Dear friend

Dear friend, I want to check in with you. As before, I am concerned about you. You told me I shouldn’t be, but I can’t help myself. I want things to work out for you. I want you to be happy and healthy and your family safe and secure. How are you? How is your family? I know there were some intense and angry conversations around your dinner table during the first term of the current president of the United States. I know some family members got so angry at Thanksgiving one year that they didn’t come for Christmas. We haven’t been close, but I am concerned about you.

You know who you are. I think you know which friend I’m addressing with this inquiry. You are the one who was proud to put the red sticker of the National Rifle Association on the back window of your pickup truck. I asked you about it, and you explained that it was all about freedom and that you were worried that there were evil people who intended to take over our government and rob you of your freedom. Your membership in the NRA was, for you, a way to protect your rights, if I understood what you said correctly.

I know we haven’t spoken in a while. I didn’t reach out to you a year ago when the CEO of your organization was found guilty by a jury of his peers of misspending millions of dollars of your organization’s money on pricy perks for himself. I’m pretty sure that you would disapprove of the dollars you sent to protect freedom being invested in private jets and trips to the Bahamas. I know you know the value of a dollar, and I suspect that the whopping $4,351,231 in restitution was enough to get your attention. But I didn’t want to appear gloating, so I kept quiet. I probably shouldn’t have.

So now, I want to check in with you to make sure that things are OK with you. I know you found my arguments weak when we last spoke. I suppose they were. I couldn’t imagine that there were evil men with lots of wealth who were preparing a hostile takeover of the US Government. I found it hard to accept your claim that there were evil people who would be convicted if they faced trial for their felonies who might seize power in an autocratic fashion. I didn’t take you seriously when you warned that a power-hungry person could take over the administration, ignore the courts, act without the consent of Congress, and get away with stealing our democracy. I guess I was wrong about all of that.

That is why I’m checking in with you right now. You said that if it ever happened, you and your friends would need your guns to defend democracy. Your guns, you said, were the only line of defense against evil people wanting to take all of the wealth and power from the people of the United States. And now that all those things have happened, now that a convicted felon who has escaped punishment for his crimes is ignoring court orders and acting with impunity and has subverted the authority of congress and seized control of the spending and budget without consent, now that people with vast amounts of money but no elected position and no constitutional authority are firing good people from government and refusing to spend money according to laws passed by congress, now I’m worried about you.

I don’t know where you are in all of this. I hope you aren’t preparing to use your guns to hurt someone. I know you said you and your friends would be willing to die for freedom, but I don’t want you to die. You probably remember that I was dismissive of your ability to use hunting rifles and a few handguns to stage a military uprising. I’m pretty sure I made you angry with my comment that the Second Amendment guarantees “a well-organized militia, not a bunch of random gun nuts and collectors.” OK, that was a bit harsh on my part, but genuine concern for your well-being was behind it. I don’t want you to be hurt. I don’t want you to die from a gunshot.

Maybe you remember that I told you that your guns posed a risk to you, that if you were ever to suffer from depression or fall into a fit of anger, they might become weapons of suicide or homicide. I’d been to too many homes where people used firearms to kill themselves. I’d sat with too many shocked and grieving family members not to notice how their guns got used.

I know you got caught up in collecting. I understand that some of the guns in your safe haven’t been fired in years and haven’t been cleaned and maintained as well as you imagined you would care for them. I know that you bought the heavy gun safe more out of a fear of burglars stealing your property than out of protection for yourself from those weapons. But I also know you stockpiled a lot of ammunition. You remember that I told you about two occasions when I visited with deputies who had been called to move firefighters back from burning buildings because the ammunition inside the buildings was exploding and creating too much risk for those fighting the fires. You thought my warning was silly and that such could never happen to you.

But now, I admit that I haven’t kept up. Still, I am worried about you. I don’t want to see an armed uprising. I know that our nation is in the grips of our history's most serious constitutional crisis. I know there are people in power who have no concern for the freedom of others and no respect for us, the people of the United States. But I’m asking you once again not to take up your guns and brandish them. I know your occasional trips to the rifle range don’t constitute military training. I know your impressive collection is no match for tanks, armored vehicles, missiles, drones, and robotic weapons.

So, please, take a breath. Calm your body and your soul. Join me in praying for our democracy, judges, and courts. Write letters hoping that some of the members of Congress still have a modicum of conscience and a sliver of spine. And whatever you do, remember that I do care about you. We might disagree about the sticker on the back window of your pickup truck. Still, we don’t disagree about our love for this country’s marvelous democratic experiment of government of the people, by the people, and for the people.

