Category Archives: Stuff

by Tom Shafer

April 19, 2024

Are you kidding me?? There’s no such thing as an “average solar eclipse.” And no, the little NASA experiment near Chincoteague Island in Virginia (firing rockets into the atmosphere during the event to test and analyze changes in Earth’s magnetic and electric fields) did not produce unseemly rituals performed by “Masonic, Satanic, Esoteric, Gnostic, Brotherhood of the Snake and other occult-like groups” — as claimed and promulgated by idiotic online influencers. And no again, the eclipse did not usher in a new world order as right-winged (or Reich-winged?) conspiracy blowhard Alex Jones theorized. Actually, given the state of our planet right now, perhaps a new world order, a nice, healthy one, would be a refreshing change of pace.

Now that the long awaited solar eclipse of 2024 has come and gone, of course, I’m depressed. I had impatiently anticipated this event since I witnessed the 2017 eclipse (then in Eddyville, Kentucky, and of which you can read about under the Naturelated tab sporting the title “The Coolest Thing Ever Seen!”). But now that the sun and moon are back to normal, what astronomical happening will quench our collective thirst for an encore? Yes, we will experience all of our typical meteor showers (the Eta Aquarids in May, the Perseids in August, and the Geminids in December being the best), and we do have a couple of comets to look for (Comet Tsuchinshan-ATLAS should be naked-eye visible from late September through mid October — if it doesn’t crumble to pieces as it traverses our solar system). Then, the harvest full moon will undergo a minor partial lunar eclipse on Sept. 17, where the moon will graze the Earth’s dark shadow from 10:12 to 11:16 p.m. But at its peak (10:44 p.m.), only 9% of the moon will be eclipsed, so it will look like a dent or tiny nibble has been taken out of the top of the moon. Cool, I guess, but not solar eclipse cool. I suppose I will have to suppress my celestial excitement until a full lunar eclipse occurs on March 14, 2025.

But the April 8th, 2024, total eclipse DID eclipse all expectations! Fortunately, I didn’t have to travel this time and was able to experience it fully in the comfort of my backyard. Again, for the uninitiated, a total solar eclipse occurs when the moon passes between the sun and Earth, completely obscuring the face of the sun. As the moon begins this passing, it appears “to take bites out of the sun” until it is gone at a moment called totality. At this time, the sky appears darkened like dusk or dawn, so stars are evident overhead and wildlife is briefly confused, thinking and behaving as if nightfall is approaching. During totality, the sun’s corona is visible, its rays radiating outward in hues of yellow and orange. Just before and just after totality, a phenomenon called Baily’s beads occurs, where the moon’s surface of mountains and valleys juxtaposed against the disappearing sun create a rippling effect along the edge of the eclipse. And, approximately ten to fifteen seconds before and after totality, a “diamond ring” becomes visible: as the sun “disappears” — then “reappears” — it dazzles like a diamond set in a ring. The path for a typical solar eclipse can be from 75 to 150 miles in width, and depending on the viewer’s position in the path, he or she can experience a few seconds of totality up to seven minutes. I experienced two minutes of totality here where I live outside Yellow Springs, Ohio, while others in the Miami Valley experienced up to four minutes.

I viewed the 2017 event with my eyes only (in four minutes of totality I took three quick photos with my phone’s camera), but I wanted to capture this one with my Nikon camera while concurrently observing it through my Celestron reflector telescope. I also utilized my Celestron solar binoculars, with which I often inspect the sun while scanning for solar flares and sunspots. For several days prior to the assigned date of the eclipse, the weather forecast was not a favorable one, with many computer simulations predicting clouds and potential thunderstorms. But as the weekend progressed, the prognostication continued improving, and Monday dawned clear and bright with only a hint of high cirrus clouds overhead. Fortunately for us, this weather held for the rest of the day.

What follows (in sequence) are the photographs that I took throughout the entirety of the eclipse. Enjoy!

Sadly, the next significant total eclipse for America won’t happen again until August 12, 2045, and Ohio won’t witness another one until 2099. If I’m alive and still kicking somewhat, I will perhaps travel to catch the 2045 eclipse (Arkansas or Florida would be my picks). And, for a little more perspective about these types of events, our country has experienced just twenty-one total solar eclipses (now twenty-two) since its inception! I have to admit that it would be nice to glimpse that twenty-third one. Just one more reason to stay alive!

by Tom Shafer

March 1, 2024

So, meteorological spring commenced on March 1st, as it does every year, but “spring” in Ohio is being redefined as our climate continues to warm. I noted last year when reporting on the first annual crocus sighting — which I will get to — that I rarely wore a heavier coat during that winter. In fact, last year we experienced the second warmest February ever here in Dayton — including the warmest average high temperature in recorded history (51.9° F). That trend carried through to this year, and though the average high was only 46° by comparison, we absolutely shattered the record for average nighttime low temperature with a 37° aggregate (the previous record had been 32° in 1998!). Providing more evidence of regional warming, ten of the last fifty Februaries have witnessed average high temperatures of 45° or better, while the previous hundred Februaries totalled only four. Perhaps I should be donating my winter coat to a Goodwill further north.

