The first thought

 Do you remember your first thought?

I have a memory that has stuck with me since I had it even though I don't know exactly when it occurred.  

I remember looking around a room.  It was in a kitchen large enough to have a small table where my Mom, my grandmother, and another woman sat drinking coffee.  The kitchen was dark and it smelled old and as this was fifty years ago, the decor looked like something even then you'd only see on an old TV show.

As the women talked and talked, I looked around.  The house was on a hill and I looked through the window to see sunlight.  In the sunlight I remember seeing hills and trees and flowers.  As I watched, I remember feeling like I'd woken up from a dream but as it had never woken up before, I remember being excited.  One second I didn't know I existed and the next second I did.

I could vaguely understand what the women were saying.  Our family was about to move.  My Mom was visiting people in the neighborhood and saying goodbye.  I tried to respond but they couldn't understand me.  It made me angry and I began to cry.

My crying caused my Mom to pick me up and that's when the memory ends.  After that all is lost in the millions of other memories I've forgotten over the years.

But this one stuck because it was so vivid.  When I got older I tried to explain it to my Mom.  I described the kitchen in as perfect a detail as i could remember hoping to figure out the identity of the other person.  The refrigerator and stove were an ugly eggshell blue you now see on antiques from the 1950s but honestly that could have been imperfect memory gotten from my TV watching.  The feeling of waking up was definitely real.

I've relayed this memory to my Mom a couple of times but she smiled when I told her.  I was only two-years-old when we moved.  She said I was too young to remember.  I swear it was different.  I remember seeing green grass and there was none where we moved.

That feeling stayed with me.  I remembered it after we moved and I remember it now.

I think of that day a lot.  It reminds me of that moment when things went from all confusion to an understanding of being alive.  To me, that's the point when humanity begins.  Everything up to that point, humans are no different than cows or chicken or dogs.  Everything is instinct.  After that, we are alone in the ability to be self-aware (as far as we know - perhaps my dog is as frustrated as I was back then with my inability to speak and be understood).

When people talk about souls or the spark of life, I think about that moment.  I went from a passive observer to active participant.  The passive world isn't far away, we return to the every night when we close our eyes and go to sleep.

It also makes me wonder about death.  At some point we all close our eyes and that spark goes out.  Christians believe your soul leaves your body and ascends to a different plane of existence.  That's a nice thought but I find it hard to believe.

Instead, I think we close our eyes and return to sleep.

I'll grant you, the thought of eternal slumber isn't as nice as a heaven but I don't find it scary.  We weren't scared when woke and we shouldn't be when we return to slumber.  It's all just part of the unending cycle of the universe.  It reminds me of a song from the Byrds, here's the first verse:

To everything (turn, turn, turn)
There is a season (turn, turn, turn)
And a time to every purpose, under heaven
A time to be born, a time to die
A time to plant, a time to reap
A time to kill, a time to heal 
A time to laugh, a time to weep

Almost every word of this song comes from Ecclesiastes 3:1-8.  It's a nice thought and it's things like this I think about when people, like those in the atheist community, bash the Bible for being irrelevant in today's society.  Like the song says, there is a season for every purpose and even non-believers like me can get something from its words.

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The Blizzards of 1977 and 1978

 A child's memory is imperfect and that's part of the learning process.  We see, we hear, and we learn.  Years later we remember something that didn't make sense at the time and it sometimes you realize truths that didn't make sense.

My life as a child was simple.  The area where I grew up was a farming community built around a granary railroad stop.  To a child's eyes, the fields of corn surrounding the town created an oasis, a bubble.  The town numbered about 400 people but it had a long proud history.  We had a grocery store, a hardware store, a gas station, a library, and two churches.

Every holiday the town gathered around the town hall in celebration.  My personal favorite was Memorial Day where after a few boring words from the mayor, we all walked to the town's cemetery where every family visited their ancestors and shared their stories.  Us kids pretended to care as we placed flags on all the graves.  Most of our minds were already fixated on the free ice cream bar the town grocery would give once this task was completed.

My hometown was perfect to a child's eyes.  I lived three blocks from the school which might be a long distance in a place like New York City but blocks in my hometown consisted of four houses built in a square.  I could leave my house three minutes before the school bell rung and still get to class on time.

Like I said.  Perfect.

One of the other great things about growing up in a farming community was the snow days.  Because of the size of the farms, our town's school buses had to travel for many miles through all sorts of terrain.  Most of the area had once been heavily wooded but many of the trees had been cut down so farmers could plant more corn.  Poor roads and snowdrifts meant getting to the farmer's kids was impossible so my school was always always the first to close.  The kids who lived in the town met at the school to play.

Perfect.

Our school wasn't big.  My 4th grade class had 28 students.  My brother's class had 20 students with 18 of them boys.  The odds of this happening is about 1 in 100 but I'm sure this type of gender disparity wasn't totally uncommon for schools like ours with small sample sizes.  Either way, neither I'm sure neither girl had a problem getting a date for the prom.

Many of the people who lived in town did so because they provided services for the surrounding farms.  My maternal great-grandfather first moved to the town to find work as a for-hire farmer laborer and did this for most of his life.  My maternal grandfather had bigger dreams, eventually buying a milk truck and made a living delivering milk to a dairy processing plant in nearby Columbus.  Each generation found their own way to fit into the town's social structure but the times were changing.

By the 1970s the farming business wasn't the same as it had been twenty years earlier.  Agribusiness, mechanization, and consolidation were in full force meaning most of the people that could once find steady work were now headed for factory or office jobs in the city.

That's what my Mom did, finding work at a small accounting office just west of downtown Columbus.  My Mom and Dad had gotten a divorce a few years earlier and money was tight though my brother, sister, and I didn't notice.  We always had food on the table and clothes on our backs.  As far as we were concerned, life couldn't be better.  After all, my hometown was perfect.

The winter of 1977 was cold.  Most of the winters of that decade were colder than we see today but it has little to do with climate change.  The winters of the decade were colder than Ohio had seen in many decades for reasons I don't understand.  All I knew was even with my short walk, I needed wear mittens or I wouldn't be able to feel my hands by the time I got into school.

In January of 1977 there were 26 straight days of below zero temperature.  The three days of January 16-18 hit 20 below zero.  Us kids were both excited and sad because while our school closed it was much too cold to play outside and too cold to visit a friend's house.  We didn't have Playstations back then so my brother, sister, and I had to make do with games like Monopoly while we tried to stay warm.

Staying warm was a problem for most of the Midwest that year.  The constant cold temperatures meant  the usage of natural gas was at an all time high, far beyond the amount the utility company was able to procure.  They started sending out warnings of outages the last week of January and that's when the blizzard of 1977 hit.

It's at this point I must restate that a child's mind is imperfect and I'm telling this story from a child's point of view.  I was nine years old when the blizzard hit in January of 1977.  When people talk about Ohio blizzards of the 1970s most people assume you are talking about the 1978 blizzard and I'll get to that eventually.  It was the 1977 blizzard that first pierced my childhood veil of perfection but my recall isn't perfect.  Over the years both storms have blended in my memory so it is hard separate them.

Most employers don't have much sympathy when it comes to being at work on time.  Most of them give four unplanned sick days sick and two weeks of scheduled vacation.  Anyone who misses too much time can expect to find themselves on that unemployment time in the near future.

That's the situation my Mom faced the last week in January of 1977.  She didn't make a lot of money and while the conditions were worsening, she had to go to work.  I don't remember her leaving but I'm sure she gave each of us a kiss and gave the baby sitter instructions.

The roads were treacherous, the street crews had put down a mix of salt and water in hopes of clearing the streets but that mixture doesn't work when the temperature is below freezing.  Instead, the streets had turned to ice.

I don't remember the blizzard exactly, I only remember the aftermath.  I know my Mom had trouble getting home.  Our county was declared a disaster area.  Our town was declared the worst of them all.  I'm think my Mom got stuck at a friend's house in the city for a couple of days while the county cleared the roads.  I do know it took weeks for the snow plows to get the icy mess off our roads.

A couple days later we went to school a few days later to find another disaster had occurred.

The natural gas company had run out of gas during the storm and many large buildings throughout the state had been unable to stay warm.  Our school was one of them and during the freeze some of the buildings pipes had burst and flooded.  To this day, I'm still not exactly sure what happened, all I know for sure is the room was really cold as the teacher handed us folder with a long list of homework.  We weren't in the school for more than an hour before we were sent home.  School wouldn't be back in session for another month.

The celebrations by all the students were immense as we left the school.  We'd been given early summer vacation and few of us thought about the bigger implications.  How would we do our homework if we didn't have a teacher?  Most of our parents worked all day and we'd be left on our own devices.

In the wake of years-long pandemics these concerns may seem quaint but back then we had no ability to meet with our teachers over the internet.  One good thing was our school wasn't the only one affected.  Columbus City Schools also had closed some of its schools and came up with a solution using Public TV.

Most mornings PBS ran shows like Sesame Street and the Electric Company.  In February of 1977 the kids of Central Ohio were expected to watch PBS where teachers from various grades put on lessons in various subjects.  It was an idea ahead of its time and a bit of an over reach.

There weren't enough babysitters in town for all us kids so many of us were sent to a lady who lived in a house next to the church.  The first day she sat us down to watch PBS but the problems became clear right away.  First of all, each grade was only given an hour of TV time and this was an era before VCRs.  If you missed the show, you missed it.  Even if you did happen to see your show, the homework we'd been given usually had nothing to do with the stuff they were discussing on the TV.  The teachers of Columbus created lesson plans for the students of Columbus, not my hometown.

Every day the lady sat us down to watch PBS.  Every day we watched and grew more frustrated.  It didn't take long for us to sneak outside to go play.  I like to think I made it longer than most.  I  do remember her futile complaints but we outnumbered her and it didn't take long until she gave up.  Her one defiance was to keep her TV tuned to PBS all day as a constant reminder that we should be studying.