I say "kai-oat"

My wife and I recently saw a coyote crossing the road near our home. The animal appeared in good health, with no sign of mange. It loped in front of our car close enough for us to get a good look before it disappeared into the brush near the road. We often hear the coyotes singing in the night, so we know they are around. South of our home is a reasonably sizeable undeveloped area with a few hay fields, plenty of woods, and other natural features. The BP oil refinery owns the land, and the company allows pedestrians and cyclists to use the space for recreation. When I ride my bike in the area, I often see people having fun with their dogs off-leash. It is a good place for pets to roam safely. I don’t know if that area is also home to the coyotes. I’ve never seen them in that area, but the one we saw was close enough to that space to have come from there. Our son has seen coyotes near their farm, but to date, the only predation of their chickens has come from domestic dogs owned by the neighbors.

Seeing the animal brings up a conundrum about describing it to my friends who have lived in Washington for a long time. I come from Montana, and I have lived in the Dakotas. Where I come from, along with Wyoming, Kansas, and Nebraska, we pronounce the name of the animal “kai-oat.” It only has two syllables. Out here, folks are most likely to say “kai-oat-ee.” I’ve also heard “kai-oat-tay.”

I understand that different languages have different pronunciations for animal names. When someone commented on how I pronounce coyote, I used to say that where I come from, coyotes don’t speak Spanish, so the name has only two syllables.

I have to admit, however, that there are a few outliers and renegades even in the places where most people use the two-syllable version. The clearest example that comes to my mind is the mascot of the University of South Dakota. To locals, it is pronounced “kai-oat,” and sometimes the teams are referred to with a single syllable: “yotes.” But if you hang around the university, you’ll occasionally hear someone referring to the mascot, Charlie, as Charlie “Kai-oat-ee.”

I blame television. Too many generations of children, including those from South Dakota, have watched too many episodes of the drama between the Loony Toons Road Runner and Wile E. Coyote. That cartoon has been around since 1949. Making matters worse, too many people live in areas with very few coyotes, so their experience comes more from the cartoon than from real life. I understand the phenomenon. The first time I saw a real road runner was when I visited Arizona. I was surprised by the size of the bird. I expected it to be more on the scale of a coyote, which it is not.

I’m sure someone will point out, as often is the case, that most dictionaries favor the three-syllable pronunciation. As a fan of dictionaries, however, I respond that Noah Webster’s original 1828 dictionary didn’t even have the word. It first appeared in the Imperial Dictionary by John Ogilvie, published in 1885, where two pronunciations are shown, but “kai-oat” is the first. The first time a Webster’s dictionary used the three syllable version, they spelled it “coy-oh-te.” I don’t know whose accent that represents.

I’m sticking with “kai-oat.”

That brings to mind another unrelated issue. My friends from New England insist on calling garbanzo beans chickpeas. I point out to them that they aren’t peas at all. They are legumes. One of my friends pointed out that if you Google garbanzo beans, the first article is the Wikipedia entry for chickpea. The same happens if you search the New York Times recipe database for suggestions on preparing and serving garbanzos. It yields recipes for chickpeas. However, if you go to the grocery store searching for chickpeas, you’d better be willing to purchase a can of garbanzo beans because that is how they are labeled, at least around here.

In Washington, people often tell me I have a Minnesota accent. That didn’t happen when we lived in South Dakota. I was occasionally told I have a North Dakota accent and always accepted that with pride. However, I can hear the difference between how I pronounce Dakota when I say North Dakota and South Dakota. Despite what my friends from the East think, they are not the same. I know that the Dakota Territory was divided north and south instead of east and west because if they had divided it the other way, the western side wouldn’t have had enough population to qualify for statehood.

I also know that in North Dakota state history classes, teachers point out that North Dakota is the 39th state and South Dakota is the 40th state. In South Dakota, they teach that the two states were admitted simultaneously on November 2, 1889. November 1889 was a banner month for new states. Montana, where I was born, was admitted on November 8, 1889, and Washington, where I now live, was admitted on November 11, 1889.

For the record, my accent is a Montana accent, not a North Dakota or Minnesota accent. I just happen to know how locals pronounce their states' names. And in Montana, you can tell whether a person is a local by the way they pronounce coyote. And don’t give me the line about how Governor Gianforte pronounces anything. He is hardly a native. When elected in 2021, he hadn’t ever spent an entire winter in the state despite owning a home in Bozeman. The constitution of Montana requires the governor to live in Helena, but Gianforte found the Governor’s mansion lacking amenities, so he and his wife purchased a $4 million mansion in town.

