Reflections on childhood and adolescent summers

I used to consider a score of 41 on a par 34 golf course was pretty darn good. I was eleven then, and my golf partner consistently bettered my score by a few strokes. At thirteen, he was a ‘friendly’ competitor and between rounds we would take a “dip” into Portage Lake off the rock on the third tee, cool off, and then play eighteen holes in the afternoon. Of course, there would be the predictable trip into the dried swamp on the fourth fairway to look for lost balls, the one I had just driven off the tee, and the others that other players had not found. On the dog-leg sixth, I planted my feet firmly for a dramatic slice around and over the dense bush on the right, hoping to land my ball near the green. Again, however, my vision exceeded my performance level, and again I had to search for a lost ball, among the rocks, trees and underbrush.

Somehow, lost balls, while an explicit illustration of a misplayed shot, were never an event that reduced the sheer ecstacy and thrill of the crack of the driver on the little white ball and the feeling of “getting it right” when the shot flew straight out and down the fairway some 200+ yards. Trying to replay all the same “moves” of the body and the mind when that shot happened, in my mind, was the next challenge.

 Keeping my head down, and my eyes focused on the ball until after the club head struck it, bending my knees with a flex just before starting the backswing (In order to attain even deeper focus and the patience that does not anticipate and look for results too soon, and pre-empt all of the specific moves of all the muscles and skeletal structure the good shot demanded). A slight inward flex of the right knee, modelled after an aspiring pro golfer named Ron Harris followed by the slow backswing to where the club shaft was parallel to the ground, and then shift the weight from back to front foot as the club torqued down into the little sphere waiting on the tip of the tee. Remember, no distractions, no interruptions, no anxieties that the shot was going to be memorable for either of two extremes, a topped ball that rolled miserably off the tee, or the 300-yard straight arrow….just stay within myself and let the club do the work of the swing that had been rehearsed hundreds of times in the backyard at home, with practice balls.

Vacillating between the mental image of the “great shot” and the “flub” as a new golfer, and a newcomer to any activity at any age, is a mental anxiety that requires  much more concentration, discipline and rehearsal to be overcome than the physical tweeks of the elbow or the knees or even the eyes in the mantra, “keep your head down,” that is part of every golf lesson. The capacity to minimize the vacillation, to bring it under a level of control, in order to bring more energy directly to the task at hand, without ever attempting to eliminate that vacillation (simly because nature will not permit its eradication), is a ‘skill’ whose mastery brings about the setting for the “flow” of that great shot. And every shot, whether a drive, a fairway shot, a pitch to the green or a putt is another opportunity to review and to rehearse the discipline of bringing mind and body and psyche into a kind of harmony (some might prefer unity, but I reject that as too much pressure) that has been variously described as “flow” by one psychologist, or congruency of person and instrument, or even a dance with three partners, golfer, club and ball. Other than a hammer and screwdriver, the golf clubs are the first “tools” that required both training and constant practice.

Tapping these keys, decades later, however, seems much easier  than the full body/mind act of striking a golf ball precisely on the right spot on the club head, with the club head at the appropriate angle, and the speed of the club and the discipline of the swing all comporting with minimal requirements.

And, after hundreds or thousands of repetitions, perhaps, after many seasons of golf, only then does the whole act become so familiar and so predictable and so treasured that another level of satisfaction and gratification and skill and accomplishment takes over from the  kind the neophyte first experienced.

There were always senior members around the club house who were willing to offer a suggestion, after witnessing a flayed swing by a young kid or a ball whose trajectory preferred the bush to the fairway. And in the club house itself, there was also Blanche Harvey, wife of the groundskeeper, and baker of the best butter tarts in the world. Her warm welcoming smile and nourishing sandwiches made their own contribution to the young golfers who had joined the club.

The details and the practice of the golf swing, supplemented the school-year calendar of piano lessons, when the details of arpeggios, scales, chords, and the daily practice time, of repetition, repetition and more repetition. Only in this scene the routines were focused on fingering, putting the thumb under the hand when playing the scale up the keyboard, and reversing it, putting fingers over thumb when playing the scales toward the bass. Arpeggios too needed some digital gymnastics to accomplished the desired “smooth flow” running “up” over two octaves and then back “down”. Chromatic scales, uniquely, needed a pattern of thumb on every second white note, in order to keep the fingers from tripping over each other and missing the notes.

The finer points of these respective skill development projects seem quite fresh these many decades later, along with the changing summer-job requirements of first cleaning pop bottles at the local Pepsi factory using a foot-long wire brush to extract the many cigarette butts from the bottom of those bottles before placing them in the conveyor belt of the large washing machine.

 Next in the parade of summer jobs came the Dominion Store, where I worked as a packer, carry-out worker, shelf-stocker and sorter of rotten potatoes. It was a very hot August Saturday afternoon, when apparently the grocery business was slowing, and the produce manager convinced the store manager to release me to the tin-walled basement where several hundred ten-pound bags of potatoes were slowly rotting. My task was to sort the rotten potatoes from the good, ones, rebag these for sale, and toss the “mushy” ones into the garbage. Of course, I was furious that I had been assigned this odoriferous job. Rotting potatoes do not commend themselves to one’s sense of smell; to this day, the pungent odour seems still fresh in my memory.

