Humanity on the 14A

I don't ride the bus much, and when I do, I'm always a little surprised to see that there's a community of riders that take the same line at the same time every day.

Today, one rider helped another get her shopping cart on the bus, and then gave her a hand. 

A little later, a man got on who didn't speak any English, but wanted to know where to get off the bus.  He showed a piece of paper to another rider, who read it out loud, and a third rider identified the address of the agency -- but no one on the bus spoke his language.  So the driver said, "Hold on, I'll get someone."

At the next stop, the driver found a man who shared the language of the first one, and could tell him where to get off the bus and what direction to walk from there.

The helper chatted with the other guy for a while before he disappeared into the back of the bus. 

A couple of stops later, a person got on in a wheelchair.  This requires lifting some seats near the front of the bus and then helping the rider hook the chair into the designated spot with some straps.  I've seen the occasional bus driver look put out by this, and passengers sometimes respond in kind by grumbling about the extra time required.

Today's driver, though, did everything needed with efficiency and kindness.  No one on the bus dared grumble.

At the stop before the man needing directions was to get off, the bus driver found another rider who spoke his language to make sure he got off at the right stop and walked the right direction.  He waited to make sure that guy was going the right direction before he left the bus stop.

I was a few minutes late for my appointment.  But I was glad to get a ride with that driver.

Letter to the President

My brother sent me a copy of a letter he wrote to the President back in September.  I asked him for permission to post it here, and he sent me a revision, and then I got busy and didn't get to it.  It's out of date now, but it's still a good letter -- so here you go.

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Dear President Obama:

As a lifelong Democrat who voted for you twice, I have supported nearly all of your political policies.

 

As an environmentalist who recognizes the need for petroleum, I welcome your middle-of-the-road environmental positions. As a member of the middle-class who was laid off during the recession, I appreciate your laws mandating health insurance for every United States citizen. As a common-sense Democrat, I have supported the many political positions that are both yours and the Democratic Party’s. However, the issue of military engagement with Syria has propelled me to speak out against U.S. involvement.

 

When George W. Bush was president and engaged the U.S. in numerous military conflicts, Democrats were up in arms. With the exception of the U.S. invasion of Afghanistan — which most people supported — Democrats, rightfully so, spoke out against war, opposed the use of U.S. arms and personnel in foreign conflicts and derided the Republican propensity to start wars.

 

When you were elected president, you forged a new foreign policy. You pledged arbitration not arms, mediation not military action. I, along with most Democrats, have supported this ideology.

 

Today, as in the past few decades, the people most likely to support U.S. military involvement in foreign wars do not have sons or daughters in the military. (Personally I do not have military-age children). The question to ask those who ardently support U.S. military involvement in Syria or other countries is: “Is U.S. involvement so important that you are willing to sacrifice the life of one of your children?”

 

As you are well aware, the demographics of the U.S. military are overwhelmingly minority and low-income. This is the demographic who will lose their lives in any protracted military involvement — not the children of the white elite such as John Kerry, John Boehner or John McCain.

 

United States citizens are not only war-weary, but we are war-wary. Will Syria become another Egypt? Bouncing from one totalitarian regime to another? Or will it become another Iraq? Swallowing thousands of lives as well as trillions of dollars? Aside from the human death toll, what about the financial cost of war? With the U.S. still reeling from its depression, still mired in a prolonged recession, the country cannot afford to endlessly print greenbacks to pay for bombs.

 

For all of these reasons — ideological, financial and humanitarian — I am imploring you to retreat from your plan of U.S. military involvement in Syria. As a Democrat and a voter, I am asking you to implement your campaign promises of Peace not War.

 

Sincerely,

Chris Estes

So Many Things to be Thankful For

Today was a bit of a rough day.  But it wasn't a calamity, thanks to many kind people and many privileges I have as a middle-class American.

The Offspring awoke in the middle of the night and threw up, starting a trend that went on until mid-morning, when things started to look a little grim.  I was able to reach a doctor at the NYU urgent care center who recommended bringing him in.

