The grass may no longer be greener in the other fellow's yard

I spent the first 6.5 years of my life in a flat in my grandmother's three-family.

Nanny's house didn't have much of a lawn. The front "lawn" was a steep bank that dropped off from the front porch down to a three-foot concrete retaining wall. Some sort of grassy clumps grew there, which my father or my Uncle Charlie cut with a scythe. 

The side lawn was a narrow row that sloped down to the driveway. There was a cement walk separating the side lawn from the garden that edged the house. There, Nanny grew irises and peonies, lilacs. The side lawn was anchored at one end by a giant bridal wreathe bush, and on the other end a big shaggy fir tree we used to play under. The grass wasn't much. Pretty scratchy when we ran through it barefoot when we were playing in our little kiddie pool.

The back yard was cool and dark. No grass that I recall, just a lot of moss, loamy areas, and big flat rocks. There was a birdbath and a couple of metal lawn chairs. Sometimes we sat out back, but mostly if we were sitting out, it was on the first or second floor piazza (Worcester for the porches on three-deckers).

The summer I was 6.5, we moved to a single family house on the next block. And suddenly we had lawns - front and back. 

The front lawn became my father's pride and joy. There were a few shade trees, a flagstone walk, and bushes rimming the house. But the front yard grass...It was lush, green, velvety. There were special rules for how and when it was watered, using a flat soaker hose with holes in it. Walking on it barefoot was like walking on the softest carpet imaginable. Not that we walked on it all that often. It was a showplace, not a utility space. Even in a droughty summer, the front lawn always looked like a million bucks.

Every evening in the spring and summer, my father patrolled the front lawn, screwdriver in hand, examining the grass looking for a weed, a poke of crab grass, a dandelion. Out! Out by the roots!

The back yard was far larger. It was grassy - and my father made sure that none of the grass was crab grass, and that it was dandelion free - but it was not as soft and green as the front lawn. Back yard was where we hung out, where we ran through the sprinkler, where we played badminton, where we ran around like crazy, where we lounged under a tree playing Monopoly, where we sat out on a summer evening, where we had the swing set, the kiddie pool, where my father grilled, where the lawn chairs were. And it's where sat the garbage can and the trash can where trash was burned - trash that wasn't garbage, or cans picked up by the can-man, or papers and magazines picked up by the Boy Scouts for their paper drives.

Our cellar held plenty of lawn equipment. Hand mower for the front lawn. Power mower for out back. A Scott seed and fertilizer spreader. A Scott lawn roller, basically a large metal cylinder that you filled with water and then pushed over the newly-seeded and fertilized lawn. Rakes - garden and thatch. Garden tools. And, in the winter, the back yard hose (yards of it, with sections attached via couplers to make sure it could reach all of the yard), the front yard hose, and the sprinkler. Fifty-pound sacks of grass seed and fertilizer.

My father might have been more obsessive than most about his glorious, meticulously tended front lawn. But pretty much everyone with a house had a lawn that they kept up, kept green, regularly mowed. There was one lawn on our street that was unkempt and scraggly. Other than that:  nice lawns were everywhere. Lawns were beautiful. Lawns were green. Men were judged by the condition of their lawns.

But these days, lawns are increasingly viewed as a drag on precious resources, a waste of time and money, a burden on our increasingly fragile environment. 

Lawns are heading out. Au naturel is heading in. 

It's not going to happen overnight.

We are still, largely, lawn people. The biggest crop, by area, in the United States? Not corn, or soybean, but lawn. Unproductive, ornamental lawn: around 40 million acres of it, or 2 percent of the land area of the Lower 48, according to multiple estimates cited by Garik Gutman, program manager for NASA’s Land-Cover/Land-Use Change Program.

Forty million acres: The entire state of Georgia couldn’t contain America’s total lawnage. And we pour 9 billion gallons of water on landscaping every day, according to the Environmental Protection Agency. (Source: The Washington Post)

Still, out west, where there's little water and lots of drought, folks are increasingly unturfing their yards and replacing them with native plantings and rocks. 

Yards without grass look fine. My sister has a home in Tucson. The desert. Where there aren't many lawns. The cacti and other native plants look fine. But they're not as pleasing to this New England eye as a nice green lawn, with a charming flagstone path, edged with impatiens. 

But even in the Northeast, folks are replacing their nice green lawns with landscaping that isn't going to ruin the environment and suck the aquifer dry.

Admittedly, getting rid of lawns will be a hard row to hoe, metaphorically speaking.

Lawns, of course, are part of your life. You throw a football on them, you picnic on them, you lean and loaf on them. Some years ago Dave Marciniak penned a polite defense of lawns on his landscape company’s blog: “Why the anti-lawn movement bugs me a little.” Turf serves a purpose, he wrote. It’s soft and durable for recreation. It provides visual relief for the eye, and contrast for landscaping.

Marciniak welcomes changing landscaping tastes, but notes that they are changing slowly.

“As much as Americans like to call themselves rugged individuals, there’s a lot of looking around to see what other people are doing,” says Marciniak, who lives in Culpeper, Va. “I explain to people advocating anti-lawn: Look, it’s not going to happen overnight. If you want to get people away from lawns, we have to show them it can be beautiful, it can be desirable.”

Anyone who was a kiddo in the Boston TV metro during the 1950's and 1960's will recall one of the daily ditties sung by kiddie show host Big Brother Bob Emery, who strummed along on his ukulele:

Oh, the grass is always greener in the other fellow's yard.
The little row, that we have to hoe, oh boy that's hard!
But if we all could wear green glasses, now, it wouldn't be so hard
To see how green the grass is in our own back yard.

Look like we might be needing those green glasses, 'cause someday soon, there may not be all that many nice green grassy lawns out there. 

This is, of course, the right thing to do. Still, I'm hoping that we still get to keep my front yard.

The Boston Public Garden. Right outside my front door. I'm a member of the Friends of the Public Garden. I'll have to check in with them and see if they're got something environmentally responsible up their sleeve here. 

I walk there almost every day. I don't go barefoot on the grass Even if I were so inclined, there are goose poop landmines throughout. But I like to imagine it's as soft and velvety as my father's pride and joy front lawn.

What a difference 50 or so years make

If all went well, I arrived in Shannon this morning, 6 a.m. Irish time. So if all went well, I'm now in Ireland.

I've lost track of how many times I've been here. Somewhere between 12 and 20. Some trips I can hang a date on. I know I was last there in March 2019, and before that May 2018, and before that June 2014. I was in Ireland during the spring of 1985, which marked my second visit there. And I'm pretty sure I was there in September 1997, because I remember being in pub where the radio was playing Candle in the Wind/Goodbye England's Rose, Elton John's tribute to Princess Diana. It was shortly after Diana's death, and the barkeep rolled his eyes and snapped the radio off. Good man!

I first set foot in Ireland in early May 1973, stepping off the overnight ferry from Holyhead in Wales that set us down in Dún Laoghaire, just south of Dublin, in ghastly weather - lashing rain.

I remember feeling immediately at home.

My friend Joyce and I had spent the prior couple of weeks in England, Scotland, and Wales. Other than the weather and the food, we much enjoyed our time there. But it all felt pretty foreign. Which, of course, it was. I mean, what was up with the waxed paper they used for TP?

Ireland seemed different.

