Dr. Metablog

Me and Critters

An old friend reminds me that I once kept a cat as a pet. I had forgotten.

Here's the story. There was a cat and I was overfond of her. We left the cat with a friend when we went on a three-week vacation. She refused to eat and starved to death before we returned. I've never owned another animal since. Too much responsibility. 

Besides, I was a city boy who had lived a concrete and chain-link-fence childhood. No room for animals except maybe squirrels and pigeons. But because I've owned some rural land in Vermont since the 1960s, a surprising number of critters have passed through my life, though I've never owned a single one of them. Some have made an impression.

There was the pair of geese, Brady and Lady, who liked to peck at the backs of my knees and also liked to frighten the children. I once watched my older son (when he was a small boy) mount a chair and in revenge leak all over Brady, who was sunbathing. A primitive assertion of dominance. There were chickens, many of them. I enjoyed the eggs but I was repelled by chicken sexual mores. And then the ducks. I remember once saying "Those ducks (there was mother and a dozen or so ducklings) are so loud they could be right in the kitchen." And they were. The heifers, July and September; I was very fond of September. I loved the way she cleaned her nostrils with her long tongue. Jackson the runaway horse. A nameless piglet, whom we boarded one summer, and whom the kids tried to teach to play soccer with his nose. Despite being assiduously tutored, he never improved. Rabbits, many of them; pets, not food. The next-door-neighbor's horses, all noble Morgans, both chestnuts and bays, all pastured on our fields: Gillian, the lead mare, Liz a wayward rule-bender; Gabe, an ex-boy, very friendly; Harmony, beautiful as a foal, who liked to look in my pockets for apples. Also in the back pasture: sheep, Scottish Blackfaces, many of them but no more than twenty at a time, with none of whom I ever established a proper one-on-one relationship. Occasionally I helped to track down a stray, but that's the extent of it. Goats, my favorites, with personality to spare -- dwarf Nigerians mostly. Excellent pets, excellent playmates for the grandchildren. The glamorous mysterious rooster who came out of the woods, adopted us, and liked to  tom-peep into our bedroom. And then these last few years, the miniature donkeys, Big Joe and Little Joe, who winter in Connecticut and whom members of the family love for their beauty and the music of their braying. 

Senior Pentathlon, or Octogenarian Olympics

In the Senior Decathlon also known as the Octogenarian Olympics, there are five events requiring different levels of agility and skill.  Events are scored both on speed (as in track) and grace (as in gymnastics). 

1.  Getting out of bed and putting on socks.
2.  Entering and leaving an automobile.
3.  Rising from a kneeling position.
4.  Driving at night.
5.  Finding one's keys.

Vagaries of Memory; Fear

We watched the last ten minutes of an early 30s James Cagney crime film. I don't know its title because we came in very late and didn't catch the name. The concluding bit of the film was very good: a chase scene (rather tame by modern standards) and then unrepentant Cagney in the hoosegow, facing a long stretch. A gloomy prison cell. Cagney's girlfriend (a familiar face but not one I can identify) comes for a visit. She promises, as is the custom in such films, to wait patiently for him until he's released. An empty promise?  I don't know. But Cagney perks up and delivers the film's last line: "If I had the wings of an angel over these prison wall I would fly." Followed by a fade. The End.  

I immediately said to my companion, "I know what he's quoting;  it's "The Prisoner's Song" by Vernon Dalhart." I looked it up and I was correct: the lines are right there in stanza 5. 

Now if I had wings like an angel
Over these prison walls I would fly
And I'd fly to the arms of my poor darlin'
And there I'd be willin' to die.

"The Prisoner's Song" (1924) was a big hit;  in fact, according to Wik, the first "country" song to sell a million copies. I imagine that Cagney's 1930s audience would be expected to recognize the allusion. But ninety years have passed and the lyric is pretty much forgotten today. Except, of course, by me. An amazing recall. What a guy!

I have to tell you, I wallowed in self-congratulation. Preened. Demanded extravagant praise. For twenty-four hours I was the cock of the memory dunghill. But how quickly glory transits. 

The next afternoon, I watched, with my 6-year-old grandson Luke, the re-play of an NBA basketball game. Houston versus Toronto. I had seen the game a couple of days before, so I knew it was a good one. But (and here comes the memory horror) I couldn't remember who won. True that I remembered various plays and players, but true also that I thought the game went into overtime and Toronto won. Not so; James Harden, one of my least favorite players, "took over" the last couple of minutes and Houston won decisively. I had simply forgotten. Blanked.

I was deflated, memory-wise. And scared. One day you can remember Vernon Dalhart and the wings of the angel, and the next day you can't recall James Harden and who won and who lost.  

Here's the fear: it's obvious that the moments of memory-triumph are going to be fewer and fewer and the moments of memory-failure are going to increase. And continue to increase. Burgeon. Yikes. Double yikes.

This is Vernon Dalhart. 

But who the heck is this?

By the way, has anyone  seen my keys?  I left them right there on the desk. Didn't I?

Wisdom from Cynomys ludovicianus

For twenty-two of a day's twenty-four hours, I'm a contented kind of guy. Not self-satisfied by a long shot, but by and large reconciled to both my modest achievements and to my inadequacies. Yet between 2AM and 4AM, in the dark insomniac gloom, I'm a different person. I struggle with "what ifs," with "should have's," with alternative life choices of every ilk, however trivial. Although I am well aware that (in 80's pop psychology) one shouldn't "should" on oneself, I "should" relentlessly. I become a classic second-guesser, a merciless self-critic, a shrill Monday morning quarterback of my own life.

So because "dark is the dawn when day is nigh," with sleep or the coming of the sun, I revert to my normal, equable self.

A parable: yesterday we went for a walk on one of our town's many lovely open-space trails. This walk took us right through an extensive prairie dog village. It was a sunny day and the little plague-bearing rodents were outside -- cute, furry, squeaky, sitting or standing, each one asserting possession of his or her own burrow. 

I said to my companion, "If I were a prairie dog, I'd probably be saying, 'I should have chosen a different spot for my burrow. If I had just dug it a yard or two north, or fifty feet away next to that tree, or even over the hill, I would have led a much more productive life. Who knows, I might have had a better burrow. I might have eaten more forbs and fescue. I might have had more mates, I might have achieved more. My kits would have been more advantaged. I could have made better use of my brief time on earth. I could have been better prairie dog.'"

Don't laugh, please! This is serious stuff.

I don't need to underline the lesson of this tale. It's plenty obvious.

But will its wisdom and perspective console me tonight?