Secret Place

When we lived in Brasil, Caroline and I had a little spot in the semi-circle that Lawton Madeiras Amazonias had carved out of the jungle - a corner of our very own.  It was at the far-upstream end of the cleared area, away from everything else. 

We called it the Secret Place.

The Secret Place was a small opening surrounded by trees.  It had a guava tree.  There were some banana trees in the middle of the clearing.  There was a strange citrus tree that produced inedible lemons the size of grapefruits (the leaves from that tree were used to make a tea that finally broke Caroline's fever during our first year there - our maid told mom about it, and in desperation, she tried it.).  There was a weird tree with fruit that looked like apples, and that could be used to make a pie that was almost completely unlike apple pie.  There was a cupuaḉu tree, a biribá tree (a soursop), and a guanabana tree. 

There was a ten-foot area that had frontage to the river, and there were almost always caymen - jacares - hanging out by the rivers edge.  These two- to three-foot alligator relatives were no threat, and they always ran away when we came near (meaning that we represented more of a threat.... but I never tasted one of those guys, so I am not sure whether they were even edible).

It was no secret.  It was barely a place.  But the Secret Place represented something magical to us.  It was a place where we could get away from the formalities of life - the school classes, the directed activities, the chores (OK, there weren't nearly as many chores as I seem to remember there being.) Mom knew if we were going there, and it was even subject to the occasional grasscutting by Jorge.

But it was a place where we could explore.  It was not safe in Olaria for an eight-year-old to wander in a lot of the places.  Much of the cleared area was wetland, and was unpleasant to wander through.  The uncleared area was off limits entirely.  So was the operational part of the lumberyard, while work was going on.  And the off-limits area extended to the airplane landing strip that had been cut into the jungle two years before (it had never been used, and there was almost no trace of where it had been clearcut).  But we were allowed to go unsupervised into the Secret Place, and check things out, look for fruit, and mostly just pretend we were explorers.

I now work in an office.  The work I do has consequences, and I am required to produce, to justify, to answer.  And I find myself needing a Secret Place, more than ever. Once in a great while, the lock on the stairwell to the roof will be inadvertantly left open.  I never miss a chance to go.  I love to try locked doors, whether at work or at church or.. well, anywhere.  See if there is a place that is not known.  Where I can escape for just a little bit.  To explore.  To pretend.  To get away.

And dream of sunning lizards on the edge of a sluggish Amazonian river, with electric blue butterflies swooping across the clearing.

 

Blarney

It was 1999 and I was walking across Tulane's campus between classes and saw a stone with a plaque on it in the entrance to a courtyard between buildings. Curiosity got the best of me, and I walked over.

"Tulane's Blarney Stone.  Removed and returned to its rightful location, April 1994."

Oh, man.  If there was ever a need for a little bit of sleuthing, it had to be this.  I asked first in one place, then in another, walking into nearby offices and asking people I had never met if they knew the story behind it.

Finally, after a number of blank stares and strange looks, someone suggested that I go ask the resident silverback - a professor emeritus whose name escapes me.  "He's bound to know," I was told.

As is the case with all emeritus professors, his office was not accessible through normal means.  The small door under the staircase opened up to a tiny office overstuffed with old papers and a teetering bookcase on the verge of collapse.

The white-haired man in the tweed jacket with patches on the elbows seemed startled.  "Can I help you?"

I asked my question to Dr. Edmund Meritus and he laughed.  And immediately dropped into storytelling mode.

It was the aftermath of WWII, and there were a huge number of older student at Tulane using the new GI bill to fund their education.  During this time, there were a number of unexplained things that appeared overnight, including a small boulder that simply appeared on campus one morning.

The engineering department adopted it as their totem, which, at the time, assured that the other departments would work to steal and/or deface the totem.  Each time it was stolen, the thieves would look to secure the stone in a way that would prevent future boulder raids.

Times were different then.

Eventually, the engineers decided to stop this nonsense, once and for all.  They stole the stone back from architecture, proceeded to drill a hole in the base (schist fractures easily, so this had to be done carefully), inserted a pipe that was cemented into place, and connected the other end of that pipe to the underground high-pressure steam pipe, located twenty feet underground.

It stayed there.

Generations passed. 

The geology department put together a rock garden, and without actually asking the engineering department for permission, went through the administrative route, and got approval to abscond with the stone.  A work order was placed, and the facilities guys got out the backhoe, exposed the base of the pedestal to which the stone had been cemented, and yanked the stone out of its base.