In Dún Laoghaire, when we queued up for the bus into town, things seemed more normal.

I don't really remember if the toilet paper was any better, but the people jostling to get on the bus - including an old lady prodding people in the butt with her umbrella - was familiar. A lot more like folks crowding to get on the T than Brits politely waiting their turns.

And everywhere we looked, there were people who were the spit and image of the people I grew up with. I have no idea why this surprised me. After all, I'd grown up in a largely Irish American neighborhood, and had gone (through college) to schools staffed largely by Irish American nuns - schools were the preponderance of my classmates were Irish American.

I'm a half-breed: Irish (father's side), German (mother's). But I grew up in Worcester with my father's family. In Worcester, which seemed to have every European ethnic group known to man, other than Germans. My German family was out in Chicago. Anyway, we listened to Jimmy Dooley's Irish Hour on the radio, not an oompah-band polka show. Our family did watch Lawrence Welk, and that, if you don't factor in the baked goods and the chicken paprika, was as much of a nod to my German heritage as our family ever summoned up, other than when we were out in Chicago, or a Chicago delegation was visiting Worcester.

Anyway, Ireland just plain felt like home.

On our trip through Europe, Joyce and I hit twenty or so countries. I promised myself that there were three places I had to return to: Paris, Yugoslavia (as it was then), and Ireland.

I've been to Paris four or five more times. Haven't checked back in on Croatia or any of the other countries Yugoslavia became. Maybe some day. (I would like to get back to Dubrovnik...) But Ireland, well. Been there, done that plenty of times.

Heart's home?

Yeah, in a way.

In 1973, Ireland was pretty poor and depressing, but it was beautiful and the people we met were great. 

When we got off the bus in Dublin, we had no idea where we were going to stay. We were standing, soaked, by a phone booth, trying to figure out how it worked -  Insert coin first? Start dialing, then insert coin? - so we could line up a B&B, when a man came up to us and told us we needed to get out of the rain.

Tom took us into a tea shop, bought us tea and scones, and apologized because he couldn't invite us to stay at his house because his wife had just had a baby. But, he told us, he had just the place.

He called a young woman he knew and asked her to put us up for a few days.

Indeed she would, in a very modern flat in Fitzwilliam Square that, among other modern niceties, had excellent heat. After a few weeks chilled to the bone in England, Scotland, and Wales, having central heat was quite a welcome experience.

We stayed several days, courtesy of Geraldine Murtaugh (who worked in the tourist industry), buzzing around Dublin seeing the Book of Kells, the Guinness Brewery, and the Brazen Head Pub (founded in 1198!). And hanging with Gerry and her friends.

That flat in Fitzwilliam Square turned out not to be indicative of the digs we'd find elsewhere in the country. We ended up hosteling through the country (and the rest of the countries we went to) and, while the hostels were fine, they weren't warm. And the weather was cold and rainy throughout our time there.

The weather didn't help, but there was also a sort of depressing, dreary undertone to Ireland. My Irish grandmother's words - "If Ireland were so great, we all wouldn't have had to come over here" - kept echoing in my ears. There was a general sense of sadness. Of repression. Of oppression.

One of the depressing aspects to the country was that all the people our age who we met were either planning on leaving Ireland, or somewhat apologetic/embarrassed that they were staying. When we met older folks - the age of our parents - they would tell us about their children in England, Australia, or the States - often in Boston.

When we were on the ferry back to England, waiting for it to weigh anchor, we struck up a conversation with a guy our age, a fellow from Newfoundland. Like us, he was backpacking around Europe.

Joyce and I were obviously American, but Rick looked like he could be Irish. 

While we sat there waiting to take off, a middle aged woman, wearing an armband with an acronym on it (I've forgotten what the letters were) approached us and asked Rick if he were Irish. She was a social worker, interviewing Irish young folks who were leaving the country. In my recall, she was trying to convince them to stay, but that can't possibly be true. There were no opportunities in Ireland. The young folks had to leave.

As it had been for so very many decades, one of Ireland's greatest exports was its young people. (In my family, in the 1860's/1870's, those young people were Matthew Trainor. Bridget Trainor. Margaret Joyce. John Rogers.)

And then things began to change. 

When I got back there in 1985, things were looking up.

In 1973, Ireland had joined the EU, and the EU had plowed a lot of money into the country. The roads were improved, as had public transport. The shops were nicer, the food betterr. Everything seemed a bit more open, looser. 

In the years of the Celtic Tiger, the economy grew tremendously, the people prospered. American companies were investing - high tech, financial services, pharma. When I was working for Wang, I remember arriving at Shannon, only to be greeted by a big blue WANG sign, prominently displayed in the terminal. 

Ireland was hit badly - worse than most countries - by the Great Recession of 2008. 

Visiting the country was back to being depressing: all those half-built "ghost estates", torn plastic sheeting flapping in the window cutouts.

There was a very Catholic sense that the good times had been too good to be true, and what was now happening was more normal, more what the Irish deserved.

And yet they bounced back. And while they were bouncing back, they were jettisoning a lot of the social and cultural baggage that had been keeping them down. Most notably, the people were getting out from under the grip of the Catholic Church, which had pretty much been running the country since the Republic gained independence from Britain in 1922. 

The Ireland that was deciding it was no longer interested in letting the Church run the show, was more prosperous than it had been, better educated - it was only in 1967 that free secondary education was introduced. Prior to that, most working class kids left school at 14. (If they made it that far.) Then there were the scandals: so many stories of abuse of children at the hands of priests and the Christian Brothers who ran so much of the school system. So many stories of the young women shoved into a lifetime of servitude (and mistreatment at the hands of nuns) in the Magdalen Laundries, sometimes for having a baby out of wedlock (sometimes their father's or their brother's), sometimes for the crime of being bold and uppity. There were scandals about the country's orphanages. The scandal of the bishop of Galway having fathered a son by an American woman.

With amazing rapidity, the country became less priest-ridden. 

Divorce was okayed. Birth control. Abortion. And in May 2015 - a month before SCOTUS decided Obergefell - Ireland voted to allow gay marriage. These days, fewer people go to Mass. Fewer identify as Catholic.

The Ireland I landed in this morning - if all went well - is a different country than the one I first visited in 1973. 

I loved it then. I love it now. But what a difference 50 or so years make. 

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The remarkable transformation of Ireland into a modern society is brilliantly chronicled in Fintan O'Toole's recent book, We Don't Know Ourselves. Part memoir, part history, O'Toole examines Ireland from the late 1950's - he was born in 1958 - up to current times, through the lens of his own experiences. 

Traveler's checklist. (It's been a while...)

In 2020, other than a bus trip to the Cape to have lunch with my cousins, I went nowhere. But it's not as if I haven't been anywhere since the pandemic.

In the summer of 2021 - all vaxxed up, someplace to go - I spent a weekend in New Hampshire, and made two long-weekend trips to Vermont.

None of those required a flight, however. 

In October, 2021, however, I branched out a bit and braved a trip to New York to visit an ill friend on Long Island. 

In 2022, the world - with a small w, but The World, nonetheless - opened up. I flew to Tucson by way of Dallas to spend a nice-weather week with my sister Kath and BIL Rick. 

Flying...It's like riding a bicycle. It all came back to me. The hassle, the stress, the cramped seats. But it was kind of fun to actually take a trip trip.