Of course we weren't in the house very often.  A good friend of mine became a hero when said he found a new sledding hill near the cemetery.  It took the better part of a day to clear all the brush.  It only took a single run to find agreement we'd created the best sledding hill in town.  

It had only been a few years earlier that I'd gotten my red Flexible Flyer sled.  In previous years, it proved to be inconvenient as the metal runners dug too deep in shallow snow, grabbing the ground instead of sliding easy like a flatter toboggan sled.  That wasn't a problem in the January of 1977 and everyone wanted a turn on my speedy sled.  We spent much of the next month on that hill.

And yet it was still cold.  Not as cold as January but still cold enough that we had to return to the babysitters house where PBS channel was still running.  If you've ever watched PBS you will remember the little ditty at the end of every show.  It's not a very catchy jingle but it is distinctive to PBS and they run it to this day.  To this day, hearing it gives me a sense of dread.

The weeks passed by and my homework sat unfinished.  It wasn't until a week before we were supposed to go back to school that I picked up the folder full of homework.  I did my best to fill out a couple of pages but most of it didn't make sense without guidance.  I returned to school knowing myself to be a complete failure.

I knew most of my friends hadn't done their homework either but I saw the girl next to me had cursive writing on every single page.  I asked her if she'd gotten her answers by watching PBS and she laughed as she said no.  It eventually dawned on me that the only kids that did their homework were the ones who lived on a farm.  They had no way to come to town to play with the rest of us.

The teacher took our homework and put it in a big brown box.  I worried every day for a couple of weeks about how much trouble I'd be in when she finally got to mine.  Eventually I couldn't stand it anymore and I asked her about it after class once day.  She smiled and said not to worry.  That night, I got my first restful sleep in a month.

I later figured out the teacher knew we wouldn't do the homework.  The school didn't have the money to extend classes a month into the summer.  The brown box of unfinished homework was the school's proof we'd been learning while the school was closed.  It was a secret between us kids and our teachers.

A couple months later a furor rose in town about some grave placards that had been defiled.  The deep snow had hidden them from view during our February excursions but the spring thaw showed extensive damage, some of which that looked like the ruts of a sled.  My family was interred on the other side of the graveyard but that didn't stop my grandmother from stating aloud what she'd do if she ever caught the culprits.  She never found out one of the main ones was within arms reach.

The Blizzard of 1977 passed from memory quicker than expected.  While the month of January 1977 had the most snow ever recorded in town history the record would only last a year.

*****

The winter of 1978 started out much milder than 1977.  It was warmer for most of the month but that warmth brought moisture from the south.  On some days it was warm enough to turn into icy rain and which meant crews put down a mix of salt and water to clear the roads.  This works well when temperatures are near freezing.  They didn't know what was coming.

Most weather forecasters didn't predict the severity of the Blizzard of 1978.  The accounting firm where my Mom worked was in a time crunch to produce W-2s by the end of the month so she stayed in Columbus and got us a babysitter to stay with us Tuesday evening, January 24th.

The next morning, January 25th, a water-laden storm from the gulf pressed north into the Ohio Valley and met a low pressure system heading south from the Arctic.  It created the 3rd lowest barometric reading ever recorded in North America.  The two met somewhere in Ohio and it felt like it it was directly over my house.

Central Ohio had already received about 20 inches of snow in January and over the next few days we'd get another two feet.  It was impossible to know how much snow an area received because no one could go outside in the 50-70 mile per hour wind gusts.

As the rain turned cold and the winds started to blow, memories of a year earlier returned but it was clear this storm was more intense than the previous storm.  Icy power lines meant we lost power early in the storm.  I'm pretty sure the phone lines still worked because we got a call from my Mom at some point that morning.

As you might imagine the baby sitter was freaking out.  She was fifteen years old at most and responsible for taking care of three kids in the middle of a natural disaster.  Her Mom agreed to take us in but the problem was getting there.  My brother had spent the morning in bed with the flu and wasn't  in great shape to travel.

I've always had an inventive mind though admittedly some of them seem ridiculous in hindsight.  It was my idea to strap my brother to my sled and pull him through the blizzard.  My babysitter wasn't in a position to argue.  She had long since passed the point of coherent thought as she just wanted to go home.

The neighbor lived two blocks away though it was on the exact opposite end meaning we'd have to go up one street and down another.  As we didn't have any idea how long we'd be gone we didn't want to leave empty handed.  I think my sister grabbed a board game.  I'm sure I grabbed something too.  My brother didn't.

I have to admit I was excited when we opened the door to go into the storm.  It seemed fun until the cold wind hit me in the face.  I used a rope to tie my sled to me and then tied my brother on the sled.  Some of the drifts in the front yard were taller than both of us but we found a place where we could pass.  It was only when I got to the open area on the street that I realized just how hard the wind was blowing.  I put my head down and pulled as hard as I could but a strong gust of wind flipped my brother over on his side.

I don't think he'd ever really liked my sled idea in the first place but if he complained the wind made it impossible for me to hear.  I remember pulling the empty sled behind me as I followed my brother the rest of the way.

As I've said earlier, I could make the three blocks to school in under three minutes but the trip to my neighbors house took much longer.  The wind pushed us around though unlike our babysitter my brother, sister, and I did have the advantage of being closer to the ground.  I have no idea how long it took but in my mind it was an hour.  It was probably closer to five minutes.

Our babysitter's Mom didn't seem especially glad to see us when we arrived and the baby sitter disappeared without a goodbye.  We were shown to a corner and given a blanket.  I spent most of the next day in that spot, huddled and trying to stay warm.

There was to be no playing outside this time.  The mix of ice and snow gave every snowdrift a sharp edge and the neighbor wasn't nearly as easily cowed as our babysitter from the previous year.  

That doesn't mean I never got outside.  The next day the winds had died down and the neighbor needed someone to get food from the store.  As I was the oldest boy in the house, I insisted I should be the one the get them.  I'm sure the girls thought my insistence silly.  It was still quite cold.  I'm sure they were happy to let me go in their stead.

I pulled my sled down the same path we'd taken from my house.  It didn't seem like the same street now that the winds had died down.  When I got to the main street I looked for the sidewalk but it was buried under a couple feet of snow.  Instead I walked down the middle of the street, with each step coming almost to my crouch as I trudged through the icy mix.

I wasn't in any danger of being hit by a car.  There weren't any cars on the road.  Once again, it would be a while before the roads were cleared.  I think the store clerk was surprised to see me.  The shelves were fully stocked and few people had stopped by all day.

My Mom couldn't get out of Columbus.  Like many motorists, the combination of cold and snow had stopped her car dead.  It wouldn't start.  Eventually my Dad showed up and we spent the next week at his house.

As the skies cleared and the roads were plowed we returned to my hometown to see huge mounds of snow lining the streets.  It was obvious the storm a year earlier hadn't been nearly as bad.  That excited me because if we'd missed a month of school in 1977, they'd keep us out at least two months in 1978.

I was to be sadly disappointed.

School started the next week and the snow was gone quicker than seemed possible.  When we returned, all of my friends regaled me with their stories.  The thing I didn't know was the blizzards of 1977 and 1978 weren't done affecting my life.

A few years earlier my grandfather had sold his milk route which had enabled him to buy a big farm in the country.  Part of his dream was to do a little farming but I think his main goal was to live there in retirement as a place his grandchildren could visit.  In the winters, he and my grandmother lived in Florida which is why they weren't around to help when the blizzards hit.

The truth was we hadn't seen as much of him ever since he'd moved even if it was only a mile.  After two years of weather based separations, my Mom determined she had to move us closer to her workplace so that could never happen again.

So we left our perfect little town that I realized wasn't so perfect after all.  The outside world had come crashing in and destroyed that illusion forever.

The funny thing is when I think back to my childhood I often think back to the blizzards.  I remember the fun in the midst of the fear and dread.  I knew something had changed even if I couldn't put it into words at the time.  Both blizzards resulted in a loss of innocence I never got back.  It happens to every child at some point.

It took time but I eventually realized the world isn't a perfect place and my town wasn't perfect either.  Leaving it allowed me to grow in ways that never would have happened if I'd stayed and yet I still find myself longing for those long forgotten days riding down the hill on my Flexible Flyer.

I suppose that is true for all of us.

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When facing the enemy...

I met the enemy face to face yesterday.  

I had just finished workout and as my body doesn't recover like it used to, I headed for the hot tub in hopes of easing the aftereffects.  The hot tub itself is huge and can easily fit 20 people and because I'm not big on idle chit-chat, I wear a pair a headphones so I can listen to a podcast while I soak.

Most times the hot tub is empty but yesterday I wasn't that lucky.  The man started talking as soon as I entered the room but I couldn't hear him so I had to turn off my headphones.  He continued to talk though I was too far away to hear over the sound of the whirlpool's action.  In hindsight I wish I had hit the record button on my cell phone as what followed still doesn't seem believable.

He said, "All those vaccines have nanites in them."

Those were the first words I heard and while they came as a shock, I really shouldn't have been surprised.  As I waded past him I noticed he wore a hat in the hot tub.  No one wears a hat to a hot tub unless they want someone to see it.  His read 'Gun Owners for Trump'.  I hadn't noticed before entering because the hat's coloring scheme was two-tone camouflage which made seeing the words impossible from more than 10 feet away.

For the past year most of America has sat in isolation seeing images of the other.  Black vs White.  City vs. Rural.  Biden vs Trump.  Now we are finally more able to venture out and meeting one another and the first results aren't encouraging.

These days many people who proclaim to love freedom have willing taken labels that has replaced free thought.  Sometimes I wonder how many of us really listen to the words we hear but instead take marching orders from our group without question.  The ability to pick and chose our own news source has conditioned us to toe the line for our side.  I'm sure he made some assumptions about me since I am white, over 50, and male.  In America these days, that demographic means there's an 80% chance you're a Trump voter and also more likely anti-vaxx.  People just assume.

My first reaction was to call him a 'fucking idiot'.  Nothing frustrates me more than stupid people and this was a stupid statement.  I am not the type to look for confrontation especially with someone whose hat proclaims he has a gun, though I doubt he had one under his swimming trunks.

