Coffee with Roger

Roger and I went out to one of our local coffee shops the other day just to talk. Roger is my neighbor. We mainly talk about writing. Roger has written and published two books and is working on his third. I have published nothing. So when Roger talks about writing, I listen. As we sat talking and drinking our drinks, I ran some story ideas past him. He told me they were good ideas and that he thought I could write some good works, and he was sincere. Well, I’ve had good ideas before. In fact I’m loaded with good ideas, but I come up short on the great works department. Writing a great work takes sticking with one of those good ideas and following it through. When I wrote my unpublished novel, I was encouraged along by my writing teacher Mary. If I hadn’t been in her class I don’t think it ever would have been completed.
I’ve always had a lot of trouble deciding what I want to do. I can still hear my mom asking me when I was a kid, “What do you want?” The truth be told, my answer then and now, much of the time is, I have no idea. But the other day after meeting with Roger I thought, there are so many exciting and wonderful things to do in life and so little time. I foolishly thought this feeling of purpose and exhilaration would sustain me and propel me into many interesting and rewarding projects, but when I woke up this morning, sat down at my computer ready to go…nothing. I was staring at a blank page in front of me with the same blankness in my mind. When I tried to conjure up some of those wonderful ideas that I shared with Roger, instantly up popped multiple reasons why I couldn’t do it, shouldn’t do it or I’m just not that interested in doing it.
Once when I was a college student I listened to a recorded conversation between Bertrand Russell and Aldous Huxley. They were both getting old at the time and I remember they were talking about death. One of them said one of the things they disliked most about dying was that there were still so many interesting things in life to investigate. I thought then as now, if I could only have that kind of passion about life.
Well, I should have started writing right away when I got home from the coffee shop, but it had been a long morning of conversing and I decided instead I needed a nap. I’d like to be able to get back to that inspired place whenever I want to. I can’t depend on having coffee with Roger and besides he and his wife Sue are snowbirds and have already returned to their home in California for the summer. When I honestly think about why I felt so enthusiastic and motivated the other day, it may have had more to do with feeling appreciated and worthy talking with an accomplished writer. It reminds me of Sally Field accepting her academy award, “You like me, you really like me.”
As I looked for a clue as to how to prime my own creative pump, I remembered Roger talking a little about dealing with students when he was teaching. He said it always bothered him when students told him that there was nothing they were interested in. He said he would tell them, “Just get started on something and the more knowledge you get about it, the more interesting it will become.” I thought that was excellent advice and plan to use it myself. Now if I could only figure out what to get started on.

The Under-Appreciated Tai Chi "Master"

