THE END IS NEAR

He’ll be gone by Valentine’s Day. That’s my prediction and I’m sticking to it.

Betting against Trump, of course, is dicey. I was sure that Stormy Daniels would do him in. And what other politician could have survived the pussy tapes? Or the Russian collusion “witch hunt”?

This time, though, it’s different. I knew he was a goner the minute I heard Pelosi was opening the impeachment investigation. My FB post: “The beginning of the end has arrived” (Sept. 24). 

Truth is emerging at a staggering pace. Not “alternative facts” or “fake news.” But the truth of Trump’s danger to this country. There will be more, much more, revealed in coming months.

The Ukraine fiasco, wherein Trump attempted to extort political dirt in exchange for military aid, will prove but a piece of a broader pattern of venal, perfidious behavior by the President. My years of working close to politics, politicians, and bureaucrats taught me this: No matter how bad things look, they are always worse. 

Democrats, however, are smart to focus their attack on Trump’s Ukraine shakedown, even though it may prove a relatively small part of this Administration’s wholesale corruption. In my former career as an environmental activist, I was closely involved with getting fired several agency heads in Michigan state government– mainly due to their incompetency. I learned that what finally puts the nail in their coffin (so to speak) can be an arguably minor scandal. Not big-picture corruption or broad ineptitude, which anyone close to the situation may know to be true, but some untoward, stinky incident that everyone can understand. 

Until now, I’ve been befuddled by Democrats’ hapless reaction to Trump’s lunacy. No more. They now are rising to the moment with uncharacteristic focus and discipline, hardened by ugly lessons of the past two-and-a-half years. Perhaps the nadir of Republicans’ smug indecency was Lewandowsky’s smirking appearance before Nadler’s House Judiciary Committee. No more.

Now Pelosi and Schiff are in charge. They have elevated their leadership to meet this moment. They’ve recognized the Ukraine/whistle-blower incident for what it is, seized it, and Trump is done for. Politically-dead man walking.

There is an irresistible momentum to end this national nightmare (as Ford branded the Nixon downfall). As investigations blossom, as more whistle blowers go public, as any remaining internal checks are silenced, as public opinion swings in favor of impeachment, as cracks grow in the Republican ramparts – Trump is going to lose it. I mean, really lose it. 

His behavior isn’t normal – not just for a president, but for anyone who isn’t bat-shit crazy. If you had a family member obsessed with television news, reacting with blizzards of incoherent tweets, talking endlessly about conspiracy and treason and hanging spies and a new Civil War – you’d hide his car keys, lock up sharp instruments, and seek medical help. But how are you going to hide the nuclear codes from this guy? What’s to stop him from going over the cliff and dragging along the country? (See my story, Storm Clouds Gathering.)

Trump’s pathology of malignant narcissism makes him capable of anything in order to retain his reign as the mad king of America. To preserve his delusions, he won’t hesitate to sacrifice institutions, reputations, laws, even national security. 

Will they have to carry him out of office in a straightjacket? I wouldn’t rule it out. However it happens, the end is near.

# # #

STORM CLOUDS GATHERING

Are you afraid yet? I sure am.

“At this time, we can see storm clouds gathering.” -- Jim Mattis

For the first time since our country was torn apart fifty years ago by the Vietnam War, I’m afraid for the future. Our President is a lunatic, unhinged from reality, and a danger to the planet. 

His bizarre and disturbing behavior is unconstrained by ethics, truth, reality, or, increasingly, by law. It is, however, predictable. No matter what inexplicable thing he does or says, look close enough and you’ll find what’s in it for our malignant narcissist President:  money, votes, power, and fame. Always, 100 percent of the time, it’s firstly about himself.

Our man in the White House will say and do anything to get what he wants. There are no limits to his amoral pathology. These are scary times.

I’ve always believed this about politicians: No matter how bad things look, they can always get worse. Trump broke my rule. I concede that even slimy Mike Pence would be better right now. 

That, however, is no option since Trump’s not going anywhere until the end of next year. We’re stuck watching The Leader of the Free World grow ever more detached from reality, erratic in his megalomania, and incoherent in his blather.

