J Daniel Hess’ Blog

Apologies to Dr. Dwight. Please see the corrected brand in his note.

——–

Because I saw the play “The Foreigner,” I know what to say when the waiter asks, “How do you like your eggs?”

Over easy.

There’s no stress, no tension. The reply tumbles out even without my brain working or my emotion raked like a hay field.

But when I go to the Beauty Barber Salon (“Cosmetology. No pets allowed.”) I enter a terror zone. This morning I began in a very bad mood. I had arrived several minutes before 9 to a locked door. Inside there were three bar-, no cosmetologists, who seemed occupied with talking. Four of us were outside, huddled against the cold, talking about the weather that is supposed to warm up next week. Finally, plenty after 9, the lights came on and the door unlocked.

I was first in line, first on the chair. “How do you want it?”

In all of my education, I never received instruction on what to say in this moment. No models were presented, excepting for the huge photos of beautiful people posted on the walls of the cosmetology salons. I’m not beautiful.

Is there in some cosmetology textbook a taxonomy of haircuts, each major style named, with a second level of definition with sub names and possibly a third level with sub- sub names? I’d like to see it, so I’d know the word to say. Something like “full swath.”

I am aware that there is a round back or square back, but I’ve never looked at myself in the back, so I don’t know which is better on me.

This morning I was in a sweat so I just said, “Make it shorter, but I don’t want anyone to notice I got a haircut.”  I’m queasy about talking about my haircuts.

She asked me if I wanted a shampoo and I said no, but she wet down my head anyway and went to work. I dutifully gave her a $2.00 tip.

What did I hear when I got home? “Oh, I see that you got a haircut!”

The comment disturbed me, of course, and so I’m thinking that the next time I go to the salon, I’m just going to say “Over easy.”

You readers occasionally encounter Dr. Dwight’s terse responses to my blog. He doesnt waste words …

or wood. His hobby is woodworking. Very recently I bought one of his chess boards — cherry and maple with a cherry base, measuring about 20 x 20. It’s a beaut.

Just in case you are shopping for a Christmas gift –

Wood Surgery
by
Dr. D. Dwight Kauffman, MD
Pandora, Ohio 45877

Since Lucy was climbing the ravine with me when I fell, I want to show her an X-ray of my foot. I was able to take a picture of the X-ray today at the two-weeks check-up.  Can you detect the breaks?

The doctor said my foot is healing well. I must wear the boot for four more weeks.

This was a good day to look up.

How right it would be if with one accord we extended Thanksgiving Day to include the three months of autumn. That accord quite unlikely, I shall make it a private decision and welcome you to join me.

Cockscomb

The gentle rains of the past week — more than four inches — have erased the drought. The tomatoes needs sweaters in this cool weather but daily the carrots grow sweeter. After about three more loads of compost, we’ll begin to stack leaves for next year.  I don’t want to disturb the fish, yet I know the pig trough will freeze early, given the iron structure. The Gala apples from Mooresville will be the treat of the week.       Thanksgiving.

FACT: On the banks of the Athabasca River in Alberta, Canada is a huge facility that is extracting oil from tar sands. Alberta’s tar sands are the second largest oil reserve in the world.  A proposed Keystone XL pipeline would carry oil from northern Alberta to Texas.

OPINION: Roy Norton, consul general of Canada, based in Detroit, wrote in today’s Indianapolis Star, “Canada is proud of its diversified energy relations with Indiana and the United States and we look forward to debate and dialogue on the future of our energy partnership.”

MY RESPONSE:  Oh Mr. Norton and Oh Canada, be most cautious. “Carry your candle with care.”

I am not optimistic about Canada’s welcoming American exploitation of its natural resources. History is my teacher. Recall, if you will, the stories of Central American bananas, African minerals, Argentine cattle,  Ethiopian coffee, Pacific Island pineapples, Dominican sugar and Middle East oil. In all of these cases, a wealthy enterprise from abroad, sometimes multinational, arrived with money and expertise to develop a resource supposedly for the wellbeing of the host nation. Supposedly. The legacies of external and capitalistic exploitation make for very sad reading.

What could go wrong with a huge American investment in the tar sands and in the pipeline?

—1. The influx of money into Canada will not benefit all Canadian people fairly, if history is the guide. Further the new riches to Alberta will upset the balance among provinces.

—2. The pipeline could be environmentally damaging, inasmuch as it traverses the Ogallala Aquifer. We remember all of the promises about the safety of previous pipelines and nuclear plants.

— 3. The pipeline invades territories reserved for Canada’s native peoples

— 4. Again if history is a guide, the external financial interests eventually intrude into domestic politics, even to the extent of invasions to protect the assets of the foreign companies.

— 5. While it is said that the oil will reduce American dependence upon Mideast oil, you can be sure that the oil companies will sell the oil to the highest bidders, whether it be America or another country.