An often difficult part of retirement and aging is adjusting to the loss of former roles and identities. Our work and community involvement gives us meaning and a sense of self worth. I thought I would easily slip into retired life and that I was beyond needing the status, respect and appreciation I sometimes felt through the professional and non-professional roles I played during those years. But the days can be long and there is that nagging feeling that I’m wasting my time and not getting any younger. I am slowly piecing a life together as a retired person. My decision that writing would be my main activity has been working out well so far. Everything and anything about my retired life here in Arizona is grist for the writer’s mill.
A writer’s life can be a lonely one however. I had been used to working with people in either a counselor or a teacher capacity over the years. Recently I decided I would like to again start teaching Tai Chi. I learned Tai Chi in the 70’s and have regularly practiced and taught since that time. In the 80’s I started learning Kung Fu and over the years have learned and practiced 30-40 different Tai Chi and Kung Fu forms. I’ve participated in tournaments, practiced sparring, given many demonstrations and for years with my friend, Chris, instructed and ran a Kung Fu/Tai Chi studio in Bellingham, Washington. You get the picture. I love Tai Chi and I love teaching it. I also love the Taoist philosophy that it springs from. I believe in and embrace “the way of non-resistance”. All that having been said, a few weeks ago I went to the Parks and Recreation Center in the town just north of us. I heard they didn’t have anyone teaching Tai Chi in the area and thought it would be a good place to start. I put in an application and waited. The other day I got a call and was asked to come in for an interview.
The interview happened yesterday. The young woman interviewing me was the director of programing for the center. I say young woman, she was probably in her 20’s but looked like she was about 13. The first thing she asked me was “Are you a certified Tai Chi instructor?” I had to answer that one with a “No”. She told me “We really want all our teachers here to be certified.” She didn’t know exactly where one gets certified to teach Tai Chi, but told me there was another person wanting to teach Tai Chi at the center also and this person had certification. I thought of Mr. Miyagi in the movie "The Karate Kid". Daniel, the teen aged main character desperately needs help defending himself against some school bullies. He is checking out Mr. Miyagi as a possible Karate teacher and asks him what belt he has. Mr. Miyagi looks down at his pants and says “J.C. Penney”.
Much to my dismay I didn’t come up with a poignant Martial Art Master-like comeback. I instead began trying to convince “Gidget”, how I was well beyond these petty certifications and told her of my many years of teaching and that by the way one of my former students is in the Martial Arts Hall of Fame. Who knows what else came spewing out of my mouth. It seems like it went on for quite a while. She patiently waited until my apparent soliloquy was over and then asked. “Is there some way you could get certified, maybe over the internet?” (I subsequently looked on the internet for Tai Chi certification and found one site that guaranteed teacher certification after only 4 weeks of training. And you didn’t need any previous experience in Tai Chi!) I went home from the interview discouraged and depressed. To misquote Marlon Brando in On The Waterfront, “I used to be somebody.”
This whole affair reminds of another personal incident. In 1995 my family and I traveled back to Missouri to visit relatives. We all went out to the private school I attended from 6th grade through 11th grade. Having grown up in the St. Louis area I wanted to go to all my old haunts. Puberty came late for me so for the first few years of high school I was exceptionally small for my age. On the wrestling team I was in the 95lb and under class. When we entered the school I recognized a coach that I’d known from all those years ago. “Coach Simon” I called as I spotted him walking down the hall. He stopped and came over to where we were standing. Introducing myself I said, “I’m Mike Yeager. I used to go to school here in the late 50’s and early 60’s.” I could see he was trying hard to remember who I was and after a few moments recognition spread across his face. “Oh yeah,” he said. “You were that little squirt.” Without hesitating I blurted out, “I’m a counselor now and I have two Master’s degrees.” He looked at me unimpressed and asked if we’d like a tour of the building. Ever since that time Katie and I joke about my “two Master’s degrees syndrome”. In fact when I returned home feeling dejected from my interview and told Katie how discouraged I was, her reply was simply “Maybe you should have told her you have two Master’s”.

My Wake Up Call

I’ve talked with many war veterans and most can tell you the exact moment when they realized war was not a game, the moment when they were blasted out of all their preconceived notions and fantasies about themselves as a soldier in a war, when their illusions of invulnerability were finally and ultimately shattered. They were no longer the hero of the story, but just another schmuck doing their best not to get themselves or their buddies killed. The following incident was that moment for me, my wake up call.

