also been commercially quarried in the area since 1869. The area around Elephant Rocks State Park produces a deep red tone granite that was used for the towers of the first bridge across the Mississippi at St. Louis as well as for the thousands of shoebox sized paving blocks on the St. Louis waterfront. Granite mining continues in the area today producing primarily Missouri Red monument stone.

People generally don't come upon Elephant Rocks by accident. It's miles off any Interstate tucked back the Acadia valley near the small towns of Pilot Knob, Ironton, and Graniteville. Technically Elephant Rocks is a “tor” or weathered outcropping of rock along a ridge line. A mile or so of the north ridge here has a line of pink, lichen encrusted granite outcroppings topped with giant rounded boulders. Granite erodes very slowly, so these boulders were a long time in the making. Because many of the boulders are in a line, nearly touching, they remind people of circus elephants.

On the fine warm day we visited people were everywhere but it was not really crowded. There are a lot of rocks to scramble around on, a human jungle gym. Back in the 19^th century small entrepreneurs decided this was an excellent and easy place to mine building stone. Two abandoned granite quarries are on the park property and a few more small quarries, one still in operation, are nearby. There are piles and piles of large blocks of granite everywhere. The woods are full of stone, cut but never used. Down one side trail is an old railroad engine repair shop, its roof long gone but its double thick walls of pink granite as solid as the day they were laid by skilled masons more than 100 years ago. It's a minor miracle that the stone cutters didn't finish the job of taking this formation apart block by block.

Joli, the dog ambassador, greeted everyone on the trail, especially the kids. Once she was surrounded by about 10 pre-teen boys who were finally ordered to stop petting her by their grumpy adult group leader. On top of the ridge among the Elephants Rocks are a series of depressions filled with rain water that she found made great drinking dishes and also worked as a serviceable cooling bath.

Back when this area was the exclusive realm of the stonecutter, the quarry workers must have taken their lunch breaks up with the Elephants. They used their quarry tools to carefully carve their names in the granite underfoot all along the ridge. The letters are still clear and sharp. The lettering is familiar, exactly what you would see on a grave stone. It's an unusual form of graffiti, slowly turning into a landmark. We even found a handsome “Edward” carved by a long forgotten stonecutter. I'm sure his view of these mountains in the late fall was nearly the same as ours.

Bonne Terre

2009-11-29T16:05:00.001-06:00

Bonne Terre, MO, population 4,939, is about 60 miles directly south of St. Louis. From 1864 until 1960 it was home to what became the largest lead mine in the world. Lead was extracted in this area as early as 1720 by the French. Surface mining of lead quickly spread throughout the eastern Ozarks becoming one of the engines for European settlement. Prior to the Civil War the primary uses of lead was for water pipes, containers, white pigment [remember lead paint?], manufacture of crystal and roofing. The Civil War caused a significant increase in the demand for lead as bullets and shot.

On March 25, 1864, six New York businessmen incorporated the St. Joseph Lead Company. Few of the incorporators knew or cared much about the mining business. They bought the 950 acres known as Bonne Terre for $25,000 cash and $50,000 in unsecured bonds. They hoped that the mere possibility of a profitable lead mine might bring investors and they would get rich. One hopeful stockholder who attended the 1865 annual meeting in New York City was J. Wyman Jones, a young lawyer from Utica, NY. In a turn of events common in those robber baron times he was promptly named president of the company. http://www.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~mostfran/mine_history/stjoe_history.htm Jones turned out to be a terrific manager. The mine prospered.

On a tree-lined street with a few modest Victorian homes in the middle of town is a block surrounded by a high board fence. In the center of the gravel parking lot inside sits a square green building with a sign over double doors reading “Mule Entrance.” Old, rusting mining gear, small gauge mining cars and power shovels are scattered around. Along the back is a row of tired storefronts with a board sidewalk. There's a general store, but the rest are labeled: Showers, Changing Rooms, Diver's Lounge. The store is locked with a sign that the next tour starts in fifteen minutes. The price for a one hour walking tour is $18 a person, $23 if you add the boat tour. We decide to pass. It is getting late.

Just as we were about to leave two men emerged from nowhere. The older guy with a handlebar mustache dressed in what looked like a painter's outfit introduced himself as Chuck. He wanted to know if we were interested a tour. We hesitated. He unlocked the store and showed us a live video feed from the dock on the underground lake.

It is a scene from another world. Beyond the dock a flood-lit blue green lake stretches in all directions. The roof is supported by huge stone pillars that disappear into darkness. We are hooked.

Back in 1960 the lead ore was running out. A new source of better quality ore was located further into the Ozarks. Bonne Terre Mine closed and the pumps that kept spring water out were turned off. Crystal clear water quickly filled the mine nearly to the top. The town tried using the water for a municipal supply but it had too many dissolved minerals. That's when the owners of a St. Louis Dive shop, Doug and Cathy Georgens, bought the place. They pumped the top two levels of the mine dry and set up “Billion Gallon Lake Resort.” Thanks in no small part to numerous cable TV shows that have featured it, people come from all over the world to scuba dive. http://www.2dive.com/btm.htm

Chuck shows us a fist size chunk of nearly pure galena, the state mineral of Missouri. Galena, or lead sulfide, is silver gray, and has a metallic gleam. He shows us old mining tools and explains their use. We enter the mine and walk down 60 steps or so to the upper level. We are in a series of dimly lit massive rooms each a cube about the size of a city block. Every 40 feet or so a hand-hewn stone column rises to the roof. We look down a shaft where ore was dumped and we can see the lake far below. We work our way down room after room. Some have calcite coated walls, cream colored if iron is mixed in, black if manganese, green if copper, pink if cobalt, stark white if pure.

When the mine was opened in the 19^th Century all the work was done by hand using simple tools. Men dug with shovels. They drilled holes by pounding a drill bit with a sledgehammer. They filled the holes with black powder and blew up the rock, hoping not to blow themselves up in the process. They loaded one ton cars by hand. A shift lasted as long as it took to load 22 cars. The cars were hauled along narrow gauge rails by mules. The mules lived their entire working life underground. Day after day for a hundred years the miners broke rock and hauled it out leaving behind this huge void of about 1,500 giant rooms on increasingly deep levels. When the rooms became too tall, they built tottering wooden scaffolds and hung trapezes from the ceilings 50 feet in the darkness where they continued to hammer rock. The work was dangerous and serious injuries frequent. Chuck told us if an injured miner managed to live long enough to be carried out of the mine, the authorities didn't record his death as a mine accident.

We reach the dock and board a pontoon party barge with a silent electric engine. A group of eight divers swim just ahead of us then disappear. We glide from eerie room to room. Lights make the clear water glow green. We can dimly see mining equipment in the deep. I keenly sense the ghosts of long gone miners watching as we trudge back to daylight.

Update: Historic Aircraft Museum

2009-11-24T04:57:00.001-06:00

Readers of this blog may remember Al Stix, our crusty tour guide at our recent visit to the Creve Coeur Aircraft Museum. See: http://edpitts.blogspot.com/2009/11/historic-aircraft-restoration-museum.html Sunday afternoon, 11/22/09, Al crashed his yellow mid-1930s Stearman biplane on take-off when the engine lost power. Neither Stix nor his passanger were seriously injured. Stix had started to turn back toward the landing field when a wing caught a tree. According the the Monday edition of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, Stix told reporters, "When you fly these old planes, you're bound to have some exciting moments, hopefully, they don't get any more exciting than this." You can read the entire story here: http://www.stltoday.com/stltoday/news/stories.nsf/stlouiscitycounty/story/0114B28EB0DCCAC0862576760078BC49?OpenDocument

Why I'm not an academic

2009-11-21T07:52:00.002-06:00

When I was in high school my mother suggested from time to time that I become a surgeon. I was a good student and liked science. I have small, fairly delicate hands. I was a pretty good pianist which suggested to her that I had the dexterity she assumed surgeons need.

I found the idea appealing. I had little idea of the work doctors do. What I knew for certain was that I was destined for a life as an intellectual. I loved books and still do. I read voraciously. I was sure as a teenager that a life of physical labor would not suit me well.

So I set off for Bucknell University, a good liberal arts college, with a vague idea of possibly, maybe becoming a doctor. I signed up as a biology major. The first shock came in the second week of my freshman microbiology lab. We were examining a specimen, trying to draw the cells. Everyone else seemed to think this was extremely easy. I couldn't get the damn thing in focus. After a long struggle the lab instructor told me I had just drawn my eyelash.

By mid-term exams I was still struggling with biology lab and way behind my peers in the other subjects. This was new for me. I never failed at any subject but I could see I was on a course to fail now. The one bright light in that first semester was an English Literature course I took to fill a humanities requirement. I loved it. The professor was terrific. I did well. I didn't have a vocational plan but “temporarily” became a humanities major. I tried courses in History, Philosophy and East-Asian Studies. I loved them all and did very well. I started to learn to write. I got a BA in History with Honors. I never doubted my future as an academic as I earned a MA and PhD in philosophy.

In all the years of intense study I never questioned my ability to make a living. I did odd jobs. I taught freshmen and prison inmates. I learned basic plumbing and wiring. I heated with wood and became president of the local food co-op. I surrounded myself with books. I read every day and slowly learned to be a better writer. When I finally finished my PhD it took me a year and a half to land a regular teaching job, but I finally got one at a small Franciscan school in Western New York, St. Bonaventure University.

During my first years at St. Bonaventure I threw myself into really learning how to teach philosophy. It was hard but I had fun. I found I was pretty good at inspiring a fair number of my students to read, write and even think about things they never considered before. I developed a couple of new courses. I helped start a student outdoors club that flourished.

At the end of my second year I was called in by my department head for an evaluation of my work and my progress toward the golden ring of academia, tenure. He started out by praising my work as a teacher. He liked the fact that students gave me good evaluations. I was also pulling my weight in the generally distasteful committee work required of all academics. I was well liked by other members of the department and was fitting in. Unfortunately, he was not able to give me a good recommendation.

The problem, he explained, was that I had never published anything in an academic journal. In fact, I admitted that I was not even working on a research project. I had read a few papers at professional conferences, but that was it. Unless I could get going on something major, I would not be ready by the time my formal tenure review came up the following year and I would be let go.

I walked out of the meeting in shock. All the work I had done counted for nothing. I wrongly assumed that at a small college I would get a lot of credit for being a good teacher. I assumed lack of a research publication might be overlooked. Wrong. Wrong. Wrong.

About a week later I was starting to get angry. I stopped in to see the department head and asked him to name a journal where he would like to get published. The Journal of the History of Ideas.

Over the next few weeks I poured over that journal trying to get a handle on the sort of articles they generally published. I holed up in a library with a good collection of works by and about Spinoza, a philosopher about whom I knew nothing. I skimmed everything I could find about Spinoza's political and ethical views looking for a topic. Then I focused on carefully reading everything he said on the subject of freedom of speech. I wrote an article of exactly the right length with appropriate footnotes and references. I polished it and sent it in. A few weeks later, just as the summer break was ending, I received the letter telling me the article would be published.

I returned to St. Bonaventure deeply disturbed by this exercise. On first meeting my department head before fall classes I told him I had written an article about Spinoza. Great, he said. Was I working on getting it published? I handed him my acceptance letter. He was pleased, actually quite jealous. I had proved my point. Academic publication is a sham exercise, just part of the hazing, with no practical consequences except in the tenure game. Now I was bitter. I never recovered my enthusiasm.

The next spring my department head told me he was happy to recommend me for tenure. Maybe they would even consider early tenure. By then I was making plans to attend law school with hope that I might find an intellectually honest profession at last. I've not been disappointed.

Historic Aircraft Restoration Museum

2009-11-14T10:59:00.007-06:00

Our friend, Jim Leiter from Syracuse, visited us in St. Louis the first weekend of November. His hobby is photographing airplanes. Over the years he has amassed quite a collection, all neatly organized in binders. While I'm sure Jim was pleased to visit us in the big city by the big muddy, he was also really, really pleased to be able to visit the aircraft museum at the Creve Coeur airport.

Not many people even know there is a world-class museum along the flats of the Missouri River on the western edge of St. Louis at the end of an unmarked dead-end road past a farm stand offering hayrides the day after Halloween. http://www.historicaircraftrestorationmuseum.org/ As luck would have it Butch O'Blennis, an ALJ with the office next to mine, is taking flying lessons at the Creve Coeur airport and could give us directions. He knew the place is loaded with old planes, but had not had time to tour the museum. Butch kindly offered to accompany us on our tour. He had a lesson scheduled the day we planned to visit, so we agreed to get there in time to see if he had learned to land safely, yet.

Creve Couer airport is a private, non-profit created out of farm fields in 1983 by three vintage airplane fanatics, Al Stix, John Cournoyer and John Mullen. The field has evolved to include a paved runway, a grass runway and about 100 privately-owned hangers. Most of the hangers are used to house, restore or build small planes. It turned out Butch's instructor was ill the day we visited so he did not get to fly. While waiting for the museum to open we decided to wander through the rows of hangers to see what we might discover.

The place is crawling with small planes. We encountered a man wheeling a very small plane singlehandedly out of his hanger. He was happy to show us the homemade craft built around a VW engine. He claimed it was simple to build. I have no idea how he defines “simple.” I asked him how it flies. He raved about how much fun it is, the only problem is that it pulls pretty hard to the right on takeoff. He only figured that out while taking off in it for the first time. He's obviously a quick study.

At 10 am the three of us bought tickets to the museum [a bargain at $10 per person] and met our guide. It was airport owner, Al Stix. Stix knows virtually every detail of every plane in the collection. He knows where it came from, its complete history and how it flies. He has personally flown almost all of the planes in the collection and lived to tell the tale.

The airport's museum is comprised of three large hangars packed with about 50 vintage airplanes. Many of the planes are one of a kind. There's a 1916 Sopwith Pup with the original 80-horsepower engine, a Taylor E-2 [father of the Piper Cub], and the only flying de Havilland Dragon Rapide in the country. The collection also includes a rare restored 1930 St. Louis Cardinal. According to Stix all but a couple of the aircraft are flyable except for "the two or three that no one has yet had the nerve to try." Stix loves these old planes, but is not at all sentimental. "If these airplanes were really any good, planes would still look like this." Al and the collection were recently featured in the Simthsonian Air & Space magazine. You can read the whole article here: http://www.airspacemag.com/flight-today/coeur.html

To be honest I got tired of looking at old planes pretty quickly; it's not really a big interest of mine. We wandered through rows of shining biplanes, old monoplanes and some scary small vintage passenger planes with wicker seats. Al kept things pretty interesting with his tales of smuggling an old WWII Soviet flying boat out of Russia labeled as tractor parts or about how Lindbergh was tricked into falsifying parts of his own autobiography.

Perhaps Al's best stories have to do some serious daredevil flying. It is a very good thing that almost all of this priceless collection can be flown since the airport is located on the flood plain of the mighty Missouri. During the great flood of 1993 the entire airport was under 20 feet of water. The historic planes had to be flown to higher ground, many by Stix. One little two cylinder plane that Stix particularly hates hardly generated enough power to get off the ground. He flew it at treetop level looking for places to crash land all the way. While scoping out driveways to use as a makeshift runway he claims to have flown right by a guy brushing his teeth in a second story window.

Two hours later, we emerged into the sunlight, but Al had detected Jim was a truly dedicated fan and Butch was also seriously captivated. The three of them took off in Al's van to visit some treasures in more remote parts of the airport. I stayed behind to meet up with Merry. We waited for Jim in the little administration building where a cup of coffee costs $0.50 on the honor system and pilots sit around trading stories.

I wasn't sure we would ever see Jim again, but about a hour later he returned tired, hungry and very happy. As we got up to leave a snappy little biplane called a “Pitts Special” taxied up and posed for us. Then we headed off for a late lunch and the rest of Jim's tour of St. Louis.

Chicken catcher

2009-11-07T09:02:00.002-06:00

The hearing was already over when Karen, my hearing monitor asked, “How do they get them in the crate with four in one hand and three in the other?”

I didn't know and forgot to ask. I summoned his attorney, who asked his client.

“Well Judge, see, two of 'em work as a team. One opens the crate, the other stuffs the chickens in.”

It had been a long and difficult hearing for a fellow from deep in the Boot Heel of Missouri. He had worked sporadically at a lot of different agricultural labor jobs. His longest employment was four years full-time as a chicken catcher on a big poultry operation. I questioned him pretty carefully on how he did this job because I knew it to be very physically demanding. I wanted my vocational expert to understand it clearly. I wasn't entirely sure she was all that familiar with the poultry business.

Commercial chickens intended for meat are generally raised in long metal buildings that each hold hundreds of birds of the same age. When they are large enough to be processed someone has to go in, catch them, crate them and put the crates on a truck. That, in a nutshell, is what chicken catchers do.

This is about the smelliest, most dirty, dusty and hot work available. In many ways it is also one of the most brutal. Animal rights folks often describe commercial chicken farming as one of the most objectionable types of farm animal cruelty due in part to how chicken catching is done.

For my purposes, I had to find out exactly what sort of physical abilities are required to be a professional chicken catcher. Only in this way could I decide if the claimant could theoretically return to that work. So I took a deep breath and asked.

On the farm where the claimant worked he and another guy would herd the chickens against the walls or into a corner then grab them by their necks. He said he would get four at a time in his right hand then three more in his left before stuffing them in the crate. After four trips, the crate was jammed with 28 chickens. They would load that crate onto the truck and go back for more. Eight hours later the chickens were gone and they went home.

After he finished testifying about the other jobs he held, I asked the vocational expert if she needed me to ask any further questions about any of the jobs.

“Just about the chicken catcher job, Judge.”

“OK, what do you need to know?”

“He said he typically carried seven chickens at a time. I need to know how heavy the average chicken is. I'm thinking about 3 pounds.”

I immediately knew where she was going. If each chicken weighs 3 pounds, then 7 chickens weigh 21 pounds and the job would be classified as light work. If the chickens weigh more, then it's medium work. I knew that it was in fact heavy work because of the weight of crates full of chickens, but I had failed to ask those questions.

“OK, sir, how much do you think those chickens weighed on average?”

“I don't exactly know, Judge. I expect about 5 pounds.”

“That's about what I was thinking. Ms. Expert, how does that sound to you?”

“OK, I've got it. I guess I was thinking of the chickens without their hair.”

Everybody in court looked up suddenly. There was a split second of stunned silence before the claimant burst out laughing.

“I meant feathers!” the vocational expert sputtered, too late.

We all roared.

The Current River

2009-10-31T17:30:00.003-05:00

We could not leave Missouri until we canoed the Current River. It's an amazing river, so amazing that a national park, the Ozark National Scenic Riverways, protects it. http://www.nps.gov/ozar/index.htm

It's about a three hour drive from St. Louis to the central Ozarks of southern Missouri. We broke up the drive by detouring for a couple of hours to Maramec Spring Park http://www.maramecspringpark.com/maramec/index.html where the 5^th largest spring in Missouri pumps out about 100 million gallons of water a day. On a clear, mild fall day we fell in love with this beautiful privately owned park. You can see one of Merry's photos at: http://meredithleonard.blogspot.com/2009/10/maramec-spring-park.html.

After hamburgers at the snack bar, we drove on twisty roads to the small town of Salem through glittering oak forests in every shade of brown and tan. Past Salem we took an even smaller side road that winds down through the “hollers” to Akers. Here the road literally runs right into the water at an antique car ferry; a two car, hand operated job on a cable spanning the Current River.

Akers may appear to be a town on maps but in reality it consists of a single rustic store selling assorted camping and river gear. The store is operated by a canoe rental and campground family empire with several locations along the river. The same folks operate the car ferry. Across the road the National Park Service has built a large parking lot, a river access point on a gravel bar and bathroom facilities. Canoes are stacked everywhere. Dozens of canoe trailers each with 10 or 12 boats are behind the store. Dozens more are in the lot across the road, more in a field. Canoes are piled along the gravel bar. The canoes are old and very battered. ABS plastic boats of assorted brands are the the rule, most patched multiple times. A few scarred aluminum boats are mixed in, too. The impression of abandonment on this beautiful fall day is downright eerie.

We rent a “cabin” from the outfitter and arrange for them to shuttle our car downriver to Pulltite the next day. About two miles from the river the vintage A-frame we rented sits at the edge of a large deserted campground surrounded by dozens of retired yellow school buses, now in service as canoe shuttle vehicles. Inside the floor is littered with dozens of dead nine spot ladybugs and the occasional wasp. The living room is sparsely furnished in Flintstone-inspired furniture made of halved logs with the stub of a branch still attached, heavy enough to resist hard use. We decide we can survive the utter lack of amenities for one night.

We head back to Akers Ferry early the next morning after a restless night. The river is high. Green water sweeps along at a fast pace. We unload our tandem kevlar canoe on the gravel bar. Two young guys are loading a canoe trailer attached to one of the smaller school buses. One guy is skinny and needs a shave. The other is a baby-faced mountain of a man in baggy shorts and an old tee shirt from a bluegrass festival. They both heft 80 pound plastic canoes over their heads without appreciable effort. Merry and I each later confess that when we saw these guys we could hear strains of “Dueling Banjoes” in our heads.

I grow a bit apprehensive as we prepare to launch. Merry and I have canoed together for nearly twenty years but never on water moving this fast. Right below the gravel bar the river curves out of sight but I can hear rapids. We load Joli the canoe dog into the canoe and push off, then think better of it and quickly land to pull on our life vests. We're off. We sweep around the bend into our first small drop. We know there are no big rapids in the 10 mile stretch we have chosen, but all morning we have to constantly dodge trees that have fallen from the banks, avoid being swept into the high cliffs on the outside of every turn and carefully negotiate countless small stretches of Class 1 riffles.

It takes us time to get a feel for the river. The current is so strong in the narrow portions that it threatens to turn us sideways. Slowly we obtain a good paddling rhythm. We chase dozens of chattering belted kingfishers downstream. Several times big pileated woodpeckers swoop over. Merry spots a sleek dark river otter on the bank, then two more pop their heads up right in the middle of the next rapid to watch us speed by. A bald eagle glides downstream then circles back to give us a better look. After an hour we spy a little grave bar and pull out to take a breather. We are already tired but exhilarated. Back on the water it's hard to relax amidst all the rushing water, but we are gaining confidence. About a mile further on we wave to four guys who have camped on a gravel bar the night before and are just getting ready to get back on the river. We feel less alone.

Halfway into our trip I spy a side channel from which a stream of cloudy olive oil green water pours. I realize this must be Cave Spring. With some difficulty we wheel around and paddle upstream along the bank into the cloudy water. Once out of the main current we can relax a bit. The channel rounds the edge of the bluff. In front of us the cliff wall contains an opening about 10 feet wide and equally tall. We paddle in past a curtain of big water drops from the cave entrance. Inside we hold our position as our eyes adjust to the dim interior. It's a classic limestone cave, the bottom filed with water, stretching back into the darkness. After a few minutes of wonder, we return to the light.

We reach Pulltite after about two more hours of stunningly beautiful river. As we drive out of the Current River valley a hard rain begins. With deep satisfaction, we pull into the Subway in downtown Salem for lunch.

ADLs

2009-10-24T08:01:00.003-05:00

I ask the claimant to describe an average day in his or her life in almost every hearing. In Social Security speak these questions about activities of daily living are called ADLs, of course. The point of this exercise is to get a better idea of the sorts of things a person can actually still do despite their disabling condition. Allowing for some inevitable exaggeration, this enquiry is often very enlightening.

I generally ask people to account for the 12 – 15 hours they are awake each day. What do they do for fun? What are their hobbies? Do they take care of any animals? A shockingly large number of people tell me they do nothing but doze in their recliner or watch TV all day. I've written about this before here: http://edpitts.blogspot.com/search/label/TV Still, at this point in the hearing many people relax somewhat and tell me things that really help me evaluate their case.

A person who lives on a small farm tells me about taking care of her goats.

A person tells me about how he doesn't throw a ball inside for his Chihuahua anymore after that time it broke its leg. “That was expensive.”

One person tells me about scrap booking; another about using the computer to make a family tree.

I ask everyone if they socialize at all. Even if they tell me they don't, I ask more probing questions. Do they ever visit with family members? How far away do they live? How do they get there? Do they go to church or AA meetings? How do they get to their doctor's appointments?

Recently I talked to an older guy who lived just outside of a rural town, who had worked as a janitor at a nursing home for quite a few years. He told me he never socialized with anyone, but he was a talkative and friendly sort of guy.

“Don't you ever go down to the Huddle House for a cup of coffee with your friends?”

“No Judge, I don't.” “Why's that?”

“Well Judge, I've got a little touch of homophobia, I think you call it.”

I heard a sharp intake of breath from Jane, the hearing monitor sitting next to me.

There was a 10 second pause as I tried to imagine what was he talking about. The possibilities seemed endless. I briefly tried to imagine that he might think the guys who hang out drinking coffee all day are gay – Nope, probably not.

The only thing to do was ask.

“What do you mean, how does that keep you from going for a cup of coffee?”

“See, I don't go to restaurants at all. I don't like to eat after anybody, like at a buffet or smorgasbord. I can't stand to use the same serving spoon as everybody else. I won't even eat off the same dishes as my wife.”

“Are there other things you are nervous about?” “Yeah, you know, like I can't stand it if my wife leaves even the smallest crumb on the kitchen counter. I've got to clean it up, or I can't do anything else. Or like one time at work one day a patient dropped a glass and I spent all morning cleaning up every little piece, then got real upset when someone found another tiny sliver.”

