Author: Paul Deaton

Categories
Living in Society

Happy Weiberfastnacht

Fasching Parade in Mainz, Germany.

The Thursday before Ash Wednesday is celebrated as Weiberfastnacht in the German Rhineland. It is a day when women assert their dominance by cutting off the neckties of men they encounter. Some of us long recognized that women should be in charge of society, and not only on “Silly Thursday” as today is known. Helau! to those who celebrate.

We had a dusting of snow overnight in Big Grove Township. It was lightly falling when I looked out the pre-dawn window and is expected to continue into tonight. It may be a proper blizzard and a good day to get indoors work done. I’m writing today about my return from Mainz and the work I did at an apartment at Five Points.

When I returned to Iowa from Germany I stayed at Mother’s house for a week or so, and then found an apartment at Five Points in Northwest Davenport. I was settling into my new place by Nov. 11, 1979.

We called it Five Points because it was the intersection of Division Street, West Locust Street and Hickory Grove Road. From the intersection there were five directions one could go. All five led to distinctly different parts of the city. There is another five points located in the city’s poorer district, although it is not well known among the majority white population.

Hickory Grove Road used to be a wagon trail before the arrival of paved roads. Follow it northwest and it intersects with U.S. Highway 6, not far from the place Jack Kerouac wrote about in On the Road.

“The sun was going down, I walked, after a few cold beers, to the edge of town, and it was a long walk,” Kerouac wrote. “All the men were driving home from work, wearing railroad hats, baseball hats, all kinds of hats, just like after work in any town anywhere. One of them gave me a ride up the hill and left me at a lonely crossroads at the edge of the prairie. It was beautiful there.” For me, it was a place to stay while I figured out my future. I wasn’t sure which direction I would go.

Excerpt from an autobiography in progress, Feb. 16, 2023.

I have living memory of that apartment at Five Points. While I was in Europe, a number of friends from high school had gotten married and I missed all of their weddings. Now that I was back, I ordered wedding gifts from a mail order catalogue so I could visit with them individually, present the gift, and get caught up on our lives.

The UPS delivery person was a high school classmate. He attended elementary school at Saint Vincent’s where since 1895, the Catholic Church had cared for children as an orphanage and school. My friend said he could get me a job at UPS if I wanted. If I had taken him up on the offer, I would likely have earned far more than I did during my worklife. I thanked him and declined. He ended up retiring early and moving to Florida.

I wrapped all the gifts and contacted my friends by telephone to set up dates. It wasn’t like being at their wedding, yet it was something positive. If I had stayed in Davenport, I would have attended their weddings and maybe closed in on one of my own. Marriage had not been a priority for me while in the military or as I returned to Iowa.

I don’t celebrate carnival any longer, except on social media. I used to join friends to attend the annual Rose Monday Parade in Mainz near the thousand-year-old Saint Martin’s Cathedral. It was a big deal, with hundreds of thousands of people in attendance. I note the date of my settling in at Five Points was the same as the beginning of the carnival season in Germany. A coincidence, I suppose… although maybe not.

As snow falls in Big Grove Township, we are bunkered in with provisions. I don’t plan to wear a necktie, yet if we get into a celebratory mood, I would. Happy Weiberfastnacht to those who celebrate… and Helau!

Categories
Writing

Listening is Important

Woman Writing Letter

The first funnel of the Iowa legislature is March 3, so it’s time to look at what our representatives Dawn Driscoll (SD46) and Brad Sherman (HD91) have been up to.

No doubt they won the 2022 midterm election, despite failed Arizona gubernatorial candidate Kari Lake’s warning about election integrity during a recent trip to Iowa. They won fair and square.

If I don’t agree with them in many cases, they each have explained some of their votes in their newsletters. Reading them helps me understand their point of view. I won’t convert from being a Democrat to Republican, yet listening to legislators with whom I disagree is important. It’s a way to improve civility that has been lacking in our politics.

Republicans hold legislative majorities, and the governor is pushing for major changes. Because proposed changes are substantial, it is difficult to get a grip on the reorganization of state government and education. Legislators should take time to consider the bills in public forums.

My hope for the rest of session is that Republicans listen to Democrats when they have something important to say, pay attention to details of what they propose, and do right by all Iowans. These are reasonable things to ask.

~ First published by the Marengo Pioneer Republican on Feb. 14, 2023.

Categories
Writing

In the Calumet

76 and 53...
degrees and humidity...
climate,
     as good as we get, 
     in the Calumet.