Anyway, many of you are aware that I have been tracking the beginning of spring with a singular purple crocus that has taken root here in my backyard. When I first noticed it back in the mid-twenty teens, it was blooming in mid-March, but in subsequent years it began flowering earlier and earlier. Then, last year it blossomed on February 26, a full week before any previous year. So, yesterday, I was not surprised to witness this leap year gift:

It looks a little freezer burned, likely the result of some wild temperature swings in the last half week or so. And actually, these weather changes produced some early morning fireworks (complete with a 4:45 a.m. tornado warning) on February 28 as two tornadoes (an EF-1 and an EF-2) ripped across our area, both very close to our stately manor. My home weather station even recorded a wind gust of 91 mph as the front moved through. Tornadoes are a rare phenomenon in Ohio in February, but with climate changing, this may well become the norm. Unfortunately — or fortunately depending on your point of view — winter itself is shrinking right before our eyes.

Hopefully, like the proverb teaches us, with March roaring in like a lion, it will exit like a lamb.

Welcome Spring!

by Tom Shafer

January 13, 2024

Okay, I don’t need to tell you that we are suffering polarization in almost every aspect of our lives, from social to cultural to political issues — even to what foods we like and our favorite sports teams.  And some of you might be thinking, “What can we do about it?”  Well, I’m here to tell you simply this: I want to make it worse.  Because it recently dawned — really mooned– on me that our moon, the Moon, doesn’t have a name.

Now, you are probably asking yourself, “Wait, it does have a name — and you just used it!”  But technically, that’s not quite right.  According to National Geographic, “a moon is an object that orbits a planet or something else that is not a star.”  NASA states that moons are “naturally-formed bodies that orbit planets, also called planetary satellites.”   The word “moon” is merely a generic term, a common noun if you will, that refers to a general person, place, idea, or quality — and not a specific or proper one (like Pacific Ocean or Ohio River or Rocky Mountains or Vin Diesel).

Additionally, to this date, the NASA/JPL Solar System Dynamics team has validated a total of 290 moons in our solar system alone — most of them named.  And none of them are christened Moon — except ours.

Saturn may have as many as 146 moons — the most in the solar system — and sixty-three of them are officially named.  Jupiter boasts seventy-nine moons, of which fifty-three are certified and named.  All twenty-seven moons of Uranus (BTW, Moons of Uranus is a great name for a philharmonic-punk band) are officially designated, twenty-six of them after Shakespearean characters (like Ariel, Oberon, Puck, Cassida, and Juliet).

The biggest indignity in this planetary — or moonary — scofflaw is that even non-planet Pluto has five titled moons — including Hydra, Charon, and Styx from Greek mythology.

Some of you may be thinking that I am making a moontain out of a moonhill, but I beg to differ.  Imagine the utter chaos at a dog park if every canine was named Dog.  And how confusing would it be for motorheads if all automobiles were called Car:  “I love the new Chevrolet Car — oh, and the impressive Chevrolet Car!  But I hate the Ford Car, and the new Hyundai Car is downright hideous!” 

This could even be potentially dangerous if it were injected into the pharmaceutical world: “Grandma, did you take your Drug and your Drug and your Drug?  Nooooo!  You can’t take your Drug with your Drug after eating grapefruit!!”

So clearly this is a problem.  But I’m not here just to point out the problem; I’m here to propose a solution.  We need to Name the Moon!  And an election, a world-wide election, would be the most democratic way to get this done.  

Human beings love elections, and I can already envision world-wide campaigns for various names: Selene (Greek goddess of the moon), Jericho (Hebrew for moon), Ayla or Aylin (Turkish for moon), Luna (Spanish and Italian for moon, and also the Roman goddess of the moon), Chandra (Hindi and Sanskrit for moon), Mona (Old English for moon), or Hina (the Hawaiian moon goddess).  There might even be a campaign for the name Keith — after the late drummer of the Who, Keith Moon.

What could go wrong here?

Oh, and just in case you were wondering, our sun, Sun, doesn’t have a name either.

You’re welcome!

by Tom Shafer

October 4, 2023

I was sitting on the back patio a couple of nights ago with outdoor cats Boots, Rainbow, and Luna, fresh from an enjoyable vacation to Colorado, when four of our resident bats began swooping and diving in the backyard.  For the next hour or so, I viewed their antics with equal parts amusement and wonder.

Of course, being late September pushing October, I knew that these nightly visitations would be coming to an end very soon.  Here in Ohio, we do have bat species who migrate to warmer states and Mexico, but the vast majority of them hibernate, and hibernation begins when their food source, mainly insects, disappears.  Because of our chillier nights, insect population has begun to dwindle significantly, and it won’t be long, perhaps mid-to-late October, before their numbers decline enough to send the bats to their winter slumber.  

But here in the backyard, my bats weren’t worried about sleeping – they were desperately trying to fill their bellies!  In rapidly waning light, the bats navigated the gloaming by utilizing their echolocation, high-pitched clicking noises which produce sound waves that bounce off of nearby objects.  On two occasions, individuals dove within a couple of feet of my head – and I was thankful that they were feeding on the last of the seasonal mosquitoes and not me!  

Remarkably, a couple of our little friends have likely lived with us since we moved here in 2014.  They were quite visible back then, enough so that I quickly installed a bat house along the border of our woods for them and others.  Unfortunately, I have never seen any bats in this little home. But, because they can live up to thirty years (though twenty is more the norm), I like to think that at least two of them have been with us from the beginning.

And if you are wondering what kind of bats are residing here, so am I – though I do have three distinct possibilities because of their smallish size, their brownish fur, and the habitat they have chosen (a forested area – with nearby stream – that is also semi-residential): the little brown bat, the evening bat, or the Indiana bat. Until one lands on me to allow for further inspection, I am left only to educated speculation.  