— 6. The promise of new oil fields serves to diminish exploration of alternate energy sources.

I invite my Canadian cousins to respond to my point of view.

Inasmuch as my mantra these days is “paying attention,” I am arrested by examplars who have mastered this discipline. Today, for example, I came across a statement by the German writer Herman Hesse, in commenting on his book Peter Camenzind:

“My intention,as is now known, was to familiarize modern man with the overflowing and silent life of nature. I wanted to teach him to listen to the earth’s heartbeat, to participate in the life of nature, and not to overlook in the press of his own little destiny that we are not gods, not creatures of our own making, but children, parts of the earth and of the cosmic whole. I wanted to remind people that, like the songs of the poet and our night-time dreams, rivers, seas, drifting clouds, and storms are symbols and bearers of our yearnings, yearnings that embrace the earth and the heavens and whose object is the undiluted certainty of citizenship and the immortality of all  living things . . .

“But I also wanted to teach people to find the springs of joy and the waters of life through affectionate familiarity with nature: I wanted to preach the art of observation, walking, and enjoying, of finding pleasure in what is at hand. In compelling and forceful language I wanted to make you open your ears to what the mountains and the green islands have to say; I wanted to force you to see what an immensely varied and busy life there is there, daily blooming and bubbling over, outside your homes and towns. I wanted to make you ashamed of knowing more about wars, fashion, gossip, literature, and the arts than you do about the spring who displays her vigorous life outside your towns, or about the river that flows beneath your bridges, or the woods and the meadows that your railways pass through. I wanted to tell you what a golden chain of unforgettable pleasures I, a solitary person ill at ease in this world, had found, and I desired that you who are perhaps happier people than me, should discover even greater joys.”

My attention focuses on several things.

—–1. Hesse lived with depression and sadness, yet he hoped to enhance the pleasure of people who were happier than he was.

—–2. He chose not to be a speculator of heaven and the hereafter, but to notice the details of this place he now inhabited — “the art of finding pleasure in what is at hand.”

—–3. He saw earth’s beauties as “bearers of our yearnings.”

Let’s pay attention today.

I promise on this first day of autumn to make a whole hearted attempt in this season to

* 1. reduce the grass part of our lawn by ten square feet, somewhere or other.

* 2. put other people to work in the Shalom church retreat in November.

* 3. repaint the walls of the basement as soon as they dry out from summer dampness.

* 4. have coffee with a new friend.

* 5. submit a poem to a magazine, I know not which magazine.

* 6. cheer for the National League team in the World Series.

* 7. take a hike in Shades State Park.

* 8. buy a new brown belt.

* 9. sell or donate the 98 Civic.

*10. get out of this toe boot.

Once upon a very good time, Advancement Associates held its annual meeting in Estes Park, Colorado. As I remember the event, we spent about half the time in diligent work and half the time in play. One afternoon we headed into nearby Rocky Mountain National Park where Jerry Kennell found a hiking path tailored to our variety of physiques.

What I remember about that hike are two things: (1) how beautiful was Jerry Kennell’s mother who remained at a picnic table close to the parking lot and (2) how correspondingly beautiful was an old tree off the side of the path. I took a picture of Mrs. Kennell and one of the tree. I gave the photo of Mrs. Kennell to Jerry.

Several months ago an art coordinator for a new Mennonite Church administrative building in Elkhart, Indiana invited proposals for wall art. I sent a copy of the tree to them. To my surprise and delight they accepted it.

This week I found a shop that could make a 24 by 36 inch print. Several doors away I came upon a nice selection of black frames. On Friday friends traveling to northern Indiana will take the photo with them.

It was a show too humble to be critically reviewed, yet too vivid to be forgotten.

I was sitting in a metal chair on the front porch, The Economist propped on the right leg which was thrown over the left one, a fresh cup of coffee beside me. I had gone to the porch because I thought I heard the rain.

The forecasters had said the day would be wet, a prediction hard to believe after two very hot summer months in which 1.8 inches of rain fell. I’ve always liked rainy days. I told that to Jim recently who said he hated rainy days. I told him that in my childhood on the farm we didn’t have to go to the fields to hoe thistles in the rain, but together — my dad and brother and I — cleaned sheds or a garage or the milk house. This summer drought made me think of sheds in need of cleaning.

So, upon hearing rain, I grabbed the magazine and a cup of coffee for my view of the rain. I was ready for a cats-and-dogs wetting down of the soul.

Then I looked across Bolton Ave toward Patty’s tulip poplar. Indeed, that tree, recently sagging in the drought, had now become a scrim. Against that scrim was a stage and on the stage a gentle rain, modest, understated yet exquisitely articulate. From my front-row seat I watched this play of just one scene and just one act. There was no emoting, no stage hogging, no shouts or alarms. Just rain, unpretentious rain, almost bashful rain, falling upon a parched earth.

My applause was long yet silent.