Rambling Josh

Happy June to you. I hope your summer gets well spent, and come September, you have a stack of fond memories to add to your ever-expanding album of life. As someone that generally relies on deadlines to motivate their work, I am writing this column several weeks before it is to be published, because I plan to be out-and-about adding memories to my summer stack.

Part of what makes a relationship work is knowing each other’s needs and wants. Knowing them, sometimes providing them, and other times, selflessly encouraging their pursuit.

On May 23rd I crossed the pond to spend a few weeks in Ireland. I’m fortunate enough to have had the opportunity to make this trip twice before, several years ago, once with my wife, and once with two of my good friends, Paul and Bubba. This time around I’m flying solo the first week, and my good friend Paul is joining me the second week.

Did I “need” to go to Ireland again? Of course not, but tickets were cheap. Did I “want” to go to Ireland again? Dumb question. I’m never opposed to dumb questions. As a teacher, I’ve learned that one never knows where a dumb question might lead. A dumb question is better than no question. No question goes nowhere. A dumb question just might find you in Ireland. So it goes.

Way back in January I was clicking around on Google Flights, most likely wasting time while putting off doing something that needed to be done, and a wee leprechaun presented me eyes with very low airfare. I shared the bargain basement gift that the wee one had presented me with my wife, and off-handedly said, “How would you feel about going to Ireland in May?”

My wife enjoyed our trip to Ireland over 10-years ago, but it’s not the island destination of her choice. Less inclement weather that allows for layers of sunscreen, rather than water-resistant clothing, is much more to her liking. I know this of her, and I look forward to exploring her tropical “want” with her.

So how did she feel about going to Ireland in May? She said, “no thanks”, but selflessly encouraged me to take the kindly leprechaun up on the offer. So, at the time of this column’s publication, I should be somewhere in Ireland. I should be rambling around the Dingle Peninsula by day, and hoisting a pint with my toes tapping to Irish music by night.

I should be chilled and soaked to the bone with the soft rains of spring and the Atlantic spray. I should be warm and dry gazing at the turf fire burning in a pubhouse fireplace. I should be thankful. I should be missing my wife. I should be pondering my first 50-years on earth, and hoping for another 50 of equal enjoyment. I should be singing…

“Oh the summertime is coming

And the trees are sweetly blooming

And the wild mountain thyme

Grows around the blooming heather

Will ye go, Lassie go?”

For Christmas this past year, my daughter got me a gift that, in the words of cousin Eddy on National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation, “keeps on giving the whole year through.” Monday of each week I get a question from Sierra through a company called Storyworth that I write a response to. At the end of the year I’ll receive a book containing my responses to Sierra’s 52-questions from the past year.

I’ve enjoyed the opportunity to explore the various questions, and as Mother’s Day has recently rolled by, I thought I’d share a portion of my response to the question, “What was your Mom like when you were a child?”

What was my Mom like when I was a child?  She was much like she is today, creative, sarcastic, funny, witty, and caring.  This is going to sound like a humble brag, but when I was a child, often times when we were around family and my Mom’s friends, I would hear, “You are just like your Mom.”  A young boy doesn’t want to hear that he is like his Mom, he wants to hear that he is like his Dad, and it took me several years to realize how much of a compliment it was to be compared to my Mom.

My parents bought the grocery store in Lignite when I was about 16-years old, but prior to that, Dad worked in the oil field and Mom stayed home with us kids and took in a lot of sewing.  She was always at her sewing machine.  People from all around would bring her wedding and prom dresses for alterations or anything else that needed fixing, adjusting, or a creative touch.  When I was going through my Rhinestone Cowboy phase, she sewed me a black satin western shirt with ivory snaps and a yolk with tassels, that I proudly wore for my 2nd grade picture day.

