CUL-DE-SAC

I was at the Anderson Nursery a week ago with a cart filled with seedlings I planned to plant in my garden. An old guy looked and me and said, “You’ve got a lot of work ahead of you.”

“Everyone needs a hobby,” I said.

“Yup,” he said. “I tell my wife it keeps me out of the bars and the whorehouses!”

It’s funny that I tell people gardening is my hobby, but I don’t know what else to say. I used to train in traditional karate, but I ran out of time for that after having my second child. Now if someone asks me what’s my hobby, I say “gardening.”

I remember a story told by a friend who was soon to graduate from law school and was applying for a job. The boss of the law firm asked her several questions relevant to the law but then asked her what was her hobby. She thought for a few seconds then said she was going to school full-time, working part-time and she had a baby boy at home. So she really didn’t have time for a hobby.

But the managing partner pressed her, thinking there must be something she liked to do on the side. Unable to think of anything else, she said, “I shop!”

I decided a few years ago that “gardening” would be my fallback position in situations like that, because I have become interested in it. And it all started when I moved to Southern California.

When I lived in the Midwest, plants were simply part of the landscape. I would have been hard-pressed to identify and name even the most common trees and flowering plants. But then I moved to San Diego where nearly everything grows, provided you water it. Suddenly plants were strange and exotic.

After I had kids, I also noticed that gardening was very compatible with child care. It was something you could focus on while also entertaining a little kid by giving him a job of pulling weeds or digging holes. Gardening allowed room for talking, interacting and playing.

Hobbies are better-suited for early life and old age. Midlife is too filled with work and kids. But in case anyone asks, I have a ready answer for what’s my hobby that isn’t too far off the mark.

This blog post comes a little late, but it’s worth it. My neighborhood holds a Halloween parade every year, and this is the 2011 event. Kids and parents wander through the neighborhood and try to create a spectacle.

My son, by the way, is the grim reaper.

Three nights ago I let one of my three pet cats out for the night. Molly has not come back since then. I live near a canyon and two nights ago I heard howling that one of my neighbors later assured me were coyotes. Some howls were low and resonant while one was like a high-pitched scream.

I have owned cats for more than 20 years, and I’ve always let them out whenever they wanted. This caused my cat Maya to become pregnant a year ago. One of her kittens was Molly, who has not come back.

Molly was a sweet and trusting cat, and that may have been part of her problem. I have seen her be social with the skunks and raccoons in the canyon. Her mother is more streetwise. I once saw her run from dogs, and she did it in a way that made me think she could take care of herself.

I was once turned away from a local shelter, where I was trying to adopt a cat, when I honestly answered the question of whether my cat would be an indoor-outdoor cat. The shelter seemed to believe the humane thing to do was to deny cats any home, where they might be put in danger of going outdoors.

I differ with this view of humane treatment of animals. To me a cat is only allowed to be a cat when it can go outside, hide in the shadows and hunt mice and rats. Our cat, Maya, was born on a farm in Kansas where the cats were not allowed indoors. This would come as a shock, I’m sure, to that animal shelter I visited.

The disappearance of Molly gives me second thoughts about my cat care, even though I cannot be sure she was killed by another animal. I feel downcast when I think about that middle-of-the-night baying of the coyotes.

My 11-year-old son still walks to the back door in hopes of seeing Molly reappear, and he still calls out to her. We put lost-cat flyers up around the neighborhood with our address and phone number on them.

My wife and I have told our children that Molly probably found a new home and had just gone to live with a new family. I don’t believe that, but it could be true. As for our other two cats, they will continue to be indoor-outdoor. Death is a risk when you venture into the world, but as long as my cats still want to go out-of-doors, I’ll let them.

And when the time is right, I may ask my son if we can have a little funeral for Molly to put her memory to rest. Again… I’m not saying she was killed, but just in case.

I wouldn’t have known that Tom Keith had died if I hadn’t gotten the email from Scott Horsley. Scott, who now covers Barack Obama for NPR, used to work with me at KPBS. I hear from him, now and then, when he sees something that he knows relates to my past.

He may call me from the press bus while traveling though Iowa when he can catch a glimpse of my home town, Grinnell, or the Barilla plant outside of Ames. Obama goes to Iowa when he starts thinking about elections. But I digress.

Tom Keith

I knew Tom Keith, though not well, when I worked at Minnesota Public Radio in the early ’90s. He performed with Garrison Keillor on Keillor’s old morning radio show and later on a Prairie Home Companion Show.

