Indiana Oh Indiana

There was a time during the history of our country when scaffolds were used to display people, who were for sale. This practice was accepted across much of our nation, even just 151 years ago. “Good Christian folks” deluded themselves into accepting slavery as a “natural” institution, one that was condoned even from pulpits almost everywhere in the United States. Awareness of the true reality of this heinous custom came only gradually to most people, but the shock of its former existence should also make us wonder if there are yet injustices that are calmly and legally accepted in our own time, injustices that deeply wound many.

I would like to point out such a lingering injustice, one that is still accepted, perhaps because it doesn’t affect everyone directly and, in fact, may not even be noticed by many citizens. As someone who is directly and unfairly affected by this law, I want to expound upon its meaning and effects upon my own life and the lives of countless others.

When I turned sixty-five years old, I was automatically given Part A of Medicare. As Part B would have cost $104 monthly, I opted to postpone it, because I already had health insurance through my domestic partner and the company where he worked. James and I have been together for seven years, and the company, Liberty Global International (largest cable company in the world) recognized our partnership in legal terms, giving me one of the best health insurance policies on the planet. When I turned sixty-five, the law stated that there would be no penalty for delaying Medicare Part B as long as the scheduled recipient could prove that he had valid health insurance during that period of delay.

I am now sixty-eight, and Jim has decided to retire in September of 2014, which means that our health coverage through Liberty Global will end on October 1. Jim will have a cobra policy for $950 for himself, but for which I will not be eligible. When I contacted Social Security and Medicare, I was told that a new law had been passed in June of 2013 stating that health insurance for those aged sixty-five or older in domestic partnerships would no longer be valid. Only those couples in “legal marriages” would be allowed without penalty to enroll in Medicare Part B outside the usually mandated time beginning in January of each year. I was told by both agencies that my health insurance coverage since age sixty-five would, therefore, not be recognized, and that I would not be allowed to sign up for Medicare Part B until January, 2015, the coverage of which would not begin until July, 2015.

I am also being penalized retroactively back to the year 2011 (for not having a crystal ball?), when I turned sixty-five. I will be paying ten percent extra per year I was not enrolled in Medicare Part B, even though the law was not passed until June of 2013. This penalty will be for the rest of my life, even though the law didn’t exist until I was sixty-seven.

All this goes back to the issue that same-sex marriage in Colorado and Florida is not legal. The result is that I am being denied something about which even other same-sex couples in other states needn’t worry. They will not be penalized, because their marriages are recognized as valid. If this isn’t an ugly form of snide discrimination, I don’t know what is.

I’ve contacted twenty-three health insurance companies, not even one of which will furnish an individual policy to anyone over the age of sixty-five, who doesn’t have Medicare Part B. This is the law under Obama Care.

The result of all my communicative struggles with Medicare and Social Security have come to nothing, and I’m exhausted. I will be without health insurance, except for Medicare Part A until July of 2015. That’s nine months without coverage during which any doctor visits or medications will have to be paid for entirely out of my own pocket. I can pray only that I remain in good health. Maybe I can be placed into a plastic bubble?

If I were an illegal alien, it is likely that I would receive more respect, dignity, and care than I am to receive as a life-long citizen of this country. If I were a convicted criminal, there would be no question about my receiving lodging, food, and health care in prison. Instead, as someone who has been paying taxes for fifty years and jumping through the endless number of hoops thrown at me by my nation’s government, I am still paying for all of the above, yet feeling more and more abandoned, like a man without a country.

When I hear those words that used to make me feel safe and proud, those same words now stick in my throat, because their meaning and truth have faded into some awful abstraction not even remotely connected to reality for me. The terrible irony is that freedom and dignity are only for some people here, you see…not all of us.

“My country ‘tis of thee…sweet land of liberty…”

                                      Or

“One nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.”

Really?

JB

ON RETIREMENT

I’ve been retired now for ten years but remember that in 2004 I was worried about whether I had saved enough and invested enough to make it into “old age,” which, by the way, keeps leaping about ten years beyond where I am at any given moment. It turned out that I had no financial worries and needed instead to concern myself with how I would spend my time in the most productive and entertaining ways. My alarm clock became a physical anachronism whose digital dial began to glow on my night table in a much friendlier way than it had during all those years that I had to get up at five every weekday morning.

