Grasshopper from the Future

When I was in fifth grade, my friends and I believed in everything. We had absolutely no doubt concerning the existence of ghosts, aliens, big foot, or anything else that was marvelous and strange. (One or two of us still believed in Santa Claus, but I won't mention any names.) We were encouraged in our beliefs by our fifth grade teacher, Mr. Harmon, the Fox Mulder of his generation. "Nothing is impossible," he told us. And why not? It was the space age. In just a few years, America would put a man on the moon.

One of our most cherished beliefs was the notion of time travel. We were all huge fans of the Irwin Allen TV series, The Time Tunnel, in which two scientists traveled back and forth in time each week, meeting famous people in history like Davy Crockett, and trying unsuccessfully to prevent such disasters as the sinking of the Titanic. (I'm talking about two separate episodes, by the way. I don't mean to imply that Davy Crockett was a passenger on the Titanic, although that would have certainly made an interesting story.)

We even built our own time tunnel, using a coffee can, several feet of wire, and a six-volt lantern battery. When we showed it to Mr. Harmon, he was impressed. "How are you going to test it?" he asked. We hadn't thought of that. Obviously, none of us would fit inside a coffee can. One of us could put a hand or finger in there, but that might be risky. We had to find a test subject—a small test subject.

A couple of us had pet mice or hamsters, and we considering using one of them. In the end, however, we decided to go with a grasshopper. There were plenty of them around. And there was no danger of forming an attachment to a grasshopper; if it did disappear into the space-time continuum, it would be no great loss. We captured the largest one we could find and put it into the coffee can.

There must have been a moment of hesitation before Thomas Edison flipped the switch to send current to the first light bulb, or before Alexander Graham Bell spoke the first words into a telephone. So must there be a moment when all great inventors pause at the brink of destiny, posing the fundamental question: “Will my invention work, or will it fail?” This was such a moment.

What if it worked? What if our grasshopper disappeared, and somewhere—some when—reappeared out of nowhere? “Wow!” people would say. “A grasshopper from the future!” (Or “past”—we weren’t really sure which direction he would be traveling.)

We connected the battery, and...

Nothing happened.

As I recall, we weren’t very disappointed. It was a long shot at best. But I have to say I am a little disappointed now. Nearly fifty years have gone by, and we still haven’t solved the mysteries of time and space.

On the other hand, there are plenty of grasshoppers around. Who’s to say one of them wasn’t sent back in time by some kids in the future?

Makes you think, doesn’t it?

Three Guys Walk Into Heaven...

The recent series of celebrity deaths in the news reminded me of the old superstition that deaths—particularly celebrity deaths—come in threes. My aunts firmly believed this. When two celebrities died in close proximity, they would immediately begin speculation as to who would be the third.

I tried to convince them how arbitrary and irrational this was. What if the third death had already occurred and had been mistakenly assigned to the previous group? How closely do the deaths have to follow each other? Days? Weeks? Months? Do the celebrities all have to be in the same field, or can, for example, an actor, a musician, and a sports figure qualify for the same group? How famous do they have to be? Do local celebrities count?

We humans are constantly seeing patterns that aren't there. There's a word for this: "Apophenia." The number three seems to be especially subject to apophenia, and there's also a word for that: "Triaphilia." I googled superstitions involving the number three and came up with quite a few, including the following:

• Unlucky events always happens in threes. (This would certainly include death.)
• It's bad luck to see three butterflies on a leaf.
• It's unlucky to light three cigarettes from the same match.
• If an owl hoots three times, there will be misfortune.
• If a cat washes its ears three times, you can expect a visitor.
• A three-legged dog brings good luck. (Although presumably not to the dog.)

Humor also tends to favor the number three—think of all of the jokes that begin, "Three guys walk into a bar..."—which leads me to the following. (Sorry, but you knew this was coming, right?)

Dick Clark arrives at the pearly gates, and Saint Peter says, "I'm sorry, but I can't let you in until your party of three is complete." So Dick has a seat, picks up the latest issue of "Good Heavenkeeping" magazine, and waits.

A day later, Levon Helm arrives. Saint Peter says, "I'm sorry, but I can't let you in until your party of three is complete." Levon says, "No problem," and sits down. He and Dick have a lot to talk about because, you know, they're both in the music business.

A little while later, they spot another guy hanging around the gates. "Who's that?" Dick asks Saint Peter. "Some actor," says Peter. "Been here since Friday."

So Dick goes over to the guy and says, "Excuse me, but are you a celebrity?"

"Why, yes," says the guy. "As a matter of fact, I am. I'm Jonathan Frid."

"Who?" says Dick.

"Jonathan Frid. You know—Dark Shadows?"

"That new Johnny Depp movie?"

"No, no—the 1960's soap opera.

"Oh...right."

"I was pretty famous back in the day."