As bad as things look today at the end of summer, they are going to get a whole lot worse between now and the 2020 election. More Trump-fueled hate will inspire the spilling of more blood of innocents, leading to more “thoughts and prayers” and little else. More pollution laws will be gutted, more natural areas defiled. More farmers will go broke. Our suicidal race to climate-change catastrophe will accelerate. And all that could be the least of it.

What’s going to happen during the next fourteen months as reality crushes in, and Trump sees his reelection slipping away? What crazy shit will he try in order to hold onto power? Slash everybody’s taxes? Sue the New York Times? Launch the Trump TV network? Try to buy Cuba? (Or sell Puerto Rico?) Put tariffs on tacos? Find Jesus? Drop some bombs? Get Melania pregnant? Start a war?

And what, then, in November 2020 when, after all his madness sputters out, he still loses? Dispute the results? Cry foul! and fraud!? Refuse to get out of bed? Blame it on the Deep State? Declare a national emergency, delay a transition, and get the Supreme Court to find some excuse to throw or nullify the election?

Trump is nuts. He’s capable of anything.

I know, I know. “It can’t happen here.” But I keep picturing newsreels of pre-WWII Germany. The Nazi rallies; the slogans and chants; the charismatic strongman with his silly hair, lies, and jingoism; the throngs of adoring, ordinary people; the nationalism and racism; attacks on free press; violence against the “other”; and the cowardly silence of enablers and opportunists. That all seemed like ancient, Nazi history until Charlottesville, and those grainy, black-and-white images were replaced by neo-Nazis in hi-def color, marching with Walmart Tiki torches and chanting, “Jews will not replace us!” “Fine people,” declared our President.

Trump is “The Chosen One” to his flock, proclaiming in the last days before the 2016 election that he would bring “the change you’ve been waiting for your whole life.” As if he were sent by the Almighty, he promised: “I alone can save you.”

He’s embraced by God-loving people as an answer to their prayers. Evangelical preachers fawn over him. This guy! The most self-centered, venal, mendacious, amoral, incompetent President of my lifetime. (And I lived through Nixon!)

That’s one hell of a Faustian bargain these Christians have made to get their judges appointed, and their freedom restored to once again be able to say “Merry Christmas.” Is there no limit to their fatuity? 

Their faith in their MAGA hero, however, is going to be stretched beyond imagining as his pace of corruption accelerates: more lies, scandals, incompetence, lunacy, broken promises, leaks, exposes, and worse.

Which is why Trump will lose in 2020. Badly. 

That’s why I’m afraid. What kind of damage can he and his inept and corrupt band of sycophants do in the meantime in a futile attempt to deny reality? 

History will not be kind to Trump. It will reveal him for his true, pathological self. It will collate his abuses and crimes, and his damage to our institutions. Like other disgraced, self-serving leaders who once were loved by their base (again, Nixon and Agnew come to mind), Trump will be forever reviled as a tragic aberration.

In the meantime, what can I do but speak what I believe. For to remain silent is to be complicit in the great crimes against our country and our ethos that now are underway.

As if warnings from Jim Mattis, Trump’s own Secretary of Defense for two years, aren’t scary enough, now comes Sheryl Crow (“Story of Everything”): 

“Sometimes I break down, these are surely troubled times, oh yes they are.”

My friend, John, tells me to chill out. That all this political mayhem is distant from our lives. That my hens’ eggs will be as delicious tomorrow as they were yesterday. He makes a very good point. It’s a reminder to savor the beauty all around us while it lasts, even as the sky in the East grows steadily darker.

# # #

CABELA'S UN-SCREWED ME

Cabela’s remarkable response to my story posted yesterday (Cabela’s Screwed Me) follows:

Wayne,

I truly apologize for the experience and the demeanor of my front end staff which I will address accordingly... as I cannot speak to the technical issues with the fly line as I’m more of a bass fisherman myself it appears there is an inherit defect created by my team or the product itself. So if you would provide me your address I would like to send you a $50 gift card for reimbursement of the fly line when I return back to the store on Friday. 

Additionally you are correct on the tippet being in lite stock for this time of year as I was over there the other day assisting a customer and noticed our in stock position is not where we should be and we have forwarded this up to our merchant specialist for this area for review.