Last month, I took another jaunt to Long Island, again to visit my friend, newly sprung from the rehab facility where she'd spent the last year.

Tonight, it's the big time. Sort of.

It's not like Ireland is uncharted territory for me. I don't know how many times I've been there. 12? 15? At some point, I'll figure it out.

Still, it's my first international trip since 2019 when I went to - ta-da - Ireland. And I don't want anything to gang aft agley. (Okay, okay. I know that's Robbie Burns, who's a Scotsman, not an Irisher. But Scotland's right next door. And my latest DNA report from ancestry.com has informed me that 13% of my DNA pegs me as Scots. Thanks, Dad! Hoot-mon!)

So I've done my checklist.

• Not that everything isn't cash-free, but I got my Euros.
• Signed up for the international plan on Verizon.
• Filled in the online form to have my mail held.
  
  
• Charged my Kindle and downloaded a few books.
• Texted my Irish friends to square up our dinner plans for Saturday. (Moran's on the Weir. Yum! Plus, friends.)
• Confirmed my VRBO rezzy for Galway.
• (Over) packed my bag, including a couple of items for my niece Molly, who's moving to Dublin for a year for grad school.
• Made sure I've tucked my Global Entry and vax cards in with my passport. (And triple-checked that nothing's expired, although I already triple-checked, and what could I do about it at this point?)
• Put a couple of adapters in my backpack, along with my phone charger and my laptop. (Never know when I'll feel the urge to blog while I'm away.)
• Stuffed a change of clothing and some necessaries (like low-dose lipitor) into the backpack. Just in case my checked suitcase gets waylaid, which it probably won't, given that Logan to Shannon is a straight shot, and Shannon ain't all that big and commotion-y.
• Placed a note at the front door reminding me to turn the AC off.
• Checked in for my Aer Lingus flight.
• Made sure I have a few N95 masks with me.
• And a few snacky things. (Kind Bar, raisins.)

Now I just have to spend the day hanging out until I head to the airport. Big decision: Uber or take the T.

I feel like I'm almost on my way.

I'm excited!

Slan!

Water, water everywhere. Just not in Jackson, Mississippi. (Or Flint, Michigan.)

Once in a while - in the building, out in the streets - my water is shut off for a couple of hours. Usually there's some warning, so I can fill some pots and pans up with water I can use to flush the toilet. Sometimes, I'll pick up a couple of gallons of store-bought water to have on hand, just in case. But mostly, for drinking and tooth-brushing, I always have four wine bottles full of Boston tap in my fridge. If I have to miss my daily shower, or skip watering my money plant, so be it.

Mostly, though, I don't expend one iota of psychic energy worrying about whether, when I turn the tap on, I'm going to get good, clean, safe H2O.

But if I lived in Jackson, Mississippi, that wouldn't be the case. Even if something came out of the tap, it might come out too sluggishly to, say, flush a toilet let alone take a shower. Or it might be murky, or outright mucky.

Jackson's water troubles are nothing new. 

For years, residents of the majority-Black city have endured everything from service disruptions and recurring boil-water advisories to concerns over contaminants like lead and E. coli bacteria, thanks to failures to upgrade Jackson's aging infrastructure. (Source: NPR)

In the winter of 2021, cold and ice wreaked havoc with the city's system, and many folks were without water in their homes for as long as three weeks. And there's been a boil-water notice in force during the month leading up to the latest situation, a catastrophic flood that overwhelmed the city's water treatment plant.

With the city now under a state of emergency, officials are scrambling to distribute bottled water to tens of thousands of people in a city where roughly 1 in 4 people live in poverty. Amid the fledgling response, officials have sent mixed signals about how long it may take to restore service. City officials have said it could be "days," but Gov. Tate Reeves has said it is unclear exactly how long it will take.

I've read a couple of articles that mentioned that the crisis could extend "indefinitely," as it has in Flint, Michigan, which has still not fully resolved the water crisis that hit that city (not surprisingly, Flint -  like Jackson - is majority-Black).

So now, this is where Jackson is at:

"Until [the water system] is fixed, it means we do not have reliable running water at scale," Reeves said. "It means the city cannot produce enough water to fight fires, to reliably flush toilets, and to meet other critical needs."

As the governor, Reeves lives in Jackson, which is the state capital. But, not to worry, a water tanker has been spotted outside the governor's mansion. He'll be able to flush his toilets. 

Meanwhile, regular everyday citizens are lining up for free drinking water distribution, often to find out that by the time they've reached the front of the line, the water's all gone. Or they're spending big bucks at the grocery store. I saw one woman interviewed who was shelling out $100 a week on water, and taking her family to the home of friends outside the city to take their showers. 

The problem is complex. Poverty. White flight. Shrinking tax base. Racism. Negligence. Poor decisions. Incompetence. Getting screwed by those who were going to swoop in and fix the problem(s).

And the typical politics that play out when the troubles plaguing poor folks aren't worth doing anything about as far as the powers that be are concerned. 

The population of Mississippi is 38% Black. But Tate Reeves doesn't need many of those votes to get elected. So he can get away with actions like this:

...in June 2020, Reeves, a Republican, vetoed bipartisan legislation designed to help residents with overdue water bills which, in turn, would have enabled the city to collect sorely needed water revenue.

Wouldn't want those non-deserving poor folks getting away with a little free water. 

Those water bills, by the way, were often overdue because the city had gotten into a snafu-ish deal with Siemens (c.f., getting screwed...) that, among its other features, gave Jackson a totally f'd up metering and billing system.

Wherever the fault lies, we have a reasonably good-sized city - population of 163,000 (80% Black) in 2020 - where most of the citizens don't have a reliable source of water. Schools have reverted to covid-style remote learning because the toilets and water fountains don't work. 

This is an utter disgrace. 

We often hear the question asked 'how can this happen in the richest nation on earth?' Sometimes it's 'greatest nation on earth.' 

Richest, sure, but not when it comes to taking care of the least of our brethren. Especially if they're people of color. Greatest nation? Hmmmm. Not as long as we have tens of thousands of folks who don't have access to clean water. That's third world stuff. We should be ashamed. I am.

Storrowed

It happens throughout the year, at random times. A feckless, hapless truckdriver tries to drive under an overpass bridge on Boston's Storrow Drive and gets stuck. Depending on how far in they get, they may even manage to strip the entire roof off their truck.

Oopsie doopsie.

Sometimes the truck driver is a pro, driving a "real" truck, but metaphorically asleep at the wheel. More often than not, however, the driver is an amateur, a DIY mover with a rent-a-truck from U-Haul, Ryder, or Penske.

We've even got a name for it: a truck got storrowed.

While it can happen any time during the year - and, believe me, it does - it always happens in late August and early September. Leases are up on September 1st. And lots and lots and lots of students are on the move. 

(This time of year also has its own name, Allston Christmas. Allston is a Boston neighborhood heavily populated by students and recent grads. It's Christmas because there are supposedly real finds put out in the trash. I'm skeptical about just what sorts of goodies are being junked by exiting BU and BC students, but one student's trash is another student's treasure. Maybe you can fix up that dresser with a missing drawer. Maybe you could use that wastebasket, that ratso bath mat. I did find a blue and white ceramic jar that someone in my building had put out on trash day, and I found a good home for it in front of my fireplace. But this wasn't in Allston, it was on Beacon Hill, where we have nothing but the finest trash. Only kidding. Students aside, September 1 is a BIG moving day. I walked along Charles Street before the trash was picked up and saw lots of pretty unsavory looking discards out there...)

