A Day at the Post Office, Part 3

Alexandria, Virginia. October 2006

2:45pm

Raj wanted me to call in around 2:30 to let him know where I was on route 71.

I have my cell phone in the LLV with me, and I dial the station.

“Alexandria Memorial Annex,” Raj says. I recognize his Indian or Pakistani accent.

“Raj, it’s Nathan Marshburn. I’m calling in to update you.”

“Where are you?” Raj asks. “I’ve got half of route 52 sitting on the floor waiting.”

“Sir, looking at what is left in my truck, I have to say that I am about one third of the way done with the route.”

“One third to go or one third done?”

“One third done. About two thirds of the mail for the route is still in my truck.”

“I don’t know what to tell you, Mr. Marshburn. Everyone on the overtime list is still out on the street. Ken, Francois and Kevin will probably come back first, but I have other mail routes they need to carry. I need to you to go faster, Mr. Marshburn. I have no help to send you.”

Though I have never served in the military or been in combat, the feeling in my stomach is probably a hint of what a soldier must experience when he is deep in the bush with the enemy and needs a load of napalm dropped on the tree line. He radios in his position, only to be told no fast movers are available.

The thing is, I have to ask for the "air strike" on a daily basis. It has gotten old to my supervisors, my coworkers, and me. I have become numb to what the floor manager tells me as far as assistance. I respond like I am on the radio in combat. “Roger that.”

“You are on your own, sir,” Raj says.

I punch the end call button on my phone. As usual, there are miles to go before I sleep.

Also, I have yet to eat anything today.

Rarely in my life have I been able to force myself to get up early enough to grab breakfast, and it has never happened on this job. I am not a morning person. I will almost always trade food for sleep, and I sleep as long as I can in the mornings before having to report to work.

At the Post Office, we are allotted one half hour for lunch, which is ridiculous. The only thing that I can eat in a half hour is greasy fast food, and getting in and out of even those restaurants is a challenge in the crowded DC area. There are rarely restaurants along my mail route. I have to break off, fight the traffic and the clock to get to a McDonalds or Subway. It is also very much in my head that the time I spend eating is more time I will have to spend on the street later, after night has fallen.

I need an energy boost, though, so I take my LLV off the designated route and drive to the nearest fast food restaurant that I know of- Burger King. There, I wolf down some cheeseburgers and a fruit punch drink before getting back on the street. My lunch is not nearly enough calories, and neither is it healthy calories. I am on a miniature “Supersize Me” diet.

4:30 pm

The next addresses are businesses that get tubs of mail. It looks like I will need to use the hand truck and wheel in the plastic tubs. I open the back of the LLV and pull out the red painted heavy duty hand truck. It has two wheels that are inflatable and actually have treads on them, just like small tires.

It takes me about fifteen minutes to walk the block with my hand truck. I carry out about as much mail as I carry in. It is also my job to collect the outgoing mail and drive it back to the station at the end of the day.

As I load up the hand truck and slide down the back door, I see a woman standing on the sidewalk, glaring at me.

She is in her 40s, and I cannot be sure if her brownish red hair is dyed or natural. Rather thick glasses set on the end of her nose, giving her a bit of the schoolmarm look. Her most noticeable features, however, are her white, bare knees. She has on these brown, high heeled shoes with brownish-grey stockings that come up to her knee caps before folding over slightly. Her skirt is a little short, allowing me to see the knees. It is not a look that I am used to for a woman.

“Excuse, me?” she asks. “Do you know what time it is?”

“It’s about 4:45, ma’am,” I answer.

“Yes. It is almost five o’clock, and we are just now getting our mail. There is no time to go through and read it before the end of the business day.”

“Yes ma’am?”

“This is a law firm,” she says. “We receive many important documents, and we have deadlines to file things. It is important that we get our mail early enough to respond. This late in the day is not acceptable.”

“You have the option to send and receive things via Express Mail, ma’am. That guarantees delivery by noon the next day in most cases.”

“The regular mail used to come in the morning,” she says. “Now it is getting here later and later in the day.”

After a few months, I now have a much better understanding of the term, “Going Postal.” At my current rate of delivery, I am going to be on the street until close to midnight. There is no time to deal with this woman.

I move to the driver’s side of my truck. “Well, I’m sorry, ma’am. I can give you the phone number to my supervisor if you would like to talk to him about it.”

“Yeah, and I could spit in the wind, too!” she yells at me.

I watch her for a moment as she turns her back and walks away.

5:00pm

It is the beginning of rush hour, though traffic is always pretty heavy here. There is a group of small shops and then some larger businesses that I need to get the mail to, and parking is tight on these particular streets. I see an opening next to the curb and squeeze in. As I get out of the truck, there is an Asian lady in the car in front of me with her window down and waving.