Again my sincere regret and apologies for your experience and we look forward to earning your business back.

Mark Goldsmith
General Manager
BassPro/Cabela's ...Springfield,Or.

__________________

And my reply:

Mark, I am truly blown away by your response. Thank you. What more could a customer ever expect?

I feel so much better, with a bad experience fixed. Again, thank you. I’ll be back.


Wayne Schmidt

CABELA'S SCREWED ME

Dear Cabela’s Customer Service Department:

I’m 72 years old and have been your customer as long as there’s been a Cabela’s. (And a credit card holder as long as that’s been around.) Until yesterday, I’ve always been impressed with your customer service. Monday, however, Cabela’s did me wrong at your Springfield, OR store (#0434), and I’m not a happy camper.

During your sale last winter, I bought a new fly reel, line (Cabela’s Prestige Premium WF8F), etc. (total $366), in anticipation of a summer trout fishing trip to Idaho. Your staff installed the backing and line, and even swapped it out when I decided to exchange the reel for a smaller version. All good. When I tried out the new setup, however, I found that the fly line was twisted and would not lay straight on the water. Obviously, hooking a trout when the line is full of ess’s is difficult. I tried to untwist the line by trolling it behind my boat, but that didn’t help. Returning to the store, I was told to try stretching the line. It was a pain, but that’s what I did.

Last week, in anticipation of my Idaho trip next month, I went out again for a dry run with my new setup. Yes, the line did cast and lay straight on the water. But the line wasn’t smooth, with rough spots throughout. I can only presume that my stretching the line cracked its coating in places. I concluded I had to replace it. I didn’t want a crappy line ruining my upcoming, once-in-a-lifetime trip to the South Snake and Henry’s Fork rivers.

Yesterday, I went back to the store and asked to speak with your customer service manager. She finally appeared, an impatient scowl plastered on her face, and pretended to listen to my story. I told her all I wanted to do was swap out my bad line for a new, more expensive line, and would be happy with a store credit. Despite my explanation that the problem with the line was due to a bad installation by the store’s staff, she insisted that Cabela’s 90-day return policy was inflexible. (I’m about three weeks past that magical number.) I detected no hint of empathy for my dilemma, nor apology.

At one point, she said there was no way to tell if the line I showed her was the same one as on my receipt from February. In other words, I could be lying and trying to scam Cabela’s out of $45. Can you understand how insulting that is?

I suggested that she ask the fishing department staff to verify that it was, indeed, the same line.

“We’d still have the 90-day problem,” she replied.

So I’ll just have to eat the $45 on the bad line. I went back to the fishing department and there was only one guy on duty – at noon on a Monday, no less – and he confessed he knew little about fly lines and was really too busy installing lines on spinning reels to help. I picked out a new Scientific Anglers WF8F line ($100), paid, and left in a foul mood. There is a good chance that may be my last purchase I ever make at Cabela’s. That’s how pissed this has made me.

(And as an aside, the store was completely out of all brands of 5X tippet material. In June!)

It’s not just the wasted money. Fussing with that Cabela’s-branded fly line, returning to the store to deal with it several times – it’s been a pain. But I didn’t complain; I just wanted Cabela’s to treat me fairly and respectfully and make right what wasn’t my fault in the first place. Not hide behind an inflexible, arbitrary store policy. You see why I feel like Cabela’s screwed me?

I know I’m just one customer among millions, but it’s the principle. (My wife and I had a bad experience with a bogus $25 fee from Target five years ago, and we returned their card and haven’t set foot in their stores since. See https://wayneaschmidt.blogspot.com/2014/03/why-well-never-again-shop-at-target.html.) 

I haven't decided yet whether I'll cut up my Cabela's card. Next month when I’m in Idaho Falls, I had planned on buying my license and a week’s worth of flies (and tippet) at your store there. Unlike your inflexible policy, however, my shopping choices are quite flexible. I’m pretty sure Idaho Falls has other fly fishing shops.

So there you have it. That’s my story. And in case it needs saying, all true.