This is also mating season for bats, so some of the evening activity – wing-flicking and specific vocalizations – may be precursors to the reproduction process.  Due to delayed fertilization, any ovulation and fertilization that occurs now won’t be fully realized until spring when females will birth their “pups.”  Though completely helpless at birth like most mammals, the pups will be almost fully autonomous within four to six weeks.  And, in case you were wondering, yes, like most mammals, bats do have belly buttons!

Again back in my darkening yard, the four bats continued their assault on unsuspecting insects.  As they tracked and pummeled their prey, these insectivores were easily reaching speeds of sixty miles per hour – and some species have been clocked at close to a hundred mph! With a waxing quarter moon rising in the east, I vacated the outdoor world confident that the bats would continue to fill their bellies.

As winter approaches, I have no doubt that I will see my little friends in the spring.  These unique mammals – the only ones who can fly – have a safe life here in country suburbia, with few if any predators (except the disease white nose syndrome – though that is more prevalent with bats who congregate and hibernate in large colonies).  I know that these critters often get bad reps from misinformation (like blood-sucking and rabies) and unfortunate YouTube videos, but I absolutely appreciate their unique qualities – and their ability to perform as nature’s best mosquito repellent.  Go Bats!

by Tom Shafer

July 28, 2023

I hope we can still turn it down now. And, though I seldomly-to-never agree with former Arkansas governor Mike Huckabee on policy issues, his stance on global warming is spot on: “The most important thing about global warming is this. Whether humans are responsible for the bulk of climate change is going to be left to the scientists, but it’s all of our responsibility to leave this planet in better shape for the future generations than we found it.” Amen, brother Huckabee!

by Tom Shafer

July 14, 2023

A couple of amazing space images were revealed to the public this week, and I couldn’t resist posting them here for your perusal. One comes from the James Webb Telescope that orbits our earth and transmits remarkable pictures of our universe, including objects that are too distant, too faint, or too old (in universe time). This one is local, as in our own solar system, and frankly, it needs no formal introduction.

This new image of Saturn not only provides a more detailed view of the planet’s ring system, but it also captures four of its moons – including Dione, Enceladus, and Tethys. And, frankly again, this representation looks more like an artist’s rendering than a photograph! If you would like to learn how this portrait was collected (and to see better close-ups), click here to access the NASA James Webb Telescope webpage.

The other image is easily the coolest GIF ever created, and comes to us compliments of the European Space Agency’s Mars Express spacecraft, which is now permanently planted on Mars. The craft just celebrated twenty years of space duty, and to commemorate this significant anniversary, the team in charge of the program decided to turn its camera toward Earth and the moon.

This image clearly illustrates and exemplifies the sheer distance between Mars and Earth, and exhibits just how impressive a technological achievement traveling to the Red Planet really is.

The team intentionally tried to draw a comparison to the famous Pale Blue Dot photograph taken of Earth from NASA space probe Voyager I in 1990 as it exited our solar system — a request made by famed American astronomer Carl Sagan — an image that moved him to reflect on our fragility here with three famous sentences — and just six words: “That’s here. That’s home. That’s us.”

A statement from the Mars Express team is not as succinct, but it lays out directly this moment’s inflection point for our planetary home:

“On the special occasion of Mars Express’s 20th anniversary since launch, we wanted to bring Carl Sagan’s reflections back to the present day, in which the worsening climate and ecological crisis make them more valid than ever. In these simple snapshots from Mars Express, Earth has the equivalent size as an ant seen from a distance of 100 meters, and we are all in there. Even though we have seen images like these before, it is still humbling to pause and think: We need to look after the pale blue dot; there is no planet B.”

I truly wish that all of us could at least agree to this.

by Tom Shafer

July 2, 2023

I love nothing more than to slip into the hot tub just after a nice thunderstorm has rolled through our area.  

Now, that’s quite the hyperbolic statement, but hyperbole has taken a significant hit in the age of Trump.  I actually love many things more than popping into bubbling, warm water after a storm.  But caught up in a post-Trump world, even a wordsmith like me can let down his guard and slip into hyperbolic malaise.  Given that the greatest hits of hyperbole according to Trump (“I alone can fix it,” “everything is rigged” or “everything is a scam,” something is “the best it’s ever been,” another thing “is a total disaster,” “I’m a very stable genius” — think “person, woman, man, camera, TV”) are now entrenched in verbal and written etymology, perhaps I can be forgiven for my most egregious error ever.

Anyway, this entry is not about Trump or hyperbole — it’s about thunderstorms.  And, everybody loves a good thunderstorm! — sorry, more hyperbole, and no, everybody does not love a good thunderstorm.  My cats, in general, hate them, and so do lots of non-cats.  But I find them fascinating and am drawn to them like moths to a flame or kids to cotton candy.  

Last night’s storm blew in quickly and was gone less than an hour later.  Before the sun set and as neighbors were sparking a splendid fireworks display in advance of Declaration Day, low gray clouds were scudding in from the west, precursors to Mother Nature’s more impressive fireworks that would follow.  Then, just as the artificial pyrotechnics were ending, low gutteral booms could be heard in the distance, undeniable signs that our weather was due for a change.

Of course, that thunder was generated by lightning which wasn’t quite visible yet.  The creation of lightning is complicated, but is not unlike the little zap you might get from touching a doorknob after shuffling across some shag carpeting.  That “shuffling” creates a “static charge” on your skin, and static charges are constantly seeking escape and will do so (that “zap”) when they find another thing (that “doorknob”) which conducts — or receives — electricity.