The hobbies of painting in oils, playing piano, reading, cooking, gardening, and travel were all wonderful ways to pass time in meaningful ways, but it has been writing that has given me the most pleasure and pride over those ten years. One of the greatest fears that people have is that they will not be able to fill all that “free time” in fulfilling ways, but I believe if there’s a secret to having a good retirement, it may be to try new things, have creative outlets, and simply not to worry about not doing what others think is necessary in being “free.” Nobody said that you have to win a Nobel Prize, climb Mount Everest, or save a third-world country by yourself. It’s really about following your heart and not being afraid to take a different path once in a while.  Make new friends, and nurture your old friendships.

Being a responsible citizen in terms of going to a traditional job for eight to ten hours a day for forty years is wonderful, but retirement changes that ethos by allowing more choices and liberty to make your life mean whatever you want it to mean on a daily basis. You aren’t locked into anything. Hedonism becomes only one of many possibilities after retirement, and no guilt should weigh you down, even for a moment about all those doors you want to open. One of my favorite anonymous quotations is, “Life is filled with doors we haven’t opened, and rooms we can’t go back to.” Have no regrets.

I’m not sure that anyone has captured in a more amusing or meaningful way the significance of retirement than the poet, David Wright, whose poem for his friend on this topic I’d like to share:

Lines on Retirement, after Reading Lear

by David Wright
for Richard Pacholski

Avoid storms. And retirement parties.

You can’t trust the sweetnesses your friends will

offer, when they really want your office,

which they’ll redecorate. Beware the still

untested pension plan. Keep your keys. Ask

for more troops than you think you’ll need. Listen

more to fools and less to colleagues. Love your

youngest child the most, regardless. Back to

storms: dress warm, take a friend, don’t eat the grass,

don’t stand near tall trees, and keep the yelling

down—the winds won’t listen, and no one will

see you in the dark. It’s too hard to hear

you over all the thunder. But you’re not

Lear, except that we can’t stop you from what

you’ve planned to do. In the end, no one leaves

the stage in character—we never see

the feather, the mirror held to our lips.

So don’t wait for skies to crack with sun. Feel

the storm’s sweet sting invade you to the skin,

the strange, sore comforts of the wind. Embrace

your children’s ragged praise and that of friends.

Go ahead, take it off, take it all off.

Run naked into tempests. Weave flowers

into your hair. Bellow at cataracts.

If you dare, scream at the gods. Babble as

if you thought words could save. Drink rain like cold

beer. So much better than making theories.

We’d all come with you, laughing, if we could.

My sister Connie (February 12, 1953 – May 8, 2011) would have turned 61 This year.  She was always proud of sharing her birthday with Abraham Lincoln.  She is in my thoughts today, and I think she would appreciate the poem I composed for her.

   Golden Beet Salad

3 large red beets (1 2/3 lb without greens)
2 large golden beets (1 lb without greens)
1/4 cup minced shallot
2 tablespoons fresh lemon juice
3/4 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon black pepper
1/4 cup pistachio oil
4 oz soft mild goat cheese
3 tablespoons salted shelled pistachios (not dyed red), coarsely chopped
1 oz mâche (also called lamb’s lettuce), trimmed (4 cups)

Special equipment: a 2 1/2-inch round cookie cutter (without handle; at least 2 inches high)
Preparation
Preheat oven to 425°F.

Separately wrap red and golden beets tightly in double layers of foil and roast in middle of oven until tender, 1 to 1 1/2 hours. Unwrap beets.

While beets are cooling slightly, whisk together shallot, lemon juice, salt, and pepper in a small bowl, then add oil in a stream, whisking.

When beets are cool enough to handle, slip off and discard skins. Separately cut red and golden beets into 1/4-inch dice and put in separate bowls. Add 2 1/2 tablespoons dressing to each bowl and toss to coat.

