High Plains Panhandler

A Rebuttal

Usually I don't answer comments that people write here mainly because I'd rather just write my own stories. If people feel very strongly about something, they can start their own page of stories.

That said, the other day someone named Frenchie (who I believe is my brother because a traceroute of the IP address takes me to Nevada) posted a curious comment about my electric/gas hybrid car. The comment is spurious and full of logical inconsistencies and assumptions, and since, as rational people, we should look at the facts before concluding anything. So let me start by deconstructing Frenchie's argument:

Hybrid cars don’t count!
The new wave of environmental frenzy has arrived: The electric hybrid vehicle. I hear many co-workers and pseudo environmentalists praising it as a responsible fossil fuel alternative. How can this be? Has the smog become so thick?

If my hybrid car, which is more fuel efficient than most other cars (I'm getting about 45 miles a gallon) and is a super ultra-low emission vehicle (this means that, compared to the Tier 1 federal emissions standard, my car reduces emissions of hydrocarbons by 97%, carbon monoxide by 76%, nitrous oxides by 97%, and particulate matter by 90%) doesn't count, then Frenchie must believe any reduction of pollution doesn't count. It follows from that, then, that I were Amish and drove a wagon pulled by horse, that wouldn't count either, since the horse has cut emissions significantly but not completely. If you've been around horses, you know what I mean.

Now I don't know what kind of co-workers Frenchie deals with, but anyone who tells you a hybrid car is a fossil fuel alternative is off their nut. Hybrid cars use gas. They use is more efficiently. Unlike magical fuel cells, they are not a fossil fuel alternative. They are an alternative to gag-inducing Hummers.

The words alternative and responsible are not negligible when alluding to the environment and cars. It is not alternative: Hybrids do use fossil fuels, just less of it. It is not responsible, especially in terms of pollution, space for storage and use, congestion, the environmental cost of drilling and refining oil, and the environmental costs of producing electricity.

Boy, I almost stopped here. Bad writing does that to me. "The words alternative and responsible are not negligible when alluding to the environment and cars." Or, without the confusing double-negative: "The words alternative and responsible are significant when alluding [Alluding! We're not alluding to anything. We're specifically talking about it!] to the environment and cars." So, either Frenchie doesn't know how to write a sentence or is trying to confuse the issue by confounding the reader with nasty grammatical construction. Either way, I begin to seriously doubt why I'm wasting time with this.

Hybrid vehicles still emit fossil fuel burning pollution (the number one contributor to global warming and acid rain)

Debatable. I wish Frenchie would support the claim that hybrid vehicles and fuel burning are the primary contributors to global warming and acid rain. I do believe, based on the levels of permafrost melt in Greenland and Siberia and the shrinking glacial mounds in the Arctic, that the Earth is going through a cycle of climate change, more than likely caused or helped along by human activity. The Kyoto treaty was a good start, but we bailed on it because of the short-term economic pain it would inflict on our economy. Short-term thinking always hurts us.

For a minute, let's ignore coal-burning power plants (plants by the way that provide most of our electricity in the U.S.) and focus solely on the emissions by cars. What about cars with catalytic converters? Do these count? These converters scrub the exhaust from cars, reducing the pollution from emissions. I assume that Frenchie would say cars with catalytic converters don't count (just as hybrids don't count) even though they dramatically reduce pollution.

So what, in Frenchie's mind, does count? Obviously laws requiring clean air don't count because if they did the effects of them, particularly catalytic converters, lower speed limits, and scrubbing devices in coal plants would count, which I think none of which satisfy Frenchie. That means that the normal human act of trying to come up with solutions and trying to compromise don't count either. Hybrids are the beginning of technological solutions to real-world problems. They are evidence that we're trying to think our way to a solution.

Frenchie, though, makes it clear what does work:

But in reality the pollution it takes to create a bicycle (that can last for 50 years) is insignificant as compared to a vehicle. The repair and upkeep costs of a bicycle along with one-time-manufacturing environmental costs makes it an economically efficient and environmentally friendly choice when compared to any vehicle. Bicycles do not need gasoline as hybrids do: that eliminates the environmental and financial costs of drilling, refining and transporting oil.