Inside a cumulonimbus cloud, winds are very turbulent, and many water droplets at the base of the cloud are lifted to the upper heights (as high as 65,000 feet!) where colder temperatures freeze them.  As these frozen drops fall, they collide with other droplets heading up (shuffling), and electrons are stripped off in the process.  Once the bottom of the cloud becomes negatively charged enough (as compared to the positively charged top), that imbalance (like a static charge) starts looking for an escape route, and when it finds one (the doorknob), ZAP!, a bolt of lightning occurs.  

Sometimes that escape happens inside the cloud or with another one nearby (cloud to cloud lightning), and other times that negative charge in the cloud seeks a positive charge on the ground, perhaps a tall tree or telephone pole or building (cloud to ground lightning).  Either way, the result is an electrical discharge that produces nature’s most impressive and powerful energy source — enough energy, at least 1.21 gigawatts worth, to power the flux capacitor of a DeLorean that will take you through a wormhole Back to the Future!

Now, the thunder that you hear is fashioned by the lightning itself.  The flash that you see is incredibly hot, as much as 50,000ºF, and as it explosively heats the air around it, a shockwave is produced.  As the air cools, it contracts rapidly, which creates that familiar CRACK sound, and the rumbles which follow are audible proof that the column of air is still vibrating from the initial shockwave.  

Back in my hot tub, I wasn’t thinking about any of this science.  I was merely enjoying an incredible light show Mother Nature style.  And, in case you were wondering, I was perfectly safe soaking in my bubbling water — which is actually a good conductor of electricity.  Because light travels faster than sound, I could estimate the distance between me and the storm by counting the number of seconds between a flash and its companion thunder.  It takes about five seconds for sound to travel one mile, so the thirty seconds that I counted told me the storm was at least six miles away.  So, I was relatively safe — barring some rogue, human-seeking thunderbolt!

Because our weather here is entering an unsettled period, we have quite a few chances for thunderstorms over the next week or so, and I look forward to more light shows starring the dynamic duo of Lightning and Thunder.  In fact, one of those storms is rumbling into our area right now, so I need to consult my NOAA (National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration) weather app to see where it is and when it may arrive.  For those of you who are like me, I wish you a happy thunderstorming.  The rest of you are more than welcome to join my cats under the bed! 

by Tom Shafer

May 11, 2023

After watching the Trainwreck Trump Town Hall (which is how it should have been promoted and billed) last evening on CNN, I so desperately wanted to pen a few words about the disgraced, twice-impeached, treasonous, sexual abusing ex-president, but I vowed last year that I would waste no more time thinking and writing about him.  However, when two-thirds of the Republican electorate apparently is still supporting him after ALL of his exploits, transgressions, and illegal activities, I feel compelled to say something.  But, I am not going to spend much time musing over him because what needs to be said has already been said — many, many, many times — including by me.  So instead, I reached back into my cobweb-addled brain, which reminded me that I already had a perfectly worded response to last night’s horrific, disinformative (yep, a new word) sideshow.  Three and a half years ago (and right before Christmas, I might add) Christianity Today had finally had enough of Trump’s antics and published an op-ed calling for his removal, essentially scolding his supporters to “remember who you are and whom you serve.”  I applauded CT then for being among the first to strongly condemn the President, and publicly thanked them with my own words (tagged to my Not Politics?! tab) — which I will repost here.  You’re welcome.

Thank You, Christianity Today

by Tom Shafer

December 23, 2019

Thank you, Christianity Today.  A prominent Christian voice has finally spoken from the wilderness, indicting Trump’s serial lying, immorality, and degradation of others.  And it’s about time.  Will any others step up??  Would you like some reminders as to why?  Thought you’d never ask:

“Just kiss (women).  I don’t even wait.  And when you’re a star, they let you do anything.  You can do anything . . . grab them by the pussy.  You can do anything” – recording of a conversation with then Access Hollywood host Billy Bush in 2005.  Just the first of many ways that Trump shows his regard and reverence for women.

$130,000 – payment made to silence porn star Stormy Daniels, who, not surprisingly, did not stay silent.

 “I’ve said if Ivanka weren’t my daughter, perhaps I’d be dating her” – statement Trump made about his daughter on The View.  If this isn’t bad enough, he also rhetorically queried Miss Universe (while watching a sixteen-year-old Ivanka host the 1997 Miss Teen USA pageant), “Don’t you think my daughter’s hot?  She’s hot, right?”

“. . . shithole countries” – a reference to poor African countries and Haiti, when confronted with a bipartisan plan to cut visa lottery numbers by half but focusing on bringing in more refugees from those areas.  Trump commented that he would like more immigrants from Norway instead.  BTW, Norway is 83% white, making it one of the whitest countries in the world.

Trump University – a now defunct real estate training program that utilized misleading marketing practices and aggressive sales tactics to bilk millions of dollars from unassuming students.  Though Trump insisted that he would never settle lawsuits brought against the organization, he did (as he always does), to the tune of twenty-five million dollars – after winning the presidency in 2016.

Trump, during a stump speech, mocking and jerking his arms, “Now, the poor guy, you ought to see this guy, ‘Ah, I don’t know what I said, I don’t remember, I don’t remember, maybe that’s what I said’” – about Serge Kovaleski, New York Times reporter who suffers from the disability arthrogryposis, which visibly limits the functioning of his joints.  And charity for all . . .

Kids in cages – how Trump’s immigration policy affected border policy.  Detention centers, at the direction of the White House, erected wire cages to contain immigrants seeking asylum along our Mexican border – including children and babies. Is that how Mary and Joseph would have been treated by Trump’s America when they were looking for a place to give birth? Imagine the rebel Jesus, as a baby, living in a cage.