Whenever something needed to be done, Mom was, and still is, quick to volunteer her time and talents.  Cub Scout leader, little league coach, catechism teacher, school field trip chaperone…she always stepped forward when something we were involved in had a gap that needed to be filled.  Us kids could always count on her to come through with a last-minute Valentines box or costume for school, whenever we “forgot about it” until the night before we needed it.  Watching her creative process in action was always amazing to me.  Something from nothing would always appear, and that something was always something to be proud of.  I remember often getting the question from classmates and teachers, “Where did you get that?” and I’d respond with a smile, “My Mom made it.”    She made so much for so many and I never once heard her ask for or express any expectation of anything in return.  She was and still is one of the most selfless people I know.

The autonomy Mom granted us in every and all situations amazes me.  Never telling us what to think, or who we should be, but allowing us to think for ourselves and to set out to discover that self.  Allowing us to fail and to try again, and to fail again.  The only thing I feel that she purposely told us to be was humble, and even that was not done through words.  She never said, “Be humble.”  Rather, it was done through her pointing out when we were bragging or lacking in sportsmanship, and making us “feel” that that sort of behavior wasn’t right. 

For example, when I was in the 8th grade playing a JV football game in Sherwood, I tackled a kid on the other team, that was smaller than myself, harder than was probably necessary several times throughout the game.  Tackled him hard, and possibly strutted around a bit?  I also scored several touchdowns that game, but after the game as I came up to Mom smiling, quite proud of myself, she simply said, “Did it make you feel good to tackle that little kid like that?”  That is how she taught us humility.  A single question to make us ponder our behavior.  I remember thinking, “Well it did, until you put it that way.”

So, what was my Mom like when I was a child?  She was everything I needed her to be.  She taught me empathy by being empathetic.  She taught me humility by being humble.  She was and is a friend to many, a great conversationalist that can talk to anyone about anything, but at the same time seems to not be needy of such things.  She takes them as they come, when they come, and is fully present and engaged in that moment, but is also just as comfortable in quiet creative solitude.

This is what she was and is, and I am quite proud of her.

On the afternoon of April 30th, we got word that our brother-in-law Chad had died peacefully with my sister Amanda and his family by his side, in the house they had made a home. This day, marked the end of the highs and the lows, the pain and the suffering, and all the unknowns that accompanied two-years of cancer treatment. An end for one, a continuation of such for those left behind. Chad’s wife, his daughter, his family, his friends…into an unknown.

A brother-in-law is a brother with a few extra “dashes”, and like the brothers we are raised with, there are varying levels of commonalities and personal interests amongst us all. These commonalities and interests often serve as a catalyst for closeness. Like attracts like. So it goes.

Such is the case that the commonalities and interests between Chad and myself were few, but I knew he loved my sister. Perhaps that commonality is enough? What I knew of Chad is sometimes all one needs to know about their brother-in-law, or just a good man in general. I knew he was a fiercely devoted husband and father that worked hard to build a good life for his family.

So when I think of Chad, which I’ve done often over the past few months, I think of those commonalities and interests. I think of his encyclopedic knowledge of classic country music, that was faster than a Google search. I think of the way his entire body would shake as he smiled, and silently laughed. I think of these things, I think of a life that was well lived, but one we all wish would have had more time.

More time around the campfire. More time to have and to hold his wife, and his daughter. More time to live the life he loved.

To live and to love is to experience the loss of people we care for, it’s part of the deal, part of being human. Death is an unavoidable aspect of life, and whether that death arrived unexpectedly or fell within a medically prognosed time-frame, it takes life and leaves grief. It leaves a gap in the lives of those that go on living, a gap whose depth and breadth will fluctuate through time. Fluctuate, but never fade completely.

When Dawn and I got word of Chad’s passing, Dawn said, “Would you like to go for a walk?” So, together we walked, hand in hand, with heavy hearts and tears in our eyes. Tears for his passing, tears for my sister, for our niece, for our family and his.

It was a breezy day, and as the clouds moved hurriedly from west to east, occasionally the sun would find a gap and I’d feel its warmth on my face. A warmth, like my wife’s hand in mine, I was grateful to feel. Grateful I had this time, but regretful that Chad’s time to experience the sun on his face and his wife’s hand in his had passed.