Remember the high-pressure steam pipe?

Yeah.  Engineering did, too.  Fortunately, it was accompanied by a monster BOOM, but nobody was hurt.  The backhoe driver changed underwear, the pipe got fixed, and geology got their piece of schist for their rock garden.

It was, after all, a different age, with different rule, and the department loyalty meant less. So once the Blarney Stone had been incorporated into Geology's rock garden, it was forgotten. 

Except for the emerite. He remembered. And passed the story off to his graduate students. Year after year.

Finally, a graduate student got the hint, and recruited several of his cohort to steal the rock.  After some minor planning, and perhaps a dram of courage or two, the four of them waited until midnight to make the heist.  They comprised the Committee for the Recovery of and Restoration of the Blarney Stone.

They backed the truck up with no lights, attached the ropes and pulleys (this is a BIG rock) and proceeded to begin the process of lifting the rock into the back of the truck bed.

At which point, predictably, Mr. Campus Security Officer strolled by, making a nightly rounds.

They froze, hoping that Mr. C.S. Officer would not see them.

No such luck.  There was no opportunity to flee; the truck was blocked in.  So the leader of the pack did the only thing he could do. 

He pulled out his clipboard, and showed the officer the Requisition Form, signed and in triplicate (it was an undergraduate paper he was supposed to be grading), granting permission to relocate the stone from Geology to Engineering.  Her further explained that the truck had only been approved to drive on the campus grounds to undertake the extraction after hours. 

By the end of the discussion, Mr. CS Officer was nodding, had a bogus phone number of a nonexistent professor, and was lending a hand putting the rock in the back of the truck.

The next morning, the chair of the Geology Department chair was apoplectic over the theft, and filed a campus police report, claiming that a schistose stone was stolen overnight from the rock garden in front of the geology building.  The value of the stone was listed as $0.00.

Oddly enough, the Campus police never solved the crime....


The story was over, and Professor E. Meritus watched me to gauge my reaction.  In the process, he threw down the gauntlet.... would I be the one to re-initiate the stealing of the Blarney Stone? Would I be willing to take on the challenge of starting an internecine war over the possession of a worthless rock?

Photo used without permission, stolen from http://tulane.edu/about/traditions-pre-sept-2014.cfm 

The stone is now cemented into place, complete with its brass plaque, in the U-shaped courtyard of one of the buildings on campus.  The Engineering department is now defunct.  Professor E. Meritus is now removed from his spot under the stairs. 

And I still want to steal the stone back.  Just to start the process all over again.  Anybody got a diamond rope saw I can borrow?

Homeless and panhandling

"She will most likely just spend it on booze."

I run the gauntlet several times a week.  The drive between Riverbend and I-10 on Carrolton provides an opportunity for me to clear out all of the change I hoard for paying for parking or the extra dollar in my wallet I keep for the mid-afternoon Snicker's craving.  If I make it through the gauntlet with all of the lights green, I get my candy bar AND I have some change for the meter.  Otherwise:

The Carrolton and Claiborn intersection:  There is a guy there who is on crutches.  He has a sign that says "ANY AMOUNT HELPS.  GOD BLESS!"

The next intersection is Earhart Blvd.  This is where the kids dart in and out of traffic, each with a bucket.  They are dressed in their uniforms (basketball, cheerleading, whatever) and are raising funds to support the team.  At least, I think that is what they are doing.  Most of the time, but not always, you can see an adult supervising the collection plate as it is being passed.

The next big intersection is in front of Costco, where there are entrances coming from five different directions, and each is manned by an interchangeable homeless person with an identical handwritten sign. 

A couple of intersections later, I go past the latinos hanging out at what used to be the Home Depot.  Waiting for someone who needs help with carpentry or painting or weeding or whatever.

Do I give money?  Is it a bad idea?  Do I make eye contact and try to communicate love without giving?  Do I pretend I can't see them (check that cell phone for a message....)?  Would Jesus pull out his whip and turn over some tables, or would he invite himself home with them for dinner? 

A class I am part of discussed this yesterday, and I am fascinated by how passionate we are about a world we don't understand.  The fact that we are so uncomfortable means that it is something we should try harder to understand.

