We’ve had forty-seven presidencies, with twenty-one men serving more than one term.
Political Scientists rank presidents, with Lincoln first and Trump last. (source)
Barack Obama is tucked in at #7 between Truman and Eisenhower.
Political Science was my day job for forty years. I love politics and I loved teaching this vital subject. In fact, even at 75, I can’t stop. This past year, I taught short courses on the 2024 US presidential election in America, Romania and Mexico.
Honestly, I’m as gobstruck as you may be as to what is going on in my country. I read books and articles, listen to podcasts, and watch documentaries. In my courses, I put together learned sounding lectures with thoughtful power point images.
I won’t repeat, with two exceptions, any of that here. I’ve paid my dues. And will again. But not today. It’s all just too sad. The best I can say is that we really don’t know how it is going to turn out. In the moment, it is dire, very dire.
But I believe two things.
The fact of Barack Hussein Obama, as America’s 44th President, is more important than any of his policies or decisions as president. This is true in the sense that the fact of Jackie Robinson transcends his brilliant baseball skills. As Kamala Harris said, over and over, “We aren’t going back.”
This reality— a Black man and a Black family — as the face of America, led inevitably to the rise of Donald Trump, on the shoulders of the birther lie, Trump’s political ignition spark. He’s been motoring with low octane, calculated deceptions for a decade.
As James Baldwin wrote forty years ago, “America changes all the time but doesn’t change at all.”
This story was published in Medium’s Entertain, Enlighten, Empower.
*
Dawdled.
However, Monet nails it, doesn’t he? We worry about crossing our bridges of concerns, but we can never see them clearly — the fog of human unknowing — until we’re on them.
Or, in my case yesterday, trapped inside this MRI machine.
Photo by the author after the scan!
As some of you know, I fell about a month ago. I’ve written about my excellent medical care in San Miguel, Mexico. Did I black out and fall or fall and knock myself out? Both my Mexican and US doctors asked this question, and now my American GP is putting me through a blood, heart, and head work-up. The MRI was to peek inside my noggen, looking for anything suspicious. We’ll discuss the results of all these tests in a few weeks.
Last week, when my doctor mentioned the head scan, I asked if that meant a tube. He said yes and preferred the enclosed MRI to the more open Cat Scan because it would give more detailed images. “I’m claustrophobic,” I replied. “I’ll prescribe an anti-anxiety drug. The MRI is the best option.” I got the message. And started worrying about coffin-like enclosed spaces and, of course, tumors, a word he used but skirted over.
The good news is there doesn’t seem to be any “unusual mass.” Reading the summary from my doctor, I noticed there doesn’t seem to be anything other than “thinning and atrophy,” which is pretty standard for a 75-year-old organ.
Maybe it was the Lorazepam or the experienced handling of Debra, my MRI technician angel, who included a facial cloth to cover my eyes and a blanket. But the 40 minutes I spent inside that machine were different than anticipated.
In the days before, I imagined feeling confined and panicking. What if I can’t get the image of being in a coffin out of my head? Would I start screaming?
MRIs are loud, so Debra inserted earplugs and small pillow bookends to keep my head from moving. The knocking noise was initially distracting but then comforting. Every magnet pause suggested progress. About halfway through, I started observing myself and my reaction.
Three unexpected thoughts appeared. One, I looked panic square in the eye and dared it to come closer. I’m Rocky egging Appollo Creed on in the last round. He knows he can go the distance. I’m on the bridge, almost enjoying the view from here.
The second, more astounding, was that I could get used to letting go of control. Grasping control of whatever is the core of claustrophobia and much of what’s wrong in our world. For example, if only I could show you, dear reader, my vulnerability, you would love my story.
That’s the essence of “we’ll cross that bridge when we come to it.” All our bridges are phantoms. We use our language to fool ourselves.
Until we get on the bridge, we don’t know. And when we pay the toll, we usually muddle through!
The third thought? You’ve probably figured it out. The coffin image I feared so much? It came back and sat gently on my chest. It wasn’t as scary as I thought.
This story was published in Medium’s Fiction Shorts.
A Drabble is a concise 100-word story that respects your busy schedule. Your presence here matters. Please stay on the page for thirty seconds so you will count as a reader. Thank you.
Setting: A baseball game
*
“President Trump attended this year’s Superbowl in New Orleans. The NFL replaced its traditional End Racism endzone logo with Choose Love. Which one is the better commercial?”
“At Fenway, the Red Sox privilege the message Black Lives Matter. It doesn’t mean white lives don’t. It means in American history, Black Lives haven’t mattered, and they should, equally. Should we replace Black with All?”