“You had people that were very fine people, on both sides” – stated during a press conference about the Charlottesville Unite the Right rally over the proposed removal of a Robert E. Lee statue.  During a standoff between protesters and white supremacists, James Fields deliberately drove his car into a crowd of people, killing Heather Heyer and injuring nineteen others.  I suppose to Trump, James Fields is a “fine person.”

“He’s not a war hero.  He was a war hero because he was captured.  I like people who weren’t captured” – explaining to the Family Leadership Summit in Iowa during the 2016 presidential campaign why he didn’t think John McCain was a war hero.  McCain, a former Navy pilot, spent five plus years in a notorious North Vietnamese prison, the Hanoi Hilton, during the Vietnam War.  BTW, Trump received five deferments during the war, four for education, one for bone spurs.  Remarkably, his debilitation doesn’t keep him from the golf course: as of the beginning of December, 2019, he has played 241 times since his inauguration, or approximately twenty-two percent of his days in office.  And remember, as a candidate, Trump claimed that he would be too busy to play golf – an obvious condemnation of President Obama, who played 333 rounds in his eight years, or approximately three percent of his presidency.  Oh, and in case you wanted to know, 37% of Trump’s rounds have occurred on the Sabbath. By comparison, Trump has attended church services less than five times.  I love raw numbers!

3 – the number of marriages for Trump.  Just counting, not judging.  Remember, I love the numbers.

“I could stand in the middle of 5th Avenue and shoot somebody and I wouldn’t lose voters” – statement made at a Sioux Center, Iowa, campaign rally in January, 2016.  What Christian talks this way?

Model Heidi “no longer a 10” Klum; actress Rosie “fat ugly face” O’Donnell; New York Times columnist Gail “face of a pig” Collins; Miss Universe winner Alicia “Miss Piggy” Machado; media mogul Arianna “unattractive” Huffington; adult film star Stephanie “horseface” Clifford (better known as Stormy Daniels); and former Hewlett-Packard CEO and once presidential candidate Carly “Look at that face! Would anyone vote for that?” Fiorina – just a few of the terrible (and may I note, non-Christian) things he has said about women.

“My whole life I’ve been greedy, greedy, greedy.  I’ve grabbed all the money I could get. I’m so greedy” – a fine statement if you are Gordon Gekko in the 1987 film Wall Street, but not necessarily a good one for a presidential candidate – in 2019!

“Teenage mothers [shouldn’t] get public assistance unless they jump through some pretty small hoops. Making them live in group homes makes sense” – after a statement like this one, I hope he gets an opportunity to live this way pretty soon, perhaps in his own individual cell – er, I mean room.  You can really feel his compassion for the poor and struggling here.

Campaign finance, ISIS, Facebook, drones, construction, technology, the economy, border security, Cory Booker, TV ratings, taxes, football, nuclear arms, trade, the courts, infrastructure – all of the subject matters/things of which Trump claims to be an expert, as in “I know more about Cory (Booker) than he knows about himself.”  Oh, and this is a condensed list.  Hyperbole aside, you just can’t make this stuff up!  Humble is not a word that comes to mind here.

15,413 – the number of lies delivered by Trump (inauguration through December 16, 2019), according to fact checkers at The Washington Post.  So, given that there have been 1060 days in that time, he is prevaricating at a rate of 14.5 per day.  I’m not sure what the record is, but this has got to be close – especially for an adult.  I’m sure the overall record is currently being held by a twelve-year-old boy in San Fernando, California (and please, no insensitive comments here – I was going for a joke and chose San Fernando out of thin air.  I should have written Springfield with no state).

“I am the chosen one” — OMG!  Literally. This statement is okay if you are Harry Potter and are joking with your friends in the library at Hogwarts (HP and the Half-Blood Prince), but no President should say it – even if he is defending his stance on trade with China. Ah, the humility!!!

Oh, and if you Christians have been counting here, Trump has broken only nine of the Ten Commandments.  I am giving him the benefit of doubt with regard to honoring his mother and father.  I truly hope he has at least done that.

I leave you two biblical verses that I think best support and speak truth to that Christianity Today editorial:

2 Peter 2:1-3: But false prophets also arose among the people, just as there will be false teachers among you, who will secretly bring in destructive heresies, even denying the Master who bought them, bringing upon themselves swift destruction. And many will follow their sensuality, and because of them the way of truth will be blasphemed. And in their greed they will exploit you with false words.

And,

2 Timothy 3:1-5: But mark this: There will be terrible times in the last days. People will be lovers of themselves, lovers of money, boastful, proud, abusive, disobedient to their parents, ungrateful, unholy, without love, unforgiving, slanderous, without self-control, brutal, not lovers of the good, treacherous, rash, conceited, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God—having a form of godliness but denying its power. Have nothing to do with such people.

This heathen wishes that you Christians would reclaim your Christianity and reject the false idol who is Trump.  Merry Christmas.

by Tom Shafer

May 7, 2023

Over the winter of 2022-23, I embarked on forging a trail along the creek that defines the eastern border of our woods.  In the years we have lived here on our property in the center of Greene County, Ohio, I have cleared and refined several paths on the bluff above the creek, but I had never formally created an easy route down to it, nor a passage along its slow, meandering waters.  I wasn’t very far along in the process when a philosophical passage from noted writer and non-conformist Henry David Thoreau popped into my rather large noggin, a passage that I shared with my American literature students for many, many years. 