“Did you ever tell these things to your doctor?” “I think so.”

“Well sir, you seem to be describing something called Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder, or OCD.”

“Oh, right, I think my doc did say something about OCD.”

“A little OCD may not be a bad thing for a janitor, but if it's keeping you from seeing your friends you might want to talk to your doctor some more about it.”

“OK, judge.”

Dating service

2009-10-17T09:36:00.002-05:00

One of the most enjoyable aspects of holding a Social Security hearing for me is learning how jobs are actually done. Some jobs are specific to a geographical area, so learning about them is part of understanding the fabric of place. I've described such jobs in prior posts on tow boats [http://edpitts.blogspot.com/search/label/Towboats] and the cotton module builder [http://edpitts.blogspot.com/search/label/Cotton%20Module]. In this same vein I was looking forward to a case this past week that involved a MetroLink operator. MetroLink is the light rail I ride every work day, so I had a lot of questions. Unfortunately, she overslept and missed her hearing.

Sure, it's possible to read a description of how to be a “hand packer” in a factory, but it's entirely different to hear a person who has worked for 10 years at a tea factory describe how you get 15,000 little tea bags into boxes every eight hours without going crazy. Since one of the first things I have to decide in every case is whether the claimant can return to his or her “past relevant work,” I need to get a pretty clear picture of how it was actually done. In my decisions I'm required to reference the job descriptions in the Dictionary of Occupational Titles (DOT) but that was last updated in 1992. I believe it's much more reliable to get the necessary details from the person who actually did the work. Almost everyone enjoys talking about their work, so it's also a good way to get a nervous claimant to relax early in the hearing.

Having practiced disability law for 20 years I feel I have a pretty good working knowledge of how most jobs are performed. I can tell you more than you want to know about what a certified nurse assistant or fork lift operator does to earn their pay. Despite this knowledge, nearly every week I talk to a claimant who surprises me with some part of their work description.

Recently, for example, I took testimony from a woman whose last job was at a dating service. I focused on this job because she was clearly disabled from all of her other past work. She had worked in factories, in fast food restaurants and as a retail cashier at Wal-Mart. She hurt her back and now could not stand continuously for the majority of an eight hour day. All her other past work required substantial standing, so I wanted to know why she couldn't still do her job at the dating service.

My mistake was to assume she worked as a receptionist or file clerk at the dating service. I jumped to this conclusion because she had no other experience working in an office and only a high school education. I assumed she would only qualify for an entry level unskilled office job. I proceeded to ask her about whether she answered the telephone or did filing. Yes, she did both. Did she have to sit all day or could she get up and move around when she needed to? She said it was a small office and that she could get up anytime she liked as long as she could hear the phone ring. The heaviest thing she had to lift was a stack of papers weighing a few ounces. Did she have to use a computer very much? Not too much, just to enter the basic data on the clients.

By this point I had pretty much pegged this job as unskilled sedentary work that allowed alternate sitting and standing. It was perfect for a person with her sort of back injury. She should be able to do it without too many problems. I needed to be sure.

What else do you do beside answer the phone and take people's applications? Well, she had to set up appointments, you know the dates. Oh, I didn't know the service set up the dates. No, that's not what she did. Her primary job was to match people up, then call them and arranged the introductions. Oh, so do you use a computer to match applicants? Nope, she just flips through the pile of applications and finds people with similar interests who sort of match up, then calls them to set up introductions. How much training did she get to do this? None, really, its just common sense.

I was surprised, to say the least. This woman was not an office clerk at all. She was the dating service.

So why did she stop working there? The service moved out of St. Louis. Did her back pain have anything to do with her stopping the job? Not really. She hurt after working for eight hours but she liked the work and the pay was OK. She would have kept on if the company had not moved. I see.

I was amazed. My Vocational Expert was briefly amazed, then tried to hide her surprise. It was clear that this claimant was totally unqualified to do this job as described in official vocational guides. Yet she did it day after day and no one complained or even questioned her ability. I re-evaluated what I knew about dating services. I realized my knowledge, if you can call it that, is based entirely on advertizements for eHarmony and the like. The services want us to think matches are done in a highly sophisticated manner, maybe by computer or a specialized questionnaire, but back at the office, at least in some cases, the actual work gets done by an untrained office worker flipping through forms.

Sand Hills

2009-10-11T07:39:00.004-05:00

We crossed central Nebraska on Rt. 2, the Sand Hills Scenic Byway. The Sand Hills start just outside Grand Island and run for the next 272 miles. http://www.sandhillsjourney.com/ We're not going to traverse the whole distance. At 19,000 square miles this is the largest dune field in the western hemisphere. Trees only exist around ranch buildings, towns and river bottoms. High hills roll to the horizon in every direction. Stabilized by prairie grass, it's open range cattle country. We're headed to Valentine on the northern edge of the Sand Hills. Half way across we turn north, then drive most of the way to South Dakota. As we near our destination a big sign announces: “Cherry County, God's Own Cow Country.”

Valentine is the county seat of Cherry County, a town of about 2800. Its main street is mostly lined with small businesses catering to the ranching community. There's a big cattle auction every Thursday. A giant western wear store featuring clothing, boots, a full service tack shop, and boot rebuilding holds down the west side of Main Street. The First National Bank has a stunning carved brick mural of a longhorn cattle drive running the length of the building. http://www.fnbvalentine.com/ They have a mounted longhorn head in the lobby. There are a handful of motels and some river outfitters on the edge of town but no big box stores of any kind. We pull up to the BunkHouse Restaurant and Lounge at the corner of Rt. 20 and Main St. for lunch. Cowboy hats are the norm for men. As we check out, “Uncle Joe” at the cash register does a few truly amazing card tricks for us with a deck from the nearby Rosebud Indian casino.

We drive along the north side of the river 18 miles to Sparks, population 3, where we are staying at the Heartland Elk Guest Ranch. They raise a herd of elk to stock their private hunting operation. Next to the main house is a pasture with five big bull elk. A larger pasture nearby holds about 100 cow elk and calves. Our cabin is across the road in a open Ponderosa pine grove at the edge of a steep canyon. We're high on the north side of the Niobrara valley. Through the trees a panorama of the sand hills glows in the south.

We were originally drawn to this place by the striking descriptions in the book Old Jules by Mari Sandoz. This book vividly describes her father and the pioneering life in the Sand Hills in the later nineteenth century. Merry stopped to see this area on her return from a trip to Utah a few years ago and was captured by the landscape and the beauty of the Niobrara River. We've planed a return trip here ever since.

In front of our cabin the land drops off steeply into rough country cut by small streams that lead eventually to the Niobrara. This land is fenced for pasture but seems little used. As a result it is a haven for wildlife and birds. Only minutes into her first walk Joli scares up three mule deer that bound away as if on springs, all four feet off the ground. We see small herds of both mule deer and whitetails every day. This is the furthest west for many eastern species and the furthest east for many western species.

Toward dusk our first day Merry gestures me to the cabin door to show me a Great Horned Owl sitting on the ground only a few feet away. Because of its ears and coloring it looks a bit like a large cat.

Just as it's getting light, Joli insists she needs to go out for a third time and will not take no for an answer. As we step off the porch I look up to see we are surrounded by horses. We step back onto the porch. Joli is awestruck as one of the horses comes right up to the porch and sniffs her. They are calm and curious. I wake Merry so she can see. The horses graze slowly away. Merry goes to the ranch house and is told the horses have been turned out to cut the grass around the cabins.

The spring fed Niobrara is managed by the National Park Service as a National Scenic River. http://www.nps.gov/niob/index.htm During the weekends of the summer season hundreds of canoes and tubes float the section of the river from Valentine to Rocky Ford each day. Brenda, who manages the cabins, cooks for the elk hunters and drives the canoe shuttle van, meets us at 10 am. We are on the river by 10:30. No one else is at the launch at Berry Bridge; we see no one else on the river. The day warms into the low 60s. Clear green water rushes us along. We get into a paddling rhythm that allows us to avoid the rocks and sandbars and gives Merry time to take photographs. High bluffs of cream colored stone rise alternatively on our right and left. Sunshine lights multi-colored grasses and the remaining leaves of a few deciduous trees. We stop at Smith Falls, about half way along our trip, to see the highest waterfall in Nebraska. Too soon we're at the takeout at Brewer Bridge, feet damp, a bit tired but elated.

On Saturday we wake to about half an inch of snow on the ground. We pack the car and bid adieu to our eight horse friends. Then it's off on the two day trip across most of Nebraska, the western edge of Iowa and all of Missouri back to St. Louis.

Family Reunion

2009-10-03T20:37:00.002-05:00

“So, how long has it been?”

“I can't remember, probably 40 years...”

“I think the last time was your brother Rick's wedding.”

“Yeah, that sounds right, that would have been 1972, I think.”

We're sitting in my cousin Bill's loft in the beautiful Western Auto building in downtown Kansas City. Merry and Joli and I are on our way to a week in the Sand Hills of northern Nebraska. We stopped for the night in Kansas City specifically so I could catch up with my cousin Bill Pitts who has lived out here for the last 30 years or so. Our trips to our shared hometown never corresponded over the years. My mom would occasionally mention that he had dropped by when I spoke with her on our weekly telephone calls. Before her death she suggested I try to see him, since we now lived in the same state, never mind it was opposite sides of that state. So here we were.

Bill, who is two years older than me, looks a lot like my younger brother Rick: same black hair, same bald spot (smaller than my brother's), same build, same basic complexion. When we met him in the lobby of his building Merry recognized him at once even though she had never met him before.

It would be an understatement to say the Pitts family has not been really close. Bill and I remembered some family gatherings at our summer place from the early 60s, but none since. The few family members of my generation all moved away from our home town, Hanover, PA, after high school and started lives elsewhere. There was not enough of whatever it takes to pull us back together.

After taking some time to tell each other the short version of the stories of our lives since high school, we headed out to eat at Lidia's, a signature Italian restaurant of Lidia Bastianich, host of Lidia's Italy on PBS. It's housed in an old railroad freight house that has been converted to a big, stylish, bright and busy place. The food is very good. I dug into a plate of three fresh pastas: a sweet potato ravioli, a spicy linguini and a bolognese rigatoni. We relaxed and expanded on our stories. I told them the catfish story [see: http://edpitts.blogspot.com/search/label/catfish] and in return they explained the old Ozark tradition of the “sportsman.” It seems that when a southern Missouri good ole boy is out of work and somebody asks him what he does, he says he's a sportsman; you know, fishes some days, hunts or trains his hunting dogs on other days. His wife works.

After our leisurely dinner Bill gingerly eased his car through the packed streets of the Crossroads Arts District. A glam rock band was on a stage set up in a parking lot complete with smoke and sequins. “First Friday” was in full swing. http://www.kccrossroads.org/ The art galleries are open late. Restaurants and bars are hopping. A film flickers on the side of a warehouse. We saw a whole troupe of what appeared to be circus performers of some sort waiting to cross the street in full costume, complete with two costumed miniature horses. KC, the most midwestern city of the mid-midwest is hip. I see this as a sign that our country is finally starting to grow up and learn to enjoy itself.

Finally, we had to go. We rescued Joli and let her run around for a few minutes to meet my rediscovered family members. Then it was off into the windy midwestern night.

CPMS and other ODAR acronyms

2009-09-26T11:54:00.003-05:00

Merry's been away this week taking a load of fragile items and a canoe back to Syracuse, so there is no new picture for this blog. Check out her new pictures from the Adirondacks here: http://meredithleonard.blogspot.com/

I've been mostly focusing on work this week. I have a lot of cases pending and need to decide as many as possible before leaving for my new post in Syracuse. As I work through these cases I've been reminded of the amazing process Social Security uses to keep track of cases as they move through the adjudication system. If you are interested in knowing more than you need to about how this bit of bureaucracy works, keep reading.

The last Friday of every month is the “official” last day of the month for purposes of toting up what has been accomplished. For ALJs this means the “bean-counters” make note of the total number of cases assigned to each judge, the number scheduled for hearings, the number of final decisions issued and the number of cases pending in “judge controlled” status. They get their data from an electronic case management system called CPMS that can display a constantly updated listing of the current status of every case for every judge. When I'm reviewing a case before a hearing it's in ARPR. If it's waiting for my post hearing review it's in ALPO. Decisions waiting to be edited are in EDIT and decisions waiting to be signed are in SIGN. There are “benchmarks” assigned to every status. If a case remains in any status too long, someone, somewhere is bound to notice. Did I mention that four letter acronyms are dearly loved by your government?

This case tracking system applies to every employee at the Office of Disability Adjudication and Review [ODAR]. From the second a case comes to ODAR at the beginning of the request for a hearing until that case is finally closed, it resides in some status on CPMS and responsibility for the work is assigned to someone. Yes, there is a category of “unassigned” cases but that case is actually sitting for a day or two in a supervisor's cue just waiting to be assigned to the appropriate employee.

Not only are there benchmarks that apply to the time individual cases stay in a given status, there are “goals” for total numbers of cases decided. All ALJs nationwide have the goal of issuing 500 – 700 “legally sufficient” decisions per year. To achieve this overall goal, each office assigns sub-goals to every employee. Every month everyone knows exactly how many cases need to be completed to meet the goals at every level. Everyone is acutely aware that their numbers will be toted up on the last Friday of every month. To deal with this mutual stress the unwritten rule seems to be to pretend not to care about the pressure while keeping an eye on your goals. Managers, including the Hearing Office Chief ALJ [HOCALJ], the Hearing Office Director [HOD] and the Group Supervisors [GS], send out email updates on everyone's progress toward monthly and yearly goals so no one forgets they are watching.

So far as I can tell, nothing bad happens when goals are not met. Then again, our office has met or exceeded our goals for every month I've been here. Coincidence? I don't think so.

There is a very good reason for all this attention to numbers. Social Security operates the largest judicial system on the planet. More than 2.6 million people applied for some type of disability benefit this last year. Every one of those applications gets decided at some level. Over the past decade the “backlog” of applicants for benefits who are waiting for their case to be adjudicated has grown. Right now if a person is not approved at the initial level they can expect to wait 15 – 18 months for a hearing before an ALJ. In some parts of the country, especially the northeast, it's worse.

Everyone acknowledges that this is too long to wait. It's too long for the deserving applicant but also for those who don't qualify. People put their life on hold while they wait. We need to do better. This year agency-wide the top goal was to decide all cases pending 850 days or more. Last year it was 900 days. That's right, highest priority was to decide cases pending 2 1/3 years or more. When I left work Friday no official announcement had been made, but I know St. Louis met this goal on Tuesday.

This past Friday, Sept. 25, marked the official end of the federal 08-09 fiscal year. I took a look at my own first year numbers. I held hearings in about 675 cases, about 56 a month, or about 12 a week. That gives me about 3 hours to work on each case including preparation, a one hour hearing and decision writing. Since I did take two weeks or so off for vacation, the real averages are a bit higher. I issued decisions in about 540 cases. The remainder of the cases were postponed for future action. My productivity is speeding up a bit, so I'm confident I'll do slightly better next year.

After working in St. Louis for just over one year, I have over 800 cases pending on my docket. I started with about 500. Some judges in St. Louis have over 900. The situation is pretty much the same across the country. If every judge in the country issues 500 decisions a year [that's 700,000 cases] and if cases keep flowing into the system at the same rate, we won't ever reach a point where every case can be concluded in one year.

So, it's easy to see how numbers can become a fetish in my job. I try not to think about it too much. My work is to decide each case on its merits, not to meet a quota. Wish me luck.

St. Louis Smells

2009-09-19T08:26:00.003-05:00

“Wind's from the south today.”

When we toured the big Budweiser plant here last December we realized that the slightly sweet odor we occasionally smell in our neighborhood emanates from the brewery, a mixture of fermented grains with strong overtones of hops. The brewery is only a mile from our house. It vents massive amounts of this non-toxic gas every hour. We only smell it when the wind is from the south.

It's a good clean smell. Nobody complains. It's also a reassuring smell in a time of economic uncertainty since it means beer is still being brewed by one of St. Louis' biggest employers.

Most of the time I'm not aware of smelling anything. The scientific explanation for this is fairly simple. First, compared to other mammals, humans have a very puny nose. Second, we have evolved so that sight is our primary contact with the world. We've got eyes exquisitely well suited to interpret everything we encounter, so smelling the world takes a back seat. Third, our olfactory system stops smelling things quite quickly. Even though the chemicals for the odor are still there we forget we can smell them. The result is that human beings are not very discriminating in the olfactory department.

Because we live in a world mostly encountered by sight, we're unreliable reporters of smells. Some people are better than others at recognizing and describing what they smell. Most people typically just categorize smells as pleasant or unpleasant. To describe a specific smell we refer to common experience rather than the smell itself. Something smells like rotting fish or like a rose. Descriptions of complex specific smells are elusive. No one can describe a specific perfume, for example, without sounding hilariously vague: “violets, sugar and a hint of musk” does not conjure up anything for me.

I bring this up because of an incident this week involving our dog, Joli. First thing every morning while it's still dark I let Joli out into our yard. She's gone 2-3 minutes then comes back to eat her breakfast. On Tuesday I realized about 10 minutes had passed and she had not come back. I was concerned enough to go out to see what was up.

I saw her at the foot of the steps crouched in a typical border collie “stare.” This stance always means she has spotted something she believes is potential prey. I went down to her. In a group of flower pots overflowing with annuals was a small possum. I'd seen two in our yard before so I wasn't that surprised. Joli's nose was within a foot of the possum. The possum was cornered. It was hissing. Joli was so interested in this small animal that she growled at me to let me know how unhappy she was at being told to get inside and let the possum go on its way.

After about 15 minutes I let Joli out again to see what she would do. She immediately went to the spot where she had confronted the possum. She took a minute or two to investigate that area then set off on a complete patrol sniffing every inch of our yard and garden. She seemed sure the possum was still around. Its persistent odor told her to keep searching.

For the next two days she repeated this very complete search every morning to no avail. Only when there was no residual scent left was she finally convinced the possum was gone.

As chance would have it the Times Sunday Book Review this past week featured Inside of a Dog: What dogs see smell & know by Alexandra Horowitz, a psychology professor at Barnard College, Columbia University. http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/13/books/review/Schine-t.html?_r=1&em

Professor Horwitz contends that we can only discover what our canine companions are thinking by trying to understand how they experience the world, their umwelt as it were. The key to understanding a dog is to realize that dogs primarily sniff the world. “As we see the world, the dog smells it. The dog's universe is a stratum of complex odors. The world of scents is at least as rich as the world of sight.” http://insideofadog.com/

A dog not only has a much larger area in their nose and brain devoted to smelling, they constantly renew the air in their noses so they continue to smell things long after we humans can sense no odor at all. Recent research into the mechanics of sniffing shows it to be a complex phenomena that allows a dog to exchange the air in its nostrils without inhaling or exhaling. Humans are just not very well equipped to sniff.

For me St. Louis is the strong smell of hops on a south wind; for Joli it's the subtile scent of opossum.

Chado - The Way of Tea

2009-09-12T06:45:00.003-05:00

The Japanese Festival is one of the premier events at the Missouri Botanical Garden, a/k/a Shaw Garden, after its founder, Henry Shaw. Held every Labor Day weekend, it attracts thousands. When we first visited Shaw Garden last fall we were astonished to find it contains a 14-acre formal Japanese garden. This part of the garden is named Seiwa-en, which means “the garden of pure, clear harmony and peace.” http://www.outside-in.com/seiwa-en/index2.html A four-acre lake is complemented with waterfalls, streams, bridges and water-filled basins. Dry gravel gardens are raked into rippling patterns. Carefully placed islands rise from the lake. Largest of these is Nakajima. It crosses the lake, connected to each bank by traditional bridges. We were both drawn to Nakajima, but the entrances were barred.

We learned that Nakajima is a sacred teahouse island reserved for tea ceremonies that are held one weekend each year in a traditional soan, or “farm hut style” teahouse, a gift from Missouri's sister state of Nagano, Japan. This soan was built in Japan, shipped to St. Louis, reassembled by Japanese craftsmen, and dedicated with a Shinto ceremony in 1977. http://www.mobot.org/hort/gardens/japanese/teahouse/index.shtml

Merry and I resolved to attend a tea ceremony and see the island. We finally did last Sunday, September 6, but not without a little drama.

Chado, forty minute tea ceremonies, are held on Nakajima 6 times a day for the three days of the Japanese festival. Each seating is restricted to 12 people. Tickets can only be purchased at the entrance to teahouse island one hour before the seating. We planned to go Saturday early.

Saturday dawned gray. Thunder could be heard just before a sustained downpour started. When we reached Shaw Garden at 9 am it was still pouring. We were told at the gate that the three early seatings of Chado had been cancelled. We went in anyway and enjoyed the garden in the rain. We toured the Bonsai exhibit, listened to some traditional drumming, ate, and watched people. Merry has some terrific photos of this visit on her blog http://meredithleonard.blogspot.com/

We decided to come back the next day to try again. When we reached the gate we were told due to the threatening weather the ceremony would be held in a room indoors. The disappointment was too much for me. I decided to leave, but Merry wanted to stay and experience Chado, even in a much reduced form. I got in the car and started to exit when I saw Merry running toward me. Plans had changed, the ceremony would be in the teahouse on the island unless it started raining again. Merry ran ahead to stand in line to buy tickets.

An hour later we meet our guide by the Arbor of the Plum Wind. He opens the outer gate that bars the bridge to the island. As we walk he explains the design of the “roji” garden. The outer garden called “soto-roji” is paved with broad stepping stones laid in a sweeping arc. The plants are simple, small shrubs, no flowers. This is a transition area where we can walk without being required to pay much attention as we leave our daily cares behind.

At the end of the arc we come to two parallel rows of thick trimmed bamboo that narrows the focus dramatically. Now the path is paved with uneven tobi-ishi stones, slowing the gait and encouraging much closer attention. An inner gate opens to a courtyard of raked brown gravel. A stone basin filled with water sits by the entrance for symbolic cleansing. Three boulders rise from the gravel sea, two bigger ones on the right, a smaller on the left.

The teahouse is a small room in a simple hut with a tile roof, rough wooden pillars and mud walls. Bamboo hedges screen it entirely from any view off the island. The room has an alcove with a calligraphy scroll and some fresh flowers, and an alcove for the host to prepare tea. The scroll is white, with only four characters: wa [harmony], kei [respect], sei [purity], jaku [tranquility]. The floor is covered by four and a half bamboo tatami mats. One wall is open to the weather, but this is not the door, rather a window. The door is along the side, so small it must be crawled through. We learn only seven of us can enter, the rest will be served tea in the courtyard. I'm right by the entrance. I slip off my shoes and crawl in first.

I'm told to sit in the “least honored guest” spot nearest the host. The last guest across from me will be honored by being served first. Our host is Professor Kimiko Gunji of the University of Illinois. She is assisted by three of her students and a young girl in a beautiful red kimono.

Our host trained in Kyoto to be a tea master in the tradition of the Urasenke school. http://www.urasenke.or.jp/texte/chado/chado2.html She leads us through the simple steps. She carefully cleans the utensils. Powered green tea is wisked into a foam in hot water. You eat a sweet cookie and candy. A bowl of tea is carefully placed before you. You offer your tea to the guest seated to your left. They politely refuse. You drink the tea. The bowls are collected. http://japanhouse.art.uiuc.edu/oldsite/tea/1/1_TOC.html

Every move is choreographed. The utensils are beautiful. Every thing encourages contemplation.

We reluctantly leave the teahouse. We linger in the courtyard. Finally, we cross a wooden drum bridge and return to the rest of the garden.

The forty minutes on the island was one of the most peaceful meditations I've experienced. It opened a small space in my consciousness. I feel ready.

Blog 52

2009-09-05T07:23:00.002-05:00

This is my 52^nd weekly blog. When I started this project last September I was unsure whether I could or would be able to write an interesting short entry every week, but I've gradually learned the rhythms. I find the discipline it imposes helpful. I write for an hour a day from about 4-5 am. This fits my schedule as an early riser and pleases Joli the dog. She's in the mood for play, pats and eating her daily meal as I write. I work on a few different story ideas each week. Often I don't settle on the final topic until Saturday morning, then I assemble the fragments, rewrite, have Merry edit the result and get her help finding the appropriate photographs mostly from those she's shot during the week.

In retrospect I'm glad I decided to also post these reflections on the internet. Since I started posting to Blogger back in March, about 800 people have visited my site. Thanks to a handy little tool called Sitemeter I can tell a bit about each visit. By far the most visits were from people who somehow already had my web address. The pages with the next highest number of visits due to the use of search engines like Google were the stories about towboats, catfish, Lemp Junque, Devil's Back and the black fly derby. I have no idea why these subjects are the most popular. The average number of daily visitors has increased over time with my current average at 8. I've had hits from all over the world, but most are from Central NY and the St. Louis area.

