A Pilgrim's Digression

You know it’s deer season in Appalachia when you go to Wal-Mart at nine A.M. and the man in line in front of you is wearing tree bark camo coveralls and buying only one item: a 24 pack of Busch beer.  I didn’t get close enough to tell if he’d already been drinking, or if he’d already smeared deer musk on himself in preparation for the hunt.  He looked like he’d slept in those coveralls, and judging by his rat’s nest of hair and beard, perhaps he had indeed slept like that.

However, considering that most hunters I know are already in the woods at first light, the fact that this man was buying beer at Wal-Mart at nine in the morning strongly suggests he isn’t so much concerned about actually killing deer as the whole beer drinking part of the rural ritual.

On the subject of beer, and speaking from some degree of personal knowledge, I’ve always found it rather curious that deer hunters invariably drink Busch or some other cheap beer, like Pabst or Iron City.  You will never see a hunter hauling a six pack of Sam Adams into his tree stand.  Perhaps it’s all a matter of economics, since Sam Adams is a bit expensive to drink in the large quantities required of deer hunters.  Heck, that 24 pack case of Pabst probably cost less than one of those mini-kegs of Heineiken.

Anyway, I don’t know why I’m thinking of deer hunting, except that I know right now that several members of my family–including my mother–are excitedly anticipating heading out into the woods, if they haven’t been there already.  I know my Uncle Mike probably already has several deer in the freezer, and deer season only came in just today.  To be perfectly honest, he never stops hunting.  He’s had so many fines for illegal hunting that the DNR have him under 24 hour surveillance.

I wonder, though, if maybe this year the DNR will be a little less strict in enforcing the law when it comes to how many deer a person is allowed.  The thought has occurred to me more than once that, as much as I dislike hunting, two or three deer can provide enough meat to feed a family all winter.  By the time this recession is over, many of us who never expected it may find ourselves fortifying our body with beer prior to going out in the woods to hunt for food.

Last Thursday morning, there was a report out that consumer spending has fallen to record lows. In expectation of poor holiday sales, the pool of holiday jobs is drying up. And on one of the morning talk shows I listen to, the hosts were asking their callers in concern, “What is it going to take to get you to open up your wallets again?”

Apparently, not spending is hurting the U.S. economy. I don’t know if that sounds weird to other people, but to me I don’t see it as a problem, but as a natural and sane reaction to an economic crisis. As I understand, in part the crisis itself has been engendered by too much spending. For years, financial advisers have been telling Americans that they are in a credit crisis. People have too much credit card debt, and no savings. That’s a spending problem.

So now that the economy is in crisis, unofficial advisers (i.e. talk show hosts) want us to spend even more? For what reason? To bail out these damned corporations?

It simply makes no sense to spend money right now. Holiday shopping should take a huge hit. Businesses like Circuit City should file bankruptcy, if it comes to that. There has to be a point at which all Americans wake up to the fact that it is rampant consumerism, not too little spending, that has contributed to the current economic crash. For years, people have been spending thousands of dollars that they don’t have yet–credit–and now the bill is coming due.

Even in that part of the crash brought about by the mortgage crisis, the problem, again, has not been people being too conservative in their spending but too thoughtless. How else to characterize someone who thinks a variable rate mortgage on a home they could not afford otherwise is a good thing? Those are the same people who probably see no consequences in having thousands of dollars in credit card debt because for years, there have been no consequences of note. Now there are consequences. Big consequences.

Bailouts and promotion of consumer spending are not the answer. There is a part of me that feels like suffering is the best solution right now. There are times in life when all of us need a good crack on the nose with the rolled up newspaper, and that is how I view the current crisis. People are losing their homes–mostly because of their own foolishness and greed. People are overwhelmed with debt–well, they need to learn how to manage their finances and live according to their means. Sometimes it takes cold experience to bring home the lessons of life.

Maybe that sounds too harsh. I am not on the side of businesses here, and I don’t want to see anyone’s life ruined to the point that they feel suicide is the only option. There was a story a month or so ago about a man who had been unemployed for several months who killed his entire family, including his mother-in-law and college-age son, and then killed himself out of shame over his financial situation.