Back to storrowing, on September 1st, a U-Haul got storrowed.

State officials said the top of a U-Haul collided with the North Harvard Street

bridge, on Soldiers Field Road, just before 11 a.m. Thursday. Photos and videos from the scene showed the roof of the vehicle peeled back, exposing a pile of cardboard boxes and assorted furniture inside.

Traffic was briefly stopped on the road’s eastbound side while the truck was safely removed from the area. All lanes of traffic reopened just after noon, officials said. There were no reported injuries and the Massachusetts Department of Transportation, following an inspection, said the bridge was not damaged. (Source: Boston Globe)

It's not as if this and all the other storrowed truck drivers weren't warned. There are warning signs all over the place. 

We are not known for our clear and adequate signage. Most major thoroughfares do not have street signs telling you what street your on. Sure, the side streets are (mostly) marked, but it's up to you to know you're on Comm Ave or Mass Ave or Beacon Street. (Does this happen other places, or is this a local thing?) And there are goofy direction signs like one in town (along a street that I believe is an unmarked part of Route 9) that points west and just says "Providence." Good luck getting to Providence based on this sign. Better remember to turn left at Greenland, or you'll end up in Worcester. 

Even local brands like Trillium Brewing, which produces a double IPA called “Storrowed,” has used its clout to dissuade people from bringing large trucks onto those roads to avoid getting stuck.

It's not just Storrow Drive you need to avoid.  As the Mass. Department of Conservation and Recreation tweeted “That moving truck or van won’t fit on Storrow Drive, Soldiers Field Road, or Memorial Drive in Cambridge! Find a different route and avoid a collision with an overpass!”

The tweet came out after the latest move-in collision with reality. And it's not as if most of the feckless, hapless truck drivers are following the state Department of Conservation and Recreation. 

That aside, it does seem ridiculous that this storrowing happens so frequently. Just another bit of local color, I guess.

Labor Day 2022

As tends to happen before Labor Day, I dreamed I saw Joe Hill last night. And as usual, Joe told me to take the day off. So I am. But not without a shoutout to the workers at Starbucks and Amazon and all those other workplaces who are trying to organize and form unions. I'm a firm believer that, if we had more unions, overall we'd have a more perfect union. 

And since I'm heading to Ireland later this week, I'd like to add another shoutout to Mother Jones.

Mary Harris Jones was born in 1837 in County Cork. When she was ten, her family (poor tenant farmers) fled the famine and came to Canada. As a young woman, she made her way to the United States, worked as a teacher, and later a dressmaker, married and had four children.

Life wasn't easy.

It wasn't enough that she was famine Irish. In 1867, her husband and children were wiped out in a yellow fever epidemic. The dress shop she opened after the death of her family was destroyed in the Great Chicago Fire of 1871. (And speaking of the Irish, legend held that the fire began when Irish immigrant Catherine O'Leary's cow kicked over a lamp, resulting in the O'Leary barn burning down and setting off the conflagration that killed hundreds and destroyed a wide swatch of the city.)

Jones' husband had been a union organizer, and after her business was destroyed, Jones became one, too. Among other things, we was a cofounder of the Industrial Workers of the World - the Wobblies. Her union activities are most closely associated with the United Mine Workers. 

Her words are still used by union organizers, and for other progressive causes: Pray for the dead and fight like hell for the living. Or, as labor activist Joe Hill would have it, Don't mourn; organize!

Happy Labor Day to the workers of the world.

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Source for Mother Jones info: Wikipedia.

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It's back to the future with house arrest!

Last Friday, I had lunch with a friend, eating out down at the waterfront. Then we ambled around the North End, and looked in at the Haymarket stalls (good deals on nectarines and blueberries). 

Last Saturday, my brother (the first and foremost member of my covid bubble - remember them?) and niece came over for dinner. I wasn't feeling inspired, so I made a big salad and ordered pizza. 

On Sunday, mask on, I worked the breakfast shift at St. Francis House. 

And since Sunday, I've been pretty much shut down.

I'm heading to Ireland next week and, after 2+ years of being mostly but not obsessively careful, I'm not taking any chances that the day before, I end up down and perhaps even out with covid. 

I'd almost forgotten what those early days of the shutdown were like, but it's all coming back to me.

As I did throughout the 2020 shutdown, I'm still taking my walks every day, but I'm a bit more conscious of who I'm walking around. So when I saw and heard the coughing woman strolling through the Public Garden, I took another route around the park. Yes, I know it's outdoors, but she had quite the hacking cough. And apparently she's the only person in the world who isn't aware that you're supposed to cover your mouth when you're coughing. I was tempted to tell her to cough into her shoulder, but I didn't want to get close enough to her to be heard without shouting. 

Anyway, walks are a lot different then. During the early days of the shutdown, I often (scarily) found myself the lone walker in the Public Garden, along the Esplanade. 

As I did throughout the 2020 shutdown, I'm still running errands. Admittedly, when covid was young and vaccine was still a twinkle in a Moderna researcher's eye, I was pretty much limiting my errands to essentials: groceries (sometimes even shopping during elder hours); drugstore for pandemic essentials: Vicks VapoRub, a pulse oximeter; hardware store for recycle bags...

These days, I'm a bit more elastic in my definition of what constitutes an essential errand.

On Monday, I went (masked) to TJ Maxx and Nordstrom Rack to see if I could find a new rain jacket for my trip. It's not as if I need one. I have several hanging in my closet. The turquoise North Face one. (Is it just my imagination, or is this jacket actually porous?) The purple LL Bean jacket with the zip out lining. (The color was advertised as Midnight Purple, which sounds like a really dark blue-ish purple to me. And looked like that online. But turned out to be more Barney Purple. Ugh!)

No luck at TJ's. No luck at the Rack. Other than a cute India-print shirt that was way marked down.

Anyway, when I got home, I dug out yet another old rain jacket. A little black number I got at Nordstrom's maybe 20 years ago. I haven't worn it in years. The last time may have been in Ireland in 2018. But it was still hanging there in the hall closet. It's probably of little use in terms of repelling the rain, but that's what umbrellas are for.

While I was in TJ's, I also looked for a bowl. Not that I exactly need another bowl, but last week my beloved blue and white striped bowl with the lemons on it fell apart in the dishwasher. When I saw it in two pieces, I gulped. I've had that bowl for 40 years or so. It's perfect for serving vegetables, or for a one-person salad. I use it all the time. 

Alas, there was nothing at TJ's, as they have swapped out the everyday housewares for Halloween-themed stuff.

The good news: I can look for a bowl that size in Ireland. Come to think of it, if I'm still jonesing for another rain jacket, Ireland - land of a thousdand rainfalls - might be the place to look for one.

On Tuesday, I went to the bank.

On Wednesday, I took a non-destination walk with no particular place to go. 

Ditto on Thursday, but Thursday definitely felt weird, as that's my usual long day at St. Francis House. 

During the early days of the pandemic, I had stopped volunteering, but went back once I was vaccinated. 

It felt strange not to be going in.

I'm leaving for Ireland next Thursday, so another week of near house arrest.