Let's talk about bikes for a second. I have three of them, and I ride where the wind blows me. But how do you fit a family of five on a bicycle, particularly when one is too small to pedal anything more than a Big Wheel (made of plastic, derived from oil)? How do you ship fresh fruit across the country on a 10-speed? How do you make it to work or school in 10 inches of snow? Pedal faster? Even in Holland, where most everyone bikes, people drive when they need to.

Another issue involving cars and hybrid vehicles is storage and space. Parking lots are huge and they are everywhere. They contribute to urban sprawl. If everyone rode a bicycle the need for parking space would be cut dramatically. On average 5 bicycles can fit into one parking space. Then think of a vertical bicycle-parking situation as compared to flat open fields paved over for car storage. Building up instead of out may become a primary necessity in the near future as human populations grow.

I would argue that parking lots are not 'everywhere' because if they were you wouldn't have room for homes, horses that pull the Amish, or bicycle paths. I assume that by 'everywhere' Frenchie means the majority of the U.S. surface area, but as I flew back from Michigan this weekend, I did not see the majority of the ground covered with parking lots. I wish Frenchie would define terms before making this (and other) claims. Because, really, people who argue we should ride bikes everywhere all the time are pill-popping meth-heads. Everyone knows this. People everywhere agree.

Really, then, let me consolidate Frenchie's argument into this:
"Don't drive a car. Ride a bike."

It's a nice proposition but completely naive. And no where does Frenchie mention the more promising and realistic solutions of public transportation (think bullet trains and not graffiti-laden subways). But I suppose this is a public policy issue, and is, apparently out of Frenchie's depth.

Funeral

Funerals are difficult and contradictory things. On one hand you get to see a lot of family you haven’t seen in a long time. On the other, you have to say goodbye to someone you won’t see anymore.

I went to my Grandmother’s funeral this weekend in Washington, Michigan, which is just north of Detroit. Suzanne and the kids stayed at home because it would have cost a bucket of gold-plated latinum just to fly everyone from here to there. Thanks to American Airline’s fabulous customer service, I was able to spent a good bit of time stuck in a sticky, humid, and overbearingly hot plane cabin while we sat on the runway for some unknown reason, waiting for the door to open. Because I quite enjoyed staying crammed in my seat (although I was in the poor man’s first class - the exit row) for hours on end, I didn’t mind that I finally got to my hotel room at three in the morning, hours after I had expected to check in.

At first, the woman who sat next to me on the flight from Dallas to Detroit seemed pleasant enough, but then she began a conversation that I found a little distressing:

Woman: “Have you been able to choose your power in Amarillo?”
Me: Um. Do you mean between my X-ray vision or my super speed?”
Woman: “No, the power in your house. Have you chosen it?”
Me: “Sure. When I go into the kitchen, I chose to turn on the light. Then I chose to turn it off when I’m done.”
Woman: “Well, I’m part of a multi-level marketing company that gives people freedom of choice for their power.”

Uh oh. Multi-level marketing or, in historical terms, a Ponzi scheme. I have great distaste for these types of things, as I’ve mentioned before.

So I grabbed my swanky Bose noise-reduction headphones and told her, “Look at these. They block out all sound.” And then I slapped them on my head, happy with the blissful sound of nothingness. Of course, the headphones don’t block out all sound. The do substantially reduce the grumble of an airplane engine, but she didn’t know that, and after a while she fell asleep. Looking back on what time I got off that plane, I should have done the same.

My hotel, the La Quinta by the Detroit airport, was a fair distance from the funeral, so I left at about 8:30, giving myself two hours to get there. Unfortunately, as I quickly discovered, highway repairs in Detroit happen on the weekend. That means that where there were six lanes the day before, now there was one, and it was jammed packed. I crept along at the blistering pace of seven miles an hour, finally breaking free after sweating it for 20 minutes. I knew I still had time to make it to the church, but I was a little nervous, so I spread out all my Google maps on the passenger seat, just in case something else came up.

That something else happened on Interstate 75 when I saw a sign that said, “I-75 closed from 8 Mile Road to 12 Mile Road. Find alternate routes.”

Alternate routes! I was lucky enough to find my primary route. I frantically pushed my pages and pages of previously well-thought out Google advice, hunting for an alternative when I suddenly noticed that I had passed 7 Mile Road. Which, assuming there was some logic behind the numbering system, meant the end of the freeway was coming up pretty quickly.