Our society,
     of family and friends,
     spoke of weather:

     conversation derived...
          from ancestors who...
               sectioned townships....
                    once the natives were gone.

And while the indigenous here...
     seem preoccupied with commerce...
          I consider...
               the atmosphere...
                    of the Calumet.

~ Summer 1988
Categories
Writing

I Want to Tell You

I don't want that old thing
that you had before.

I just want to tell you
one thing:

I want to play baseball

now

at the park

because there's no baseball space here.

No baseball space at all.

~ Spring/Summer 1989
Categories
Writing

First Day of Summer

Summer came today
Cool, windy, clear.

On the weathered picnic bench
I sawed limbs,
fallen during the storm,
into firewood.

She stacked the logs
on the deck
near the gate leading to the
driveway.

~From my Indiana Journal circa 1988
Categories
Living in Society

Skipping an Annual Shopping Tradition

Tools

There is not a lot of money to spend on frills at the end of each month. I wrote about this before and while we hope to pay off our outstanding consumer loan this year, an unexpected expense could complicate things. Like many people we live on the edge between financial survival and ruin.

There are broader implications than our single household.

Last year, 48 percent of household expenses were programmed. That means property taxes, water, electricity, sewer, refuse hauling, road maintenance, insurance, telephone, cable T.V., car loan payment, and broadband. There is no escaping these expenses.

Sixteen percent of expenses were food, sundries, gasoline and cash expenses. One can economize here, but all of these categories are necessary. Our food expense is lower because we regularly use produce from the garden.

The balance of our expenses (36 percent) was what I call household operating expenses. This includes clothing, household repair parts, auto repairs, health co-pays, writing expenses, gardening, donations, and anything unexpected that pops up during the year. Sometimes things break and an outside contractor is needed to make furnace, electrical or other repairs. Contractors are not cheap.

I used to go shopping when the Super Bowl was televised. It was a tradition. I’d wait until the neighborhood got quiet, start the car, and drive to the mall to walk deserted passages and browse. It was my personal equivalent of Black Friday. I’m not sure how much I spent on such shopping trips, but not much. The message was more how anti-sports I became after seeing the Iowa Hawkeyes play with coach Ray Nagle back in the day. Sports was and is a waste of time in our household, unless someone we know personally is playing.

With no money left at the end of each month, and we had to take out a loan to pay for some unexpected expenses. Shopping out of tradition doesn’t make sense with a personal loan. It is better not to buy anything extra other than what we need to get by.

I compare this with the post-war boom during the 1950s when large companies banked on a consumer society. The population boomed and people were buying new homes and equipping them with modern appliances and furnishings. The car culture took off. Today, with so much of our expenses programmed and necessary, combined with replacement items, this has to be taking sales away from merchants who once relied upon them. We bought a used car last year, and will buy a major appliance or two this year, but such purchases can’t be driving the economy, at least not in the same way. Cars and appliances are made better to last longer these days and that has to hurt replacement sales.

We are going through the house to purge stuff we don’t need. So much of what we cared about for years, isn’t anything our child wants. We have the room to store old things, although there is nothing wrong with some empty space. I keep thinking I could need, use, or repurpose. I need to let go. It is hard to get a purge started, and we are not ready to call the waste management company to arrange for a dumpster. However; that day is coming.

The Super Bowl will continue to be a non-event here. We’ll make the usual meals, yet we won’t do any shopping outside our normal stocking levels to prepare. I’ll skip a traditional shopping trip that shouldn’t have been a tradition at all. I’ll be better for that.

Categories
Writing

Writing Journals

Woman Writing Letter

Writing autobiography is an American endeavor. I studied under Albert E. Stone who was my first advisor in graduate school. He edited an edition of J. Hector de Crèvecoeur’s Letters from an American Farmer.

We Americans, especially in this century, often seem completely self-absorbed. There is a native impulse to write or tell a single, brief narrative of our life. More accurately, it is a combination of essential, defining moments and multiple, broader narratives. At the root of autobiography, we must answer the question Crèvecoeur did, “What then, is the American, this new man?”

This new man, when it comes to journaling, was typified as a woman in the 1970s when I wrote,

Traditionally, it is the girl or female of the family who writes in journals. Sometimes it seemed nothing more than a way to keep a girl busy until she gets old enough, reaches the age of child-bearing, then her true work begins.

Personal Journal, Mainz-Gonsenheim, West Germany, Dec. 12, 1976.