For the first several months in Vietnam I worked as an Intelligence Analyst. I kept files on enemy group size, location, weapons etc. and updated the maps to reflect the most current intelligence information. I voluntarily transferred to the Interrogation section because I didn’t want to continue being mainly a desk jockey and wasn’t getting along with my superior officer. I admired my friends who were Interrogators. I was trained as both an Intelligence Analyst and a POW Interrogator. Interrogators mostly worked at the base camp interrogating detainees, but routinely went out into the field to help the Infantry locate weapons or food caches or to screen villages. Except for Basic Training, I had no experience or training to prepare me for Infantry field operations.
The first mission I was sent out on was with a Marine platoon. They suspected VC activity in and around a small village and requested someone from Army Intelligence to question the local inhabitants. Chang, a Vietnamese Interpreter, and I were sent in one morning to question the villagers about the previous evening’s firefight. Chang was from Saigon and the other interpreters called him “Cowboy’. This was a term generally used for young Saigon punks who caused trouble. It was used affectionately when applied to Chang. He was a cocky little guy with a good sense of humor. I would work side by side with him for most of my year in Vietnam. He was out of the war for several months after being shot by “friendly fire” on New Year's eve 1967, but he recovered and we were back in business.
I was excited and nervous about my first field assignment. The Huey that transported us, landed in an open dry rice paddy. As it was touching down, the pilot yelled to Chang and me, his only “cargo”, to jump out quickly because the chopper was drawing fire and needed to get out of the area ASAP.
The skids didn’t even touch the ground when we jumped out. We found ourselves standing in front of a line of soldiers lying behind a shallow berm with rifles pointed toward the village. The officer-in-charge stood at the end of this line and was motioning for Chang and me to lie down, which we did. The sound of the helicopter was now far in the distance and silence surrounded us. We heard no gunfire. We lay listening for what seemed a long time. Then on the Captain’s command, we all rose and began walking toward the village.
In the village Chang and I began questioning the villagers, who consisted of old men, old women and children. The Marines had lined a bunch of them up for us. Not one of them knew anything about VC activity on the night before. It was my job to decide which ones to take back to base camp for further questioning. I asked Chang to make his best guess and he and I picked out a few people who seemed most suspect and most likely to spill the beans under persuasive conditions.
We then headed out and down the road to another small hamlet. Walking along the road in single file, I thought about the TV show Combat that my Dad and I liked to watch together. In the show they did a lot of walking along dirt roads. Inevitably they would begin to receive fire from the woods and the soldiers would all have to take cover. That’s exactly what happened to us. We heard automatic rifle fire coming from the thick brush and we all jumped to the side of the road and lay there quietly listening. I still had not broken out of my romantic view of combat. My heart was beating fast and as I lay there with my M-16 ready to return fire, I thought, This is really cool.
As a kid I used to imagine I was the star of a television show. I was usually a spy in enemy territory, a James Bond type character slipping in and out of my house unnoticed while my parents, the enemy, sat watching TV. I was also the narrator, “And now our hero Mike Yeager, under the cover of darkness, slips into the enemy headquarters and locates the secret papers.” The secret papers were usually located in my bedroom dresser. If my mom said “Mike, what are you doing in there?” I momentarily broke out of my TV fantasy, sort of like a commercial break, and answered “Nothing mom, just looking for something”, and then smoothly transitioned back into the plot of the story. “That was a close call for our hero Mike Yeager, whose position was almost detected by the officer-in-charge.” I, of course, always managed to sneak back out of the enemy headquarters undetected and with the secret papers in hand.
The automatic rifle fire stopped. Nobody was hurt and so we continued along the rode until entering a small cluster of huts surrounding a well. While the Marines searched the huts, Chang and I stood by the well questioning a young woman. I heard a shot and a bullet ricocheted off the top of the well inches from where I was standing. That was my wake up call. That son of a bitch was shooting at me. The Marines kicked into gear and took off into the brush toward the area where the shot came from. One of the sergeants asked me to cover him while he walked out across an open area. “What do you mean cover you?” I guess I couldn’t remember what Rick Jason and Vick Marrow in “Combat” did in a situation like this. He calmly told me to stand at the edge of the clearing, keep my eyes and ears open and be ready to fire while he walked across the clearing. The rest of the Marines headed up the hill toward where the rifle fire was coming from. My mental state had changed completely. This wasn’t cool anymore. These seasoned Marines were reacting as they should. I remember thinking, These guys are crazy, they’re going to get us all killed. At the same time, I knew my life was in their hands. I was the “green soldier” and as the saying goes, if they told me to jump, I would have replied “How high?”
During the entire mission I was on high alert, keenly aware of my surroundings. But after nearly being shot, I became aware of a growing fear deep within me. I learned how to manage it and continued to function in my duties as a soldier, but by the end of my year tour, I dreaded missions out in the field. I had seen too many horrible things that can happen in war and I became progressively more certain that I would not make it home alive.
On that first mission, the Marines never found who was shooting at us. And our hero "Mike Yeager" was no where to be found and did not save the day. The romance of combat was gone forever.

