Not Even Not Zen 434: Biomythography - Note 141, Superstitions Pt. 2

Superstitions, Part II

Sometimes our ancestors don't seem to have known many names. In my mother's family, if a name wasn't traditional or wasn't in the Bible, they didn't consider it. I expect the dialogues went,

Prospective mother: "What should we call the baby?"

Relative Uncle: "I don't know, what did we call the last one?"

Prospective mother, to her room of relatives: "Lewis."

Uncle: "Perfect."

The men in the room clutch their pipes in their mouths and nod.

Husband: "We’ll go with that."

When I was eleven, I charted my family tree on paper. We didn't know my father's grandparents. That part was over quick. But on my mother's side, we found what seemed to be an endless number of records. The Stocketts had a long tradition of naming their men John, Jack, Clinton, or Lewis. (John and Jack are the same name, I know.) The tree of names went back, back, and farther back, all the way to 1530.

There were probably a dozen men named Lewis in the tree, either directly in my mother's line or brothers to an ancestor in the line. My uncles had referred to a great-grand-uncle Lewis, I remembered. He had always been 'frightened of ghosts.' I wondered which one he was. They had refused to tell me his story, actually. My grandmother had stopped them.

The next time I visited, I asked about the Lewis names in the family. My uncles glanced at each other, noticed my grandmother wasn't around, and conspired to tell me about my great-grand-uncle.

“Lewis hated seances, skeletons …” Johnny began.

“And vampires,” one of my younger uncles, Mike, interrupted. Naturally, he brought it up because he liked vampires. His older brothers scowled at him.

“Not sure they had vampires back then. Anyway, Lewis hated anything about the undead or any people coming back to life," Johnny continued. He gave a wry smile. "Ghost stories made him cry."

They told the story in a disjointed way because they argued while they were describing it. This is how men tell stories, I realized at the time. It's the only way I'd heard men talk in a group setting.

Arguments subtracted, Lewis lived in the 1860s. And he hated graveyards. He couldn't avoid them because he lived near a church. Every church had a graveyard. Most family farms did, too. Lewis refused to walk near the headstones after sunset. As a young man, he put his hands over his ears and fled when people tried to tell him ghost stories.

Of course, his reactions attracted the attention of his brothers, sisters, uncles, and cousins. They loved to tease him. Everybody loved practical jokes, too. They were living in practical times.

My ancestors brought ghosts into their stories whenever Lewis walked up. They made demonic sounds when they could get away with it. They jumped out at him from behind tombstones. In short, they made his life miserable. But if Lewis ran off and changed his name to Ebenezer or Elijah or some other, popular name, we wouldn't have gotten our family story.

The incident began with a death in the family. Lewis's grandfather got ill and died.

For decades, American society groups had felt a fear, almost a mania, about being buried alive. So Lewis wasn't alone in his worries. Getting buried alive had happened a few times. Newspapers had run breathless, horrified accounts. The New York Times reported on a man from Buncombe County, North Carolina named "Jenkins." His body was found turned over inside his coffin with his hair pulled out and scratch marks visible on all sides of the coffin's interior. Another case involved a girl named "Collins" whose body was found with knees tucked under her and the burial shroud torn into shreds. These cases and others caught the public imagination. People across the world, quite literally, adjusted their burial customs. Mortuary associations and churches inserted medical checks into their rituals.

This all brought about a resurgence of the custom of spending a night with the body. It had been something churches did long ago, usually as a service offered by professional clergy. But now, given the public mood, it had to make a comeback. That's why Lewis's small church required the dead man's relatives to stay with the body overnight. They were supposed to pray, of course, but it was partly to make sure the corpse didn't move.

Four men volunteered to stay overnight. Since they were Lewis's cousins, they pressured him to join. One of his uncles ordered him to do his family duty.

His uncle, however, saw another chance to tease Lewis. He talked to his sons and his other nephews about it. They agreed; it was too good an opportunity to pass up. All five of them committed to the prank.

The chapel of rest, where the body lay, was actually a wooden shed next to the church. Of course, that meant it also sat next to the graveyard. Lewis arrived early. He didn't want to cross the grounds next to the graves in anything like darkness.

Inside, the casket lay on a pedestal in the center. A pastor lit oil lamps for the vigil and hung them on hooks. Around the walls, even hung on some of the walls, rested the pastor's tools for the gravedigging. Shovels, sledge hammers, picks, wooden pry bars, and anything else that might be needed to bury a casket had been pushed to the corners. Someone had tied up the pry bars in a bundle along one wall. He had leaned shovels and sledges against the wallboards, too.

The rest of the family arrived, one by one, through the big, barn-like doors on the east end of the chapel. The pastor led them in a prayer. They knelt on the dirt floor. They rose and knelt on the wooden platform, next to the casket. Finally, the women who had come for the prayer all left. The pastor exited through the only other door, a small one on the southwest corner closest to the church.

The five cousins sat on stools near the lamps. Occasionally, they walked around or prayed next to the coffin. After a while, though, the cousins started to tell ghost stories.

This was part of the prank. Of course, Lewis knew they were teasing him. He asked them to stop. But they didn't and Lewis's imagination ran away with the stories. The morbid tales of demons and murders had the same effect on him they always did. After an hour, he had to go to the bathroom. For another hour, he held it because he didn't want to go out in the dark. Eventually, he asked his nicest relative, Jack, to walk to the edge of the woods with him.

"No, you go alone." The young man shook his head.

Lewis asked the others. No one wanted to go. His cousins knew it would interfere with their prank. He was so panicked and so insistent, though, one of them - the youngest, Jack - finally agreed.

As soon as he left, his uncle Jonathan came out from hiding behind the shed. He stepped through the southwest door with an empty casket in his arms. The rest of the cousins jumped up to help. They carried their grandfather's body in its casket to a spot behind the nearest tree. Then they rushed back to the shed to help their father. He had managed to set his empty coffin box onto the pedestal. They helped him into it, put on the lid, and arranged it to look as much like their grandfather's casket as possible. They spent a lot of time trying not to giggle.

They knew this was going to be the best prank ever.

Outside, at the northeast edge of the woods near the graveyard, Lewis refused to do his business between the trees. He didn't like the look of them.

"You won't go with me?" he asked Jack.

"No, I don't need to go."

"Well, then turn around." Lewis unbuttoned. He 'made a river' for about a minute. When he was done and presentable, he told his cousin it was time to head back.

While young Jack had been staring at the headstones of the graves, though, the he had gotten an idea. He could get a head start on his father's prank. As they wandered by the graveyard, he pretended to hear a noise.

"I'm going to look," Jack muttered.

"Don't!" Lewis realized what was happening too late. He couldn't prevent his cousin from entering the graveyard. And he wasn't willing to follow.

What happened next was, according to the tale, a wonderful acting job. Jack howled. He claimed that something had grabbed him. Then he groaned and struggled a bit more as he sank behind a gravestone. Finally, he called,

"Run, Lewis!"

Lewis ran back to the barn that was the chapel of rest. There, in a panic, he told his other relatives about their brother's disappearance. They chuckled.

"Not to worry," said the eldest, Clinton. "He'll be back."