I went to get the car, and found it nice and warm on this 20-something degree day because it was parked in the sun on the east side of the tall buildings, near the river.  I was thankful I didn't have to put The Offspring in a freezing cold car.  For that matter, I was thankful to own a car.

I was thankful to live in a city with great hospitals, and to have good health insurance, so I could go straight to one of the best.

NYU has a parking garage whose entrance is right by the entrance to the ER; I was glad I didn't have to sweat about paying the garage fee.

When we walked in, we were immediately greeted by a friendly volunteer with a big smile, and immediately I relaxed a little.  All the staff, every single one, every orderly and aide and nurse and doctor, went out of their way to be friendly to me and to The Offspring, who has seen more medical care than the average ten-year-old, not all of it compassionate, and gets a little jumpy.

In spite of all that, he was a trooper: cooperative, polite, not a single complaint.  And gleeful when he found out he could watch cartoons from his bed.

I was incredibly grateful that the ER at NYU has rooms, actual rooms, for the sick patients, rather than a huge bustling hall where behind one curtain someone is delirious for one reason or another, behind another someone cries out in pain while passing a gallstone, and behind a third, family drama.

Someone told me, many years ago, "Don't worry until you have to."  I've gotten pretty good at that, and while there was a possibility that The Offspring was in fact seriously ill and would need emergency surgery, I didn't waste much time contemplating it.  I'm thankful for the person who taught me that lesson.

When the Mate got appendicitis not long after we moved to New York.  Friends wanted to know why I wasn't freaking out.  My answer: appendicitis on a remote hiking trail or in a third-world country where I don't speak the language well -- that's a crisis.

Eventually, The Offspring's problem turned out to be "just" a virus, treatable with anti-nausea medication, and we went home.

The poor neglected dog had to be walked and fed, and having wolfed down his long-overdue breakfast, started retching.  I'm thankful he left it at that and didn't hurl all over the already much-abused floors.

The nearby pharmacy was still open, and we have a supermarket a block away, so filling a prescription and stocking up on seltzer and apple juice and white rice was, thankfully, an easy and quick errand.

And then I went into the kitchen, rather a wreck because in the two days before The Offspring got sick, I was down for the count with a bad cold, and The Mate has been out of town.  I turned on the faucet to soak some dirty dishes... and heard the unmistakable drip of leaking pipes.

Boy am I thankful that my building has plumbers on call on Sundays.

I'm thankful that I living in a building that, while without power for several days after Hurricane Sandy, was not structurally damaged, unlike the millions of people left homeless by Haiyan in the Philippines.

And finally, I'm thankful that I have a warm home with a bed to which I'll be retreating shortly, to sleep soundly.

What Professors Do: Anguish

We're in the business, most of us, to educate.  We want to engage students with the things we're passionate about.  For me, that includes literature and ways of reading as well as the desire and the tools to write well.

When students fail or do poorly, we beat ourselves up, assuming we've failed to inspire, to engage, even to explain adequately.  At the moment, I'm anguished at a remove, watching a young woman who was once one of my best students suffer from her students' disengagement.

At The Offspring's school, one of the best public schools in New York City, there are parents who complain, year after year, about their kids' teachers.  My response: I'm an educator, but I don't know how to teach fifth grade math -- or, for that matter, fifth grade anything else.  I can still get a scale out of my old clarinet, but I can't explain to The Offspring how to make the right sounds; it takes a music teacher to do that.

But we live in a culture that second-guesses teachers all the time, a society in which it's assumed that politicians and business leaders with no educational experience should make pedagogical decisions that affect the nation's kids.  That ideology starts with preschool and goes all the way up through college and beyond.  And if some of the students who grow up in that system think a degree is a credential to be received after doing time, and see their teachers and professors as an annoyance along the way, no one should be very surprised.