Sincerely,

Wayne Schmidt

[Snail-mailed to Sidney, NE, headquarters, June 4, 2019]

_______________________________

UPDATE: Cabela’s responded to this story of my bad experience immediately. Please see:

Cabela’s Un-Screwed Me

WHY I DON'T BELIEVE IN GOD

“How did you decide you don’t believe in God?” My friend’s question came after reading my recent blog (Cosmic Connections), where I mentioned, in passing, that I don’t believe in aliens, Bigfoot, the Deep State, God, etc.

Bill’s a passionate Christian and, paradoxically, a fan of my (not-infrequently irreligious) writing. So I wasn’t surprised to get his message. As teenagers nearly 60 years ago, we shared an oppressive religious upbringing, attending the same Evangelical church where my father was pastor. Bill kept his faith; me, not so much.

Me & Bill -- First Missionary Church (Flint, MI) -- 1961

Back then, it was natural to try my family’s religion on for size, but it was never a good fit. I didn’t wake up one day and decide I didn’t believe in God. It was more like how you give up on an old suit or dress that once may have been your favorite. It’s hung in the back of your closet for a few years, you’ve added a few pounds, and your taste in fashion has changed. Now and then, you take it out and think about wearing it again, maybe try it on in private, but it never looks right and doesn’t feel right, and finally, it goes out to Goodwill, along with a box of old electronics and kitchen gadgets. If someone else can be happy wearing it, good for them.

One thing I do miss from my God-believing days: the prospect of getting all my questions answered in Heaven. Wouldn’t that be cool, finally having mysteries of the universe explained? Like Google on steroids. Did Oswald act alone? Why is there something rather than nothing? Are UFOs real? Does the world end with a bang or a whimper?

But the thing is, at that point you’re dead, so would you care? Even if you finally got your wildest curiosities satisfied in Heaven, then what would you do with yourself for all the rest of eternity? Learn the harp? Play chess with Jesus?

Honestly, Heaven sounds dreadful (as in my story, When We All Get to Heaven). If you’ve been a proper Christian, after you die you end up in a place in the sky where the streets are paved with gold, to spend forever singing God’s praises. Lots of angels. Pearly gates. No more pain, no more sorrow. 

Some believe Heaven is whatever you imagine it to be. Gardens. Sunshine. Calorie-free ice cream. I heard one hard-scrabble believer explain to a reporter her conception of Heaven: it will have really nice appliances.

Mormons, if they’ve been good, get their own planet after they die, where they will reunite with all their dear, departed kin. Then there are the Muslims with their special reward of 72 virgins.

You have your Rastafarians, Taoists, Scientologists, Buddhists, Wiccans, Baha’i, Hindus, Hopi – 4,000 religions exist on Earth. Before them, thousands more – the pyramid-building Egyptians and Inca, the Mongols, Celts, Visigoths, Hellenists, Aborigines, Mycenaeans, Sumerians. And before them? On it goes in infinite varieties of religious beliefs, back to the beginnings of human consciousness, each culture with its own true image of God (or gods).

Pick a god. Or make up your own. Pick a Holy Book. Or write your own. Believe that God talks to you. Who’s to prove you’re wrong?

* * *

Belief in deity goes hand-in-hand with belief that every human has a soul. Look at the 30,000-year-old cave paintings made by early Homo sapiens in Europe. Their transcendent art suggests that everything in their world, including themselves, had spirits.

“Where did the idea of the soul come from? The truthful answer is that we don’t know. What seems clear, however, is that belief in the soul may be humanity’s first belief.” (God, A Human History, Reza Aslan, 2017)

Worship of multifarious gods is a common humanity we share with the ancients. Something in our evolutionary journey, a quirk in our genes, makes it natural for people to believe in the supernatural. And particularly in Western religious belief, in a soul that lives on after death. Today, nine in ten Americans believe in a monotheistic God or some higher power. 

The popularity of a belief does not, of course, make it true. People believe all sorts of nonsense. At least half of Americans believe the Bible’s version of a paternalistic, all-knowing, all-powerful, personal God. (Presumably, the loving New Testament God, not the spiteful Old Testament God who once had 42 children mauled to death by bears simply because they had teased one of His prophets for being bald. (2 Kings 2:24)) That’s about the same proportion who are convinced that ghosts are real (45%).

One in four Americans thinks the Sun revolves around the Earth. Three in four say that Jesus was born of a virgin. 