“You’re going to have to back up,” she says. “I can’t get out.”

I look at the distance between the front of my LLV and her back bumper. It is a good three feet.

“Lady, you’ve got room to get out. I’ve got a lot of mail to deliver. I’m sorry.”

Paying her no more attention other than to note her look of confusion at my response, I walk to the back of my truck and figure out the next load. First will be a four story building with deliveries on each floor. I break out the hand truck again.

Once inside the building, I take the elevator to the top floor. One of the stops is to another law firm.

I leave the hand truck setting at the front door and pick up a couple of their tubs of mail with my hands.

Inside, it appears that some sort of celebration is going on. Young men and women, about my age, have popped a bottle of champagne. There is a nice cake with white icing as well.

The women are fit and attractive, like the girls I saw in college. It bothers me that they do not even look at me, though, as I pass by in my Post Office uniform, carrying their load of heavy mail. The guys, in their white collars and neck ties ignore me, too.

I could just set the mail down and walk out. But the feeling of resentment and also a desire to be a part of their group causes me to enter the room with the cake and champagne.

“Excuse me,” I say, “where would you like this?”

The women do not even bother to look up. One of the guys, who appears to be my age, glances at me. “Just set it down outside,” he says, and turns away.

You are not smarter than me, I think as I set the mail down outside their door. I could do what you do. I deserve to be a part of your group.

5:20pm

I return to my LLV with the hand truck. To my satisfaction, I see that the Asian lady and her car are gone. Apparently, she did have enough room to get out.

Parked in her place, though, is another Post Office LLV. Kenny, one of the regular route guys whose name is on the overtime list is waiting for me.

“Hey, man!” I say.

“I’ve got the second half of route 52 for you,” he says. “They wanted to send it out so you didn’t have to make the trip back to the station.”

“Okay, thanks,” I respond. It is not the first time that they have worked it this way.

Kenny helps me move the mail from his truck to mine, and so I do not bother to ask if he is going to help me deliver it.

He leaves without saying much else to me.

So now, I have half of route 52 in my truck, and a substantial remaining portion of route 71.

Raj’s accented “You are on your own, sir!” echoes in my head as I take a moment to watch the sun beginning to set behind the buildings of Old Town Alexandria.

Night comes much sooner this time of year.

To be continued…

A Day at the Post Office, Part 2

Alexandria, Virginia. October 2006.

I ring the doorbell. This house has an item of registered mail that requires signature for delivery.

No one answers.

Typically, I would keep moving. Registered mail is different, though. If I lose a piece of registered mail, I could lose my job. People ship high value items via registered mail. Everyone who touches it has to sign first, like a chain of custody log for the confiscated cocaine in a drug dealer’s trial.

I do not want to carry a piece of registered mail with me back to the station. I want to get rid of it now, so I ring the doorbell again.

Finally, the door opens, and I am startled.

There stands a beautiful, red headed woman, completely naked except for a tiny white towel wrapped around her.

She sees my facial expression and gives me a small, knowing smile.

“Uh… I have some mail that you have to sign for ma’am,” I say.

“Oh, thank you,” she says. “I have to apologize. I was in the bath when you rang.”

She speaks with a foreign accent- European, but I am not sure from what country.

I hold out the paper and pen for her to sign. She takes the pen and leans over, giving me an up close view of almost the entirety of her two breasts. It is an image that is immediately seared into my brain for the rest of my life.

She is watching my reaction. “I apologize for me,” she says.

There is a sexual ease to her, the way she moves and speaks. Her skin looks soft and smooth, and she seems to be quite comfortable with her naked body.

I cannot manage to say anything, and she takes pleasure in that. In another instant, the door has closed and I am left to return to the toil of the day.

Some of the other carriers at the Post Office make jokes about the women they are stopping in to see along their routes. I think that is all they are- jokes. For me, it is simply a fantasy. Even if I was invited by a woman, there is no time for that. I could never finish the mail route. I have to call the office for help on a daily basis as it is.

Many of the small letter envelopes are pre-sorted by machine. In the mornings, I pick up the plastic trays for these letters on my way out to load the truck. Again, it would be helpful to put rubber bands around the letters for each house, so that it is easier to sort when I am out on the street. This is not the way the Post Office wants it done, though. I am instructed not to touch the individual letters in these machine sorted trays until I have started my route.

There is a precise method to delivering the mail on the street that the Post Office wants me to use. Almost all of the routes in Old Town are walking routes. I park the LLV (long life vehicle) at the corner of designated block, or at least as close as I can get to that corner. I open the back of the LLV, and hopefully I have loaded the mail correctly so that the trays and parcels that I need first are right there in order. Parcels and packages go in the satchel that I wear on my shoulder. Next, I look at the trays of mail that I personally sorted this morning. These are primarily flats, or large envelopes and magazines. I balance the flats on the underside of my left forearm, also using my stomach as necessary to keep them from falling. Now, I look into the tray of machine sorted letters and find where the break is for the next block (Often, I make a mistake in this regard and either grab too many or too few of the letters). These are to be held in the left hand. I close the door and lock up the truck.

