instruments of peace

 

The paperboy was late this morning.

The digital paperboy, that is.

I have subscribed to my former home-town newspaper, The Oregonian, on my Kindle since I moved to Mexico, primarily to follow politics in Oregon. But, the headline in today's newspaper was not about politics. It was about another natural tragedy.

"Brown puts state on high alert."

At first, I thought the novel coronavirus had had its way with Oregonians, once again. When I was in Oregon less than two weeks ago, the virus was still a problem, as it is in Mexico.

But that was not the reason for the alert. During the last week of my visit to Oregon, smoke from two nearby forest fires had started obscuring the view of the Cascades from my brother's living room. The situation has worsened.

There are fires in the Coast Range and in the Cascades. One town on the road between Bend and Salem has burned. Some of my family members in Clackamas County have been evacuated. There is good reason for "high alert."

And, it is into that smoke and fire that I will be flying on Saturday. I need to return to Bend to tie up some loose ends on Mom's move to her retirement apartment. The big one is to help my brother get her house on the market.

A friend asked me this morning whether I was concerned about flying back to Oregon right now. She characterized it as "the whole state is on fire."

Well, it isn't. It is bad, but the Four Horsemen have not yet been loosed. It is bad enough. 

Fires in Oregon. The pandemic in The States and Mexico. Floods on the Costalegre. At times, I feel as if I am flying from one hot spot to another. A Henry Kissinger of plagues.

There is a bit of truth in that. But we humans are a resilient lot. And we are often at our best when troubles arise. Not always.

Today, a northerner commented on our local Facebook that he was considering not returning to Melaque because he did not want to encounter citizens of another northern country. It was a rare sour note in the discussion concerning the winter tourist trade.

It would be easy to strike out at such comments. But, for all I know, something terrible had just happened in his life that found its outlet in subtle bigotry. I try not to build windows into men's souls to test their motives. It is not profitable, and the result is almost always inaccurate.

I believe the first time I had St. Francis's "instrument of peace" prayer when Margaret Thatcher recited it upon becoming prime minister. It strikdes me as a good guide for all of us as we face the travails nature brings our way.

Lord, make me an instrument of your peace;

where there is hatred, let me sow love;

where there is injury, pardon;

where there is doubt, faith;

where there is despair, hope;

where there is darkness, light;

and where there is sadness, joy.

O Divine Master,

grant that I may not so much seek to be consoled as to console;

to be understood, as to understand;

to be loved, as to love;

for it is in giving that we receive,

it is in pardoning that we are pardoned,

and it is in dying that we are born to Eternal Life.

     
Every time I fly Alaska Airlines these days, I miss the prayer cards on the meal trays. Maybe I should print out this prayer and take it with me on this trip.

We could all use a bit of reminder in tuning our instruments of peace. 

graden davis

The news was unexpected.

I had just arrived in Oregon last month when my sister-in-law informed me I had received a telephone call from my high school pal Joe Stewart (and occasional commenter here) telling me that Graden Davis had died of a heart attack.

As I grow older, there are times when people tell me someone has died, and I need a moment of reflection to remember who they are talking about. Not so with Graden. He was one of those people who was a big part of my high school years. And those relations -- and memories -- matter.

I have some friends who were school chums and neighbors from the fourth grade through high school. Stephanie Reed. Jim Hunt. Colette Justice. David Eikrem. Daurel Colony.

Graden was not amongst that group. His father was in the Navy, and he was a military brat. I think he is the only person I ever met who was born in Saipan. Having lived all my life in Oregon, I found his background exotic when he finally joined the rest of us at Rex Putnam High School outside of Milwaukie.

We formed one of those relationships that young men rely on in their teens. It turned out it was a good match. We shared a lot of eccentricities. He owned a piranha. Nothing could have been more fascinating to a teen-age boy than studying how, even as an individual fish, the piranha was perfectly designed to strip the flesh from a screaming porter in one of those serials we enjoyed.

We were also experimenters. One of us came up with the brilliant idea of putting the piranha in my family's swimming pool and then inviting unaware guests to take a dip. It never worked as planned -- as none of these pranks do. The shock of the cold, chlorinated water left the piranha floating on the surface of the water where we quickly rescued it.