They sat for a long time. Of course, the missing cousin Jack did not return. The rest of them prayed once or twice. They got up close to the coffin. There, Lewis heard scratching sounds. No one else heard them. He heard them again. But everyone acted like he was crazy.

A few minutes later, Lewis heard groans coming from the coffin. No one else paid attention to it.

"Well, he's been gone a while," said Clinton. "I've got to go take care of business, too. Maybe I'll fetch him back."

He grabbed a lantern and marched out. After a while, the lid of the casket seemed to move. Only Lewis noticed. He tried to point it out to the others. Every time he pointed, though, the motion stopped.
 
"All right," said one of the two remaining cousins. He rose from his stool. "I'm going to find out what's going on."

"Don't go to the graveyard!" Lewis demanded. He grabbed his cousin by the arm but the larger man shoved him away. He took another lantern with him, leaving the room in dim light even by the low lighting standards of the countryside.

For a long while, Lewis sat with his remaining cousin. Naturally, his cousin wanted to leave. He rose once, saying he had to go. Lewis stopped him. He got up again. Lewis grabbed him again.

"There are noises in the casket," he hissed to his cousin.

"Oh, you're always imagining things." The young man gave the chapel pedestal a dismissive glance. "We peeked in at the body earlier. Why don't you take a look now?"

Lewis stepped closer. He almost touched the lid. But he heard a scratching noise. He froze. The sound seemed to come from under the casket lid. He thought he saw the pine board tremble.

"No!" He backed up. He turned toward his cousin.

His cousin wasn't there. A breeze blew in through the big barn door front. Behind him, Lewis heard a groan. He spun around.

In the casket, his uncle Jonathan let out another, louder spooky groan. Then another.

Lewis panicked. The voice didn't sound to him like his dead grandfather. It sounded deeper, more haunted. He didn't want to run out into the graveyard, where the skeletons might be lurching out of the ground and grabbing people. He ran from wall to wall in the little building.

Finally, as uncle John heard Lewis getting more and more frantic, he decided to finish the prank. Slowly, groaning, he lifted the casket lid from the inside. In the dim light, he rose. He let out a theatrical, loud hiss of the undead.

That's when Lewis steeled up his courage. He grabbed a sledgehammer from next to the wall and beat the body back into the coffin.

So that was the end of the prank.

A few days later, a policeman came around to question everyone. He didn't arrest Lewis. He didn't arrest any of his cousins, either, who after all had just lost their grandfather and their father. The policeman gave them all a long talking-to and left - while, I have imagine, shaking his head so much he needed to shut his eyes.

Lewis didn't change his name or join the army or even leave the area. He married a bit late in life. He had one child. And he left behind this story.
 

Not Even Not Zen 433: Biomythography - Note 140, Superstitions Pt. 1

Superstitions, Part I

In the 1960s, adults took their superstitions seriously, at least in my neighborhood - even when they said they didn't. Grown men froze when they saw a black cat. They told me they wouldn't cross paths with one even if it meant taking the long way around to where they were going. I don't think anyone does this nowadays. (I haven't seen or heard of it in years, anyway.) I saw it a lot as a child.

Mothers insisted I throw a pinch of salt over my left shoulder when I spilled at the table. My friends, when we were looking up at the stars at night, wished upon falling stars with hope for their wishes being granted. We wished again when blowing out our birthday candles.

Men and women looked for omens in the gathering of birds. Adults feared crows so much they would walk away when any type of blackbirds gathered. Others would exclaim, "Good luck" as they were hiking by my yard, stoop low, and snatch a four-leaf clover from the ground. Even when adults told me they didn't have any fears of magic, they entertained themselves with astrology, Ouija boards, or tarot (although tarot was somewhat openly feared). They expected bad luck when someone broke a mirror. They avoided cracks in the sidewalk for fear of "break your momma's back." They pulled out a keychain and showed everyone the lucky rabbit's foot they had attached.

I used to visit the graveyard next to the house of my parents' friends. It was small and green. The trees around the headstones created a sheltered space to talk and play. I sang there. I whistled. But if an adult heard me making any sort of music, they would tell me to stop, citing the 'bad spirits' I might attract. (It wasn't even a comment on the quality my singing.)

"Don't open those umbrellas inside!" my grandmother would call from the kitchen to the foyer on a rainy day. "It's bad luck!"

If I started to open mine anyway, an uncle would leap in to intervene and repeat, "Bad luck! Bad luck!"

So I guess we all believed in luck. It was part of the age we lived in, although people's beliefs in the randomness of good fortune weren't consistent. My father scoffed at the idea that umbrellas could influence anything one way or another. He generally disdained superstitions not his own. However, whenever anything bad happened in the family he would mutter, "It comes in threes," meaning our misfortunes. Then he would stew over the problem until he thought of two other recent unlucky events. If he couldn't think of three in total, he would worry for a week or two until something bad happened, which he regarded as a relief.

This is a part of American social life no one talks about, which is the only reason it's worth mentioning. Superstitions were stronger. And they were even stronger still, going further back in time. I remember a German friend of my parents who saw omens in fallen objects and the shapes they made when they fell. It was a superstition she grew up with. Plenty of people told me about lucky pennies - you have to find them head's up. If you pick up a penny when it's laying head's down, that's bad luck. It's why I decided as a teenager, still somewhat convinced of my bad luck, to pick up all the bad luck pennies I could. That way, no one else had to incur misfortune.

Three years running, my middle brother and I pulled apart the Thanksgiving turkey wishbone and made a wish. Eventually, the honor fell to my middle and youngest brother. (I think my middle brother won pretty much every time. He wasn't lucky so much as strong and smart enough to pick the best side. Luck, after all, favors the strong and the cunning - and the people who don't refuse their luck.)

For a few years, my father told me I had bad luck. (I had broken at least two mirrors although my father politely said he didn't know the reason for my misfortunes.) I possibly started my father's belief in my bad luck by complaining about it. In gumball machines, I would put in my penny and get, too often, no gumball. Then my younger brother would put his in, turn the crank, and get two or three. This sort of thing happened often enough for me to dread it, for my brother to laugh about it, and for my father to halfway believe in our luck situation. My brother and I would switch places in line suddenly, to try to fool the luck. We hardly ever did, it seemed. One time I put in a whole dime to get a Baby Ruth candy bar from a vending machine. Nothing came out. My brother put in his dime and got two candy bars.

For my father, who was watching us, this was a confirmation. He'd seen the bad luck in action too often. On that day, he offered to buy me another candy bar. (He didn't want to take the second candy bar from my brother.)

"I'll put in the dime and pull the lever," he said. "But you don't touch it."

I knew what he meant. My touch might transmit bad luck. Fortunately, luck didn't seem to be something I could give to others like a bad cold. It was mine alone.

Not Even Not Zen 432: The History of Love (as a Software Product)

 The History of Love (as a Software Product)

In the 1980s and 1990s, software companies issued their software complete with a history of the changes from the previous releases. This let buyers read about the features introduced with each version. It also gave purchasers a sense of how the product was progressing. 

In the 1990s, I wrote my first description of Love as a software product, complete with its software history. It was a satire about the world of my employment.