"Oh?"  I decided to see where the conversation might lead.

"They got video of them injecting someone and then using a magnet to pull the nanites back to the person's skin.  You can only see it viewed under a black light though."

"Really?"  

I wasn't really sure how to respond but I know I had a hundred thoughts going through my brain right then.  The man clearly wasn't vaccinated and by law should have been wearing a mask obviously me pointing it out would have been useless.  I wasn't wearing my mask because I am fully vaccinated though I do wear it in enclosed places where distancing is impossible or in places clearly marked as needing masks.

This guy looked to be about 70 years old with broad shoulders and a beer gut that that mostly likely caused the scale to tip somewhere north of 250 lbs.  In other words, a prime candidate for problems if he caught Covid but I didn't dare ask.  I really didn't want a follow up questions, as I didn't want an argument and I have a bad tendency to go from 0 to 100 when I get angry.

I asked, "Can people who've gotten the shot get these nanites out with magnets?"

"Oh no.  The chips  are embedded in their brains now.  They haven't started transmitting yet though."

"Interesting."  At this point I have to admit being a bit worried.  Even the most logical among us has that brief thought of 'What if he's right?'.  I mean it sounds crazy but it's human nature to think through the crazy.  'Nah'.  I told myself after a brief internal discussion.  'It's an insane theory.'  I mean, hell, if a global conspiracy wanted to put chips in us, there are a thousand other ways to do it.  A global pandemic and a vaccine that anyone could put under a microscope is very public.

That did lead me to the logical next question.

"Who is controlling the chips?"  I knew the answer could only be a half dozen places.  I honestly expected him to say the Jews.  Bill Gates was another clear possibility as his charity has spent a lot of money to reduce the spread of disease in places like Africa.  Of course another option was the Democrats themselves.

"China."

"China is putting nanites in the vaccines?"

"Yeah.  China created Covid in a lab, released it, and then put nanites in the vaccine."

That raised a bunch of questions for me.  "How would they do that?  If I remember correct, the vaccines used in the United States are being made in Michigan and New Jersey by Americans.  China and Russia have their own vaccines but that's not being used here."

"China is working through the CDC."

"Oh."  I nodded, not sure how to respond to that kind of conspiracy.  Whenever I'm faced with a situation like this I always try to meet the other person halfway.  I always try to see merit in every person's views but this guy was clearly off the rails.  My only thought now was to possibly get him to question his beliefs.

"I do agree that China is an increasing problem for the United States and it's going to get worse."

"Yeah."  He nodded back.

"Do you know the history of China?"

He nodded but didn't say anything.

I said, "They were probably the strongest country in the world for much of history.  Many ancient inventions including things like the printing press and gunpowder were invented there first but they grew too big and complacent just about the time Europe started down the path to the Industrial Revolution.  Europe used that growth to dominate the world for most of the 19th and 20th century.  China calls this time the 'Century of Humiliation'."

I could see him nodded at what I was saying, as it fit his narrative.  I decided to indulge it a bit more.

I said, "China is a society built from the top down.  The United States is a society built from the bottom up.  By that I mean, communism sets plans to push their people to state-set goals.  Capitalism uses the profit motive to satisfy demand for goods and gives a better standard of living." 

"The American way."  He said.

I said, "Yep but the problem is the Chinese turned capitalism against us.  They used their underdeveloped economy and cheap but well educated labor to entice American companies to build there.  They did whatever these companies wanted and that gave anyone who invested in China an advantage in price and quality.  Soon, if a manufacturing company hadn't moved their company to China, they weren't competitive.  The American business watchword in the 1990s and 2000s became outsourcing.  It slowly enriched the Chinese economy who relied on American markets for the goods they now produced.  But the Chinese didn't use this increasing power against us at first.  They are too smart for that.  After all, they had once endured a century of humiliation.  They know how to be patient."

"Exactly."

I said, "One question I wonder is how can our country respond?  Our leadership in Washington is divided.  That's part of the nature of democracy but ours is so broken that nothing gets done.  Meanwhile the leadership in Beijing is unified because that's the nature of a dictatorship."

I see the guy nodding and agreeing with me which was great but also knew this was probably where we would split ways.

I continued, "The only solution is our people and our government leaders have to start working with each other.  They have to compromise and form a unified vision.  They can't continue to only block the other side or we will see China patiently destroy our economic advantage little by little.  We need long term planning for our economy.  We need aggressive regional trade agreements.  NAFTA and TPP were a good starting points but imagine if we encouraged American companies to build those Chinese factories in Mexico instead.  American workers would complain mightily but we'd weaken China and strengthen a neighbor whose citizens are coming across our border looking for jobs.  It's a win/win solution but instead all we hear from Washington is hot air."

He didn't respond but I could tell I got him thinking.

I said, "And the one thing we have to always remember is China is patient and as they are a dictatorship their leaders don't have to win a popularity contest.  It's why we need to insist our leaders start doing this for the benefit of the country but right now the Chines know we aren't working together."

He said, "We need a revolution."

"That would kill our economy.  Right now the only thing propping up China's industries is American markets but American markets rely on the power of the dollar and the financial system.  China isn't ready to go on its own right now.  Why would they risk that by releasing a pandemic on purpose right now? Why not wait another ten years when they have more control of the world's economy?"

He said, "Because of they have control chips."

I shook my head.  I didn't have a good answer to that which wouldn't involve insulting the man's intelligence so I made a joke.

I said, "I guess if this is true and as most vaccines are from four countries - America, Europe, Russia, and China, then I'm glad Americans are getting the American vaccine.  That way the chips will be controlled by Americans and not Chinese or Russians."  I could see on his face, I thought this joke much funnier than him.

At this point the timer on the whirlpool action had long run out and he decided to get out.  I did notice he was giving me an odd look.  Perhaps he now saw me a double agent.  Or maybe I'm overthinking it and he just saw me as a know-it-all blowhard.  I decided not to say anything as he he got out of the hot tub and dried off.  Just before leaving he asked, "Do you want another 15 minutes?"

I said, "Sure.  Thanks."

Just before pushing the button he asked, "Did you know anyone who has taken the vaccine is going to die in three years?"

I shook my head, my brief thoughts of fear dissuaded by the rational part of my brain a second later.  "I hadn't heard that."  I'm not sure if he heard my response over the roar of the pulsing water.  

As I watched him leave, I thought it probable he'd pegged me as a liberal who had taken the vaccine and his final comment was a passive-aggressive way of saying 'fuck you' to me in parting.  And if so, perhaps my first instinct was correct and I should have correctly called him a 'fucking idiot' from the very start.

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How Hank Aaron was very important to me

Hank Aaron died today.

I was 7 years old when he broke Babe Ruth's record for hitting the most home runs in Major League Baseball history. The furor over that event seems silly in hindsight but it dominated the news during the winter of 1973-74. Of course, there were other stories going on like Vietnam and Watergate but a child's memories are attracted to some stories and not to others. To me, it was the only story that mattered. 

I grew up in a small town and small towns love to talk. My memories of that winter held discussions by relatives talking about Hank Aaron and how he was stealing Babe Ruth's record. That didn't make any sense to me. 

How was he stealing Babe's record? 

On the playground, we played a simple game called 'kickball'. The rules were simple. It was very similar to baseball only it substituted a rolled bouncy ball and a kicker for a pitched baseball and a batter. When you kicked the ball if someone caught it you were out. When you were running the bases if someone hit you with the ball and you weren't on a base you were out. If you kicked the ball hard enough and you were fast enough you could touch all four bases and get a home run. I was one of the lucky ones in my class because I could kick the ball well and run very fast. While there was some disagreement with a few of my classmates, most everyone agreed I was the best kickball player on the playground (a skill I was sad to find has few real-world applications).

During the runup of the 1974 Major League baseball season, I remember being happy I was able to have a discussion with adults. Of course, I took Hank Aaron's side in the discussions. We were a lot alike, Hank and me. He hit home runs. I kicked them. 

I think Hank Aaron was the first black man I ever noticed. It was either him or Morgan Freeman's characters on the TV show Electric Company. Hank seemed nice in interviews but I noticed he also looked tired. When he eventually broke the record I remember being proud as he made his slow saunter around the bases like a runner at the end of a very long race. I remember he also looked happy. 

We are not born racists. Racists are made and just like my classmates I was being groomed to be a racist at age 6 even if I didn't know it. 

Some people blame TV/movies and others blame stereotypical depictions in stories. These do play their part but the truth is much more insidious. It is passed down between generations on the schoolyard. When I started school I was innocent in the ways of racism. I'd never seen a black person in town and it was only later in life I realized I grew up in a sundown town. If you are unfamiliar with the term, it's a reference to signs that were put up just under a town's welcome sign that said something to the effect of 'No Blacks Allowed' though usually not stated that nice. Blacks could pass through but they couldn't stop and if they were caught in town after dark, it was an excuse for the town's male population to group up to teach a lesson.

In popular history these imagines are usually associated with people like Bull Connor and places in the deep south but it was just as prevalent in the North too and especially in the rural Midwest where I was born. If anything, southern towns were more honest in their racism. Midwestern towns usually didn't put up signs and most of these men weren't in the Klan but the beatings happened just the same. 

Blacks who had moved North in hopes of escaping the racism of the south were slowly herded into the cities, these areas eventually acquiring the name ghettos, the same name the Germans called the cities they forced Jews to live before the Nazis came up with a different, more Final Solution. 

I knew none of this when I first arrived on the playground. The playground at school was a broad new world. Before this time, our conversations had been limited to Mom, Dad, a couple of neighbors, and the occasional visit from relatives. Being from a small town we had a small class so we were eased into social interactions with an entire class totaling fifteen boys and fifteen girls. The bravest jumped headfirst into the chance to become individuals. We were free to talk and interact with anyone we chose. Anyone but the girls. That dividing line would not be broached until many years later. 

But I digress... 