“Doesn’t All Include Blacks? If we all chose love, wouldn’t that end racism?”
“Doesn’t Love and All divert our attention from what is still a problem in America?”
That’s me doing what I do best: talking with students.
Not at, with.
Like you and whatever it is, you do well; we fail as often as we succeed.
Photo by Rebecca Wiese
Embarrassing.
Worse, I’m describing the first of three reasons I thought Kamala Harris would beat Donald Trump.
Professors like threes; it makes them seem organized, even when wrong.
I’m 75 and have been in a classroom for half a century, starting with 6th graders and ending, well, I haven’t finished yet. Since 2018, when I retired from teaching Politics to college students, I’ve been on the Lifelong Learning circuit, with a few short appearances in Romania and Mexico. The photos are from last fall at West University in Timişoara, Romania.
Rodrigo S-C asks what we do well. And then gives us his answer.
“She’s a natural-born teacher.” We hear this all the time. Nonsense, and patronizing. No more than Michael Jordan was a natural at basketball. Jordan practiced his way to excellence.
For most of my teaching years, my practice involved learning about the topics I taught. Michael took 100s of jump shots every day during the off season. I read 10s of books every summer. I saw my craft as learning better content. Until Jenna knocked on my office door in 2008.
She was a psychology major taking my course on poverty and inequality. I developed this course soon after I arrived at Luther. It attracted majors from around campus and usually enrolled 30.
I was proud of keeping the course fresh by using different books each year. Books I had read the previous summer. Jordan was shooting. I was reading.
By the time Jenna took the course, I had replaced overhead transparencies with PowerPoint.
Slides.
Full of words summarizing the main ideas from the day’s reading assignment. High-tech transparencies.
I sent an email to Jenna asking her to stop by. She had earned an A on the first exam but was missing classes. That was an unusual combination. Usually, students who missed didn’t do well.
I asked her why she was missing class. “I’m bored in class. I don’t need to go. All you do is summarize the material.”
And then she added this kicker.
“You faculty are hiding behind Powerpoints.”
I felt my face turn red.
There was no smile from Jenna to soften the blows.
In response, I made comments about the value of in-class conversations. And about how I didn’t just summarize the reading but added insights from other authors and my ideas.
I didn’t change right away. I fumed.
And told myself stories: I was a good teacher; Jenna was an arrogant student. True stories. But Jenna’s words wouldn’t go away.
I always prepared my classes in the early morning. Two hours into one morning’s work, I realized all my energy had gone into how to organize the perfect Powerpoint slide show.
And not what my students needed to understand that day’s assignment. Two weeks after Jenna’s observations, I stopped using Powerpoint.
Cold turkey.
My favorite scene in Mr. Holland’s Opus, about a high school music teacher played by Richard Dreyfus, was after most of his students did poorly on a test. Those test results were a Jenna moment. He had to find another way.
In the next scene, he uses a piano to show his students how a Bach minuet formed the background of a pop song. You can watch this scene here.
I love this scene because Dreyfus’ Glenn Holland sits on the piano stool and talks to his students. And asks them questions about what kind of music they like.
Barriers down. He was still the teacher. But he had now joined the class.
It took me a year to revamp my pedagogy. Experimentation.
Finally, I developed an in-class template.
I broke our sixty or ninety-minute classes into 15-minute segments. Each was organized around a theme or question about the day’s assignment. I rearranged the classroom so that we were all facing each other. Sometimes I would be in the middle. I was part of the circle, prodding, questioning, and summarizing.
I relaxed in the classroom.
And started to arrive 10 minutes before the students filed in.
This story was published in Medium’s Fiction Shorts.
A Drabble is a concise 100-word story that respects your busy schedule. Your presence here matters. Please stay on the page for thirty seconds so you will count as a reader. Thank you.
The setting: A mountain in Alaska.
*
I feel sorry for humans.
They’re around for such a short time. I must seem eternal to them: 60 million years. I’ve seen everything.
The new American President has changed my name again, back to McKinley. It’s been Denali for a few years. The Kuyukon People know who I am.
US Presidents come and go. Countries come and go. Empires come and go. Even mountains don’t last forever.
Sometimes, I wish I was more like the enlightened humans who hang out on my slopes — they know they have very little time, so every moment is precious and can’t be wasted.
This story was published in Medium’s Fiction Shorts.
A Drabble is a concise 100-word story that respects your busy schedule. Your presence here matters. Please stay on the page for thirty seconds so you will count as a reader. Thank you.
Setting: A baseball game
“President Trump attended this year’s Superbowl in New Orleans. The NFL replaced its traditional End Racism endzone logo with Choose Love. Which one is the better commercial?”