I got the idea on the day before Valentine's. Ignoring work and homework - I was in the Computer Science master's program - I dashed off the prank software release to three people. The next year, I planned in advance. This time, I sent an expanded edition to a full dozen. Then the joke seemed to grow stale. I skipped a year. I skipped another. More foolishness happened in the IT business world. I got inspired again by it and sent out an update of the Love Newsletter. 

Then, of course, life happened. I forgot about it for years.

When I found the Love software release again. I updated it for the Not Zen blog. A year later, I updated it again. And one more time. And now.

Love: The Corporate Release History
From Monolithic

Press Release: Love Version 12
Special Reporting by Secret Hippie

A Word to Our Users
from Monolithic Software
The Newest Release of Love   (TM)

Product History

Love 1.0: By today's hardware standards, there were many deficiencies in the first release of Love, a product designed entirely with the New Parent market in mind. It was a strong, basic operating system - adequate for its time - but it has grown tremendously since. It should be noted that Love's basic foundation was solid, as has been proven over many years and billions of customers.

Love 1.1: Several features were added due to early consumer demand. These included Love for Pre-Adolescents, Love for Seniors, Love for Siblings, and Love for In-Laws and Other Relations.

Love 1.2: Due to complaints from users with special, problem In-Laws, patches were added to the 1.1 version code in an attempt to fix their situation.

Love 1.4: The Monolithic team added Love for Pets. It was an instant hit. This popular feature has been carried forward in all releases. Further patches to the In-Laws code were issued with this release.

Love 2.0: Critics applauded the new, friendlier interface for Love, which divided the program into five sections: Agape, Eros, Narcissus, Familia, and Platonia. Users found it easier to get all sorts of Love. This was the version which made the product a household word. There were a few system crashes caused by users attempting to make the product achieve things the designers did not anticipate.

Love 2.02: Patches to the 2.0 code were installed to prevent affection crashes under unusual circumstances.

Love 2.03: An Arranged-Marriage module was added. Love for Pre-Adolescents was extended to cover adolescents.

Love 2.1: A same-sex "lifelong" feature was added. The In-Laws section was re-coded and renamed 'Extended Familia.'

Love 2.3: This release was issued by mistake. (The version number is unofficial.) A tool in it featured several programmer shortcuts which, when abused by inexperienced Lovers, often resulted in complete affection destruction. It was briefly popular. Pirate copies of this version still exist.

Love 3.0: Single parents greeted this release with joy at the new Step-Parents feature in Agape. This module (still recognized as superbly written, despite competitors' attempts to offer alternative arrangements in the same market) is in use in its original form in the most recent release. Unfortunately, this particular Love sold poorly and had to be pulled from circulation due to difficulties in the interface.

Love 3.1: Errors in interface design were fixed in response to customer complaints. A move toward standardization of the hardware situation (in Europe, Asia, Africa, Australia, and the Americas) made stable code seem within reach to our programmers. The drive toward "perfect" code started.

Love 3.2: A safety feature was added to prevent Lovers from disfiguring themselves (a common occurrence with early affection engines). Additional safety features are now available in Love. No product can be perfectly safe; caution with affections is always advised.

Love 3.3: Despite some inadequacies with respect to modern hardware, this version of Love has proven very robust; it was the result of the attempt (now recognized as impossible) to create perfect code. In fact, 3.3 is still in use in many regions of the globe. This was the most popular release of Love, partly due to pirate copies. All of the main features for which Love is famous are present in 3.3, though some special tasks may prove unreasonably difficult to achieve. Upgrade from this version is strongly recommended.

Love 4.0: The evolution of the user environment prompted an entirely new look at the Love operating system. Hardware began to last longer and require more intricate management. The Eros and Familia sections had to be modified. Twenty-three new modules were added in an attempt to supply Love to "expandable" systems designed to stand the tests of time. The overall package was revolutionary. Unfortunately, some copies (no one knows how many) of 4.0 were released with a virus.

Love 4.01: A patch was added in the form of basic virus-protection. This protection, it should be noted, is now regarded as inadequate in today's environment. Monolithic corporation urges users to upgrade or to buy third-party protection if they intend to continue running any outdated release.

Love 4.1: The Extended Familia feature was disabled. A Distance Relationship package was offered in its place. (Mapping functions and travel recommendations from Monolithic were included.)

Love 4.4: A special War-Time Love edition. Very rare. Included are all the familiar Love features but the sum total was repackaged and offered to service families at a lower price. One notable change was the Distance Relationship module, which was expanded to include all possible permutations at the time (a feat made possible by the brilliance and dedication of war-time programmers and engineers). Distance Relationships are still an important affection market and Love is still the overarching provider.

Love 5.0: This is one of a handful of versions considered to be “classic.” It is very stable in most of its features. However, the new and completely-revised In-Law module failed under certain hardware configurations.

Love 5.03: This is the free upgrade version distributed to purchasers of Love 5.0. Special handlers in the In-Law module prevented most crashes. Some of the code in this section worked slowly. Users were advised to be patient with In-Laws.

Love 5.5: In this edition, a special Commuter module was added to the Distance Relationship package. Contrary to popular rumor, this module was not 'stolen' from the Traveling Salesman package offered by a rival company. (Note: the company in question is no longer in existence. Monolithic has acquired the Traveling Salesperson responsibility.)

Love 6.0: With changes in hardware becoming more frequent, Love stepped up to the speed challenge.

Love 6.1: Special Love Compression software arrived. With heart space at a premium, code reduction schemes allowed for the queuing and unpacking of various emotions necessary to run the new, more-complete In-Laws module. The lack of necessary affection channels in most hardware kept these modules from being practical, previously.

Love 6.2: Due to lawsuits involving the Love Compression engine, this version shipped without it. The In-Law module available in 6.1 continued to be offered but with a special disclaimer in the setup program as to the extra space needed to house the unpacked code.

Love 99: This release presented a radical change from previous versions. Lovers benefited from a smoother interface. Allegations arose that the look and feel were unfairly similar to the Adore (now iAdore) package. Fortunately, court decisions sided with the Love designers. The Monolithic interface to emotions continued to grow.

Love XL: A new generation of lovers required extra large devotion with additional features. As a bonus, the Love XL package came with the ability to troll for compliments at leading social sites like MyPassion.

Love Visa: Designers allowed for an improvement in touch interface. However, this version did not perform well with the newest generation of hardware. In this release, the company lost market share for the first time.

Love 7.0: This release achieved “classic” status in the opinions of many reviewers. The new Love Expander module competed strongly with iAdore and won back market share. Thanks to a more efficient Nepotism affection engine, the In-Laws module cemented its hold in business relationships.

Love 8.0: In the era during which MyPassion gave way to LikeFace and gSpot, Love concentrated on reaching out via mobile phones. A new generation of Lovers got a new interface.

Love 8.1: Improvements arrived to Love telecommunications. Many of those found their way into traditional Love hardware. Popular business apps like Quickie and LinkedUp stimulated offices around the globe. Small companies made games like HeartRace and Lovey Birds compatible with the Monolithic environment. Developers made antivirus protection part of the standard Love feature set.

Love 10: Love was everywhere. Most especially, it was in the air with LoveCloud. As demanded by our business customers and as a free add-on feature for our single Lovers (with a small monthly maintenance charge), a new wave of technology arrived to spread Love even farther. With LoveCloud, affections grew shared more widely and more securely. Customers used LoveCloud in business, during official and recreational travel, and at home.