It was on the playground I first heard the words of a rhyme. It was shouted any time two boys got into a disagreement, a common occurrence on the schoolyard that usually was nothing more than a wrestling match that ended with grass stains, not blood stains.

"Fight, Fight, A *Black and a White. If the White don't win we all jump in."

* - The word used wasn't Black. It started with an N and it's a word I refuse to say or type. I will be using *Black to denote it's use. 

Recess at school was done in shifts. Kindergarteners got three of them as I remember. 1st, 2nd, and 3rd graders got two. 4th graders and higher only got one. As there were more recesses than grades, there were times when separate classes had to be on the playground at the same time. As it was more dangerous for rowdy 4th graders to be on the playground at the same time as smaller Kindergartners,
the schedule matched up Kindergartens with 1st graders and 2nd graders with 3rd. 

Information flowed between grades almost always moving from older to younger. That's how we learned the rhyme I stated earlier. It's also how we boys learned a game called 'Smear the *Black'. 

This too was a simple game.  It is usually played with a ball and anyone who holds the ball was now the *Black.  It was the job of the rest of the boys to try to tackle him. Everyone took turns being the *Black and the one who stayed up the longest without being tackled was determined the schoolyard champion for the afternoon.

My breakthrough occurred when we were taught another stupid schoolyard taunt derived from another more common taunt. I wish I could remember the exact sequence but it has been almost 50 years. It is possible it only occurred on my playground, thought up by some nascent racist many years earlier. 

It started off when a boy offered to shake the hand of a loser after a game. The other, usually a poor loser, would say, "I'm not a *Black, I use toilet paper." The words sound stupid now but were seven and this was the most popular thing on my schoolyard in 1974. For a time, we didn't even need to play a game to say it. We'd just go up to someone and ask to shake their hand. I didn't get it. What did they mean? 

To this point, I hadn't considered the word *Black with anything negative. It had never been part of my vocabulary.  To me, the word *Black was the guy who carried the ball in a game where people wanted to tackle me.  

It was Hank Aaron who ended my confusion. 

The news reports were filled with stories of the constant hate he was receiving. The one I remember said, 'I'm going to kill you *Black'. I couldn't understand why this guy was so mad he wanted to kill Hank but I also couldn't understand why he'd used that word. 

As I was at an impasse and my friends were no help, I decided to ask my Mom. As I recall, she explained there were a lot of people in the world with hate in their hearts. She also told me I was never to use that word ever again (a promise I've kept for almost fifty years). 

A day later my best friend came to my house and we played a game. I don't remember who won but afterward, he told me I needed to offer him a handshake. When he gave the response "I'm not a *Black, I use toilet paper", I gave the response, "That's ok. I'm Hank Aaron." 

Now I know my words weren't Shakespeare but I remember being very happy with the response. 

After that, I used Hank's name as a sort of defense every time anyone used the word my Mom forbade me to say. As I was the best athlete in my class of fifteen, I'd run around taunting them with the words 'I'm Hank Aaron' at anyone that tried to tackle me, something none of them were able to do. 

I became a pre-pubescent social justice warrior of sorts, explaining to anyone that would listen how we weren't supposed to say the word *Black.  History has shown my efforts to reform my friends weren't successful but I did get them to change the name of the game we played from 'Smear the *Black' to 'Smear the Queer'.  I later realized this to be a hollow victory.

Hank Aaron was the first man outside of my family I idolized. I like that he never said much, he just did his job. Hank was near the end of his career when I started following him and he only hit another three dozen home runs after breaking Babe Ruth's record. It didn't matter to me. 

I've thought a lot about Hank and his record in the past few years. When we were kids I remember my grandmother telling me that her generation had screwed things up but ours would make the world a better place. She was no saint and probably as racist as most in town but I took her words to heart. 

I assumed everyone in my generation believes as I did that racism was bad and we would end it. It was a naive hope but one I hung on to much longer than I would have if I'd been paying attention. Racism doesn't happen to a generation overnight. It is little words and sayings. It is little beliefs and learnings that have crop up over decades. It doesn't have to be overt.  Watching another person commit the smallest of racist actions isn't racist per se but it's not-not-racist either. 

We all go through life believing ourselves to be the hero of the tale. We aren't the bad guy. Racists tendencies hid in the darkness for generations until they found a champion let them engage their anger. Words and sayings that had long lay dormant were back stunning elites but few others. The Midwest which had long hidden its racism under the veil of secrecy came out proud to join the hate of their southern brothers and sisters. 

I think a writer I like said it best - 'We're all in the South now.' 

Hank Aaron joined the Braves as an executive once his playing days were over. He was respected, one of the best in a field dominated by white men. He quietly toiled and did his job to help his team win a few championships. He never complained and he never spoke much. That was Hank. When the George Floyd riots happened last summer I wondered what Hank thought but as far as I know, he never made a comment. He did release a statement last year after the passing of the great civil rights leader, John Lewis.

The same could be said of Hank Aaron. I never met Hank Aaron but he was always important to me. 

He will be missed.

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Finding my family's African roots

I've been looking into my family's genealogy for a couple of decades now so it was a bit of a surprise when my brother took a DNA test and found our ancestry 99% from Northwest Europe and 1% Western Africa.  The Europe part was expected.  I've been able to research most of my ancestors back to the year 1800, or about 5 generations.

Was it on Dad's side of the family?

The African part was unexpected but not totally unexpected.  Growing up my brother, sister and I always assumed we had African roots from my paternal grandmother who had very curly hair and darker skin than my other grandparents.  A DNA test from my Dad disproved our childhood theory entirely.  His DNA results came showed him more British than the Queen of England, proof that looks can be deceiving.

Was it on Mom's side of the family?

That left only one possibility but to prove it, I had my Mom take the test.  Like my brother, it also came back 99% European and 1% West African.

I expected it to be 2% but there are lots of reasons for this result.  These are very small numbers and so her percentage could be 1.4% and his 0.7%.  Rounding would make both 1%.  In fact basic math would prove this out.

If a person had one European parent and one African parent we can assume their child will have 50% European DNA and 50% African DNA.  If you assume their offspring had nothing but European ancestry after that the next generation would be 1/4, the 1/8, then 1/16, then 1/32, and finally 1/64.

If my Mother is 1/64, she'd have 1.56% African DNA.  The thing is DNA isn't always handed down 50/50.  Sometimes it is handed down 55/45 and once you've lost that portion of that DNA it's gone.  It is easily possible my Mom's African DNA is lower than 1.5% which is why she and my brother both showed at 1%.

Getting this information gave me a starting point and with my family tree in hand I was pretty sure I knew the answer.  We'd been told from a young age that we had Cherokee heritage on my maternal grandfather's side of the family.  Once I started looking into genealogy, I found this story is common in many families, especially in the South.  Most times when people look into the details they find this story was a cover to hide African roots.

Isabel Roberts

Unlike most families I had been able to find the person who it is claimed was native American.  Her name is Isabel Roberts, born in 1832 close by the Shawnee Reservation near Indian Lake in Logan County, Ohio.  As of now, I haven't been able to find out much other than her name and the fact she is supposedly the child of Arthur Roberts.  We know nothing definitive of her mother which certainly added to my suspicions.

As i looked into slavery, I found out many uncomfortable truths of how it was handled as a legal matter of course.  The laws were sometimes different by jurisdiction but the chains of bondage passed through the maternal line.  If a white man had a child with a black woman, their offspring was a slave to the black woman's owner.  If a black man had a child with a black woman, their offspring was a slave to the black woman's owner.  If a black man had a child with a white woman, their offspring was free.

The assumption was white women would never do this willing and many unexpected pregnancies of consensual intercourse ended with a lynching.  I haven't researched what happened to most of these children but I'd guess it depended on the 'mercy' of the girl's father.

Isabel claimed to be white in every census and having no other obvious subjects, I made an assumption Isabel was our most likely ancestor of African descent on my mother's side.  I later figured out this assumption was wrong.

The Leeds Method

I don't have a lot of experience working with the DNA side of genealogy but it has helped me clear a few roadblocks.  For instance, it helped me match back 4 generations from my Dad's DNA to his 2xgreat-grandfather and find the father of his grandmother.  It really is a great help.

One of the ways of arranging DNA information that helps adoptees is called the Leeds method.

When you get your results back from the DNA service you get a list of other people who have taken the test and match to you.  The services take this one step further and will let you know if that person is related to someone else on your list.

It's a little bit confusing so here's a simple example:

• Paternal Grandfather A
• Paternal Grandmother B
• Maternal Grandfather C
• Maternal Grandmother D

You are related to all 4 of the above.  Your father's sister and her children would be related to the A family and the B family.  They would not be related to the C and D.  A second cousin would only be related to one of the above.

The Leeds method has you separate all your matches so you put them into 4 catagories, depending on the relation to your grandparents.  A first cousin would appear in 2 categories.  My brother would appear in all four for my Mom.

I did this for my Mom and then took it a step further to match to her great grandparents.  I wanted to see if I could find a pattern.  The next thing I was see how many of my Mom's matches had any African ancestry.  Unsurprisingly, many did.  Surprisingly, none of them were descendants of Isabel Roberts.

Here is the breakdown of West African DNA results matched to my Mom's 8 great-grandparents:

• Bennett - 14/33
• Bable - 1/29
• Boutwell - 1/37
• Frankenberry - 0/6    (I want my cereal royalties!!!)
• Keezer - 1/14            (this person also has Bennett DNA)
• Peters - 0/17
• Reed - 3/51
• Trout -  0/25

The fact that I could do this shows how little families of different races mixed during the last 200 years.  I'm sure this is especially true of my family who were mostly rural white farmers living in Ohio.  All it would take is one descendant of one ancestor to marry outside their race over this entire span and it would easily add 1%.  You see the results above and because of them, I think it is safe to say the Bennett tree is the place to look.

(If you are wondering why the Bennett line isn't 33/33, the numbers are so small that every generation makes it less likely to find enough DNA to call it a match.  When results go under 0.5%, these services probably wouldn't show anything at all.  I suspect if my brother's kids took the test, they wouldn't get a West African result.)