"Of course."

"Did quite a bit of stage work, too. Perhaps you saw one of my one-man shows—Fools and Fiends or Fridiculousness?"

"I don't think so."

"If you'd like, I could give you a sample..."

"Maybe later."

At this point, much to Dick's relief, Saint Peter interrupts. "Will the gentleman be joining your party? If so, I can let you in now."

Dick and Levon look at each other, and Dick says, "Well...if it's all the same to you, maybe we'll just wait for Robin Gibb."

(I apologize—especially to Jonathan Frid fans. I was actually a big fan of Dark Shadows and Frid. One of my biggest thrills as a kid was seeing "Barnabas" in person when he came to Fort Wayne in 1969 to serve as Grand Marshal of the first Three Rivers Festival Parade. Rest in peace, Jonathan, Dick, and Levon!)

Would the person who took my pancakes kindly return them?

Wednesday morning I awoke from a vivid, terrible dream. For some reason, I had spent the night at work. I had brought with me bags containing a change of clothes and my breakfast. I knew I had to get dressed and eat breakfast before starting my work day, but before I could do so, my co-workers began to arrive. Soon the room was full of people and cluttered with their stuff—purses, lunch bags, brief cases, and so forth. It became increasingly difficult to search for my clothes and breakfast, but I eventually found a plate of pancakes. I put the pancakes aside and resumed looking for my clothes. A few people were trying to help me, but most were just getting in my way. Someone managed to find me a shirt, but there was still no sign of my pants. I decided to eat the pancakes, but when I returned to where I had left them, someone had taken them. When I woke up, it took me several minutes to shake off the feelings of frustration and betrayal.

Just your average, run-of-the-mill anxiety dream, right? Everyone has them—usually about work or school. You're late, you can't find your locker or remember your combination, or you're unprepared for an important test or presentation. My anxiety dreams usually have to do with theatre: I'm about to go on stage and I don't know my lines or even what play I'm in. Either that, or I'm backstage looking for my pants.

I imagine that being pantsless is fairly common in anxiety dreams. But pancakes? To the best of my knowledge, I've never dreamed of pancakes before. I looked up the meaning of pancakes in dreams and found the following:

To make or eat pancakes in your dream represents gratification and pleasure in your current situation. It may also mean that you take pleasure and comfort in your work.

So if someone I work with steals my pancakes, maybe it means that someone I work with is taking the pleasure and comfort out of my job.

Or it could just mean that I was hungry.

In any case, from now on I am going to keep an eye on my co-workers. And on my pancakes.

Poetry, Cruelty and April

April is National Poetry Month. I enjoy reading poetry year-round (I get a poem in my inbox every day, thanks to Poets.org), but this time of year I especially enjoy revisiting some of my favorites. One that comes to mind every April is T.S. Eliot's The Waste Land. It famously begins...

APRIL is the cruellest month, breeding
Lilacs out of the dead land, mixing
Memory and desire, stirring
Dull roots with spring rain.

From there, it goes on for another 430 lines, plus several pages of footnotes. I have read it many times. Once, years ago, I thought I understood it. Now, I'm not so sure. I get confused by all of the characters. Is the archduke's cousin Marie the same as the hyacinth girl? Is she also the woman who "smoothes her hair with automatic hand, And puts a record on the gramophone?" And what about Madame Sosostris, Albert and Lil, Mrs. Porter and her daughter...?

Whether I understand it or not, I still enjoy reading The Waste Land. It reminds me of the first time I read it, years ago in Professor Novak's modern poetry class. If Professor Novak ever explained its meaning, I don't remember it. Come to think of it, I don't remember Professor Novak ever explaining the meaning of a poem. "A poem should not mean but be," he would often say, quoting Archibald MacLeish.

Professor Novak's method of teaching poetry was to read a poem aloud or have a student read it, give it a few moments to sink in, then start asking lots of "why" questions, like, "Why is April the cruelest month?" (I had no idea. As someone who grew up experiencing northern Indiana winters, I would have gone with January or February—maybe March.)

O O O O that Shakespeherian Rag—
It’s so elegant
So intelligent

"Why 'Shakespeherian'?" Novak asked. None of us had an answer. Then he sang the words in a jazzy, syncopated rhythm. Suddenly, "Shakespeherian" made sense. The lines were meant to parody a popular song of the era. By making us look at the lines in a slightly different way—as a song—Professor Novak helped us better understand them.

I guess poems like The Waste Land are the reason that some people don't like poetry. They find it too difficult. That's unfortunate. Poetry is like life. ("Life distilled," Gwendolyn Brooks called it.) Like life, poetry can be difficult. It can also be beautiful, challenging, enlightening, and sometimes—like April—it can be cruel.

Sometimes, it can even seem meaningless.

But there is meaning. Try looking at it in a slightly different way, and maybe—just maybe—it will make sense.