There are otherwise-normal-appearing Americans alive at this very moment who believe with all their heart that the Earth is flat. They’re oblivious to the lunacy of their contorted explanations and futile attempts to make the irrational sound rational. They have faith that everything they can’t see with their own eyes or read about in the Bible is fake. The Earth looks flat and nothing in the Bible says it’s not. Their conviction is based on faith, the ultimate defense against skeptics.

“Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen.” (Hebrews 11:1)

At least half of us believe the story of Noah’s ark and a global flood. Never mind that the Bible’s version is adapted from a 4,000-year-old Babylonian myth, invented on the fertile, flood-prone lowlands of the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers, a fable the Jews learned of during their exile in Babylon, 2,700 years ago. Today in Kentucky you can visit a “life-sized” version of the phantasmal Biblical ark just off I-75 (Exit 154). 

Some true believers take raft trips through the Grand Canyon to confirm their fantasy of a young Earth. In their figment, they condense a geologic tableau spanning billions of years of Earth history into a few thousand years of Biblical mythology. That’s the kind of thing that religious faith can get you: certainty that Noah’s flood created the Grand Canyon. 

Of course, the Grand Canyon was carved over the last six million years, not a few thousand years ago. And the Earth isn’t flat, no matter how much faith the nutty Flat Earthers have.

Now, it may be an awkward question, but where on the crazy scale do you rank Flat Earthers compared to faith-filled, young-Earth-believing, Bible literalists? Sure, these Christians know the Earth isn’t flat. Since Galileo’s time, they’ve even conceded that the Earth isn’t the center of the Solar System. But because of what they read in the Bible, they’re stuck with believing that the universe was created in seven days, 6,000 years ago, and that Adam & Eve and a talking snake started all this.

Two out of every five people you see driving down the highway believe the Garden of Eden story is true. Millions of years of evolution? People descended from apes? Phooey! It’s all lies. Like the fake news.

I understand some kinds of faith. I have faith that the sun will come up tomorrow. Faith that it’s just a matter of time before the Big One hits the Pacific Northwest. Faith in my family. Faith that the beep means my car door is locked. But faith in God? Nope.

* * *

Our universe had a beginning, 13.8 billion years ago, and it is expanding. That means some parts of the universe are so far away that they can never be seen from Earth because light hasn’t had time to reach us during the finite age of the universe. Beyond that impenetrable cosmic horizon,

“...lies a region containing at least 23 orders of magnitude as many galaxies as those inside... It is likely to be many orders of magnitude greater. Our visible universe can be likened to a grain of sand in the Sahara Desert.” (God and the Multiverse, Humanity’s Expanding View of the Cosmos, Victor J. Stenger, 2014)

Our existence is a mystery. Consider that the atoms making up our bodies were created from nuclear fusion in the hot cores of stars that died and scattered their elements across space, billions of years ago. That’s what we’re made of. Star dust.

“Again and again across the centuries, cosmic discoveries have demoted our self-image. Earth was once assumed to be astronomically unique, until astronomers learned that Earth is just another planet orbiting the Sun. Then we presumed the Sun was unique, until we learned that the countless stars of the night sky are suns themselves. Then we presumed that our galaxy, the Milky Way, was the entire known universe, until we established that the countless fuzzy things in the sky are other galaxies, dotting the landscape of our known universe.” (Astrophysics for People in a Hurry, Neil deGrasse Tyson, 2017)

Numbers describing our known universe are so immense as to be essentially meaningless to a human mind. An estimated 150 billion galaxies are within sight of Earth, each with some 100 billion stars. Scientists estimate that there exist sextillions (with 21 zeroes) of planets capable of supporting some form of life.

“Who knows how many and which other extraordinary complexities exist, in forms perhaps impossible for us to imagine, in the endless spaces of the cosmos? There is so much space up there that it is childish to think that in a peripheral corner of an ordinary galaxy there should be something uniquely special. Life on Earth gives only a small taste of what can happen in the universe.” (Seven Brief Lessons on Physics, Carol Rovelli, 2016)

Pick up any random rock, and think of how many lives it has lived. Its elements came from space, after eons of travel through the universe, to form the earth and be cycled and recycled through the building and breaking of continents and oceans, to survive and end up in your hand. That rock, like every atom in our bodies, has a mind-boggling history, and will be recycled in unimaginable ways throughout a future stretching beyond time.