I begin walking the block. The idea is that as I make deliveries on the block, it will all be in order and will guide me around the block, back to the LLV when I have distributed all the mail in my hand, on my arm, and in my satchel. As I walk toward a house, I should be fingering through the letters in my left hand for those that go to that house. I pull them and place them on my forearm on top of the corresponding flats. Then I finger the flats for that house and fold them over the letters. Hopefully, I have done this by the time I reach the house. I put the mail through the slot and move toward the next address, repeating the sorting process for that house.

Maybe it is just me, but there are a number of things that slow me down, even if I do park in the right spot and grab the right amount of mail, in order.

People in Old Town receive lots of mail. Many houses get stacks of magazines on a daily basis. The mail for a given block is often too much for me to carry in one load. I have to pass out everything I can carry, and then come back to the LLV for two and three loads, when the Post Office has calculated the time needed to carry this block is for one trip. The packages and parcels are very often too many, too large, and too awkwardly shaped to all fit in my satchel.

Old Town Alexandria is one of the most affluent neighborhoods in the whole country. I deliver mail to Senator John McCain, Governor Mark Warner, and General Colin Powell. At the same time, I also deliver mail to housing projects, usually very close and within plain window view of the nice homes. One postal worker has told me that a certain housing project here has more diagnosed cases of AIDS per household than anywhere in the United States- though I do not know his source of information.

The disparity in the amount of mail between rich and poor amazes me, too. There are addresses in the projects that never get mail, it seems. Sometimes old men or women are standing or sitting outside waiting for me.

“You got my check today?” they ask.

Sometimes I do have it, sometimes I do not. They are not happy when I do not have it and they think there has to be some mistake.

The Post Office has taken into account this disparity in mail volume, though. Routes that have housing projects on them are considerably longer (more addresses) than those on the affluent streets. I generally prefer carrying mail in the projects if given the choice. I would rather walk longer with less mail in my arms. Also, the people in the projects look at me and talk to me as if they respect my occupation. This is not true in the rich neighborhoods. I am becoming very class conscious in this job. Also, if I tell the truth, many of the women in the projects are just as physically beautiful to me as the women I see getting into Mercedes and living in the fancy townhouses of Alexandria. These women in the projects often give me warm smiles. The other ladies give me smug smiles if they look at me at all.

The mail slots in the townhouses are very old and very small, for the most part. They were not built for sliding large amounts of magazines through them. I fold the magazines over and do the best I can, but often I have to stand at a door for a while, putting magazines through the tiny slots one at a time, tearing the covers against the sharp metal corners. Again, the Post Office has calculated that I should be able to put all mail through the slot in one motion and keep moving…

Dogs. All the stereotypes that you have heard about dogs and mailmen are true. It is a puzzling thing.

A dog is frequently waiting behind the door for me, like they can sense when I am there. The vicious snarling is really something to hear. Sometimes I will just stand at a door, listening to the dog on the other side foam at the mouth, literally ramming parts of its body against the door. When I stick the mail through the slot, I have to be careful not to put any part of a finger through as well. That is what the dog wants. The mail gets torn to shreds as they snatch it from my hands with their teeth through the door slot.

I like dogs, and dogs almost always like me. Something happens when I am wearing the Post Office uniform, though. I become the enemy. They look at me dead in the eyes through windows of a house, snarling and trying to bite through the glass. There is no question that they would attack me if given the chance.

I walk down the street in one neighborhood. A big, black Labrador retriever is being held on a leash by a young woman. Labs have some of the best temperaments of any breed in the world. I have never met one that was not friendly.

Despite the time crunch of the day, I want to greet the dog. It is a stress reliever.

“Is it okay if I pet your dog?” I ask the lady.

“Sure,” she says. “He does not bite. He’s very friendly.”

I reach down and let the dog smell my hand. He stands quietly while I pet him on this throat and chest. I give his ears a squeeze.

After a few moments, I stand back up.

“Thank you,” I say to her, and am about to continue walking. The look in the dog’s eye changes. Suddenly he snarls and lunges straight at my crotch. The woman pulls back on the leash just as his jaws snap an inch from my zipper.

“Whoa! What the hell is wrong with him?” I yell.

The woman is shocked herself, but she says, “There’s nothing wrong with him.”

She looks at me as if I was the one who did something wrong as she holds tight against the leash.

Maybe it is the smell of the mail and how it gets on the uniform. Maybe it is because mailmen are always moving so quickly from door to door and into the dogs’ territory that annoys the animals. At any rate, I learn not to mess with them when I am in a Post Office uniform.