No, I am not on the side of businesses at all. I think businesses and banks should fail, if the result of their policies is failure. If anything, I am more amenable to the government helping ordinary people recover from their mistakes, rather than businesses. That’s what makes the whole government bank bailout so irksome to me. Where is the help for ordinary people? Is this bank bailout just another example of the government implementing it’s tried and failed “trickle down” theory of prosperity again? Bail out the banks and everyone profits. Bullshit. We all know it doesn’t work like that–never has since the days of Reagan.

The rich don’t suffer. Corporations don’t suffer–they make up their losses by billing consumers. There was a report recently that credit card companies are reducing credit limits and raising rates and fees out of fear of risk. Many people with good payment histories are finding themselves over the limit and with a higher interest rate, simply because the credit card company decided to lower their limit due to a risk assessment.

And with that kind of hamstring injury to our credit, economists want Americans to spend more. I say let the economists go on a spending spree if they are so worried about it. It’s about time Americans sobered up and took some control over their personal finances. To me, that means paying the bills and buying the necessities, no extravagances. The days of buying a new TV on credit for no good reason than that you want one, or going on an expensive trip using a credit card, simply because you can, are long over. And good riddance. It’s time for us all to close that wallet a little tighter, in my opinion.

The dissection, or perhaps vivsection, of the McCain campaign and how it died is going to be brutal.  Newsweek has an article coming out tomorrow providing a behind the scenes look at both campaigns, but the interesting bits are about McCain and Palin.  Republicans are going to have plenty to feed on in the section detailing all the negative ads that McCain nixed.

As for McCain’s advisers, specifically Schmidt and Salter, they should never again be allowed within 10 feet of a Republican candidate’s campaign.  Schmidt, especially, has to be wondering what he’s going to be doing, now.  The guy is only about 36, and this was his first time heading a Presidential campaign, and he blew it.  Schmidt took a respected, moderate politician with a great personal story and an impeccable reputation for honesty, and he blew it.

I don’t see how Schmidt works in this town again, after that.  Maybe some obscure congressman will hire him and give him the chance to rebuild his career.  No serious contender for the Presidency will have him on board.

My own “morning-after” take on the election is that it was a nail-biter, but in the end it turned out much as the polls predicted.  Indiana was probably the biggest surprise, in terms of an upset victory for Obama.  It is also the largest failure of the McCain campaign.  There is no state in the union more conservative than Indiana.  For McCain to lose it is an even larger blot on his campaign than losing Virginia.

I listened to the election on XM from about six until nine, as I drove back to Washington last night.  I flipped back and forth between CNN and Fox, but finally settled on Fox.  CNN had the worst election night coverage of any network in history, in my opinion.  Not only were they overly cautious about calling states for one candidate or other, but they substituted general election analysis and prognostication with a microscopic level of scrutiny of election results in individual counties.  In states such as Virginia, this made it seem like McCain was doing better than he actually was.

After initially calling Vermont and Kentucky at seven, I don’t think CNN called another state until nine o’clock.  But I wouldn’t know–every time I flipped back over from Fox, the commentator was saying, “Now let’s look at the vote down here in rural Campbell County, Virginia.”

Meanwhile, I would flip back over to Fox and Brit Hume would be calling another state for Obama.  Fox called Pennsylvania around eight o’clock, a half hour after the polls closed, and Ohio at nine.  Ohio was the clincher.  Hume was talking to Karl Rove at the time, and Rove had just stressed the importance of Ohio to any hope of a McCain victory.  Hume broke in to say that Fox was calling Ohio for Obama, and even over the radio, you could hear Rove exhale sadly.  Honestly, though, he probably already knew it was over when McCain didn’t win Pennsylvania.

Up until Pennsylvania, I was genuinely afraid McCain was going to win.

Now it’s all over, and I have to find something else to write about, I suppose.  Oh, and I have to get tickets to the inauguration.  I told Brendan if Obama won, I’d try to get us good seats to see him sworn in.  Somehow I think tickets may be next to impossible to come by, though.

A little before 8:00 AM Eastern, I cast my vote for Barack Obama, Mark Warner, and Sam Rasoul–a straight democratic party ticket. Lynn went about a half hour before me, on her way to school.

It’s raining here in Virginia, but people’s enthusiasm doesn’t seem to have been dampened. The court house where I voted was crowded, though no one had to stand outside in the rain…except one man. As I approached the courthouse, a smiling man who looked about sixty-five handed me a “sample ballot.” I looked at it and did not have to read the “by” line at the bottom to know it was printed by the local Republican committee. All the Democrat names on the “ballot” were grayed out; only Republican names were checked and in bold print.