As we navigate this gap in our life, as we wait for the sun to shine again, as we oscillate between grieving our loss and being grateful for the time we shared with the one we’ve lost, life goes on. The life Chad was a part of goes on, and, along with it, so will he.

Growing up in a small town you become quite accustomed to seeing flyers for benefits being held for individuals and families that are going through a rough patch in their lives due to an illness. As a kid, you generally don’t think much of it, because as a kid you most likely lack the experience with such things, and the capacity to fully understand the impact illness can have on a family.

You see the picture of the individual or family, in much better times on the flyer, but you don’t fully grasp the far-reaching impact the illness is having on the family. As we age, as we experience life, as we experience illness, we can relate, and we become empathetic to the plight of others.

Still, as an adult, the full gravity of the benefit flyer’s I’ve seen never fully weighed on me until I saw one with my sister, Amanda, and my brother-in-law, Chad, on it. A picture of them in much better times, healthy, strong, and smiling.

For those that aren’t aware, the Chad & Amanda Undhjem Benefit will be held on April 24th, from 11AM-3PM, at the Lignite Community Center. There will be a spaghetti dinner and silent auction to help raise funds to lighten the financial burden Chad and Amanda have incurred while Chad has been undergoing cancer treatment for the past two-years.

If you would like to donate a silent auction item, please drop it off at one of the following locations; Lignite Oil, City of Lignite Office, 109 Steakhouse, or Burke Divide.

For those that are unable to attend this event, an account has been set up for donations at Dacotah Bank in Bowbells (Dacotah Bank, PO Box 9, Bowbells ND 58721). Please make donations payable to the Chad Undhjem Benefit.

Growing up in a small town, you often don’t appreciate the fact that the people of that small town are extended family. Like any family, there are some you get along with better than others. Some who seem to relish in irritating you, and some that you, knowingly or unknowingly, manage to irritate as well. So it goes.

Like family, when hard times find there way to one of us, differences are set aside, and a bit of the burden is selflessly shouldered by the masses. Thank you to everyone that has helped to lighten the load a bit for my sister and my brother-in-law. Whether it be financially, through donations, or emotionally, through words of kindness, love, and support. It all helps, and it is all greatly appreciated.

Happy Spring. Hope you are enjoying, or at a minimum, adequately enduring, all that spring brings to your world. I had a fairly productive garage/pub spring cleaning, so the Gashole is now officially open for the 2022 season.

The “Gashole” is a pub that I built in our garage a few years back. It’s actually spelled with two s’s, but I’d hate to offend thine eyes of those fond of being offended. The second “s” is reserved for bar patrons, and the perpetually immature.

When someone says they have a bar in their garage, I would imagine it brings forth a variety of images in each of our individual mind’s eyes? Unless, of course, it’s an individual of the entirely unimaginative sort, then…well, I can’t imagine. Perhaps they were poked in the mind’s eye as a child, and never fully recovered?

I suppose an activated imagination, and a wide-open mind’s eye, is dependent upon the topic presented to the individual? We all have things that lull our imaginations into a stupor and leave our mind’s eye glazed and droopy. Math, politics, and board games are cognitive kryptonite to me, perhaps talk of garage bars is yours? Poor soul.

Actually, “talk” of garage bars isn’t all that thrilling, it’s the sharing of them with family, friends, and other categories of some humans, that put the “tick” into garage bar talk.

So far this season, traffic has been light in the Gashole. Just the regulars, myself and Mort. Mortimer J. Snerd, as the IRS knows him. Mort’s a dummy, but he’s a good listener, and possess a constant welcoming (albeit troubling) grin. He’d probably tell you the same about me, if the string that moved his lower jaw was still fully functionable.

So, he sits, slack-jawed and silent, smelling of cigar smoke and saw dust. So it goes.

Mort and I go way back, about 40-years I suppose. Our paths first crossed Christmas of 1982, when my parents entertained my dreams of becoming a ventriloquist. A dream that thanks to a rerun of episode 98 “The Dummy” of the television series The Twilight Zone, soon became a nightmare.