There are questions with answers transcending human comprehension. At least for now. What came before the Big Bang? Is “before” even a valid concept? What’s inside a black hole? Does “inside” even make sense where time, itself, ceases to exist? What is dark matter? Is it possible that our known universe is but a speck in a multiverse? What is human consciousness?

Could it be that the existence of such unanswerable cosmological and metaphysical questions, the staggering scale and complexities of the universe, is the very proof that God exists? The ultimate demonstration that all of this never could have happened by chance? Since we can’t explain the universe and where it came from, does that mean there must be a God who set it all in motion? A micro-manager who decreed the laws of physics, but who also appreciates being thanked for all things good, has his eye on the sparrow, and picks which team should win, based, presumably, on who has prayed to Him the hardest? If you ask God to “bless this food,” but then choke on a fishbone, did He just get distracted for a moment?

“To accept the substantial uncertainty of our knowledge is to accept living immersed in ignorance, and therefore in mystery. To live with questions to which we do not know the answers. Perhaps we don’t know them yet or, who knows, we never will. 

“To live with uncertainty may be difficult. There are those who prefer any certainty, even if unfounded, to the uncertainty that comes from recognizing our own limits. There are some who prefer to believe in a story just because it was believed by the tribe’s ancestors, rather than bravely accept uncertainty.

“Ignorance can be scary. Out of fear, we can tell ourselves calming stories: up there beyond the stars there is an enchanted garden, with a gentle father who will welcome us into his arms. It doesn’t matter if this is true – it is reassuring.

“There is always, in this world, someone who pretends to tell us the ultimate answers. The world is full of people who say that they have The Truth. Because they have got it from the fathers; they have read it in a Great Book; they have received it directly from a god; they have found it in the depths of themselves... There is always some prophet dressed in white, uttering the words: ‘Follow me, I am the true way.’” (Reality Is Not What It Seems: The Journey to Quantum Gravity, Carlo Rovelli, 2017)

* * *

As I approach what is definitely starting to look like old age, questions of mortality, God, and the afterlife become more poignant.

“Is God the animating force that connects all living things, as our prehistoric ancestors seemed to believe? Or nature deified, as the early Mesopotamians thought? Or an abstract force that permeates the universe, the way some Greek philosophers described it? Or a personalized deity who looks and acts just like a human being? Or is God literally a human being?

“Creation may very well have originated purely through physical processes that reflect nothing more than the articulation of the most basic properties of matter and energy – without cause, value, or purpose. That is a perfectly plausible explanation for the existence of the universe and everything in it. It is, in fact, just as plausible – and just as impossible to prove – as the existence of an animating spirit that underlies the universe, that binds together the souls of you and me and everyone else – perhaps everything else – that is or was or has ever been.” (God, A Human History, Reza Aslan, 2017)

Brilliant minds have found creative ways to explain their belief in God, like Medieval scholars debating how many angels could dance on the head of a pin. Their books could fill a Costco warehouse. Is it, in the end, arbitrary what a person believes about a creator-god?

“A godless world is as mysterious as one suffused with divinity, and the difference between the two may be less than you think.” (Seven Types of Atheism, John Gray, 2018)

Do I really believe in a godless, indifferent universe? Believe that life ends in a soulless nothingness? Do I think I’m right and the vast majority of humans, including all manner of geniuses and morons who believe in a Supreme Being, are wrong? After all, even Albert Einstein had his religious side: 

“Try and penetrate with our limited means the secrets of nature and you will find that, behind all the discernible concatenations, there remains something subtle, intangible and inexplicable. Veneration for this force beyond anything that we can comprehend is my religion”  Einstein, quoted in Pantheologies: Gods, Worlds, Monsters, Mary-Jane Rubenstein, 2018.

And so, back to my friend’s question about why I don’t believe in God. My short answer: I can’t see any reason why I should. As for an afterlife:

“Being dead is like being stupid. It’s only painful for others.” (Ricky Gervais)

# # #

COSMIC CONNECTIONS

Some things have happened to me that I can’t explain. Things that make me wonder if unexplainable cosmic connections can exist between people.