Desert in Bloom

Most of the snowbirds have taken flight. In April they started to pull out and this last weekend there was a major exodus. Our laundry building was crowded with people trying to return home with clean clothes and I had to wait a long time to get an elliptical trainer at the fitness center. I guess they were trying to lose those few extra pounds they’d gained living the good life. I read that the population of Green Valley has around 20,000 permanent residents and it more than doubles when the snowbirds are here. Even though the heat is coming, the “year rounders” like ourselves, look forward to less traffic, the pool all to ourselves and an empty fitness center. Basically we like just having less people to contend with. There are a lot less activities going on in the summer, but we don’t go to very many anyway, so that’s not a big deal.
April and May are two months when many of the plants in the desert bloom. All those people who went back to Michigan or Ohio or Washington are going to miss it. Katie and I have been wandering around with our camera lately taking pictures. So if any of the snowbirds look at my blog they will see some of what they are missing.

One Upmanship

I’ve been toying with the idea of getting involved in a veterans’ organization. The last 5 years of my counseling career I worked with veterans. I became very close to many of my clients and with a few I remained friends after our counseling relationship was over. I miss those friendships. I was over at our community laundry the other day and noticed a man wearing a US Army cap. I told him I had been in the Army also and we got to talking. He was a Vietnam vet like me. I asked him where he was in Vietnam and what he did over there. He told me he was in Armor and that except for a few times back in the rear, he was out in the bush for his entire tour. He also told me that he was injured and shot at a lot. He was informative about the local groups and gave me some good suggestions for my need to be around other veterans.
But, his telling me about how hard he had it and how much danger he was in stirred up a familiar uneasy feeling inside me. When I told him our base camp received incoming mortars and rockets. He countered with, “But it’s different when the enemy is specifically shooting at you.” I had the urge to counter and tell him that I was shot at plenty of times too, but I didn’t. If I had, he probably would have said he was shot at more times or who knows what.
I had a client I’ll call Ted. At the age of 18 he was gung-ho and joined the Marines. He wanted to get into the action and especially become one of the brotherhood of combat Marines. After boot camp, despite his protesting, he was sent to cook school. He tried to get out of it, but that’s what the Marine Corps needed at the time so he was stuck. He was told he could get out of it later. He was sent to Vietnam and stationed in Quang Tri up by the DMZ. He worked in the mess hall as a cook. Even though the base camp was close to the beach area, there were no facilities like a PX or R&R facilities. It was a very dangerous place. Being so close to North Vietnam, the enemy routinely fired artillery and lobbed rockets into the base camp. He said almost on a daily basis he had to drop whatever he was doing and run for the bunker. The mess hall, being a primary structure where large numbers of Marines gathered, was specifically targeted by the enemy.
Ted said the other Marines constantly complained about the food and often blamed him. So instead of being one with the “brothers” he felt put down and unappreciated. He took a course to become a helicopter door gunner in order to get out of the mess hall and into the action, but when he put in for it he was denied, He finished his tour as a cook, came home with a serious case of PTSD and got out of the Marines even though he had planned to make a career of it.
After working with him for over a year in individual sessions, I suggested he enter one of the groups. I argued that he would find that veterans in the groups are accepting of each other and I thought that his feeling part of a group would help with his deep feelings of alienation from other veterans, especially Marines. Finally after a bit of persuasion he agreed and attended one of my groups. We began the group with routine introductions which consisted of your branch of service, where you were stationed and what your job was. This was hard for Ted because of his fear of being put down by other veterans. He did a good job of introducing himself as we had practiced. The only other Marine in the group introduced himself as a rifleman, said he was out in the field his whole time in country, and that he was hit with shrapnel blinding him in one eye, and then he looked right at Ted and said, “When we needed a break from our maneuvers, we used to take R&R at your base camp.” Ted didn’t say anything for a few moments and then erupted. “You f’ing grunts think you’re the only guys who saw any action. I don’t know where you went for R&R, but there were no facilities where I was and you probably would have been blown up by a rocket if you were there. All you f’ing grunts are alike.” He stood up and stormed out, never to return. The marine felt bad that Ted got so upset, “But we did take R&R where he was in Quang Tri. There wasn’t too much there, but at least we got away from humping the hills in the bush.”
I had to call Ted and talk him back into individual counseling. He returned and we continued our work together. My attempt to integrate him with other veterans blew up in my face and in his. Ted and I talked a lot about this phenomenon of feeling like his experience doesn’t stand up to the experience of other veterans. I don’t think he will ever get over it. Today in the laundry I felt a special closeness to Ted. I don’t know if I will get involved with other veterans or not. Avoidance has worked so well for me in the past.

