Sarge's Story

It was watching Sarge coming up out of the basement that taught me my latest lesson in living life outside the box. Sarge is one of our two cats, a big mutt with some coon cat in him. I like him, but Annie calls him a "man's cat" and I suppose it's true, depending on how you look at it. He's not all that graceful and not all that affectionate; he'd rather sleep in the middle of a bare floor than curl up in the folds of the sweater you just took off. And while I don't want to say that he's kind of slow, it happens that things sometimes escape him. I know that feeling.

Standing next to the fridge, facing the basement door, I watched as Sarge tried to get through the doorway. The door can swing wide open into the kitchen, but right now it was almost closed, with a gap of less than two inches showing. He couldn't squeeze through, although he tried to, poking his nose into the opening and fishing tentatively with a paw, unaware or having forgotten that the door would swing out of his way with just the slightest push.

Only when I saw that he was going to slink back down to the basement in defeat did I go over and open the door for him. You can overdo this drawing of conclusions from events in the lives of housecats. But the episode did remind me of how the difficult things in our lives sometimes rule how we live and work. See, it's a big gigantic wall there, and only a narrow gap to squeeze through! I can't do it, I'll never make it! When all you have to do is push a little, and what seems for sure like an immoveable wall drops away, and the light pours through.

“Cabbage on hold?”

As I sat in the waiting room at my doctor’s office, I couldn’t help overhearing the receptionist as she answered incoming calls. It was a busy morning on the phones, and she kept asking each caller the same question.

Dollars to Donuts

This oil painting was my contribution to "Currency," an Art/Word show held in 2009 at Lasell College in Newton, Mass. In Art/Word productions, artists are invited to choose subject matter (usually in the form of text that the artist may or may not have been written) and illustrate it. So the art is dependent on the text for its fullest meaning. 

I've heard of a painter who works in a resort town here in New England, who claims that if he wants to make sure a painting of his is going to sell, he puts a pear in it. Good for him! But art isn't simply about satisfying the desires of the market. Unless it is.

Not far from my house, where routes 495 and 109 meet, is a bunch of businesses that cater to people out running errands in their cars: Burger King, CVS, Target, Stop & Shop, and more. This is the common landscape of contemporary roadside America. It fascinates me with its vitality and color, and it depresses me with its glaring, fluorescent-lit impersonality. At home in the middle of it all are several brightly-lit Dunkin' Donuts shops.

Dunkin's makes a lot of money selling coffee (and to a lesser degree, donuts) to people around here, yet it's clear to me that Dunkin's is mostly about the anticipation, that oh-boy feeling that something good is coming. As you head towards the orange-and-pink sign, you're thinking all about how great this is going to be. The place will be warm, the smells sweet and pungent, and the decor full of strong but inoffensive colors and graphics; it's a welcome diversion from your regular life. The menu is simple and the service is brisk, barely leaving an impression. Once you've made your purchase, once they've handed you the hot cup and the small white bag containing your cruller, it's time to leave, and then you begin to feel a little let down. You walk back to your car with less of a bounce in your step, because the experience is almost over, and really, you could brew better coffee at home.

Thinking about all this, comparing how much money Dunkin's makes with how much I make, coaxing pictures to life with paint, I decided to make the Dunkin's logo into a work of art. It didn't need to be made into art, or ask to (or agree to), but I did it anyway, taking something mundane and mass-produced and making it fresh and personal.

However, the price I pay for this self-indulgence is that I now own this painting. No big deal, you understand, but it hasn't got any market value. I've heard that wanting to make money is not a good enough reason to be an artist. But, as it takes money to live and to keep producing art, it's not clear to me how the bills are going to get paid otherwise.

That painter with the pear is serving up the coffee and donuts; sounds like he's got the system figured out. Doesn't it?

Overheard one evening in a D’Angelo’s

One teenager to another: “My mom’s got her boyfriend over. I can stay out as late as I want.”

Snapper

"Snapping turtle is good eats."
A posting on gunbroker.com

It was a funny place for a traffic jam.

At the east end of Holliston, where Route 16 crosses into Sherborn, is a low-lying place with little ponds on either side of the road and a stream running underneath. The road briefly becomes a narrow causeway that curves through the area, and heavy guard rails stand on both sides to keep cars from sliding into the water. But there isn't usually much to make people tap on the brakes.

Traffic had slowed to a crawl on the causeway, in both directions. You could tell that something small but attention-getting was in the road just ahead, and the drivers seemed anxious to get by without hitting it. There were four cars in front of me, moving forward in a hesitant, confused way. Necks were craning. 

The car at the head of the line bucked to the right, stopped abruptly, then swerved to the left and broke free with a wide swing around the object, and the following cars did much the same. When it came my turn, I was not surprised at what I saw.
 