To be continued…

A Day at the Post Office, Part 1

Alexandria, Virginia. October, 2006.

(Names have been changed)

7:30 am

I clock in and begin walking down the concrete floor, looking for a supervisor to give me my assignment for the day.

I pass by Rodney’s station on route 15. He is already there, sorting the crates of mail and putting it up in trays.

An athletic looking African-American, Rodney is an avid Washington Redskins fan. He flashes a smile as I pass and sings out his familiar song, loud enough for the entire station to hear:

“Today is the first day of the rest of your life! So let’s make this the best day of the rest of your life! Yesterday was the past, tomorrow is the future, so let’s get to it!”

Every single morning he does this. Half the time, he gets the words mixed up. He will sing out: “Today is the first day of the rest of your life! So let’s make this the best day of the rest of your life! Yesterday is the future, tomorrow was the past, so let’s get to it!”

I am glad he does it, but it is too early in the morning to laugh or smile much.

Raj, one of the floor supervisors, comes from either Pakistan or India. He is a hard worker and is trying to do his best. None of the mail carriers, and I literally mean none, like management. His is a lonely job, constantly clashing with the mail carrier union. Still, there is no heavy lifting to what he does. He does not have to go out on the street. Raj sees me and walks up.

“Marshburn, I have you on route 71 today. You need to put up that route. I want you to finish that as soon as you can and call back in around 2:00. I will need you to do half of route 52 today as well.”

“Yes, sir,” I say.

He walks away. I smile to myself, half of me wanting to laugh, the other half trying to fight off waves of despair. I have never done route 71 before. So far, I have not been able to put up the mail and deliver an entire route before 9 pm. What he just gave me is an impossible work load to get done before midnight.

8:00 am

I stand on a rubber mat on the concrete floor, surrounded on three sides by metal sorting trays that go about a foot over my head. In the opening behind me is a cart with boxes of unsorted mail. The trays are marked with the streets and houses of route 71. When I pick up a piece of mail, I look at the address, and then find the appropriate slot on the metal trays to insert it. There are bigger slots in the trays for businesses.



To get a route all to myself, I have to work here for about three years. As it is now, I come in each day and get an assignment based on which of the regular carriers called in sick or is on vacation. After Halloween and through Christmas, though, no one is allowed to take vacation time.

I hear Raj’s voice behind me. I turn and see that he is talking with another utility mail carrier just like me who is only now arriving at work.

He tells Raj that he was late because there was a car accident. Richard, the carrier who gave me street training here at the station when I first began working, is passing by pushing a cart of mail. He interjects:

“Nascar says go high and push on through the smoke.”

Raj and the other mail carrier give Richard blank and confused looks, respectively. But I get it.

11:00 am

“Hey Professor, you’re still here?”

I recognize the Puerto Rican accent of George or Jorge. I turn and force a smile.

“Yep, still putting up this mail,” I respond.

He moves on without further comment. There is not much to say. We are supposed to be on the street delivering the mail by 10:30 am. I just cannot get it all sorted that fast, though.

George is funny guy. He stands about 6’5” or 6’6”. The managers dislike him for some reason, and it is no secret that they are trying to get him fired. George primarily does express mail runs in the morning. Those are the letters and packages that have to be delivered before 12 noon. George has one of the shortest routes in the station because of this. He comes back after the morning express mail runs, puts up his route and then heads out.

I have worked his route before. There is more mail than others because it is almost entirely businesses, but there are fewer addresses, which makes it go faster. Often when I walk past George’s station, it looks like he is loafing, carrying on and laughing, bouncing back and forth between English and Spanish.

I like George. It is good to hear laughter in this place, which everyone refers to as “The Rock.” Its real name is Alexandria Memorial Annex, and it is one of the busiest mail stations in the entire country. Managers or supervisors get chewed up and spit out here, or so I have been told. They change out about every six months.

***

When I got hired by the Post Office for the Washington, DC region, I made a stupid move. I had the highest score on the postal exam, and they asked me where I wanted to go. Having no idea that there was a big difference in difficulty of assignments, I told them, “It doesn’t matter. Just stick me where you need the most people.”

Before actually reporting to “The Rock” in May, I went through a week of general training with other new hires. Our class instructor asked each of us where we were assigned.

“Arlington,” one guy said.

“Oh, I know Beth Williams out there,” our instructor responded. “She is a great manager. Tell her I said hello.”

“Springfield,” another person said.

“Talk to Bob Shelton out there. He’ll make life easy for you," the instructor said to him.

“Falls Church.”

“Fairfax.”

And so it went. When it was my turn, I said “Alexandria Memorial.”

The instructor paused for a moment and her eyes got a little big.

“Jesus will watch over you along with all of his angels,” she said.