Place cookie cutter in center of 1 of 8 salad plates. Put one eighth of red beets in cutter and pack down with your fingertips. Crumble 2 teaspoons goat cheese on top, then one eighth of golden beets, packing them down. Gently lift cutter up and away from stack. Make 7 more servings in same manner. Drizzle each plate with 1 teaspoon dressing and scatter with some pistachios.

Toss mâche with just enough remaining dressing to coat and gently mound on top of beets. Serve immediately.

Cooks’ notes:
• Beets can be roasted and diced 1 day ahead and chilled, covered. Bring to room temperature before using.
• Molded beet salad (without mâche) can be assembled 45 minutes ahead and kept, covered, at cool room temperature. 

Baked Salmon with Cranberry Crust

This recipe comes from my friend, John Aleshire, who heads the Indianapolis Humane Society.  There’s a previous post about his work with a website for the Indianapolis Humane Society.  

FOOD, GLORIOUS FOOD!

These recipes came originally from Laura Calder, a French chef, who delights in the joys of French food, especially from country recipes. She can be seen on the Food Channel on FRENCH FOOD AT HOME. Her style is at once splendid and comfortable. Included here are two photos of the results of my partner Jim’s having prepared the dishes. He added the mushrooms to the original recipe for the tart . JB

Savoury Swiss Chard Tart

6- 8 servings
Ingredients:
1 tabelspoon oil
2 shallots, minced
1 clove garlic, minced
4 ounces bacon cut into lardons (very small strips)
1 and 1/2 pounds Swiss Chard, ribs removed
i cup chopped mushrooms ( Shitake or Portabello)
3 eggs
1 cup creme fraiche or heavy cream and sour cream combined
Kosher salt and freshly ground pepper
4 ounces of Gruyere or smoked cheddar, grated
Handful raisins
Handful toasted pine nuts
1 deep tart shell, pre-baked in a 9-inch springform pan..or a frozen deep dish pie dough, thawed

Directions
Preheat oven to 375 degrees F.
Heat the oil in a saute pan and fry the shallots until soft and translucent. Ad the garlic and saute for one minute more. Remove to a plate. In the same pan, fry the bacon until the fat has rendered and the lardons are crispy. Remove to the plate with shallots. Divide the chard leaves from the ribs. Chop the ribs quite small and shred the leaves. First fry the ribs in bacon fat until tender. Then add chard leaves to pan, cover and wilt for three minutes.
Beat the eggs with the creme fraiche, and season with salt and pepper.
In a large bowl, toss the shallots, bacon, chard stems and leaves, cheese, raisins, and pine nuts, to combine evenly. Taste, and season. Fill the tart shell with the vegetable mixture, and pour the cream mixture over this. Bake until the tart has set, about 30 minutes. Remove the tart from oven, and cool. Serve at room temperature.

*****************************

Slow-Baked Honey Wine Pears

4-8 servings
Ingredients:
4 Bosc pears or eight Anjou pears
1 bottle dry red wine
1/2 cup honey

Directions:
Preheat oven to 250 degrees F.
Peel the pears from top to bottom, leaving the stem intact, and lay them in an oven-proof dish just large enough to hold them. Bring the wine and honey to a boil, cover the pears with the liquid, and transfer to the oven. Bake until tender, 4 to 5 hours, turning now and again to create even color.
Gently remove the pears to a serving bowl with a slotted spoon. Boil the liquid rapidly until reduced to syrup, about 20 minutes. Pour the syrup over the pears and reserve at room temperature for several hours, or cover and refrigerate until about an hour before serving.
Option: Serve with dollop of whipped cream sweetened with a little sugar and a dash of Cognac

Anyone training a dog knows perfectly well that a system of verbal praise, petting, and little snacks is necessary to achieve the best results. My dog Dudley is no exception. When he’s bouncing around the back yard chasing squirrels, playing with our cat Riggs, or chewing on a Milk Bone, he probably wouldn’t be distracted by anything less than a tsunami or a level-five tornado.

Dudley’s concentration is, however, at its keenest when I’m eating. It doesn’t matter if it’s a stick of gum, or a dinner plate for myself that I’m trying to sneak into the den so I can watch Jeopardy. Dudley will be right there with an intense and unblinking stare with which even the most powerful laser beam couldn’t compete. This speaks of a technique that all dogs understand, regarding the master ingesting any kind of food. It’s called, “guilt.” All dogs have a terrifyingly powerful ability to use this universal canine method of receiving shares of whatever is being consumed by their masters. The ability seems to be innate from puppyhood onward.