Love 10.1: Cumulative patches to the LoveCloud service allowed for more security. Users reported the benefits to having their Love tracked more precisely. Advertising associated with affections grew more targeted.

Love 10.2: Some governments tracked forbidden affections too closely. With this version, LoveCloud became unavailable in some nations. The ever/present service experienced outages in some parts of the United States.

Love 10.3: Love as a Monolithic SaaS grew. However, our terms of service changed. With this release, the company added extra security so that unsubscribing required an in-person call to verify the transaction. More types of multifactor authentication were integrated into the subscription process.

Love 11: LoveBugs

Who doesn't love getting swarmed by LoveBugs? With this release, the corporation gave Love a set of AI subroutines. Each module possessed independent intelligence in the style of a robot. This did not make Love agentic in modern terms but the results greatly improved the speed of affection. If the sibling module could not attach, often three or four pet modules stepped in and took its place. This was a qualitative leap forward in Love.

Love 11.1: Love B&D with Love Prompts

As it turns out, a few people didn't like the idea of getting swarmed by LoveBugs. The initial release 11 remained popular but the name and the low intelligence of the LoveBugs drew ire from affectionware hobbyists. An improved release of Love, 'Backpropagation & Deep' was chosen as an upgrade to the technology and also as an alternative branding.

Love 11.2: Love S&M

Monolithic delivered patches into production speedily for the next upgrade, Love, Structured and Modeled. Natural Language Processing assisted users who wanted to adjust their terms of service. More to the point, most users achieved a deeper, more reliable affection with this release. However, within a month, the branding would change. Also, Monolithic dismissed the head of the marketing team responsible for choosing product names.

Love 11.3: LoveLearner

This was the final rebranding of the version 11 release. Monolithic downplayed the LoveRAG and the Love training. Nevertheless, people all around the world enjoyed the features they provide. Love Learner, fortunately, turned out to be an excellent branding. Everyone loves to learn about love.

Love Generation

Monolithic corporation heard the call of the public for Artificial Love. We acquired the LoveChat engine, which we combined with our powerful LoveCloud to form our Love Generation. The LoveGen (TM) service offered more intelligent matching, catfish games, special distance add-ons, premium services, and custom writing. (Motto: "Whether it's your words going out or their words coming back or an enhanced version of your mutual chat, you will definitely find yourself in Love!")

NOW INTRODUCING

Love 13: LoveAgent

With this release we have the Agent of Love!

A Love Agent can take your ideas (or even a sketch) and generate cards that you would have written if you'd had the time. The special person in your life deserves a handwritten, individual message. Now you can give them one every day. 

Love Agent can take the love you’ve got and make it better. It can take love you might feel is getting stale and make it new again. Love Agent has learned from millions of stories of love. That's why it can make your love into the most moving story there is, as everyone wishes theirs could be.

Note: in testing, we had occasional complaints of hallucinations. However, you can do worse than to hallucinate you are in love.

AS ALWAYS 

FreeLove is Not Monolithic
 
As always, we must issue this disclaimer: You may have heard of an open source product called FreeLove, originally produced by a former employee of ours using many modules of our original code. This hobbyist product is under legal dispute and it is not covered under Monolithic terms of use. It is strictly an imitation. You should be warned there have been complaints about the FreeLove line of affections. FreeLove has design flaws and bugs in implementation. Of course, it is free and you may think it is a good bargain until it ruins some important relationship. Remember that you end up paying for what you get.

Not Even Not Traveling 72: Hawaii - Did I Learn Anything?

Almost Thinking

During our many dinner discussions with other passengers, I was consistently surprised by how instructive other people's lives could be. Everyone’s choices had an internal coherence. Sometimes you had to wait until you understood their logic, but still. These people had survived a long time, sometimes in challenging businesses, and the ones who made it to the cruise life had done well. They had made their choices, dealt with the consequences, learned, and kept going.

There were a couple of engineers: One was a retired military and civil engineer who moved to Nevada to lower his cost of living, specifically to fund his world travel. He and his wife had been everywhere from Antarctica to the Panama Canal.

We met professional guides: Nick and Lori had lived as Hawaiian tour guides, luau hosts, Las Vegas card dealers, and golf package sellers. They never got rich but they always seemed to find a way to finance what they wanted, even if they had to play golf as the course hosts, not as the guests.

There were careerists: Unlike the families of inherited wealth, these individuals sweated for their money. They worked during the voyage, too, as a rule. I suppose I was one of these in a way, although sadly without owning a business. Still, I was new to my job and working my way through the vacation. What I learned (again) from the careerists is that it is way, way better to own the business. But I already knew that. 

The health concerns: We met folks with partial paralysis, with deafness, and with serious medical problems in their past. After all, about two thirds of the passengers were elderly. The most difficult may have been David, a retiree who had been the life of the party, once. Now he was mostly deaf. He felt frustrated about it because was unable to be his previous self. He couldn't catch the jokes and stories at the table; he couldn't return with his own banter. He watched lips carefully but often, he had to tap his wife to translate. He seethed about it.

We met lots of Canadians: Multiple couples, like Paul and Joanne, had retired from government jobs with pensions. Half of them had no children, which might have been a financial benefit that allowed them to travel. A few owned small businesses - but, after all, a small lumber business is still a profitable one.

In Summary:

• After a week, I stopped liking buffet food. It's more limiting than you might think.
• Canadians civil servants can retire to the cruising life.
• Americans who are in a position to start their own businesses are living by different rules. (Admittedly, I kind of knew this.)
• Mexico, at least in the lands around Ensenada, is more beautiful than Hawaii.
• Snorkeling should be sort of mandatory. There are kinds of fun that everyone should have and snorkeling may be one of them.
• No one should go to Honolulu or Waikiki. Maybe if you're staying there and can walk to where you want, it could be acceptable. But if you're trying to drive around the area to see the sights, no.
• Hawaii is so expensive that taking a cruise might be the cheapest way to stay in the islands.
• The defense of Hawaii against the Japanese attacks in World War II made the islanders and mainlanders come together. Basically, the USA mutual defense made Hawaii a state.

 

Not Even Not Traveling 71: Hawaii - Kona

Arriving at Kona

We had circled most of the island chain and returned to the big island of Hawai'i. This time, the Zaandam landed on the western shore, at Kona. 

Passengers had to disembark by tendering, this time. In case you haven't done it, you tender from a cruise ship because you've arrived at a port where the water is too shallow or the pier is too small for a large ship to dock. The alternative used by cruise lines in such situations is a fleet of smaller boats made for transporting passengers to shore. The boats were once called 'tenders' and were supplied by the ports. 

Nowadays, there are no specially-built tender vessels. Cruise ships like the Zaandam long ago upgraded from emergency rafts to tender boats as their standard. In any real emergency, one with time to deploy the boats, everyone would be better off than in emergencies of ages past. Tender boats have two decks, modern engines, heated cabins, and supplies to last a week. We bounced from our ship to the dock in relative comfort.