***

“Marshburn, it is past 11 and you are still here. What’s the problem?” Raj asks.

“No excuses, sir,” I say. “I am going as fast as I can.”

Raj watches me for a couple of minutes as I continue to put up the mail. As I work, I am waiting to hear if he can offer any suggestions on how to go faster. None are forthcoming. Eventually, I look over my shoulder and he is gone.

Finally, around 11:30, I finish putting all the mail in the metal trays. Now it is time to take the mail down and stack it in plastic trays to be loaded into the truck, in the order it will be delivered.

Putting rubber bands around all the mail for the different addresses helps when I am out on the street. For whatever reason, though, this is forbidden. I will get in trouble if caught doing it. Perhaps it is the cost of rubber bands. I have heard from other carriers, though, that management just wants us on the street as soon as possible. Putting rubber bands on the mail is more time at the station.

It is about 11:45 when I finish taking down the mail for route 71 and have it loaded up on a push cart. There is a separate push cart for the parcels. I pull both toward the elevators down to the ground level and the trucks. I see that I am the last carrier leaving the station, and there are about 100 routes here. The place is depressingly quiet, and again I fight off the waves of anxiety. I have literally been left behind.

My arms have always been skinny, but I notice that they look even thinner now as I push the carts. Despite eating a buffet every chance that I get, I am down to about 140 lbs.

Correctly loading the LLV (long life vehicle) is an important part of the process, too. Not having worked the route before, I have to trust that the metal trays were oriented correctly to the way the route will work on the street. The parcels go in one part of the truck. I have trays of flats (magazines and large envelopes) and trays of letters that I carefully stack in what I hope is the right order for delivery.



My bar code scanner is hooked to my belt, and I have the master key to the cluster boxes on the route. I climb into the driver’s seat of the LLV, fasten my orange seatbelt, crank the engine and head out to the streets of Old Town Alexandria.

It is just after 12:00pm, when most other mail carriers are taking their half hour lunch break.

To be continued…

$15 Magic

Las Vegas. January 2006.

“Yes, Mr. Marshburn. I am calling you back in regard to your application for health insurance with our company.”

“Yes, sir?” I respond over my cell phone. I am standing in the break room of the car dealership.

“You listed that you presently take Accutane?”

“That is correct.”

“You also listed that you were diagnosed with colitis one year ago?”

“Yes, that is true.”

“Because of these medical issues, I am sorry, but you do not qualify to be insured by our company,” the man on the other end of the line says.

***

Eventually, after being turned down by a few other health insurance companies, I find one that will insure me for certain things, with a $5000 deductible. So, at least I do not have to worry about going bankrupt if I get into a car accident out here in Las Vegas. My job with the car dealership does not offer health insurance benefits.

***

Cullowhee, North Carolina. 2008.

While in graduate school, I write a blog entry encouraging our political leaders to reform health care. I write that the public will thank them for it and even build statues in their honor because of it.

***

Live Oak, Florida. Present Day.

The hunched over lady limps up to the receptionist window of the doctor’s office. I watch as she fumbles around in her pocket book. Her shoes are worn and dirty, her clothes simple. I was here in the waiting room when she was called back to see the doctor. Now, she has come out, and it is time to pay the bill.

“How much is it going to be?” she asks the receptionist.

“$175, Ms. Graham.”

The lady looks down.

The door between the waiting room and the treatment rooms opens. A nurse calls out, “Nathan!”

I stand up. The others, old and sickly for the most part, look at me, a healthy young man wearing a suit and tie.

I walk back, see the doctor, and within 15 minutes am again standing in front of the receptionist counter. She gives me back my Blue Cross/ Blue Shield health insurance card that I have by virtue of being a state employee.

“That will be $15,” she says.

***

Over the past couple of weeks, through conversations on Friday night at the Brown Lantern Bar, through lunch conversations at the Downtown Café or other restaurants in Live Oak, I have learned that I am perhaps the only person in Suwannee County who supports Obama care.

One of the attractive waitresses at the Brown Lantern asked me last week what everyone was arguing with me about. They had all ganged up on me.

“I’m defending Obama care,” I tell her.

A shocked look comes over her face. “Boo!” she says to me.

The restaurant most likely does not give her health insurance. She is married to a cop, though, so she would have benefits through his job.

Across the country, it seems that I have misjudged the way many Americans would react to health care reform. It is still early, though. Obama care has not had time to work, yet.

The most vociferous detractors of health care reform strike me to be people who have had government or company provided health insurance almost their entire lives. A lot of them are military veterans.

Perhaps I am wrong, but I think those that argue with me believe they deserve the benefit of health insurance because of the hard work they have done and the position they have achieved in life. Others in society who have not worked as hard do not deserve the same benefit.