“At Fenway, the Red Sox privilege the message Black Lives Matter. It doesn’t mean white lives don’t. It means in American history, Black Lives haven’t mattered, and they should, equally. Should we replace Black with All?”
“Doesn’t All Include Blacks? If we all chose love, wouldn’t that end racism?”
“Doesn’t Love and All divert our attention from what is still a problem in America?”
“Can’t we take politics out of our games?
“No.”
Note: This article provides some background on the NFL’s decision to replace End Racism with Choose Love.
I’m 75, and my body refuses to lie. As I type, the age spots flash. Two weeks ago, I fell and lost consciousness for a short time. The culprit was likely an inner ear malfunction or possibly my heart, which my doctor reminded me was as old as I was.
Two days ago, Rebecca and I walked upwards to enjoy this view of San Miguel de Allende, Mexico, where we spent January.
Photo by the author
We walked 14,386 steps total, from a starting point about a mile high, on a day with poor air quality. On the way up, we stopped three times to catch our breath. On the way down, we rewarded ourselves with ice cream sundaes.
Next January, will we hike skyward to see the El Charco Ingenio Botanical Garden or take a taxi?
In May, we’ve signed up for a safari in Namibia. It will be a small group led by a friend who assures us we can do it, even though we are decades older than our trek mates.
When Brian asked us about Africa a few months ago, we said, “It’s now or never.” Would we be able to go on safari at 80?
*
My funny-looking age spots started appearing 25 years ago, and I had my first inner ear collapse in 2018. We met a couple at least ten years younger at the botanical garden who took a taxi because of the poor air quality. The Namibia itinerary looks doable for anyone who can walk a few thousand steps daily. Why would we think we couldn’t do that in five years?
That’s the admonition of two of my favorite Medium writers, Gary Buzzard and Trisha Faye, who suggest that we should not automatically blame advancing years for whatever afflicts us.
Gently, Gary and Trisha, urge us seniors to think less about age. They caution against putting a ceiling on our activties or ambitions too soon.
Last night we bedded in St. Louis on our return from San Miguel to our home in Iowa. Two airline take-offs and landings. As we descended into Lambert International Airport, I thought about the 67 souls lost in the Washington, D.C. jet helicopter crash, many very young, none expecting or could have foreseen what would happen.
Today, we’ll load up and drive six hours to northeast Iowa. These trips tire us more than they used to. Age matters. But the future is too unpredictable. And it will come soon enough.
I’ve tilted this personal photo of Martin Luther King’s Lorraine Motel assassination site because this period in my country’s history unnerved my innocent early adulthood vision of the United States — that my country was good and only did good in the world. It was truly exceptional and guileless. Slavery was an aberration; the Indians were the bad guys. God — Blessed America.
By this period, I mean 1968 and 1969, and these events.
March 3, 1968: James Earl Ray murders Martin Luther King, Jr.
June 5, 1968: Sirhan Sirhan murders Robert Kennedy.
August 26–29, 1968: Democratic National Convention in Chicago, police beat protesters.
Fall 1969: Seymor Hersch published a story about the My Lai massacre by soldiers of the United States that happened in the spring of 1968.
Many other things happened inside and outside U.S. borders in the late sixties, but these discombobulated me at the time. I know that because two memories are so easily recalled.
*
“What is happening to America?” my father exclaimed the day after Robert Kennedy’s death. It was the summer after my first year of college. I was 19, and my dad had just come home from work. I had never heard him speak with such emotion, and I could sense the uncertainty in his voice. Two assassinations. When your father is unsettled, you are unsettled; at least I was.
The second recollection occurred a year later, in the fall of 1969. I was a college junior majoring in Sociology. After a class with Keith Fernsler, my favorite professor, I had just joined a group of friends. One friend, Joe, said, “Paul, you look like you’ve seen a ghost.”
Our Sociology class had just been discussing Hersch’s article on the My Lai Massacre, and I hadn’t realized our class’s discussion of the killing of a hundred civilians had visibly affected me.
King and Kennedy were dead. American soldiers gunned down women and children. If we looked closer, what else would we find?
Photo by the author
Three years later, Watergate and a corrupted Presidency; five years later, defeated, America withdrew from Vietnam.
*
I’m a romantic. I want Romeo and Juliet to live happily ever after. The same is true for my country. After WE re-elected Barack Obama in 2012, I thought — probably mostly felt — America had loosened itself from its exclusionary past. Imperfect as it had been, it had finally lived up to its ideals. The WE now included so many voices that had been silenced. The USA could be one large, loud, chaotic, multiethnic family — finally, a Democratic model for the world.