Fortunately, there were detour signs, but they took me in the wrong direction. So I made the executive decision and blindly followed a series of roads that ended at another freeway that, a few miles later, ended up at a street called Van Dyke, which I recognized from my Google map foray. I took this north for a while, paying particular attention to the Mile Roads, until I found myself in Washington, Michigan. After that, it was all gravy. The church was an easy drive down Main Street, although I was a little paranoid that I had come to the wrong funeral until I recognized my uncle standing outside on the edge of the grass, and then I saw my cousin Sarah, who is a wonderful person. She gave me a Chewbacca-style hug that I can still feel today. I liked that hug because inside of it you could feel her grief, her joy, her sadness, her happiness, and her exhaustion all bundled together.

The service was very nice, laden with beautiful flowers. I was a pall bearer, which mean that I and my five other cousins, followed the casket into the chapel for the ceremony and then afterward followed it out. At the cemetery, we carried the casket and Grandma to her final resting spot. Incidentally, caskets are heavy, heavier than you’d think if you haven’t carried one before.

During the church service, the minister asked people to tell some stories or share memories of Grandma, and several people stood up and spoke eloquently and passionately about their time with her. I was the last one to say something. This is what I said:

When I was small, just a tiny tot, we stayed at Grandma’s house for a weekend. While everyone was outside, I went to the kitchen to hunt down a snack. There, on the counter, sat a gigantic glass jar of sugar, and I said to myself, “I’m going to get me some of that sugar!” So I hunted around and found the largest spoon I could find, and without another thought, I dug up a massive, heaping spoonful of sugar and jammed it into my mouth.

But my friends, that wasn’t sugar in that glass jar. It was salt. It was an enormous jar of salt. And as I spit out everything I could into the sink, Grandma came in and asked me what I was doing. “You put salt in the sugar jar!” I said. She laughed and told me this: “Sometimes what you think it sweet really isn’t, and what you think isn’t sweet really is.”

I learned two lessons that day. One, I don’t put salt on anything. Two, sometimes what you think is bitter is oftentimes actually sweet. You just have to know how to taste it.

After the service and interment, my Aunt Marlene and Uncle Bob had lunch for everyone under a tent in their backyard. Their house was very easy to get to from the cemetery, so I had no problem getting lost and confused on the way there (especially while following the line of funeral traffic). It was nice to see everyone, especially my parents whom I haven’t seen since the end of the last Crusade. I got to show off some iPhoto slideshows of the kids, which I hoped people enjoyed (although sometimes it’s hard to tell - vacation pictures are vacation pictures, no matter how you show them, and you run the risk of mind-numbing drudgery after a few minutes).

Because of distance we don’t get to see this part of the family very much, which is really too bad because everyone is genuinely nice and friendly, and that’s evidence of the great legacy Grandma left. And as much as I was the odd boy coming in from Texas, once I was there I was part of the family.

While she was still here, I know that Grandma read my little weblog stories, and I hope that she still can because if there’s one place with fantastic bandwidth, it’ll be heaven. So keep checking in on us Grandma, because we'll keep thinking of you.

Soccer Style

Because I have been slacking recently and updating these stories infrequently, I’ve felt guilty about my lack of diligence. So I will try to be better, but even as I make it, I know this promise is empty.

Tonight Alex’s soccer team meets for its third practice. I’m the coach, but since I lack the proper tight spandex coach shorts and whistle, I feel that I’m a poser. My practice strategy is this: as soon as practice starts, I make each of these four-year-old boys run like crazy, back and forth, up and down my poorly measured mock-field. I run with them, chasing them, and trying to knock their soccer balls away. We do this for about seven minutes, give or take, until the boys are exhausted. Then we take a little break and talk about what we’re going to do during the rest of practice. I’ve found that this type of convenient exhaustion leads to longer attention spans. They do sit there panting, but at least they’ll listen instead of suddenly turning their heads when something shiny flies by.

Then we goof around, playing soccer games (our particular favorite is Sharks and Minnows), which are supposed to show them how to kick, where to go, and whom to avoid. These are good lessons for both soccer and life.