Rainy, Cold, and Comfortably Nostalgic

Painting by K. Yeager

A cold wind blew in yesterday and completely reversed our long stretch of 80 degree weather. We took a walk in the early evening and the people we passed all commented on how cold it was. The temperature was probably in the mid to upper 50’s and there was a little moisture in the air. Some of our fellow walkers looked like they were bundled up for a Nordic expedition. I’m not kidding. Two ladies we passed wore woolen caps, heavy jackets and mittens. I had on a sweatshirt and Katie a pullover sweater. We were walking fast and shivering a little and I hate to admit it but those two ridiculous looking women did appear happy and warm.
Last night the rain came in with a vengeance and we needed an extra blanket. It pounded on our patio most of the night and I remembered how nice it is to snuggle in bed for warmth. It’s cloudy and drizzly today and I’m thinking about the Northwest. I broke out some of my moldy smelling northwest clothes, heavy dark pants, a long sleeve shirt and jacket. They felt as comfortable as my skin. The sky is completely overcast and it is drizzling. I’m in very familiar territory.
Can you believe, people here in the desert complain about the rain? That definitely should be outlawed. Complaining about the rain makes sense in Washington and Oregon and especially on the Olympic peninsula. In Green Valley when it rains it’s like a ghost town. The few people who are out are either dashing into stores or into their cars. Of course there are the dog walkers, cursing and tugging at the leash while their little pooch is desperately trying to decide which cactus to pee on.
We are such creatures of habit. I guess whatever we’re familiar with is what we like. In the northwest when the sun shines it’s glorious. Everybody is out and trying to make the most of it. But after several days people take on a wild, frenzied, weary look. “We can’t continue this pursuit of fun and happiness much longer.” Then, sure enough, the clouds roll back in and even though they would never admit it, everyone is relieved. Finally back to normal. That’s how I’m feeling today. I’m sitting in a Barnes and Noble in Tucson having a latte and life is familiar and good.
I have to admit that knowing tomorrow will be sunny, dry and back into the 80’s helps me to savor this nostalgic mental trip back to the northwest.

Passive Observer of Nature

To increase the quality of our retirement experience, Katie and I are attempting to take a more active interest in the natural world around us. We’ve always enjoyed the outdoors but have been what you might call passive observers of nature. This is evident in our attempts at bird watching. The birds need to come relatively close to us and then hold still for a little while if we are going to observe them. We quickly lose patience with uncooperative birds. Our motivation intensifies if the bird is colorful. We don’t spend much time looking at grey and brown birds. Happily, many of the birds of southern Arizona seem colorful or unique, at least to novice birders like us. The birds need to work a little on their cooperative behavior, however.