Mom's family tree

To break this down a little further we need to see a simple family tree from my Mom's dad.

This tree goes back five generations and if you follow the Bennett-Boutwell-Boutwell-Roberts line you'll find Isabel.

I broke down my Mom's DNA comparison by those who connected to the Bennett-Keezer line and the Boutwll-Bable line.

All her matches who had African ancestry were in the Bennett-Keezer line.

This means the ancestor could be a Bennett or a Keezer if not for an unfortunate yet I'm sure scandalous happy event.  

Jenny Keezer died at age 52 and James Bennett being a spry man of 49 years, decided to remarry a 1st cousin, 19 year old Rennie Bennett.  They had four children and I found quite of few of their ancestors matched to Mom.  All of them had twice as much African ancestry as her.

This proves the African ancestry came from this Bennett line and not the Keezer line.  If it came from the Keezer line, they'd show no West African DNA.  As it is, the Bennett-Bennett descendants have twice as much West African DNA as the Bennett-Keezer kids because of the cousin marriage.

My theory is further proved by the fact that none of my Mom's Keezer-only relations have any African ancestry (there were 3 of them who've take a DNA test at the time of writing).

Bennett-Linnabary

I am fairly confident my ancestor with African heritage comes from the Bennett-Linnabary line.  Can we go further?

Yes we can but it's at this point the evidence become a little more spotty.  I found two Linnabarry-only ancestors and neither of them showed any African ancestry but that's not enough evidence to use as proof.  When you are talking about 1% amounts of DNA, it isn't uncommon for the tests to show no result at all.  

Relying on the Bennett-only names is problematic because they could be from just about any generation.  Still, we do see many of them with African ancestry adding to a suspicion it came further back on that line.

To prove it definitive with DNA you'd need to find someone on the maternal line - daughter to daughter and have them take a specialize DNA test.  As we don't even know the person's name we'd need to test, that's a problem (and it is difficult to find living ancestors due to privacy laws).

Luckily there's another option - investigating the stories of the Bennett-Linnabary ancestors.

But first, a little bit of math

At the start of this story, I did some math to show how my Brother and Mom could both have 1% African DNA.  To do this I showed my Mom most likely is 1/64th.  If you work that backwards, her father would have been, 1/32.  Her grandfather Jacob Budd 1/16.  Her great-grandfather James Bennett (mentioned above) would have 1/8.  I am 99.999% confident this is true.

That brings us to Jacob Bennett and Lucretia Linnabary, one of whom would have had 1/4 African ancestry.  If my math is correct, one of their parents has 1/2 African DNA.

We're really close.  We need to look at their parents.

The Linnabary's

Andrew Linnabary was born in 1813 in Delaware, Ohio, the child of a family that came to Ohio from Luzerne, Pennsylvania going back at least three generations.  Before that the family likely came from New Jersey and possibly Germany as some researchers thing the name morphed from Linnaburger.  With this information I'd say it is unlikely he'd have any African heritage.  

During the Civil War, Andrew joined the 38th Ohio Infantry as a Corporal of Company F.  He served from August 1861 to April 1862 and died at home from sickness acquired in the war.  He is buried in Little Auglaize Cemetery in Paulding, Ohio.

Sarah Young was born in 1816 in Pennsylvania and her family moved to Delaware as she married Andrew there in 1836.  The name on the marriage certificate says Sarah Young though oddly, her name is listed as Sarah Jones on all her children's death certificates (remarried?).  

Her father is said to be a man named George Young of Kentucky who moved to Pennsylvania.  This information is dubious but listed for completeness.  Sarah died in 1901 and like her husband is buried in Little Auglaize Cemetery.

The Bennett's

William Bennett was born in 1812 and the 1850, 1860, 1870, and 1880 census all agree he was born in Ohio but nothing specific.  We do know he moved around a lot as three census where in different Ohio counties - Hardin, Putnam, and Paulding.  

The Bennett family moved to Paulding County sometime before 1870 and stayed there for the next 3 generations, some still live there today.

William died in 1881 and is buried in Potter & Klein Cemetery in Paulding County.

According to the above census records William's wife, Nancy Clark, was born in Virginia in 1809.  Her children's death certificates all list her maiden name as Clark so we can be pretty confident that is correct.  She died in 1887 and is buried in Potter & Klein Cemetery in Paulding County, Ohio and her gravestone is what gives us her birthdate and death date.  Beyond that we have little concrete evidence.

So who is the source of our African roots?

Given the information we have right now there is no way to know for sure.

I am pretty confident the Linnabary's aren't the source as neither of the Linnabary-only matches on my Mom's DNA showed any West African DNA.  Also, the information the details we have on their lives makes it unlikely.

The Bennett's on the other hand are much more likely.  There are rumors about both of them though not enough proof for me to mention at this time.

What we do know if the family moved around a lot, probably as 'for-hire' farm work.  In addition to the census data we see above, the birth certificates for their kids show them living in Union County in 1832, Hardin County in 1841, back to Union in 1843, to Hardin in 1845, Union in 1848, and eventually to Putnam and Paulding.  To be fair, all of these counties are near one another so it wasn't like they were moving far.

The census records for both recorded them as white.

The question is what is most likely and as William listed his birthplace as Ohio and Nancy as Virginia, Nancy is the obvious candidate.  Of all my Mom's ancestors, Nancy is the only one who was born in a southern state as far as I've been able to determine. 

If this is true it raises all sorts of questions.  Was she the product of a master-slave?  If that is true and it happened in Virginia, she too would have been a slave.  How did she get to Ohio?  Was she the daughter of a freedman?  I hesitate to go further on this topic as it isn't one beneficial for too much speculation.

What is true?

Based on all the data I've seen, I'm 99% sure a Linnabary ancestor or a Bennett ancestor was a slave and I suspect that person was Nancy Clark's mother or father.

I did not do this exercise to prove anything.  I suspect 1/128th of me has West African DNA.  It's not much.  This doesn't suddenly give me black cred or anything beyond a little more knowledge of my ancestry.

However, as a son of rural Ohio, it does give me a sort of obstinate pride.  If Nancy is indeed the source of this DNA, I am quite aware that many of her progeny would be horrified to hear of the truth of their past.

I wish I could tell each and every one.

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Does Hell Exist?

My Mom is extremely religious and the best description of my beliefs is a skeptic.  That doesn't stop us from having many back and forth conversations around religion.  About a year ago we had a conversation about Hell and she sent me an email with the attached from a mailing she gets from a newsletter called 'Eternal Life With Jesus'. 

Eternal Life With Jesus

Revelation 21:1-5

Some people question whether hell actually exists. They wonder, How could someone in heaven have no sadness while realizing loved ones are suffering eternal punishment?

Humanly speaking, it’s hard to understand. We know that in the afterlife, those who have rejected Jesus will mourn (Matt. 13:41-42). But Scripture makes it clear that eternity in Christ’s presence will be pure joy. We are reassured that “He will wipe away every tear from their eyes; and there will no longer be any death ... mourning, or crying, or pain” (Revelation 21:4).

But notice the beginning of that verse. Before entering heaven, believers will shed some tears as well. You see, even Christians will undergo judgment, but not to determine where they will spend eternity. Rather, God will bring to light His children’s pure and impure actions, thoughts, and motives (1 Corinthians 4:5). We’ll no doubt be grieved to see what opportunities were missed and where we failed to act in a godly fashion. Yet the Lord will dry our eyes and bring us into His glory, where we’ll experience no sadness or pain.

Once we enter eternity with Him, we will not long for anything. Even if we are able to sense the absence of unsaved loved ones in heaven, there will be no discontent. At that point, our desires will perfectly align with His, and He will fulfill each one—anything we lack will no longer be something we want.

Eternity is a long time, and heaven will be indescribably wonderful. Trusting Christ as Savior is the only way to guarantee it will be your destination beyond this life.

I found the points raised interesting and felt I had to respond.  My replay was long but contains a summary of my beliefs.

*****

((The stuff below in italics is a quote from the above newletter))

I missed this newsletter when you sent it but I'm sure it relates to our last conversation and my statement that if the Bible claims that heaven will be a place of overwhelming joy yet I'll be in hell -- how would it be possible for you to find everlasting happiness?  The question in the newsletter you sent asked essentially the same thing:

"Some people question whether hell actually exists. They wonder, How could someone in heaven have no sadness while realizing loved ones are suffering eternal punishment?"

I want you to know I do enjoy our conversations and I also know you get frustrated with me and my hardheadedness around this subject.  I know you send me these things because you love me but I wish you'd also consider the words you send.  Think about what it is saying:

We know that in the afterlife, those who have rejected Jesus will mourn (Matt 13:41-42).  But Scripture makes it clear that eternity in Christ’s presence will be pure joy. We are reassured that “He will wipe away every tear from their eyes; and there will no longer be any death ... mourning, or crying, or pain” (Revelation 21:4).

One of my issues with the Bible is it is easy to cherry-pick different verses then reform them through the bias of the teller.  I think you also know that I reject any claims from Revelation as it was written more than fifty years after the death of Jesus by an unknown man named John who lived on the Island of Patmos.  To me, the Book of Revelation is little more than early Christian fan fiction.  This book was only included in the finalized Bible (200+ years after Revelation was written) because some sects of early Christianity liked its message which gave it enough votes.  Votes!  It makes me wonder if JK Rowling lived in 1st century AD that we would also worship the book of Gryffindor and fear of being sent to the evil Dementors. ((Sorry, I know you hate it when I say things like this.  I know it isn't productive to meaningful discussion but I can't help myself.))

So let's assume Revelations is true. :P  What is the newletter you sent telling us these words mean?

... notice the beginning of that verse. Before entering heaven, believers will shed some tears as well.  You see, even Christians will undergo judgment, but not to determine where they will spend eternity. Rather, God will bring to light His children’s pure and impure actions, thoughts, and motives (1 Corinthians 4:5). 