Once we reached Kona, we hiked to our rental car company. There, after a delay in processing, we got a car and drove up the nearest mountain. Then we kept going. We were deciding destinations as we went and among them we chose a historical site known as the Puʻuhonua o Hōnaunau National Historical Park and Refuge.

The Refuge

For local Hawaiians, sheltering in Puʻuhonua o Hōnaunau was analogous to a medieval peasant taking shelter in a Catholic Church. Your pursuers were not allowed to harm you at the holy site. If you had broken the kapu (sacred laws) or your army had been defeated or you were pursued for debts or vengeance, you could go to Puʻuhonua o Hōnaunau and try to live there until it was safe to come out. The park supports a half-dozen traditional structures, although they are sometimes roped off, meant to be seen more than played in. (I think there are only so many times tourists can get in a dugout canoe without breaking it.)

We strolled among the buildings, some of which were small homes, barns, or sheds. A few structures were forts, really, raised near the shore as if the protection of Puʻuhonua o Hōnaunau hadn't been perfect. It had perhaps needed to be buttressed by physical defenses sometimes. More impressive than the homes were the ponds and the shoreline. A past Hawaiian king had a series of fish ponds built. Some of them still actively providing homes for fish. Even better, the ocean shore along the refuge teemed with life of all sorts. It was a natural, shallow harbor. Its tidepools entertained children (and some adults) for hours while we were there. 

We could have hopped back in the car and raced to the southmost tip of the island, afterwards. We would have not made it back for dinner aboard the Zandaam but, if we had been determined, we could have stood at the southmost point in the United States (since that is what the southern tip of Hawai'i is) and skipped a meal. 

The Coffee

Although I mentioned I was sick for the whole voyage and don't find it worth dwelling on, here's where it played a factor for us, though. I didn't want to spend that much time driving anyways. Feeling ill and run-down sealed the decision.

"Let's stop for coffee," I said. 

"Maybe we can give ourselves a coffee tour." Diane consulted her tourist pamphlets, maps, and GPS. 

On the way back to Kona - nearly there, in fact, overlooking the city from its nearest mountain - we stopped at a local coffee house. On the slopes behind it, the shop owners had a two-acre coffee plantation. They were growing and processing their own coffee and chocolate. 

Diane and I sat in the back of the restaurant at a large window overlooking the plants. We ordered a couple of lattes, talked at length with the staff, and watched the plantation guide give a tour to people we recognized.

"Those folks are from the Zaandam," said Diane, pointing out the window to faces I recognized. 

"So this must be one of the ship excursions."

"We could go out there, trail behind them, and get the same tour for free." She grinned and leaned her chin in her hand as she studied the crowd walking through the coffee bushes. We knew they had paid two hundred apiece for the tour. 

"Nah." It was an attractive idea but I was too run down, physically. I needed the coffee I was drinking. 

We helped ourselves to another round of lattes, a shared sandwich, and a chocolate bar.

 

 That night, back aboard the ship, I barely had the energy to attend the concert. (The excellent coffee and a nap helped.) On the World Stage of the Zaandam, a performer put on a show of Carole King music. If you don't remember who Carole King is, hum "I feel the earth move / under my feet" and probably now you do. The performer was great but also, King was an amazing songwriter, so the performer had a huge amount of work to pull from. Even for impatient people like me, it was fine.

Not Even Not Traveling 70: Tiny Guitar of Doom

Tiny Guitar of Doom
(A Heartwarming Tale of Forty-Five Adults Failing to Clap in Unison)

Day G

On Friday, the second day of our voyage, I noticed a free ukulele lesson on the schedule of ship events. So did forty-five other passengers. When I arrived in the crow's nest, the twenty-four class seats were full. I had to steal a stool from the bar next door and improvise a place in the back row.

The instructors, a wife and husband team, had brought a crate of brand-new soprano ukuleles. That seemed like a happy event. I hopped up to get mine before they all disappeared.

"You won't get to keep them," warned the instructor, a middle-aged Hawaiian woman. "We will take them back and my husband will tune them all tonight."

The tiny ukuleles had arrived out of tune, and — because their strings were new — they refused to hold a note for more than a few seconds. Strumming on them was easy enough. Trying to confirm the sound of a chord in a room full of forty-five out-of-tune instruments playing at the same time, though, was an intellectual exercise, not a musical one, so much.

I learned to play a simple song in our first hour. That's what I thought; it sure was hard to verify.

Day C

On Saturday, the instructors raised the stakes. They gave us chord charts for "Mele Kalikimaka" and "Here Comes Santa in a Red Canoe." They told us we would be performing both songs on the World Stage on the night before docking in Hawaii.

I'd never heard the second song before but it had a hook I found appealing. They were both going to be fun, I thought, World Stage or not. But we weren't given melody notes for either piece. We were expected to memorize the singing by ear, which is easy enough, I suppose. Most of the men had to sing an octave down from the instructor, though, and she sang at a low alto. Maybe a fifth of us could make the octave. One silent man behind me chuckled.

"Sing louder," he told me.

"Yeah," agreed the musician to my right, one of those who had brought his own instrument.

We had two days to learn songs for the concert. Fine. Given the ease of the ukulele, I knew it was possible. I wanted a few other men to sing, though. Plus I couldn't see how the group was going to get the timing of the ukuleles right. We weren't strumming in anywhere close to the same rhythm. We seemed to have a cadre of music students who liked to race to the end.

"We keep speeding up," I complained.

"It's not happening in these seats," said the musician.

"Next rehearsal, maybe they'll chill out." That was my hope.

"Maybe they'll get even more excited," he countered. I gave him some side-eye.

"Everyone likes Flight of the Bumblebee," said the woman to my left. Okay, so it was musical humor of a sort. We turned to her. She tossed back her frizzy, blonde hair and and flashed us both a smile.

Day E

After workout and lunch, I went to my ukulele lesson (ratio: still one teacher per forty-five students) and I sat in the middle row of seats. A man who had brought his own instrument took a spot next to me. In the previous lessons, I'd noticed at least three other musicians who had brought their own. We had musical prodigies in the crowd as well, including a boy of twelve or thirteen. The boy, when he picked up his ukulele for the first time, tuned it in a few seconds and then plucked out all the scales on it by ear. Within a minute, he was playing chords and breaking the chords into components, plucked in syncopated rhythms.

This time, the boy and even more real musicians sat next to me. The grown man with the most beautiful concert-quality instrument rested it on his knee, leaned over, and said, "It sounds like you've played ukulele before."

I didn't know what to tell him. I had taught myself one song for a poetry event years back. Could an experienced musician pick up a single experience like that? And do it in a room full of other musicians? I felt like he was making a mistake. But in a nice way. I tried to let him down easy while I heard, to my right, the boy pick out part of Eine Kleine Nachtmusik.

He was really putting "Here Comes Santa in a Red Canoe" in perspective.

After a decent practice, I got nods from a few other folks I knew by sight. One of the gestures came from the military engineer I'd eaten lunch with a couple days earlier. At the time, he'd been severe. He had refused to drink coffee or alcohol. He'd pointedly said that he and his wife came from Utah. Despite his apparent disapproval then, he seemed satisfied with the music. 

His wife had clapped in time when it was demanded. He had not clapped. 