To help further our naturalist endeavors, last week we went to Madera Canyon for a guided nature hike. The guide was the head of volunteer educators for the canyon and he proved to be extremely knowledgeable about the plants, animals and geology of the area. Most of what he told us I’ve already forgotten. For some reason I can’t keep a lot of these facts about the environment in my head. Katie has a special interest in local plants and so while the guide talked, she busily wrote plant names in her little book.
The guide knew that some of us were interested in birds, so whenever one was spotted, he would identify it and then tell us a little about its behavior. Once when someone in the group spotted a bird soaring in the sky, the guide swiftly lifted his binoculars up to his eyes, gazed for a second or two and then said “Coopers Hawk”. I stood there after the group had already moved on, fumbling around with my binoculars trying to find the damn thing. I could spot it with the naked eye, but each time I tried to find it in my binoculars I saw nothing but blue space.
I caught up with the group down by the stream. Someone else noticed a bird flitting around in a tree. The guide said it was a Ruby Crowned Kinglet. He didn’t even use his binoculars this time. He said he could tell by the way it moved. I saw it jumping around in the tree. Every time I had it in my view, it jumped to another branch and I had to relocate him. I can see why Audubon shot the birds in order to get a good look. I did manage to get fleeting glimpses of it though. I noticed it was a small bird with some yellow on its underside, darker on the back and had big eyes. Later I looked it up in our bird book. There are so many little yellowish birds in this area I could never have positively identified it from my brief look. Then a flock of Mexican Jays flew into the trees near our group. The guide had us watch them for a while. He asked us to notice their behavior as a group. He told us that the dominant male and female mate and the junior members help protect and feed the babies.
There are a few birds I am getting more familiar with. For example there is a bird that seems to be everywhere around Green Valley. I heard it before I ever saw it. It has a call that sounds like the way my dad used to whistle to wake my sister and me up in the morning. For a long time I just called it the “Dad Bird”. One day I heard its call and was determined to find it. I spotted it sitting on top of a Barrel Cactus doing its “dad-bird” call. It’s a medium sized brown bird and the bill is slightly curved. I looked for it in the book and I think it might be a Bendire’s Thrasher.

Identifying birds has both a positive and negative side. Once I know a bird well, like a Robin or a House Finch or a Sparrow (actually I shouldn’t include Sparrow as I’ve noticed there are many different kinds with really subtle differences between them), I tend to quickly identify it and then not give it another thought. For example, after the guided nature hike, Katie and I stopped at a local coffee shop. While sitting having our lattes she spotted some birds flying in and out of a Saguaro cactus across the street. I grabbed my binoculars and positioned myself in a chair out front across from the cactus. I focused the binoculars on the hole in the cactus and sat patiently waiting for the mystery bird to appear. Finally a dark bird flew quickly into the hole and then out again. It flew over to where I was sitting and landed about ten feet away from my chair. It then began rooting around in the gravel. It was a Starling or as they are sometimes called “a rat with wings”. I felt disappointed and stopped watching and shifted my attention to my rapidly diminishing latte.
The other evening my neighbor, a former university professor of geography, and his wife were sitting out on their patio. I stopped to talk with them and noticed binoculars lying on the table. I asked what he was looking at and he said he’d been watching a couple of Ravens building a nest in the big tree across the yard. “I’ve been watching their progress for several days now.” My thought was that once I realized it was only a couple of noisy Ravens, I wouldn’t have continued observing them. But yet he was keenly interested in their activities. There is a qualitative difference between how my neighbor and the guide in Madera Canyon look at nature and how I look at it. They don’t have to work so hard at motivating themselves like I do. They are genuinely interested in the natural world around them, like the true scientists they are.
There is another bird I am trying to identify. It has a very obnoxious way of chattering at about 5:30 every morning. I’m thinking about using the Audubon method to identify this particular specimen.