The number of visits to my site jumped dramatically when I got a plug from Bob Crowe, a local lawyer who posts the amazing blog called “St. Louis Daily Photo.” Bob mentioned his photography hobby in court last spring and gave me his blog address. I've been faithfully checking his site on a daily basis since. He has a terrific eye for portraits. His weekly photographs of the St. Louis Arch are a revelation. Check him out at http://saintlouismodailyphoto.blogspot.com/

Bob's photo blog inspired Merry to start her own daily photo blog and join the group of dedicated amateur photographers who record daily events in cities around the world. Merry's blog can be found at http://meredithleonard.blogspot.com/. Merry's daily posts also appear on the site of City Daily Photo where you can find beautiful images of everything imaginable. I recommend this site highly, but be warned, you can easily spend hours at http://www.citydailyphoto.com/portal/index.php . Merry and I were both surprised about a month ago when a fellow in England decided to include our blogs in an index he maintains of all the blogs he can find focused on specific localities. He includes blogs that are active as well as those with no current posts. His site called “Around the World” is a treasure trove of photos and written reflection at http://www.geraldengland.co.uk/dp/

Using the internet to post publicly accessible personal reflections started in the mid 90s. The first blog is credited to a Swarthmore College student, Justin Hall, who started Links.net in January 1994. The term “weblog” was coined by John Barger in 1997 as a contraction for “logging the web.” Peter Merholtz shortened “weblog” to “blog” in April 1999. The first free web tool for blogging was “Blogger” released by Pyra in August 1999. When Google bought Blogger in 2003 it had 200,000 active users. http://www.webopedia.com/quick_ref/history_of_blogging.asp Now there are a host of free tools for blogging and millions of users.

As a result it is now possible to catch quite intimate glimpses of life everywhere on the globe. There are also blogs on politics, sports, and some that are just plain crazy rants. Major news outlets have gradually come to style their web-based presentations after blogs and promote feedback from readers. My favorites are those that just focus on the surprises, mystery and beauty of everyday life. I enjoy the images. Most people who post such entries love the places they live and want to share that love with others. It promotes understanding in a way not possible before the development of the blogosphere.

Another big advantage for me is the heartfelt response some of my posts draw from you. The post last week about cleaning out my mother's house brought a number of quite beautiful email replies from those of you who have done the same, or who anticipate the experience. Thank you Barbara, Chris, Margaret, Allison, Aaron, Kerry and Dan for sharing your stories.

Now, on to year two.

Leaving home

2009-08-30T15:55:00.002-05:00

This past week Merry, Joli & I were in Hanover, PA getting my mother's house ready for sale. My mother died in May at the age of 95. She was still living on her own in the house at 103 Third St. where she lived since the early 1950s. The house was built by my grandfather, William E. Pitts, around 1909 when he opened Hanover Heel & Innersole Co. Grandfather Pitts wanted his immediate family to live together so he built a nearly identical house right next door at 101 Third St. with separate apartments upstairs and down for his older children. When I was born my parents lived upstairs at 101. My father and his brother Bill managed the factory after my grandfather died. When my grandmother moved to Florida, we moved into 103. Because the house has been continuously occupied by the Pitts family for 100 years it accumulated layers and layers and layers of stuff.

My brother, Rick and his wife, Andy, worked steadily on cleaning out the house ever since mom died. They collected and donated her clothing. They sifted through and removed several layers of once treasured but now useless stuff from the attic. They diligently worked on the task of sorting drawers stuffed with stuff that had not been touched for decades.

I only had a week. When we arrived I sat down with my brother to make a plan. We agreed that Labor Day was a good target date for the end of the clean-out. We didn't know how we would get everything done by then, but it seemed like a good idea to pick a date. Merry ordered a big dumpster so we could more speedily proceed with the clean out. I decided to interview auctioneers and firm up hiring a real estate agent. My brother agreed to come back on Tuesday so we could do more planning. It would be an understatement to say we were daunted. We took a deep breath and began.

Interviewing an auctioneer is a unique experience. I walked through the house, top to bottom with two of them separately as they sized up the assorted stuff. Both are extremely experienced, with well established reputations. Both are named Randy. Randy #1 started working at the age of 5 at his father's auction house. Randy #2 started working at auctions 30 years ago while still in High School. Both had very convincing sales presentations. Randy #1 argued for an on-site auction in the house. Randy #2 wanted to do the auction at a hall rented from a local church. The costs worked out about the same. I decided to make a decision on Tuesday with my brother.

Meeting the auctioneers clarified our task considerably. They told us we were on the right track. They acknowledged we had done a good job so far, but both were a bit worried we would trash something valuable. Nothing more was to be put in boxes that they would just have to unpack later. Things should be left in place. Our job was to focus on finding and removing the personal items and the pure trash. Washing all the glassware would also help. They assured us they would clean out the house. Great. Labor Day was starting to look possible. My mood lightened a little.

At a pleasant dinner Tuesday my brother and I decided to hire Randy #2 to conduct an off-site auction.

For the rest of the week Merry and I hauled trash to the dumpster and searched for personal stuff. I went through about 1000 books and piles of dusty brittle papers in the attic piling the trivial and the terminally water damaged (and old Reader's Digests) into garbage bags that I hauled down to the dumpster. Merry sorted and washed every dish and piece of brick-a-brack in the kitchen and china closet. At one point I was reduced nearly to tears on discovering my mother had kept box after box of treasured stones collected during her trips. Hundreds of stones came to light in the garage, attic, cupboards, in mayonnaise jars in closets. I carefully piled them all in one spot by the driveway. We plodded on and on every day until we collapsed.

By Friday morning I just wanted to flee. I had to push myself to return to the house one last time. Merry seemed to be holding up better as she washed more dishes. I opened drawers to find old ashtrays, newspaper clippings, and tablecloths. I felt out of breath and anxious. I couldn't concentrate or decide what to keep or pitch. I told Merry I couldn't go on. I was on the verge of tears or possibly hysteria. Quite suddenly Mer also wanted to bolt. We just downed tools, locked the door and drove away. We left a lot undone.

I doubt I'll return to my boyhood home. I've been going back ever since I left for college in 1966. Now my ties are broken. I mourn the loss. I'm also happy to be free of the weight. It hard get a handle on this feeling. I hope to understand it better someday. For now I'm just happy to be back to my life in St. Louis.

Cotton Module Builder

2009-08-23T07:47:00.004-05:00

When I hear cases in Cape Girardeau I often encounter claimants who had jobs unique to the region. I've written before about interviewing a tow boat deckhand. In case you missed that one you can read it here: http://edpitts.blogspot.com/2009/05/towboat.html. I've also taken some pretty interesting testimony from a crop duster tender. This week it was a cotton module builder.

In every hearing I follow a general outline of questions. I start by getting a vocational background. The claimant is a fellow in his later 40s from the “bootheel” of Missouri. There are no cities in this section of far southeastern Missouri. Its agriculture has more in common with Texas and Alabama than the rest of Missouri. It's flat Mississippi bottom land. They grow a lot of cotton.

Within the first minutes of the hearing I always ask how far the the claimant went in school, whether they had any special vocational training and whether they served in the military. To this last introductory question this claimant replied he had been in the army for a few weeks.

“A few weeks?”

“Yeah, they threw me out. They said I had an attitude problem; that I wasn't suited.”

“What happened?”

“Well, Judge, you see they made us take a swimming test. When I jumped in I got water in my nose so I crawled out. They said I had to get back in and tread water. I can't do it the way they wanted. I told them, but they threatened to throw me in the brig if I didn't jump back in. The Sargent yelled at me what if you have to abandon ship? Don't you want to know how to tread water? I told him that if I had to abandon ship I'd wear a life vest and if they'd give me a life vest I'd jump right back in the pool. They threw me out after that, you know, for talking back.”

The vocational expert smiled. The claimant's lawyer was grinning under his walrus mustache. I liked this guy. He claimed to be a slow learner, but he was showing a good deal of common sense, not to mention foolish courage.

I moved on to past jobs. He had a hard time keeping one for long. They were all heavy labor, farm and factory work. I asked him about the field work he had done.

“Judge, I worked building modules one season for about seven days, but my condition kept me from doing it.”

“Did you say modules?”

“Yup, you know, cotton modules.”

“No, I don't. I'm new to Missouri. What's a cotton module?”

“Well you sit on this big machine and pull levers.” He put each hand out in front of his chest and pantomimed a slow alternate pumping movement. “It packs the cotton down.”

I was unable to visualize anything. I tried a few more questions, but he just kept pumping his hands out and back. I looked at the vocational expert. She shrugged as if to say she didn't know either. The claimant's lawyer cleared his throat.

“Judge, maybe I can help here. Back in the old days when cotton was harvested they would dump in into wagons then field hands would climb on top and pack it down with their feet. When a wagon was full they would haul it to the gin. This took a lot of wagons and was very time consuming. Nowadays there is a machine that looks a bit like a garbage truck that builds huge modules of cotton right on the ground in the fields. It uses a hydraulic ram to pack the cotton then these huge modules are hauled to the gin for processing. The operator sits like in a tractor cab and pulls two levers to operate the ram.”

“OK, now I sort of get it. Does operating these levers take much force?”
“No Judge, it's pretty easy, but I just couldn't do it. They had to let me go.”

To get a better idea of how the module builder works take a look at this short video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hz_mmyeVIvc , for those who need to know even more about the advent of this quite significant agricultural innovation see: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cotton_module_builder.

As the hearing was drawing to a close I ask whether the claimant has a driver's license. This fellow said he didn't. Why was that? He lost it after a conviction for DWI.

“But Judge, I wasn't even driving! See this buddy of mine was with me and we were both pretty drunk. When the cops pulled us over he was driving. They didn't arrest me, but they took his car, so I rode along to the jail. They locked him up, but let me go, see. I went out, but it was winter and I didn't have a coat. I walked along a row of cop cars until I found one unlocked with the keys in it. I got in and started it up and turned on the heater. Well, after a while I got on the radio and tried to call one of my friends to come get me. That's when the cops came out and arrested me, and I wasn't even driving. I guess I done some pretty dumb things when I get drunk.”

I believed him.

McKinley Heights neighbors

2009-08-15T08:00:00.003-05:00

Maybe if it hadn't happened in one day, I wouldn't have noticed.

6 am, walking to the bus, a neighbor I never particularly noticed called out to me.

“Hey, haven't seen you lately, thought you might've moved.”

I quickly explained that Merry had driven me to work in the mornings for the last couple of weeks.

“OK then. Have a good one.”

As I continued to the bus stop I was amazed. Had I ever seen this guy before? Of course, I must have. I probably passed him every day; a middle aged black guy in work clothes getting into his car the same time I headed for the bus. I must have seen him. Probably nodded to him in passing or said hi.

Later on the way home, I hopped off the bus at the same corner. There's a talkative short black guy with wrap around dark glasses who usually gets off at the same stop every day. I've said hello to him frequently. He's a janitor at a senior housing unit across town. As the bus was just pulling away he turned to me with a surprised look on his face.

“Where's your bag, man? Do I have to help you stop the bus?”

I do carry a brief case most days. Today I decided I didn't need it.

“Thanks, I left my case home today.”
“Oh, alright then. Didn't want you to lose it.”
“Thanks, for keeping me straight, have a good weekend.”

“You, too.”

Two times in one day on the same street corner made me wonder how much casual neighbors notice me. I remembered another example from about a month earlier on the same street corner. I woman often walks her Boston Terrier on the other side of the street in the evening the same time I take Joli for her constitutional. I had said hi to her a couple of times from across the street. On this occasion we had changed the time of our walk for a few days by half an hour because I had worked late.

“Hey, you doing OK?” She called out across the busy street. “Haven't seen you for a while.”

“I'm fine, thanks for asking.”

It finally dawned on me that I live in a neighborhood.

I vaguely recall reading the classic description of what makes a neighborhood in Street Corner Society by William Foote Whyte in my first sociology course many years ago. One key factor is that neighbors recognize and acknowledge each other. Making the slightest contact by saying “Hi” makes the stranger into a neighbor. Nice feeling. Neighbors look out for each other.

It was about this time last year we decided to move to Ann Ave. in McKinley Heights. Now without my particularly noticing it's becoming our neighborhood.

Devil's Back

2009-08-09T08:54:00.005-05:00

This weekend we finally got to put our canoe in the water in Missouri. The weather was predicted to be hot Saturday, heading toward 100° with no thunderstorms. I left work an hour early on Friday, we loaded our camping gear and the tandem canoe and set out for the banks of the Bourbeuse River. Its name is French for “muddy” but in true Missouri style it's pronounced “burr-bus.” It's an interesting stream on the north-eastern edge of the Ozarks. The Bourbeuse River is one of two major tributaries of the Meramec River. Even though it's only an hour's drive from St. Louis it has a nice remote feel. The section we paddled, or to use the local term “floated,” was from Peter's Ford to just before Noser Mill. These points are less than two miles apart by dirt road, but 7.5 miles apart by river. Throughout its entire length it twists back on itself over and over. The total length of the river is 147 miles but the airline distance between source and mouth is only 53 miles.

We decided to camp near the river to get an early start on Saturday before it got too hot. We also needed to find a way to shuttle our car or canoe. The best way to do both these things turned out to be Devil's Back Floats.

We turned off I-44 at Union where US 50, the old national road, heads west. Outside Beaufort we left 50, crossed the river for the third time then turned down a little side road. Where the side road dead ends at the old bridge, closed but not torn down, we turned down a farm road. A little way back is a sturdy farm house with an old Coleman plastic cooler canoe planted as a flower bed in the yard and about a dozen outbuildings. We were greeted at the roadside by Dolores Swoboda. We paid $20 cash for two nights camping ($5 each per night, dogs free) and $10 for the canoe shuttle the next morning. The dirt road continued down a very steep bank to a soybean field in the bottomland. The Bourbeuse makes a giant hairpin loop here creating a plain that floods every spring. The campground consists of a few picnic tables along the stream bed under a canopy of mature silver maples. The amenities consisted of a concrete boat ramp and a single hole latrine. Only two other parties were camping there. Perfect.

After we set up camp we heard Lester Swoboda coming by on his camo four-wheeler delivering firewood. We waived him down to find out where to get water.

“There's a spigot on that concrete building up at the house. It's straight out our deep well. Won't get better water anywhere.”

We snacked and watched the river flow as the evening came on. A red pick-up backed a boat trailer down the ramp and dropped off a john boat, tricked out for fishing. When they tried to exit the ramp they were stuck. They had backed down too far. Their back wheels had dropped off the end of the concrete into the silty river bottom. After a few minutes futilely spinning their tires only to dig in even deeper, they jumped into their car and left. A little while later they were followed back down the hill by Lester with his big tractor. We wondered if he sat on his porch waiting until he heard fools spinning their wheels off the boat ramp.

When Merry took the attached picture, the woman with this bunch warned her not to post it on the internet. Later that evening another red pick-up did the same thing when trying to pull their boat out of the river. Instead of getting the tractor, this group of geniuses all piled on the tailgate and burned rubber until they finally exited in a thick cloud of blue smoke.

At about 8 am the next morning we were picked up by the daughter of the family in a big white four-wheel drive truck. We loaded the canoe and headed down two miles of gravel road to Peter's Ford. I asked why their farm is called Devil's Back. Well, it seems that in olden days the road through the farm was the main road to a ford of the river that would take you to the town of Leslie where there was a railroad depot. The road runs a mile or so along a ridge with steep drops on both sides before descending to the river. Farmers would drive their teams of horses along the ridge but as they descended there was a place where the road was exposed on both sides. Supposedly horses would spook at this point and sometimes tip the load over the side of the bluffs. Farmers came to call the place the “devil's back.” The name stuck.

We had a great day of canoeing. The first half of our trip consisted of some paddling, but mostly navigating rock gardens around gravel bars. Limestone cliffs run along the left side of the stream and sometimes the stream undercuts the bluffs making for beautiful moss and fern gardens, as well as some tricky paddling. About halfway along the bluffs cross to the right side and the river deepens. Now there are fewer gravel bars. The current slows, and slows, and slows, until we could detect none at all. We were hot and tired. Our backs were getting sore. The campground had to be just around the next bend, then it was. We pulled out, then fell back and let the warm stream soothe our muscles.

Ah! Canoeing.

Lewis & Clark Trail #1

2009-08-01T12:24:00.002-05:00

The weather last Sunday (July 26) was perfect for exploring. Merry, Joli and I headed out of St. Louis on I-44 with no fixed destination. After driving southwest for about an hour we turned west on Route 100, passed the strip malls of Washington, MO and entered Missouri's “Rhineland.”

This stretch of the Missouri River from Washington to Hermann on the south bank and Augusta on the north bank was settled in the early 19^th century by Germans from the Rhine river valley. Here the mighty, muddy Missouri River winds through a wide bottomland. A little further back steep forested hills give the area an enclosed, comfortable feeling.

In the little town of New Haven I spotted a sign for the town's historic river front. We wound through the modest town, then down a very steep street to the lower town. The historic town consists of one long block of brick storefronts and a few houses. The area is protected by a levee. We parked in front of the little town museum.

Across the street the levee has been made into a little park with a paved walk on top with benches and historical signs. The signs informed us that New Haven was founded in 1836 as a riverboat stop called "Miller's Landing." Founder Phillip Miller operated a wood yard on the river to fuel the steamboat trade. The arrival of the Union Pacific railroad in the 1850s brought more commerce and activity to the area. In 1856 the town changed its name to New Haven. As with the other little towns of Missouri's rhineland, New Haven was settled by Germans, many of them from Borgholzhausen.

The levee park also has a small log cabin style pavilion dedicated the the memory of John Colter (c.1774 – May 7, 1812 or November 22, 1813). We learned that Colter served as a private in the Corps of Discovery. On the return trip in 1806 the expedition reached the Mandan villages in present-day North Dakota. There they encountered Forest Hancock and Joseph Dickson, two frontiersmen who were headed into the upper Missouri River country in search of furs. On August 13, 1806, Lewis and Clark permitted Colter to be honorably discharged almost two months early so that he could lead the two trappers back to the wilderness. During the winter of 1807–1808 Colter became the first known person of European descent to enter the region now known as Yellowstone National Park. He explored the Jackson Hole area and the Grand Tetons Mountain Range.

In the next few years Colter had many adventures, some of mythic proportions. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Colter Around 1810 he returned to St. Louis to recount his further explorations to William Clark who was serving as principal Indian agent of the vast area they had explored. Clark drew a map from Colter's descriptions that remained in use for the next 75 years. Colter married and returned to what is now called the New Haven area to settle at nearby Boeuf Creek only to die a few years later.

We drove the old Water Street looking for a place for lunch. Most of the storefronts are restored but abandoned. No lunch here. We continued to Hermann, the next town. We stopped at the downtown deli and custard stand for cheeseburgers. Hermann has successfully capitalized on its German heritage and on its location at one of the few highway bridges across the Missouri. We ate our lunch on sidewalk benches outside the deli feeding tasty scraps to Joli and watching the bikers who gather here in significant numbers wander the streets before roaring out of town.

We crossed the river and continued west. Here we followed the Katy Trail www.bikekatytrail.com for a bit. The Katy Trail is a very successful “rails to trails” conversion that runs along the Missouri River. After passing the little town of Rhineland we came to an area where 300 foot bluffs line the road. At Bluffton, no more than a couple of houses, we turned down a dirt road to the parking area of Grand Bluffs Conservation Area. A mile hike up, the steep trail ends at a platform on top of one of the bluffs. The view of the Missouri River valley is spectacular. Check out Merry's post from last Sunday for a look at the view. http://meredithleonard.blogspot.com/2009/07/grand-bluffs-conservation-area.html

At the viewing platform is a historic marker that shows Lewis & Clark standing at a similar spot to survey the same scene in 1804.

By the time we returned to the car it was getting late. We were hot and tired. Using the internet I had located what I thought would be a nice restaurant in St. Albans, a town we would pass on our return. As we left the secondary road, we entered a space warp. A few seconds earlier we were driving past small farms and dense woods. Suddenly we were surrounded by acre on acre of lawn and McMansions. Side streets were labeled “The Meadows,” “The Heathers,” “The Grove,” etc. Real estate signs informed us the houses were priced from “the low 700s” or in another area in “the 900s.” We passed what might have been a downtown at one time and what might have been a train station in another life. A man-made lake had a few swimmers, but the golf course was busy. We wandered around and finally found the restaurant. It was closed.

We fled back to the messy comfort of our neighborhood in St. Louis where we headed for Vin de Set, a good rooftop restaurant. As we ate we saw a guy approach our car, look at our Obama '12 bumper sticker and stop. Then he slipped something under our windshield wiper and drove away.

We were worried. The midwest is not always Obama friendly.

After dinner I pulled a business card from under the wiper blade. The mystery man is the founder of Oklahoma for Obama.

The Muny

2009-07-25T08:45:00.002-05:00

Even though rain threatened, we set out for Forest Park this last Thursday evening to attend our first ever performance at the St. Louis Municipal Theatre, lovingly referred to as “The Muny.” We knew we could not claim to know anything about this place until we had a dose of America's oldest and largest outdoor theatre. www.muny.org/component/option,com_frontpage/Itemid,1/ Merry got the tickets, scoped out the best place to park and prepared a picnic supper. We went early so we could appreciate it all.

Forest Park is to St. Louis as Central Park is to New York City, only Forest Park is bigger. For an overview of the park and its history take a look at my very first blog from way back on 09/07/08. The Muny is set on a steep hillside close to the center of the park. The backstage and auxiliary buildings are constructed of light tan brick fronted by a grand colonnade. The theatre has an astounding 11,000 seats. Ticket prices are pretty reasonable ranging from $9 - $46 and 1500 seats at the top of the hill are free, first come, first served. When we arrived at the picnic area around 6 pm only half the picnic tables were taken but soon they all filled. A line formed for the free seats that are given out at 7 pm for the 8:15 curtain. All around the theatre people set up picnics, bought box suppers or sat down to eat at the open air pavilion serving a $19 buffet, reservations only.

The season typically consists of seven musicals, each running a week. This year the lineup is 42^nd Street, Annie, Godspell, Meet Me In St. Louis, The Music Man, Camelot, and Hairspray. We chose the 76 trombones. Each show features actors equity performers in the leads drawn from Broadway and traveling professional productions mixed with a large number of local performers and a full orchestra.

We were just finishing our picnic when a serious thunderstorm hit. Everyone calmly took cover under the colonnade, spread out their table cloths again and resumed picnicking. Thunder crashed and torrents of water ran off the roof. The rain let up in about half an hour. More and more people arrived, wiped off the picnic tables, filled the pavilion and prepared for the show. The free seats were completely taken.

We explored while we waited. In front of the Muny is a pond with an elegant pagoda on a island. A white egret with a hurt leg stalked frogs on one side of the pond. On a bridge a young man was throwing bread crumbs in the water. We walked over to find he was feeding the many turtles that live under the bridge, pond sliders and one pretty big snapper.

Finally the gates opened. The theatre quickly filled. It was not a sellout, but at least 9,000 people arrived from all sides. Most brought all the necessities: seat cushions, towels to dry the seats and rain gear. Those who were unprepared could rent seat cushions or have the friendly ushers wipe off the wet seats. The lights dimmed. The music started. Bats danced overhead seeking insects drawn to the stage lights. From the first note I knew this was a top quality show; terrific singers in all lead roles, great dancing and fabulous sets.

About an hour after the show started a second rainstorm hit. Out came a sea of umbrellas and rain ponchos. Vendors immediately appeared hawking cheap rain gear. The show continued for a few minutes until the rain really started to come down. A rain delay was called. The show would resume, we were told, in 15 minutes to half an hour. We decided to leave even though we were having a good time. It's a long show and I needed to get to work early the next morning.

To understand how the Muny managed to gain such a substantial following you have to look to its beginnings during the First World War. In 1916 the site was first used to present “As You Like It” put together by the Parks Commission and the Civic League to commemorate the 300^th anniversary of Shakespeare's death. This show turned out to be such a success that by early 1917 a decision was made to erect a permanent stage at the site. That summer the city was hosting the 13^th Annual Convention of the Advertising Clubs of the World. The opening of the new outdoor theatre would be the highlight event of the convention. Construction began April 16 funded with $5000 provided by the Convention board and $5000 from the city. In 46 days the massive stage was constructed, an orchestra pit built to hold up to 200 musicians, all the concrete was poured and dressing rooms built behind the stage. On June 5, 1917 the Muny opened with an audience of 12,000 in attendance. A full production of Verdi's “Aida” featured world famous opera stars and a local chorus of 250 plus 30 local dancers.

After three weeks of performances with about 10,000 people in attendance nightly the theatre had lost nearly $60,000. Nonetheless the city was determined to make a first rate summer theatre in the park a permanent reality. During 1918 Mayor Henry Keil spearheaded a fundraising campaign that raised the necessary money to plan another season.

By March 1919 the organizing committee announced they would present six operas the coming summer. In April, St. Louisans went to the polls to vote on the repertory. As soon as the results were tabulated, stars were engaged from New York, musicians auditioned, sets built and choruses assembled.

Ticket prices ranged from 25 cents to a top price of one dollar. 1,620 of the 9,000 seats were set aside as free, beginning a tradition that continues to this day. On June 10, 1919, the Municipal Theatre Association was formally incorporated. Six days later the curtain rose on “Robin Hood,” with a full house and Mayor Kiel himself proudly appearing in the production as King Richard.

Ninety seasons later, the Muny is still going strong.