O the moon shone bright on Mrs. Porter
And on her daughter
They wash their feet in soda water

 Happy National Poetry Month!

Admin Cat

Last week I wrote about Dickens. Now Zorra is up here on the desk, demanding that I give her equal time. The desk is her favorite spot, which is why we call her our "Admin Cat." We think she must have been an administrative assistant in a past life because, whenever either of us sits down at the computer, Zorra is right there to "assist."

Six years ago, when our sweet old calico died, it didn't take long for us to decide to adopt another cat. We missed Cleo's shy, quiet presence in the house, and so did Dickens. At the suggestion of the receptionist at our veterinarian's office, we visited the Agoura Hills Animal Shelter. They have a large, airy room (the "Habicat") with lots of toys and cat furniture, where prospective adopters can meet, play, and socialize with the cats.

We were looking for a female with a personality similar to Cleo's. We quickly narrowed it down to two: a little white Persian and Zorra. Because the Persian was sleeping, we couldn't really tell what her personality was like. Zorra seemed shy and quiet, so we picked her.

We were told by the animal shelter that her name was Zorra (clearly for her black "Zorro" mask, although she can certainly be a vixen at times). I don't think anyone ever told her what her name was. It was months before she responded to it. (Of course, much of the time she doesn't respond to anything, as if she's in her own little world. We call it "Zorra world.")

At the animal shelter, they practice full disclosure. They told us that Zorra had been adopted—and returned—twice. Her file stated that the reason the adopter returned her was because she kept them awake at night. The file also stated that she was lazy. The only thing the file didn't tell us was that she had fleas. The fleas were easy to get rid of, but her other quirks took some getting used to.

She is definitely not quiet. For such a little cat, she has a very big mouth, and she is at her most vocal at night. Her purring alone can wake you up. It's like a bus idling next to your ear. It's also quite true that she's lazy. Her favorite thing to do is sleep—preferably on top of Loretta or me. She makes things difficult on laundry day, by bedding down on the laundry before we can put it away or on the bed before we can make it.

And there's the admin thing. Right now, I am having to contort myself to type around her.

But she's a sweet cat—with just enough of the vixen in her to keep Dickens on his toes. I can't understand why anyone would return her—or any animal—to a shelter. Adoption should be "for keeps."

Oh, well. Their loss is our gain.

Dream Cat

Every Saturday morning, as soon as my feet hit the floor, Dickens gets up and races to his living room "cat table." It used to be a coffee table, but when Dickens came into our home, it became a cat table. It's the only spot where, when I am sitting in my recliner and Loretta is on the couch, Dickens can see both of us. More importantly from his point of view, because he loves attention, we can see him. It also puts him on the same level as people, and he loves people. I'm pretty sure he thinks he is one. It's a little difficult to explain to guests who are used to a coffee table being a place for beverages and snacks, and are surprised to have an enormous cat jump up and introduce himself, nose to nose.

Saturday mornings, when Loretta and Zorra are still in bed—that's when Dickens and I have our weekly meetings. After I get my coffee, I sit on the couch, he sits on the cat table, and we talk. (I'm perfectly serious. Dickens is very vocal. If you talk to him, he talks back. I have no idea what he's saying, but I suppose it makes sense to him.) I give him a few cat treats, brush him, and sometimes, if he will allow it, give him a manicure.

I call Dickens my "dream cat." When our first cat, Mycroft, died, we talked about adopting another cat. But I couldn't bring myself to do it. It would be like trying to replace Mike, and to me, Mike was irreplaceable. Then, about a year after Mike died, I had a dream. In it, I was cradling a small ginger tabby in my arms. The next morning, I told Loretta I thought I was ready to adopt another cat.

Shortly after that, we were at PetsMart shopping for supplies for Cleo (our little old lady calico). A rescue group was holding an adoption event, and I decided it wouldn't hurt to check out the kittens. There were about a dozen of them, but the one that immediately caught my attention was a little ginger tabby that stuck his paw out through the bars of the cage to get my attention. I asked one of the volunteers if I could hold him. When I cradled him in my arms, he looked up into my face, just like the cat in my dream. He still likes to be held that way. Every morning, before I go out to get the paper, I have to pick him up and give him a cuddle. It's not easy, now that he weighs 20 pounds.

Mycroft was our first cat, and for years he was an only cat. When we adopted Cleo, he resented her presence in the house. There were terrible fights between the two of them before they reached the point where they could barely tolerate each other. Cleo had now gotten used to being an only cat. Also, she was a bit old to be asked to put up with a frisky kitten. Understandably, we were concerned about bringing another cat into the house. But we needn't have worried. Dickens loves other cats as much as he loves people. He was eager to make friends with Cleo, but when she had enough of his antics and hissed at him, he knew to back off. When Cleo died and we adopted Zorra, Dickens and she quickly became best friends.