I have a friend who gets fighting mad about the issue every time it is discussed.  "If I were out begging, in the 95+ degree heat, without water or shade, in clothes that haven't seen a washer in weeks or months, with teeth that haven't seen a toothbrush and a crappy cardboard sign I had to steal from a dumpster, and I managed to scrape together enough to spend the night in the shelter and buy some food and maybe some medicine (you know, for the migraine I have from being dehydrated in the heat every day; or maybe for that UTI I have from not being able to keep up proper hygiene), I'd take that leftover $2.50 and buy myself a damn tall boy, too. In fact, that's what I do nearly every day. Reward my hard work with a beer. You think it's easy to beg for a living? You think that's not hard ass work with no reward and endless agony and a sinking sense of permanent hopelessness?"

CS Lewis had a similar (but much more quotable) response when asked about why he was giving money to a beggar.  "He will just use the money to buy ale!" his friend exclaimed.

"Well, that was all I was going to do with the money, too."

Our reaction to panhandling seems to be tied with a sense of accountability - the money should be used only in a manner in which we believe that is constructive, lading to a sense of improvement.  Which is right, on one level. Charitable giving without accountability leads to abuse. 

But as a Christian, I am given pretty direct instructions on how to behave, and it doesn't come with the disclaimers that I would like.  He just said, "Give to him who asks of you, and do not turn away from him who wants to borrow from you."

Wait, what? 

Obviously, JC didn't seem to understand about abuse of charity, or modern panhandling.  Or drug use.  Or poverty.  Or the concept of a 'hand up, not a hand out'.  Or any of the clever pithy sayings we come up with.  For him, the approach was simple.  Ask, receive.  Be asked, give.

So I guess I just drop the judgement.  Drop the condescension.  Drop the paternalism of 'I know better than you how you should be helped.'  And just give with a cheerful heart. I have a job, I have resources, and I can afford to avoid the stingy. I can do this, and I am told that I should. 

1 John 3:17 But whoever has the world's goods, and sees his brother in need and closes his heart against him, how does the love of God abide in him?

 

It doesn't. 

 

 

 

Nigerian Prince

So I got the brief email, complete with misspellings.  The essence is that Ira Curry wants me to get in touch with her to claim my $600,000. 

 

I have wanted to do this for so long.

 

I responded, saying that I would be very pleased to accept the money, please make out a cashier's check to James Lawton, and send the check to my workplace.  Did I mention that it is a military installation?

 

Over the past week, I have carefully answered each of the emails, and finally requested that my contact at the courier services call me, that the $320 he wanted me to pay for courier services seemed really high, and I did not have a lot of money to pay him for something that was a 'pig in a poke'.  And yes, I used the expression.

 

When 'James Collins' called (happened during my lunch break), I told him I wanted someone here to verify that he was legit.  He said he would send me the website and a point of contact.

 

This was the response:

 

Hello,

Here is our site and one of our customer in Usa

http://elitecourier.com‍

(657) 549-0581

 

 

 

The Elite Courier website is not a real website.  And when I called him on it, and suggested that he might be trying to scam me for $320, he gave me an indignant email.

 

Complete with a 'LETTER OF GAUANTEE' from the high court of India:

 





Now I am no expert, but this reminds me of the 'Eric the Half a Bee' sketch:

"That's not a Cat License, that's a Dog License with the word Dog crossed out and the word Cat written in in crayon!"

 

Accompanying the image of the Letter of Gauantee was a picture of the parcel that they are sending, along with the following text:

Official greetings to you respected . I am in receipt of your last mail which is well noted. I will like to make it clear to you that due to your last message that this is %100 legit and also you need to make the payment before your parcel can be dispatch from our office here in India to your given destination and also there is no way we can be able to take money from you without carrying out our duty because we don't want to jeopardize the name of our company.

 

Why are you so skeptical about this we have sent you the letter of guarantee document that was given to us by the high court of India in regard to Ira Curry donation that is be given to you, because you have to know that this money is going to make a lot of changes in your life and the life of the people around you , so am going to attach a copy of the letter of guarantee to you and if you insist not to make the payment kindly inform us to enable us disclaim your parcel,all you have to do is just to revert back and fill in the copy of the disclaimers form that will be sent to you for us to cancel your parcel and that will allow you to give it to any charity of your choice and right now you have known our conditions if you wish to make the payment please do inform us.looking forward to hearing from you.

 

Regards/Thanks

James Collins

 

I don't know.  What do you think?  Legit?

 

Small world problem

Earlier this week, I was talking with a classmate (Institute for Environmental Communications) about our class, and we started discussing architecture. 

"My parents both have architectural backgrounds," she said.  "Mom is an architectural historian, and tells me all the time that the old houses were not meant to have AC.  They were built to emit heat, and take in cold air.  My dad's basement - he lives in South Carolina..."