Day A
The Undressed Rehearsal
(It's only a metaphor - we kept our clothes on) 

Our next ukulele lesson panicked me. Our timing, as we strummed, was worse than dancers on a boat in a gale. We were down to forty individuals now but still we had no common sense of time. Half a dozen players kept picking up speed as we played.

The wife and husband instruction team kept arguing. The wife was the leader. She knew her part. She was going to direct the performance. But together, they didn't seem coordinated. They argued for about a third of the class. And they weren't concerned about looking bad on stage. I begged the group to return to the parts we hadn't gotten right. And we did. Still, we didn't nail them. And the instructor was not worried at all.

At dinner, Diane and I hit the Pinnacle Lounge, the most expensive and exclusive restaurant on the ship. Toward the end of dinner, Tim and Wendy sat down at a table nearby. They were our dining mates a few days back and now here they were again.

"I haven't seen you at ukulele lessons," I mentioned.

Tim laughed.

"I've given up on that," he admitted. "We'll do the hula dance. That's our part."

I had to admit, it was a reasonable strategy.

This Chord

Overnight, I practiced for the Hawaiian Cultural Festival. We had been allowed to take the soprano ukuleles to our cabins. Thanks to my wife's generous offer to head to the spa and let me strum, I knew our two songs. I knew I could hit the low notes while singing and keep time with the instrument. As a group, though, well, I remembered our run-through the day before.

Practice, practice. I even practiced the native Hawaiian chant, only one word and a few claps since a Cultural Leader was doing the rest. But I nailed it. 

The next day, I barely noticed my lunch because I was concentrating on the dress rehearsal coming up on the World Stage. 

The Dress Rehearsal

If you opt to learn about Hawaiian culture on a HollandAmerica cruise, you have to be prepared to be part of the show. The Zaandam had four cultural advisors traveling with us. They had taught music, hula dance, and lectured to us about Hawaiian island life. One of them got up on the World Stage and led us in a practice of the opening chant.

A Hawaiian welcoming ceremony had been gently adapted (or so I suspected) for us as passengers. It was simple and friendly. To my surprise, the rehearsal went well. We got our timing right. When we were singing, we took a formation that placed me in the middle. Aside from the men who hadn't sung, there were a few women who felt unsure about their voice roles. In the last rehearsal before this one, I had gently assisted the women’s melody.

"Are you going to sing soprano?" whispered the woman next to me. I knew she meant was I going to softly croon to the female voice line.

"Do you want me to?"

"Yes." She looked at her feet.

I told myself it would be okay as long as I stayed gentle. When the verse came around, I added a quiet line of notes. My ukulele friend and two other women close by nodded in approval. Good, because I needed approval.

The Hawaiian Cultural Festival

Well, it helps to perform in front of a friendly audience, which we were definitely doing. We clapped to the traditional chant in the correct rhythm (okay, except for one person). We applauded for the acrobatics and the drumming that took the place of a fire ceremony, which admittedly would be hard to hold aboard a modern ship due to well, fire alarms if nothing else.

We sang Melé Kalikimaka and Here Comes Santa in a Red Canoe. Many of us kept time correctly, even. We moved aside to accommodate the hula dancers. But then we sang along to accompany the hula. Honestly, I think we were the least cultured part of the Cultural Festival.

But the audience, composed of our friends and fellow passengers, stood and clapped. And then most of the people hugged, usually with the family member involved in the performance but not always.
 

Not Even Not Zen 431: Aleksi, Note 4 - Oh Yeah, Art

Oh Yeah, Art

In the summer of 2015, Diane and I brought our family on a driving vacation. Our two youngest kids were still interested in traveling with us, so we aimed to take them to new places. We consulted our extended families and acquaintances. We tried Mapquest. After a lot of thought and tracing out the possible routes, I decided I would rather see friends than anything else.

Okay, so I pretty much always would choose to visit friends if I could. It wasn't a one-sided decision. We knew that college friends of mine, Donna and Aleksi, were living north of Toronto with their son, Ensor, who happened to be around the same age as our kids. They all said yes to a visit. They seemed interested, even.

Diane planned our driving route. It was going to be great. Well, the first leg was going to be long. But Canada is, as everyone points out, a lot like a version of the United States where people don't litter. Folks are polite. Geese are aggressive. We made our way along Route 403 to Toronto and then beyond. No hotel for us, this time. At least, not yet. Donna and Aleksi had generously offered to put us up in their home, which is the kind of thing great friends do and most other citizens pretend they would also do if only things were different, like we all owned multiple houses. 

An hour after we arrived, Al and Donna whisked us off to see the sights of Toronto. Ens gave the trip a tolerant smile. We took a train. It was clean. In fact, the art district downtown was fairly spectacular. The conversation was the best part, though. Sharing opinions and memories is what makes friends worth crossing international borders for, maybe.

When we got back to their place, Aleksi settled us in and turned on the kind of television and sound system I'd never had. He asked if he could play us one of his pieces. Normally, I wince when people offer to show me their work - too many writing workshops with bad writers, I guess - but I remembered Aleksi's sense of art in college as being a strong one. He'd shown passion and determination. He'd had ideas about abstract art. He had since then worked his art into Hollywood movies, too, so I knew I was going to see something polished. 

Aleksi dimmed the lights. Music from Bach filled the room. Streaks of light and patterns began to flash on the screen. 

Seeing his animation, feeling it move me, not always knowing quite why I had the emotional responses, feeling my mind go out in unusual directions - this was different but it was familiar, too. This was art.

"This piece played for a while at a German art museum," he said. "It was in the lobby. People saw it as they came in."

"It was for a celebration of Bach," Donna added. 

Next, he played a second piece, another abstract visualization of a sonata. I noticed my kids fidgeting a little during it but not much, not enough for me to worry. Once more I felt the animation move me. It made me remember how Aleksi strongly envisioned his art. It really was art. It had been a long time since I had seen art for the sake of its inspiration, since I had seen it so pure and naked.

This was not commercialized, did not compromise much with techniques or with the need to communicate. It was driven by an inspired vision. Oh yeah, this was the real stuff. This was art. 
 

Not Even Not Zen 430: Aleksi, Note 3 - Remissions and Decisions

Remissions and Decisions 

In the spring of 1989, I got a call from Donna. I'd known about Aleksi's cancer since about a week after I met him, so it had been five years. It had become, in my mind, another part of who he was. He was always dealing with cancer. 

For all those years, he had been treating it through an envisioning practice. Basically, when tumors got bad, he would envision them getting small. He would picture his body, his whole self, as healthy. By force of will, he succeeded with some tumors. At least, that's how it seemed to me. I'd used envisioning techniques myself for a decade with good results — conquering my fear of heights, for one — but my modest successes didn't stop me from worrying about Aleksi. After all, visualizing yourself stepping up to a cliff edge is a different proposition than visualizing yourself beating cancer.

Aleksi didn't want to hear about any of the standard, prescription medicines. As it turned out, he had good reasons for that. What was available for his cancer was known to be crap.

Although a few cancer treatments had started to work in the mid 1970s, after decades of development, no treatment had been devised that was able to beat the type of lymph node carcinoma Aleksi had. Relying on doctors to find a successful treatment in his lifetime was an uncertain hope at best. Except for Donna’s support, he was really on his own. 

