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| Ignatius "Iggie" Bauman 15 March 1931 - 21 April 2019 |
I long ago abandoned any hope for Oregon politics. The whole state seems to be in some sort of death spiral. Newspaper articles about local politics merely dishearten me.
The only section of the newspaper that seems to still have any relevance to my life in Mexico is the obituaries. I am surprised at the number of people whose names I recognize. Usually, they are people who drifted in and out of my life (or my parents' lives) years ago.
It happened again last week. I knew the name immediately. Ignatius "Iggie" Bauman. The father of my friend Leo Bauman (leo ascendant).
I cannot claim any great connection with Iggie. Even though Leo was one of my best friends in Milwaukie, I only saw Iggie on a few occasions. I drifted in and out of their household like a secondary sitcom actor. Not The Fonz. Maybe more like Potsie. Or Ralph.
He was always affable. A good dad. But what I remember most is his core of Midwestern values. Iggie was born in North Dakota. The Baumans moved from there to Oregon when Leo was in high school.
I probably would have known where he was from even without being told. He had something of The Plains survivor in him. And that survival told him that the virtues of Western Civilization were not something to be trifled with.
Leo and his wife Theresa had moved to Arizona in the early 1980s during one of Oregon's terrible home construction downturns. During the 1992 election, I met them for dinner on a visit to Oregon at one of our favorite haunts -- Papa Haydn's in Sellwood. Iggie and Ida joined us.
The topic turned to the Bush-Clinton-Perot race. I knew Iggie had been a life-long Republican. So, I was a bit surprised when he said he was supporting Ross Perot.
When I asked why, he responded: "Bush lied. He looked us in the eye and said he would not raise taxes. He lied. He is not an honorable man."
He conceded that his vote would undoubtedly help Bill Clinton, who he found to be morally odious. But, he could not bring himself to vote for a man who lied to him.
He made me reconsider my own position on the election -- a position I considered to be logical, but now took on the stench of moral relativism. (I have often thought of that conversation during subsequent election cycles.)
Iggie did what a man with principles does. He stuck by them even when he knew taking the right course would have results not to his liking.
I thought of Iggie last night during one of my impromptu film festivals at the house with no name. Amazon had shipped me the middle three DVDs of the Daniel Craig 007 series -- Quantum of Solace, Skyfall, and Spectre. Spectre was the evening's selection.
It has taken me a while to warm up to Craig's postmodern existentially-haunted Bond. The producers' choice of this new character has offered some interesting philosophical questions.
There was never any complexity about Sean Connery's 007. He was a patriotic Brit defending the national interests of Her Majesty in a Manichean world. Gray was not a color that suited his moral palette.
Craig's Bond is far more nuanced. Like Nolan's Batman, he is a mass of psychological contradictions fighting to find a moral center. Of course, it is possible to still watch the movies as nothing more than mindless combinations of car chases, brawls, and serial beddings.
Spectre offered enough moral fodder that I pulled out Woody Allen's Crimes and Misdemeanors. It has long been one of my favorite Allen films.
The film is actually a rather transparent device to explore the ideas raised in Fyodor Dostoyevsky's Crime and Punishment. In the movie, Judah, an ophthalmologist hires a hit man to kill his mistress, who has become a perceived threat to his career, reputation, and marriage.
The core of the film then turns on how Judah deals with the moral dilemma of trying to live an everyday life knowing what he has done. Whether there is an objective moral world against which our actions are judged -- as orthodox religions would have it. Or whether there is no moral order at all, and we just do what we must to survive.
Iggie would have answered that Craig's Bond and Allen's Judah are missing simple truths. Morality exists. We either live our lives by it or we abandon the person we are capable of being.
While I was watching Crimes and Misdemeanors, I received an email from Doug Peters. He is the father of my friend Rod Peters. It had been probably ten years since we had last talked. For that reason, I opened the email with a sense of dread.
It was just as I feared. My friend Rod had died on 28 April. A heart attack. 58 years old.
I met Rod in 1989 when I started working at SAIF Corporation. We were both trial attorneys. He was on the Portland team. I was on the Salem team.
I stayed late every night to postpone the crowded commute home to Milwaukie. Rod stayed late because he was a nocturnal soul. We became close friends as a result of our reveries.
When he left SAIF, we would get together in Portland or Salem on a regular basis. Everyone has a friend who is so full of life that we draw energy from them. Rod was like that.
And then things started going wrong for him. He eventually left law practice, and dropped off my social radar. I sent him a birthday card every year, but I heard nothing in return.
Then, last year, he popped up again. He was looking for work and wanted to use me as a reference. I readily agreed. I tried calling him, but I could not get through.
Ironically, early yesterday I reminded myself that I needed to try to call again. Of course, by then it was too late.
In our late night conversations, Rod and I often discussed philosophy. How to make sense out of a world where doing the right thing seemed to have no reward other than knowing one has done the right thing.
That was sufficient for me, though I told him I believed that doing the right thing always strengthens our own moral character whether or not it gets us the immediate results we want.
It is too bad I could not sit with Rod and Iggie to watch the two films I watched last night. To deconstruct them and pull out each argument about the essence of morality. To learn how we can be better people in a cynical world.
Unfortunately, that is not going to happen. At least, not with Iggie and Rod. But that does not keep each of us from doing something similar.
If improving our moral character is ever allowed to become an exercise labeled as overthinking, we may as well turn in our moral agent badges. Our license to not kill.
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