From that point on, Mort and my relationship was a bit tense and tempestuous. I’m pert near 50-years old, but I still have an occasional nightmare involving my pal Mort not being so pal like. The nightmares do seem to have subsided since I hired him on as the night watchman at the Gashole. We all need a purpose in life.

Mort’s factory issued rubber shoes were lost years ago, so I outfitted him with a pair of cowboy boots I wore when I was a wee toddler. He looks snazzy, and I figured that the “clip and clop” of cowboy boots would make it harder for him to sneak up on me. A win-win.

Swing by the Gashole sometime. Mort has put together quite a selection of Spring Specials. Snacks to please the palate and libation to loosen the lips.

The other day I was pondering all the stupid stuff I’ve done. Well, maybe not all, but some, I didn’t have all day. The things that could have possibly nudged my life in an entirely different direction if they had turned a bit this way or that. We all have moments like that, moments we made that could’ve just as easily broke us.

As Ernest Hemingway once wrote, “The world breaks everyone and afterward many are strong at the broken places.” Ernie knew a thing or two about getting broken. Tough customer. Perhaps a bit unhinged on occasion, but some occasions call for such.

It seemed that quite a large portion of the stuff that I piled into the “stupid” heap of the past, involved the various motorcycles we had growing up, and the one 3-wheeler. One 3-wheeler is one too many. Anyone that spent any time on a 3-wheeler as a kid has stories, and scars to verify those stories.

The scar usually starts at the back of the calf. The calf above the foot that you were accustomed to putting on the ground when you turned and slid on your motorcycle. The two-wheeled motorcycle that lacked that hungry third-wheel that hovered behind your foot, patiently waiting to chew up the pant leg on your Toughskins jeans and leave you in a whimpering heap in its wake.

Speaking of whimpering, occasionally Dad would get a hankering for soft-serve, and we’d load up and head to Ethels Drive-In (“Winzy’s” to you youngsters). The siren song of soft-serve is strong, strong enough to cloud Dads ability to recollect what taking us anywhere generally resulted in.

On one such trip, I remember my brother Jarvis falling asleep in the seat next to me on the drive over. When we arrived at Ethel’s he awoke, but couldn’t straighten his neck. To a child a kink in the neck can be a bit alarming, and he began to cry.

His sobbing, his head cocked to one side, the terrified look in his eye’s…hilarious. Mom shot me a look in an attempt to stifle the joy I was deriving from the situation, but I’m sure she was just as entertained. As a mother you are required to exercise some degree of decorum in such a situation. So it goes.

Another time, we stopped after a day of swimming in the Bowbells pool, or shivering to such an extent that it resembled swimming. Nothing felt better than lying flat on the hot cement surrounding that pool of ice water. The pool deck was always littered with purple lipped, red-eyed kids, convulsing and quivering uncontrollably, and occasionally jolting to the bite of the ever-present horseflies.

Even if your core temperature was perilously low, a post-swim stop at Ethel’s or Winzy’s was mandatory. I can still remember how it felt sitting in the back of the van, wrapped in your pool towel, being chilled to the core, but feeling the warm summer wind blowing across you through the open window.

There are only a few physical sensations from my childhood that I can still “feel”. That post-swim summer breeze, and my Grandma Rose’s hugs. She radiated pure love that still finds its way around me.

Sometimes, if the chill got to be too much, one might peel off their clammy cold swim trunks and attempt to wrestle into something dry. We all know it’s easier to slip into dry clothes when you are dry.

I was feeling the breeze, and allowing myself to air-dry in the back of our Ford Econoline, while we drove back to Lignite. Dad’s soft-serve glow was waning, Mom was bobbing in and out of consciousness, Jarvis was clutching his forehead, whining about yet another brain-freeze, and as a car approached to pass us, I had an idea.

Maybe not so much an idea, as an idea takes thought. Standing up in the back of the van, I pressed my pasty 8-year old air-drying cheeks against the big glass side window, and gave the passers by a bit of a vanilla shake. As I proudly smudged the glass, I glanced up and saw Dad looking at me in the rear-view mirror. “I don’t want to ever see you do that again” quickly cut a path through the breeze I had been enjoying.