The other night our soccer association gathered all the coaches for a meeting at a local hotel and spent a long hour explaining how parents shouldn’t be yelling at their soccer-playing kids. The meeting ended with game schedule and uniform handouts. By 9:00, which was the time I got through the line to the Official Soccer People Table, I was bewildered and tired, and all I wanted to do was get out of there and get home. The Soccer Person behind the desk told me to grab a bag of uniforms behind him on the floor. I considered my two choices carefully. One bag was full of peach-colored uniforms; the other had purple uniforms. So I thought, gosh, royal purple sure beat out peach, especially for a little boys team. I grabbed the purple, signed a sheet of paper, and rushed home.

Once home I introduced Suzanne to my choice of team colors. This is when, unfortunately, I discovered my grievous mistake. Under the proper lighting, my royal purple didn’t look so royal at all. It looked lavender.

Suzanne looked at the bag and then looked at me and then looked at the bag. After a minute she said, “I’m not one to categorize people into different groups. But I have to tell you, you can’t have a boys soccer team wear pink.”

Pink. It was absolutely, undeniably pink. I had placed on the table a big bag of pink jerseys, white shorts, and pink, knee-high socks.

I bit my lower lip and excused myself, running pell-mell for the door. I was back at the hotel in a handful of minutes.

“I’ve got pink uniforms,” I said. “For boys. I have pink uniforms for boys. I have to exchange.” Now, unfortunately, under the dull hotel conference room lights, the uniforms reverted to their purple color.

“Yeah, I was wondering about that,” said Soccer Guy. “Those are girl colors. Why don’t you pick from over there.” He pointed to a group of bags against another wall.

“What are those?” I asked.

“Boy uniforms,” said the Soccer Guy.

“But they weren’t there before,” I said. “I only had a choice of peach or …” I held up the bag, “this.”

“We just put ’em out.”

I looked around the room. There were only a few coaches left, and I wondered how many others had gone home to their wives explaining the peach, pink, and anything else dainty and bee-captivating were the only things left. Then I stopped worrying, grabbed a bag of blue and black, and headed home, thankful that I would be spared a humiliating onslaught by my brothers-in-law at Christmas because boys wearing pink on a soccer field would be like blood in the ocean to sharks.

Maybe tonight, when I tell this story to my team’s parents, they won’t rebel and question my coaching style or instructions. Maybe they’ll get together for a soccer coup. Either way, all I know is that now I have six macho comacho soccer players, none of them in knee-high pink, none of them fearing for their lunch money.

On the Edge of Lake Pontchartrain

We lived in New Orleans for year when I was in fourth grade, and I remember only a few things about that grand, swampy, sweaty city: a mother's hand can move very quickly to cover a fourth grader's eyes during a tour of the French Quarter; the stairs on the edge of Lake Pontchartrain are slippery and dangerous (once I had thought my brother, in kindergarten then, had drown in the lake when I found the lid of his thermos floating near a house on stilts); a dead snake in a jelly jar hidden behind the washing machine gets stinky very quickly.

I do know that when we had hurricanes bear down on us we would prepare the house with masking tape X's on all the windows and cans of Spam (a delicacy that even today I refuse to touch) in the cupboards. Once, after I had pinched my thumb on our swing set and it grew to three times the size of the other thumb, our neighbors laughed at our storm preparations and called us chicken. My mother simply said to them, "I'd rather be a chicken than a dead duck," which we kids found extremely clever.

That house of ours was at the end of the street, near a hill of blackberry bushes, a few blocks from the lake. One day, while my sister and I were at the park, our house caught fire and burned down. I just just a kid when we lost everything in that house fire, but I do remember watching the firemen working hard to save whatever they could and the neighbors soaking their roofs with garden hoses so the fire wouldn't leap from our house to theirs.

I'm sure, after a little while, someone built a new house where our old one had been destroyed. I wonder now if that new house is now destroyed as well.

Today, in Amarillo, we're getting ready for buses and planes of people from New Orleans, people who have nothing left and nowhere to go. So we're gathering cots and food and clothes and school supplies. Maybe there will be a fourth grade little boy in that group whose family will decide to stay in Texas and he, when he's older, will have his own adventures with his own family. Then he can tell the story of the day the hurricane came to his house and Lake Pontchartrain swallowed it whole.