Tom created a radio persona named Jim Ed Poole, and most MPR listeners knew him by that name. I once worked at WCCO, the CBS affiliate in Minneapolis, where one of the radio personalities was “Dark Star.” Around the station we called him by his first name, Dark. I’m not kidding.

Tom Keith was one of those guys who was well-known in public radio circles. He was best know for being the original sound-effects guy for Prairie Home.

The thing I remember about Tom was a story told to me by a fellow MPR employee who played with Tom on the company softball team. Tom Keith was not physically imposing in any way. He was bald and of average height. But he was an outstanding athlete who had played on the varsity baseball team at the University of Minnesota.

The guy on the MPR softball team played first base, one season, when Tom played shortstop (or maybe third base… this was a long time ago). When Tom would field the ball and throw out the runner at first, he would throw so hard the ball seemed to ascend as it flew threw the air.

Tom Keith soon retired from softball and left it to the duffers. He died at the age of 64. Interesting what you learn about people. Jim Ed Poole, rest in peace.

Shamu is fed up and he’s suing SeaWorld. The orca argues his captivity at SeaWorld is tantamount to slavery, and that violates the 13th Amendment to the US Constitution.

This is a joke, right? But that would require PETA to have a sense of humor. PETA (People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals) has filed suit against SeaWorld, claiming it’s violating the constitutional rights of five killer whales who are being held as slaves and forced to do tricks. They (PETA lawyers, not the orcas) point out the U.S. Constitution doesn’t actually say it only applies to humans.

This is the kind of absurdity for which logical arguments are a poor fit. It may be true that our founding fathers felt no need to make it clear they were talking about human rights. But that’s only because the idea of giving civil rights to an animal was patently ridiculous.

If the case brought by Shamu is not thrown out by a judge, I wonder if the killer whales will be required to testify in court. Will they be deposed? Will the court be required to appoint a translator who speaks dolphin?

Some people have told me allowing lawyers to represent an animal who can’t communicate is no different from making sure a comatose person is fully represented, when the court is deciding whether he/she should be allowed to die.

I’d suggest that’s the exception that proves the rule. Also, there probably was a time when that person could communicate and could tell people what they might want to do in such a situation. Besides, the comatose person is a member of our species. Call me species-centric.

I’d also wonder what kind of a legal precedent would be set if PETA were allowed to represent Shamu and his supposed interests. Will my cat Molly take me to court because I denied her the right to have kittens by having her neutered? All she needs is a lawyer with nothing better to do.

This lawsuit by PETA has resulted in some animated conversations among fellow journalists, most of whom say it’s crazy. One colleague said if he were African American (whose ancestors really were enslaved) he would be very offended by this suit.

To me it looks like another case of humans arguing over animals, and claiming to know what they want. Animal cruelty does exist and it is offensive. But it isn’t a matter of what animals think about it, it’s what we think about it.

St. Francis told us that we and other animals are all God’s creatures. But we are not equal. The intelligence and technology of humans has put us in a class alone. We now control the fate of the environment and its other creatures.

We have the ability to destroy other species, not to mention ourselves. Mind you… life on earth will continue even if we damage our environment enough to wipe ourselves out. Other creatures will survive and thrive and evolve into other life forms, which may actually surpass us and our abilities.

But for now, animals are at our mercy. And we must show them mercy because they aren’t humans and they don’t have rights.

I don’t normally get into acts that impersonate other acts, but I have a weakness for Beatles cover bands. It’s something to do with having grown up in the sixties. It’s something to do with the rich pop-culture landscape the Beatles created, and the unmistakable sound of their music… which, of course, was great rock and roll.

You find Beatles cover bands in the strangest places. Last weekend I listened to the “Baja Bugs” at the fall festival of my kids Catholic school, St. Didicus in San Diego. The Bugs have the look and the sound just about right, and they play with plenty of spirit. Over the past two years they’ve made the fall festival actually fun for adults.

Another Beatles cover band was a group of actors who made the mock documentary film, “The Rutles.” Cover bands always contain an element of satire, and the Rutles were fully satirical. The best known member of the group was Monty Python actor Eric Idle, who played one of the band members and was the documentary narrator.

If you haven’t seen this movie, and you’re a Beatles fan, be sure to rent it because it’s hilarious. Here’s a scene that shows the character who represents John Lennon meeting the person who represents Yoko Ono in an art studio. They go on to protest in a tub.

OK, maybe you think this stuff is dumb, or you just don’t get it, but it cracks me up! Beatles fans… rent the Rutles! (If the video is still available)

 I love sleep. But I’ve become a suspicious and jealous lover since I began a new job that requires me to awake at 4:30 a.m.