If that is their position, then I come from a simply different moral philosophy. Health care should not be a reward for hard work. Everyone should have it, regardless of what has happened to them or where they are in life. Sure, those who disagree with Obama care have worked hard, but there is an element of luck involved in this, too. Not everyone can have a government job. Not everyone can make a career with a good company that provides benefits. There are winners and losers in life. But the losers should still have something as basic as affordable health care.

Almost everyone who has argued with me on Obama care also claims to be a Christian and attends church, so far as I know. I will admit that, despite the best efforts of my parents to raise me as a Southern Baptist, I do not consider myself a Christian and have not been to a church service since 1998. Still, this opposing stance (to me) does not seem to be in line with what Jesus would do. The disregard for their fellow humans appears to be a contradiction to his teachings.

“We can’t afford it bro!” One guy said to me at the bar. “We can’t afford to take care of everyone in society. If people think it is bad here, they should go to the Dominican Republic and see how people live there. My church did a mission trip there.”

“We have to try,” I answered him. “And if we can’t afford it, then we need to reprioritize our spending. The old health care system was broken. We have to try something different. Also, you shouldn’t hold up the Dominican Republic as a model. America should be the model for the rest of the world.”

Perhaps there is something genetic, or engrained in our DNA about this argument.

One of my friends from law school sends me a weekly write up that he does for his investment firm. He is a nice guy and has always been very successful. He played football for an ACC school and still stays in tremendous shape.

He posted an article on his social media page and called it “Spot Me Some Entitlements, Bro!” The article was a dagger of a piece, basically saying that men with more upper body strength tend to be conservative in their political thinking, while men with less upper body strength tend to be liberal and favoring wealth redistribution. The idea is that strong men do not need the help. Going back to prehistoric times, they can go out and hunt whatever they need. Weaker guys need more help from the community to provide for them and their families.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-2325414/Men-physically-strong-likely-right-wing-political-views.html

Maybe he has a point, or maybe it is all nonsense. I do not know. I acknowledge that part of what shapes my thinking on this is from selfish personal experience- I have had some health issues, and it startled me when I could not get health insurance. All my savings could be wiped out in an instant through no fault of my own. Also, being successful is not so easy, at least for me. Keeping a job and building wealth has proven to be a continuing challenge.

I also acknowledge that I am no expert on how Obama care will work or how it is supposed to work. The old system was a wreck for many Americans, though, and we can do better. The reaction of many of my friends and colleagues to Obama care has surprised and puzzled me. But I find that the older I am getting, the less certain I am of many things.

Athleticism

Lumberton, North Carolina. 1989 or 1990

The basketball is loose, near the sideline. I sprint for it and get there first.

Oh, man. Here I am, charging on a fast break down the basketball court at Littlefield High School.

Littlefield is a grade 7th through 12th school, but the total student body population is only about 600. I am in 8th grade, playing a game of pickup basketball with my brother and some friends.

I have watched several high school basketball games on this court, and the players are larger than life to me in the green and gold (yellow) uniforms and “Hornets” insignia. One guy on the team, Tim, can jump so high that when he takes a jump shot, it looks like he is shooting down on the goal.

This is also the floor where I sit in the bleachers and watch the pretty Littlefield cheerleaders. I am in love with one of the cheerleaders, a red head named Amy. She has never paid attention to me, though. The cheerleaders do their routines during the timeouts, and then jog back over to the first row of bleachers when the game begins again. After their routines, one cheerleader does a slow split as the others jog off. It is a sight forever etched in my brain, her smiling at the crowd as she slides to the floor with her tan legs. She holds the pose for a moment, and then gets up to join the other girls.

I run past the exact spot on the floor where she performs those incredible splits, going as fast as I can while bouncing a basketball.

The gym also has a stage for plays and school presentations. Coach T sits on the stage in a metal folding chair, watching our pickup game. Coach T is an all-around good coach for any sport. I want to impress him because he is the high school baseball coach, and that is the team I would like to join more than any other.

I do not know if anyone is behind me, catching up to steal the ball, but I don’t dare look. The basket is only a few more feet ahead.

The white bordered square on the glass backboard looms ahead of me. When shooting the ball, I have been taught that you should concentrate on the back of the rim- unless you want to bank the shot in. If you want to bank it off the glass, then make sure the ball hits in the middle of that square, and it will go in.



I cannot dunk a basketball, so this is going to be a lay-up off the glass.

Hit the square, I think to myself. Hit the square.

I am under the goal, now, still running about as hard as I can go. I put the ball up with two hands, like a chest pass, and it hits the center of the glass square perfectly.

Instead of going into the hoop, though, the ball launches backward and lands well behind the three point line. It bounces clear back to half court.

Everyone sort of freezes in stunned silence. Coach T has his arms crossed on his chest, and keeps a stoic expression. My friend, Ron, is the first to burst out in laughter. He puts his hands on his knees and doubles over.