It’s about my friend, Adam, a Colorado River boatman. I met him guiding our raft through the Grand Canyon a few years back. We bonded, despite the fact that I am a tad bit older (27 years, in fact). Last June, I worked as his crew (called a swamper) on a similar raft trip (see Swamping the Grand Canyon).

Today, I drove in to the riverwalk in Eugene, where one of those cosmic things happened to me. It was a lovely day of March sunshine for my walk, but I wasn’t feeling it. My funk had to do with having just left a maddening encounter with our cell phone company.

So I was a bit mopey. Sitting in my car in the parking lot, I discovered a chocolate Tootsie Pop buried in the console. A common trail treat for rafters while hiking in the Grand Canyon, this was the last holdout from a handful I’d absconded with, after my swamper adventure with Adam eight months ago. I stuffed the sucker in my jacket, figuring I could take a selfie with it, somewhere along the river, and send it to him.

I found a nice overlook with snow-blanketed mountains in the background. I waited for breaks, as other walkers passed, since I always feel stupid taking a selfie with people watching. Especially when I’m alone and holding up a chocolate Tootsie Pop while grinning in the sunshine. But I got my shot and stuck it in an email to Adam, typing the subject, “Look what I found.” As my finger rested over the Send button, the phone dinged with an arriving email.

A few days back, I had sent Adam an email, asking a question about our upcoming trip, but hadn’t heard back. The instant my phone dinged, I said to myself, “It’s from Adam.” I cancelled the email I was about to send him and opened my inbox. Sure enough. There it was, Adam’s reply to my question from a few days earlier.

I replied and sent him my selfie with the chocolate Tootsie Pop, but spared him these details about the timing, since it had left me scratching my head with questions. Like, WTF?

A coincidence? Here’s what makes me wonder: Once before, almost the same thing happened at exactly the same spot.

It was a year ago from last December. I had arrived at that same riverwalk parking lot in Eugene. The endless winter rains had let up for my walk, but I wasn’t feeling it that day, either. I sat in my car, staring at the gray river and landscape. My phone dinged. It was a text from Adam, which surprised me since he’s not a fan of texting. The message asked, “Where were you 6 months ago?”

His accompanying picture answered his question. There I was, six months ago to the day; communing with Nature in the Grand Canyon; high (yes) above the Colorado River; ankle-deep in crystal-clear, ice-cold water; sun in my face; mesmerized by a waterfall in Deer Creek Canyon. It’s a scary hike along cliffs to reach an Eden of gurgling water, cooling shade, and Native American petroglyphs. Alone and just upstream from that desert oasis, I found this small waterfall, bordered by deep-green plants with blood-red roots dangling in the current. Dragonflies, golden as if touched by Midas, buzzed about in the mist. I traced their flights with an outstretched finger, trying to entice one to land.

The thought crossed my mind at the time that I must look like a deranged orchestra conductor, waving an invisible baton to the music of my private symphony. Which I guess I was. But thankfully, for a few precious minutes I’d been able to have this transcendent experience alone, out of sight of the other rafters. Or so I thought. Apparently, Adam had climbed overlooking rocks to memorialize my transcendent moment. 

I need to tell you one other thing about my connection to Deer Creek. Since my first hike up its slot canyon, several years and rafting trips ago (see The Death March), I’ve associated this special place with a particular song – “Arizona,” by Benjie Howard. Like Adam, he’s a Grand Canyon river guide. He sings of the visage of the world of a Native American elder, “not the last freedom fighter, not the last of the resisters.” I’ve listened to his song on headphones while hiking up the cliffs to Deer Creek: “Whose country is this, anyway, now?” (You can watch a video here of Benjie playing his song, deep in another Grand Canyon side canyon.)

Back in Eugene on the riverwalk that day, I stared at Adam’s picture of me at Deer Creek for long minutes. When I got out of the car for my walk, thinking about that blissful moment a half-year ago, my spirits lifted. For my headphone-walking music, I picked my Grand Canyon Playlist – sixty or so songs I’d listened to while rafting through the Grand Canyon.