When I take a bite of food, whether it’s oatmeal, salad, or ice cream, any food at all, Dudley’s stare becomes so sharp and unyielding, it’s as though he believes that if his gaze lasts long enough, the space between my fork and his mouth will magically turn into actual food. It’s important, though, not to yield to this imposed culpability, however soulful the dog’s eyes may appear. Giving in sets a precedent that is not fair to either the dog or his owner.

Whenever I have guests over for a meal, I always remind them not to give in to Dudley’s stare, which will always be used first on unsuspecting newcomers at the dining room table. My rule of thumb is, “If you drop food or offer Dudley even a crumb, he will follow you around the rest of your life.” I believe this is a universal law of nature, physics, or one of those books by Emily Post. I’m not sure which.    JB

                            My sister Connie lived in a very private world, usually keeping people, even those closest to her, at a respectful distance, not because she didn’t love them, but rather because she felt that any problems she might be carrying should never weigh down those around her, and opening those locked doors meant releasing pain she did not want to share with others even if it signified receiving the regard and healing that those around her often wanted so much to give her.  Part of this, of course, was based upon Connie’s fierce pride in her own independence, but part came also from her staunch personal resolution never to wound anyone with her own burdens.

The place where my sister found peace, beauty, and healing was in music.  That is where the material world dissolved for her through seeing new harmonies and breathtaking melodies.  Anyone who ever found the real Connie discovered her there, where musical invention came from her speaking to God and from God’s responses through Connie’s heart and down through her fingers at the keyboard.

My sister had a short temper and could, with little provocation, verbally julienne someone like a cat shredding window drapes.  But, she also had a wonderful sense of humor, a generous heart, and a faith in God not often shaken, even by the enormous trials she faced.

I remember holding my sister in the little pink blanket used to bring her home from the hospital after her birth.  I was seven years old.  We became over time each other’s chief promoter and protector, and now that I will miss her, I am thankful for the fifty-eight years of memories we shared together.  Thank God for Connie.

Just before she died Connie gave me a copy of the poem “On Playing Church Piano,” which she said expressed perfectly what she felt each time she sat at the keyboard on Sunday mornings.

               On Playing a Church Piano

It’s something about the darkness of the place,
when I relax a moment to decide
what makes this work so pleasing; is it the thrill
of lights fixed on the tall bronze cross, or perhaps
the colored figures in the glass?  But then
the stack of staves upon the stand cries out
for study, and my fingers arch again and dance,
though not gracefully at first — more like cautious
children avoiding creaky boards. Yet hidden strings
in the wood awake and sing –and the dark, cool room
seems full.  And then I realize:  It is.

A dear friend recently said goodbye to her dog Bubba. My friend and her husband kept a vigil hour after hour during Bubba’s final time in this world. I know how difficult it is to lose a pet. Since childhood, I’ve lost many, and the anguish of that loss is almost unbearable. Here is something I wrote after my dog Cody died in July of 2009. The hope came from getting another dog as soon as possible to help relieve the terrible sense of loneliness:

                                                                     Cody

     In front of me is a small oak box. It sits on the piano and holds the ashes of Cody, the West Highland White Terrier I had for almost fifteen years. How strange that all that love, merriment, mischief, and courage from those wonderful years could be reduced to the meager contents of this little container. It is a feeling of astonishment shared by so many others who have lost ones they loved and who have wept over boxes and urns that held the final physical remnants of who was adored.

But the corporal remains provide only a kind of closure that creates the illusion that physical presence was the only thing. The box is no real comfort, except to remind me of the concrete reality of Cody’s existence. He really WAS. His spirit, however, remains in the countless reminders of his still unfamiliar absence. It remains in his favorite tartan plaid blanket, his food and water dishes decorated with tiny paw prints, in his favorite chair, on the brick path in the garden where he loved to sun himself and play.