"Where in South Carolina?"

"It is a little town on the coast named Beaufort..."

"Beautiful Beaufort, by the sea; twenty..."

"-six miles from Yemassee!  How do you KNOW that?"

The railroad tracks in Yemassee that would wake me up
as we were getting close to Nana's house.

Turns out that her dad is a couple of years older than my mom, and both come from the same town.  We shared stories of Lady's Island, of Land's End Lights, of bluffs and hurricane insurance, Pat Conroy, summers in Hunting Island...

We reduced the size of the world by common origins.

Would YOU expect to see someone you know here?

Two weeks ago, I was standing in line, waiting for the bus to take me back to Cuzco, Peru, from the four-day hike to Machu Picchu.  Suddenly, and I see a friend of mine from New Orleans (she left the Corps of Engineers to go live in Colorado about two years ago).  It was an insane moment, completely unexpected.  In fact, when I went over to speak to her, she didn't recognize me, because it was so unanticipated. My proferred hand just hung in space, unshook.

Finally, the man standing next to her nudged her, and she looked up.  "CROREY! What are you doing here?!"  She introduced me to her dad, we talked about the different hikes, and marveled that we would run into each other a half a world away.

The world, reduced, as a result of a common work environment.  And maybe a common bucket list item.

Friends who know friends, people related to friends who live abroad, co-workers and acquaintances, we face fewer degrees of separation at every turn.  Part of the reason my world keeps shrinking is because my circles keep expanding.  As people I did archaeological survey get hired at universities around the country (and the globe) and as friends from work move away and take jobs elsewhere, my connections all over the place become dendritic.

Two generations ago, the norm was to stay in the community where you grew up.  Moving was a pretty traumatic experience, as you were torn from your friends and out of your social network.  The Eisenhower Highway system shrunk the world considerably, and we have become more peripatetic than before.  The internet has made it possible to stay in touch with those who have moved away, and so those connections can continue to be fostered at a distance.

This is the 'small world problem', introduced by Milgram, following up on concepts by Gurevich and Marconi.  The essence of what they wrote is that there are remarkably few social connections needed to connect one person to any other.  (There were Monte Carlo simulations involved, and horrific displays of statistics.)  But the end result was that people are more interconnected than they realized.

Whether you tap into the small world problem by using the Kevin Bacon application through google (Type "bacon number" (no quotes) into Google's search bar, followed by the name of an actor or actress... oh, I don't know... say, Caroline Lawton), or whether you connect to an archaeology project in Namibia through a mutual friend, the reality is that the world has gotten smaller.

Here's the kicker.  The small community is known for its normalizing mechanisms.  You tend to behave, because Aunt Millie is always watching.  You tend to do the right thing, not because your inner compass is working harder in the small community, but because the people in your community know you.  Know your family.  And report back to your family. 

Now that our world is tiny, and Aunt Millie is watching 24/7 from every cell phone and crime camera, getting away from the small community is impossible.

Even in Machu Picchu.

Surcee - 'just because'

"surcee: (n) - hmmmm....."

There is no entry for 'surcee' in my desk copy of the M-W dictionary.  Random House also failed me.

I know the word is there.  I learned it growing up.  My wife has always referred to it as a 'happy' (the use of an adjective as a noun bugs me, but it communicates the sense pretty well).  A surcee, or a happy, is a gift given with no associated reason.  It is not a thank you gift, or a birthday gift. 

It is a 'just because'. 

It is different from the concept of lagniappe.  Lagniappe is a gift given in addition to the purchase.  It is intended to augment a business relationship, and push and economic transaction into more of a personal realm.  Surcees are different, because they are intended to celebrate the relationship; they are a gift given because the person was thinking about you.

I love the idea.  It might be because my birthday falls right after Christmas, and I couldn't expect a gift at any other time of the year.  It might be because such a gift giving appeals strongly to my spontaneous nature.

Or it might be because I see it as an expression of love.

See, if you give me a gift on my birthday, and I give you one on yours, we have a quid-pro-quo going on.  Even if I miss your birthday, there is a weird obligation relationship - it is almost as though the spirit of the gift desires to be returned to the originator.

The surcee has no such draw.  It is a gift of small value, often a spur-of-the-moment purchase, made with the recipient in mind.  The candy bar that you know they like.  The silly earrings you thought they would laugh at.  The box of the coveted chocolate-covered ginger Altoids. A cutting from your rosebush. All the gifts have little value - they are picayune - but communicate love.