Stone School Inn

2009-07-18T09:25:00.004-05:00

I have a lot of dusty philosophy books in my personal library. I acquired most of them during my years in graduate school when I still imagined myself capable of plumbing the depths. I read the classics of antiquity as well as modern giants: Descartes, Hegel, Marx, Kant and Heidegger. Along the way I acquired an interest in how European thinking made its way to America. I especially like nineteenth century American philosophical writings because they contain a wealth of new ways to think about old problems. This rich philosophical vein almost completely dried up after about 1920. I soon gave up reading anything by living American philosophy professors because it had so little to do with anything that matters. At the time I cared enough about this phenomenon to make it the subject of my doctoral dissertation, The Profession of Philosophy in America (1979).

I turned my back on the academic life in 1984 when I started law school. Still I find myself drawn to the philosophy section of bookstores. Thus it is that I encountered On Bullshit by Harry G. Frankfort (Princeton Univ Press, 2005) http://press.princeton.edu/titles/7929.html.

In a nutshell, Frankfort points out that the essence of bullshit is not that it is false but that it is phony. By this he means that the bullshitter seeks to convey a certain impression of themselves without being concerned at all about whether what they say is true. The central purpose of bullshit is to create a favorable impression of the speaker rather than to say anything meaningful about the subject of the conversation. Frankfurt concludes that although bullshit can take many innocent forms, excessive indulgence in bullshit can undermine the capacity to tell the truth in a way that lying does not. Liars implicitly acknowledge that truth matters.

I recommend this elegant and amusing little piece of philosophical writing. I have applied Frankfort's insights in my work as a judge with great success. I keep a copy of the book on my desk right next to the BULLSHIT stamp Merry bought for my birthday.

Once you are alert to bullshit you see it everywhere. It is so rampant in advertising and in most political discussion that it's hard to miss. I take it so much for granted that I don't expect anything more in certain types of discourse. Still, it often takes me by surprise.

This past week I was hearing cases in Hannibal, MO. Merry, Joli & I wanted to find a new place to stay. We generally like B&Bs but we needed to find one that takes dogs. That's how we settled on the Stone School Inn. http://www.stoneschoolinn.net/ The place is situated in the country up a long steep drive. For $5.00 extra per day they provide an outside kennel for a dog. It worked out very well. The two resident dogs, Daisy, a basset/beagle mix, & Coco, a chocolate lab, were nice to Joli and hung around with us. The room was private and comfortable. We had our own screen porch that looked out on the yard and a number of active bird feeders.

I was surprised that the stone schoolhouse had been almost entirely enclosed in a modern structure. Since the original structure was too small to serve as a modern house, and probably poorly insulated, it made sense but altered the historic building significantly. Like most B&Bs this one is for sale. The owners, Richard & Di Ann Hammon, told us they want to get out of the B&B business and move nearer to their adult children.

Thursday morning Richard fulfilled his promise to tell us his well-rehearsed story of the history of the inn. I was quite surprised when he started the story by reminding us of the great New Madrid earthquake of 1811

http://earthquake.usgs.gov/regional/states/events/1811-1812.php. He segued to survivors of the quake moving far up river to the Hannibal area to settle on land acquired by the government. These survivors wanted a school, so about 1830 they build one of locally quarried stone. Richard noted the school was expanded later to add the chimney and served as a church for years. He made a big deal about a small trapdoor in the floor and claimed it led to a small space where runaway slaves were hidden. He showed us the trapdoor, now sealed. He claimed that slaves must have participated in the building because the stones and chestnut beams are so heavy. The locations of the local slave cemeteries were referenced. He regaled us with stories of visitors who returned to see the old schoolhouse where their great-great-great grandfather once served as superintendent.

My bullshit detector went off almost at once. The dates seemed totally wrong. If there was a surviving school building from before the civil war in good shape it surely would be a registered historic landmark. Terrell Dempsey, a lawyer who appears in my court, recently wrote a well regarded history of slavery in the Hannibal area (http://www.literarytraveler.com/literary_articles/terrell_dempsey_searching_for.aspx). I asked Richard if Mr. Dempsey knew of the trap door and slave history of the building. Richard claimed he did.

An hour later I saw Mr. Dempsey in court. I asked him about the Stone School. He had never heard of it. He further was amazed that any “purpose built” schoolhouse existed in the county from pre-Civil War time. He was familiar with the other educational institutions from the time, and was pretty sure the story I heard from Richard was not true. I've done some quick internet research and believe that Richard was pretty much making it all up.

Bullshit.

I just call her mommy

2009-07-11T07:23:00.001-05:00

One of the more interesting challenges of being an ALJ for SSA is the occasional need to decide a “child's case.” Some background – Social Security includes a provision to assist families of seriously disabled children who live below the poverty line. The policy goal is to provide a small monthly payment to such families to assist with the additional costs of having a disabled child in the household. Child's benefits are part of the Supplemental Security Income [SSI] program. As with SSI for adults, the income eligibility part of the child's benefit program is administered by a different part of the agency. I just have to decide whether the child is seriously disabled.

The disability requirements are complex. I'm supposed to evaluate functioning in six “domains” (1) acquiring and using information, (2) attending and completing tasks, (3) interacting and relating with others, (4) moving about and manipulating objects, (5) caring for yourself, and (6) health and physical well-being. In each of these domains there are quite different factors to consider depending on the child's age. Infants and pre-school children have their own criteria; elementary and high school children have different criteria. Children can come into the system at any age and are re-evaluated periodically so it's possible I would hear an appeal of a child at any age from just after birth to age 18. When a child turns 18, and if they have not successfully joined the labor force, they are re-evaluated as an adult. I not only have to read medical records in these cases but a wide variety of school records including Individualized Education Plans (IEPs) as well as IQ and other psychological testing.

Only about 10% of the cases I hear are child cases. That means I've heard about 50 since last September. In 49 of the 50 the claim was initiated by the mother or grandmother. Only one case was initiated by a father, but unfortunately when that case was scheduled the father and child did not appear in court. No shows are quite common in all child cases. One reason is that a much smaller percentage of these cases have legal representation, thus there is no one to help prepare the case and to remind the claimant of the hearing. I never represented children in my private practice primarily because I had not studied this area of Social Security law and because the fees are relatively small. It's a lot of work for not much money. So about 2/3 of these cases have no lawyer; most of the rest are represented by Legal Aid.

I was quite daunted, therefore, when I encountered my first child case about the third week I was on the bench. That case involved a 3-year-old with sickle cell anemia. She has a twin sister with the same disorder who was granted benefits without a problem in initial application so the mom didn't understand why this child was being denied. It ended up being my job to explain that this child was just not as sick as her twin sister, not yet. Not a fun task.

Then there is the issue of how to take testimony from children. According to SSA rules, I'm supposed to ask adequate questions of the child to satisfy myself on whatever issues the case presents. How is this done? I was offered virtually no training in this area by SSA. I asked the other judges. Some never take testimony from children. Some let the lawyer do it, if they are lucky enough to have a lawyer. Most told me they just ask a few questions and observe the child's behavior in court. Nobody had much helpful to say. I decided to ask at least some questions of all children old enough to talk. If they had lawyers, I'd ask the lawyer to question the child and observe how they did it. I'd ask questions about school, pets, hobbies, going to the doctor, etc. and just see what happened. So far this has worked out well for me and I'm actually having a good deal of fun doing it.

I asked one six-year-old boy who the woman sitting next to him was and he said, “That's my mommy.”

“What's her name?” He looked puzzled. What was I asking? He looked at her. “Tell the judge my name, honey.” He looked up at me and sweetly said, “I just call her mommy.”

In another case I was questioning a ten-year-old about her need for glasses. There was nothing in the school or medical records on this, but her mother had just testified she could not see the blackboard without glasses. The girl was not wearing glasses in court. I asked her whether she always wore glasses when she went out. “Yes.” Why didn't she have them on now? “I forgot them.” Could she see me alright? “Yes.” I pointed down the front of the bench, could she read my name plate there?

She frowned and looked puzzled. “No.”

“Why not, is it blurry?“

After a second she smiled and said, “No, I can't read it 'cause you don't got no name tag.”

My hearing clerk got up and looked. Sure enough, she had forgotten to insert my name plate before court. If I had bothered to look, I would have seen it lying on the bench in front of me.

Next time I'll be more careful before inadvertently asking a child a trick question.

Buddhist Judging

2009-07-04T07:51:00.002-05:00

I'm not a Buddhist, far from it, but I've been a fan of Buddhist writings on the practical aspects of spiritual practice ever since I encountered Zen In the Art of Archery by German philosopher Eugen Herrigel back in the sixties. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zen_in_the_Art_of_Archery

Recently Merry shared a Buddhist text that resonated with her. She observed that although the text deals with mastering the skill of meditation, it could easily apply to the process of mastering the skill of judging.

“When you see that you've acted, spoken, or thought in a skillful way conducive to happiness while causing no harm to yourself or others take joy in that fact and keep on training.”

This thought intrigued me so much that I tracked down the quote to a recent article in the journal Tricycle by Thanissaro Bhikkhu, called The Joy of Effort.

As I read the article I substituted the work "judging" for the word "meditation" just to see what happened. Here's an example of the result:

"...the key to maintaining your inspiration in the day-to-day work of judging is to approach it as play—a happy opportunity to master practical skills, to raise questions, experiment, and explore. This is precisely how the Buddha himself taught judging. Instead of formulating a cut-and-dried method, he first trained his students in the personal qualities—such as honesty and patience—needed to make trustworthy observations. Only after this training did he teach judging techniques, and even then he didn’t spell everything out. He raised questions and suggested areas for exploration in the hope that his questions would capture his students’ imagination, so they’d develop discernment and gain insights on their own."

While this may seem a bit too facile, for me it reveals one key to learning how to become a good judge. While obviously important, technical skills such as knowing the law and practice are not primary, instead skills like patience, curiosity, humility and honesty need to take precedence.

Perhaps one of the most difficult traits to learn and practice in any court is integrity. In my view, some aspects of the structure of our court systems actively discourages personal integrity in judges. I'm not referring here to explicit lies, double dealing, or graft. Our court systems and rules of professional ethics are actually quite sensitive to these types of dishonesty. When I think about integrity in this context, I'm more concerned with avoiding the loss of focus that can easily creep into the work and degrade its quality. In any job that involves a lot of repetition, it's easy to become complacent once you have obtained the basic skills of the job. What happens from a practical standpoint is that attention to the specific facts of each case can suffer from time of preparation through trial. I have about 1000 cases currently pending in my docket with more being added daily. There's a constant temptation, even incentive, to cut corners.

Monk Bhikkhu offers the following good advice on this point, "And the key to this honesty is to treat your actions as experiments. Then, if you see the results aren’t good, you’re free to change your ways."

Furthermore, in a job like judging where social status plays a major role, it's easy to forget that the status of judge is an artificial one, created by our culture for a specific end. Being chosen for this job is not a statement about the qualities, good or bad, of the person who is the judge. Nonetheless it's always tempting to confuse the role with the person. Being treated with formal deference can lead one to believe that by being granted the power to make judgements, the judge has somehow have been endowed with these special powers based on superior personal traits. This is not the case, but it's easy to get confused when being addressed as "Judge" or "Your Honor" repeatedly on a daily basis.

In the end the key to applying Buddhist teaching to practical skill is to remember to avoid getting wrapped up in the "eight worldly concerns," i.e., gain/loss, pleasure/pain, praise/blame and fame/dishonor. A skillful practitioner of any art simply focuses on the joy of doing the work and rejoices in each of the many complicated steps required by the practice. Achieving or avoiding the eight worldly concerns is totally forgotten and on a good day the result is a heightened awareness of the present moment.

I think of this heightened awareness as "being in the zone." When I achieve this state I read with greater comprehension, write more clearly, smile more and ask better questions. It's virtually impossible to tell an effective joke or give an extemporaneous speech unless I'm in the zone.

Om mani padme hum

Just a reminder, both Merry & I have put up web sites where you can see archived posts and view Merry's terrific photo essays (most recently about the new St. Louis “Citygarden”). Check them out when you have the time at: meredithleonard.blogspot.com and edpitts.blogspot.com

Black Fly Derby

2009-06-27T09:49:00.004-05:00

We spent the past week at one of my favorite places, the Rap-Shaw Club in the Adirondacks of New York. The Club is one of a handful of surviving old-fashioned Adirondack sportsmen's camps. We became members of Rap-Shaw three years ago joining about 60 other families. The Club occupies two small islands on Stillwater Reservoir in the southwest corner of the Adirondack Park. The reservoir is almost entirely surrounded by the state-owned Forest Preserve. Except for the small settlement of Stillwater at the end of the road, there are no other buildings on the water. The 117 miles of shoreline and 45 small to tiny islands are lined with trees, trees, rocks, trees and a few beaches.

Rap-Shaw is one of the earliest private Adirondack clubs still in operation. Founded in 1896 and incorporated in 1901 the club moved to its current island home in 1942 after an earlier incarnation located further down the reservoir burned to the ground from a presumed lightening strike. The club's original stated purpose was to “afford recreation, legitimate fishing, hunting and camping, to promote the protection of fish and game, the preservation of the forests of and within the State of New York, and to assist in the observation and enforcement of the laws, rules and regulations relating thereto.” [from Otis H. Gardner, The Rapshaw Fishing and Hunting Club, 1901-1961. Syracuse, NY private printing, Jan. 1962] From its beginnings the club was composed of members from all walks of life. “At the Rapshaw Club a railroad brakeman was apt to find himself sharing a bunk with the president of his company.” [from an unidentified clipping in the collection of the Adirondack Museum, quoted in Barbara McMartin, The Privately Owned Adirondacks (2004), p. 49]

To get to Rap-Shaw you need to carefully navigate miles of backwoods dirt road, coming eventually to a parking lot with boat trailers, a ranger station, a general store and a bar/restaurant. Unless you've brought your own boat, now you have to call Jerry, the Rap-Shaw steward, to come over from the island with the club pontoon boat. Jerry built that boat from the pontoons up, funky and functional with wood benches in front and mismatched salvaged seats in the back.

Jerry pulls up to the state dock and loads your stuff. As you approach the island the Rap-Shaw boathouse comes into view with it's beautiful backlit loon logo. Jerry has pulled the club's John Deere Gator onto the dock with at least an inch to spare on each side. Gear goes in the Gator and Jerry roars off to deliver it to the porch of your cabin: Owl, Loon, Gull, Eagle, Chicken or Main Camp. Each cabin is a duplex with a shared bath, except for Main with its three bedrooms. Full occupancy is 28 people. The cabins date from the 1930s and 1940s. They are simple, clean and freshly painted. Comfortable single beds are the rule. Three times a day an old locomotive bell calls all campers to meals in the dining hall. Mike, the cook, turns out tasty meals that are served family style with campers bussing the tables.

As soon as I board the Club boat, I feel my daily cares and chores evaporate. My new daily schedule is up with the sun to walk Joli and listen to the loons, breakfast, boating, lunch, nap, swim, boating, communal cocktail hour on the porch of Main camp, dinner, boating and bed. One of the best features of the Club in my opinion is that each member can bring one dog. Our dog, Joli, knows Rap-Shaw well. She gets to run free, swim at any hour, chase sticks to her heart's delight and feed on table scraps. She also knows where Marie, the housekeeper, keeps her stash of dog biscuits.

Over the past decade the Club has worked hard to maintain its conservationist ethic with an emphasis on fishing and at the same time attract family members and people like us who love the woods and water from a seat in a quietly drifting canoe. Considerable funds were spent to upgrade the camp and make it accessible. The favorable result is measured by a pretty full reservation book and a balanced budget the past three years. The Club elected its first woman president this past year.

On Friday the hard core fishermen, women and kids arrived for the annual black fly derby. Old Adirondack hands know that it's generally a mistake to visit during June because of the clouds of biting black flies. At Rap-Shaw, as a challenge to the bugs, the Club conducts a fishing derby. Everyone hopes that the prevailing winds on the island and on the water will blow the bugs off target. Fishing all day Saturday from breakfast to dinner will give the person who catches the heaviest fish bragging rights for the next year. Small boats bob around the island jockeying for the best fishing hole. Driving rain showers Saturday morning only spurs the competitors on.

In the evening the setting sun glances off the waves and back lights the balsam that grow behind Loon camp. I drift into a peaceful sleep.

Merry has just begun a photo blog where she posts a picture a day. To see more pictures from our time at Rap-Shaw, and for other terrific photographs, check out meredithleonard.blogspot.com.

Circus Flora

2009-06-21T08:59:00.003-05:00

It was a warm sunny day last Saturday as we made our way to the parking lot behind Powell Symphony Hall in the downtown St. Louis arts district where a beautiful circus tent awaited. Outside there was a modest pony ride, a concession stand, and an old automatic player circus organ. Inside the tent a wonderland awaited.

Circus Flora made St. Louis its home in 1987. http://www.circusflora.org/ It only runs for a few weeks each year. Every year there is a theme around which the acts are loosely assembled. This year the theme is “Medrano” drawn from the historic Cirque Medrano a/k/a Cirque Fernando that first set up at different locations in Paris in the late 19^th Century and continues as a traveling circus throughout Europe today. The basic story of this year's Circus Flora show is that the beautiful star of Medrano is a sought after socialite who attracts high society to the circus as well as some of the great artists of the time. In fact, famous paintings inspired by Cirque Medrano were done by Toulouse-Latrec [Jane Avril], Degas [Miss La La a la Cirque Fernando] and Renoir [Jugglers at the Cirque Fernando].

The big tent with four tall peaks is night blue inside with crystal chandeliers. At one end of the ring an elaborate red and gold pillared entranceway is capped by a band box where the five person circus orchestra sits. We sat in the box seats next to the ring, but not close enough to get squirted by the clown. The crowd numbered about 1000, with adults outnumbering children two to one.

This one-ring circus strives to be true to its European roots. Throughout the show a narrator in whiteface wearing a gold and sequin embroidered costume roams the ring telling the story and introducing the acts, weaving them into the story. Some acts fit the story better than others, but I don't want to quibble. For the most part the story line enhances a non-stop display of traditional circus skills. No lions, tigers or elephants, just ponies, stunningly beautiful horses, a goat, one main clown, and a comedy dog act with a dozen mixed breed rescue dogs. Interspersed with modest juggling and clown acts are world class performances by The Flying Wallendas on the high wire, Cossacks performing at full gallop on horseback, and The Flying Pages on trapeze. Because the story was set in 19^th Century Paris there were numbers incorporating the can-can and an astounding hoop act where the star encased herself in about fifty rotating hoops at once. Most acts somehow incorporate Nino the Clown (Giovanni Zoppe, one of the producers), in little red knit hat and the obligatory red bulb nose. Nino sometimes has a shadow, a very small child dressed in exactly the same costume.

We were very taken by the local teen acrobats, the St. Louis Arches, who train year round and also perform at the City Museum. http://circusday.org/News.html These kids are of different genders, ages and abilities; all beautifully full of spirit. They jump and tumble and build impossible human pyramids. We were immediately reminded of our teen gymnast neighbor from Syracuse, Taniya Williams, who we both felt would fit nicely into a Arches costume.

After a couple of hours we sauntered back into the sunny afternoon humming circus music. Overall the effect was like a dream play; not exactly a story, no moral or message, just the sights and sounds of a modest and wonderful circus. Circus Flora is theatre at it's best, original, accomplished and completely absorbing. It's a treasure waiting for everyone to discover.

Bucknell 1966

2009-06-13T08:59:00.004-05:00

I'm back in St. Louis after a week in the Baltimore suburb of Hunt Valley receiving supplemental ALJ training with about 100 other new ALJs hired last year. It was a long week, often worthwhile. I had the good fortune to be able to spend a good deal of time with friends I made last year in training including Fred Upshall who I recently visited in Albuquerque.

As you know from last week's post, I spent some time last weekend at my mother's house with my brother Rick going through the rooms, sorting things and deciding what to do with them. I brought some pictures and papers home with me that my mother decided to preserve. Among these was a crumbling letter I wrote her during my first month as a freshman at Bucknell University. Here it is:

B729

Bucknell University

Lewisburg, Pennsylvania, 17837

Dear Mom,

Thanks for the umbrella! It came at the right time. It has been raining for 3 days now just a steady mist and a real pour every ½ hr. or so. Last night on the way back to the dorm got caught in a thunderstorm and also got rather wet but it's all in the day. Classes are quite different than I figured. I feel quite comfortable in my Biology and Asian History courses but English and German are still in the doubtful stage. We [dissec]ted a white rat in my first 3 hr. Bio. Lab, but had to buy a dissecting kit and a lab apron. Total costs include charge - $55.61 for books and equipt., cash $8.70 for gym suits and $6.00 for lockers and towels in gym + miss. leaves me with $6.00 cash should be enough to last me for awhile, I hope. I got the gym s[ … ] $7.70 which usually costs $9.88 a savings of over $2.00. I'm trying to keep expenses down but certain things are necessary although those things should soon slack off. Next ~~Fri~~. Sat. the Fabulous Four Seasons are coming to give a concert and that will cost me at least $2.50 but not more than $5.00. The 5 would be for 2 tickets for there is always that possibility. I still have $50 in my checking account subtracting bills I have not yet paid so I'm set for the time being. Life is good here. All are quite friendly and the profs take a personal interest in the students. The Methodist church is very progressive and operates a coffee house and a college student dinner on Sat. night and the preacher is fab. Will sign of now – Send news!

Love,

I'm deeply touched my mom thought to save this letter. The low cost of items stunned me as did my obsessive thriftiness. I was on a scholarship that paid my tuition, room and board, but all other expenses had to come from my meager savings and the small amounts my mother and grandmother sent me. I don't remember ever going to the Four Seasons concert and certainly did not have a date, however hopeful I may have been. I dropped out of Biology after one semester of struggle, but still remember my Asian History well. As it turned out I learned to love English lit classes and even remember a bit of German. I went on to manage the coffee house in the basement of the Methodist church and serve as a student assistant pastor for a time. So much pre-figured in a short letter.

As I look through the items found in the crowded drawers and closets, I'm surprised to find so many memories I had presumed lost.

Many of you wrote to tell me your own stories of cleaning out a parent's house. I appreciate these stories very much. The process of sifting teaches everyone an important lesson about mortality and the things we collect as we move along that can't be learned any other way.

Hopefully everyone saw the news that Billy Elliott (see my February 7, 2009 post) was a big winner at the Tony awards recently. Big congratulations and hugs to Erin and Casey Whyland and their proud parents Chris and Melissa.

Home

2009-06-06T09:24:00.005-05:00

I'm sitting on the back porch of my mother's house in Hanover, PA. This is the first time in my sixty years I've ever been here when she was not at home. The feeling is eerie. Mom lived here since the early 1950's. Prior to that she lived in the upstairs apartment next door. This old brick house and the one next door were built in the early 20^th Century by my grandparents to house the family. All my life up to age 18 was spent here. Since then I've visited here regularly. Even so, the place is a mystery to me now. This will probably be the last time I visit the house with the contents intact.

For the last thirty plus years since my father died my mother lived alone here. She left her childhood home on the farm after the sixth grade to go to work. I think she married my father in the early 1940's. Mom was only 53 when he died in 1967. She lived most of her life here on her own terms.

Mom worked outside the home from the age of 16 until I was born. She went back to work after dad died and continued to work through her seventies. During her life she was a secretary in a factory, a home health aide, and a cross-country bus tour guide. While raising us, she was dedicated to the Boy Scout movement volunteering in many capacities and eventually earning the highest non-professional honor the Scouts bestow on women, the Order of the Silver Faun.

She was a very strong-willed woman who grew up in difficult times and managed against considerable odds to forge a unique life for herself. She knew how to do for herself and was uncomfortable allowing others to do for her. She held herself to an unreasonably high standard and wanted others to do the same. This trait, for better or worse, she passed on to her sons. It has made me the person I am today.

She taught by example. She taught me to cook and appreciate well prepared food. She taught me to garden. She taught me to read and to discipline my mind. I thank her for these gifts. I use them every day.

I have two brothers. Rick is a year and a half younger than me. Doug is five years younger. They will be meeting me here later today so we can make plans for dealing with the accumulated treasures of a long lifetime. There are some antiques, some photographs, some books, a lot of clothes, her treasured yard and garden and a lot of small items, the meaning of which is lost to me.

I've been looking through a box of old photographs this morning. Mixed through the familiar faces and places are many pictures of people I don't recognize and of whom I've never heard. I'm reminded that I knew only one side of her, really.

Random thoughts and memories are crowding out any calm reflection today. I find it impossible to write the story I intended for this week. Thanks to all of you who sent condolences on my mom's passing. It means a lot to Merry and me. I'll be back in St. Louis and back to writing next weekend.

Towboat

2009-05-30T08:49:00.004-05:00

I was in Cape Girardeau this past week holding hearings. One of my Wednesday cases involved a fellow who had worked as a deckhand on the river. Questioning someone about their past work is one of my favorite parts of a hearing. I almost always learn something new and the claimant usually enjoys telling me about work they were good at and generally enjoyed. Having never before lived adjacent to a major waterway I have a lot to learn about work on the river.

Tuesday evening Merry and I walked along the waterfront at Cape. The downtown drops steeply to a riverside rail line backed by a high flood wall. The wall completely blocks the street view of the river. The town has tried to remedy this ugly situation by having the flood wall in downtown covered with interesting murals that depict important events in Cape history. At the foot of certain streets, however, the flood wall is open to the river. These openings can be closed by flood gates. To our surprise the flood gate at the foot of Themis St. was closed. The Broadway gate a block away was open.