Zorra and Dickens

Dickens was not always the easiest cat to love. When he was a kitten, he suffered from a chronic respiratory illness. His nose was constantly running, and he would have terrible sneezing fits. He would spin in a circle, spraying snot all around him like a lawn sprinkler. He also had frequent, explosive bouts of diarrhea. (One unforgettable episode occurred under the Christmas tree a few days before his first Christmas.)

Fortunately, Dickens outgrew his kittenhood illnesses to become a healthy, happy cat. He still loves attention, people, and other cats. He is always glad to see me—every morning when I get up, every afternoon when I come home from work, and especially at our Saturday morning meetings. I love him like the dickens.

My Irish Bucket List

My last name may be Irish, but I have at least as much English, Scottish, Dutch, and German blood in me, not to mention a drop or two of Spanish and Native American. Nevertheless, the country I most identify with (other than my own) is Ireland. Someday I plan to visit it. When I go, here are some of the things I hope to do...

1. Tour the Guinness Brewery

As a child, one of my favorite books was The Guinness Book of World Records. I was both fascinated and repulsed by the picture of the man with the world's longest fingernails. (I also wondered how he was able to do anything with those hands, such as...well, never mind.) It wasn't until years later that I discovered that Guinness also makes beer. I like Guinness Stout, but one of my favorite beers is Smithwick's Irish Ale, also brewed by Guinness. For a beer aficionado, no visit to Ireland would be complete without a trip to Ireland's number one tourist attraction.

2. Listen to Live Irish Music

I love Irish music, especially the drinking songs my friend David Hawthorne and I used to listen to in college. It was David who introduced me to the Clancy Brothers, Tommy Makem, and the Irish Rovers. One of our favorite songs was Finnegan's Wake. It tells the story of Tim Finnegan, a "gentle Irishman" who falls from a ladder—apparently to his death—only to revive during a drunken brawl at his own wake:

Then Mickey Maloney ducked his head,
When a noggin of whiskey flew at him.
It missed, and falling on the bed,
The liquor scattered over Tim.
The corpse revives! See how he rises!
Timothy, rising from the bed,
Says, "Whirl your whiskey around like blazes!
Thanum an Dhul! Do you think I'm dead?"

My friend David Hawthorne was felled by a heart attack six years ago. Unfortunately, unlike Finnegan, he did not rise again. I miss him. If I ever get to Ireland, I will find a band and request Finnegan's Wake in his memory.

3. Follow in the Footsteps of Leopold Bloom

Speaking of Finnegan's Wake, famed Irish author James Joyce wrote a book by that same title. I have never read it. I understand it is a very difficult book to read. I did read Ulysses (well, parts of it) in college. It, too, is a difficult read, but rewarding if you can get through it. It chronicles, in approximately 265,000 words, a single, ordinary day (June 16, 1904) in the life of Leopold Bloom, whose meandering journey through Dublin in some ways parallels the voyage of Ulysses in Homer's Odyssey. Every year on June 16th—"Bloomsday"—Joyce fans gather from all over the world to retrace Bloom's route. Of course, one of the stops is a pub, which brings me to the fourth item on my list...

4. Buy a Round at a Real Irish Pub

I love Irish pubs—the dark cozy atmosphere, the good Irish beer. Of course, a real Irish pub is probably nothing like the Irish pubs we have here, and the Irish pub of my dreams probably never existed. It's the pub in the John Ford classic, The Quiet Man, full of charming locals who sing songs, buy each other rounds of drinks, and take a break from the occasional fist fight to throw beer in each others' faces. If I found such a place, I would buy everyone a round (provided the place wasn't too crowded) and ask them to join me in a rousing chorus of Galway Bay or The Wild Colonial Boy. Or maybe something by U2. I don't care, as long as it's Irish.

5. Visit the Grave of William Butler Yeats

My favorite poet is William Butler Yeats. Nobel prize-winning poet, playwright, and folklorist, he probably did more to define and promote Irish literature and culture than anyone in history. In the last stanza of one of his last poems, "Under Ben Bulben," Yeats describes the place where he would soon be laid to rest:

Under bare Ben Bulben's head
In Drumcliff churchyard Yeats is laid.
An ancestor was rector there
Long years ago, a church stands near,
By the road an ancient cross.
No marble, no conventional phrase;
On limestone quarried near the spot
By his command these words are cut:
Cast a cold eye
On life, on death.
Horseman, pass by!

Someday, I will make that pilgrimage to the island of Yeats, Joyce, Guinness, and at least one of my ancestors. Until I do, I will continue to celebrate St. Patrick's Day in my usual way: sipping a pint of Guinness or Smithwick's, while watching John Wayne and Victor McLaglen resolve their differences in true Irish fashion.

Sláinte!