Twenty-five years ago, I watched students struggle because of a completely different kind of bureaucratic failure.  I was teaching four courses a semester in English composition and conversation at a university in Shanghai. Three classes were full of Shanghainese students who had been chosen to attend because they had recieved the best scores in English.

The fourth class consisted of students from a remote Chinese province who had been brought to the city to be educated.  Rather than taking classes with the other students, though, these students were kept in one group, separate from the others, and the entire class assigned the same major.  There were students in that class who were excellent at English; others probably would have done very well in engineering or business or the sciences.  Yet it had been decided that in their year, they would study English, regardless of their aptitudes or interests.

I loved the job, and it convinced me that I wanted to spend the rest of my life teaching.  But I felt terrible about those students sent to the city to learn English, working so hard, yet struggling to succeed in a field where they couldn't do their best work.

Today, I face students who are perfectly capable of doing good work, but don't want to bother.  Or they're working their way through school, trying to take as many credits as possible each semester to keep tuition costs down while working 30 or 40 hours a week -- and there just aren't enough hours in the day and night.

One kind of student exemplifies our national bad attitude toward the teaching profession; the other our political failure to support higher education.  The mechanisms are a little different, but we're failing our students, much as the Chinese were, quarter of a century ago.

Folding Scarves

It's been a long few weeks, and I spent some time this evening folding scarves and shawls.  I remembered where and who they came from over the past thirty years, and felt the different weights and textures.  It was meditative and soothing.

Sitting at my desk or in a meeting gets chilly, and covering my neck is a quick fix.  In the classroom I move a lot more: shedding a scarf as I warm up is much less of a production than taking off a sweater or a blazer.

Amidst the smoothing and folding, I had to admit that I have a whole collection of scarves.  This was a bit of a shock, as I generally prefer one or two functional, versatile, well-made items to a drawer or closet full of options.

A corollary: I have a hard time getting rid of things.  I try not to buy things if they're not going to get used often and last a long time, and so when I've gotten something into my home, I feel kind of committed to it.

(Possibly an aside: The alarm clock I bought when I started college just went to the recycling pile.  It finally got dropped one time too many.)

A couple of years ago I bought a sweater that felt fine in the fitting room, but when I wore it for the first time it turned out to be itchy.  I've felt compelled to wear it anyway, in a penitential kind of way, and then told myself I should keep it, since after all I sometimes use it.

But I'm trying to give myself permission to get rid of stuff like that.  And so I've finally put it in the donation bag in company with the shrunk and the ripped and the stained.

But not scarves.  Lovely lightweight wool that a friend brought back from Italy, fringed purple from an aunt in France, blue velvet I splurged on at the British Museum shop.  A circle of black, knit by my mother-in-law; greens and purples on cotton, left over from wardrobe after a film shoot.  Wispy teal from India by way of a shop on Second Avenue.

Deep blues and purples on silk, bought during a year teaching in Shanghai, so long ago it sometimes seems like a dream.  Yet deeper in the past: burgundy wool woven with gold threads from the family I lived with as an exchange student in Switzerland.

I enjoy the textures, the colors, the warmth.  I'm going to depart  from principle without apology and let these things give me pleasure.

Gear List

In the summertime, and in late spring and early fall, I don't have to pay too much attention to the weather.  It's either hot or hotter; unless it's really pouring rain it's too warm for rain gear, so I just wear clothing that can get wet and will dry fast.  Bonus: many hours of daylight.

Today, though, it's both chilly and rainy, and I'll get home long after dark.  This is when gear becomes  vitally important.  The challenges: vision, visibility, and keeping the hands and feet and ears warm without letting the core overheat.  Over the years, I've developed a pretty good, though not perfect, system: herewith, an annotated list.

If there's rain in the forecast, I carry waterproof / breathable jacket and pants.  The rain pants have gotten a little leaky; though I usually try to keep and use things as long as possible, this is an area where I need the gear to function really well.  A new pair is in my near future.