I hit “shuffle” and stepped onto the sidewalk. The first random tune started – guitar strings. It was Benjie Howard’s “Arizona.” My Deer Creek song.

“Oh, Arizona, de Maria, queen of hidden little springs;

from the Catalina Range up to Sedona;
yeah, Nankoweap, you make my heart sing.”

 Again, like, WTF? More coincidence? 

Do these kind of things happen to everyone? Do people sometimes really have unexplainable cosmic connections? 

"Here, hold my beer."

Swamper & Boatman
Grand Canyon - June 2018

I’m a skeptic. I don’t believe in the paranormal. Or visiting aliens, or the Deep State, or Bigfoot, or God. Still, coincidences can feel spooky. And besides, I know that we don’t know what we don’t know. Such a paradox!

I also know that there is no better place to contemplate such cosmic braintwisters  than inside the Grand Canyon. Eva and I will be back there on another eight-day raft trip with Adam this summer. If we find any answers, I’ll let you know. 

~ ~ ~

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THE LICK OF DEATH

The old man looked up from his black cane, scowled, and resumed his shuffle, failing to return my cheery “Good morning!” A depressing start to my morning walk. Oregon’s damp, gray winter – I don’t mind so much. Grumpiness is another matter. 

I shook off my funk just in time to confront another walker coming my way, this time with two free-roaming, pit-bull-type dogs. I eyed their formidable necks, bedecked in matching bandanas, as they surrounded me, and raised my arms out of easy-to-taste range.

“They’ll just lick you to death,” the old coot in a red-and-black-checkered jacket announced. The thought crossed my mind, “In what universe do you think I would want these gross animals to lick me to death?” But I kept my mouth shut and didn’t even glance at the guy as we passed. “Have a nice day,” he sneered after me. 

Dog people assume, mistakenly in my case, that everyone loves dogs. Especially their dogs. “Oh, he won’t bite.” Or, “She just wants to say hello.” Or, perhaps my favorite, “Trust me, they’re friendly.” These are the kind of lame excuses I hear as their precious Rottweiler sniffs my leg and decides whether to pee on it or nip a sample from my crotch.

Sometimes their little darlings will trot along obediently until I pass, then, their human’s attention elsewhere, tear off towards me. Or simply turn back and give me a look that says, “I could tear your throat out, you know.”

There really is a thing called the Lick of Death. A nasty bacteria, Capnocytophaga canimorsus, can live in dogs’ mouths. It’s an infection that, for the human lickee, can result in amputations and death. Yours, not the dog’s.

You can be cruising along in life, dum-de-dum, everything seeming fine, and BAM! Out-of-the-blue, a dog licks you on the mouth and before you know it you’re dead. 

I’ll admit it’s a long shot, but why take chances? There are enough risks without dog spit. A metaphorical “lick of death” can come from anywhere, not just from a dog. Car accident. Cancer. Parkinson’s. Heart attack. BAM! And your world turns upside down. It happens to everyone, sooner or later, and you don't get to pick the time or place. On the other hand, if you could pick the time and place, how would you choose? 

The writer, David Sedaris, in his essay, “Father Time,” bemoans the fate of growing old: “I can’t predict what’s waiting for us, lurking on the other side of our late middle age, but I know it can’t be good.” 

No doubt, there are downsides to growing old. Death, for example. And AARP solicitations. I am, however, fond of the old saw, “Any day upright is a good day.” Everything is relative and there are always worse alternatives, people who give you perspective, who make your own station in life look blessed.

When I got back from my walk to my car in the Walmart parking lot, a truck driver pushing a shopping cart back to his big-rig stopped next to my open window. “Do you know of a dog park around here?” 

His cart was filled with bags of dog food, cat food, and kitty litter. He said he had two big dogs and three cats living in his truck cab with him. He’d had a beaver, too, but had to get rid of it because “it got really mean.” He was hauling stage equipment to San Francisco for a Grateful Dead concert. Him and his menagerie, traveling together because his California house had burned down in the Paradise wildfire, and he had two more weeks before he could get into another place. I was going to warn him about his dogs and what I’d learned about the Lick of Death, but figured he had enough to worry about. I felt bad that I couldn’t at least direct him to a dog park.