This tradition of female-based diary or journal writing was something I was taught in high school. All I can say in 2023 is, OMG!

Journal writing has a purpose instead of marking time. It gets the writer seated behind a desk or table with pen or keyboard in hand. In such a posture one cannot help but write something. It may be gibberish, yet once in a while it may be profound. It is only through practice one becomes a better writer. Journaling serves this purpose.

Journal writing is a form of therapy in that its performance resembles use of an addictive drug — we take it when ill and continue its use until we are well. In some diarist’s cases the illness never left. My condition of restlessness and loneliness has been with me a long time. Journal writing helps me cope.

A foundational part of autobiography is journal writing. As I work through the timeline of my current book, I find the stories I want to tell were written before, many times over, during the last 50 years. They were often written in a journal, or since 1999, in an email or since 2007 in a blog post. In living life we find certain people, places and things stand out. Those are the narratives that can find their way into a journal. The more we write these stories, the better they can become. They become part of us. In the end, who are we but the stories we tell about ourselves living in society?

I am pleased to report the draft of my book passed 100,000 words today. The journals I kept, beginning in 1974, have been especially helpful in getting this far. Writing emails and blog posts served a similar usefulness. I have been mining them both. The lesson from this story is journaling is important to being a writer. It helps us cope and provides a record in case one is needed. From time to time we must rediscover who was are. Writing in a journal helps us do that.

Categories
Writing

Listening to the Wind

Derecho Woodpile

I work a lot on winter days. Some readers may want to put air quotes around that word. What I mean is cleaning the house, washing dishes, preparing meals, doing laundry, and snow removal. I began to plant seeds in trays to grow seedlings for the garden. In winter, any type of physical activity is welcome and most of it must be done to maintain a household. As a septuagenarian in reasonably good health, I need breaks from time-to-time to sustain activity throughout the whole day. When I do rest, it is in the form of a nap or to sit quietly for a few minutes in my living room chair.

While resting, I listen to the wind.

Since we moved here there have been three major wind events. The first two were what we called “straight line” winds that damaged the house and some of the trees. The last major event was the 2020 derecho. Before these events, I paid little attention to the wind. Now it is more engaging than television, radio, or looking at the screen on my handheld mobile device. It creates a form of solitary alertness well cognizant of the consequences of strong wind.

Listening to the wind doesn’t seem like much. At a certain age it evokes memories that transform the present into something else: a sense of fear, experience, or knowledge about the hazards of living in a turbulent world. Listening to the wind is more than about resting.

When I’m at my writing table I can’t hear the wind or anything else that goes on outdoors. Well, I can hear the predawn fusillade of shotguns during hunting season. It is a quiet environment by design. If I have the space heater on, I can only hear the fan. It is the type of environment suited to concentrating on memory and the imagination. It is the setting for reading and writing.

I’ve been reading Grandmother’s letters from when I was in the military. When she wrote them, she was not much older than I am today. She had at least four heart attacks while I was gone, and fell on the street twice. She was often tired, she wrote, especially during her recovery from hospitalization or the falls. She would stop working and lay on the bed or sit in her living room. Sometimes all she got done was to prepare meals and make her bed. It’s was not unlike how I am today.

The sound of the wind takes me back to the past. While wind may be a present danger, I worry less about it because of my experiences. I know for what to listen in the wind. I become thankful for my health and presence of mind. The wind inspires me to get back to work and improve how I live.

Some days we just need to shut off the noise, take a rest, and listen to the wind.

Categories
Living in Society Writing

Jobs Aren’t the Issue

Working the Garden

The overlooked part of President Joe Biden’s remarks about the January jobs report is this, “As my dad used to say, ‘A job is about a lot more than a paycheck. It’s about your dignity.’”

Make no mistake that Democrats should tout the achievement in jobs growth accomplished during the Biden administration.

Next week, I’ll be reporting on the state of the Union.  But today — today, I’m happy to report that the state of the Union and the state of our economy is strong.

We learned this morning that the economy has created 517,000 jobs just last month — more than half a million jobs in just the month of January. 

And in addition, we also learned that we — there were half a million more jobs created last year than we thought, so the January report is updated.  I mean, excuse me, the December report is updated.

Add that all up, it means we created 12 million — 12 million jobs since I took office.  That means we have created more jobs in two years than any presidential term, than any time, in two years.

That’s the strongest two years of job growth in history by a longshot.

Remarks by President Biden on the January Jobs Report, Feb. 3, 2023.