In addition, Aleksi knew the available treatments meant getting mustard gassed - not metaphorically, but literally. Chemotherapies in the 1980s were a series of attacks on the body. They descended in spirit (and in science) from World War I, when doctors learned that mustard gas destroyed white blood cells. The ideas developed more during World War II, when doctors found that nitrogen mustard reduced tumors. From those initial observations, and after a lot of trial and error, researchers pioneered the first medically tested chemotherapy. The treatment killed enormous numbers of body cells. The hope was to kill the cancer cells among them, then let the body regenerate. Aleksi didn't relish the idea of subjecting his body to the attack when there had never been a successful treatment. 

But when Donna called me, she told me there was something new. 

“This is for Al's type of cancer,” she said. “Specifically. Someone has lived through the treatment. The patient has gone into remission.”

"Fantastic!" It was a huge surprise. I had never wanted to voice pessimism but I'd also never believed we would all make it to this point. "He’s enrolling in a trial, right?”

“We have already enrolled him. That means we're coming down to your area."

"Can we see you?" My spirits soared at the idea and I could feel my eyebrows go up. "When?"

"We’ll be busy with the cancer treatments a lot of the time," Donna sounded thoughtful. "But, yeah, that's why I'm calling. We want to see you. We want to drop by your place. And we want you to come by the hospital and visit."

I asked if I could talk with Aleksi. Donna admitted he was reluctant to speak with anyone. He was still in shock, apparently, about the existence of a real treatment and its single but important success. He heard us talking, though, and his voice grew closer as he asked for the handset. When he got on the phone, Al said only a few words. But he sounded committed to going to the NIH. He reassured me despite the hesitation I heard in his voice. He seemed to be still catching up to the fact this was happening.

In Maryland, we got a brief visit from Donna and Aleksi. At the end of it, they told us they would be busy for a while but they would keep in touch. It took me a couple of weeks before I broke down and made the call to them so I could find out what was going on. 

After a long conversation, confusing for me, we arranged a trip. It was not for them to visit us, as we had originally planned, but for us to drive down to them in Bethesda

"Your place in Frederick is a little farther from the NIH than I pictured, at home," Donna admitted.

I was a long highway trip but to me, it didn't seem too bad. I had grown up in the area, loosely speaking. To my girlfriend it was a bigger deal but she never complained. We scheduled it, planned for coffee during the drive, and after a few wrong turns at the end, we managed to visit Aleksi and Donna at a Bethesda apartment. 

After our initial visit, we kept making phone calls. Eventually, we arranged another visit, this time to see Aleksi in his hospital room.

"I have to warn you," Donna said. "He seems sort of down. Sometimes he gets cranky."

That's why we're visiting, I thought. He can be cranky at us instead of Donna or his nurses. Or we can just take his mind off the treatments for a while. 

Donna was right. When we got there, Aleksi looked tired. It had been a confusing drive, too. The sign outside the hospital said National Naval Medical Center, not National Institutes of Health. I didn't understand. I had to guess they were the same thing. (In fact, there had been an overflow of beds in the NIH Clinical Center, so Aleksi had been moved to the Naval Medical building. The two institutions cooperated often and, although Donna probably told me about it, the fact didn't sink in. I had no clear concept of what was going on.)

This was how I got to know the NIH for the first time. I sat in a hospital room. We talked about how the treatment was proceeding. Aleksi sounded upbeat, actually, or maybe he simply felt better for having friends visit. In every aspect of his progress, he had good observations to make. He felt well treated. Donna thought he was getting attentive care. Aleski said he stood a good chance of beating his cancer. 

I left feeling better about him. On the way home, my girlfriend and I reinforced our cautious optimism. 

After more time and more phone calls, we met again. This time, we gathered with a couple other friends of Aleksi, although they were strangers to me, and we started by sitting on chairs and chatting around a coffee table. Donna and Al had coordinated an event. After we discussed what we were going to do, we started an organized support session. 

Aleksi had lost his hair. He still looked healthy, otherwise, if a bit worn down. He lay on the floor in a comfortable position while the rest of us lent him energy, touching him or not, and we all envisioned him feeling better and getting healthier. For his part, he did the same. He tried to feel the human connection and love. He tried to feel his body getting better. 

It went on for what seemed like a long time, although it was probably only fifteen minutes. I did a lot of holding Aleski's right hand. I tried to send him all the healing I could. I remember feeling very in tune with my surroundings and my desire for Aleski to heal - to attain a sense of complete well-being. I think I slipped off into a trance state for a while, just maintaining contact and giving, as simply as possible, from my spirit. 

Somehow, I think with signals passing between Donna and Aleski, Donna managed to call an end to the session. Everyone backed off by a step. Aleksi took a spot on a sofa with Donna by his left side. 

"I felt really good energy from someone holding my hand," he said.

Everyone pointed at me. I had no idea if they were right. I knew what I wanted for Aleksi, though. I walked over to him. He took my hand again.

"Thank you," He nodded. 

We socialized for a while. However, Aleski had limits. He was in the toughest cycle of his chemotherapy. It felt like barely a minute later that Donna started escorting people out. My girlfriend handed me my jacket. 

A few years later, I got my Master's of Computer Science degree. I had gone through a lot of girlfriends in the meantime. I'd decided I wanted to have children and a family, a reversal of my previous mindset, and my previous mostly-goth crowd didn't seem to harbor many women who agreed with my new goal. I had to learn to socialize with different sets of people. Then I got a young woman pregnant, got married, and bought a house, It was time to go out on the job market and try to pay bills.

A head-hunting company said they had two offers for me, one working for the Department of Defense, the other working for the National Institutes of Health. At the NIH, I would be making less money, I interviewed there, anyway. I could see the work there was good. In my previous interview for the Defense department, I saw I'd have to evaluate computer configurations for a company delivering and maintaining military systems. At the NIH, I would get to be in the hospital and in the labs. I would fix the machines with patient data and make it possible for the doctors to take medical images of their patients.

And I remembered Al in his hospital bed. I remembered his remission. And I thought about having something to do with that, anything at all. And I said yes to the NIH and trying to do my part.
 

Not Even Not Zen 429: Aleksi, Note 2 - The Only Handball Incident

The Only Handball Incident

We got up early to play. My girlfriend wrung her hands, either panicked or enthusiastic about me going off without her. But of course she came along partway. That was a pattern we were developing without knowing it. We drove together to Donna and Aleksi's house in Northampton. There, I put on tennis-club shorts so I could play handball with Aleksi. I had never played before. 

"I don't have a spare glove," he said. "But I don't think it'll matter."

Aleksi drove us to a gym, where I discovered that a handball court is the same as a racquetball court. At least, it was at his club in Massachusetts. The room he had reserved looked good, three walls of smooth, painted concrete and a fourth of inch-thick glass. It was a gleaming space. Across the polished, wood floor ran a single red line, the serving line.

"Drop once, then serve," he said, moving his arms to show me. He smacked the ball across the room. 

"Wow!" I said, sort of meaning 'ow' when I served a second later.