Like the setting sun, my buns sank to the bristly indoor-outdoor carpet, and as I wiggled into my dry clothes, I heard Mom sleepily say, “Do what?”

Get some more sleep Mom, it’s going to be a long ride.

As we arrive at a point on the calendar where there could possibly be more winter behind us than in front, I was thinking of family vacations we took when I was a kid. I’m sure I’ve written about this before, but it is what is on my mind, so it is what I must write about.

When I was about 11-years old we took a family trip to the Black Hills of South Dakota in our 1978 Ford Econoline van. Mom made curtains for the van and Dad took out one of the back seats and put a mattress in its place. They turned it into a camper…sort of.

One of the first stops we made when we got to the Black Hills was Pactola Lake, where we picnicked and swam. I swam. My brother Jarvis, whose hands rarely strayed from their firm grasp of the edge of the Bowbells pool, was content to stay on dry land. Most likely because he knew that as his older brother I was required by law to splash, dunk, and generally torment him if he were to set foot into the lake.

I remember this stop well because I “misplaced” the van keys. I got the keys from Dad so I could go up to the van and change into my polyester swim trunks. I had been swimming for a few minutes when Dad asked me where the keys were? Good question?

The general response for an 11-year old when asked such a question is a vacant, yet wide-eyed expression, accompanied by a shrug of their boney shoulders. This wasn’t the response my Dad was hoping for. Understandably irritated, he began cursing his favorite curses, and stomping around the area in search of the keys…while I swam. I was on vacation.

Mom, looked out at me on vacation, and said, “You could help.” Dad also looked out at me, but he didn’t say anything. He didn’t need to. His face said, “If my cowboy boots and jeans weren’t so tight and hard to get off, I’d come out there and we’d have more space in the van for the remainder of the trip.”

So, I put my vacation on hold, and began slogging towards the beach with one hand holding onto my polyester swim trunks, which now outweighed me. When I got out of the water, I went to put my shoes on and found the keys, right where I had put them. That seems to be where things always are. I triumphantly said, “Here they are!”

Dad, relieved, but not in a congratulatory mood, responded along the lines of, “You couldn’t remember putting them in your shoe? Why did you put them in your shoe?”…so forth and so on (feel free to liberally sprinkle those sentences with your favorite curse words for a more realistic portrayal).

I don’t really think he was asking me questions as much as he was trying to make sense of the senselessness of his eldest son. Who, vacantly, yet wide-eyed, gazed at him, shrugged his boney shoulders, and resumed his vacation.

We never locked the doors to anything in Lignite, so I wasn’t used to the whole key business. I wasn’t allowed to handle the keys for the remainder of the trip, or any trip to come…ever. So it goes.

From Pactola we headed for Mt. Rushmore. It was while hiking around the Mt. Rushmore area that I proclaimed to my parents, “I’m going to live here someday.” I guess when you know, you know? I’m sure Dad would have gladly made that prophecy a reality then and there.

Many years later, while talking about that trip, Mom said that they ran out of money while in the Black Hills and had to call Grandpa Ardell to have him wire them some cash for gas money for the trip home. Adult problems that us kids were oblivious to at the time.

We went on a few family vacations when I was a kid, and I give my Dad a lot of credit for taking us knuckleheads anywhere. We were a pain, but he did it. He did it with some cursing, some gritted teeth, some PBR, but mostly, he probably did it for Mom.

He’d do anything for her, and she was always a source of calm and comedy relief when the wheels on our bus were about to stop going round-and-round.

As you are most likely aware, the Winter Olympics are in full swing. Young folks from all over the world have gathered in China to flip, spin, twirl, and glide on sticks and steel. To have every move of their gravity defying acts critically picked apart by judges, commentators, and the average bump on a couch.