I'll take my walks, and I'm sure I'll be able to gin up another couple of non-essential errands, and convince myself that they're essential.

I'll get more reading done, and may organize a closet or two.

It won't be as crazy as it was way back in the spring of 2020, when I put on a mask when I went out to the front hall to get my mail. 

But it will be odd not having any social contact, other than texting or an occasional phone call. (Zoom urgency seems to have fallen away once we got vaccinated and were able to get out and about more easily.)

I'm something of a loner. Not that I'm anti-social, but I like to have a lot of me-time. And I'm not someone who's in constant need of company. Still, I've found the past few days a bit weird. Not exactly unsettling. Just a bit off. Weird. If being a stay-at-homer means I don't come down with covid before I get on that Aer Lingus flight, it'll be well worth it. 

If nothing else, it'll be good practice for the next pandemic.  

September Song

My father always said that, after the Fourth of July, the summer was pretty much over. We, his kids, are always citing this - starting on the Fifth of July, and we hold the truthiness of this belief to be self evident. Because it is completely the truth that, after a slow buildup from Memorial Day to the Fourth, once the fireworks have sputtered out, summer just flies.

And that's okay with me.

There are a few things I like about summer. 

• The light in the evening. I'll be more than happy when Daylight Savings Time becomes a permanent calendar feature.
• The late summer flowers: zinnias, dahlias, marigolds. Sure, I like spring flowers, too. Who doesn't welcome tulips and jonquils? And mums in the fall, and poinsettias at Christmas. But there's something about those August flowers.
• Native tomatoes.
• Native corn.
• And summer fruit, especially nectarines, blueberries, and cherries.
• Baseball is still on. Admittedly, it you're a Red Sox fan, that's not such a great and glorious thing this year. Still...

But of all the seasons, to me summer comes in dead last. The other three seasons? They're in a dead heat for first place. (Yes, even winter. I'm a New Englander of German and Irish heritage. Bad weather is in my blood.)

So I welcome September, even if most of it, technically, takes place in summer.

When I was a kid, nerd child that I was, I looked forward to September and getting back to school.

A new pencil box. A new schoolbag (if last year's edition was now in shreds). A new pair of shoes. (Alas, no new clothing. Same old, same old, green jumper and white blouse. Year in, year out. And my school uniform, year in, year out - until high school, when I outgrew her - was a hand-me-down from my sister Kath.)

I loved the anticipation of getting to know the new nun. This was always a crapshoot, the triumph of hope over reason. But you never knew. She might be one of the good ones, and not a raging psycho. 

I would already have met the new nun, as mid-August, after the Feast of the Assumption, it was the tradition for the "good girls" to drift down to school to help Sister Sister set up her classroom. Sometimes, the nun might be the same nun who'd taught your new grade last year, so you at least knew her by reputation. But "our" order of nuns believed in mixing things up, trading nuns every year or so, I guess so that the nuns wouldn't get too comfortable, too familiar, too friendly with the kids, their parents, and - gulp: heaven forbid - another nun in the convent where they were stationed.

Much as my mother adored nuns and priests, she used to complain when Kath and I put on a skirt and headed down with our friends to Our Lady of the Angels to check out who was back, who was new. If you want so badly to help out, you can help out around the house. As if! There was nothing all that new and exciting at our house. (Okay, the summer before fifth grade there was a new baby, which was pretty cool.) And it's not as if we (that would be Kath and I) didn't do plenty to help out. Unlike my brothers, who barely lifted a pampered finger.

So, off to paying a call at the convent, to pick up the new nun and get into the classroom to dust desks or whatever. 

After we'd sussed out the new lay of the land, it was just a couple of weeks until school started.

School!

I loved covering the new text books. Sometimes they handed out freebies from a bread company, manila with red and brown writing. Bread is the staff of life. Sometimes we had to make our own out of brown paper grocery bags. And, once and only once, I sprung for a package of fancy ones from Woolworth's. They were shiny college book covers: Holy Cross Crusaders. Villanova Wildcats. Fordham Rams. And - odd man out: a  non-Catholic school - Penn State Nittany Lions.

I loved getting homework, even though it was always Mickey Mouse make work. I loved sitting there at the kitchen table, copying those spelling words, whipping through the arithmetic "problems." If you were doing homework, you couldn't be asked to retrieve the laundry from the clothesline, or peel apples for applesauce for dinner.

September. Ah, September.

Sweater weather (even though it could be hot).

The first trip to Brookfield Orchards for a bushel of Macs.

And as much as I love summer light, by September I was ready for the dimming of the day.

Football was on, and while I'm not much of a football fan now, as a kid, I always went to a couple of Holy Cross games. As a little kid, with my father. As I got older, with my friends. We'd walk the couple of miles to campus, watch The Cross play, sing "Mamie Riley" and "Give Another Hoya", and then trudge home. (By the time I was going with my girlfriends, it was as much to look at the cute college boys as it was to watch football.)

On Sundays, I watched professional football with my father. Pre-Patriots, that meant the New York Football Giants, wearing "Honolulu Blue." We didn't have a colored TV, so we had to take the announcer's word for it.

It's been a million years since September meant back to school. A million years since I cared about football.

But I'm still looking forward to sweater weather, the early Macintosh apples. And there is still the anticipation, the September-ness of this month being the actual beginning of a new year. 

I'm not particularly sorry to see summer wind down.

Welcome, September. What took you so long?

Travel agents? They're advisers now, and they're making a comeback.

In August 1972, my college roommate and I set off on a cross-country adventure in her little green Karmann Ghia.

To find our way, we followed a route laid out in the AAA Trip Tik, augmented by (free) maps we picked up at gas stations along the way. 

Other than staying a few days with my grandmother in Chicago, we mostly camped, both at commercial KOA campgrounds, or in state or national parks. Occasionally - in Las Vegas, in New Orleans - we stayed in hotels. I don't remember how we found out about any of these places. Were they in the Trip Tik? Did we research them at the library? There may have been some sort of (free) national parks campgrounds book, and we likely had a guidebook with us.  

The next year, when we trekked (car-less) across Europe, we definitely had a guidebook, the Harvard Student Agencies' Let's Go Europe! I think we also had Arthur Frommer's Europe on Five Dollars a Day. 

We camped and hosteled, and - to get around - hitchhiked, with an occasional train or ferry ride. 

To get to Europe, we flew BOAC (now British Airways) from Logan to Heathrow. We picked up our tickets (which cost $206 if you were a student or under the age of 26) at the BOAC outlet in the Park Square Building.

In big cities, most of the airlines had storefronts where you could make reservations and pick up your tickets. In Boston, a lot of them were in the Park Square Building. 

I guess if you weren't in a big city, you had to use a travel agent. Which I did sometimes.

I remember - late 1970's? early 1980's? - planning some trip at Crimson Travel in Harvard Square, and setting up another trip at a long-gone travel agent on Beacon Hill, a few doors up from where I live now. That Beacon Hill visit must have been in 1976, because I remember the travel agent explaining to us that we could get a cheap flight - to where, I don't recall - using something called the "Bicentennial Nightly" program.

Mostly, however, for personal travel, I was - even in those pre-Internet days - a DYI traveler. Called the airlines to make reservations. Picked up the tickets at the airline's office. Bought guidebooks - Fodor's, Frommer's - and sent faxes (if memory serves) to make hotel reservations. 