When Thoreau was twenty-seven years old, he realized that he was essentially — in today’s parlance — lost.  He had graduated from Harvard College, spent a couple of years teaching (unsuccessfully), and worked as a surveyor, but he was dissatisfied with the misdirection of his life.  With inspiration likely spurred by neighbor and mentor Ralph Waldo Emerson, Thoreau built a small ten by fifteen foot cabin near a pond on Emerson’s property and endeavored to live there in near isolation to “find himself,” and to discover meaning in life.  In a book he would pen about his experience there, simply called Walden, he summarized his experiment with these now-famous and galvanizing words:  “I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived.”

In no way am I comparing my “experiment” with Thoreau’s, but a lesson he learned rather quickly was one I experienced as well, and one that speaks to human nature of every time period in history — then, now, and tomorrow.   

Thoreau was noted for his nonconformity, even in his own time, and he explained his nature in his own inimitable way: “If a man does not keep pace with his companions, perhaps it is because he hears a different drummer. Let him step to the music which he hears, however measured or far away.”  So, imagine his horror (okay, that may be a little overly dramatic) when he himself fell prey to the shackles — and comfort — of conformity just walking about in his wooded abode:  “I had not lived there a week before my feet wore a path from my door to the pond-side; and though it is five or six years since I trod it, it is still quite distinct. It is true, I fear that others may have fallen into it, and so helped to keep it open. The surface of the earth is soft and impressible by the feet of men; and so with the paths which the mind travels. How worn and dusty, then, must be the highways of the world, how deep the ruts of tradition and conformity!”

As a purely coincidental note, I am transcribing this while listening to the British coronation of King Charles, perhaps the most perfect example of our rutted history on earth. 

Back to my own story and back in my own woods, the first order of business for this new trail was to engender a safe transition from the bluff to the creek, so I utilized a pair of trees and some climbing rope to fashion a swinging handrail down a natural wash to the valley floor.  From there, I began removing shrubs, downed trees, and other obstacles above the creek bed, using the unwanted debris to generate “natural” piles for usage by my feathered friends and other small mammals that populate our woodland.  After several days, the pathway started to take shape, and I was pleased with the final product.

Immediately, I introduced my three outdoor cats — Boots, Rainbow, and Luna — to the new trail.  If you have read a few of my other entries, you are aware that I walk my cats daily, much as you might walk your own dogs.  I grew up with dogs, but at my wife’s insistence early in our marriage, we became cat people.  Still, that didn’t necessarily mean that I had to treat these cats like cats.  So, for almost forty years, I have attempted to “train” my cats to be dogs — of course with limited to no success.  However, over time, these three have been more-than-willing companions on frolicking excursions through the woods.

And now, we had a creek to play in!

But what happened with Thoreau happened with me as well.  It is probably a couple of months since I completed my little project, but if I were to walk you along that path now, you might think that it had been there forever, that Native Americans, early settlers, and animals routinely traipsed along the creek, using the water for its necessary and life-sustaining qualities.  Based on the volume of artifacts and relics I have found on the bluff and in and around the creek, a trail (or trails) must have existed at one point, but it (or they) were slowly erased as large-tract farms were created here after the Ordinance of 1787 established a government for the Northwest Territory and opened the lands to fee simple ownership.  

I know that Thoreau’s message about the path from his door to his pond is more metaphorical or allegorical than physical, but that’s what popped into my brain — of which I have very little control.  

Of course, he’s right about the “worn and dusty” highways of the world and the deep “ruts of tradition and conformity.”  I have been railing against the stranglehold of conformity since I was first introduced to Emerson and Thoreau when I was a snot-nosed fifteen-year-old student in Jack Farnan’s American literature class nearly fifty years ago.  But even with recognition of the limitations and failings of conformity, it is strangely difficult NOT to fall prey to its adherence and compliance.

And I have evidence in my own woods — and my own life.

by Tom Shafer

March 16, 2023

Okay, so that’s quite the headline for a piece of writing — though some of you of a certain age may have, like I did, reflexively broken into song, hearkening back to a simpler time when the family gathered around a 19” black and white television powered by diodes and other vacuum tubes to watch the cultural phenomenon known as Hee Haw.  And I have to admit that I could just as easily titled this “Gloom, Despair, and Agony on Me.”

Except that I didn’t.

Anyway, it may be revelatory to some of you that I am currently undergoing therapy for my brain, which technically isn’t quite correct since I am not receiving transcranial magnetic stimulation — at least not yet.  Actually, I am participating in counseling for my emotions, feelings, and behaviors, which start in my brain.  Unfortunately, I have never been very good at managing my emotions, feelings, and behaviors and then relating them with humans familiar to me.  Instead, I have found that I am exceedingly good at revealing them to perfect strangers — or at least perfect strangers with letters like Psy.D, Ph.D, LMHC, or LPC attached to the ends of their names.

And when I say that I have never been good at managing or relating my E’s, F’s, and B’s, I mean that I have acted like they didn’t exist — at least to the outside world.  I have been VERY good at internalizing them, hiding them, and ruminating over them in my inside world, which turns out to be very BAD for the external version of me.  When I created a list of unresolved issues which I never fully addressed or confronted (a byproduct of a discussion with my current acronymed counselor), it was clear to me that I had either produced the beginning of a soon-to-be Hallmark Channel melodrama or I was finally recognizing the badly damaged refrigerator full of long-expired life items that has been strapped to my aching, twice-repaired back for many, many years.  The short list includes the inability to produce children; two painful (and unsuccessful) adoption attempts; my slow descent into being an ineffective life partner, son, and friend; the complications brought on by injuries and subsequent surgeries (nearly thirty) — including an addiction to vicodin; an early, unwanted retirement to take care of my Alzheimer’s-affected mother; then, the deaths of my father (from cancer), my brother (from drug usage), and eventually my mother after her long slog with Alzheimer’s.  