We quickly become unimpressed with moves that were once thought miraculously unattainable. Triple flip? 80mph on glare ice? Ho-hum, that’s so last Olympics. Show me something that has a better than average chance of snapping you off at the knees and rendering you unconscious or I’m switching the channel back to CSI Burke County.

I suppose to always be striving for, expecting, or wanting more is how many of us human types are programed. There has always been those that looked out across the ocean and thought, “I wonder what’s out there?” and went and found out. Of course, there is also those that looked out across the ocean, thought the same thing, shrugged, refilled their coconut shell and slid back into the nearest hammock.

And being human, while enjoying the gentle sway of the hammock, most likely gazed out at the ocean and criticized the rowing technique of the ones disappearing over the horizon towards the unknown.

Several times while watching the Olympics the past few days, I’ve heard the commentators say, “If they land this move it will be the first time someone has done so in Olympic history.” This statement almost guarantees that whatever move that is, will be commonplace in the next Olympic games.

This isn’t a bad thing. There has to be a first, there has to be someone to step forward and flip the seemingly impossible into the realm of the possible. Once something moves into the realm of the possible there is no going back. It’s a one-way street that inevitably leads toward the launching pad to even more possibilities. Possibilities once thought impossible, or most likely, never even thought of.

I never thought I’d willingly eat brussel sprouts, but it turns out that a 6-parts bacon to 1-part brussel sprout ratio made that a possibility.

The Olympic games definitely lives up to their motto; Citius, Altius, Fortius. If your Latin is a little rusty, these words mean; Faster, Higher, Stronger. On the International Olympic Committee webpage, it states that this motto, first adopted in 1894, was amended in 2021. The new motto is “Citius, Altius, Fortius – Communiter” or “Faster, Higher, Stronger – Together”

Not that they needed, or sought, my approval, but I like the change. When one of us strives to be faster, to go higher, to be stronger, others are sure to follow. Some will always be content to judge and commentate. To disappointedly say, “That was a beautiful routine. BUT, their right nostril was a bit flared on the landing. That’ll be a 5-point deduction.” So it goes.

I feel that in many of the events for the Winter Olympics it’s easy to overlook or forget that the competitors are human, very young humans. Buried head to toe in clothing and equipment, we don’t get to see much of the facial expressions or body language that we rely on to connect us with others.

This is probably what makes the stories and such that are shared about the athletes so impactful. Us humans like human stories. The majority of us can’t do any of the things they are doing, but we can strive to do “our thing” better. Crocheting, cooking, walking, talking, working, writing, mowing, fishing, parenting, sliding across the hood of your car Duke Boy’s style…whatever your thing may be.

Citius, Altius, Fortius – Communiter.

At the beginning of each semester, during the first day of each of my classes, a day that generally falls under the topic of “Course Introduction” in the syllabus, I ask my students “To Be” a few things when they come to class. To be present…to be curious…to be humble…and to be kind.

As we all know, first impressions are important. If our first impression of something or someone is not a good one, it takes a lot to shift that impression in a positive direction. The same is true for the first day of class. We have 16-weeks together, and I want students to leave that first day of class looking forward to coming to the next day and all the weeks to follow.

Of course, when you’re dealing with 30 young adults, and each of those 30 young adults rolls into class each day harboring the various ups and downs of young adult life, what you want is rarely what you get. As the saying goes, “You get what you get, and you don’t throw a fit.”

Early on in my career I used to throw a fit, or at least get a bit miffed, when what I wanted from the students wasn’t what I got. I’d take it personal when a student skipped class, or was in class in body, but obviously elsewhere in mind. Somewhere along the way I got over myself. So it goes.

I got over feeling like I had to be the “sage on the stage” and became perfectly content with being the “guide on the side”. Or as educator and author Stephen Brookfield put it, “a helper of learning”. Not telling students a bunch of stuff I think they should know, but helping them to maybe see how some of that stuff might be useful for them to know. To maybe understand how it might be useful in their life or the lives of those they care about. Maybe.

This involves much more asking than telling. Asking “why” something might be important to them, asking “what” is important to them. A much more interesting process than enduring a 16-week sentence of listening to some middle-aged knucklehead tell you the “why” and “what”.