People out walking the dog or taking an evening stroll gravitate to the river bank. The river was pretty high on Tuesday leaving only about 15 feet of walkway at Broadway narrowing to none at Themis where it was up to the flood gate. It's hard to imagine the power of the Mississippi. There are no rapids or waves or sound of running water to speak of but the current was silently rushing past carrying large branches and tree trunks. About a half mile downstream we could see the modern Cape bridge spanning about a half mile wide river.

A large barge was very slowly making its way up stream against the current. None of the other strollers seemed to pay it much attention.

The next day I took the deckhand's testimony. I learned there are four basic types of work on towboats: the pilots to navigate, deckhands to wrestle the load, engineers to manage the massive diesel engines, and the cook's staff to feed them all. Towboats push a fleet of barges that are lashed together with heavy one inch steel cables. Crew members work around the clock in six hour shifts, called watches, for thirty days straight, then have thirty days off. Towboats run 365 days a year.

Even though the raft of barges are always pushed by the boat they are still called “tow” boats. According to Wikipedia the term developed on American rivers post Civil War. When steamboat fortunes began to decline steamboats began to "tow" wooden barges alongside to earn additional revenue. Even long after boats began pushing barges the term stuck. In the rest of the world they are called pushboats.

Half of a deckhand's time is taken up doing routine maintenance on the boat: cleaning, scraping, painting and such. The other half of the time a deckhand deals with the load. This means loading the barges, usually with coal, gravel, wheat or other bulky items, lashing the barges together to form the load, and breaking down the load periodically so the whole thing will fit through the giant locks on the upper Mississippi, the Ohio or along the Inland Waterways.

When Merry and I met up in the evening she told me she had visited the waterfront again and noticed a guy standing there with luggage. She talked with him and found out he is a towboat pilot. After a little while a small boat put off from a towboat mid-river and came over to pick him up. As Merry watched them return to the towboat, the little runabout lost power, started drifting and ultimately had to be assisted by the Coast Guard who just happened to be passing by at the time.

Back at the hotel I wandered down to the bar for happy hour. There I met a young guy who works as an engineer on the river. He had driven up to Cape the night before to meet his boat. He told me that every river worker was assigned a “home port.” Getting to work meant reaching your home port at a specified date and time. From there the shipping company is responsible for getting you to your boat whether by van, taxi or even by air. This guy usually works only downstream from Cape, traveling to New Orleans then to Port Arthur, TX to unload and back again. He said he could do two round trips like this in 30 days. When the boat runs low on fuel he calls a tender and is refueled midstream. He said the engines never get cold, except at an occasional dry dock servicing. As with trucking, towboats try to get back loads for the trip up-river, but in these harder economic times they are mostly coming back riding high and empty.

The next day Merry and Joli visited Trail of Tears State Park where she was able to get a vantage point to get some terrific shots of towboats.

The internet has a lot more information on this subject. Of course, the towboat operators have a professional association called American Waterways Operators with a lot of information about jobs on towboats that you can visit at www.americanwaterways.com.

The waterways themselves are policed by the Coast Guard but under the management of the Army Corps of Engineers. There is a pretty interesting propaganda video about the importance of river transportation made by the Corps that you can watch at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rxHIk5ARHLI.

Best of all are the web sites of amateur towboat enthusiasts. I recommend you look at two of the very best: Towboat Joe at http://www.towboatjoe.com/towboat_info.htm and Dick's Towboat Gallery with photos of over 1200 individual towboats at http://www.towboatgallery.com/The_Towboat_Gallery.php.

Prairie

2009-05-23T08:01:00.006-05:00

A week ago last Wednesday we started to cross the American prairie from Limon, CO. We drove out of the Colorado mountains the evening before. Limon is just a bit too far from Pike's Peak to see the mountain. We had crossed about 75 miles of the treeless great plains before stopping at dark.

From Limon it is almost 100 miles on I-70 to the Kansas border. We pulled into the Kansas welcome center about 9:00 am. The wind off the mountains was so strong it nearly swept us off our feet. Little sand grains got in my eyes and my cap blew off. A genuine tumbleweed got stuck under the driver's door. The rolling land is farmed as far as the eye can see. We collected a bag of brochures about the wonders of Kansas and our free Kansas sunflower seeds and set off again. The wind blew hard all day.

We were resigned to crossing most of Kansas on I-70. The distances are just too great to use the back roads. Three hours of non-stop driving brought us to Hays. This little city of about 20,000 appears to be the business center of northwestern Kansas. Off I-70 strip malls stretch toward the town center for a mile or so. We headed for the downtown in hopes of finding some regional cuisine. I couldn't help but notice the German heritage of the place: street names, brick architecture and a big sign announcing “the German Capital of Kansas.” Main Street downtown was mostly deserted. We pulled up to a department store that has been converted into a number of small shops. Inside the old-fashioned Soda Shop offered a daily special soup, green bean with dumplings. The special sandwich was blue cheese sliders. Just what we needed.

An hour more on I-70 and we were getting pretty tired of the interstate driving. Merry was leafing through the literature we got at the welcome station looking for an alternative. At Wilson we got off and started to follow the “Post Rock” Scenic By-way.

When white settlers arrived on the prairies in the mid-nineteenth century they wanted to put fences around their farms, something that never occurred to indigenous people. The problem with this plan was that there's a lot of space to fence and virtually no trees for fence posts. All of Kansas, however has vast deposits of limestone just under the surface. Some of this stone was found to be quite soft and workable when quarried, but then hardens when exposed to the air. Thus there are now large areas of farmland encircled by wire fences with stone fence posts that have been there for a long time.

Traveling north from Wilson we not only saw thousands of stone fence posts but signs for “The Garden of Eden.” When we turned toward Lucas, we had no idea of what we would find. On a back street of the little town that calls itself the “Grassroots Arts Capital” we found the amazing homestead of civil war veteran, S.P. Dinsmoor. This concrete jungle gym completed in 1907 can't be described in a few words, but take a look at Merry's picture for an idea. www.lucaskansas.com

We decided to head for Manhattan, KS on a back road. KS 18 is an arrow leading from one set of grain elevators to the next, each eight to ten miles off. For many miles out of Lucas we were surprised by occasional large metal creatures along the roadside sculpted from scrap. When these ran out I was ready for some new amusement. Shortly after a county line I noticed that every crossing road was named with single syllable four letter word. “Barn” was the first one I saw. A little later I glimpsed “Deer'” then “Gate.” I mentioned this to Merry and we started to pay attention. “Hail” road was followed by “Iris.” We now surmised that the county had named each road in alphabetical order. We made a game of trying to guess the next road name, then at the letter Y we reached the county line.

We finally pulled into Manhattan bone tired. The wind was still blowing.

Fairly early the next morning we drove to the 3500 acre Konza Prairie Biological Station on the outskirts of Manhattan. http://kpbs.konza.ksu.edu/ This area of Kansas is called the Flint Hills because the limestone contains outcroppings of harder stone that made the area very difficult to plow and which eroded into unique bluff-like hills. The Flint Hills stretch from Nebraska to Oklahoma and contain the largest expanse of unplowed tallgrass prairie. We walked a six mile trail at Konza and saw many unique wildflowers, bison, school kids, a short horned lizard, and prairie birds including a strikingly red summer tanager. We met a woman who helped do a controlled burn of the grass just a few weeks earlier. “That all went up in a whirlwind of fire in four minutes,” she said gesturing at about 200 acres. Already the grass and flowers were six inches high where the prairie had been burned. Standing on a ridge here, surrounded by open prairie, it's easy to imagine what this country looked like 200 or 2000 years ago. Only 4% of the estimated 140 million acres of original prairie survive.

To get a better feel for the Flint Hills and to get some lunch we drove south on a back road to Council Grove. The Santa Fe Trail passed through this archetypal midwestern small town. We had a good lunch at the Hays House on Main Street. Build in 1857 the Hays House doesn't exactly line up with the modern street. When built it was oriented to the Santa Fe Trail.

Twenty miles on south through grasslands, and more grasslands, with virtually no other traffic, we came to the Tallgrass Prairie National Preserve. This is the heart of Chase County, the center of the center of the country, all prairie except for two small towns, immortalized by William Least Heat-Moon's PrairyErth.

There is little wind today. Standing on the prairie the sun and sky totally surrounds us. As dusk approaches small birds appear. The air smells of grass and dust.

Taos Pueblo

2009-05-16T08:56:00.004-05:00

I first visited Taos Pueblo in 1971. I was captivated by the feeling of the place and by the people who have roots there. When Merry and I visited last Sunday I expected the passage of 38 years to have effected major changes in the place. I was wrong. There is a new road to serve the modest new casino and a new community office at the entrance to the village. The ancient pueblo buildings are in slightly better condition than I remembered. Otherwise the place seems unchanged.

To reach Taos Pueblo you drive a few miles north of the artsy village of Taos then a few miles back the road that leads to Taos Mountain. Last weekend this road through dusty sage brush was partly lined by blooming sand plum and choke cherry trees nearer the creek banks. A few miles after passing the casino the road comes to the traditional village where all cars are directed to a small dirt parking lot. All visitors pay a $10 fee to enter and an additional $5 fee for a camera. http://www.taospueblo.com/

The entire village is made of adobe, surrounded by an adobe wall. Red Willow Creek cuts through the middle of the village which is arranged around a large packed earth plaza the same color as the buildings. Multiple story ancient buildings lie on both the north and south sides of the creek. These older buildings have been continuously occupied for more than 1000 years. Every year the adobe has been renewed. Numerous small adobe houses are scattered about. Some seem occupied, some not. The west side of the plaza is dominated by a beautiful church. Tours are offered, but we decided to explore on our own. Tourists are pretty much restricted to the immediate area of the plaza, and no climbing to the upper levels of the pueblo is allowed. The doors to about a dozen houses with items to sell are open to visitors, some in the main structures, some in small outlying buildings.

We were attracted to a one room house with a covered porch. This is the house of Kalbatu White Wolff, a jeweler. He has two tables of nicely made necklaces composed of hishi and silver beads. Hishi are small beads of stone, shell or coral. As soon as we approached he began a fast patter of stories about the pueblo and his family history. He invited us into the 10' x 10' house. He told us his grandfather had owned the house, but that it was much older. His grandfather put in the door and a very small window. Before those modern renovations the house could only be entered by ladder through a hole in the roof. A small cone shaped adobe fireplace was fit into the east corner, made by molding adobe around a tree trunk then removing the tree. He told us he inherited the house, but because the deed was lost he had to petition the tribe for a new one. His case was unusual since he claimed ownership not only to the house but the open porch area that normally would be tribal land, as was all unenclosed land. He was lucky. We purchased one of his necklaces. A few new people approached. He started his patter over at the beginning. We walked on.

The day was clear and just starting to heat up. We walked the length of the north building then crossed the spring full creek on a log bridge. There seem to be more detached houses on the south side, arranged around narrow alleys. At the back of one of these alleys a door was open. I glanced in but saw no one. I called out “hello.” A voice behind a curtained door invited us in. This two room house is the shop and studio of Meko Concha, a potter. A few shelves held some bowls and a half dozen small bear sculptures. I was immediately attracted to the bears. He explained his process of finely screening the micaceous clay he works with. I picked up one of the bears. “Is that one speaking to you?” An 8x10 black and white photo on the wall that looked exactly like Mr. Concha turned out to be his grandfather. The three of us talked for a long time about the politics of native culture. Events from the past two hundred years seem totally present to him. He explained that some of the proceeds from the casino were being used to repurchase the 5 miles in every direction, centered on the Pueblo church, that the Spanish granted to his people. They now own about 100,000 acres including Taos Mountain and the entire Red Willow Creek watershed. “Land and water are politics in New Mexico.”

Outside again the day was heating up. We walked past a line of traditional beehive shaped bread ovens called “hornos.” Dogs slowly shifted from one shadowy spot to a cooler one. We crossed the creek again and entered the 1850 churchyard of San Geronomo. Small bouquets of fresh flowers graced each windowsill inside the cool dark church. The altar is crowded with very old wooden statuary called “santos,” the largest of which represents the Virgin Mary. On this day the santos were each carefully wrapped in pink organza, except for the statue of Jesus. On one side of the altar sits an empty casket, also draped in pink. Native american Catholic churches contain these caskets as a reminder of how the Spanish converted them to christian funeral practices. By the altar rail commemorative candles flickered. We sat in a front pew of the empty church to take it all in. Without saying anything to me Merry got up, went to the rail, lit a candle then came back and took my hand with tears in her eyes. I was overcome with grief. The night before I learned that my mother had died. Here on Mother's Day in a church of a religion that I do not follow the reality of the situation crashed on me and I cried.

We sat there in memory a little while. A man from the village came in to replenish the supply of candles. The spell was broken. Outside again the clear light was blinding. We smiled at a tour guide gathering her charges. Taos is timeless in a way you can only know by standing in its plaza. I smiled. I was glad I had returned. The bear now standing on our mantle in St. Louis reminds us of the day.

Jane

2009-05-09T19:10:00.001-05:00

Hello from Albuquerque, NM. Yesterday afternoon I rendezvoused with Merry at the airport and now we're sitting at Fred & Mary Upshall's dining room table. Fred's an ALJ here who I met at training last summer. We've been sharing stories about our first year as judges. One odd thing we both noticed was how little our new colleagues seemed to care about our social adjustment to a new city. Had we joined a new law firm we would have been shown around and invited to social events. At ODAR there is almost none of this.

My experience in St. Louis was a little different than Fred's here, because of Jane Lanser.

Every Social Security hearing is electronically recorded. The recording itself is performed by independent contractors called “hearing monitors” who are paid a set amount per hearing. Many of the hearing monitors are retired Social Security clerks who are very familiar with the process. The ALJs have no say in who is scheduled as their monitor, but the cadre is small, so it's easy to become familiar with the unique personalities of every monitor.

I met Jane during my first week at St. Louis ODAR. Jane worked at SSA for many years before retiring and taking up the hearing monitor job. She has a government pension but does the monitor job part-time as a source of “mad money.” Jane has lived a long time in St. Louis. She really, really loves the place and seems determined for me to see it through her eyes.

I have Jane as my monitor about once a week. Every time she's in my court she brings me guidebooks, magazines, flyers, newspaper clippings, handouts, and books that she believed will help me understand all that St. Louis has to offer. If I should happen to express an interest in any particular subject she will search her vast archives and produce relevant material for my review. Her archives are impressive. For example when I was writing the entry on Bevo, Jane showed up with a book on the Busch family and even old newspapers related to the family.

Over time Jane has become my principal guide to all things St. Louis. Jane has informed me in detail on every St. Louis cultural institution. She consistently provides me with insider information on how to get the most out of the many free concerts, Shakespeare in the Park and the free seats at the Muny (a summer outdoor professional theatre in Forest Park). When I was seeking a good restaurant she provided a recent list of the 30 best. One day she brought a magazine article with the 100 things ever St. Louis citizen should see or do. She is an awesome history buff but she loves two things above all else: the St. Louis Symphony Orchestra and the Cardinals.

This last Thursday there was an afternoon home game against the Pittsburgh Pirates. The game started at 1:00, my hearings ended at 12:30. Busch Stadium is only four blocks from the hearing office. Jane was my monitor. I immediately knew she was planning to attend the game. She showed up for work in a “Cardinal” red dress with matching red blazer. Each lapel sported an enameled Cardinals pin. She wore earrings shaped like small baseballs with Cardinals in the center. Her tote sported the Cardinals logo done in cross stitch. Her handbag looked like a zippered fuzzy baseball about the size of a basketball. When I left work at about 3:30 the game was just getting out. The Cards won. I spotted Jane, her gray hair hidden under a Cardinals cap, in the celebrating crowd streaming out of the park. Her dress was distinctive, but every fan had their own bright red outfit. Downtown was awash in a sea of red. I waved to Jane across the street.

Jane also reports to me on every Symphony concert. She was particularly enraptured by the recent appearance of Nadia Solerno-Sonenberg. She also introduced us to the fine community orchestra at Webster University in which her daughter-in-law has played for many years.

Thanks to Jane our move has been enriched and we feel more at home.

On another note, I'd like to thank everyone who responded to last week's posting on cognitive surplus. I must have accidently hit on a topic with resonance. To clarify, I did not mean to suggest that TV never be used for entertainment, nor did I mean to suggest that if everyone turned off the TV that there would be a huge increase in Wikipedia entries. Thanks to everyone who wrote back. I plan to do more with that piece when I get the chance.

Now, off on our drive back to St. Louis.

Cognitive surplus

2009-05-02T10:28:00.003-05:00

At every Social Security hearing I typically ask the claimant to tell me how he or she spends the majority of their waking hours. The point is to discover what activities the person actually does and match that, if possible, to the objective evidence of their impairments. In the vast majority of cases the person reports they spend anywhere from 6 to 15 hours per day in front of the television. I sometimes ask what shows they watch, but most cannot recall. I follow up by asking if they “do” something else during the day, but most seem too believe watching TV qualifies as doing something. I don't agree.

Since I don't believe that passive, mindless TV viewing constitutes doing anything, I persist in asking about other activities like house cleaning, pets, hobbies and such. Second and third on the list of activities these questions solicit are reading (usually the Bible) and playing on my computer (almost always games). In time spent per day nothing comes close to the time spent before the TV set.

I'm horrified that someone would come to the belief that watching TV constitutes an activity and that it's acceptable to “do” it for hours on hours daily. The sad fact is that even non-disabled people in America watch a lot of TV every day. According to the 2006 Nielson survey the average American watches 4 hours and 35 minutes of television each day.  99% of all American homes have at least one TV, in fact, only 19% have just one. 50% of American homes have three working televisions or more. In 1975 only 11% had more than three TVs and 57% had only one.

So it's socially acceptable to watch a lot of TV. I'm convinced that many people also use TV as a sort of sedative, essentially a pain medication akin to hypnotism. TV by design distracts people from their everyday existence. For a person with problems, distraction is not only good, but necessary. Don't get me wrong, I'm not opposed to entertainment. I know that there are at least a few good shows on TV that provide quality entertainment. What I'm puzzling about here is not the person who turns on the TV with a specific goal, say to watch a sports event or a favorite show.

What would happen, I have to wonder, if people did not have the ability to use TV as a mindless time waster? I assume they would do something else to distract themselves. Some would read, some would find a hobby within their capacity, some go for a walk.

This leads me to the conclusion that TV is actually increasing the amount of physical and mental disability in America. People in general don't enjoy suffering and will do what they can to avoid thinking about their problems and pains. If there were no TV at least some substantial number of people would do something else with their time. I believe at least some percentage of this time would be used productively.

As proof of this assertion I offer Wikipedia. http://www.wikipedia.org/ It has been calculated that the current state of Wikipedia took a collective 100 Million hours to create. No one paid for any of this work or even solicited people to do the work except in the most general way. Yet there it is, a 21^st Century electronic encyclopedia that is actually pretty reliable, created by folks in their spare time.

Some have dubbed this internet phenomenon “cognitive surplus.” The concept is that people as a whole have a lot of time in the day where they are not actively using their minds to do anything remotely productive. For example this weekend Americans will spend 100 Million hours watching TV ads alone. If we all gave up watching just the ads we could create 50 Wikipedias or their equivalent a year.

I admit to being prejudiced in this area. When we moved to St. Louis I completely gave up TV. I don't miss it much. I admit my use of the internet has increased for things like checking the weather and to watch selected parts of the Daily Show. Even when I do have the chance to watch, I generally choose not to do so. Recently we did retrieve our TV from Syracuse, but only so we could watch movies.

So join me and kill your TV, or at least strangle it a little.

http://www.tvturnoff.org/ and http://www.turnoffyourtv.com/

Metro

2009-04-25T08:45:00.004-05:00

We recently discovered that Merry's much beloved Subaru station wagon, the workhorse of our fleet, had a fatal leak in the head gasket. Repair cost would exceed the residual value of the car. Since moving to St. Louis we have rarely used both cars at the same time because I regularly take public transportation to work. We decided we would reduce the fleet to one and donate the Subaru to the local NPR station. They picked it up last Thursday.

Last Saturday Merry departed for her river trip down the mighty Colorado through the Grand Canyon. Logistics required she drive out. Merry's trip will take about three weeks. This left me without a car for the first extended period in my adult life. The situation has forced me to reflect on just how dependent I am on having a car at my disposal at all times.

In preparation I stocked up at the grocery store. I knew I could get to a near by supermarket by bus, but I wanted to avoid hauling heavy groceries on the bus if possible. Therefore I laid in a three week supply of dog food, canned goods, juice, spaghetti sauce and so on. I have adequate supplies to cook supper every night for myself and Merry also filled the freezer with several goodies – her famous macs & cheese, salmon loaf, chili. I have the choice of several good restaurants I can walk to if I want something fancier. I am set.

But what if we didn't have a car at all, could we get along? The answer to that question depends entirely on whether there is good, reliable public transportation.

At the beginning of this month St. Louis drastically reduced its public transportation system. Back in November there was a ballot item in St. Louis county encompassing the city's suburban area in Missouri that would have raised the county transit subsidy by a few cents per person. The timing was bad. Voters rejected the item, refusing to pay even a small amount in new taxes during a recession. The management of the transit system clearly believed that a small tax increase would pass without a problem so they did virtually nothing to sell the idea or plan for what would happen if the tax increase failed.

The regional transit system here consists of four parts: city buses, express buses from the suburbs, call-a-ride for disabled and the “MetroLink” light rail. MetroLink is a single long line stretching from Scott Air Force Base far out in Illinois on the eastern end through downtown to Lambert Airport well west of the city with a spur line to the near southwest suburbs. It runs pretty frequently and is on time almost all the time. It's dependable and quite easy to use, once you get to a station. The express buses connect further out communities to MetroLink stations and also directly to downtown. Metro has a contract with the Illinois county adjoining the city to provide express bus service, but no similar contract with St. Louis county in Missouri, the transit tax is supposed to cover that.

After the voters in St. Louis county rejected the transit tax increase, the whole thing unraveled. Metro officials announced that they would suspend all express bus service to St. Louis county, forcing thousands of those folks to drive to work. They also reduced the frequency of all city buses by one half. Every other bus driver was laid off as well as all express bus drivers, more that 500 in all. All bus routes within the central city were completely discontinued, meaning all downtown commuters like me would have to transfer to the MetroLink somewhere on the journey. Call-a-ride service was also reduced. The only services left intact are MetroLink light rail and the contract express buses from Illinois. For me the change adds ten minutes to my daily commute in both directions. For many others it's made commuting by public transit simply impossible or so onerous that they chose to drive instead.

Merry & I contacted numerous public officials quite awhile back to voice our concern over this turn of events. We received exactly two responses. One was from Russ Carnahan, our Democratic Congressman, who assured us he shared our concern and was doing all he could to help. The other was from W. Todd Akins, a Republican Congressman from a wealthy part of St. Louis county, who suggested that private enterprise would be the best way to solve the problem. Huh? I very much doubt Akins has ever felt the need to use public transportation. Since the meltdown the Missouri state legislature considered a supplemental appropriation but now has taken it off the table. No one appears to know what to do or where to get the money.

People simply won't think about a life without cars until they don't have one. Despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary we all assume we will always use personal automobiles. We assume we will always have the gas to run our cars. We assume gas will always be available and affordable. We neglect thinking about alternatives until it's late in the game. There's never any problem getting massive public money for highways, but public transit is always viewed as a mostly unnecessary frill. The reality is that we need to be dramatically expanding public transportation now. Instead, we go on blindly letting it shrink.

Human beings generally do a lousy job of planning for the future.

Dwarfs

2009-04-18T08:15:00.007-05:00

I never seriously considered dwarfs until I heard a case this week involving a 25-year-old African-American homeless man who is 4 feet 2 inches tall. In childhood he had operations on both legs to straighten them. The operations made it easier for him to walk, but left him with chronic leg pain and swelling. He has a high school diploma with an IQ of about 75. My job was to decide if he is employable.

The medical definition of dwarfism is a person of short stature with an adult height of less than 4 feet 10 inches (147 cm). Dwarfism is fairly rare occurring in about 1 in 10,000 births. While there are many causes of dwarfism, about 70% are the result of a genetic disorder called achondroplasia which results in limbs that are disproportionally short compared to the trunk. These people often also have a larger head with a large prominent forehead.

Like most people I first encountered dwarfism in literature. The use of the term "dwarf" was popularized by the Brothers Grimm in their fairy tale Little Snow White (1812), but had been used much earlier by Jonathan Swift in Gulliver's Travels (1726). I remember reading these and many later literary examples where dwarfs play a leading role including The Tin-Drum and A Prayer for Owen Meany. The term “midget” came into use after Harriet Beecher Stowe used it in her novels in the mid-1800, but the term is now generally considered offensive because of it's link to use of dwarfs in freak shows. Midget is still sometimes used by some to refer to a person of very short stature whose body parts are proportional.

The accepted plural of "dwarf" is "dwarfs", while "dwarves" is usually reserved for mythical creatures. Although the term “dwarf” is widely used and generally accepted, some advocates object to the term because of its mythical and fairy tale origins and argue that “little person” or “person of short stature” is more appropriate. The largest national advocacy group is called “Little People of America, Inc.” http://www.lpaonline.org/mc/page.do

Most of the dwarfs I've ever seen have been in movies: The Wizard of Oz, of course, but also Time Bandits, Willie Wonka, and ET where a dwarf in costume played the title role. Warwick Davis, a popular actor with dwarfism, plays Prof. Flitwick in the Harry Potter films. I've used photos of him to illustrate this story.