As it turned out, we don’t use a ballot in Virginia anyway. We have the electronic touch-screen voting machines. I cast my votes in probably thirty seconds and was done.

As I left the courthouse, the man passing out the sample ballot smiled and asked, “Did you have fun?” I said, “Oh yes.”

Still, I find it hard to believe that the Democrats are going to sweep Virginia. Yes, we’ve been trending Democrat on the local level for the past couple election cycles, but nationally we’re still a red state…or at least we were. I can’t forget that John Kerry was thought to have a strong chance of winning Virginia in 2004 and George Bush won the state by nine points.

I am prepared for disappointment tonight.

Pennsylvania also worries me. Lynn’s mother called last night, seemingly to pick a fight. She called just to say she’s not voting because she heard, probably on the radio, that Obama is from “Nigeria” and does not have an American birth certificate.

Lynn lost it. I’ve never heard such an argument between a mother and daughter. At first I thought her mother was just playing a prank, but it became clear she was serious. She really believes the myths, and has apparently made up at least one of her own (Nigeria?). To some extent, the argument was one of those that escalates out of control and the people involved end up saying things they don’t mean. Later, Lynn’s mother called back and apologized, blamed her medication, and said she was going to swallow her doubts and vote for Obama on Lynn’s recommendation.

I asked Lynn if she thought her mother was lying. She said, “I don’t know, but if she is lying that’s what she should have done to begin with, instead of picking a fight.”

Murtha was right about western Pennsylvania, by the way. That’s where Lynn’s family is from. Lynn can’t think of a single family member on her mother’s side who would vote for Obama. I told her, “I can’t think of a single family member on your mother’s side who would vote, period.” That’s some consolation, anyway. The ignorant rarely turn out to the polls. Lynn said at least one of her uncles can’t even register because it would probably trigger the state to come after him for child support.

I think Lynn convinced her mother to vote for Obama. I don’t think she was lying. Lynn told her that she was listening to radio hosts who have only entertainment and a partisan agenda in mind, and no regard for the truth. She ought to listen to her two educated daughters and their husbands. It might seem like a anti-rational argument to make for voting for a candidate, but people vote for worse reasons than because a friend or family member told them to do so. Is it any better to vote for McCain because the conservative media tells you to?

Still, Pennsylvania worries me. Virginia worries me. I have neighbors on two sides of me, one of whom is voting McCain judging by his yard sign, and the other who is probably voting for McCain judging by the broken down cars in his yard, the hunting dogs chained to the broken down cars, and the drunken hotrod-building parties in his garage.

On the other hand, there is a mixed-race family living beside us, too, and a black family across the street, both of whom are voting Obama.

But there is a self-employed fence builder next to the black family who has been fighting with his teenage daughter because she wants to date a black boy. Will he vote Obama?

I guess the better question is, will he vote? I guess we’ll know how it turns out around eight Eastern tonight. Polls in Virginia close at seven, at eight in Pennsylvania, and seven-thirty in Ohio. The decisions in those three states will probably decide the election, or at least give a good indication of how the country is trending. Until then, I’m going to try to keep calm, but it won’t be easy.

For one thing, although I haven’t mentioned it much in awhile, there is the little matter of this jinx I always place on an election. I’ve never voted for a winning candidate in a Presidential election. Maybe tonight, the jinx will be broken for good.

On Wednesday October 29, my grandmother died at around 12:30 in the afternoon after a 15 month battle with pancreatic cancer. However, technically speaking, it’s uncertain whether it was the cancer that finally killed her because the true cause of death was a blood clot in her lungs. The doctor said an autopsy would be necessary to determine where the clot came from, and my grandfather rightly dismissed the notion of an autopsy.

I received word just as I was sitting down to lunch at work. In fact, I had just placed my lunch in the microwave when my step-mother called. At that time, grandma was still alive, though near death and unconscious. She asked if I wanted her to place the phone near grandma’s ear, and I said yes, I’d like that. But by the time she went back into the hospital room, grandma was gone.

Those are the bare facts of the matter, and I haven’t been able to say much more than that to anyone who has asked. I don’t know what to say. However, I can add some more facts, and maybe from that assemble a picture.