Today, however, I claim a kind of self-awarded medal for surviving the heat, the stench and the joy of the completely re-bagged healthy potatoes. That task has come to mind when I have found myself faced with a different and equally as distasteful a task, and told me in unequivocal terms, that I can get through the new whirlpool, after the potato mess.

There is nothing “outstanding” in these chapters, except that they are the footings for how I conducted myself in the classrooms and gyms for two-plus decades, and for how I sought out various “work” opportunities that grew the skills I learned very early.

On reflection, it is not so much the details of the various skills that are memorable; it is rather the cumulative impact of a life in search of ever more opportunities to learn and to grow that grew in the garden of my adolescent and pre-pubescent summers. The people who have willingly taken the chance to engage me in tasks for which I had not been formally trained, and the need to adapt to new circumstances, and the even more challenging task of discerning whom to trust and from whom to withhold complete trust….these are the footprints on the beach that are still taking me across new beaches. 

And while I have been hung with the monikers of “impatient,” “too intense” and “too tiring to be with”…it is not clear that if the world is not comfortable with my “presence” then two things are clear: first, I am not about to change, and if the world is so uncomfortable, then I am more than willing to withdraw and move on.

I may be overly cautious in the first few steps onto a new “plank” of opportunity; however I am more than willing to try and to learn as much and as quickly as I can in order to feel comfortable in the new activity. If it has to do with accounting, anything mechanical, or hunting or fishing, however, count me out!

Reflections on Chief Justice Roberts' address to his son's private school

"Now, the commencement speakers will typically also wish you good luck and extend good wishes to you," (Chief Justice of the U.S Supreme Court John) Roberts said. "I will not do that, and I’ll tell you why. From time to time in the years to come, I hope you will be treated unfairly, so that you will come to know the value of justice. I hope that you will suffer betrayal because that will teach you the importance of loyalty." (Katie Reilly, Time, July 5, 2017)

Roberts was speaking to the New Hampshire Cardigan Mountain School for boys in grades 6-9 on June 3. Of course, the speech has garnered a considerable social media following, primarily for its unconventionality. It could not be because it is so outrageous? After all, this is the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States of America, the same court that opened the gates to unfettered campaign cash as an expression of “free speech” in its Citizens United decision.

Given the human tendency to fail, to betray, to disappoint, to let down and to violate and invade and to alienate and detach into insouciance, there is a little doubt that Roberts’ hope will not be so fulfilled in the lives of those boys as to wonder why he needed to say it. However, put in the context of our also human preference to deny, avoid, dismiss, run away from and generally to refuse to acknowledge our many shortcomings, there is a kernel of wisdom in the nugget.

Getting attention for an unconventional stance is something in which  the Chief Justice has some experience. He disappointed conservatives in not blowing up Obamacare when it was challenged in the Supreme Court.

In his A Time for Judas, Morley Callaghan, the Canadian writer, postulates that Judas, the disciple who betrayed Jesus for 30 pieces of silver, was necessary for the events of the crucifixion and resurrection to unfold as they were to. And for some inspiration for the betrayer in each of us, the novel has a measure of salve. And even all of us other betrayers have the hope and promise of forgiveness and redemption. There is a reasonable doubt, however, that young boys in grades six through nine can be expected to integrate and assimilate fully the weight of the Roberts’ hope without jaundicing its honourable intent.

Young boys aspire to be healthy men naturally. And, in order to don the heavy mantel of masculinity, especially in the contemporary culture, requires not only a strong sense of self to be able to face difficulty, disappointment and failure….and in the American culture, “brush yourself off and get back up to fight again”. It also requires a sound foundation of hope, optimism, attainable dreams, and even dreams that might exceed one’s grasp (else what’s a heaven for?)

Not only is human existence more than replete with failure, betrayal, disappointment and unfairness (so none of these boys will ever have to look for any of such experiences) the premise that justice depends on a population who has experienced first hand the pain of betrayal, unfairness, disappointment and failure. To presume that loyalty relies on betrayal, unfairness and disappointment is, in a word, nothing short of specious. And justice and loyalty do not comprise the touchstone of a mature, healthy and compassionate society, no matter how loud and how long the cry from the Chief Justice might be. Justice and loyalty are not ends in themselves; they are but means to more aspirational dreams of an existence that is not governed primarily, and certainly not exclusively by laws. And this is true not only in terms of one’s faith and religion but also in terms of one’s affiliation into the streets, classrooms, operating rooms, factories and trains and buses of our lives.

If man-made, man-written and man-defended laws represent the highest achievements of human kind, then we are a sorry and tragic lot, in a desperately sacrificed culture and political ethos. Laws are not the sole embodiment of justice and loyalty, yet they comprise a sizeable proportion of those words.