How was I to decide whether the little person scheduled to appear in my court was employable? First, I looked at the law. I found the Social Security Law and Regulations contain no specific reference to dwarfism except for a rule that told me I was prohibited from considering “body habitus” in reaching a decision. I initially concluded, therefore, that I had to assume body size is irrelevant and I needed to ignore it as much as possible. Accordingly, I arranged for a vocational expert to be present at the hearing as I would with anyone under the age of 50. My plan was to get a list of functional limits, then ask the vocational expert if such a person is employable and see what would happen.

As chance would have it, just after I prepared for this case Merry & I took a jaunt across the river to southern Illinois to see spring wild flowers on the Trillium Trail at Giant City State Park just south of Carbondale. The day was perfect and our timing was impeccable. We saw dozens of varieties of blooming wild flowers, many of them new to us. The setting in and among towering sandstone cliffs was worth the trip in itself. To find the trail we first stopped at the park visitor's center. I went to get a map while Merry headed to the restroom. The information clerk turned out to be a surly dwarf; a dwarf with a regular job. I was struck hard by the irony of a dwarf giving out information about Giant City.

I heard the case on Monday. The claimant was sharply dressed in a black tee shirt, black jeans, white shoes and a black ball cap with wrap-around shades pushed onto the brim. He was smaller than I expected with extremely shortened arms that did not reach above his head. He had not done too badly in high school but had to drop out of technical college because he couldn't master the necessary math. He tried to work as a bookstore clerk but the walking was too much for him. As we talked I started to get a detailed impression of all the accommodations necessary not only for work but just for everyday life. He was even unable to sit in the witness chair because it was too large, so he had to stand. He said he couldn't reach to stop cord on the bus, so he always needed to sit near the driver. All his clothing and especially his shoes had to be custom made or altered.

In the end I asked the vocational expert whether he was employable. The VE noted that were it not for the multiple accommodations needed, he was. I asked him to tell me realistically whether this person could be successfully placed in a job and he said it would be a challenge. The only hope would be if the person acquired a specialized skill or talent. I actually asked the vocational expert about a park information clerk job, but he said that job generally requires a college education.

I decided a person of abnormally small stature who requires multiple accommodations and special equipment with a high school education and with legs that did not allow standing or walking for more than a hour at a time is disabled.

As I reflect on this experience I have a new appreciation of all the dwarfs in show business who have turned their size into an asset. People are fascinated by difference. We stare and point. We laugh. I still can't stop smiling at the irony of the dwarf clerk at Giant City. In my opinion this cruel fascination can't be avoided. Like other prejudices, it can be blunted by coming to realize just what people need to do to live their everyday lives.

Everest Cafe

2009-04-11T08:34:00.005-05:00

Wednesday evening we wandered up and down Manchester Ave. in an area of St. Louis known as “The Grove” seeking the Everest Cafe and Bar. The sun was in our eyes westbound so it was hard to read the signs on storefronts. This five block long area is in the midst of redevelopment. Most storefronts are still vacant but here and there a business, office, nice restaurant or bar has sprung up. I had foolishly neglected to write down the address.

I was attracted by the claim the Everest Cafe serves “quality authentic Nepalese, Indian & Koren cuisine.” More curious is the following teaser from the restaurant web site, http://everestcafeandbar.com/index.html:

“Now open Sundays! Come and enjoy our fresh heart healthy nutritious lunch buffet and receive free screenings for blood pressure, cholesterol, and blood sugar levels conducted by our Executive Chef/Owner, Dr. Devi States, MSW, MPH, DHSc.”

I found it difficult to believe that the owner would actually conduct health screenings during the Sunday lunch buffet, but who knows? It was equally difficult to believe the chef/owner would hold a doctorate in public health and two other advanced degrees. Their web site offers this thumbnail history:

“Our Chef/Owner, Devi Gurung States grew up in an economically depressed and deprived area of Nepal (Manang, Tilche Village). After both his parents became deceased, he moved to Kathmandu for a dream of better life. In Kathmandu, Devi became homeless, because he was too young and could not find a job. After spending several months in the street of Kathmandu, he finally found a job at the KC restaurant.

Devi’s dream of owning a restaurant started at the age of sixteen while working at the KC restaurant as a dishwasher and bus boy. He met his dear father, Dr. James H. States, M.D., at the KC restaurant, who brought him to the United States following his successful ascent of Mt. Everest in 1983.”

Now that really got my attention.

We turned the car around having completed a traverse of the relevant area of Manchester Ave. without success. Heading east now, the setting sun at our backs, we were about to abandon the search when we spotted the discrete sign and fluttering prayer flags on a building right across the street from the Atomic Cowboy Bar. Bingo.

We were warmly welcomed by a smiling asian woman I correctly assumed to be Connie States, wife of the chef/owner. The restaurant consists of two rooms, a bar in the front room. Prayer flags hang around the door and surround all walls. Tanka paintings, photos of the Dali Lama and various Buddhas are everywhere. The windows even have beaded curtains with the image of the Buddha. Near where we sat in the second room was a small buddhist alter topped with a drawing of the Dali Lama over an image of Llasa backed by a rainbow.

The restaurant was modestly busy for a week night. One table seemed to be young Indian men. Another near us had an older professional caucasian couple with a young man who looked Tibetan. After a few minutes Dr. Devi himself took our order. He suggested we try two Nepalese dishes. I ordered a complete meal of chicken cooked in authentic Nepal-style sauce called Tarkari Ra Saag, lentil soup, vegetables and very spicy pickled vegetables with lotus root called mango achars. Merry ordered Everest Sizzling Shrimp Tarkari.

The food took a while to arrive. I assume this was because each dish was being prepared individually. The atmosphere was so peaceful we really didn't mind the wait. I noticed white silk scarfs draped over the alter and a Tanka. I asked Connie States whether these were the traditional scarves received from the Dali Lama and she said they were. Seventeen years ago her husband served as guide and driver for the Dali Lama when he visited Tibetan refugees in St. Louis. She thought he got them then.

The food arrived. Mine was a single large round silver dish with small vegetable items including soup, pickles, chick peas, spiced spinach and the chicken around a central mound of basmanti rice. Merry's dish turned out to be quite a few spiced shrimp grilled with onions, bell peppers, lemons and tomatoes served on sizzling hot plate with a side of daal (lentil) soup. Every bite was delicious. The spices are similar to northern Indian food, but subtly different.

Everything is reasonably priced. Our two full dinners with drinks totaled a little over $30; quite a bargain.

We exchanged a traditional Himalayan bow with Dr. Devi States as we left. He showed us a picture of himself getting a white scarf from the Dali Lama. We told him a little about our hearing the Dali Lama speak in Ithaca, NY last year. We promised to come back.

In an attempt to learn a bit more about Devi States I did a internet search for James States, his adoptive father, physician and world-class mountain climber. It appears he still has a practice in adolescent medicine in Washington state. I also found he was a star swimmer for Bucknell University, graduating three years before me. I didn't meet him there. Small world, though.

Hannibal

2009-04-04T08:43:00.004-05:00

We've just spent the last three days in Hannibal, MO. Hannibal is about 100 miles northwest of St. Louis along the Mississippi River. To get there in the most expeditious manner you actually take Interstate 70 due west about 40 miles through the sprawling suburbs and strip malls that surround St. Louis, then turn north on Route 61 toward Iowa. The country is open rolling plains, nearly empty save for a few small towns. The Mississippi is out of sight to the east, but since it tends west as you go north when you approach Hannibal you drop off the prairie through a series of rocky outcrops into the river valley.

Hannibal is the county seat of Marion county with a population of about 17,000. Route 61 slows as it enters the ubiquitous strip mall zone. Turn toward downtown on Broadway and you pass through modest neighborhoods. The houses are small and run down, more than a few vacant. The town is quite hilly. Some of the hills have fine older homes, but they too seem in need of more attention than their owners can afford. Here and there you can see a fully restored Victorian or even civil war vintage home, but they are the exception. As Broadway approaches the river a row of brick storefronts line both sides of the street. The classical Country Court House is here as well as a nondescript brick federal office building that houses the post office, courtrooms for the federal court, the Social Security district office, and my destination, the ODAR hearing point.

If you continue on Broadway you can see the Mississippi River at the far end of the street. The heart of downtown consists of Broadway and two cross streets, Third and Main. Both have storefronts for about four blocks to the north, none to the south, where a small stream enters the river. All east bound streets end at a tall levee except Broadway, which dead-ends into the river at a small, nearly empty marina. The storefronts in this area are mostly occupied. There are a few small restaurants, some antique stores, two good coffee joints, and of course a booming trade in Mark Twain. See for yourself: http://www.hannibalcam.com/

Now, I'm not a big fan of Mark Twain, but I've read most of his books over the years. A few years back our book club read The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn and enjoyed the heck out of it. Sam Clemens was not born in Hannibal, that honor goes to Florida, MO about 15 miles west, but he did grow up here and he based Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn on his memories of Hannibal. So it has come to pass that Hannibal's main industry is Mark Twain tourism. The river boat “Mark Twain” is tied up at the end of Center Street. The Mark Twain Hotel and Mark Twain Dinette are downtown along with the Mark Twain Museum. Tour buses head directly for the Mark Twain boyhood home, and you can eat at the Becky Thacher Restaurant right down the street. The Mark Twain Cave is two miles south. About every third business in town uses “Mark Twain” as part of its name. We had lunch Friday at a very good coffeehouse called Mark Twain Ice n' Coal.

I don't object at all to towns using tourism as a means of survival. I'm a pretty discriminating tourist myself. We checked out the museum http://www.MarkTwainMuseum.org/ and found much to admire there. It's a curious mix of the real and the imagined. The first floor is devoted to dioramas from the most popular novels and the upper floors concern Clemens' life, especially his time as a steamboat pilot. Much of the top floor is devoted to display of the original Norman Rockwell paintings used as illustrations for Huckleberry Finn and Tom Sawyer.

The problem with using tourism as a town's economic base is that it doesn't produce nearly as much capital for the town as one might imagine. Hundreds of thousands of tourists visit Hannibal every year, look around for a short time then leave. The service jobs are seasonal and often part-time. Some small businesses prosper on tourist dollars, but not to the extent that the whole town prospers. Thus the overwhelming image I'm left with of Hannibal is of a struggle to survive, with many inhabitants just barely getting by.

On Thursday I heard six cases, all of whom were represented by the same lawyer, Terrell Dempsey. He and his wife, Vicki, have done a lot over the years to make Hannibal a better place to live. They helped found the free health clinic, the woman's shelter and to restore the Molly Brown (as in Unsinkable) home. I was surprised when he asked one of his African-American clients during testimony whether she liked a particular place because it was owned and operated by black folk. After the hearing he told me that he meant no offense but it's just that the entire area is still called “Little Dixie” and that segregation is far from over. He referred me to his book, Searching for Jim: Slavery in Sam Clemens' World, if I wanted deeper understanding of Hannibal's history. Take a look at this interview with Dempsey for a different view of Mark Twain's background: http://www.literarytraveler.com/authors/terrell_dempsey_searching_for.aspx.

In all I enjoyed my introduction to Hannibal. I'll be back for a week in July when the tourist season is in full swing. You can expect a another dispatch from Little Dixie then.

Mockingbird

2009-03-28T06:07:00.005-05:00

Atticus Finch at the bus stop

Street lights the pre-dawn

Spring has brought him a mockingbird

Not a robin

Not a bluejay

Not a wren or crow

But all in one bird

He's there every morning at 6:05

One day a street light

Then a flowering crab

Wednesday the top of an abandoned store

His personal songster

No other bird song at this hour

Clear notes, louder than traffic

Atticus wonders:

Could this be the same bird

Every day,

A new resident of this dusty corner?

Until now I've been alone in the dark

Then on Friday,

Three

Dr. Who at the Pulitzer

2009-03-21T05:07:00.004-05:00

On Wednesday evening Merry and I set out for the Pulitzer Foundation for the Arts in the teeth of a threating thunderstorm to hear a New Music concert in that wonderful space. The Pulitzer was created especially to exhibit contemporary art but the current exhibit is a selection of old masters. The unique twist is that the art is hung without exhibition lighting. The Pulitzer has lots of natural light so the effect is eerie, somewhat like seeing the art in a contemporary cathedral. The overall effect is one of profound dislocation. See for yourself at www.pulitzerarts.org.

The Pulitzer has a contemporary chamber concert series designed by David Robertson, the music director of the St. Louis Symphony. Robertson is a devotee of contemporary classical music and programs it often for the Symphony. We wanted to attend this concert because it featured Andrew Russo, the talented young Syracuse pianist I know from my work with the Society for New Music.

There is no other art space like the Pulitzer. It's built entirely of polished concrete with soaring open spaces as well as wonderful quiet corners. The main hall is two stories high ending in a set of steps leading to a lower level. The far end of this space, now three stories tall, is dominated by Blue Black by Ellsworth Kelly. As we sat down on clear plastic folding chairs near the top of the steps Blue Black set the mood by echoing the early evening near darkness with the impending storm.

About 100 people arrived. At the bottom of the steps was a grand piano, a tangle of computer equipment and about six guys dressed entirely in black wandering around with no obvious purpose. Six loud speakers ringed the space. When the well-dressed patrons of the series took the front row of reserved seats we knew the concert was about to begin.

Matthias Waschek, director of the museum, and Robertson appeared at the base of the steps. Dr. Waschek talked for a few minutes about how the old masters in the exhibit represented the tension between an emerging technology (oil painting) and an old technology (egg tempura painting). He claimed the artist's task is to find a way to preserve what is best of the old while adapting what is best of the new. Maestro Robertson explained he chose Pluton, the piece of the evening, because it represents how the older technology of the piano was preserved and transformed by electronics. This entire introduction seemed unnecessary and strained to me, but it did demonstrate just how silly serious people can be when trying to justify their entertainment.

Robertson introduced world-famous electronic music composer, Philippe Manoury. Manoury is a small, unprepossessing Frenchman with shoulder length wild white hair. He explained that all of the sounds in the piece would be produced and modulated by the performer at the piano, but would then be manipulated by the computer to produce an improvisational interaction unique to each performance. I instantly liked him.

Andrew Russo came on stage without introduction and sat down at the piano. Pluton was composed in 1988 making it a pretty early piece of electronica. Unfortunately, it shows its age. The music is utterly atonal, loud and difficult to listen to as it lacks any obvious rhythmic or melodic structure. The five movements with titles that suggest theme and development are utterly indistinguishable. In the midst of all this sound and fury Russo's piano technique was incredible. He put on his usual virtuoso show, but after ten minutes I longed for it all to end.

When trapped in circumstances like this I often close my eyes and try to imagine what movie would have this music as its score. At once I saw Dr. Who [http://www.bbc.co.uk/doctorwho/classic/] emerge from his Tardus and sweep around the room accompanied by electronic squeaks and whooshes. His archenemies the Daliks armed with toy pianos assault him from every angle. Their tinkling shots bounce off his hat, coat and long scarf and scatter everywhere. The music gets louder and more dissonant as the battle rages, then . . .

I couldn't keep going. There was no sequence to the sounds or the progressions. It fell back in a rain of academically driven technical experiments with no obvious regard for the sensibility of the listeners. I started counting page turns and hoped it would end soon. Finally, after about 50 minutes the lights dimmed, Russo rose from the piano, but even then the computer was not finished. Finally, and mercifully, it died.

Believe it or not, a question and answer period followed. It was respectful and fairly short.

I went back stage to briefly talk to Andy Russo. I'm not sure he really remembered me, but he greeted me warmly. He agreed the piece showed its age. I asked him how he got the call to do this concert and he noted he is perhaps the only person who has rehearsed this piece enough to perform it in concert. He came to St. Louis at Robertson's invitation and was headed back to Syracuse the next morning.

On later reflection I realize I had enjoyed the experience, if not the music.

Catfish

2009-03-14T08:17:00.005-05:00

I spent the last week hearing cases in Cape Girardeau, about 115 miles south of St. Louis. Cape is an old Mississippi River town, founded as a colonial trading center by the French, now pretty much reduced to the service capital of southeastern Missouri: strip malls, government offices, courts, a regional university and major health care center.

One of my cases involved an unrepresented young guy of very marginal intelligence who had been out of work for years. He previously ran a cut-off saw in a sawmill, loaded ice trucks and worked as a dishwasher. He's functionally illiterate, can't count money or make change. He seemed strong and healthy to me, so I was questioning him closely to find out why he was not working. As part of this investigation I often ask about hobbies. This question frequently turns up interesting answers.

“Well judge, my hobby is fishing, but you see I have to be careful not to catch any catfish.”

Now that is something. As I'm sure y'all know, the channel catfish is the official state fish of Missouri. Not being able to catch catfish in southern Missouri is surely a pretty serious problem.

“What's the problem with catfish?”

“Well judge, I'm allergic.”

It turns out he can't touch catfish, eat catfish or even smell catfish cooking without a very severe allergic reaction that actually sent him to the emergency room on several occasions. When he saw I was impressed, he decided to play the tune louder. He insisted he once lost a job as a dishwasher because the restaurant served catfish. His wage records showed he worked at that restaurant part time for four years. I guess it took a long while for the essence of catfish to reach the dish room.

Fishing for catfish is taken pretty seriously out here. The bigger rivers and lakes boast some truly awesome catfish. There are three types of large catfish native to Missouri waters. Channel cats are the most abundant and weigh in at 20-35 pounds. More common than you might think in slow water is the flathead cat. The biggest flathead ever caught in Missouri weighed 77 pounds. Out in the Big Muddy you can find lunker blue catfish that weigh 100 pounds or more.

When catfish get this big, good old southern boys go a little crazy. When I told the catfish allergy story to another judge, he asked me if I had ever heard of “noodling.” It turns out “noodling” involves catching massive catfish with the bare hands.

Flathead catfish live in holes or under brush in rivers and lakes. Their sedentary nature makes them the prime target for noodlers. To catch one a noodler wades and dives in the shallows looking for holes or brush along the silt bottom. When the noodler finds a likely hole, he or she swims down and wriggles a few fingers inside in hopes of attracting the attention of a big 40-50 pound flathead catfish. If all goes as planned, the catfish will swim forward and latch onto the fisherman's gloved hand, usually as a defensive maneuver in order to try to escape the hole. Once the fish grabs a hand all the noodler has to do is drag the animal out of the water without drowning first.

Hand fishing for catfish like this is illegal in most states, but not Missouri. Last June Missouri opened its first season of legal hand-fishing, due to persistent lobbying by a group called “Noodlers Anonymous.” Legalization seems not likely to make much difference. The legal hand fishing is limited to only three rivers. There are 2000 estimated noodlers in Missouri, but only 21 applied for the new $7 hand-fishing permit.

Anyone who wants to learn even more about noodling should definitely check out this link to YouTube:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bAgw6d3kLPI

Enough about the fine art of sport fishing in Missouri.

I have had several requests lately for copies of earlier blog entries to share with friends. I don't mind anyone forwarding what I send you. However, given the number of entries accumulated so far it seems like a good idea to post them all on the internet where anyone can access whatever entries strike their interest. Starting today you and your friends are invited to view my new blog site “St. Louis Sojourn.” To take a look go to http://edpitts.blogspot.com. Please note there is no “www” in this address. I still intend to email each blog entry weekly as always. I've already posted all prior entries the site and will continue to do so weekly. Entires posted to the internet will probably have fewer pictures, but the same text. As always, your comments are appreciated.

Bear

2009-03-07T07:15:00.003-06:00

Last Saturday we drove an hour west of St. Louis to pick up Bear at a McDonald's along the highway. Bear is a three-year-old Border Collie who had just been plucked from a private dog shelter by the dedicated, kind-hearted souls at Mo-Kan Border Collie Rescue. Robin, the woman behind his rescue, found out that Bear had spent virtually his whole life to date in the kennel. He apparently has a minor thyroid problem, but is otherwise healthy.

Merry joined Border Collie Rescue only a short time ago. A local volunteer came to our house to check it out and determined we would be appropriate as foster humans for dogs waiting for adoption. I was somewhat surprised that a dog was placed with us so soon. We debated for a few days whether we were ready, then decided that now was as good a time as ever. Thus, we found ourselves at the McDonald's transferring a somewhat shocked black and white dog to a crate in the back of Merry's Subaru.

Our first challenge was introducing Bear to Joli. We decided to begin by walking them together around the neighborhood before letting Bear in the house. This was a good plan and it would have worked, too, if the handle on the leash we used hadn't broken the first second as Merry got Bear out of the car. This led to a scramble to hold onto Bear while a different leash was located. Then it was off around the block. To our pleasant surprise he walked very well on a lead, even though he got tangled up a few times. As our blood pressures returned to normal, we seemed off to a pretty good start.

We kept a close watch on him in the house. Here's an excerpt from Merry's first report back to Robin:

“He is a pretty good boy in the house. We've interrupted him marking in the house a couple times. He mainly wants to stay close. He wants lots of pats and scratches and will lay on his back for tummy rubs. He is not very civilized. He knows sit pretty well, and comes pretty well when he remembers he should be coming when called. We are working on sit and lay down. Stay is out of the question so far. We are working also on wait...to come out of the crate or to go through the door. We don't think he knows his name yet.”

We've had him a week now. Merry works with him every day. We see small bits of civilization becoming part of his behavior set. For example, I was quite surprised on last Sunday to discover that Bear had not played much with toys. I threw him a tennis ball and he just looked puzzled. I tried a squeaky toy. Same result. So we had him watch as we played with Joli and made sure there were toys in the yard when the dogs were out. Here's Merry's report to Robin on his progress:

“Yesterday outside he discovered the big ball with the rope. He watched Joli run for it and after a while, when he got the chance, he grabbed it and ran around with it. Tore around! He is an incredibly graceful runner and jumper. Really light on his feet.”

Perhaps the most interesting challenge could be called “Bear's Liminal Problem.” The most difficult time for Bear (and us) is when he needs to make a transition from one way of being (say in his crate) to another (loose in the house), or vice versa. Here's Merry again:

“Anytime we go out or upstairs or downstairs, he needs prep, and it is best if Joli is not in the scene. For instance, going up to go in his crate for the night has been hard. He ran by the crate, ran into this room, that room. Last night I tried coming upstairs with him and not going straight to the crate. [lightbulb!] We hung out on the couch nearby, him getting lots of pats and scratches, generally making out. Then when I asked him to get into the crate, he popped right in!”

I experienced this problem first hand a few days ago. I just got home from work and as is my habit hitched up Joli for her evening walk. We've been doing this virtually every day for at least ten years, so I was on automatic pilot. I opened the door, let Joli out and suddenly Bear was past me and out the door. A second before he had been nowhere around. Joli blocked him and I grabbed him by the neck fur. He's so strong he pulled me to my knees before I could stop him. Ouch.

This event and the general problem Bear has with learning how to gracefully make transitions put me in mind of how anyone learns to go from one mental state to the next without being utterly confused. While we are on the threshold between two mental states we are particularly open and vulnerable. There exists a fairly large body of literature on liminality in philosophy, anthropology and neuroscience. I never thought it might apply to dog training.

As for Bear, he will be at our house for another week at least. Then he's scheduled to go to another foster home. I'm off for a week hearing cases in Cape Girardeau. Merry will stay here and work with Bear some more. You can check on the status of Bear by looking at his bio found at http://www.mokanbcrescue.org/info/dogs/dogs-available.html.

For those of you who love BC's and want to see how Merry first got interested in rescue, check out one of the very best BC sites on the web at http://www.theshepherdsdog.com .

One final note: I want to thank everyone who responded to my cry for help in last week's post. I needed the boost. I've decided to follow the advice of several of you [Thank you George, Merry, Kate, Scott & Glenn] and start a blog archive on the web. I've signed up with Blogger and by next week I expect to have the archive ready for public viewing.

Six months later

2009-02-28T05:25:00.002-06:00

Merry & I moved to St. Louis six months ago on Labor Day, 2008. I made a two year commitment to relocate here when I was hired, so one quarter of that commitment has now been fulfilled. The current arc of our lives started when the ALJ job was offered to me in late June. Then came the whirlwind of the move - selling my practice, finding someone to rent our house, finding and buying a new house in St. Louis, packing up the house in Syracuse (accomplished by Merry while I spent all of August in Baltimore being “trained”) and finally moving. I was required to go to work immediately, so Merry did most of the work getting our new home ready to live in. 2115 Ann had been “rehabbed” in the recent past, but once we took possession it became obvious that the conversion from two-family to one-family had been heavy on style and light on careful workmanship. The concept is good, the execution less so.

The new laundry room was unpainted and without a dryer vent. The electrical system was left incomplete in minor (we hope) ways. The two bathrooms were painted horrible colors (downstairs was dark blue with white stripes, upstairs dark green with a silver glaze). The master bedroom had been painted a dark chocolate brown. Merry applied her considerable painting skills and remedied the decorating faux pas. She also had the electrical system inspected and a dryer vent installed. She decorated the house with the art work we brought along and bought the necessary new furniture and fixtures needed to make it a home. She contracted for a new fence for the yard and had a gas fireplace installed in our upstairs sitting room. The place looks great. There are many things that still need to be done, but I feel that we are finally settled in. As spring approaches we are planning for a garden.