I’m pretty sure that people who live in multi-million dollar mansions don’t know how to pronounce coyote correctly. They probably eat chickpeas too.

Delivering the papers

I was introduced to small business in 1965, moving from working as a salaried employee to running an independent small business. My salaried job was sweeping a feed warehouse. I began that job at 50 cents per week and worked my way up to $1 per week, but my income wasn’t keeping pace with my appetite for bowling and snacks. I applied and was accepted as a delivery carrier for the Billings Gazette newspaper. I was assigned a route with 55 customers. The newspapers arrived on the train every morning. The train did not stop. The bundles of papers were pushed out of the door of a train car as it passed through town. I found the bundles with my name on them, cut the wire that bound them, folded individual newspapers and delivered them to the houses on my route. At the end of each month, I visited my customers and collected their subscription price, which was $1.50 per month. From that amount, I paid the newspaper company for the papers I had received.

I quickly learned that there were a lot of tricks to the trade. One important trick was to order the correct number of papers. It was essential to have a few extra copies because inevitably a few were ruined by the wires that held the bundles and the process of being pushed from a moving train. Extra copies didn’t make any money, however. Another trick was ensuring collections were completed on time to avoid cash flow problems. Collections were the nemesis of my business. I delivered papers between 5:30 and 6:30 each morning. I didn’t mind getting up, and I could cover my section of the town with my bicycle pretty quickly. Collections, however, had to be accomplished after school or on Saturdays. If someone weren’t at home, I’d have to go back. Sometimes, they wouldn’t have the cash when I arrived. I learned to carry some extra cash to give change for larger bills. Most people were pretty good about paying, and a few tipped, which helped.

Another issue for me was building my business. New paper delivery routes were set up with 50 to 60 customers. Still, if you got new customers, you could develop your route up to as many as 150 customers before the newspaper forced you to divide the route and give some customers to another delivery person. There were two ways to gain new customers. The hard way was to convince someone who didn’t subscribe to do so. I worked on houses along my route that didn’t subscribe rather than expanding my territory. I paid attention when a new family moved in. I’d give them a few free copies to get them interested and then show up and invite them to subscribe. The second way to get new customers was to trade territory with another deliverer. I would always take new customers when another deliverer had a customer that was out of their area or wanted to shed a bit of work. Sometimes, I could gain by trading a block with five customers for one with seven if the other deliverer found a particular block convenient.

I was successful in the business. The sweet spot for a paper route in those days was 110 customers, which produced just under $600 a year in profits. Anything over $600 meant I would have to file income tax, so the goal was to come in just under that amount. I had no trouble managing 150 customers because I “hired” my brother to do collections and kept my income below the threshold. The brother who did the collections for me was lousy at delivering. He wouldn’t get up when the alarm went off. His mind wandered, and it took him much longer to cover my route than I did myself. The next younger brother was better at deliveries but was no good at collections. When he grew up, he became a first-rate salesman, but when he was young, he was too shy. On the other hand, he did seem to get more tips than the rest of us.

When I moved from delivering newspapers to mowing lawns and shoveling snow, the paper company divided my route into two routes. I had two brothers who bid on those routes and got them, but neither could grow their routes very much. The brother who was good at collections was first to give up his route. He tired of the seven-day-a-week grind even though I helped him deliver Sunday papers, which were larger and heavier most of the time, and I was his primary substitute when he took a day off. The other brother stayed longer in the business before giving up deliveries. He became a route supervisor for another daily paper when he became an adult. He picked up bundles of papers at the press plant in the middle of the night and delivered them to nearby towns for delivery. He could do that job for extra income and still do his day job. He was doing that job when a sudden heart attack ended his life.

These days, daily newspapers are almost a thing of the past. The Skagit Valley Herald only prints papers five days a week in our area. Cascadia Daily News, despite its name, only prints once per week. The Daily Herald also isn’t daily with five printings per week. Local journalism is moving to online formats. The Salish Current is an online-only news source. The big paper in our region is the Seattle Times, which still offers daily delivery for $14 per week. Customers are few and far between, and carriers all use cars for delivery.

We received a daily paper for many years. However, we found that we were getting most of our news from online sources and reading the paper less and less. When the newspaper raised the rates for obituaries and funeral home websites had more extended and more complete obituaries than the newspaper, I finally dropped our subscription.

However, I still look forward to the weekly small-town paper we receive. Something about having a newspaper in my hands still brings me joy.