Now, I am the first one to point out always that everyone has a sad story to tell, that everyone is carrying hidden burdens, or as Anton Chekhov so succinctly put it, “Any idiot can face a crisis; it’s this day-to-day living that wears you out.”  But normal (and many abnormal) people find positive, productive ways to handle their issues or crises — from meaningful, constructive self-reflection to physical, strenuous workouts or activity to some kind of therapy to confiding in close friends and/or life partners.

And for much of my early life, I utilized physical activity as my means to a reformative end, from flag football to softball to bowling to basketball to mountain biking to hiking and backpacking.  But at age thirty-three, most of these pursuits came to an abrupt end when I tore the ACL and PCL in my left knee for a third time — while bowling!  My orthopedic surgeon performed his first ACL patellar tendon graft reconstruction (and the hospital’s) by harvesting the patellar tendon from my right knee, and after a lengthy and painful rehabilitation, I began honoring a promise that I would curtail the recklessness that had wrought damage to my body (and knee).  Ultimately, the ACL replacement was simply acting as a bridge to a total knee replacement that we hoped to hold off until I was at least fifty, so I needed to coddle and protect my newly repaired joint for as long as I could.  (Unfortunately, I only made it to forty-four.)

I didn’t realize how much I loved — and needed — all of those physical activities until I was indefinitely banned from them.  I played more golf and now rode my mountain bike on paved asphalt and concrete, but I missed the competitive nature and spirit — and sweat — of those more vigorous sports, and I especially missed sprinting the floor on a basketball court, scampering the bases of a softball diamond, and running a post pattern on a football field.  

But most importantly about this sudden lifestyle change, I no longer had the outlet that allowed me to “work out” my issues and problems — though I know now that all I was really doing then was defering them, proverbially kicking my can of worms down the road.

I should have turned to therapy at the time — I think my wife even suggested it — but I didn’t.  And, I actually had a prior good experience with it — well, sort of. 

When I was twenty-one years old, I tallied two DUIs in a short four-month window — and it could have been three (a trifecta!) in nine months if it weren’t for a kind Dayton police officer who charged me with reckless operation instead after I wrapped my Chevy Caprice Classic around a telephone pole on North Main Street in Dayton, Ohio.  And, if you were wondering what my problem was then, how I could collect nearly three DUIs in such a short period of time, did I mention that I was twenty-one — oh, and that I had a real love/hate relationship with whiskey — and myself.

The first offense rendered fairly effective penalties, including loss of driving privileges (except to school and work) for one year, a fairly hefty fine (may have been $500), and mandatory attendance at a weekend intervention program conveniently held on my college campus (Wright State University).  Unfortunately, those sanctions weren’t nearly punitive enough.

Being the slow learner that I can be, it was that second offense that finally got my attention.  First, I was treated to three wondrous nights in a Montgomery County jail.  Then, I lost all driving privileges for a year (and my car was impounded); I received an even larger fine (I think $1000); I experienced the weekend intervention program for a second time; and, I was remanded to weekly therapy sessions (a drug and alcohol addiction program) for a minimum of one year.  It was during that second intervention program that I met the psychologist who would try to fix me.

I remember that the program’s director, good guy Harvey Siegal, was very disappointed to see me back again — and so soon.  He was even more disappointed when he discovered that I was the main instigator behind an unauthorized pizza delivery to a group room at a local motel that Friday evening.  I promised that I would be a good little camper after that — and I’m sure the off-duty police officer who was guarding us appreciated the two pepperoni pizzas from Submarine House that were dropped off by a friend of mine.

On Saturday morning after our first group session of the day, I met with the moderator of that discussion, Richard (whom I will call Richard because that was and still is his name), in a breakout session.  Richard was a very genuine man who seemed genuinely concerned about me.  The group meeting — like the one I had experienced just three months prior — was a train wreck of personal, alcohol-enhanced stories, some told with a braggadocio that attempted to nullify their seriousness and severity.  I was by far the youngest person in the building, and many of the men surrounding me were serious alcoholics who had tallied multiple DUIs and whose lives seemed to revolve around getting to that next drink.  Internally, I kept asking myself what I was doing here among these reprobates and scallywags.  Of course, Richard had the answer for me. 

“I think we can save you” was his simple response when I asked that very question in our first sitting.  He explained that most of the thirty, forty, and fifty year olds in attendance indeed were hard-core alcoholics, and changing twenty, thirty, and forty year old behaviors was likened to teaching an old dog new tricks.  Learning new tricks was going to be much easier with a young pup like me.  

The rest of the weekend was pretty predictable — this was my second rodeo after all.  We participated in multiple meetings and lectures, got to see the twenty pound liver of an alcoholic (it should be three), and watched (and giggled through) the cinematic masterpiece Reefer Madness, which dramatizes (?) the effect of marijuana usage on teenagers of the 1930s.  

Then, on Sunday morning, as we were preparing to leave the motel to return to Wright State for breakfast and outtake meetings, my roommate for the weekend, a fifty-something year old man who worked in a machine shop, shared more of his own story with me and told me at the end of it, “You don’t want to be like me — or any of these other guys.  This is no way to live.”  Through dark, brooding eyes, he explained that he had effectively ruined his life, his marriage, his relationships with his children, and many of his true friendships — not to mention that the state had stripped his driver’s license forever.  For much of the weekend, we had psychologically danced around this rather direct statement, that “this is no way to live.”  In about five minutes, he had very effectively laid out the essence of the program’s message.