Graden was one of the few people in high school who owned a car. A boat-like convertible. During one of Oregon's worst snow storms, we decided to take the convertible to Timberline Lodge on Mount Hood to spend the day skiing. Apparently, we never considered the fact that the blizzard would shut down the chair lifts. It did.

So, we decided to head over to Mount Hood Meadows, instead. We never got there. Just past the turnoff to Hood River, a small (but effective) avalanche barreled down the mountain and trapped about five cars. We were one. Being trapped in an avalanche (even a small one) is not what most people would call an adventure. Especially, in a convertible.

But we were unfazed. We broke out some small Hostess fruit pies, a bag of potato chips, and some French onion dip and had ourselves an impromptu picnic while listening to the soundtrack of a recent movie on his 8-track player. The highway department soon had us on our way home -- with a Dad-voice admonition that we should not travel in weather like that.

That convertible would add another thrill when, on a double date, while driving along the freeway at teenage speeds, the hood popped open and wrapped itself around the windshield like a plastic bag. Graden, completely blinded by the hood, calmly pulled across three lanes of traffic to the shoulder where we used an old hanger to tie it down -- laughing the while time. Our dates failed to see the humor in the situation.

I have always wondered at the rhythm of relationships. After high school, I saw Graden occasionally in college. But that contact ended when I joined the Air Force. Even though we lived in the same metropolitan area, I saw him only at those mileposts in our lives. High school reunions. We always took up immediately where we had last left our conversations, but we would not see one another until the next reunion.

The last time I saw him was just short of a year ago. My high school class had organized a 70th birthday party for all of us (putting the granfalloon to the test). Even though we had just had our 50th reunion two years before, it was a good opportunity to get together and catch up on our lives.

Graden, Joe, and I talked about the range of things all old guys discuss. Death was one. Someone had compiled a list of our classmates who had died. Some additions were surprising. How could such a young group have so many fatalities? The fallacy in the question, of course, is that we were not young. Well, we were. But, we are now old.

The next time we gather, Graden's name (and undoubtedly the names of others, perhaps mine) will be on that list. But none of them (including Graden) will be forgotten.

While the three of us reviewed the list of the fallen last September, we told stories about each of them. They were our comrades. No. They are our comrades. Because every one of them has added something to our lives and made us who we are today.

I will miss Graden at the next reunion. But I will have stories to share.

breaking eggs

I apologize for my absence.

I have been out in the community helping with and observing the heroic effort to recover from the historic levels of flooding suffered by Jaluco, Villa Obregon, and San Particio Melaque.  Even though the primary problem for all areas was water and mud, because of their particular geographies, each area suffered differently.

Most of San Patricio is up and operating. West Melaque and Jaluco are progressing, but there is still a lot of mud to clear out of houses and the streets.

Villa Obregon suffered similarly, but most of those homes are now free from mud. What will take far more work is the infrastructure.

The Costalegre Community Church sits on a street just a block from one of the arms of the laguna. During Jova, it became quite apparent that the street in front of the church was part of a flood draining system leading to the laguna itself. The flood was strong enough to erode the street below the water and sewer lines.

The same thing (not surprisingly) happened again. But the trench is much deeper. The water washed away the street and left a six-foot deep trench well below the sewer and water lines. The sewer now runs down the trench directly into the laguna. A house on the corner has toppled into the trench.

The next street over from the church was not affected severely during Jova in 2011. The houses there were not so lucky this time. That street is also gone -- along with all of the property around a house that is now teetering on the edge of survival. The soil around the base of the house was once at the level where the smooth concrete begins.

 
I have already told you how valiantly the Mexicans who live in the flood areas have sprung back to what passes for something near normalcy. Well, as normal as one can be while still dodging piles of mud in the neighborhood.

Families. Volunteers. Government agencies. As well, as donations from up north. All have helped the villages to start moving again.

But, the area has not returned to its antediluvian status. People will still  be looking for ways to replace what was lost. At least, that process has begun.

In their book When Helping Hurts: How to Alleviate Poverty Without Hurting the Poor . . . and Yourself,by Steve Corbett and Brian Fikkert point out that all aid can be categorized as one of three categories, and the response to each will be quite different: relief, rehabilitation, or development.