The lessons continued despite the hot ouch of hitting the ball without a glove. We practiced different shots. Aleksi taught me how to play the corners, which ended up being the important part. The best bounces hit three walls close together, so the ball returns in a weird direction. You had to learn to expect the direction. Even the best players got fooled sometimes; and I was a beginner. 

I'd say I learned the rules and we played a game but I think, in fact, we started a game and worked on the rules together. But I did learn. And we did play. And we kept on. We kept hitting and running and laughing at the crazy angles of the rebounds.

"Good shot!" Aleksi said every now and then. "You're getting it."

In half an hour, the encouragement turned to, "Excellent anticipation!" and "You've got it." 

We played and played, game after game. In theory, we were waiting for a handball friend of Aleksi's. A couple of times, Al wondered aloud about where the fellow was. Eventually, the man arrived, not quite an hour late. He turned out to be a medium-sized, dark-haired young fellow. He wore a charcoal grey shirt, unusual for a club setting, and had longish hair like a college student. He gave a strong handshake and seemed to have a practical, skeptical approach to everything, more like one of the locals than a typical freshman. 

"Where's your glove?" he asked me after the handshake. 

"First time," I said. 

"I figured I'd let him decide if he likes it before buying equipment," Al chipped in. His friend raised an eyebrow, which should have been a clue. 

"The ball is hard," he observed. "Doesn't it hurt to hit it with a bare hand?"

"Yeah," I admitted. 

We all shrugged. After another warm-up session, we started playing competitive games. And we kept on, game after game. Eventually, Aleksi's friend walked to over to his watch, which he had left next to his bag. 

"It's been an hour," he announced. He glanced at me. "How's your hand?"

"Well, it hurt when I started playing. Then it got buzzing, all tingly," I said. "Now I can't feel it."

"Huh."

He put down his watch, took a drink, and returned to play. We kept on going. Aleksi's friend was an experienced player. He won most of the matches. Al got a couple. A few times, my score got close. At the end of one game, my arm felt tired. It must have shown.

"I think it's time for you to stop," said Aleksi's friend. "Probably we all should stop."

"Why?" Aleksi asked. 

"I don't like him playing without a glove," the fellow replied. "I don't trust it."

When we got back, Donna and my girlfriend treated us to an early dinner. Donna mentioned how I was eating left handed. The fingers on my right hand were shaking too much. Once I made the switch, though, I didn't much notice. Afterward, we played cards for a while. I felt fine.

The next morning, I woke up to find my right hand replaced by a grapefruit. It was a lump of purple flesh that throbbed. Ugh. Fortunately, I had busted my right hand a lot like this in high school. I knew how to handle it. My left hand would do most of the work for the day, no problem. The most difficult part was the involuntary horror on people's faces when they noticed my purple grapefruit.

By the evening, I realized this might go on for a while. Sure enough, on Monday morning I could drive but I had to report to work one-handed. I was installing computer systems in a bookstore. The staff, all older women, responded with an outpouring of motherly sympathy. They made me hot chocolate. They did the typing. (I did a little left-handed work.) All in all, it promised to be an entertaining week. My hand, beaten like a cheap steak as it was, returned to normal over the course of a few days. The next time I saw Donna and Aleksi, I had full movement in my fingers.

My girlfriend couldn't resist describing the lump that had been the purple grapefruit, though. Aleksi frowned, apologized, and never invited me to handball again.
 

Not Even Not Zen 428: Aleksi, Note 1 - Cosmic Encounters

Cosmic Encounters

It was a Saturday afternoon in early spring, warm enough (for Massachusetts) to enjoy being outside, but free of pollen (because it was Massachusetts). My girlfriend had some of her friends over, which meant by social logic, I invited my friends, too, even though I was not one of my girlfriend's nine roommates. So for my part, I'd invited Aleksi and Donna. 

This is pretty much the way it works in your twenties. You inherit social groups the way you inherit old furniture. Sure, you didn't choose it exactly but here it is and it's pretty comfortable. At this point, I'd graduated and moved back to Massachusetts because, in its way, it was comfortable. I only sometimes slept in my girlfriend's mod. (Note: she called her group home a 'mod' because the term at our college was short for 'modular houses.' She lived in one of a row of apartments designed with the sort of bold minimalism that says, 'We had a budget of eighty dollars and a dream.')

However, there's only so much socializing you can do over a meal before your pants file a formal complaint. I've always preferred games. They give you something to do with your hands while you talk. We played spades, hearts, and rummy around the mod dining room table for about an hour. Then Aleksi got out something he'd brought by pre-arrangement, a board game called Cosmic Encounters. He said he had played it once before and it was great. He said it wouldn't take long to learn. This is, of course, what people always tell you about new games, although the learning curve for a game is sand in the gears of fun. As it turned out, though, Al was right. He had prepared. By the time we had set up the hex-grid board, he was done ensuring we knew the rules.

I was all for it. This was yet another social thing. And even though I'd never played, I assumed I'd do well. I usually pick up social games pretty quickly because I grew up with them. They were as good as bowling or, nowadays, as axe throwing.

"Is that whiskey?" Al asked when I sat back down with a glass. Because my girlfriend encouraged me to drink, I had fallen off the wagon. Anyway, it was a college environment in the 1980s. A little smoking and drinking could be taken for granted although, in the mod, hardly anyone did actually smoke except for a little weed behind closed doors or an occasional tobacco cigarette outside.

"Do you want some?" I offered.

He shook his head. "Not today."

Two of my girlfriend's roommates sat down to play with us, while others did what people do on a relaxed college Saturday. They drifted in and out of the room, raided the fridge, and maybe leaned against the kitchen counter to watch for a while. Sitting at the board, I concentrated for a few minutes. In Space Empires, each player gets two alien races, and each race comes with its own special powers. That's the game's way of giving everyone a fighting chance while also, it turns out, giving me a completely unfair advantage because about two minutes in, I saw how my two races were a good match. It was like they'd been waiting for each other their whole fictional, alien lives. After a couple of turns figuring out how movement worked, I started to methodically wipe the map with everybody.

Toward the end, the social pressure started to mount. My girlfriend was making sad eyes at me. Her roommates were sighing with quiet dignity. I felt I'd gotten caught up in my winning strategy so much I'd forgotten to be nice to everyone.

I had six captured systems and needed seven to win, so I did the usual, good-winner thing I often did: I eased off to let everyone catch up. I declined to take the seventh system - although I figured I would take it in another turn or two.

I had not, however, been paying any attention to Aleksi. He had been lurking in the middle of the pack. I got up to make myself another drink, returned to stand over the board with my glass in hand, and discovered Al building up a huge space force. Then it was his turn to wipe the map with everyone. I sat down and tried to stop him. But he used his special alien powers. Really.

He won. He crushed everyone and knocked me back from a winning move at the same time. On his next turn, he expanded to nine systems. There was no way to bust him back to six. I hadn't encountered anything like this in years.

"Why did you ease up?" he asked me at the end. He placed his final piece on a hex.

"To be nice?"

"Well, it's not so nice." He hunched his shoulders a little.

I knew Al enjoyed the social aspect of games. I had never realized how much he liked to compete.

"I had to teach you not to do that," he said. "I mean, if I could. I had to get lucky, too."

He hadn't been lucky, though. And that was something for me to remember.