The very next week, I started my weekly sessions with Richard, and the short version of my first (?) year with him goes like this: 

I certainly didn’t take the counseling very seriously because I knew my problem, whiskey, was cured — I would just stop drinking it.  In my mind, I also knew I wasn’t like the other men I had shared two weekends with because I was an engineering major just one year from graduation who had a solid, post-college plan: take an engineering job out west, settle into a fulfilling, long-term relationship, buy a nice home on a somewhat wild piece of property, and produce a couple of children.  So, for one year, I talked and talked and talked, sharing with Richard everything he wanted to hear, convincing him that I was on a righteous path to self-reliance and success.  As we approached the end of our sessions, I was satisfied that Richard agreed with my own self assessment. 

To “graduate” from my court-ordered therapy, Richard and I had to appear in front of the judge who had overseen both of my DUI convictions.  I explained to him that I was a changed person, that I now had the tools necessary to take on the world in a sober and responsible way.  

When the judge queried Richard about our time together, Richard responded, “He has been telling me what I wanted to hear for an entire year,” and recommended another six months of counseling, with which the judge agreed and sanctioned.   

I was flabbergasted and angry and frustrated — and I felt betrayed!

At our very next session, the beginning of six more months of weekly servitude, I didn’t say a single word for fifty minutes — and neither did he.  We just looked at each other uncomfortably until our time ran out.  As I was getting up to leave, Richard declared that he had just added one more session onto my ledger, and further recommended that I come to our next session ready to talk or he would simply tally another one.

Clearly, my plan for clinical subterfuge had failed, but frankly, so had much of my life plan.  I had bailed on completing my systems engineering degree after a challenging and difficult internship with a very unhappy engineer contracted to Wright Patterson Air Force Base.  A girl I was dating seriously at the time left me for another engineering major, perhaps the only human I ever considered a rival.  And as my planned life spiraled quickly away from me, my love of drink swilled in to take its place.  Of course, I had kept all of this from Richard during my year of denial, instead painting the portrait of a man in complete control of his destiny.  

So, over the course of the next six months, I came clean with Richard and exposed myself for the incomplete, fragile man that I was.  For the outside world, I had always carried myself with a confident swagger that bordered on arrogance — which, somewhat predictably from a psychological perspective, masked the insecurity and self-doubt lying underneath.  We explored the root causes for my emotional and behavioral issues, and as I began to understand myself better, my life began slowly to change and improve.  I chose to complete a degree in English education after a chance encounter with a favorite former high school teacher and found a girl who didn’t seem to mind that I was damaged and vulnerable — then married me in spite of my debilities.

After six months of true self reflection, and with much assistance from Richard, I finally graduated from court-ordered therapy so that I could continue working on being the best human I could be — albeit one who was now suffering from the staggering cost of a financial responsibility bond and high risk insurance just to drive my non-impounded car.  

So, I am back here in present day after that longish stroll down Amnesia Lane, and in many ways, I’m still like that twenty-one year old version of me, trying once again to figure out who I am.  One would think that a nearly sixty-two year old man would have had all of this figured out by now, but like I mentioned earlier, sometimes I can be a slow learner — especially on big life issues.

Now, you may be wondering about that title and how it fits into this multi-layered storyline.  Well, my current counselor knows that I’m a writer, and at the end of our last session — and after a last flurry of discussion about my guilt and attempts at redemption — he suggested that I write about it.  So, really, this is, in essence, the product of a homework assignment.  And, I had to provide a little (okay, a lot of) back story to complete it.  

When I was working with Richard, guilt continually revealed itself as one of my more substantial problems: guilt stemming from transgressions during my teenage years; guilt from being a negligent son and brother; guilt from being an imperfect and careless friend.  Richard finally asked if I thought there was anything I could do about these feelings that so permeated my emotional life.  I remember telling him that apology is the only true counter to guilt.  Of course, Richard had a better word for it: redemption.  So, redemption it would be.  

At Richard’s suggestion, I made a list of people, friends and family and neighbors, that I had slighted in my past, and over the next few months, I sought each of them out to offer an apology for what I had done to them.  The vast majority of my efforts were warmly received, and I was forgiven for my misdeeds and lapses in judgment — though frankly, many of the supposed “crimes” could not be recalled by my “victims.”  As it turned out, some of these trespasses that I had been obsessing over had long been forgotten — just not by me.

So that’s where I am right now, working on redemption once again, trying to find and live the best version of me once again.  For most of you, that might seem like an easy thing to do, but I like to complicate the easy and challenge myself when I really shouldn’t.  But in my defense, guilt and shame are powerful opponents, and on most days, I am ill-equipped to take them head-on, and instead, find myself chipping around their edges — hoping that my work will lead to selfless anonymity.  Because if novelist Walter Kirn is right (from his article “The Mother of Reinvention” in The Atlantic, May 2002), “It’s no accident that most self-help groups use ‘anonymous’ in their names; to Americans, the first step toward redemption is a ritual wiping out of the self, followed by the construction of a new one.”  

Suddenly, I hear faintly familiar music in the background, and a voiceover proclaiming, “Gentlemen, we can rebuild him . . . Better than he was before.  Better, stronger, faster.”  I don’t know that I could possibly be stronger or faster like Steve Austin (think The Six Million Dollar Man television show from the 1970s), but I definitely want to be better.  I suppose that is the best I can hope for.