Business travel was another story entirely. 

Companies of any size whatsoever had a corporate travel department. Smaller outfits worked with a travel agency like Crimson. 

You put in your request for a trip - through your group's admin (those were the days!), and you got a packet with your tickets and hotel reservation info in it. If something got screwed up - your flight was canceled, the hotel was wrong - you called an 800 number and whoever answered the phone (and someone always answered the phone) figured it out for you.

I remember returning from Orlando, sitting in the waiting area when they announced a long delay. Simultaneously, every business traveler hopped up and hit the payphones to get on another flight. Meanwhile, the traveling families, groggy kids in lopsided mouse ears, sat there trying to figure out what to do. Surely, they had made their plans through a travel agency. They just didn't seem to know enough to call them. 

And then the Internet changed everything.

All of a sudden, even if your company still had a travel office, you found yourself making your own reservations. It was just easier and more straightforward than going through an intermediary. (Or at least that's what we were convinced of. Sort of like it's easier and more straightforward to pump your own gas and bag your own groceries.)

And travel agents - other than for tours, niche travel, or luxury trips - seemingly went the way of the dodo bird. 

Dodo bird? 

Not so fast.

...the recent jumble of airline cancellations, staffing shortages, lost luggage, and fluctuating COVID-19 restrictions has helped buoy a profession many long perceived to be on the wane: the travel adviser.

“Suddenly, I feel like I’m in vogue again,” said Susan Bowman, a Toronto-based travel adviser. “It’s been a remarkably busy summer, and I don’t see it slowing down anytime soon. It’s been a renaissance for us.”

At last week’s Virtuoso Travel Week, an annual gathering of 5,000 luxury travel advisers in Las Vegas, the talk wasn’t about clients lost to websites such as Travelocity and Expedia. Instead, for the first time in nearly a decade, the scuttlebutt was about record demand, full schedules, and pruning client lists as the need for travel advisers balloons. It’s the biggest thing to happen in the industry since travel agents officially rebranded themselves travel advisers in 2018. Agent or adviser, the bottom line is that they’re swamped. (Source: Boston Globe)

The demand for agents/advisers at the high end, never went away. But now even plain vanilla, lower-end travelers are using advisers.

“If you book online, who do you call to try to help to get your money back? Or, who do you call to rebook the trip to another time? Those folks that weren’t working with a travel professional learned very quickly how painful and time-consuming it was to try to take care of it themselves,” [Elaine] Osgood [Marlborough-based Atlas Travel] said. “We have cruises that we have booked and rebooked. You lose count after a while.”

I understand the hassle up close and personal.

Although it was a minor inconvenience, I recently had to change flights and hotel to get down to Long Island to visit an old friend who hasn't been well. (I had a covid exposure and had to reschedule my trip.) Booking online was easy-peasy. Changing, not so. Maybe because I went through Orbitz, I had to make the changes directly with the airlines - American on the way down, Jet Blue on the way back. 

American flight change was pretty straightforward, but the Jet Blue one was peculiar. The website said to call, but when I called it said there was a cost to actually speak with someone. If I didn't want to pay, there was a chat option. That worked out fine. Still...

Anyway, I'm happy to see travel agents, errrrrrr, advisers, making a comeback. After all, they've been in decline for quite a while.

According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the number of full-time travel agents in the United States dropped from a high of 124,000 in 2000 to around 74,000 in 2014.

The bureau put the number of full-time travel agents at 70,000 in 2019 and projected the industry would lose 25 percent of its workforce by 2029. 

No numbers yet, but the decline seems to have ended, and the profession is on the upswing. Agencies are hiring, and travelers are deciding it's worth it to pay a bit of a premium to have someone to call to solve your travel problems for you.

I'm heading to Ireland next week. A DIY trip. Let's see whether I live to regret that I didn't find a travel adviser to pull it all together for me. Maybe even find the 2022 version of the Bicentennial Nightly fare. 

Imagine you found yourself homeless

Brandon Bradford is a political consultant and one of the folks I follow on Twitter. He recently posted this:

Periodic question: If you woke up homeless, hungry, with $20 to your name, and had none of the connections you have now, how would you get off the streets?

There were 4,000+ responses, and I flipped through enough of them to get a sense that the responding tweeters were mostly earnest and/or thoughtful and/or full of hubris and/or woefully naive.

It all got me thinking about what I might do.

Because I live in Boston, for starters, I'm going with waking up homeless, hungry and with $20 to my name in Boston, which has better support and services than most places. And, although, according to the thought experiment I've lost all my connections, I'm going with I'd still have my awareness of the shelter system and, at least at a high level, how it works.

So the first thing I'd do is get me to St. Francis House, Boston's largest day shelter, where I've been involved for years (as a 25-year board member until last September, as an occasional volunteer during that time, and as an active, regular volunteer since 2016.

I love St. Francis House, especially my interactions with guests when I sign them up for showers, hand them a toothbrush or clean undies, or ask whether they want salad on their lunch tray. (My regular SFH gig is in the Resource Center - showers, toiletries, computers, phones, etc.  - but I also do at least one shift a week serving in the kitchen, and occasionally work in the clothing department.)

Once I got to SFH and grabbed breakfast or lunch or an in-between sandwich, I'd ask to talk to a case worker who could help me navigate "the system," advising me on how to sign up for whatever aid I'm entitled to - SSI, SNAP benefits (a.k.a. food stamps) - and to get on as many housing lists as I could get on. (SFH has 56 units of single room occupancy housing. Folks get their own room, but share bathroom and kitchen facilities. Before covid, there was a 7 year waiting list to get one of these rooms.)

But navigating the system takes time. 

When I woke up homeless, would I have any ID?

Getting a new ID (Mass License or equivalent, Social Security card) ain't easy - especially if you don't have your birth certificate (especially if you're from another state or - far worse - another country). 

You can hang on the phone for hours - while others are breathing down your neck because they need to use the phone, too - before talking to a human who may or may not be willing and able to help you out. And if they need to call you back, and you don't have a phone, where are they going to call you back? And getting an ID isn't free. That $20 I woke up with? It wouldn't get you very far.

Anyway, a good case manager could help with all this, but case workers are not miracle workers. And even when they manage to work miracles, miracles take time.

So I'd (eventually) get a government ID, and maybe line up some government bennies. In Massachusetts, we have one of the better social safety nets, so I'd be entitled to some income and food assistance. And if I'm lucky, I won't lose the Electronics Benefits Transfer card I'm issued to get my food benefits.

And I'd better have that ID if I want to open a bank account so I can get my Social Security benefits sent there. 

The good news at St. Francis House is that you can get your mail there - including my Social Security check, if I don't have direct deposit.

Insta-homeless, I might just have the clothes on my back, so I'd see if I could get some new duds. The undies would be the same ones I'd get if I were in prison. (Same supplier.) Just the basics: cheap cotton. The socks would be Bombas, which donates a pair of socks for each one they sell. But they wouldn't be the cute colored Bombas socks I wore in my pre-homeless life. They're going to be basic black or white. Nothing wrong with that, but they wouldn't be cute. The other clothing would be a crap shoot, depending on what had been donated. Fortunately, there's usually a pretty good supply of women's clothing, as women - in my experience - are more likely to jettison clothing before it's worn out. 