A snapping turtle was in the eastbound lane, engaged in crossing the road from right to left. Large but not huge, its shell about the size of a dinner plate, it was moving as snappers do, with a deliberate, slow-motion pace, as if all its joints ached. Poor snapper! Trying to get across a busy road at rush hour, this turtle was toast.

I passed behind the turtle, to my right, and rolled down the window for a better look just as it was reaching the double yellow line. Its head, bluish-gray and streaked with muck, pivoted from side to side as cars and trucks eased by just inches away. Poised delicately on its clawed feet, ignoring the noise and vibration, it swung one foot into the westbound lane, heading for the tall weeds and soft earth at the far side of the road. But it had a long way to go, and I thought sure that, any moment now, one of these drivers was going to squash it flat.
 
But maybe not. As I pulled away, I saw a big trash truck, grinding down the hill in my direction, suddenly lurch to a stop to let the turtle finish crossing. And the rest of the westbound traffic fell in line behind him. Either this was the luckiest turtle alive, or people are more "environmentally aware" than I'd given them credit for.
 
Times have certainly changed. I guess we're better educated now, less likely to run over a turtle just for the heck of it. (Aren't we?) It wasn't that long ago that a snapper would have been hit the moment it crawled out onto the road, probably on purpose. Of course, some of the drivers may have been under the impression that the snapper is protected by law, so why go looking for trouble? (In Massachusetts, it's not.) Or maybe people simply felt bad for it, a defenseless animal in a tight spot. Here it was, impelled to get across the road, heedless of the risk, and in its determination looked both pathetic and enormously dignified. Besides that, it was so literally the creature from the black lagoon, unscrutable and muddy and armored from head to tail, I think some of us might have been a little in awe of it.
 
I drove on, thinking things over. Something about the turtle bothered me. What was it thinking, crossing a busy road like that? (Silly question.) I pictured its snake-like head and heavy, sharp beak. The plain truth is that I'm not very happy with snapping turtles myself, and neither are you, I suspect. You have to be wary of it. Any animal that can remove one of your fingers in the blink of an eye ... it just gives you the willies. The fluid and lightning way it can extend its head and neck to strike at whatever is bothering it, seems to me especially dismaying. It's the turtle people love to hate. Check out the web sites: some of the measures people have taken against snappers seem particularly vindictive and extreme. I respect snappers! Of course I respect them, and hawks too, and coyotes and muskrats and deer and all the rest of it. Only, those animals don't usually get in your face.

In the world of critters, the snapper is the antithesis of cute, no cuddly marmot or elegant penguin. There's no such thing as a snapper-hugger. It spends its time hidden in murky pond waters and swamps, doing whatever it is turtles do. You don't matter to it. If it can, it ignores you. It has no fear of you. 
 
So part of me despises it. True! And I really did expect it to get run over (not that I would ever do it myself; I thought somebody was going to do it for me). I know you're not supposed to say things like this or even think them. Most of the time the snapper is out of sight, out of mind, but then it rises up out of the water and sets foot on your turf, and now you've got your chance. You can steer your car towards it and smash it flat. Then you feel ... what? Relieved? Justified? Guilty? How guilty? 

What was that I was saying about "environmental awareness"? One fine morning, a snapping turtle crosses the road, and I, safe behind the wheel, get a peek into the dark lagoon of my own impulses.

So is it just me? Where do you fall on the "turtle love" scale? Let's say you're driving along and you see a snapping turtle on the road up ahead, what do you do?

a) At all costs, avoid hitting it. Swerve into the path of oncoming traffic if you must.
b) Stop short, and pull over. Wait until the turtle has safely crossed the road. Better yet, get out and direct traffic around the turtle until police arrive. If you end up late for work, use a calm voice with your boss to explain why.
c) Run the turtle over and keep going.
d) Run it over and pull to the side, get out, gather up the remains, put them in your freezer at home, make stew, invite some friends over, open a couple of beers, enjoy.

Two Dentists, Two Poems

A friend was looking for a new dentist; could I recommend anyone? Why, that would be my own James Pizzi, DMD:

Your search for a dentist is easy.

The answer is Dr. Jim Pizzi.

He's not hard to talk to, now is he?

He answers to Dr. Jim Pizzi.

This sparked a challenge from someone else, who bet I couldn't make a rhyme out of her dentist, Barbara Preussner (rhymes with "choice-ner"), DMD:

Jen the hygienist has got the right touch,

She's working for Barbara Preussner.

Here is the reason I like her so much,

She soaks her hands nightly in moistener.