All through the turmoil of moving I've been amazed and blessed by all Merry accomplishes every day. In many ways she has the harder job. She retired from her long time mental health social work job in Syracuse and moved to a new place where she knew no one. Nonetheless she has engaged in an undaunted course of discovery that has led us from one joyful event to another. Thanks to her efforts we now belong to the Missouri Botanical Garden, the St. Louis Art Museum, the St. Louis Science Center and the Missouri Historical Society. We have walked in the major city parks and explored many nearby State parks. We spent a weekend in the Ozarks and a week in New Orleans. The list goes on and on.

For my part, I've spent most of my time learning how to decide Social Security cases. In my first six months I've held a total of 309 hearings. Of these I've issued decisions in 204 cases. I paid benefits in 118 of these cases and denied benefits in 86 (including those dismissed because the claimant failed to show up at their hearing). That means so far I've rendered favorable decisions 58% of the time. The national average is 60% favorable. I'm probably being a bit more careful granting benefits because of my lack of experience. I also had to adjourn 105 of my cases for various reasons. 28 were adjourned because of the January ice storm in Cape Girardeau. 30 claimants needed post trial development of the record. The other 47 were rescheduled for further hearings, usually because the claimant wanted to hire a lawyer. To my astonishment at this time I have 835 pending cases assigned to me, and the number keeps rising weekly. Even if I reach the informal goal of deciding 500 – 700 cases a year I will keep falling behind. The cases are just coming in faster than they can be fairly processed. Our office has been promised two additional judges from the hiring that is anticipated this coming summer. That will help; in the meantime all the Judges here are meeting and exceeding every goal set for us; yet we are still falling behind.

Today's blog is the 26^th entry in the series. Frankly, I'm enjoying doing the writing. Every day I write for about an hour before heading off to work. Much of this ends up in the trash, but the process feels right to me. I hope the product will eventually improve. I worry, however, that I've overstepped the bounds of friendship with each of the people who receive this by sending what may be seen as junk mail. Perhaps the problem for me is that I don't know what most of the recipients think about being on my mailing list. A few people have responded to individual posts, so I'm pretty sure they want to keep getting my postings. The fact is that most people on the list have not ever replied, so I'm starting to feel uncomfortable.

I started this project as a way to keep in touch with friends, and as an incentive to keep me writing about something creative every day. This blog is working for my purposes, but I don't want to unnecessarily annoy my good friends in the process. Believe me, I won't be hurt if anyone doesn't want to stay on the list. I'd rather know than not know.

Accordingly, I ask those of you who have not responded in the recent past to please drop me a brief note to let me know if you still want to get these postings. Better yet, a little feedback on the writing or subject matter would also be nice. I'm sure many of you have questions about the midwest or St. Louis you are dying to have answered. Just let me know. Thanks.

Monte Bello

2009-02-21T19:01:00.003-06:00

On Valentine's Day we had dinner at a very nice Persian restaurant. Our young waiter was a St. Louis native so we questioned him about his favorite restaurants. For “St. Louis style” thin crust pizza he recommended Monte Bello Pizzeria. We had already tried thin crust pizza at Imo's, a ubiquitous family-owned franchise, but had not cared for it. He encouraged us to try it again. He assured us this place makes the real thing. It has existed for as long as anyone can remember. His parents first took him there. He told us an old couple operate it in the basement of their house. He couldn't remember the address but described the location. Intrigued, we resolved to try it.

I used Google to locate the address and telephone number. That's all I could find. They have no web site. They do no advertising. They don't deliver. Merry called and spoke to a woman who told her they are not open Monday night, except for take-out. We decided to wait until we could eat there.

On Wednesday we took I-55 south, crossed River de Pere which defines the south boundary of the city and took the next exit. Weber road runs toward the Mississippi through an old working class neighborhood. Modest houses sit close together mixed with old warehouses and factories. We found the address a few blocks down. There is no parking, no sign or anything else to indicate this is a restaurant. The front of the house, perhaps what was once a front porch, is entirely covered with aluminum siding so all you can see is a door with the house number and a neon “OPEN” sign. The door leads immediately down cellar steps. At the bottom of the stairs another door has a cracked window pane mended with scotch tape. A hand lettered sign warns they do not accept credit or debit cards. We check our wallets. $28.00 OK, that's probably enough for pizza.

Inside it's pretty dark. There are about fifteen tables covered with red and white checked tablecloths. There's no one there. One wall is covered by a very old fresco, divided by arches to appear as a view across the Tuscan hills. A concrete floor, once painted grey, is now worn to its original surface. As we hesitate at the door a woman emerges from the kitchen in the back and invites us to sit anywhere. We order a large sausage pizza, a Coke and an ice tea.

She brings our drinks. She's obviously the owner. She sits at the next table. While we wait for the pizza, she talks. The restaurant story comes out. She and her husband and a partner bought the restaurant as a going concern in 1961. Things didn't work out well with the partner so they sold it to him and opened a barbeque place for awhile. Soon he was in trouble for failing to pay sales tax and convinced them to buy it back. They have operated it ever since, forty eight years, six days a week with Monday off, but still making pizza for take-out and prepping food for the week ahead.

She's worried about the economy. Her regular customers come in once a week at the same time every week. They are now feeding the grand children of their original customers. When they call for take out she claims to usually recognize their voice. Recently business is off a bit. Could we believe Oprah told people to stop going out to eat for a month? What if Anheuser Busch laid people off, what would happen to business then? One customer is trying to sell her a new car but her 2001 only has 60,000 miles on it. She doesn't need a new car.

She's a small woman. Every joint of her hands is swollen with rheumatoid arthritis. Her eyes are sunken but bright. One thin eyebrow rims an eye socket the other shoots upward in an arc. She speaks with the soft, half-southern accent I've come to identify as native to this place.

Through the open doorway into the kitchen I can see her husband patiently throwing then stretching the pizza dough, smoothing it onto a baking pan. He shuffles about slowly, getting the ingredients together. He never leaves the kitchen.

I mention how we found her. She wants to know the waiter's name. I mention I found the address on the internet. This leads to a long discussion of her son's distinguished carrier as a forensic computer analyst for a local police department. He's done well. She is pleased to tell us he bought a big old house in Clayton, the upscale suburb where he works, that used to belong to the Imo family – the people who founded the largest pizza chain in the metro area.

The pizza arrives on a battered rectangular cookie sheet. It's of indeterminate shape, cut into three inch squares. The crust is thin and crisp, a freshly baked cracker, really. The sauce is homemade with just the right amount of onions and provolone cheese, a hallmark of St. Louis pizza. The sausage is heavenly and unlike any I'd had before, mild with a nice mixture of spices. I inquire about the sausage. She makes it from scratch each week using a recipe they got from the former owner 48 years ago. The pizza disappears quickly. She gives us a copy of the menu and urges us to come back soon. Another couple comes in as we finish and she moves off to help them.

The bill is about $15. We emerge from the cellar and re-enter the 21^st century.

Lost in Translation

2009-02-14T19:18:00.005-06:00

I had to take the testimony of a Bosnian woman a few days ago. She speaks almost no English although she's been in St. Louis since 2002. That might seem odd until you consider the Bosnian community here has grown over the past decade to more than 50,000. A fairly large part of South St. Louis centered in the Bevo neighborhood has become “Little Bosnia” complete with stores, restaurants, a newspaper, doctors, social service agencies and mosques. As a complete coincidence on the same day of this case Merry and I had a crew of Bosnian carpenters at our house to build a new wood fence for our backyard. The contractor proudly informed us he hires Bosnians because they are dependable, hard workers.

I was not worried about the trial. As a claimant's attorney I'd participated in dozens of trials over the years where the claimant could not speak English including hearings with Spanish, Vietnamese, French Canadian, Polish and sign language translators. Because I considered myself pretty experienced I made no special preparation for the trial, just read the medical evidence and made notes.

It was not until I was on the bench that I realized my mistake. Unlike the trials in which I represented a non-English speaking claimant, this time I would be required to ask virtually all the questions. Use of a translator entails a stop after every sentence so the translator can repeat what I said, then another stop after the answer, and so on. My trials ordinarily last 45 minutes. If I conducted a normal hearing with all my normal questions this hearing was sure to run at least twice that long, if not longer – and I had three other trials scheduled for that morning.

The translator and my vocational expert arrived. Fortunately the translator, a middle-aged Bosnian woman with the oddest pinkish-orange hair I've ever seen, had participated in many Social Security trials. She knew the routine. She also knew the claimant's lawyer who, I learned, represents almost entirely Eastern European claimants and had a Bosnian speaking staff member along with him to help. We were off to a good start.

I summoned the claimant and her lawyer to the courtroom and began. I decided to cut the length of my questions in half - just the basics – in a hope that the trial could be concluded in an hour. I had not considered in advance how difficult this would be to do on the fly. Try it for yourself. Take any paragraph of simple dialogue and cut it in half before you know what the other person is going to say. Now try it with a person who is constantly in tears. Believe me, this work is not for the faint-hearted.

For example, I usually say this at the opening of every hearing:

“You're here because Social Security previously denied your claim and you asked for a hearing to present your case face to face to a judge. This is that opportunity. I'm going to hear whatever you have to say about why you can't work, then apply Social Security's rules to those facts and decided if you are disabled under Social Security's rules. I am not bound by the previous decision in your case. I plan to make an entirely new, independent decision based on the record as I see it.”

That paragraph became:

“I'm going to ask you some questions about why you're not working, then make my own independent decision about whether you could work according to Social Security's rules.”

I carefully made my way through a series of simple questions about her background and past work. I asked about her medical care then about her activities of daily living. Finally the direct testimony was over. I had a vivid picture of the claimant's condition and had made up my mind. Only 30 minutes had elapsed on the courtroom clock.

Now it was time for the claimant's attorney to ask questions. I started by asking him if he spoke Bosnian. He claimed to know a little, but would be using the translator. Of course, I know by heart the questions most lawyers would ask in this situation, so I usually cover them in my questioning. This means most claimant's lawyers only do a small amount of questioning to fill in any gaps. Not so this time. Because of his knowledge of Bosnian life in St. Louis he had a few entirely new questions to ask. “When did you last attend mosque?” “Have you been to a wedding lately?” “How does it make you feel to have your sons take care of you?” “Do you still sew?” “Do you own a telephone and can you use it?” I had asked about whether she could drive a car.

This was all very interesting until he started asking about her experiences during the genocidal war in Bosnia. I knew from her records that she lost a large number of family members and had lived in a refuge camp for a few years. I had chosen not to ask about these things because they were well documented in her psychological records. He waded right in. Before I could stop him he had reduced his client to uncontrollable sobbing. She softly told the translator she was about to be sick. I excused her and the lawyer's staff member helped her to the restroom.

Once she was out of the courtroom I bluntly told her lawyer to discontinue that line of questioning. I explained that I only have to decide if a claimant can work. In the questioning process I do what I can to assure all claimants maintain their basic human dignity. He said he was sorry. When his client recovered enough to return to court he had no further questions.

Now I just had to take some brief vocational testimony and I'd be done. The vocational expert [a VE in Social Security speak] testified the claimant couldn't do her past work. What did the VE think about the battery of tests she had been administered recently showing her job aptitudes and skills? Well, it turns out it is improper to administer these tests to a non-English speaker using a translator, so the results are invalid. OK, but even if I throw out these test scores can the claimant perform competitive work? No. OK, thanks.

The hearing was over. One hour exactly had elapsed. All the parties exited. I put my head down on the bench. I was really, really tired. After resting a few seconds, I sat up and called the next case.

Billy

2009-02-07T19:32:00.003-06:00

As I emerged from the Imperial Theatre I saw my friend Chris Whyland standing by the Stage Door on 46^th Street flanked by a gaggle of pre-teen girls clutching Billy Elliott Playbills hoping for autographs. It was a wind-whipped, fiercely cold January afternoon. I pulled on my purple SEIU 1199 stocking cap and zipped my coat.

We had failed to agree in advance where to meet Chris and his family after the show. Merry and I had been searching in the lobby when it occurred to me to check the stage door. There he was, casually chatting with a fellow who also looked like he was also associated with the show. He told me that his wife, Melissa, had already taken the girls across the street to get a table at the Edison diner. The three of us hurried to meet them.

The Edison Hotel is a art deco gem with gorgeous terrazzo floors, murals and glittering lighting. Melissa, Erin and Casey were in the lobby. We got a table in the far corner of the diner and settled in to discuss the show. The Edison diner, it turns out, is a hidden NYC gem. It caters primarily to hotel guests and theatre people. It serves breakfast all day, has a cash only policy and a NYC gruff wait staff. I got a big bowl of good borscht with sour cream crammed into a plastic cup. Erin had a belgium waffle and Casey a pizza burger. Merry, Melissa and Chris ordered a medley of diverse breakfast, lunch and dinner foods.

We peppered the girls and their parents with questions about the show. Was the show substantially different when the role of Billy was played by a different actor (there are 3 rotating Billys)? The girls agreed that it was not, except for Billy's solo dances. Did they get tired performing eight times a week for three hours at a shot? They did not. Well, at first they did, especially on days with two shows, but now they were in better shape. Chris told us that Hillary & Chelsea Clinton had recently seen the show. What was it like if they knew a famous person was in the audience? The girls seemed unimpressed. Who would they like to see the show? They agreed they hoped the Obama family would come. Casey confided that she didn't actually care if they came to the show, but would love it if the Obama girls would hang out backstage with them. That would be “so cool.”

We discussed Casey's ankle injury and how the understudy system works. There are three understudies for the ten “ballet girls,” small, medium and large. Since Erin has a speaking part she has her own understudy. Melissa told us when Casey got hurt, she was assisted in her parenting duties by a theatre “guardian.” The show hires several guardians to manage the child actors at all times they are at work. The parents are not allowed backstage. Parents drop their kids off at the theatre and take them home but must rely on the guardians for supervision at the theatre. Since there are two Whyland children in the show, nursing one at home and having to shuttle one to work was going to take some juggling. Not to worry, a guardian did all the transporting door to door, on his free time and at his own expense.

Right then a small seven-year old boy rushed up to say “hi” followed by a tall young man. This was Michael Michaliszyn, one of the two boys who share the role of “The Small Boy” in the show. We chatted with his guardian while he goofed around for a second with the girls. Chris pointed out several other cast members and theatre staff were eating in the diner at the time. I remember seeing Carol Shelly who plays Billy's Grandma across the room. Two other guardians came over to say hello. One was introduced as the “head” Broadway guardian. I asked him how he keeps tabs on so many active kids at the same time.

“Can't really do it. Just last week I caught one driving a Zamboni down 45^th Street.”

Our meal came to an end. The girls had to go back to work to get ready for the evening show.

We grabbed a cab. As we rode uptown we reflected on the life of child actors and their parents. Chris and Melissa seem to be handling the role of stage parents very well and actually enjoying the process most the the time, even with Chris having to make the weekly trek from Syracuse. The girls are clearly having a ball. Casey is a theatre veteran at age 13, having toured the country in Annie two years ago. Erin is full of energy and loves being in the spotlight.

How was the show, you ask? We loved it, but we're biased. A musical about a failed strike that ruined the coal industry in England? From my perspective they did as good a job of putting working class life on stage as can be done in a Broadway musical. The dancing is terrific by any standard, often elevated to divine. The production is inspired and the stark sets work well. The songs by Sir Elton John are hummable, but not forever. I recommend it.

Ice

2009-01-29T05:27:00.002-06:00

Merry, Joli & I just returned from a few icy days in Cape Girardeau, MO where I was scheduled to hold court from Monday afternoon until this morning. On Monday we held court as planned. Monday night it started to rain, then it froze. By Tuesday morning there was a thick coating of ice everywhere. Southern Missouri does not have a very large fleet of plows and salt trucks. Even the major roads and Interstates were iffy; everything else was pretty well impassable. Fortunately Bill Kumpe, the other ALJ on the trip, had his four wheel drive and plenty of confidence. We arrived at court on time Tuesday morning. We waited. No one showed up. The weather deteriorated as the day drew on. Overnight it got worse in the area to the south, referred to as the “bootheel.” Now power lines and tree limbs littered the rural roads. Towns were without power and sometimes without phone service. We tried to cancel Wednesday's court. We were unable to reach everyone so we trekked back to court Wednesday morning and waited. As soon as we got there the sun came out. Crews were using anything that could plow snow to clear the main roads and parking lots. By noon we had reached everyone by phone except for one client who had failed to show up or call by her 11:30 hearing. Of course, as soon as we headed out for lunch she showed up. Back to court we went. We finally got lunch about 2:00. Two days gone and only one hearing held between the two of us. We had 24 scheduled but now adjourned.

Today it warmed up and the roads north of Cape Girardeau are clear. Massive convoys of utility trucks are finally heading south to the bootheel. We held court as usual in the morning and headed back to St. Louis.

Tomorrow Merry & I head to NYC to see Billy Elliott on Broadway. You can expect my review when we get back. We know two of the young cast members, so my review will not pretend to be objective. What review ever is objective anyway?

Death of a poet

2009-01-24T05:31:00.001-06:00

I did not know Hayden Carruth died last fall until yesterday.

He was probably the only winner of the National Book Award to ever live in Munnsville, NY.

I spoke with him a few times in his later years.

He read poems at the Oneida Community Mansion House and had coffee with us.

One Christmas I unexpectedly received a package containing a note and video tape of him reading. He said I should stop by his place on the Bear Path. I never did. He scared me too much. I didn't think I could hold down my end of any conversation with him. So I never stopped to see him and now I never will.

His struggles were mighty. He made poems out of everyday common life with uncommon grace.

If you have not yet read his poems, please do.

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/01/books/01carruth.html (Times obit)

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/obituaries/hayden-carruth-poet-who-produced-work-of-unapologetic-affection--despite-lifelong-struggles-with-mental-illness-950819.html (long and interesting obit from London)

Bandwidth

2009-01-18T07:26:00.002-06:00

Earlier this week I realized I would be at work preparing to hold hearings this coming Tuesday, Inauguration Day. I hoped to watch the swearing in and hear Obama's address live rather than on the evening news. Our office does not have a television in the lunch room. After some preliminary investigation I decided I needed to ask Karen, the Hearing Office Director, and longtime boss of all things, whether she would permit arrangements to be made that would allow the office staff to watch the Inauguration. Karen was not in the office at the time so I sent her a brief email.

The next day Karen came to my office and told me she was unable to clear the idea. She looked uncomfortable. There were technical problems. It seems you can't get good TV reception in the office, and we aren't allowed to use SSA's satellite up-link for streaming TV over the internet. There was a possible issue with video hearings that might be held, which had something to do with available bandwidth, not to mention the difficulty clearing use of the computer system for such use, complete with allusion to prior difficulties encountered. Clearly she was not enthusiastic.

When I arrived home Tuesday evening, turning this bureaucratic encounter over in my mind, I was surprised to find an email waiting for me from John Mahoney, a friend of mine from way back in the late 60s. It seems John saw the item in the Bucknell Alumni magazine announcing my move to St. Louis and decided to drop me a line. He reminded me that back then when we were fellow student radicals working to stop the Vietnam war he arranged for a speaking engagement for a previous black presidential candidate. Here's how John puts it:

“Do you remember when I brought Dick Gregory to Bucknell? Jake Register (and his wife) and I drove down to Harrisburg to pick him up that afternoon - but he wasn't there. We were told that he was at Penn State - so we drove there and picked him and his assistant up. On the drive he kept tossing out his campaign literature - which was dollar bills with his face on it with the White House painted black. We would have made it to the Davis Gym in time - but Gregory needed to be fed. He was a vegetarian! I had never met a vegetarian and didn't know what to do - so I headed to IHOP!”

Frankly, until John's email I had mostly forgotten this event. I still have one of those “Gregory Dollars” in my collection of 60s political memorabilia. I vaguely remember being disappointed in Gregory's speech at Bucknell not only because he showed up late, but because he spoke more about the health values of vegetarianism than about ending the war. I didn't vote for Gregory.

Next week an African American will be sworn in as our President. I believe Dick Gregory's somewhat jokey, sure-to-fail, presidential write-in candidacy 40 years ago played some role in changing the perceptions of my generation about the role of African Americans in US politics. I feel the same way about the ill-fated runs of Jessie Jackson (1984 & 88), Lenora Fulani (1988 & 92), Alan Keyes (1996 & 2000), Carol Mosely Braun (2004), and don't forget the Rev. Al Sharpton (2004). I think they all knew that they were in some subtile way laying the ground work for someone they knew would someday exist who would run and win. I very much doubt they dreamed that Barack Obama would come along so soon.

Racism runs deep in our national psyche and our institutions. It pervades the subconscious life of us all. In my view racism can be gradually overcome only by successful modeling of the possible future of people of all races living and working together. This can only be achieved practically, not by aspiration. We learn to live together in harmony by actually doing it. That's why so much rides on Obama having a successful presidency.

As of Friday, there was no official office announcement about whether, where or how ODAR staff could watch the Inauguration. I'm sure some staff members have already decided to stay home from work Tuesday. In the end Karen had agreed if I wanted to set up a TV with possibly poor reception and the staff wanted to watch on their lunch break, she was fine with that, but it was apparent the office would take no steps to facilitate such arrangements. I am troubled that the value of having the entire office staff watch the Inauguration together does not seem to even have occurred to the SSA bureaucracy. In a more perfect world all federal employees would pause, gather together and listen as their new boss explains his or her plans for the future.

I was heartened when one African American staff person told me her husband, who works for the Army, was going to watch the Inauguration on a big screen TV set up especially for the occasion at work. I am glad the Army recognizes the value of watching their new commander-in-chief be sworn in.

Right now I plan on unofficially watching the Inauguration on Tuesday on the TV in the claimant's waiting room. I'm sure many ODAR staff will join me. Together we launch our imperfect future.

IronBarley

2009-01-10T07:23:00.002-06:00

When we moved to St. Louis we decided to experiment in living without television or daily newspapers. The basic idea was to cut down on the barrage of advertising that assaults our brains. News, weather, Jon Stewart, Rachel Maddow, all the essentials, are on line. Six months in, I mostly enjoy the result but I admit some key information slips by. For example, we recently got an email from our friends in Syracuse, Jim and Allison, who asked whether we had been to a St. Louis restaurant called IronBarley they had seen on the Food Channel. We had not only not been there, we had never heard of it.

We trust the food instincts of our good friends with whom we had dined many times. It was just too cool that they told us about a restaurant in our own backyard. We decided to go at the first chance.

Last Tuesday was a stressful day for me. An unexpected icing event glazed our front steps. I bumped down all four on my butt at 4 am when taking Joli out for her morning constitutional. Court also had it's challenges and I was sitting none too comfortably. I needed a break. First, I used my Christmas gift certificate from Merry to get a massage – that helped. Then we went to IronBarley.

IronBarley is located not far from where we live in South St. Louis, but it's in a neighborhood not known for restaurants. It looks like a common neighborhood tavern. We opened a cheesy aluminum storm door and found ourselves standing in a crowded bar right next to a guy with a huge grin in an oversized top hat decorated with rhinestones, playing the guitar and singing “Down on the Bayou” to the accompaniment of his friends on tuba and accordion. We were sold at that moment.

We moved to the adjoining room where a waiter seated us. The music was actually pretty mellow and the musicians very talented. The dining room is paneled in rough sawn boards. The wall sconces are iron frying pans with light bulbs. Paper menus are in a basket on the table with the silverware wrapped in paper napkins. The menu is an eclectic mix. Specials are listed on a chalk board. Our waitress informed us that Tuesday was “steam cake” night and even though they don't usually have live music on Monday and Tuesday, the band was there to kick off Mardi Gras. The dinner specials were heavy on cajun food: gumbo, shrimp etouffee, jambalaya and so on but also included non-cajun items.

We started out with some very tasty local beer while we decided – a smoked porter with a taste too complex to describe adequately – smooth, hoppy, with a strong hickory smoke aftertaste. A different person, who did not seem to be on the restaurant staff, brought us pieces of steam cake before we had even ordered. It is a dense yellow cake with a glaze of hard icing topped with sugar sprinkles. Umm – eat dessert first.

After much deliberation we ordered a large “wedge” salad with blue cheese and Jack Daniels dressing to share. I got the gumbo and german pancakes. Merry was brave and ordered the “Double Dog” with chili, cheese and onions.

While waiting for the food we enjoyed the music and looked around. Many of the other patrons looked like they lived in the neighborhood. Young to middle aged working people just kicking back and having a fun meal. Merry pointed out a foursome at a table near us that didn't fit the general MO of the place. Could that really be the Coen brothers (the filmmakers of Fargo and No Country for Old Men)? We checked them out closely. I'm convinced it was them.

The waitress brought our salad. It turned out to be nothing very special. We asked her about the Food Channel show, and, yes, she was there when that was filmed about a year ago. She mentioned that the Travel Channel was there in the last week and the week before that local TV news had taped a show. She admitted she liked being a “cable channel rock star.” We asked if they really served the “Ballistic Elvis Sammich” shown on the menu. Yep – texas toast, peanut butter, strawberry jam, bananas, and bacon.

The food came. My gumbo was to die for; spicy, thick with fresh ingredients and hot. Three german pancakes with carmelized apples and red sour cabbage slaw was perfect. The double dog was served in a huge stainless steel bowl with two quarter pound beef hot dogs covered in good chili. We ate well. I couldn't stop smiling.

As we left, the singer was between tunes. He turned to us and asked if we had enjoyed ourselves. We assured him we had.