A weekend of birthdays

Our youngest and oldest grandsons share the same birthday, and today is that day. One is turning 14; the other is turning 3. 11 years to the day separate the brothers. Between them, there are three other grandchildren. We have a cluster of family birthdays this weekend. My nephew’s birthday was on Friday, and my wife’s birthday was yesterday. Celebrating birthdays is one of he reminders of the milestones of our life’s journey. The birthdays serve as markers not only of the passage of time but of memories of our past experiences.

Our youngest grandson has a unique place in our family. He was born just five months after we moved into this house. He has no memory of us living anywhere other than just a few miles from his home. He is used to seeing us nearly every day. He is at home in our house. When his brother was born, we lived 1240 miles away from his home. We tried to visit as often as possible, but we didn’t get many glimpses of his daily life. With our youngest, it has been very different. I feel like I know him. I have unique relationships with all my grandchildren and feel blessed by every one, but there is something extraordinary about having constant contact with him. I associate his birth with our time of living in this home. Our other grandchildren visited us while we lived in different homes. From his perspective, we’ve always lived in the blue house on Clamdigger Drive.

Our oldest grandson was born just three weeks after my mother died. I was in the early stages of processing the grief of the loss, and into my life came this fantastic new infant. One month later, Susan’s father died. Life has moved on in many ways, but celebrating his birthday always reminds me of our turbulent year in 2011. In 15 months, my brother died, my mother died, our grandson was born, my father-in-law died, and our daughter was married. It was an incredible emotional roller coaster for us. The year was also a challenging one in my career. We had agreed to take a sabbatical leave differently than planned to create space in the church budget for a part-time pastor being called to our church staff.

Our nephew was the first grandson on both sides of his family. I had several nieces and nephews born to my siblings, but this was the first for Susan’s family. His entrance marked the beginning of a new generation. A few years later, we had a son, and then more grandchildren were born until my in-laws had five - the same number as we now have.

My wife’s birthday has been a significant celebration in my life for more than half a century. Yesterday was the 52nd time we celebrated it as husband and wife. We’ve celebrated in several places with several different events and activities. There have been a lot of cakes, a few practical gifts, and some that were less memorable. In addition to celebrating what an incredible gift she has been to me, each year’s celebration is an occasion for me to recognize my deep gratitude for her parents and sisters. Like our grandson and nephew, she was the family's first grandchild, the pioneer of a new generation.

In 2019, she experienced a serious illness, and there was a brief time when I was unsure whether or not she would survive. As a result of that experience, every birthday since has seemed like a bonus to me. I’ve gone from sitting at her bedside praying for just one more day and one more conversation to celebrating five birthdays. Every day is an extravagant gift for me. Those days have added up into weeks and months and years. I have been blessed beyond measure.

We have family birthdays in March, April, June, July, and September, and each is an opportunity to celebrate our love. February, however, is unique in its blast of birthdays. I had cake and ice cream with dinner last night, and the prospects are good for more celebration foods today.

Technically, the English language has 12 verb tenses. We tend to think of the three categories of these tenses more than about the different nuances. Past, Present, and Future cover the span of time. Although we use verb aspects of simple, continuous, and perfect, we often are unaware of their distinctions. I am a writer and rarely distinguish between past simple and past perfect continuous. However, the ways we talk and think about time in our language are not the only ways to think and speak. In Biblical Hebrew, there are only two primary tenses. Some events have ended, and some have been ongoing. The present is usually a part of the ongoing tense, but there are moments when it is attached to the past tense, such as the moment of a death or another significant ending. It can be confusing for translators to express the same understanding of time from one language to the other.

Albert Einstein taught the world that time is relative. Time passes more slowly for an object moving faster than another object. The physicist Carlo Rovelli theorized that humans can only perceive the past and future. Our experience of the present is always perceived as part of the past or part of the future. As a non-physicist, his concepts are very similar to the tenses in Biblical Hebrew. Rovelli hints that time might not be a one-way street always going in the same direction.

I don’t understand all physicists' theories, but I know how my memory allows me to journey back into my past. Events that have already occurred continue to be meaningful to me. Birthdays are an opportunity for me to use the Present Perfect Continuous tense. Some actions started in the past and are still ongoing.

As I age, I find joy in recalling significant moments and events. The celebration of birthdays doesn’t carry the same intense excitement as it did when I was younger, but there is a sweetness I didn’t recognize before I grew older.