My favorite Martin Luther King jr quote has always been, of course, a romantic one.
The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice.
It turns out it’s a long arc. And it’s been flattening.
*
Today is the first full day of Donald Trump’s second term. Among other things, he pardoned all 1500 January 6th insurrectionists.
Romeo and Juliet died by suicide.
My beloved country may be doing the same.
Innocence narcotizes and blinds. And has nowhere to hide in Trump’s America.
But the bigger story was the stellar medical care I received
Photo of MAC by the author
This story is mostly about them. They work here, at Hospitales MAC in the hills of San Miguel de Allende, Mexico, where Rebecca and I spend January. I’ll start at the beginning, with my head lying bleeding on the bathroom floor — beautifully glazed bricks, but hard, very hard. My part will be brief. I’m the object and not the subject of this story.
Photo by the author
Tuesday, AM
It’s 2 am last Tuesday, and I’ve collapsed. I remember being dizzy, disoriented, and nauseous as I walked through the bathroom door. And I have an image and sensation of my face on this floor. That’s it until Rebecca found me sitting on our bed with my head bleeding. She cleaned the wound and me and then determined I was out of immediate danger as I began to answer her questions, for example, “What year is it?” correctly.
Rebecca managed a doctor’s clinic for decades. As she monitored me, she was in texting contact with a physician friend. She was my angel of mercy who knows and knows people who know.
Eight years ago, I experienced a similar episode but without a fall. Again, early in the morning, I was wobbly on the way to the bathroom and sick to my stomach. There’s a fancy name for this condition: Benign Paroxysmal Positional Vertigo. The physical therapy treatment can be straightforward and includes head positioning to reorient chrystals in the inner ear. (source)
Who woulda thunk? Chrystals in the ear, and Bam!
Tuesday, PM
At breakfast, after looking at my head wound about two inches northwest of my right ear, Rebecca said it would be best to see a doctor. Fortunately, Theresa, our landlord, listed vital contact names and phone numbers on the refrigerator, including Dr. Leslie Maria Flores.
Rebecca made the call as she has improved her Spanish proficiency using Duolingo for two years. I’m stuck at Hola. Victor answered and set a same-day appointment time for noon. Other than a headache, I’m of sound 75-year-old mind and body. Because Victor spoke English, we decided I could embark on this adventure alone as Rebecca went to a Lifelong Learning class we had been looking forward to.
Taxi driver Carlos dropped me off at the entrance you see in the first photo. The lobby was small and spotless.
Photo by the author
After sitting outside Room 211 for a few minutes, Victor came out the door with the Christmas wreath and asked if I was Paul.
Photo by the author
He took my vitals inside an ante-room. “Your blood pressure is high,” he said. It was 160 over something. “That’s a lot higher than usual,” I replied, “I guess I’m nervous.”
Dr. Leslie Marie Flores, MD, poked her head out of a back room and said to come in. Two comfortable chairs sat in front of her desk. Through a door to a third room, I saw an examination area with windows looking out at the Bajio Mountains surrounding San Miguel.
Her consultation lasted about forty minutes. During it, she asked specific questions about what had happened to me the previous night. She honed in on a faint red spot over my left eyebrow: “I don’t think you raised your hands to block your fall. I think you blacked out. That worries me. We should do an EKG.”
After she cleaned my head wound, an emergency room physician who happened to be available arrived to suture the two-inch gash. He was about sixty and Flores forty or so. In Spanish, she summarized the details of my incident, including her recommendation for an EKG, with him nodding and gesturing approval. He then closed the cut with three medium-sized stitches.
Wednesday, AM
The taxi driver, Carlos, dropped me off the following day for two more appointments: the EKG and an ear cleaning for the pesky inner ears.
After the EKG, the technicians motioned me into the office of Dr. M. Karina Cruz Madrigal, cardiologist. One comfortable chair facing middle-aged Dr. Madrigal behind her desk. Her English was better than mine. “Your EKG is normal, but tell me the fall details.” I did.
“I’m worried you didn’t put your hands up to protect your face.” She put a heart model before me and said, “The heart is like a light bulb. As it ages, sending an electrical current from here to there takes longer. Your light bulb is 75 years old. Why did you black out?”
She recommended a three-day heart monitor because “the EKG only tests the heart for 20 seconds.” I said I would make an appointment with my Decorah physician when we returned to the USA in early February. And then I remembered my father got a pacemaker when he was 65. Yesterday, I made that appointment.
I’ve had my ears cleaned out so many times I even wrote a story about it.