"Relief" is the urgent and temporary provision of emergency aid to reduce immediate suffering from a natural or man-made crisis. The aid should be designed to halt the economic free fall. Because the recipient is incapable of helping himself, it is the donors who take most of the action. We often think of the model of the Good Samaritan in supplying relief.

"Rehabilitation" starts when relief stops. It attempts to restore the community to its pre-crisis conditions. Aid in this stage involves donors and recipients working together to restore the status quo ante.

"Development" is a process of ongoing change where the community improves its economic status. That change is driven primarily by members of the community, and not by outsiders.

During this flood, the "relief" stage was very brief -- if it existed at all. Shelters were opened for the de-homed. Kitchens were established to feed them.

Most of what is happening now is "rehabilitation" -- with neighbors and the government trying to pull things back together. And it will be a difficult stage.

The flood has scared off the last surge of Mexican tourists. It was a big loss because the merchants here really count on that last bit of summer vacation business to hold them over until the northern tourists start arriving. The level of Mexican tourism during the entire summer has been anemic for a lot of reasons.

That sole fact may be one reason why the "development" stage of this area's economic advancement may be on hold for some time to come. I know a number of northerners who have been coming here for years who will not be returning this winter. The flood is not the reason, though some people are concerned about contracting diseases from the dust that will be hanging around for months.

The biggest reason, of course, is the virus. I have been advising people that, if they have a low tolerance for risk, they should avoid coming this year. Based on what I have read from comments by northerners who are now here, a lot of people simply will not enjoy the social practices they will encounter here this winter. And that is too bad. The village economy may appreciate the business.

My risk factors are expended elsewhere. Today it was in front of the stove.

I am flying north on Saturday, so, I am trying to avoid buying any fresh groceries. But I needed some necessities from Hawaii today.

One of my food disappointments here is tomatoes. They tend to be something you find at Safeway. Probably because that is their target market.

Today was different. Instead of the usual collection of pied tomatoes, Alex displayed a stack of Romas at their peak. Red and just slightly yielding to the touch.

When I scored a package of Spanish serrano, I knew what I had to make. A dish I have not experimented with for years. Tomato jam.

I say "experiment" because like any jam, it is open to all sorts of manipulation. Today it was rosemary and ginger ground with a dried chili, a small touch of honey, habanero salt, balsamic, and a dash of apple cider vinegar simmered down for an hour and a half to a jam.

I found an English muffin exiled in the back of the freezer. Fried in butter, spread with the tomato jam and slivers of serrano ham, and then topped with a basted egg. The only glitch was the egg. I was distracted by the frying muffin and missed The Moment for my eggs.

But, over all, it was a nice combination. Even better than my first encounter with tomato jam (and a rather eccentric tale) in Alabama in 1985.

Now, if you wish to take me to task for including a recipe in an essay about flood recovery, feel free. But, my point is that even though disaster may surround us, life goes on.

It is a lesson I have learned from my neighbors. I just hope I can exercise it with the grace they do. 

while we slept

We have been keeping an eye on Disturbance 1 off the Pacific coast of Mexico.

It started as a tropical depression in the Caribbean, lost oomph when it transited Guatemala on its way to the Pacific, and has been trying to regain its cyclonic formation. Fortunately, so far, to no avail.

But it is trying. Overnight, NOAA upgraded the possibility of cyclonic formation in the next 48 hours to 70%. This morning, it is meandering about 150 miles south of Acapulco. That would usually mean that it would not yet be a weather concern for us.

Ironically, though, it is already affecting our weather without yet turning into a cyclone. Or, as NOAA's morning bulletin puts it: "This system is producing a large area of thunderstorms well to the west and northwest of its center and a 

smaller area of showers near its center."

Translated into reality on the ground, that means the disturbance is already causing weather changes without turning into one of the three dreaded cyclone types. Early this morning, a thunderstorm, being pushed by the disturbance, passed over us with one of those amazing lightning and thunderstorms we usually enjoy. But there was no joy in this storm because it also dropped quite a bit of rain.