My brother, a very good basketball player, just stares at me. We are both at an awkward age where we do not say much to each other in public, in front of other people. But once we are home, he lets me have it.

Years later, even in the present, he still talks about that play.

“We were all just shocked,” he says. “I couldn’t believe that you were that uncoordinated. I mean, the ball bounced back to half court. Didn’t you know how to make a lay-up?”

“I hit the square!” I answer defensively. “I was always told that if you hit the square, the ball will go in!”

After that disastrous attempt at a lay-up, I work on my technique a little more and learn that if I go up with one hand and pull the ball back from the backboard just before I release, then it takes away the momentum of my sprint and softens the bounce against the square. The ball should go in.

Luckily, no girls were around to watch that spectacle of athleticism.

The Ferris Wheel

Kissimmee, Florida. February 2012.

I can hear the crowd cheering inside the Silver Spurs Arena. The rodeo has already started. I have never been to a rodeo in person, and I was looking forward to this. I debate whether or not to buy a ticket and see what is left.

"Excuse me, ma'am?" I say to a lady on the other side of the glass window at the ticket booth.

"Yes, sir?"

"Do you know if they've had the bull riding, yet?"

"Yeah, that's one of the first things they did. It's over, now."

That decides me. The bulls were the main thing I wanted to see.

"Okay. Thank you."

"I'm sorry," she says.

I smile at her and walk away from the arena. About fifty yards to the south is the entrance to the Osceola County Fair. Florida seems to hold their county fairs in the winter, which is definitely a change from where I grew up in North Carolina. I have always associated the fair with early autumn or even Halloween.

Night has fallen here in Kissimmee, and I stand in line for my ticket with talkative teenagers and guys wearing cowboy hats with girls hugging their arms.

"How many?" the man in the booth asks me when it is my turn at the window.

"Just me," I say.

"Just you?" he echoes.

"Yep."

"That'll be five dollars."

Once inside the grounds, I walk around for a bit, to take a look at all the attractions.

The predominant feature is the Ferris wheel. I have never ridden on one of these, either, and I think back to a story that my dad told me from his childhood.

He was at a fair, probably the Pender County Fair in North Carolina in the late 1950s or the early 1960s. He rode a Ferris wheel for the first time, along with his brother and a friend. Dad said that he was amazed by all that he could see, as he had never been so high in the air before. He had a royal time, too, as the Ferris wheel operator apparently forgot they were on board. They rode for about half an hour.

I think I want to go up in the Ferris wheel. In the darkness, I know that I will only be able to see lights down below, but I am still curious.

There is quite a long line of people, and I am hungry. So I buy a hot dog and a bottle of water to eat and drink while I wait.

After about ten minutes, I am close enough to the base of the wheel to see a sign that gives me pause. It reads in all caps: "NO SINGLE RIDERS." I have waited this long, though, and I do not know when the opportunity to ride a Ferris wheel might present itself again. So I stay in line.

Four men stand at the base, loading the passengers into the gondolas. As I watch them, I see that they are carefully picking and choosing who goes into each one. The gondolas swing back and forth on the rim of the wheel, and I suppose balancing each of the gondolas is an important thing.

Finally, it is my turn to get into one.

"Who else you got with you?"

"It's just me," I say.

"Aaah," the man exhales, scratching his forehead. "I can't put you in one by yourself."

"It screws up the balance?" I ask.

"You got it." He thinks for a moment. "Here, you can get in this one."

I sit for a minute by myself while people climb into a couple of other gondolas. Then one of the men directs a family of three to get into the gondola with me.

The family stands frozen for a moment. It is a young couple, younger than me, probably, with a small boy. The woman is pretty obese, and the guy is big, too, but in a brawny style. He is 6'2" or 6'3".

"Can we have a car by ourselves?" the woman asks.

"Sorry," the man answers. "I've got to put you in with him."

The husband tries to usher his wife in.

"I don't want to ride with him!" she says loudly.

This obviously embarrasses the husband, who strikes me as a good ole' country boy. When she sees his embarrassment, I suppose it occurs to her as well how she must sound, so the entire family climbs in with me.

I look at them and shrug sheepishly. "Sorry."

They say nothing, the husband shyly looking down at the floor of the gondola.

The Ferris wheel starts up. The kid has his head on his mom's shoulder, and he is staring at me. The mom has a small, sour frown on her face and avoids eye contact with me, though she is staring at her husband and seems to be wanting some reaction.

I turn and look out over the countryside. Though I cannot see them in the night, I know that the fair grounds below are surrounded primarily by open fields. In the distance to the north, I see a lot of lights. I wonder if these are the lights of Orlando. To the northwest horizon is another set of lights, some of which are neon red and blue. I wonder if this is part of Disney World- if I can really see that far. It would be nice to know. Instead, the lights remain a mystery.