While it is true that most of the best in human artistic achievement, comedy, scientific discoveries and explorations of the many frontiers have floated on the shoulders of extreme discipline, hardship, some unfairness and disappointment, without these rocks or grains of sand fully compromising the “gears” of the people or the projects. And the experience of going through such exigencies develops the willingness and the skill to seek support, counsel, guidance and the perception that threats are indeed opportunities, just as the Chinese mantra has held for centuries.

However, to reduce an address to young boys to some old testament theatre of judgement, in order to develop the kind of character that values justice and loyalty is to make many faulty and disputable assumptions. First, there is the missing ingredient of human psychology that grows its best self through a combination of supportive and challenging narratives. It is to the extremes of both justice and loyalty that Roberts has to be referring. And rather than a kind of trump-like tweet that arrests the attention of these young men, Roberts might have asked for a show of hands of those who believe they had been betrayed. Following that evidence, he might then have asked, “What does the experience of being treated unfairly or betrayed make you want to do in your own life?”

Answers might have ranged from punch the guy in the nose, all the way to doing what they could to prevent such a situation from repeating. The “hard-assed,” “hard-nosed” shock value of the justice’s rhetoric may demonstrate his need for magnetizing his young adolescent audience. Yet, he has also likely created some quite different potential outcomes.

Young minds could turn the “hope” around in their dorm to justify their own act of betraying one of their classmates.  They could also grow a more hardened heart and perception of the way the world works, before they are mature enough to manage that reality in a healthy and hopeful and optimistic manner.

And then there is the question of the status of justice and loyalty on the human totem of ethical and moral values. Aspiring to justice and loyalty, hardly the crown of human values, reduces the expectations, not only of the individuals listening, but more importantly of the surrounding culture. It is not only the immediate male adolescent audience that risks sliding more easily and justifiably into rationalizing betrayal, long before they are mature enough to transform the experience into a golden moment of growth and insight. 

Also as a Christian who knows and believes that it is unrestrained and unconditional love, including forgiveness and restorative justice, that frees us all from the shackles of inferiority, self-loathing, insecurity and the many sources of the very unfairness and betrayal that we project onto others, often unconsciously, Roberts, as a practicing Roman Catholic, ought to know better. However, to have let or even to have encouraged the pursuit of justice, in its narrow or broadest definition. to trump the value of compassion, and agape and storge love, is a step too far. Of course, there will be those (and Roberts may include himself here) who finesse agape and storge love into justice and loyalty, merging the experiences into one.

And that too would be another step too far. The human capacity as a social animal far outstrips the boundaries, expectations and limitations of justice and loyalty. And for the Chief Justice to minimize the imaginations of these young boys though the power and the authority of his profession and his legal status, (they would have been overawed by his mere presence!) warrants push back not only from mere scribes but also from his colleagues and peers on the Court.

Language does really matter in the formative education of young children. And the sensibilities of speakers like Mr. Justice Roberts, whose son was in his audience, need to be enhanced, not only for these young minds and hearts, but also for the long-term future of his country.

The legal system, its case methodology and evidence-based tradition, including the obscurity and ambiguity of its unique forms of expression, cannot be permitted to take precedence over the poets, the prophets and the shamans who are not circumscribed by the functional parameters of justice and loyalty. And that pertains not only to the content of their arguments but also to the language of their decisions and public presentations.

Function, Dear Mr. Justice, is not the highest aspiration or ideal of human existence even he function of pursuing justice and loyalty. Performance, Dear Mr. Roberts, is not the summation or the highest peak of our spiritual lives and aspirations. Seeking justice and loyalty, while significant, relevant and worthy of the public discourse and debate, is not and never will be the expression of our highest imaginative reach. And while they separately and together may offer a means and a pathway to the silence of the mind and heart  that is at the core of the mystics’ discipline and the prophets’ mountain, they will forever provide a pathway of  and to the mediocre, the intellectual and the extrinsic arena of human existence.

There is also an “absolute” quality to the justice’s exhortation to the experience of unfairness and betrayal. Most adults take years if not decades to unpack their previous betrayals, especially those like an unfair strapping at school, or a dishonest and unprofessional letter of reference displaying an abuse of clinical diagnostics far above the qualifications of the writer. To be told sometime between ages 10 and 14 that more betrayal is to be hoped for, could have been a catalyst for an even deeper depression.

Of course, when we have reached maturity, and have grown in experience, reflection and shifted expectations, and can begin to unpack those traumatic memories, in order to find the “gold” hidden therein, we can then, and only then, fully appreciate the misplaced wisdom of the chief justice.

It is not that he lied or dissembled with those boys; he merely failed to take full cognizance of their age and receptivity of his homily.

Let’s hope those young boys were less than enamoured with the presence and the “wisdom” of their honoured guest speaker. With them, more than with their guest, lie the best hopes and the highest dreams of their generation.