We’ll no doubt be grieved to see what opportunities were missed and where we failed to act in a godly fashion. Yet the Lord will dry our eyes and bring us into His glory, where we’ll experience no sadness or pain.

((Sorry again)) --- but before I speak to newsletter's contents, I should also add that part of this argument is from Corinthians, words written by a talented man named Saul who by his own pen admits he never met Jesus in life.  Instead, Saul renamed himself Paul after meeting Jesus in death, an act which would draw laughs and possible institutionalization if made it today.  However, this claim would very useful in the 1st century AD if you weren't a disciple of Jesus yet you want to take over his fledgling religion.  It has always bugged me that fourteen of the books in the New Testament were attributed to Paul meaning more than half the chapters in the Bible were written by a man who isn't relaying Jesus' words nor has he ever heard a single word spoken from Jesus' mouth.  Bible scholars now believe some of Paul's fourteen chapters weren't actually written by Paul but written in Paul's name which makes the whole thing even less believable.

But let's assume Corinthians is true. :P

The newsletter has interpreted Paul's words to mean that when you pass into heaven you'll first feel grief and sadness then pass into glory where we'll feel no pain.  There will be no discontent and your desires will match perfectly with the Lord as you will lack nothing and feel nothing.

Think about what is being said here -- while I'm being roasted by hellfire, your humanity will slowly be stripped away until nothing is left but a robotic shell.  I'm sure you will dispute my interpretation but if there is one fact that I have no doubt, it is that you love me.  You are the mother who bandaged my knee and always answered my call when life brought me disappointment.  Yet somehow I am to believe that you could stand at ease while one of your children's flesh is slowly roasted on another plane.  The only way that is possible is if your memory is muted or your humanity stripped meaning the mother I knew longer exists.  I would rather be in hell than be forced to forget you.

I did fear hell at one point in my life.  It is hard not to fear hell as a Christian.  Sunday school was filled with stories of Jesus' salvation but also the reminder of hell just below the surface.  That memory remained even after I stopped believing.  I feared to call myself an atheist for years, preferring the word agnostic instead as if that were some sort of protection against eternal damnation.  I won't lie - during that time, anger grew in my heart for the church.  The church instilled in me a belief in heaven that turned out to be a lie but worse it also threatened me with a nagging fear of hell that wouldn't go away.

I longed to find something to fill that hole and I'm sure you'd say its because I wanted to come back to the church but that is missing the point.  I didn't want to forget.  I wanted to understand.

I understand why people believe in religion.  It's funny to think about the little events you remember from your childhood but I was about six and at a family reunion when I heard one of my uncles say, "Life sucks and then you die".  I still remember my shock when he made this comment.  I'm sure it sounds silly now but I hadn't faced much adversity in my life at that point beyond the occasional goldfish death and the comment swirled in my head for weeks afterward.  How could he think that?  Life was awesome! - filled with puppies, school recess, pizza day, and hugs.  Obviously, that memory has stuck with me over the years and it's funny to think back about my naivety.  Life is hard and for most, it gets harder every year.  It's nice to think there's something at the end of all that hardship.  It's nice to think there is a heaven.

But I can't.  My brain doesn't work that way and I struggled for years to fill the hole the church created in my heart.

I suspect many people that go to church aren't really devout believers.  There is more than enough evidence that the Christian Bible was written by men trying to provide answers in an era that didn't have many.  Since that time, science has filled in many of the gaps and helped bring humans to a prosperity only dreamed about two thousand years ago.  But science doesn't have all the answers.

Here's my theory of the universe:

• In the beginning, there was a Big Bang.  

• What started it?  We don't know but this event created the universe and in time our solar system.  Light shown from the Sun onto the 3rd planet which had the right conditions to sustain life.  

• How was that life created?  We do not know even though we do understand most of the building blocks.  We know everything on Earth is made from stuff created in the heart of stars like our Sun.

• Fast forward four billion years and modern humans appear on the scene.  Ten thousand generations later you had me, the latest in a much longer line of evolution.

• You and I are certainly an insignificant blip when compared to the expanse of the universe.  Our actions in life will have little impact beyond a few generations, a mere speck in a cosmos that measures time on a scale beyond our understanding.  

• In death, our bodies will decay but our atoms, our star stuff, will live on.  In that way we are eternal.

I'm sure some of this will sound as funny to you as the Bible sounds to me.  The difference is all my beliefs are based on scientific facts and that gives me comfort.  Remember the words in the message you sent?  If you read my words carefully you'll see our beliefs are not so dissimilar.  Mine is just missing a hell.

We’ll both no doubt be grieved to see what opportunities we missed in life and where we failed to act in a godly fashion. 

Yet the Lord will dry our eyes and bring us into His glory, where we’ll experience no sadness or pain.

Regret at the end of life is common and after death, we feel nothing.  Aren't we saying similar things?

Once we enter eternity with Him, we will not long for anything. Even if we are able to sense the absence of unsaved loved ones in heaven, there will be no discontent. At that point, our desires will perfectly align with His, and He will fulfill each one—anything we lack will no longer be something we want.

The molecules that made us will exist even after our death.  As our bodies fall to decay and the continents continue to move, the elements that were once part of us will mix with each other.  In time we will join with every person we ever met, every pet we ever loved, and every piece of property we ever owned.  Time and want is meaningless in death and therefore to those that join its embrace, the transformation will be as if it happened overnight.  In a few billion years, the sun will run low on hydrogen and when it explodes it will send it's bounty, including us, into the cosmos as the process starts again.

You may find this weird but this concept is what filled the hole in my heart after I left the Christian church.  It ended my existential dread and gave me the comfort of meaning we all seek.

Of course, I won't be aware of anything in my heaven because I'm fairly confident human consciousness dies at death.  But compare my beliefs to the ones claimed in the email you sent to me.  They aren't so different - we both join with the universe and no longer want.  The only real difference is the ever-present threat that lives at the core of Christianity.  The newsletter you sent ends with it:

Eternity is a long time, and heaven will be indescribably wonderful. Trusting Christ as Savior is the only way to guarantee it will be your destination beyond this life.

I used to be scared of words like this but I am no longer a child and its words no longer control me.  I do not fear hell because it doesn't exist and even if it did, I'm not sure I could find comfort in a universe where some of the people I knew are left behind.  If I am to be deluded, I prefer to be deluded there is an afterlife that will be spent with ALL my friends and family.  That is true under my beliefs.

The bottom line for me is I believe one day we will both have an afterlife among the cosmos and it brings me peace to know you will be there with me.

Sent with all my love,

Your Son

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#MeToo and the girl that got away

I know that title sounds a creepy but I promise it's not that bad.  It's going to be a bit before I get to that part of the story but the Tara Reade story made me think about it.

You may have heard of Tara Reade's allegations against Joe Biden as they have gathered steam in the last month.  They were first reported in early March with a blurb in most publications and then quickly forgotten except those with political axes to grind.  The prime driver were news sites with leanings to Bernie Sanders who wanted Joe to drop out of the race to allow their candidate to take the nomination.  The more moderate news sites are/were holding off to gather information in order to report facts and not a she said/he said.

As the story has gathered steam, we've seen sites dedicated to Donald Trump pick up the charge too.  Trump himself hasn't said much at this point and it's a smart choice considering his own history with the #MeToo movement.  Twenty-five women have accused Donald of raping them and it's a little difficult to think at least a few of them aren't true considering his "grab them by the pussy" tape.

Reade's charge is that when she worked for Biden he made inappropriate comments along with several unwanted advances, the most serious was pinning her to a wall and doing to her what Trump alleged in his infamous tape.

#MeToo has been around for a lot longer than most realize.  Tarana Burke started using the hashtag on MySpace in 2006 as a way for women to share their stories of sexual abuse and as a way to show these women they weren't alone.  #MeToo never entered popular culture until 2017 when the New Yorker published a series of articles against Harvey Weinstein.  These articles spark set off a long-simmering firestorm in Hollywood and it spread to the media, politics, and the business world.  The effect is still reverberating now and will for a very long time.

I'm not sure why it took so long and I'm sure sociologists have written papers why many remain quiet until a single person stands up giving others the courage to join the cause.  With Weinstein, it was certainly because he was not shy at ruining the careers of people that didn't cater to his whims.  

I do think one spark was the election of Donald Trump.  In 2016, the United States elected a man who'd almost surely raped a woman though he'd never claim it as such.  His election led many women to redirect their anger into things like a women's march and others to run for office.  In 2017, Weinstein finally got called out.  I doubt these situations are unrelated.  

Sometimes the world changes fast.  Sometimes it changes so fast that you don't have time to consider what you really want to achieve.

With the whirlwind came the phrase 'Believe all women'.  The theory was that as studies showed 90% of women reporting a rape/assault were telling the truth, we needed to believe them all to give them a safe space.  It made sense as men like Weinstein and Trump rely on their reputations when they call women liars.  No one who has been abused wants to relive that experience.  It takes a very strong person to go to the authorities and studies show a minority of women actually do this.  So hence we should 'Believe All Women'.

The hope is if we 'Believe All Women' more women might feel comfortable coming forward. 

After Weinstein, a tidal wave of allegations against powerful men flowed into media outlets though most of the stories focused on famous actors, politicians, and media personalities.  Many people, mostly men, had abused their positions of authority and many were promptly fired.

Yet in blanket statements lays a danger.

My concern from the beginning has been a statement like 'Believe all Women' is ripe for abuse.  I'd personally change to this phrase to 'Support All Women, Investigate their Claims, and Prosecute the Guilty'.  Unfortunately, it's not as catchy but I do think it would yield better results but if consistently applied.

Either way, the #MeToo movement was cathartic and I've cheered the cause.  It has caused many men, including me, to think back on their actions of a lifetime.  I'm sure this included Joe Biden.  What about Tara Reade?  Did Biden abuse his position of authority?  Are we supporting her?  Have we investigated her claim?  Can we prosecute?  What is true?

I will get back to Tara Reade/Joe Biden but here's where I get to my own #MeToo story.