     His spirit resides even now in the barking of other neighborhood dogs, in the white fur that is left in his brush, in his collar, and on the leather leash that made him leap with excitement, even into old age, at the thought of a happy stroll with me. It is in the nose prints on the inside of my car windows, summoning again his insatiable energy, curiosity, and love of everything and everybody around. All that innocence, trust, fun and unconditional love can never be contained by a box of any size. It is all too boundless, and it is a part of me now and for however many years I have yet to live in this world. If there is a veil through which we pass into some other realm, I know that Cody will be there. Then whatever heaven there may be can be complete through the shared experience of his utter joy and mine.

     Events after Cody’s death made me see something remarkable in the healing process (which continues). I contacted Cody’s breeder in Iowa to let her know of his passing, as she and I have kept in contact over the years. I asked if there might be any litters of Westies coming up. Her reply came as a huge but happy surprise, that she was going to retire from breeding and showing West Highland White Terriers but that there was indeed a recent litter with four pups. Three were spoken for, but there was one male left, which several people wanted. She said she didn’t know why she had hesitated to sell the dog to anyone yet, despite several requests.

      The pups were born the very day Cody died (July 17, 2009), and the father’s name is Cody II . Can you believe how fortunate I was in this perfect timing? And what are the odds for these things falling together so well at just the right time? I bought the puppy and named him Dudley after an angel played by Cary Grant in the 1947 film THE BISHOP’S WIFE, one of my favorite movies.

     Dudley was not ready to travel to Colorado from Iowa until late September, as he was at the time only three weeks old. Jim drove me there to bring Duds home. I was so grateful that all this happened. It was almost as though Cody’s spirit had somehow been involved and perhaps even resided in that puppy that I was meant to have. My priority continues  to be accepting and nurturing of Dudley’s personality and traits without comparing him with Cody (a very tough act to follow).

People sometimes feel a strange kind of guilt at mourning their deceased cats and dogs.  I don’t know why.  Our bond with pets is extremely powerful and fulfilling. The extraordinary and unconditional love we receive in return for meeting their simple needs is surely one of God’s greatest gifts in this life.  The most important thing, as it is in our bonds with the humans in our lives, is to appreciate and love our pets, giving all the care and attention we can, before the time is up, and we are parted.  If you are lucky enough to have a cat or dog, embrace the gift of that wondrous bond in every way you can.  Celebrate it every day.  If you don’t have a pet but are willing and able to love and care for one, there are animal shelters everywhere with loving creatures waiting for your visit and ready to enrich your life beyond what you can even imagine.  JB

IF A DOG BE WELL REMEMBERED
(written by Ben Hur Lampman & published in the Sept. 11, 1925 issue of the Portland Oregonian)

We are thinking now of a dog, whose coat was flame in the sunshine and who, so far as we are aware, never entertained a mean or an unworthy thought. This dog is buried beneath a cherry tree, under four feet of garden loam, and at its proper season the cherry strews petals on the lawn of his grave. Beneath a cherry tree or an apple or any flowering shrub of the garden is an excellent place to bury a good dog. Beneath such trees, such shrubs, he slept in the drowsy summer or gnawed at a flavorous bone or lifted head to challenge some strange intruder. These are good places, in life or in death.

Yet it is small matter. For if a dog be well remembered, if sometimes he leaps through your dreams actual as in life, eyes kindling, laughing, begging, it matters not at all where the dog sleeps. On a hill where the wind is unrebuked and the trees roaring, or beside a stream he knew in puppyhood, or somewhere in the flatness of a pastureland where most exhilarating cattle graze. It is all one to the dog, and all one to you, and nothing is gained and nothing is lost — if memory lives.

But there is one best place to bury a dog. If you bury him in this spot, he will come to you when you call — come to you over the grim, dim frontiers of death, and down the well-remembered path, and to your side again. And though you call a dozen living dogs to heel they shall not growl at him, nor resent his coming, for he belongs there. People may scoff at you, who see no lightest blade of grass bent by his footfall, who hear no whimper, people who may never really have had a dog. Smile at them, for you shall know something that is hidden from them, and which is well worth knowing.

       The one best place to bury a dog is in the heart of his master.