The ride is over soon. The family and I climb out, quickly replaced by a young couple.

I do not hang around at the fair much longer after my ride on the Ferris wheel. Next time the chance comes up, perhaps it will be in the day- or at least I will know what I am looking at from high in the air. Maybe next time, too, a cute girl will be with me and I will not have to stress out a family of three... Maybe, but I have learned not to hold my breath, and to instead go ahead and take the chances when they arise.

David Copperfield

Las Vegas. Spring 2005.

"There must be some mistake. I think you are at our table."

I look up and see an older, balding man with intense blue eyes peering down at me. To his left is a beautiful woman with reddish brown hair. To his right is a fit looking guy, probably only a few years older than me. The younger man wears small glasses and looks intelligent.

"Really? I don't know," I answer. "I just sat down where the usher told me. "

People are flooding into the theater, which is not that large, and taking up the seats quickly. So this group of three decide to sit down at the table with me.

The theater is filled with cocktail tables covered with white cloths. The tables seat up to four people, though only two people are at most of the tables. The four of us are sort of crowded in together.

"What is your name?" the younger guy asks me.

"My name is Nathan. I'm out here on vacation."

"By yourself?"

I smile. At this point in my life, I am growing more comfortable with being alone, in going to social events alone. I am getting more used to people thinking of that as a little odd. "Yes, I'm by myself. How about you guys?"

"It's a sort of business trip," the older man says, studying me carefully. "This is Dan, my accountant."

I smile and nod to him. I look at the woman and smile at her, too, though I decide not to ask who she is.

Dan seems like a nice guy, but the older fellow is obviously irritated by my presence.

"Is this your first time to Las Vegas?" Dan asks.

"No, I came out for the first time in 2003."

"You know, I was hoping to be able to talk business with my colleagues here," the older man says.

The abruptness of his comment startles me. I do not know how to respond. "Oh, I'm sorry."

I look around. There is one empty table left close by. "I suppose I can ask the usher to move me to that table."

The older man gives me a look like he is trying to keep from yelling at me to do it, to move. At that moment, though, an usher seats two women at the table. It is a full house, now- no empty tables left. A waiter brings each of us a cocktail, which is included in the price of the ticket.

The friendly thing might be for us all to clink glasses and say "Cheers!" But we do not do it. The look on Dan's face is unfortunate. The older man is not happy, now, and this is not good for Dan, I can tell. The woman seems apathetic to it all.

I sip my cocktail. It might be a great cocktail, but I would not know. I have only recently started drinking, and nothing tastes that good to me. No matter what the mix, the flavor and odor of alcohol is overriding.

I try to be affable. "When I saw that David Copperfield was performing in Vegas, I knew this would be a rare chance for me. I grew up in North Carolina. He is the first magician I ever remember seeing on television. He made the Statue of Liberty disappear when I was a kid."

Dan forces a brief smile. The older man does not. The woman is looking away, uninterested.

"Where are you guys from?" I ask.

No one speaks for a moment.

"You don't know who I am?" the older man asks.

This surprises me. The glare and intensity of his eyes are something, but I take a moment to study his face anyway.

"No."

"Really?" he asks. "You have no idea who I am?"

"I'm sorry," I answer. "Should I? What is it that you do?"

"I'm a businessman," he says, looking away as he speaks with what might be described as disgust.

The lights to the theater go down. From his tone and expression, I decide not to ask him further questions.

The show is great. David Copperfield is only a few feet away on stage, and I keep my eyes there the entire time, rather than looking at my three unhappy table companions.

Toward the end of the show, Copperfield says that his parents are in the audience, and a spotlight shines on their table. It is only three away from ours, and actually further back. The parents are both dressed nicely, in evening ballroom style.

When the show ends and the lights come back up, I tell the three sitting at my table, "I hope you enjoy the rest of your time in Vegas."

"Thank you, you as well," Dan answers. The older man and the beautiful woman say nothing.

The crowd filters out, but Copperfield's parents stay seated at their table, probably waiting to speak to their son.

As I walk by them, I say, "I enjoyed your son's show." They acknowledge me with a nod.

***

After my return from Vegas to North Carolina, I studied my credit card bill. I noticed that the price of the ticket to the show was not charged. It was an expensive ticket, and I keep waiting for the charge to appear on my monthly bills. It never does.

Only years later does it occur to me that the older man or Dan probably complained to the theater about what happened, and that everyone at the table got to see the show for free.

It is not the first time, and it is not the last time, when I go alone to a social event and find myself, through no control of my own, plugged in with a romantic couple or a group of people who do not want me there. Another instance that comes to mind is the Osceola County Fair in the spring of 2012. I will tell that story next week.

At least I got to see David Copperfield's show for free.