So, I ask my students to be present, to be curious, to be humble, and to be kind. And I ask them what being present, curious, humble, and kind means to them, what it might look like in the context of the course and life in general? I think being present is the tough one, the one that takes the most conscious effort for them.

The difference between empathy and sympathy is that empathy, is feeling with someone, whereas, sympathy is feeling for them. I feel both sympathy and empathy for my students, and young people in general, in regards to being present, because they have never known an “unconnected” life, a life that only took place in “real time” with those that happened to be sharing that time and place. Alan Lightman referred to this as a “disembodied existence” in his book “The Accidental Universe”.

Back in the pre-tech, pre-internet, pre-smartphone world, you had no choice but to be “embodied” in your existence, had no choice but to be with only those that you shared “there” with. Moments were reserved for only those at the moment. As the saying goes, “You had to be there.” Whether you liked it or not.

Being elsewhere in 1990, required more effort than it has since our lives became so “tech-full”. You had to physically remove yourself from a moment, perhaps implicitly or explicitly stating that, “You people and this moment are boring me, I’m leaving in search of those I find interesting.” Pulling out your phone for a scroll makes the same statement.

Sharing moments with those that aren’t at the moment is fine, but it is not the same, it is not the moment, and to check-out from the moment to share the moment with those not in the moment takes away from that moment. Just a moment?

We humans don’t have much but moments. Moments between birth and death. Be in those moments, sunny moments, cloudy moments, and all the day-to-day moments languishing somewhere in the middle. Be human with other humans in the moment.

Be present. Disclaimer: Results may vary. Choose your humans wisely.

Bacon, side pork, pork chops, ham, pork rinds, crayons, suede shoes…now a heart. A few days ago, a living beating heart was taken from a pig and transplanted into a human. A human, who, as of this writing, is alive and recovering with the rhythmic lub-dub of a genetically modified pig heart successfully transporting life blood to all the places life blood needs to go to sustain life.

Do pigs know no bounds in their giving to humanity? If they are aware of the basic rules of reciprocity, which I believe they most certainly are, they are going to be wanting something in return for this embarrassment of riches they have so seemingly selflessly bestowed upon us.

Perhaps as a gesture of appreciation and reverence to all things swine, many, many years ago we humans did offer an olive branch, and stopped using pig bladders as a football. That about evens the score.

Pigs have been biding their time, giving, giving, giving, but there is a big ask on the horizon. They have slowly infiltrated our senses. From a very young age the imperceptible wafting of eau de pig wafts around us as we wrap our little monkey grip around a Crayola and scribble the scribbles of youth.

Youth slowly being indoctrinated into associating the smell of pig with praise, gold stars, and the proud display of their creation upon the refrigerator of all places. Some kids cut straight to the chase and just eat the crayons. So it goes.

Like many of you, I’ve read George Orwell’s book Animal Farm. Just in case you’ve forgotten, it doesn’t turn out well for the humans. As the pigs first commandment expressed, “Four legs good, two legs bad.” No mention of pirates of the peg-leg sort. What’s a commandment without a few loopholes?

The self-appointed leader, Napoleon, seemed like a well-meaning swine. Looking after the best interest of his fellow animals, and he was great with kids, “As soon as they were weaned, Napoleon took them away from their mothers, saying that he would make himself responsible for their education.” What a swell swine.

Leaders are often necessary and sometimes useful, but it seems to me one should be cautious of those that actively seek to be leaders. Those that are not shy to express their oh so humble conviction that they have been “called” to serve. Who called them? Other pigs? Others that were also called to serve?

A pig in a suit is still a pig. I like coloring and eating bacon as much as the next person, but keep an eye on those seemingly selfless swine.

Would I sign up for a pig heart transplant if it was the difference between possible life and certain death? Certainly. I would like to get to know the owner of my future heart. Let Wilbur know what I intend to do with the extra years he would be bestowing upon me. I may even express the possibility of cutting back a bit on my bacon consumption. The possibility…

“All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others.”