Tragic times

Earlier this week, I got an email from a colleague in Cleveland asking others and me planning to participate in a meeting in March about how we felt about flying to attend an in-person Resource Retreat. A small cohort of consultants has been assembled to review an extensive collection of books, curricula, websites, podcasts, and other resources that will be part of our denomination's significant faith formation initiative. A few of us have been part of multiple curricula development projects over several decades. Others are younger and bring fresh eyes and fresh perspectives to the project. We hope to make these resources available to churches as soon as possible through a dynamic new website developed through our church’s “Love of Children” project. I have been very excited about the project because our congregations need those resources. It has been too long since our denomination has had the funding and focus to offer new resources of this type to congregations.

We need to accomplish work that can be expedited by a face-to-face meeting. While we are all experienced with remote work and meetings, there is a type of collaboration that works best when we are together. Because we bring different skills and types of expertise, we can bring multiple perspectives to the large volume of potential resources. Many of us have been at work proposing resources for possible inclusion, which need to be reviewed by others. Also, some of us have been working together as educational consultants for years, and we know that being together will spark our minds regarding additional resources that any one of us as an individual might miss.

The purpose of the email message, however, was to check in with the group specifically about our willingness to travel by air. The memo was written after the collision of an airliner and a helicopter over the Potomac River near Washington DC that resulted in the deaths of 67 and after the tragic air ambulance crash in Philadelphia that left seven dead and 24 injured. There have been other times when dramatic and tragic accidents have occurred in clusters, which often spur fears of flying.

While I am grateful for the concern expressed in the email message, like my colleagues, I quickly responded that the work we need to do makes the required air travel important. Those who know me expected me to answer that way. I know how safe air travel is. I grew up among pilots, and I know the statistics. I am quick to reassure those who have fears with information about the safest way to travel available to us. Still, I have been careful to restrict my travel because I know how inefficient airline travel is regarding energy consumption and carbon pollution.

I won’t be afraid to fly when the time comes. I enjoy flying every time I have the opportunity. I sometimes grow a bit weary of all of the security and waiting that is now required when flying, but it still makes me happy to board an airplane. I have so many good memories of flying as a pilot and passenger. I will, however, be traveling with a heavy heart and sadness for those who have lost loved ones in what has turned out to be a very tragic week. Yesterday, I kept checking my computer for news about the Behring Air flight that went missing while flying in harsh winter conditions over the Behring Sea from Unakleet to Nome.

Behring Air is an experienced carrier with scheduled airline service and Part 35 charter operations in Alaska. Alaska's Remote areas depend on air travel for essential goods and necessary travel. Large aircraft are not practical for many trips as the number of people and the amount of goods required are too small to require such big planes. Several smaller carriers have developed skill and experience in operating smaller planes in harsh conditions. Behring Air is known for using the best aircraft in the safest manner possible. They had never before had an accident involving losing an airplane.

The news that the wreckage had been found crushed hopes that there might be survivors. The pilot and nine passengers all perished.

It is essential to be clear that while these three tragedies occurred within just over a week, they do not share a single cause. They are related in time, but not circumstance. Accident investigators focus on heavy air traffic, night vision equipment, radio communications, and other factors in the DC accident. In the Philadelphia accident, investigators will examine voice recordings and other data to determine whether spatial disorientation was a factor as the plane entered clouds right after takeoff and did not follow the assigned path. In Alaska, investigators will focus on the plane’s TKO deice system. All three accidents likely had different causes. These accidents weren’t caused by disruptions following political changes in Washington. They could have happened under any director of the Federal Aviation Administration. The National Transportation Safety Board will conduct thorough and professional investigations into each accident. It is wrong to use such tragedies for political gain.

It would help if top administration officials acknowledged the depth of these tragedies and the pain of those who have lost loved ones. Although nothing can take away the pain of sudden and traumatic loss, having political leaders stand with the victims and share their grief can help. I have carefully read the statement of Alaska Senator Lisa Murkowski, who said, “When tragedy strikes, we’re never far removed from the Alaskans directly impacted.” Alaska Governor Mike Dunleavy said he was “heartbroken.” “Our prayers are with the passengers, the pilot, and their loved ones during this difficult time.” I am grateful for their expressions of compassion.

I know empathy and compassion are not marks of leadership in the current administration in Washington, D.C., and I don’t expect the President to assume the role of compassionate healer. However, I wish his handlers would prevent him from making false claims, harsh attacks, and laying blame in the wrong places. He won’t weep for the losses.

I will, and I won’t forget them when I have the privilege of traveling safely later this spring.

Made in RapidWeaver