We traveled up to West Virginia Thursday for the funeral, and a few more brush strokes were added to the canvas, in talking to my family. In the hospital, after she died, grandpa, Dad, and his brother were standing around in shock, until finally grandpa said, “Well I guess I’d better go home and let my dog out. It’s just me and her now.”

At the funeral, grandpa cried like I have never seen him, or any other man, cry before. He seemed almost in physical pain all weekend, although occasionally he seemed cheerful and even jovial when surrounded by family members. At these times, he seemed to forget for a bit what had happened.

How strange and empty his house seemed, though. At times like these, one always thinks, too, of how so much can change so quickly. Grandma’s shoes and socks were still on the bedroom floor. I found myself going in to look at them every once in awhile, as if they were some magical shoes that possessed the power to bring her back, if I could concentrate enough on seeing her in them.

She had been showering that morning, preparing to go for another round of chemotherapy, when she first fell sick. I found myself wondering if she had set the shoes out to wear to the doctor’s.

I called her two weeks ago now from work and talked to her for about fifteen or twenty minutes. It was an ordinary conversation. Over the following weekend, just a handful days before she died, I kept telling myself I ought to call again. I kept putting it off until later. It seemed like I had that luxury. The last CT scan had not shown any growth in the cancer. On the phone, although she complained of tiredness from the radiation, she did not seem markedly worse than when I had seen her a couple weeks prior.

In my mind, I kept telling myself I’d go back up for a visit just before Thanksgiving. I could plan that far ahead. Time didn’t seem pressing. I could put everything off until later.

I don’t necessarily feel guilty that, as it turned out, I misjudged how late it was really getting. Everyone at the funeral said the same thing: “We knew she was dying, but no one expected it this soon or in this way.” The only thing I really feel guilty about is not calling over the weekend, as I should have and as I have done almost every other weekend. But I had called earlier in the week, and as I said, I thought I could put it off until later.

In fact the very day she died, I had been thinking I’d give her a call at lunch. I have no doubt that I would have done so, too.

I cried so much these past several days, in so many different places, and with so many different people, I feel like I don’t have any emotion left for writing. Thus the dryness of this post.

The longest crying fit occurred in the home where I rent a room for my workweek. I returned there from work that afternoon, to gather my belongings for the drive back home to Virginia, and together my elderly landlady and I held each other and cried. She said she felt she’d known my grandmother because I’d talked about her so much. About a month ago, she had told me she was going to make a visit to the Shrine in Washington to light a candle and make a donation on behalf of my grandmother. This was no easy promise for a 94 year old woman who, many days, hardly gets out of bed.

I couldn’t even speak as I cried, and really there was nothing to say. There still isn’t anything to say. The only bright spot in the whole matter is that at least she did not die a prolonged, painful death due to the cancer. I’ve read that the pain of pancreatic cancer in its final stages is so bad, drugs can’t really dispel it. At least she didn’t go through anything like that. At least we didn’t have to watch her go through something like that.

Grandpa told me that during her last week, she had, ironically, been preparing for her death. For reasons known only to her, one day she went into her closet and picked the dress she wanted to wear to her funeral. She laid it out on the bed in the guest room and told grandpa about it. He said, “Why are you doing that for? You’re going to be around for months.”

She said she wasn’t so sure. On Sunday, she had her granddaughter, Michelle, come over to the house and write her obituary. Michelle told me she cried the entire time she composed it, but grandma couldn’t see. She literally couldn’t see–the radiation had hastened her macular degeneration to the point that she was legally blind when she died.

Whether she knew or intuited that the hour was growing late, she was ready.  Her dress was laid out, her obituary written, funeral arrangements were made in July, including the disposition of the remains (she was cremated).  And one of the last things she said to grandpa, in the ambulance on the way to the hospital, was that she wanted this to be the end.  She did not want any extraordinary means taken to keep her alive.

Grandpa had no responsibilities after her death but to decide on what days to hold the viewing and funeral.   Maybe in that ambulance, she saw an opportunity just to let go, to not cling to a body that had already failed, and in so doing to wrap things up nicely and finally for us all.  Even in death, she was thinking about everyone else but herself.   I think that’s an appropriate summary of her life, in that one sentence.  Her life was dedicated to her family, a family that didn’t always appreciate how great she was until she was gone.