Dr. Karla Lidia Chávez Vaca ushered me from my chair in the hallway into her office. By now, I was used to explaining why I was hanging around MAC. She listened attentively, asked very specific questions, and said, “let’s take a look inside your ears.”
“Yes, there’s plenty of wax in each.”
What followed was the most gentle, thorough removal of the cerumem build-up in memory. She then printed off eye exercises for vertigo she wanted me to do for a month followed by her What’s App number to conact her with any questions.
Friday, AM
I’ll bet you are interested in how much this care cost. First, I paid a fee at each office. Second, the total was $331, including three prescriptions.
As I write this story four days after falling, I feel immense gratitude toward my loving partner Rebecca and her physican friend Bill.
And to the four professionals at MAC Hospital in San Miguel.
My father was born on January 13, 1921. He died early on March 1, 1993, of sinus cancer, diagnosed too late. He was a chemical engineer who worked on the United States space program in the 1960s, retiring at 58 when the moon landing ended America’s full-bore commitment to space.
Here he is in the middle 1960s, with engineer colleagues.
Photo by the author of a newspaper article from a Gardner family album
Not one to let grass grow under his feet, Dad set up a bakery in his and mom’s basement. Applying his engineering mind to the development of bread products, it took him several years to perfect his baking technique. Eventually, he created several multigrain products that he sold at farmer’s markets in the late 1970s, well ahead of that health trend.
Photo of Dad with a customer at a farmer’s market
You would see contentment and delight over a big order on his face if you knew him as I did.
Two days ago was his 103 birthday. How do I honor such a man?
I sit here in the early morning, pecking out another Medium story — this will be number 491. Last week, in San Miguel, Mexico, where Rebecca and I are spending January, I taught a Lifelong Learning course on the U.S. 2024 presidential election. That’s seven courses to mature students since I retired in 2018, with another one planned for 2026. I’m three years older than my father. Where do these efforts come from?
Nature or nurture?
My money is on nurture. To prove my point, I’ll tell you a story. You can then multiply that by 1000 to calculate the impact of this man on my life.
Which is why a good father matters.
I was 12, a gang member, and a criminal. Vinnie and Mark joined me in a pact to steal one item each from Smith’s Drug Store a few blocks from our neighborhood. I chose a bottle of aspirin.
Mr. Smith, no fool, spotted one or more of us pilfering and called Mrs. Cleveland, a neighborhood busybody who ratted to my mother. You should know that this was my second offense in three years — what our gang of nine-year-olds pilfered is lost to time.
My dad knocked on my bedroom door the night we were tattled on. Peter, who was two years younger and with whom I shared I shared the bedroom, was somewhere else. I felt that something was fishy as my dad sat on my bed.
He told me about Cleveland’s phone call. “It will take some time before your mother gets over this,” he said calmly. He meant my mom would not speak to me for a while — It turned out to be a week. I still remember the morning she broke her silence. It was breakfast time. I was sitting at our kitchen table, and she was at the refrigerator, “Would you like some orange juice, Paul?”
Dad took a different approach. The day after his bedroom visit, he came home from work early. He never, ever came home early.
“Paul,” he said, “let’s go for a ride.”
In the car, silence.
He drove us downtown along the 4th Street east-west one-way to the Davenport Police Station. We exited the car, and I followed him through the front door. Still, no words, including by me.
I kid you not, an officer sat at a high desk, just like in the movies. He came down and approached us. My Dad introduced me, and the officer’s hand grasped mine and said, “Come with me.”
I followed him through several doors, with officers everywhere. We ended up in a room with several empty cells. I don’t remember what, if anything, he said on our journey. He soon returned me to my Dad, who was waiting in the lobby.
Silence all the way home.
Do you have time for another story? I’ll make it short. It involves the third Gardner boy, Pat, who is six years younger than me. Pat is 70 this year and 19 when he and Dad met late one Friday afternoon at a bar in West Davenport. In the 1960s, this part of town housed many factories.
Pat was a so-so high school student but a great athlete with a powerful left arm. He was so good that he got a baseball scholarship from a local community college. But he never went to class.
As Pat told the story, after they had settled at a table with a couple of beers, Dad looked at him and said, “Look at the guys at the bar. Many of them are here every night. Just sitting.”
Soon after, Pat got a job selling paint at Sherwin-Williams. He never finished school but became a regional manager at Sherwin over the decades, retiring a few years ago. Today, in retirement, he transports donated organs to hospitals around the area.
Character is built from the accumulation of stories like these. It’s like a sand timer hourglass, from father to son.
Looking back, I ask, How did I become the man I am?