The rain, of course, is a problem for those areas here that are still undergoing recovery operations. Water-saturated mud is difficult to move -- even though there seems to be little risk of additional flooding. Unless we get more rain.

I need to get back to one of the recovery sites to do what I have been doing -- and to see what affect the rain has had. The weather forecast indicates there is a possibility of more rain today. The clouds seem to concur.

And what about the disturbance? Is it really going to grow into something more formidable?

I will let NOAA field that question: "Although conditions do not appear to be favorable for much further development, overnight satellite-derived wind data indicated that this system is already producing winds near tropical-storm-force and only a small increase in thunderstorm activity near the surface center of circulation would result in the formation of a tropical depression or tropical storm."

NOAA then adds what I call its boiler-plate State Department warning: "Regardless of development, this low could produce locally heavy rainfall along portions of the southwestern coast of Mexico."

After Hernan, all of us give far more credence to the caution. We have witnessed how a tropical storm can completely miss us, but its attendant weather can be damaging.   

one eye on the sky

We are a bit skittish about the weather these days.

While mucking out houses, everyone is keeping one eye on the sky. The weather report predicts a high possibility of rain during the next eight days. Whether it will be a light rain that will help clear the mud from the streets or a heavier rain that will complicate clean-up, no one can be certain.

But there is another concern. Two days ago, Tropical Depression Nana slipped across Belize and Guatemala from the Caribbean to the Gulf of Tehuantepec. Today, it is merely a disturbance, but it has a 30% chance of cyclonic formation in the next five days.  That could mean anything from a depression to a hurricane.

Once again, the what is not as important as the predicted path. NOAA has issued a prediction. You can see it at the top of this essay. If the prediction holds true, our area could possibly experience far more rain than what has been predicted for this week.

Tropical Storm Hernan did not hit our area directly. It was hundreds of miles away in the Pacific. But its power was enough to draw other weather patterns (and their attendant rains) across us.

This disturbance is well-worth watching while we continue the local clean-up.


P.S. As of this afternoon, NOAA has increased the possibility of cyclonic formation of Disturbance 1 to 60%. That yellow "X' has been upgraded to orange. 

dust gets in my eyes

This morning I thought I had awakened in Turkmenistan.

As you know, isolationist Turkmenistan is one of the last countries to claim it is coronavirus-free. A claim it shares with North Korea. But the country has suddenly adopted a number of social-distancing precautions, including what one one news agency described as "mandatory mask-wearing -- to protect against dust, rather than germs."

Whenever this area of Mexico suffers from floods, a natural cycle sets in. After the water recedes, mud needs to be shoveled from houses and into the streets. Some of the mud is collected and dumped elsewhere. But a large portion of it dries where it is piled. And when it dries, it is easily sent into the air by traffic.

That cycle has now entered the dust phase. When I drove to Melaque this morning for breakfast, the visibility on the main highway through town was noticeably diminished. I doubt the cloud that covered the Israelites in their Exodus from Egypt was less dense.

The concern about the dust is not that it will permeate almost every surface in town. After all, we live in an agricultural community where dust is simply one of the facts of life we contend with daily.

But this dust is a bit different. The mud that invaded houses and streets was also mixed with sewage that burbled into the street. In past floods, the contents of the dust has caused many people to become infected with what is not-so-pleasantly called "the Melaque Crud." Hacking coughs combined with fever and diarrhea -- suspicious symptoms in this coronavirus era.

Mask-wearing here has been a hit-or-miss affair before the flood. Mainly miss. But, on my drive, I noticed a large portion of mask-wearers, especially, those on motorcycles. Like Turkmen, they appear to be seeking protection from dust, rather from germs.

But any excuse to wear a mask is good.

britannia waives the rule

Late last Spring, my blogger chum, Gary Denness, told me he was going to conduct an experiment. He was going to mail a post card to me in Mexico and another to Michigan (if I remember correctly), and we would discover which mail service was superior.

Let me confess a rather embarrassing fact. I had completely forgotten about this Aesopean reenactment of the hare and the tortoise until this afternoon. I stopped at the post office to pick up mail, something I had not done for six weeks.

Because it had been such a long time since I retrieved my mail, I thought I would have enough mail to entertain me this afternoon. But I needed to find other post-noon dispersion.