 I have developed a routine that involves getting six hours of sleep overnight and an hour nap the following afternoon. It works, most of the time. When it doesn’t, I carry the heavy weight of fatigue.

 Weeknights, I now sleep in a small guest room on the first floor of my house while my spouse and kids sleep upstairs.

 Sometimes I lie in the dark, waiting for sleep to arrive, and I hope she understands she has a job to do and she’s late. My dicey relationship with sleep actually began four years ago when a traumatic head injury jammed some of the avenues in my brain that cause you to slumber. I’ve been taking sleep meds ever since.

 Here’s what Shakespeare had to say about wishing for sleep:

 O sleep! O gentle sleep!
Nature’s soft nurse, how have I frighted thee,
That thou no more wilt weigh my eyelids down
And steep my senses in forgetfulness?
Henry IV, Part 2

 I have a couple of days off this week to rest up. You just need to do what you can to get on sleep’s good side.  

I host a morning drive-time news radio show and that means I interview news-makers. And that’s what brought me back in contact with Michael Zucchet.

Zucchet used to be on the San Diego City Council. But he resigned in disgrace before his first term ended, when he was charged and convicted by a jury of accepting bribes from a strip-club owner. He appealed the case and the appellate judge threw out his conviction, claiming the jury blew it and there was no credible evidence of a quid pro quo.

Michael Zucchet when he served on the city council.

The money the prosecutors characterized as bribes are normally called “campaign contributions.”

I encountered Zucchet again this month, for the first time in years, when I interviewed him about a proposal to reform the city employees’ pension plan. Zucchet, you see, has bounced back by landing a job as the general manager of a municipal union. Pretty good for a guy who almost went to prison.

I first saw Mike Zucchet nearly ten years ago, soon before he was elected to the council. He was in his early 30s but looked younger, thanks to his boyish, clean-cut face and blond hair. When I hosted a debate between him and his council opponent it looked like he was having a great time. The excitement of politics and the public eye lit him up and made him look like someone to whom nothing bad could occur.

This month he looked different. Though still physically fit, nine years had added weight to his frame. I watched him walk toward our building, as I waited in the lobby, and I wasn’t sure who it was. His posture and gate were different and his eyes were cast down. In the interview, the spark was missing. He acted like a union administrator who was doing his job.

We all get different when we get older. But I wondered if years of fighting criminal charges changed him fundamentally. The new Zucchet seemed more wary and less likely to have faith that things would work themselves out. That’s strange, in a way, since things actually did work out in his favor.

As a legal matter, you could argue that he was guilty as charged. But I wonder about charging politicians with bribery for accepting campaign contributions. Campaign contributions are a form of bribery, but they are a legal form of bribery. I never quite understood the difference between what Zucchet was accused of doing and what every other politician does. Apparently, the judge who threw out his convictions didn’t get it either.

Yesterday, I called him to ask a followup question to our earlier conversation, and he returned my call in the early afternoon when I was at home and about to take a nap. (You do this when you have to get up at 4:30 a.m.) I fumbled for a pad and pen to take some notes and asked my question.

Before I let him go I also asked him — just curious, mind you — if the U.S Attorney ever decided whether to order a new trial for him. Though a judge threw out Zucchet’s convictions, he let two charges stand, in case the government wanted to order a new trial on them. Zucchet answered me, saying no. In November, the government closed his case for good.

We should all be so fortunate.

The sun was casting long shadows but it was still hot on a day of Santa Ana winds when the temperature reached nearly 100 degrees. And maybe it was the heat that made the seed pods on my Wisteria plant start to burst like crazy.

Sitting beneath the Wisteria.

These pods crack open with a sound like a dry stick being broken. The two halves of the pod, and the flat black seeds inside them, are fired a distance of many feet so they can find a new place to grow. After school, we sat out front and listened.

The plant would be still and silent for several seconds then “SNAP!’ Sometimes the seeds would be fired right at us. Sometimes they’d hit the nearby walls of my house and ricochet from one to another in the corner by the front door. The snapping sounds of the opening pods would be immediately followed by a rustle of leaves, or the ping off a wall, or a few clicks as a pod caromed downward from stalk to stone to the gravel below.

Though we were hit by some of the seeds, no problem. They’re really small.

We sat, watched and listened for about half an hour until we had seen enough and it was time to do homework. Come winter (remember this is San Diego) the Wisteria will be clothed in purple flowers. But now, it sings its rhythmic song as it tries to make more Wisteria by flinging its seeds.