As a homeless woman, among other things, at St. Francis House, I'd probably be able to procure okay clothing. Maybe not exactly what I wanted - although, since a lot of our donors are middle aged and older Talbot's shoppers, it might be right up my alley - but okay. And I'd probably be able to get a warm enough coat. 

Shoes would be a problem. "Gently used" donated shoes are never great, and they're always in short supply. The new sneakers donated by, say, Converse, probably wouldn't be in my size. And they might be weird ones, that just didn't sell. (Flamingo pattern.) In winter, you might luck out and get a pair of new boots, but shoes and boots are the hardest thing to come by if you're in need. And if you're on the streets, good footwear is the clothing item you're most in need of.

Anyway, before I put on my new clothing, if it's the morning, I'd be able to sign up for a shower. What I'd do with my old, dirty clothing, I have no idea. 

Do I have a backpack I can stow them in until I find a place to wash dirty clothing? (Good luck with that.) Do I have a shopping bag, a garbage bag? Is my original clothing even worth salvaging? 

Even supposing I do have something to carry my stuff in, just how much stuff can I carry around with me?

And the stuff I couldn't carry wouldn't include the stuff I have a sentimental attachment to. Like my grandmother's cookie jar.

Because I'm an elderly woman, I'd actually be more privileged when it comes to services, and I might even scoot to the front of a housing line, so I wouldn't have to spend all that many nights "sleeping" on a cot in a large dorm room in an overnight shelter. Where I'd probably have a nervous breakdown on Night One. Or, worse (maybe) out on the streets, where I'd be physically vulnerable.

There's nothing about being homeless that's easy. There's nothing about being homeless that doesn't take time to resolve.

However smart, competent, and tough you think you are, if you're on the streets, you are up against it.

I've just set out a circumstance in which I somehow manage to take care of my basic needs. (And that's in a state with a strong social safety net, and in a city where there's a reasonably good shelter system. I often talk to folks in the Resource Center who've made their way to Boston from Florida or Georgia - sometimes even in the dead of winter - because they heard they could get better help here.)

Try looking for a job if you don't have a phone, your own computer, an address, clean clothing, or a place to get a get a good night's sleep. Especially if you have (or had) a substance abuse problem and/or mental illness and/or major health problems and/or you just got out of jail and/or you don't have much of an employment track record and/or you've burnt every bridge you've ever walked over.

When we learn that one of our regulars has found a job or a place to live, we literally jump for joy. The only downside is that we don't tend to see them after that happens. Oh, the regulars we've gotten to know may show up for a meal or some clothing for a while, but they're not as dependent on us on a daily basis. 

So I miss seeing Kenneth, and Deborah, and Darryl, and Mike. And hope their luck is still holding. 

I have zero illusions about how easy it is to wish/work/save your way out of homelessness. I can glibly tick off what I'd do if I found myself on the streets with twenty bucks to my name. But in real life, I'd be frightened, depressed, and stressed out of my gourd. 

I'm glad there are organizations like St. Francis House. And the Women's Lunch Place. And the Pine Street Inn. 

But, even with all that I know about the resources available to the homeless in Boston, even with all the strengths I'm equipped with, the idea of being homeless and contactless is something I can't wrap my head around. 

All honor to those who manage to rebuild their lives and make their way out of the terrible experience that is homelessness. And all sympathy to those who aren't there yet, and may never get there.

Good question, Brandon. Thanks for asking it. 

AITA? No, hon, you most assuredly are not

Here's what I know about Game of Thrones, all of it picked up through the culture ether:

• It was a fantasy multi-year cable series.
• Written by someone named George Martin.
  
• Acronym'd: GOT. 
• There were characters named Arya and Daenerys.
• One of the characters was a dwarf.
• Or was played by a dwarf.
• The ending was controversial.
• Lots of people lived and breathed it.

Among those who lived and breathed GOT is a couple who decided to have a GOT-themed wedding.

Now, I'm no authority on weddings, to put it mildly, but I find the idea of a themed wedding a bit strange. Sure, pick a color scheme for the bridesmaids' dresses and the groomsmen's ties, and extend the color scheme to the flowers. Maybe even have a light theme - a little bit country - and pick the theme up in the decorations (wildflowers in Mason jars). But a Disney-themed wedding, where all the bridesmaids are Disney princesses, and - I guess - the groomsmen are the seven dwarves - or whatever - INCLUDE ME OUT>

The GOT wedding was going to go beyond, say, a run of the mill Harry Potter wedding where everyone carries a wand and munches on Bertie Bott's Jelly Beans. Or where all the guests are instructed to wear Wizard of Oz or Great Gatsby costumes. 

The GOT wedding was a destination event, which means people were going to have to pay to get there. And it was going to be conducted in the High Valyrian, GOT's invented language. The ceremony was going to be in High Valyrian, and all the speeches and toasts at the reception were going to be in HV. 

And the bride was also sending guests links to Duolingo, where they could/should learn High Valyrian. 

The GOT wedding came to my attention by way of Twitter, where tweeters occasionally post items that come up on Reddit's AITA. AITA stands for Am I The Asshole, and folks write in to describe a situation and their response to it, and crowdsource an answer on whether they're being an asshole or not. 

If you're not familiar with AITA, which is generally outrageous and often quite funny, here's how they describe the forum:

[AITA] is a catharsis for the frustrated moral philosopher in all of us, and a place to finally find out if you were wrong in an argument that's been bothering you. Tell us about any non-violent conflict you have experienced; give us both sides of the story, and find out if you're right, or you're the asshole. (Source: Reddit/AITA)

The question posed to Reddit world was: AITA for not wanting to attend a Game of Thrones themed wedding? [Note: the questioner had initially said she'd attend, but that was before the bride let her know that she wanted the guest to learn High Valyrian.] 

The verdict: Not the A-hole

By looking through the responses, I learned a bit more about Game of Thrones. 

I was not surprised to learn that GOT was pretty violent. I had pretty much surmised that. But hadn't picked up on it being violent towards women. Which seems to make GOT a questionable theme for a wedding. 

I also learned that there have been plenty of GOT-themed weddings, and a lot of responders have been to them, if not had one.

At these, and at non-themed weddings where the bride and groom are fans nonetheless, the song "Rains of Castamere," a GOT theme song is commonly played as the processional/recessional. "Rains of Castamere", on the show, "was played right before a bunch of people were murdered at a wedding. It’s the signature song of the family that orchestrated the murdering."

Wow! What a swell party this is!

I'm all for special songs that mean something to the couple. First dance to "At Last"? Sweet!

But "Rains of Castamere," which, admittedly, I'd never heard of before I started looking through AITA? Sounds right up there with couples that use "Every Breath You Take" somewhere along the line.. Nothing says lovin' like a creepy stalker song. 

Sure, I can see how folks who are completely in to something - a show, a sport, an historical event, a common hobby - might want to have a theme wedding. And friends and family might enjoy getting into it, especially if they shared whatever the obsessions is. But the idea of schlepping to a destination wedding where I was asked to wear a costume and learn a language I'd never use again is just beyond my ken. 

So I'm with the majority: the poster asking the question is not an asshole. 

And whether I'm an a-hole or not - it's up for debate - I'm pretty sure I'm never going to watch Game of Thrones. 

Treed

I grew up in the era of free range children. I also grew up in a house that was next to the woods. So there was ample opportunity for tree-climbing.