“Well, I'm glad y'all had a good time. By the way - this hippy right here is Tom Coghill, the owner. He put this all together just for you, so promise Tom you'll come back soon.”

We promised. Check it out for yourself at www.IronBarley.com.

Prospect.1

2009-01-02T07:22:00.002-06:00

Happy New Year

One of the reasons I wanted to go to New Orleans for our Christmas break was to visit “Prospect.1,” a city-wide exhibition of contemporary art featuring work by 81 artists from 39 countries at more than 23 locations. This show takes some space in every art museum in the city as well as parts of many other venues such as the Old Mint, the African American Museum, many art galleries, and some abandoned buildings; see, www.prospectneworleans.org/. There was no way to see it all. We decided to spend one day at the Contemporary Art Center where the show is headquartered, one day at the New Orleans Art Museum and one day on the free shuttle bus visiting the venues scattered across the Lower Ninth Ward, the area most devastated by Hurricane Katrina.

For those of you who want an overview of the show as a whole I recommend the reviews from the New Yorker (http://www.newyorker.com/arts/critics/artworld/2008/11/24/081124craw_artworld_schjeldahl ) and the NY Times (www.nytimes.com/2008/11/04/arts/design/04pros.html?fta=y ) I want to share my own views on just a few pieces I like, with an emphasis on the pieces in the Lower Ninth.

We spent the first day exploring the Contemporary Art Center (CAC). This is a relatively new museum built in an old warehouse downtown within walking distance of where we were staying. Prospect.1 (a/k/a P.1) has taken over all four floors of the museum. There are numerous video pieces, some sculpture, some two dimensional pieces, one “virtual” piece and a few installations. When it comes to contemporary art, I prefer sculpture. Sculpture demands personal interaction. At a minimum you walk around it; at best you get to play with it. On the top floor in a room by itself we found a piece I like a lot by Pedro Reyes called Leverage (photo below). Essentially it is a giant orange see-saw made from tube steel with ten small wooden seats on one side and only one on the other. When we got to the room two adults and a child were sitting on the seats on one side but their combined weight had absolutely no effect. Gradually more folks climbed on, but it still didn't tip. When I tried to climb on I gently pushed down and the whole thing started to move slightly. The child climbed off and moved to the single seat on the other side. Merry took his place. Now that there were ten adults on one side and one kid on the other the thing worked like a charm. We rocked up and down each time a little faster, the kid shot toward the ceiling his arms outstretched. That's art.

Also in the CAC tucked in a corner is a shiny seven foot tall black plastic lump looking a bit like a giant deformed Darth Vader helmet. This turns out to be Bunker-M. Bakhtin by Lee Bul. The whole thing sits on a floor of mirror tiles. On the far side is an opening. Inside hangs a set of headphones. Put the headphones on. Every sound is amplified and reverberated. The tiles underfoot are connected too so every shuffle or step is an explosion. Dancing is essential, as are silly sounds. Anyone watching can't hear what you hear, only the silly sounds with no echos. People entering this piece are tentative at first, then get wilder and sillier until someone comes along and they stop in embarrassment. I went back four times. It's very hard to embarrass a trial lawyer.

The next day we went back to the CAC and looked at a few pieces a second time while waiting for the shuttle bus to the Lower Ninth Ward. As we crossed the bridge over the Industrial Canal the entire cityscape abruptly changed. On one side, most of the buildings had been rehabbed or at least boarded up. On the other, most of the buildings were just gone, replaced by tall grass. A little further from the canal we pulled up to a house that is now the L9 Center for the Arts where we switched to a small van for a tour. Across the street sits a bare foundation with a rough outline of a house made by strings of lights. The owner paid her savings to a contractor who stole the money; now her home is an art project with hope. Another partly destroyed home in the immediate neighborhood has been completely covered in flame orange – art as a warning. We drove to a mostly destroyed furniture store. Now it's called Lower 9^th Ward Village. It contains two small galleries of paintings by people from the neighborhood, a police substation and three installations for P.1. The largest of these is a full size metal boat hull. When you climb the scaffold you see the top of the boat is a shallow tank of water. The hull slowly tips and a small wall of water slides back and forth. We walked down the street to the Tekrema Center, a former hardware store. The walk was more sobering than almost anything else we saw that day. A few houses are occupied. Many are boarded up, some too far gone to save. The weather was balmy, but few people were around other than the P.1 visitors. Upstairs at Tekrema the walls of the rooms were completely covered by a realistic mural of the bayou country. The message was clear: nature is returning to claim the waterlogged land the humans appropriated.

We drove closer to the canal where almost everything was totally annihilated. A former public restroom standing by itself in a weedy field has been turned into a quiet meditation spot with bubbling fountain, but the water marks from Katrina are clearly visible high on the walls. In an abandoned church we visited Diamond Gym, the piece described in the New Yorker article. All around we saw the various rebuilding projects but the effect on me was one of despair. The scale of destruction is too large, the effort to rebuild too small. The art was particularly moving because it was intended to be seen in this context. It brings a lot of people to the Lower Ninth and shows them what happened there complete with emotional content. I don't know if this will ultimately help the people of the Lower Ninth, but taken as a whole it is a successful art experience like none I've experienced before.

On our last day, we visited the New Orleans Art Museum, the city's most formal gallery and home of a terrific contemporary sculpture garden. It sits in City Park, another area completely inundated and largely destroyed by Katrina. Much of the park and surrounding area has been cleaned up, but reminders are everywhere. The last P.1 piece we saw before leaving for home was Paul Villinski's Emergency Response Studio. This rebuilt travel trailer, superficially like the infamous FEMA trailers, sits on the lawn in front of the museum. (www.emergencyresponsestudio.org/) For me the piece raises the question of whether artists need to rush to respond to natural disasters. At first glance it seems to be all about rushing to the scene of future disasters in ecological comfort, but is it? When Merry looked at it she laughed out loud since the concept of the piece seems so totally off base it has to be an elaborate joke. The artist statement makes it clear that he is not joking, just nuts. To me the piece points to the irony of trying to make art out of people's suffering. Transforming and commemorating suffering is one of the central roles of art. The problem presented is how to make art from suffering without at the same time exploiting the victims. To my mind P.1 succeeds in this effort by never letting the visitor forget the context of the art.

Go see it if you can.

Christmas eve

2008-12-26T14:33:00.002-06:00

Happy holidays from New Orleans. As I write this I'm sitting in the courtyard of Creole Gardens Guesthouse on Prytania Street in the lower (less fancy) Garden District. It's a funky, colorful and relaxed place that is dog friendly. For me this get away is all about relaxing, exploring and food. Here's a little snap shot of all three.

On Christmas eve day around noon we caught the St. Charles street car to the French Quarter. New Orleans street cars are dark green ornate restored electric cars that can be driven from either end with polished wooden seats that reverse so passengers are always looking forward. The day was warm. All the windows were open wide as we rumbled down the street. At one corner a well dressed older woman hailed the driver between stops. He let her on. A block further he stopped again, she kissed him on the cheek and got off. “My next door neighbor,” he explained.

We absorbed French Quarter atmosphere by walking down Royal St. past tee shirt, fake voodoo and antique shops. Just past the imposing old Supreme Court building the street is blocked off so street performers can take the stage, one group per block. In front of us was a human statue: a very tall black guy in immaculate red & white striped trousers, brand new sneakers, white shirt and American flag tie, frozen in a six foot stride. He had a tiny toy dog smoking a cigar on the end of a stiff leash that appeared to be towing his giant owner. I noticed we were standing in front of the entrance to The Court of Two Sisters restaurant. Jazz Brunch $28. We went in.

There is no storefront or imposing sign, just a French style iron gate covering a carriage way through the main building to a large courtyard with pergola and ancient wisteria. A jazz trio played a mix of dixieland and jazz carols from the corner. Our waiter described the food in mouthwatering detail. We feasted on an astounding buffet of every New Orleans signature food, hot and cold, all fresh and very well prepared. We sampled shrimp in spicy etouffee, crawfish Louise, creole jambalaya, cajun pasta, glazed sweet potato with andouille sausage, crawfish and spinach pasta and for dessert bread pudding with whiskey sauce and two helpings of heavenly bananas Foster with homemade french vanilla ice cream.

We stumbled into the street bloated and dizzy, and very satisfied.

Not much was open that evening, it being Christmas eve. The host at our B&B called around for us. She hesitantly suggested a neighborhood joint, open 24/7 everyday, the St. Charles Tavern, only two blocks away. “It's sort of a dive,” she warned, “but the food is good.”

We were not that hungry after the feast at lunch. The St. Charles Tavern sure looks like any neighborhood watering hole you've ever seen, except for the “Zagat Rated” sticker on the door. Only a few folks were eating and a few more were at the bar watching Notre Dame crush Hawaii. The bartender was also the waitress. Merry ordered a coke. “RC alright?”

The waitress put her hand on my shoulder, “What you havin' babe?”

I ordered the cajun sampler – gumbo, jambalaya and crawfish etouffee. The food came quickly and was very good. The gumbo had half a small crab floating among the spicy savory broth. A few minutes later the neighborhood cop came in and sat next to us to have a coffee and a snack. He told stories of how his squad policed the French Quarter for three weeks without a break after Katrina. Merry asked him about policing during Mardi Gras. “The drunks are no problem, really, it's just they are easy targets for the bad guys.” His partner came in to buy his lottery tickets and have an iced tea. They all wished us a Merry Christmas as we walked out the door into the humid foggy night.

Story tellers

2008-12-21T14:31:00.001-06:00

Hello everyone. Merry and Joli left yesterday to drive to New Orleans where I will join them on Tuesday for Christmas in the Big Easy. For some time we have both wanted to get a look at New Orleans post-Katrina. We plan to explore the city and participate in at least one Revellon dinner, a unique New Orleans holiday tradition. I plan to write about that when we return.

Without fully realizing what I was doing I read two books during the past few weeks that struck me with such force I decided to break with my normal weekly travelogue and spend a little time describing their effect on me. Feel free to skip the convoluted book reviews that follow. You have been warned.

When we moved we decided as a general principle not to bring our library with us. There were some exceptions to this rule. I wanted to bring a few books to inspire me to write. After reflection I decided to bring all the books I own by Italo Calvino (13 thin volumes) as well as by Humberto Costantini (2) and Michael Ondaatje (2). I selected these books because I admire the skill displayed in the story telling by these three otherwise very different authors.

Costantini, a Buenos Aries veterinarian (1924 – 1987), deserves to be better known. I think only two of his novels have been translated into English and both seem to be out of print. If you can find it, I highly recommend his poetic and highly imaginative The Gods, the Little Guys and the Police.

The Sri Lankan - Canadian poet Michael Ondaatje is well known and in my humble opinion is perhaps the most talented living writer. His descriptive power is unmatched. I sometimes wake from a deep sleep thinking about the desert passages from The English Patient or the incredible “painting the Buddha's eyes” scene from Anil's Ghost.

Most of the books I brought for inspiration, however, are by Italo Calvino. Calvino (1923 – 1985) was born in Cuba but lived most of his life in San Remo, Italy. http://www.kirjasto.sci.fi/calvino.htm .

At the very end of his life Calvino was preparing to give the Charles Eliot Norton lectures on literature at Harvard. He planned six lectures but only finished five – published in English as Six Memos for the Next Millennium. Each lecture focuses on one element of Calvino's writing process. The first lecture on “Lightness” is the key to what makes his writing so unique. He tells us “my working method has more often than not involved the subtraction of weight.” He wants his writing to escape the heaviness with which descriptions of things is freighted. To achieve this he uses only the most distilled language. The other four lectures “Quickness,” “Exactitude,”Visibility,” and “Multiplicity” contain further details and helpful examples of the struggle to escape language gravity. To my way of thinking Calvino truly achieves his goal in the stories that make up Invisible Cities in which Marco Polo describes unseen the wonders of the world to Kublai Khan, but it's there in all the books. As a consequence of this focus on lightness Calvino's story telling most resembles highly intellectual fantastic fairy tales.

As I was reading the Six Memos, Merry took a trip to the bookstore and brought me Ray Bradbury's Zen in the Art of Writing. I took it to work to read on my lunch hour. Fortunately it's a quick read. Bradbury is for the most part a terrible, clumsy writer when compared to Calvino. He is full of himself, unquestioning in his praise for his own work and very impressed with the arc of his own life. In short, he's an American. Bradbury was born in 1920 in Waukegan, Il and still lives in LA. http://www.raybradbury.com/about.html

Why did I read his self congratulatory book about how he became the best writer of his generation? Because of Fahrenheit 451, The Martian Chronicles and The Illustrated Man. These were the best books I had ever read when I was 16. Even now I think of them as some of the most evocative stories I have ever read. I tried to re-read Fahrenheit 451 recently. In literary terms, the writing is pretty clunky, but the story is terrific. How did he do it?

He did it by writing every day for years and years. Pounding a typewriter and churning out what he admits was largely junk at the clip of 1000 to 2000 words a day. He sums up the “Zen” of his work in three words: WORK, RELAXATION and DON'T THINK (yes, he uses capital letters a lot). His point is that skill in story telling is achieved by finding a way to let your subconscious move the writing. To do this you have to be relaxed and not allow your intellect to get in the way of telling the tale. He says the only way to do this is to write and write every day until you can write while totally relaxed and without thinking. Surprisingly, this actually seems to capture one of the key insights of Zen practice.

So...lightness and Zen. What I take from these two books on writing stories is simple. The stories are already there in my subconscious. My job is to relax enough to find them, polish them and help them escape the gravity of everyday things. We'll see.

Bevo

2008-12-13T14:30:00.002-06:00

When you come to visit us in St. Louis you will probably ask us to take you on a tour of the Anheuser-Busch brewery, home of the “King of Beers,” Budweiser. So as not to be caught unprepared we toured the place ourselves last Sunday. To my mind there are three things that make the A-B tour stand head and shoulders above all other brewery tours: (1) the eye-popping historic buildings, three of which are national historic landmarks, (2) the Clydesdales in residence, and (3) the mystery of Bevo.

The tour begins with the Clydesdales stables and wanders downhill through the massive factory complex to conclude at the Bevo Bottling Works where the A-B products made in St. Louis are packaged. As you approach this six story brick factory building that fills a city block the most remarkable thing you see is a large gargoyle perched midway up each corner. I initially thought it was a rat dressed in coat and boots playing a flute. Closer inspection revealed “Bevo, the Fox.” The lobby of the building is also beautifully decorated with handmade tiles featuring the same crafty fox.

We were told that the bottling works was built during Prohibition and named for the A-B's then new non-alcoholic “cereal beverage.” Anheuser-Busch started brewing Bevo in 1916 when the US armed forces prohibited use of all alcoholic beverages. That crafty fox Augustus Busch, Sr. knew the tide was running against him and that it would only get worse in the near future. He had backed anti-prohibition candidate Taft in the 1914 election but lost. Then the US went to war with his fatherland, and robber barons like him with close German ties were highly suspect. He worked tirelessly to try to prevent the coming of Prohibition even closing down scores of highly profitable but disreputable A-B owned saloons across the country. By 1916 he must have known his efforts were failing.

He decided to diversify. Not only did A-B start to brew Bevo well before national Prohibition took effect, he also developed a number of products for home brewers like brewers' yeast and malt syrup. He appears to have known Prohibition would not last forever, but he was determined to make the best of it. Production of Bevo rose greatly when Prohibition finally took effect in 1919, and Bevo was by far the most popular of the many "near beers" of the time. At the peak of its popularity in the early 1920s, more than five million cases of Bevo were sold annually. However by the late 1920s bootleg beer and liquor as well as home brew had cut Bevo's market share. With sales flattening to 100,000 cases by 1929, Anheuser-Busch stopped production.

But why did they call it “Bevo?” The only explanation I can find is that the name "Bevo" was coined from the English word "beverage" and the Slavic or Czech word for beer "pivo.” It would seem Busch wanted the name to subliminally suggest that beer was not long gone. The use of the Renard the Fox character to symbolize Bevo also suggest A-B is winking an eye at Prohibition saying, “Here, drink this. I promise that real beer will be back before too long.”

But there are more curious twists. Augustus did not like living at the family mansion on the brewery grounds so he moved out to the suburbs. In 1913 he purchased “Grant's Farm” from the heirs of the former President and civil war general and built a new home, “Baurenhof,” there on the banks of Gravois Creek. It was, however, a long trip home from the brewery. To break up the journey Augustus built himself a private dining room along the Gravois road exactly halfway home. For some reason he commanded that this building be an authentic replica of a Flemish windmill. Of course, he called the place the “Bevo Mill.”

In 1917 the Bevo Mill started serving meals to the general public. It still does. The neighborhood that grew up around the Mill came to be called “Bevo” and still is.

Augustus also loved parades. During the 1920s he started the tradition of putting A-B promotional vehicles into parades all over the country by designing and building “Bevo Boats.” Apparently he build as many as eight of these extravagant precursors to the Clydesdales and Rose Parade floats. The one surviving example of a Bevo Boat was built in 1930 after Bevo had ceased production, and thus was probably called a Budweiser Boat. Mounted on a 1930 Cadillac frame with a boat body finished in red with white stripes, it has a red leather interior. Some of its most unusual features include two large chrome anchors mounted to the bow, a propeller on the transom, Wig-Wag taillights with lanterns that swing from their mount, an Anheuser Busch eagle mounted on the front deck as well as two functional Winchester Arms 10 gauge cannons mounted on the rear fenders.

Augustus Busch did everything he could to assure the word Bevo became part of the popular culture of the time. His efforts paid off in ways he could not control. Irving Berlin included a song "You Can't Stay Up on Bevo", in his 1917 army revue, Yip Yip Yaphank. The popular references were not very complementary. The suggestion is that Bevo is not the real thing. Here's how Irving Berlin put it: “I used to own a vicious looking dog who wouldn't bite, I used to know a dangerous looking man who couldn't fight, My brother trained wild animals but they were really tame, And now I've tasted of a drink that strikes me just the same – [Refrain:] Bevo, oh, oh, oh, Bevo, You're the grandest imitation that we know, You're the only drink that a soldier can pick, You taste like lager but you haven't got the kick, oh!” Thereafter at least for a time “Bevo” became army slang for a young and inexperienced officer.

Decades later, Bevo is mentioned in a list of popular culture items that can corrupt children's morals in the song "Trouble" in The Music Man.

During the same time span the University of Texas football team acquired its mascot, a long-horn steer named “Bevo.” According to the official web site of UT Football, its mascot Is not named for the A-B near beer.

All of this is my way of explaining the thoughts running through my mind as I stared up at Bevo the Fox last Sunday. How does a made up name for a product that no longer exists and almost nobody remembers come to designate a large industrial building and a St. Louis neighborhood?

Riding the bus

2008-12-06T14:29:00.002-06:00

Last week we were in Syracuse for Thanksgiving and a belated three way birthday party with my dear friends Harmon Hoff and EveAnn Shwartz at their home, Maple Avenue Farm near Earlville. There was no blog entry last week but here's another glimpse of everyday life in St. Louis for your enjoyment.

During my first week on the job I learned that Social Security buys a bus pass on request for all employees. To my pleasant surprise your government is actually doing something concrete to slow global warming. Any US government employee can ride the bus or light rail for free, but there is no subsidy for those who drive. All the other judges drive to work and park in the building garage at the cost of $130 per month. I live only 2.5 miles from the office, on a bus line. I decided on the bus.

As in most big cities, learning the St. Louis bus routes and schedules was a real challenge at first. Eventually I settled into a fairly efficient pattern: leave the house no later than 6:15 am, walk two blocks to the #10 bus stop on Gravois, wait from 0 – 5 minutes, ride about 15 minutes, walk a block to the office and arrive at 6:35, give or take a few minutes. The homeward trip is about the same but takes about 25 minutes due to more frequent stops to pick up and discharge passengers.

Every day I anticipate the moment when the #10 bus rounds the corner onto Market St., the main drag downtown. Framed in the windshield is the Gateway Arch, the sunrise and the Old Courthouse centered between the gleaming stainless steel legs of the Arch. It's become my weathervane and inspiration.

The bus talks. As the doors open to admit passengers the bus says, in a pleasant female voice, “Good morning, #10 Gravois to downtown.” Every time someone pulls the cord she says, “Stop requested.” At key stops she announces the stop and lists the connecting buses. There is a certain squeaky sweetness in her voice as she chirps, “Market and Tenth Street.”

On winter mornings the passengers huddle wrapped in heavy coats and scarves, hoods up, listening to iPods. In the afternoon they talk. It's quite common for passengers to greet the driver and sincerely thank him or her on exiting the bus, a habit I've adopted. Many of the afternoon bus drivers are big talkers, razzing passers-by and riders. One of the first cool days a short heavy-set black woman climbed on wearing a brand new puffy pure white down coat. She looked like a marshmallow with legs. The driver kidded her, “Hey, woman, you looking way too warm.” She sat near the driver who kept asking her if she were warm enough. She refused to unzip the coat. Everyone else on the bus was in shirtsleeves or a light jacket. Finally he asked her why she didn't buy a matching down hat. “Can't eat no hat,” she shot back.

One warm fall day a guy in coveralls hooked his bike to the front of the bus and got on carrying a clear plastic bag full of clothes. “Man, you sure smell like fish,” the driver commented. “Yea, well, see I work at the fish meal factory on 4^th and can't figure how to get the smell off. I put my work clothes in this here bag, but I still stink like fish guts.” His concern for the noses of his fellow riders sparked a bus wide discussion on how to defeat fish oil with bleach, lemon juice, baking soda, pine soap and more that lasted until he got off and wheeled away into the twilight.

Merry decided to ride the #10 one day but before paying her fare asked the driver if the bus went up GraVOIS with the accent on the second syllable. We did know the “ois” was pronounced “oy”. “What?” She said it again. “Where?” “Where are you going?” Merry was getting exasperated. “Up GRAVois, GRAVois” in a very gravely voice. For the rest of the short ride he occasionally growled, not quite under his breath, “GRAVois.” Merry laughed for days.

I've come to genuinely like the bus commute. Perhaps the best thing about riding the bus is the chance it gives me to observe the working people of St. Louis. They are janitors, factory workers, chambermaids, waitresses, office clerks, high school kids, homeless people and one ALJ. The bus riders are from all races. The vast majority on the #10 are black, but there is a wide variety of other races including hispanic, asian, near eastern and white. We ride together. I know that most commuters are still stuck in their cars, but it does me good to feel a part of the minority who rides the bus.

Gus' Pretzels

2008-11-23T14:27:00.002-06:00

It's started to get cold here at last after a long fall. We had our first day where the temperature did not break freezing on Friday. Yesterday we paid a visit to the Soulard Market for the first time. Soulard is an older neighborhood between McKinnley Heights where we live and the Mississippi River. The river bank there is covered by the giant Anheuser Busch brewery. The market is in a large old brick building shaped like the letter “H” with the ends being long open sheds and the smaller center enclosed (and heated). The most of the vendors have permanent locations with signs and tables. Some have elaborate small stores that appear to have been there a very long time. A butcher shop, a pastry shop and, surprisingly, a pet store all appeared to be permanent. At this time of year fresh local produce was scarce – we did see one organic farmer with some nice root vegetables and a wild mushroom vendor with an amazing array of oyster mushrooms and chantrelles. There were several poultry vendors doing a brisk business, even live geese were on offer. We shared a warm flaky croissant and moved on.

St. Louis is rich in coffee shops, many of which roast their own beans. We had tried two nearby, Park Avenue Coffee and Mississippi Mud, the latter our favorite. Yesterday we tried the Benton Park Cafe for breakfast. It's a bit more polished and therefore a bit more sterile, but the coffee and food are very good. Where we sat looking out on Lemp Street, we had a good view of Gus' Pretzels directly opposite.

Now, I personally never have been a big fan of soft pretzels. I worked for two days in a pretzel factory in my home town back in the early 70s and have had an aversion to twisted dough ever since. As we watched, car after car pulled up to Gus'. A steady stream of customers emerged with small brown bags and sometimes a soda. Remember, this is 9:30 on a Saturday morning. Who were these pretzel fanatics? What is it about Gus'?

We had to find out. We finished breakfast and crossed the street.

Gus' is a plain brick rectangle on the corner of Lemp and Arsenal Streets with a black and white pretzel flag flying out front just below old glory. It's about 2 long blocks from the Budweiser plant. Inside there is a line at a counter with a menu board. $1.50 for three “twists or sticks.” Beside the line there are long windows into the pretzel making room. At one end a machine spits out little clumps of dough that are caught by rollers and emerge as raw pretzel sticks. A steaming water bath is bobbing with raw pretzels. There's a guy throwing salt onto trays of wet pretzels before they go into the oven. A giant mixer churns up a new batch of dough. About half a dozen workers tend this process. One guy is even hand rolling a really big speciality pretzel in the form of some letters. Another guy was making “pretzel sandwiches” which turns out to be a hot dog or bratwurst completely encased in pretzel dough.

There are old photographs, too. The original Gus holding a kid in front of the oven with a big pile of pretzels in the foreground is my favorite. Now, if you are a pretzel fan, or if you are of German heritage, do yourself a favor and check out Gus' website at www.guspretzels.com.

If, like me, you don't really like pretzels, just look at the pictures attached.

Wednesday we are heading back to CNY for Thanksgiving. We hope to see quite a few of our good friends then.