*****

Early in my career, I was hired as a manager for a company with a staff of twelve.  I was young for the position but knew I could handle my primary duties which revolved doing the books and meeting with corporate management to explain the monthly financials.

As it was, I had only women on my clerical staff.  This was almost always the case in offices back and mostly true today.  I once wondered why this happened and it's two-fold.  The first reason is working in an office isn't considered manly and the male ego can't handle it.  The second reason is money.

The average wage of my employees back then was around $10/hr and the minimum wage was $4.25/hr.  As a point of comparison, our salespeople made around $20/hr at the time, our distribution drivers around $25/hr, and our warehouse people around $20/hr.  About 90% of the other departments were staffed by men*.  All of the other managers were men.

  * I could write a book on the reasons why women weren't in the other departments but I want to stay on topic.

Why would any man apply to be an office worker when they could make more money by moving to a different department?  Women, on the other hand, were limited to office and secretarial work and it had been that way since women started entering the workforce in great numbers after World War Two.  At my location, we had about 30 women working there while we had about 300 men.  We were skewed heavily to men as it was a production facility and the physical nature of the work probably discouraged women from applying (and our managers from hiring those that did apply).  Expand that type of hiring practice to society as a whole and you'll find the law of supply and demand meant even as overall pay for workers increased, the overabundance of women wanting clerical work meant clerical wages remained low.

I never thought much about it when I first started working.  I never questioned it until I did a review with an especially outspoken employee who asked me something that has stuck with me to this day:

"Every day, I pay out millions of dollars of the company's money in invoices.  So why do I make less in salary than the janitor?  He pushes a broom all day."

When I first started, my feeling was a person's salary was between them and their employer.  You negotiate a wage and that's the end of the discussion.  If an employee isn't happy, they can leave but when you think about the relative importance of both jobs in her complaint, it's silly to compare.  My payables clerk had a responsibility many more times of most managers in the company, let alone the janitorial staff.

I'm sure the unskilled male laborers of that time expected this to continue.

In truth, the American economy thirty years ago was going through the last stages of shedding high paying physical labor jobs for today's information-based jobs.  It's one of the reasons men, and particularly white men, are so angry today.  They saw their father able to pay their bills without a college degree or needing their wife's help.  That world has become less and less available to them.

But I digress...

Thirty years ago, I was a young manager in charge of an office of females, and looking back I think I did a good job considering my inexperience.  Luckily for me, most of them knew their job and didn't need my help.  That allowed me to get involved in other departments.

One area that needed my constant assistance was inventory control.  Every month we'd lose tens of thousands of dollars in inventory which led to countless loud conversations between our distribution and warehouse managers.

It took me a single conversation to realize that neither man was good at math or good at their job.  Both men had been sales managers for decades but customers had grown tired of them.  When I asked the general manager why they were put there, he said he didn't want to fire them for fear of an age discrimination lawsuit.  He 'promoted' both to a position where he thought they'd cause less trouble, then got me involved when his decision made a bad situation worse.

*** I'm sure you are starting to wonder what this has to do with #MeToo but I'm getting there ***

In theory, inventory control isn't hard in a distribution warehouse as you have a finite number of ways the product enters and exits a building.  At the beginning of a month, you have a beginning inventory.  It is adjusted in the following ways:

(+) Inventory warehouse employees unload trucks that arrive from the production location.
(-) Inventory warehouse employees load on trucks which is taken by drivers to customers.
(+) Warehouse employees who unload returns that come from customers.

The formula is simple - Beginning inventory +/- the above adjustments give you an estimated ending inventory.  You compare that number to your actual count and get a difference.  Ideally, that number is zero.

This is not a hard process unless you have bad management and we had bad management.

Every month the general manager would call me into his office and ask why inventory was out of control.  Every month I gave the same answer -- our managers and employees aren't taking it seriously.  The GM would then yell at the managers.  In turn, the managers yell at their employees and send out pointless memos.  Eventually, everyone would end up at my desk asking for help.  

((FWIW we all knew the real truth was people were stealing but you can't prove it with bad controls))

As enforcing company controls was part of my job responsibility I had to get involved and found myself spending the majority of my 'free time' trying to find solutions to our inventory problems.  The issue wasn't so much these things were hard to figure out but they took time, patience, and follow-up.

It was hopeless until the day our inventory clerk quit.  I wasn't too upset when I learned she had turned in her notice.  I'd told her bosses she was part of the problem soon after I arrived.  I think the General Manager saw my enthusiastic response as an opportunity.  He told me since I'd wanted her gone, perhaps I should hire the new person.

That's when I first met Wendy.

I hadn't hired many people at the time but one thing you realize when you interview entry-level positions is many times hiring comes down to choosing the least bad option.  It's impossible to know if a hire is going to work out until you've worked with them for a couple months.  Wendy is one of the few who I knew would do well within five minutes of our interview.

She was a college student.  She was willing to work a split shift -- meaning early morning and then come back in the afternoon.  It worked for her because she could work, take morning/noon classes, then work again.  She sounded excited because I told her it was ok if she used the inventory office for homework after she clocked out.

The reason I liked Wendy right away was her answers to my questions were concise yet formed a complete thought.  She was dressed in an understated manner, somehow knowing either by luck or design, this job was not going to be glamorous.  Getting dirty was part of the job. 

I came away from the interview confident Wendy was the one.  First, she showed clear intelligence and drive.  Second, she spoke well and had a self-confidence that I hoped would get others to take her seriously. The only downside I saw was ... Wendy was cute.

As a boss, you aren't supposed to notice things like a person's attractiveness.  As a human, it is impossible not to notice.  In a warehouse where the ratio of men to women is 10:1, I knew it could be a problem.

Men are pigs.  Young men are even bigger pigs.  You can't trust any of them.  Not even the 'straight-A student, looks clean-cut, he's so nice' type.  I know because that's how most people described me back then.  I also remember some of the thoughts running through my head that day.

My first thought when I saw Wendy was to wonder if she had a boyfriend.  I'm sure if we met in a bar and had a conversation we might have hit it off and this would be a different type of article.  Instead, I met her in an interview and while my 'pig-man brain' occasionally would interject a stray thought from time to time, my 'nice-guy' who 'knows he's a manager' side would push them out.

I once worked with an office manager who would only hire ugly girls for that reason.  His reasoning was ugly girls rarely become a distraction.  His reasoning was sexist and misogynist and sadly true.  Have I mentioned men are pigs?  We all know women should be judged on their competence and nothing else.  Every person should be given the same treatment.  Most men know that.  A few act on their pig-man brain influences.

I forwarded Wendy's resume to the warehouse manager with my recommendation.  A week later she was hired.

It's so much fun working with an employee that 'gets it' right away.  On Wendy's first day, I sat down with her to go over her job duties.  I explained how our inventory system worked and she didn't just nod but asked good challenging questions that let me know she understood.  I was overjoyed to know we might finally be able to fix things.

The GM grilled me hard when our results didn't improve in the first month.  He made it clear, the responsibility for the inventory was now mine.  I told him progress would take time but I was sure we had turned the corner.  I'd met with Wendy in her office a couple times a week and she came to my office whenever she had questions.  I saw her just about every day.  I could see a clear improvement in the process even if the results didn't show on the bottom line right away.

I enjoyed going to her office in the afternoons.  She worked in the back of the warehouse, a hive of activity in the morning, but quiet seclusion when our drivers were still out making deliveries.

Where once sat a jumble of papers, she had created a filing system, color-coded charts, and Excel tracking spreadsheets.  She got the basics almost immediately but that didn't mean she wasn't bombarding me to improve things even more.  Every time we met in her office, I'd see an occasional warehouseman walk in, take orders from her, and walk out.  All my fears about them bothering her were groundless.  She had it completely under control in a couple of months.

We made a good team.  As a newly hired manager, it was nice to realize I had the ability to fix problems that had plagued the facility for years.  Wendy and I had worked hard to fix things and inevitably our work brought us closer together.  It didn't take long until I sensed she might feel something more.  I've always been a little clueless at taking hints from women, but with Wendy, I was pretty sure.  We had flirty discussions.  Her leg accidentally brushed against mine under the table more often than could be written off as mere coincidence.  

I wouldn't have dared to start anything while she was still employed with us.  At that point, I was too naive.  I thought companies would fire a manager caught in dating an employee but that didn't stop my pig-man brain from chattering in my ear.  

The rumors started about us started about the third month.

By then, our inventory improvements began showing up on the financials.  My boss was happy.  My boss' boss was happy.  I was happy too and it showed.  I was living four hours drive from anyone I knew.  I was working 80 hours a week and had felt alone for months.  It was nice meeting someone and feeling a connection.  One day my boss smiled as he said that all the time I was spending in the inventory office was paying off.  He didn't say anything specifically but I knew by the smirk on his face what he meant.  He'd heard the rumors.  The sales manager was blunter.  'Is it true you're hitting that?'

In truth, I was spending too much time in inventory.  Wendy didn't need my help anymore and the office had a lot of other problems that needed my attention.  I called the warehouse manager and Wendy into a meeting.  I explained the review process Wendy and I had developed and explained it would now be his responsibility to work with her to keep inventory under control.  I would be available any time they had questions and would meet with them on a monthly basis from that point forward.

 

I saw Wendy wasn't happy with the change.  It was only later I understood the reason.

The warehouse manager's name was Joe.  As I mentioned earlier, he'd once been a sales manager but he'd fallen out of favor with customers.  I didn't know all the details but most likely, it was the same reason I didn't want him in the warehouse position.  Joe wasn't especially smart.

The one thing Joe did have in abundance was a salesperson's charisma.  He was the type that could go into any room and by the time he left, not only know every person's name in the room but their wife and kids as well.  I genuinely envied that trait.

Joe and I got along well once his inventory issues were fixed but I challenged him on the importance of followup with Wendy so he understood her process.

* I'm sure some people who read this are thinking of my earlier comment where my employee pointed out that she was making less than a janitor.  In this situation, Wendy was making $320/week part-time and had fixed the problem.  Joe was making about $50,000/yr.