While I did my share of roaming around as a kid, I was never an extreme physical daredevil. Oh, I clambered over rocks. I loved going like lightning on an icy flying saucer run. I was as raucous as all the other kids running around in packs. I snuck into Mr. Downey's creepy, falling-down garage and pawed through the junk stored there. But I always had a fear of heights, so I wasn't much of a tree-climber.

By the time I was ten feet up, I was pretty much done for. And I didn't get that high, that often. I was okay reaching a treehouse if the kids who built it nailed climbing boards to the trunk. Free form climbing, not so much.

I much preferred playing on a tree that had fallen down.

One in particular was a colossal old tree that had fallen down in a nearby field - a field that shortly thereafter was developed into a nursing home. (Now that I think of it, the tree might have been knocked down to make way for said nursing home.)

Anyway, it was there for months, and the raucous neighborhood pack took it over. Who needed slides, swings, and jungle gyms when we had this old tree. We dubbed it Dinny the Dinosaur, and it made a spectacular climbing and play structure. You could rock on Dinny's branches. Ride his back and pretend he was a bucking bronco. Dinny could be a train, a boat, a plane, a fort, a castle - whatever we needed at the time. Alas, I sprained my knee - pretty badly - falling off of Dinny. But up until then...

Thanks to Dinny, most of my tree-climbing was horizontal, not vertical.

But real tree-climbers are of the vertical persuasion. And some of them are even professional.

Pros like Andrew Joslin.

Joslin has been climbing high into trees since 2005, inspired by an article about researchers who had pioneered a way to get 200 feet up into redwood trees to study the unknown world in their canopies. Long a serious birder, Joslin began cobbling together an education in “recreational tree climbing” and spent his early years figuring it all out on tall trees in tucked-away spots. Soon, he was putting others up on ropes, and today he estimates he’s put hundreds of people into canopies. (Source: Boston Globe)

Two-hundred feet you say? That would be about 190 feet above and beyond my high-arbor mark.

Joslin is 66 now, and this amateur tree-climbing passion that arrived in his late 40s has long since become professional. He makes his living from a combination of teaching through his Tall Pines Tree School and freelance work for commercial tree companies, climbing to places many can’t reach. Then there is his side work rescuing cats from trees — even indoor cats have four-wheel drive to get up a tree, he says, but unless they learned when they were young, they don’t know how to claw down the same way. He also does a lot of work with wildlife officials returning birds to nests they’ve fallen out of.

In his Linkedin profile, Joslin calls himself a "professional arboreal aeronaut." I'm not quite sure what it means, but we should all be fortunate enough to be able to come up with a job title like that. And an actual job to come with it.

Joslin's also an artist, who worked for many years for IBM as a visual designer.

But that was then, and this is now. And now Joslin's all in on arboreal aeronaut-ness and his Tall Pines Tree School, which:

...is dedicated to teaching the art of tree climbing using rope and harness. The school was founded by recreational tree climber and arborist Andrew “Moss” Joslin. Our purpose is to teach and promote tree climbing as an enjoyable and safe outdoor activity.

I have no desire to get up into the canopy. I'd find those heights way too wuthering. But if Tall Pines Tree School finds a fallen tall pine that I could do an old lady, Dinny the Dinosaur clamber over, I might give that a whirl...

Starving artists? Not if Trader Joe's can help it.

Not that I ever tried it, but I do know that being a purist "in the arts" is a tough way to make a living. Writer, poet, singer, actor, sculptor, painter, dancer. Whatever floats your creative boat is unlikely to make you rich or famous. 

Some get to keep at it because their spouse or parents are willing and able to support their habit. 

Some forge careers that are creative-adjacent. They churn out marketing materials when they'd rather be writing the Great American Novel. (Been there, done that.) They keep their day job and participate in community theater. They're Sunday singers-in-the-choir. Sunday painters.

Most "creatives" that I know consider the arts their hobby or a retirement career, OR they juggle a lot of balls to keep their creative life going (adjunct professor, anyone?).

But some artists, as it turns out, get to be artists if they work for Trader Joe's. 

You probably know the idiosyncratic chain for its eccentric snacks and peppy cashiers, but that festive atmosphere extends to the stores’ interior design, too: Each of the 500-plus outposts has custom, handmade signage, all created by staff artists. Your grocery store is their art gallery. (Source: Washington Post)

This is the art work that greets you when you enter the TJ's nearest to me, which is in Boston's Back Bay. You can't miss it, as when you enter this Trader Joe's, you need to take the escalator (de-escalator?) down a flight to get to the store, which is subterranean.

Maybe if I shopped there more frequently, this artwork would have grown invisible to me. But I only stop in every once in a while and I always notice it. And always get a kick out of the baseball theme. This is Red Sox territory, and the Back Bay store isn't that far from Fenway Park - maybe a ten minute walk.

What I hadn't known was that one of their employees created it.

Zoe Terrell is the artist in residence at the store in Athens, Georgia. 

As what Trader Joe’s calls a “crew member with sign making talent” (we’ll just call them sign artists), Terrell, 40, spends much of her workday at the Athens, Ga., store wielding a paint pen in a backroom studio. She makes signs to promote products with puns like “Hot Grill Summer” and creative drawings such as the Powerpuff Girls reimagined as vegetables. She paints murals that represent the local area, University of Georgia sports teams or the surrounding rural landscape. 

The pay may not be great. As far as I can tell, sign-making doesn't earn you much of a premium over whatever Trader Joe's pays entry level cashiers.  (In Massachusetts, that's $17.39 per hour.) And the sign artists, when they're not arting, work as shelf stockers and cashiers. Still:

...for many, it’s the stable art job they never thought they’d have.

“I always tell everybody, it’s probably the best entry-level artist position that has a steady paycheck, good benefits and everything,” says Dan Kaufeldt, a 35-year-old sign artist in Sacramento, who has been with the company for 16 years...

Kaufeldt left art school because it was too expensive, but working at Trader Joe’s was a welcome, if unexpected, alternative: “Where else can I just sit down and draw all day?”

Probably not many other places. While so much commercial art has been digitized, it might seem absurd that Trader Joe’s still pays people to hand-draw cartoons of dancing potatoes to sell a new type of chips. 

But it's all in keeping with Trader Joe's friendly and personal brand, which extends to letting the artists do their thing. 

So the artists aren't just asked to draw a dancing potato. They're given a lot of creative leeway. Trader Joe's doesn't want all their stores to look a like. That's part of their appeal. You want bland nothingness? Go to Walmart. You want to feel that you're in a place that's got more personality, where you get a sense of the neighborhood? Shop at Trader Joe's. (And even though TJ's appeals to an audience that overlaps quite a bit with Whole Foods', the TJ prices are generally cheaper than those at Whole Wallet.)

Working as a sign artist lets artists be artists while earning a living, however minimum-wagey and minimal that living might be. They can hone their craft and, with a little luck and a little pluck, branch out to working other gigs.

Anyway, next time I'm in Trader Joe's, I'll have to pay more attention to the in-store, occasional signage, not just to the entryway. Who knows, maybe the cashier will be the person who created them, and I'll be able to relay my compliments to the artist.

Meanwhile, Trader Joe's employees get a discount on their groceries. So if you're one of their sign-makers, you won't have to worry about being a starving artist.