There were only three pieces of mail. My July 2020 Oregon State Bar Bulletin. (I have yet to read the previous four editions.) My May/June Impremis from Hillsdale College featuring an adapted lecture by Heather MacDonald: "Four Months of Unprecedented Government Malfeasance" (and it is not necessarily about who you think.)

But, it was the third piece of mail that first caught my eye. An envelope bearing the postal visage of the Hanoverian Queen -- with no return address. I thought it might be from an ex-girlfriend.

I was wrong. It was from a current friend. The envelope contained the post card that Gary had promised me.

Here is where the tricky part arises. Even though my post office clearly stamps when a piece of mail is received (or, at least, the day it is stamped, which could be two entirely different things: 22 August), in this case, the British postal service provided me with a blurred mailing post mark. I suppose it was some sort of quantum comment on how the British postal service is faster than the speed -- of something or other.

Gary tells me he mailed the post card in mid-May. The fact that the card was in an envelope is a bit of a cheat. I long ago learned that post cards on their own seem to settle into the bottom of mail bags until some enterprising employee dons a miner's lamp and sallies forth into the deep strata of the past. Many a soul is memorialized in post card cave-ins. 

I once mailed a post card to my parents in The States when I took up a posting in Greece. The card was not delivered until I had taken up another posting just outside of Oxford -- over a year later. Whoever said "news travels fast" was not familiar with the vagaries of post cards.

Gary's new post card now sits beside another I received from him years ago. I think I won some sort of contest on his blog. It is of The Queen -- looking very hip in her regal gear and wearing cool sun glasses.

For some reason, the stamp on today's envelope and the photograph of the queen as a denizen of Studio 54 reminded me of an episode of the third season of "The Crown." The Queen has just returned from a visit to one of Wales's most memorable tragedies at Aberfan. Prime Minister Wilson is commending her for her "prompt response."

The Queen: "They didn't get one. They deserved a display of compassion,
of empathy from their Queen. And they got nothing. I dabbed a bone-dry eye,
and by some miracle, no one noticed."

In an attempt to turn an embarrassing response, Wilson replies: "In a way,
your absence of emotion is a blessing. No one needs hysteria from a head of state."

A very British response.

Similar to one of my favorite lines from The Iron Lady. When her doctor asks her how she has been feeling, an aging Margaret Thatcher responds with what has to be one of cinema's most-telling moments:

People don’t "think" any more. They "feel".

"How are you feeling?" "Oh I don’t feel comfortable with that" "Oh, I’m so sorry but we, the group were feeling..."

D’you know, one of the great problems of our age is that we are governed by people who care more about feelings than thoughts and ideas.

Now thoughts and ideas. That interests me.

As you may imagine, I am not really writing about either Queen Elizabeth or Margaret Thatcher. Gary's post card made me think about my mother. Especially, its "Keep calm and carry on" message. It perfectly embodies my mother's nature.

Like Margaret Thatcher, whom she adores, my mother is a person who cares about thoughts and ideas. She is extremely distrustful of emotion -- especially, hysteria. To her, they are tools of manipulation.

An anecdote will illustrate. When I was in grade school, the kitchen stove plug caught on fire and started a blaze while my mother was cooking breakfast. She walked into the bedroom where was father was still abed and calmly said: "Bob, the house is on fire" -- in a barely modulated voice. He did not stir. She repeated: "Bob, the house is on fire" -- with an emphasis on "Bob." He then jumped out of bed blustering on his way to perform his spousal duties. Unlike my mother, my father had a tool kit of well-honed and oft-used emotions.

In the 72 years I have known her, I cannot recall ever seeing my mother cry. I suspect she considers such displays to be unseemly. Or, like The Queen, her eyes are simply bone-dry by nature.

I have inherited a bit of that myself, though I have also inherited my father's  moments of losing control. I want to talk about that in relation to a few of my possessions I discovered at my mother's house last month. Particularly, the fact that I do not feel music; to me, music is "thoughts and ideas."

But that will wait for a few days.

I need to catch you up on what is happening in the flood recovery here -- and somewhere I may even slip in a reference of my love affair with the Mexican postal system. But, I guess, I just did.

"Keep calm and carry on."