Interestingly, I believe that the new Coca-Cola campaign is based on the premise of the surcee.  Share a coke with Steve.  Or Robert.  Or a Buddy.  The campaign encourages the unexpected gift.  Expressions of love.  The purchase of a coke for yourself.... and then one to share. 

An internet search for 'surcee' seems to locate its use in coastal South Carolina, and I suppose that makes sense.  I heard my mom use it, but I don't remember it from my dad.  Or from many others in the upstate, for that matter. 

But I am going to work to bring it to life where I live.  Because I need to give surcees.  And because I love to get them. 

How about it?  Can you think of someone who could use a small gift, for no reason? 

Go.  Give them a surcee.

Framing Your Arguments

Framing Your Arguments

The election is over.  At least, it is mostly over, minus some run-over elections that go into overtime.

Now that we are back to working together (~) on the issues that face our country, I am thinking more and more about the (in)ability we have to find middle ground.  Part of the interesting part of my job is starting discussions with agencies and officials and personalities who do not agree with my agency.  Opening the dialogue, getting us talking.  First step, find the common goals, then common ground, then work towards using common methods to achieve the goals in front of us.  Getting to the ‘us’ part of the discussion is very rewarding.

But sometimes finding that common ground is hard, and I am fascinated by the places where we fail to find common purpose. In debate, we usually look at framing our arguments in terms that give us the best chance of ‘winning’.  We use the opening gambit to constrain the limits of our opponents, to prepare pivot points, to gain position for the whole argument.

Finding common ground, however, means that we have to take into account the point of view of the recipient.  This point was driven home to me this past week when I was attending a lecture on communicating climate change.  As an analogy, the speaker used the example of gun control.

I am not interested in arguing gun control.  I enjoy shooting guns, and I grew up hunting – dove, deer, quail, ducks, marsh hens (and while I was in Brasil, a few other kinds of birds).  But as much as I love shooting, I understand the other side of the argument, and so I take no joy in the debate.

The gun argument, I have learned, is a little more subtle than I had realized. There are a priori assumptions that go into the positions that I had never recognized.  The premise presented by the speaker was that people view the world on two axes: egalitarian/hierarchical, and communitarian/individualistic. From the basis of this bifurcation, the worldview for each quadrant is very different. This worldview changes everything, including the framing of the argument.

The example used the following: the basis of the gun argument, from an individualistic hierarchical point of view, is:

1.      It is my responsibility to provide protection for myself, my family, and my things.

2.      The consitutionally-protected right to carry a gun helps me to provide that protection.

The argument from an egal-communitarian, however, is that society is better served if no one is allowed guns, and that protection for the community is based on the reliance of professional police to keep order.

No wonder there is no middle ground.  Because the pro-gun proponent recipient hears this:

1.      You think that you are responsible for protecting yourself, your family and your stuff.  You are not.

2.      Your responsibility is to dial 9-1-1 and await the coming of the police, whose job it is to protect you.

3.      You should put your faith in the government, and relinquish your guns, because the real danger is from you and your ilk.

Well, shoot. There is no middle ground here.  In order for the person who is anti-guns, winning the argument requires that the gun advocate change not only his stance, but his worldview (as well as his place in it).  There is no framing of an argument that will prepare a pivot point in the argument.  There is no way to box out or gain priority, when the thing you are attacking is the very sense of self that the opponent brings to the argument.  Giving any ground in the debate requires the debater to give away something that defines his very self.

Is it any wonder that the issue inspires such passion?  Is it any wonder that we can’t find a way to agree on even the basis of our arguments?

 It has also made me wonder about the background of other arguments that I hear, and whether the debate is so embedded in psyche that it requires a psychological break in order to accept the opposing side. 

The evolution versus creation debate comes to mind.  The message received by the creationist is:

-        The God you serve lied to you.

How do you argue that position? How do you set yourself up to even discuss the logical implications from that basis? 

I suspect that more of our deeply held political stances (immigration reform, healthcare, education) are contentious precisely because of an unexpected tie to our psyches.  

So how do we find common ground?  How do we start a conversation, rather than a debate?  Understanding the underlying assumptions is a good first step, but it is not enough.  I can understand the reliance on a competent police force, but I have lived in places where the police are not competent (and worse).  My bias is towards the guy (or girls – my sister is a far better shot than I am) protecting a family.  I am less likely to agree to common ground when the outcome means taking away my guns.

Can we start somewhere?  Or do we just watch legislators at an impasse, and just shake our heads?