  

After getting pulled over

It's a little past sundown on an autumn evening, a few years ago. I'm driving down Hollis Street past the high school, in an irritable mood. At this point in life, I'm working as a freelance graphic designer, and another day has not gone well.

Returning home after an inconsequential meeting, I'm no closer to scraping up next month's mortgage payment than I was the day before. Despite a dim awareness that discouragement and driving don't mix, I swing past the football field and, seeing no one in front or behind, I floor it. By the time I get down to the bottom of the hill by the Congregational Church, three blocks from home, there's no denying the flashing blue lights atop the vehicle behind me. I have found there is nothing like the chagrin you feel as you ease your once-speedy car to the curb after getting caught going too fast.

I don't recognize the officer who appears at my car door, but that's not surprising. It's dark by now, and I know few of the police by sight, in or out of uniform. I hand over my license and registration without bothering to whine, wheedle, argue, or make excuses. I know I've broken the law, and so does he, and he knows that I know. He gives me a ticket, not a warning. Before turning away from the window, he says, tersely, "Slow it down." It's not a suggestion.

What is it that we tell our children? That you can trust a police officer; if you're lost or in trouble, you can flag one down and get help. That a police officer's word is law – you are to do what they say. That the job of the Holliston police is to keep the town safe and make sure everybody plays by the rules. And these things are right and true. But we may also tell our children, as they grow and mature, to "question authority." And we may enjoy hearing stories of people putting one over on the police, getting away with breaking a silly little law about fireworks or booze, some stupid rule that was spoiling our fun.

So we seem at times ambivalent about the police. We maintain a respectful public attitude towards law and order, which may be quite different from how we feel in private, cutting a comer, claiming a false deduction, taking a swipe at a spouse. Pointed observations on the editorial pages and talk-radio about excessive police details, or the legendary weakness for doughnuts, speak to deeper misgivings about this presence of authority in our lives. News stories about more serious police issues (tragic wrongful arrests, the use of unnecessary force, evidence of racism) underscore the sense of uneasiness.

You might have good reason to distrust or fear the police. Maybe where you come from, the cops picked on you. If you ever attended a big political rally or participated in a protest march, you remember the hefty batons wielded by the blue-helmeted, big-city cops. We would not want to live without the police, for they constitute a deterrent to crime, but they make us edgy. They can choose to exercise power over us. Even arrest and jail us, right here in our town. If we spot a cruiser coming up behind us, we instantly check the speedometer, or glance to see if the inspection sticker has run out. A police car pulls into your driveway: is that good news or bad news?

The police are also angels of mercy, no doubt about it. Years ago, the Newton cops would see me hitchhiking on the empty streets after my late shift at the cab company, and give me a ride to the bus terminal in Watertown Square. More recently, using the greatest care and resourcefulness, two Holliston officers and three EMT's wrested me out of my house and into an ambulance after a nasty fall. I owe my life, in fact, to one Wellesley officer, who sped me to the hospital after a bike accident when I was 12. I could never thank them all enough, and I'm sure many of you have been helped in similar ways.

From time to time, a cruiser sits just off the intersection in front of our house, waiting for speeders to come zooming down the main road. It's a pretty safe bet. People speed on South Street all the time. I used to do it myself before I moved here. Living in a place puts you much more on the side of the law there.

The cruiser gleams in the twilight, polished and heavy, bristling with antennas, resplendent with colorful stripes and decals. It's in top condition, unlike the poor junker that soon comes barreling by with its radio thumping. Moments later, flashing its lights excitedly behind the stopped car, the cruiser wins on looks alone. The offending driver tries to make himself inconspicuous by slumping behind the wheel.

This, perhaps, is what often happens when we encounter the police in the performance of their work; we suffer a loss of dignity, however slight. Whether they're bawling us out for running a crosswalk, or gathering us up after an accident, the police can't help impinging on the dignity we like to shield ourselves with. We've stopped making the rules for a while, and now must obey theirs, without knowing when we'll be able to get the game back. We may feel irritated, ashamed, powerless, even enraged or resigned.

An officer need not even be present. Take that device the police use along busy streets, which calculates your speed as you approach and displays it to you in big numbers. Invariably, you're going too fast, and as you press the brake pedal, you can feel your unbridled freedom slide into the grip of ordinance.

The fact is that police are really on hand to protect the peace and uphold the law, not to make things all nice and cushy for you and me as individuals. We need to ask ourselves, then, how much we honestly respect the law, apart from the fallible men and women who enforce it.

Day after day, the police officer is directing heavy traffic at the busy intersection of Freedom and Law. Where our personal aspirations, everything that seems to make life worthwhile, meet the more-or-less unbending restrictions that we say we want to live by. And there is the officer, standing out in the middle of the road with one palm up: NOT SO FAST.