I’m more restrained in my reaction to the jobs numbers because business continues to focus on deregulation, profit, and shareholders rather than employees. Having a job is good, yet what kind of work is it, and how long will it last? There are unresolved issues between capital and labor.

By the time I entered the workforce in 1968, the post-war economic boom was ending. We didn’t understand it at the time, yet business had resisted progress with workforce since the post-Civil War era when a few people — John D. Rockefeller, J.P. Morgan, Andrew Carnegie, Cornelius Vanderbilt, Jay Gould, E.H. Harriman, Henry Clay Frick, and others — tried to capture the entire economy to serve their own interests. While the Gilded Age capitalists, or Robber Barons as they are better known, were beat back through regulation, large corporate interests are again dominating the industrial landscape in today’s society. A small number of companies push the limits of anti-trust regulations to grow big and prosper anew. The same regulations that broke the monopolies.

After WWII, there was a business movement to create “good jobs.” Companies like General Electric, Kodak, General Motors and Coca-Cola were large scale employers who valued putting returning G.I.s back to work and created what today seems like exceptional benefits packages. Profit-sharing, bonuses, pensions, health care, and even a “guaranteed income” program were all part of generous perquisite packages for loyal employees. These actions were partly self-serving, i.e. to gain employee loyalty and support profitable business enterprises, yet these capitalists viewed employees differently than we do today. Growth in wage workers would fuel a consumer society bursting at the gills in the 1950s.

It is difficult to pinpoint one villain in the conflict between employers and employees in the post-Reagan era. In any case, I point to human resources management consultants. The 40th president set the tone by firing air traffic controllers during the PATCO strike. Much less flashy was the hiring of consultants and implementing ideas the main goal of which was to drive out human resource costs. Whatever romantic attachment to so-called “good jobs” persisted was underscored by the quiet changes by human resource consultants to remove the expense of employees from business operations large and small.

Yes, we should congratulate Joe Biden and company for the what they did to get people back to work after the coronavirus pandemic. At the same time, we should encourage the administration to tax business fairly, act on the climate crisis, and do what’s right for employees and retirees in a rapidly changing business environment. Jobs aren’t the main issue in society today. Regulating business is.

Categories
Home Life

Friday No. 5

Rainbow. Photo by the author.

It’s the fifth Friday of 2023 and winter is here… not for long, though. The forecast through Feb. 14 is mostly for highs in the forties. While this above freezing forecast sets back my winter fruit tree pruning, I will adapt. Adaptation is what it’s about in the newest era of the climate crisis.

For the first time in nine days I ventured out of the house, off property. The trip to the wholesale club, including drive time, took 90 minutes. At this rate, the fixed cost of the car loan is about $50 per trip. If that usage continues, this vehicle will last a long time. To put it into perspective, every time I leave the house, it is expensive.

Needing a new car was an unwelcome surprise. The drive train and body of the 2002 Subaru Outback would have continued for a long time. The problem came in when repair parts for critical systems were not available because they quit making them. Since we didn’t have $20,000 sitting in the bank, we took out an auto loan and that will be paid back over five years. The car will last that long, but the car payment blocks out other spending. Welcome to the world of being a pensioner.

Spending more time at home is revealing how much upkeep owning a home involves. While we bought the best appliances we could afford, they are wearing out, in some cases after more than thirty years of use. The next challenge is how to pay about $1,200 apiece to replace the four appliances next in queue. Basically, we’ll charge them on a credit card, then pay off the balance with whatever is left of our pensions at the end of the month.

Fridays have become my indoor seeding day. Last Friday I planted stevia to grow indoors (Stevia is zone 9). Today is kale seeding in a tray of 50 blocks. The main crop kale is a combination of Winterbor and Redbor. These varieties grow easily, are tasty, and freeze well. I will also plant Scarlet, White Russian, and Dazzling Blue. The tray will be 15 each of Winterbor and Redbor, six White Russian, six Dazzling Blue, and eight Scarlet. Depending upon germination rates, this should produce enough kale to last through the season and in the freezer until spring 2024.

When spending a lot of time at home, we crave order. I’ve tried to frame a weekly order, yet it is not going well. We don’t have “weeks” in retirement when each day blends into the next. Fridays are the most settled pattern because the regular week is over and we’re heading into the weekend.

Our mind works to create structure. I end up framing a week, however imperfectly. I feel a residual cultural need to say, “Thank goodness it’s Friday.” I resist, and attempt to go my own way. There is a song about that.