I could see Wendy continued to streamline the process over the next couple of months.  I was happy to see she didn't need my help -- she understood how to fix problems.  I don't remember the first time she told me she thought Joe was 'gross'.  I'm sure she said it a couple of times and I remember agreeing with her.  I'm sure I mostly blew it off.

I did miss seeing Wendy every day.  She stopped by my office from time to time to ask questions but I blew her off.  Part of the reason was I've never been good at multi-tasking and I don't like interruptions.  Another part of the reason was I knew I'd grown to like her more than a manager should.  

This wasn't the only time it happened in my career.  When you work closely with someone it's hard not to develop feelings of some sort.  It's important to shut them down -- to not act -- to not react.  This was my first experience of this type and I'm sure I pushed too hard with Wendy.  It must have confused her.

I did have a lot of negative feelings towards Joe.  He tried to get involved with inventory for a month or two but couldn't understand it and backed off.  Thankfully Wendy was handling it for him but that didn't make it right.  Wendy was the one answering all the inventory questions at my meeting, at the meeting with my boss and with my bosses boss.   Joe was clueless.  

Joe was a nice guy.  He'd developed a habit during his years of being a salesperson on meeting you with a huge smile, a warm handshake, and what felt like over-enthusiastic banter if you didn't see him talk to everyone the same way.  In all the time I knew Joe, I don't think I ever saw him greet someone with less than unbridled joy.  With people he especially liked, the handshake would turn to a hug and sometimes into a backrub.  I don't like being touched so this annoyed me.  I mentioned it to my boss and he said it was Joe's idiosyncrasies.  It was Joe being friendly.  I never got used to it and never once considered how they might affect a twenty-year-old girl working in a secluded back office.

Wendy had worked for the company for about six months when she shut my office door.  I could tell by the look on her face it was serious.  I assumed it had something to do with a big inventory discrepancy.  I was wrong.

"I want to file a sexual harassment claim."

She took me completely by surprise.  I'm sure I sat silent for a couple of seconds but it felt like a minute.  A tinge of guilt came over me.

As I recall, my response wasn't very profound as I uttered something like "Ohhh?"

I didn't dare say anything else.  Wendy and I weren't working very close by that time.  She was practically running the department.  She didn't need my help.  I wasn't sure why she'd come to me.  It took me until halfway into our conversation before I realized she'd come to me because according to the company's org chart, I was on-site Human Resources.

At that point, I'd never had any HR training nor much in terms of actual experience.  Most people went straight to the GM with their HR concerns.  The other complaints were mostly about medical bills which I took to my payroll person handled.

Wendy had come to me with an actual HR issue because she trusted me.  It was something I had to address.  I asked, "What happened?"

Wendy told me the problem began just after she started.  Joe would come into her office and lean down close over her shoulder as she explained to him her system.  Many times he'd put both hands on her shoulder and start a massage.  She said she told him to stop over and over but he kept doing it.

There are memories in your life when you say or do something and they replay in your brain from that point forward and cringe every time.  The next minute is one of those times for me.

My immediate thought was one of relief.  I don't remember my exact words but it was something like "That's Joe being Joe.  He does that to everyone."

Wendy started crying.  She shouted at me through her tears.  "It's creepy and it's weird and I want him to stop."

I am proud to say I knew I'd fucked up.  I knew I needed help.  I also knew what my boss would say if I took Wendy's complaint to him.  My next move was the smartest thing I'd do during the entire ordeal though it took me many years to realize it.   I called a corporate HR staff lawyer, a lady named Theresa.  We'd worked closely together in the past and I trusted her.

Theresa answer was firm, "You need to file a sexual harassment form."  She gave me the form number so I could copy one from the company handbook.  I asked if we had to go that route as I knew the shitstorm it would cause.  Our policy at the time was if you filed a sexual harassment complaint against a manager, it notice of the complaint be copied to everyone in the company including the company president.

Theresa proceeded to give me the nicest ass-chewing I've ever received.  She never raised her voice but made it clear that once I called her it couldn't be undone.  The only way she wouldn't take it forward is if Wendy rescinded the complaint.  I asked Wendy if she wanted to proceed and through tears she said yes.

It took Wendy a couple minutes to complete the form, sign it, and hand it back to me.  The tears had dried on her face by this time and I wanted to say something to make her feel better.  I knew that was impossible but I was feeling so many things.  I wanted to apologize for leaving her alone with Joe.  I also wanted to give her a hug which I knew would make a bad situation infinitely worse.

As she passed me the paper, she asked if I thought she was doing the right thing.  

I knew I couldn't help her.  I said, "Only you know that."  I'm sure she expected more from me.

Wendy turned and left without a word.  I signed my part of the form before faxing it to corporate.  As soon as I hit send I made another copy and headed to the GM's office to tell him the bad news.

I don't remember his exact response but ...

"What the fuck where you thinking?"  

... was the general message.  His next message was just as clear.  "I want to talk to her."

I knew Wendy wasn't in any shape to talk to anyone.  I started to object but my boss wasn't in the mood to argue.  Wendy's office was a good five-minute walk from the front so I had plenty of time to think about the situation but I couldn't think of a good solution.  As I walked her to the GM's office she asked, "Am I in trouble?"  I tried to reassure her she was not though in truth I had no idea what my boss was going to do.

I can clearly remember the look on her face when the GM told me to step outside so he could talk to her alone.  No fear.  No hint of tears this time.  I doubted I would have looked as brave.

One thing I didn't realize at the time is HR departments aren't set up to protect employees.  They are there to protect corporations from having problems with their employees.  Sometimes the two goals intersect but many times they don't.

In this case, the General Manger convinced Wendy to take back the form.  He convinced her we could take care of it in house.  When she agreed the he called the company's lead HR attorney and together they made sure the form never made it to the Vice President of HR.

I found the whole process disappointing.  Had they realized how much guts it took for her to file that form?

When I first started working as a manager I thought everything was black or white.  Yes or no.  Right or wrong.  A sexual harassment claim against Joe would have gone in Joe's file but as it was later explained to me, it also would have gone in the GMs and mine too.  Not in any physical sense.  If the form had gotten filed, we would have been branded as managers that couldn't handle our problems in-house.  It would have been a chit higher-up managers would hold against us if they needed at some point in the future.

This was when I learned that management is a game where many times companies pretend to follow certain rules as pawns get sacrificed along the way.  I also learned company culture is almost as important as a company's salary structure if you want to attract and retain the best workers.

The next day, I asked Wendy if she really did willingly rescind her complaint form.  She claimed she did.  She said the General Manager said he would talk to Joe and make sure it didn't happen again.  Theresa in HR was pissed when I called her to talk about it.  Her boss had given her a similar tongue lashing as the one I'd gotten from my General Manager.

Joe came to me and looked genuinely hurt when he found out.  That didn't stop him from later making mocking comments around me hoping he hadn't gotten too close.  Joe never gave me a backrub or a pat on the back from that day forward, the only good outcome from the whole enterprise.  

As for Wendy, I'm sure he told everyone in the warehouse to watch out for her because she was trouble.  I'm also sure most of the people ignored him because everyone knew Joe was a bad manager.  Wendy complained to me about it and I mentioned it to the General Manager.  He rolled his eyes at me when I told him.  I have no idea if he ever said anything to Joe.

A month later Wendy turned in her notice.  On her last day, I asked her to come to my office but she claimed she didn't have time.  I went to her office which I saw was covered in balloons with a cake on her desk.  In the two years I worked at that facility, this was the only time the warehousemen ever pooled together money to give someone a party.  Everyone was sad she was leaving.

I told Wendy I was sorry.  I told her I wished things had turned out different.  I told her I was going to miss our conversations.  I knew I was going to miss her in more ways than I could say out loud but to say more would risk making me look like a creep and she didn't deserve that.  She thanked me for my help and we shook hands.  I never saw her again.

I heard through the grapevine she graduated from college a few years later.  They said she got a really good job at a Fortune 500 company working in Human Resources.  I've always wondered if her job of choice was because of her experiences with us.  The thought haunts me sometimes but I will never know the answer.

Our inventory problems returned within a couple of months of Wendy's departure.  Within a year, Joe was pushed out of his warehouse job.  They moved him back to sales.

*****

This story may seem quaint in comparison with Tara Reade's allegations or the stories about Harvey Weinstein's rapes.  Wendy wasn't shoved against a wall or forced to have sex but she was put in an uncomfortable situation.  She was forced to endure something she asked to stop.  She went to someone to ask for help and was met with disappointment.  Wendy left the company a little sadder and a little less innocent.  We took that from her.

Like Tara Reade, the situation I described above is from my memories but memories fade over time.  Time has a way of distorting our memories.  Tara Reade has changed her story many times over the years.  Joe Biden says it didn't happen.  Who is telling the truth?

Is my story above true?  It's the way I remember it but it is human nature to make ourselves the heroes of our of own journey.  I wonder how others might feel.  I'd bet the General Manager wouldn't remember it.  Wendy almost surely would.  Would Joe?  It's doubtful.

I've thought a lot about Wendy since the #MeToo movement started.  I always did my best to separate work and personal life but that doesn't mean I didn't use my position to wrong someone.  Perhaps I turned a blind eye when I should have spoken up.  Am I the boss in another person's story?  Then I wonder how Joe be viewed if it happened today?  What would a company today do when faced with the same situation?

Nothing is ever black and white.  Everything should be viewed on a sliding scale.  A single backrub isn't the same as dozens of backrubs after being told no.  Is a dozen unwanted backrubs worse than a 'grab of the pussy'?  At what point should a man be written up?  At what point should a politician drop out of a race because of allegations of rape?  These are impossible questions because every situation is different yet #MeToo requires us to deal in absolutes.

Is Tara telling the truth?  Is Joe Biden?  They are the only two that really know the answer and I doubt the rest of us ever hear the truth.  In that case, there are no good answers.  Only questions that will never be fully resolved.

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