A helmet cover rides in my bag almost year round: it keeps the rain out and the warm air in.  I also carry a headband designed to use with a helmet: cold ears get miserable fast.  Below freezing, a thin fleece hat.

A couple of years ago I bought waterproof boots, but the first time I wore them in the rain I discovered ankle-height doesn't cut it: as soon as my legs are spinning, the pants ride up and the rain runs right down them ... and into the top of the boots.  So, I got high boots.  For the coldest days, neoprene shoe covers.  Wool socks: self-explanatory, right?

If it's mild, I wear lightweight long-fingered gloves.  On days like today, windblock fleece, and in the coldest temperatures, a down-lined pair.  I bought them by accident, sort of: I didn't realize they were lined with down until after right after I paid for them.  But then I kept walking and didn't go back to the register for an exchange.  And boy am I happy to have them when the weather goes below freezing, though I regret the ducks that died to keep my fingers warm.  I often wear one pair and carry another, because a daytime ride, especially if it's sunny out, can be a lot warmer than a trip before dawn or after dark.

I have a seriously bright rechargeable headlight, bright enough to see the road on the suburban end of the commute and to get people's attention on the New York end.  Blinking rear lights on both seat post and helmet, though the helmet cover blocks the latter, and this winter I want to try to find something brighter and, frankly, more obnoxious for the back.  

That's a bit tough with the Brompton, as the seatpost needs to slip into the down tube every time I fold the bike (three times a day), and the back of the rear rack is too low to the ground for good visibility.  Let me know if you have any good ideas, okay?

Finally, I have both jacket and vest in lovely shades of neon with reflective strips.  Reflective ankle straps that I don't really use, because they keep slipping off the bottom of the pants legs and then getting hidden under them.  Studies show reflective moving parts are more visible to cars than static ones (e.g. reflectors on the torso which for a car approaching from front or back don't appear to move), so I need to work on that too.

It remains a work in progress.

Some Appreciations

I decided some months ago, maybe already a year, to quit complaining all the time about all the ways the bike lanes get blocked.  Lately -- it's high tourist season in NYC -- it's been ... a challenge.  Instead, a few observations about things that go right.

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I stopped at a Halal sidewalk truck this morning for some falafel for second breakfast (to make up for missing dinner yesterday).  The guy working the cart hadn't yet started deep-frying the first batch of falafel, but I had time, so I waited and watched while he got things up and running for the day.

It dawned on me that storing and organizing everything that's needed to serve all the various meals they serve is both an art and a science.

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A few weeks ago, I had a wait in traffic at an intersection with construction on the cross street, bringing it down to one lane, plus turn lanes both directions for the street I was on.

From the front of the line of cars, I had a clear view of the police officer controlling traffic at the intersection. He ignored the traffic lights and worked his own rhythm to keep everyone moving as efficiently as possible.  I was tempted to roll down the car windows and applaud.

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Every day, there are many car and truck drivers who give me plenty of space on the road, wait while I make a turn, and just generally *see* me, and act accordingly.

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Conductors on the NJ Transit trains have to deal with a lot of hassles from passengers -- drunks, obstreperous loud youths, people hiding in the bathrooms or otherwise trying to avoid paying for the trip, and probably a whole lot of other stuff I don't have to see.  But they're polite and professional and many always have a smile and a friendly comment.

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I fumbled while trying to replace the water in the office water cooler the other week, and dropped the five-gallon bottle on the floor.  It broke.

A colleague picked it up and drained it in the bathroom sink, and the student worker on duty called the facilities people, who came and cleaned up the mess with a wet vac -- all while I ran off to teach my class.

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The Mate is busy making a movie, but he's been carrying the second shift at home as I go into crazy-busy work mode.  When I got home yesterday, the laundry was done, the bathrooms clean, and the vacuum cleaner out.  He makes me coffee almost every morning, too.

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Can't forget the dog.  No matter how long I've been away, he races to the door on his little legs to greet me with entire body wagging.

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This is a start: only a few of the ways I'm blessed every day.  It's done me good to recount them.