That thought settled into my consciousness as I finished Ta-Nehisi Coates’ powerful missive to his son, Between the World and Me, two days ago.
Even when, at six, I climbed up on the chest of drawers and rode it to the ground with a loud thud. Seven decades later, I see the relief on his face as he flies through the bedroom door and sees me laughing with my brother Peter.
But then, he begins what I would come to know as his anger routine: teeth clamped around a doubled-under tongue and hands unbuckling his black belt.
That time, he pulled the belt out. But that’s as far as he ever went; the belt never touched his sons, neither hand nor fist.
When Ta-Nehisi was six, he wandered away from his parents on a visit to a park. When they found him, “Dad did what every parent I knew would have done — he reached for his belt.”
Later in the book, Coates elaborates.
My father was so very afraid. I felt it in the sting of his black leather belt, which he applied with more anxiety than anger, my father beat me qw if someone might steal me away, because that is exactly what was happening all around us. Everyone has lost a child to, somehow, to the streets, to jail, to drugs, to guns.
Between the World and Me is written by a middle-aged African-American man to his son, Samori, about what it’s like to be Black in America.
I read it in one sitting, thinking of all the nevers in my favored 76 years. There are many. I’ll tell you about two others.
For thirty-three years, I sped down College Drive, a busy street on the way to my place of employment, usually traveling at 30 MPH in a 25 MPH zone, never being stopped by the police. My Black colleague, James, was ticketed three times in his first year at the college where we both worked.
And, unlike Trayvon Martin, I never worry about wearing one of my two black hoodies during my 10,000-step daily walk around my community.
My preferred title, ‘Autumn Leaves,’ had been stolen by a time-traveling poet and used for a song covered by Frank Sinatra and Nat King Cole. As you’ve probably guessed, it’s about love and regret. Nat’s version captures the pathos.
Relevant, as it turns out, to yesterday’s task, as in most of the year, I love our ten trees, only regretting them in November.
Further, two weeks ago, the local hardware store had a week-long Autumn Special on leaf blowers. Ed and Carol, across the street and to the east, had purchased one last year. They are septuagenarians like Rebecca and me.
Besides, they offered, “When the wind blows from the west, your leaves end up on our lawn and we need help.”
Unfortunately, this year, an easterly gale reversed fortune, with no leaf blower in stock.
This was written for a Medium publication in honor of National Pickle Day.
*
Humans are always screwing up.
When that happens, who do they call? Me, of course, as in
‘I’m in a pickle, this’; ‘I’m in a pickle that.’ It’s better than being ignored like an eggplant. And it ain’t easy being in brine. The idiom fits.
Lately, I’ve heard even the President of the United States muttering my name over and over again. And it’s not only because he likes me sliced up on his Big Macs.
You know it. I know you know it. All together now. Don’t be shy.
Two all-beef patties, special sauce, lettuce, cheese, pickles, and onions on a sesame seed bun.
And they say Americans are divided.
Why, I’ve heard a rumor that soon they’ll be Golden Arches in the White House made of the real thing. The President may erect a sculpture of me in front of the new Trump ballroom.
Photo by the author of hole # 6 at South Winn Country Club in northeast Iowa
My tee shot, a duck hook, caromed off one of the pine trees just beyond the gate and bounced back into the fairway. Mike’s was a pop-up, just beyond the entry road, but down the middle.
When we holed out, both with bogeys, around 11:00 AM, I called Wanda, the clubhouse manager. “We’re starting number seven. Could you put two hot dogs on? Thank you.”
Some days are magic, especially for two old duffers in a gas-fueled cart — cloudless, windless, and 60°.
Even the weiners were perfect.
We each had a few pars and a shot or two we could recollect on a snowy February morning. For Mike, two fifteen-foot putts; for me, a six iron at the pin on number four.
On the last hole, out of the corner of my eye, I glimpsed two young guys carrying their bags.
Next fall, I plan to teach a Lifelong Learning course on the 2026 midterm elections in America. It will be my 10th class, with Donald Trump sitting in the back row, wearing his red hat.
In January, I’m doing a two-day seminar on James Baldwin in San Miguel, Mexico, where Iowa snowbirds Rebecca and I spend the early winter. The spirit of Baldwin, who died in 1987, understands perfectly Mr. Trump’s vise-like grip on us.
2026 will be my 54th year teaching.
My students have ranged from 12-year-old Steve Dehring, who, in 1973, threw a chair at me, to centenarian Harland Nelson, who, fifty years later, hurled metaphors. Both became friends.
Strangely, I was a mediocre student in high school and college. However, I loved learning, and from my father, I inherited the curiosity gene. And, again, mysteriously, I always liked my students.
Please linger a moment with this line, especially the ‘allowed to be free,’ written for the song Blowin’ in the Wind, by Bob Dylan in 1962.
How many years can some people exist before they’re allowed to be free?
Ironic, isn’t it? That’s poet Dylan’s point.
Allow means to give permission. By whom? Who gives permission to be free? More to the point, who needs permission to be free?
This language suggests the source of the problem and reminds me of something James Baldwin said in the film I am Not Your Negro.
“I remember, for example, when the ex-Attorney General, Mr. Robert Kennedy, said that it was conceivable that in forty years in America we might have a Negro president. And that sounded like a very emancipated statement, I suppose, to white people. They were not in Harlem when this statement was first heard. They did not hear (and possibly will never hear) the laughter and the bitterness and the scorn with which this statement was greeted.
From the point of view of the man in the Harlem barbershop, Bobby Kennedy only got here yesterday and now he’s already on his way to the presidency. We’ve been here for four hundred years and now he tells us that maybe in forty years, if you’re good, we may let you become president.”
I’m a white man born in America in 1949. I’ve never thought my rights — to speak, to vote, to own property, to walk down the street without fear — have been given to me by anyone.
Thomas Jefferson, in the Declaration of Independence, tells me my rights, life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, are self evident and endowed by a Creator, for ALL MEN, meaning everyone. (source)
No person ought need permission.
But, of course, in America, the land of the free, they have. The list is long, and includes a litany of out-groups.
Two years before I was born, Jackie Robinson broke American baseball’s color barrier. In other words, he was allowed by those who controlled the game to join the Brooklyn Dodgers.
In the first sentence in the above paragraph, he acts, but only after he was acted upon.
That, in a nutshell, gives the lie to the myth of America as ‘the land of the free.’
Oh, to be 60 again and pleading with our 90-year-old mother to consider assisted living. The ‘our’ references my two brothers and me. Pat died two months ago of liver cancer; Peter is in palliative care.
Nothing stays the same. Nothing.
Except, well, except the desire by aging persons to stay in their own home. Thus, the title and image. Put another way, history often repeats itself.
There are two senior complexes in our northeast Iowa community. This is one.
Photo by the author
And the other.
Photo by the author
I waited for a cloudy day to take the pictures.
Foreshadowing.
Both offer the full range of services, from independent living to memory care. We have friends who are from a half to a full decade older than us in both places. One just moved from independent to assisted living. Another into nursing care, after giving up driving last year. He had lost his peripheral vision.
I’m 76, and my partner, Rebecca, is 74.
This is our senior redoubt. It has everything we need on the ground floor.
Photo by the author
You can see the garage in the back, with one slot for each of our cars.
Photo by the author
We know our body and mind clocks are ticking. Three days ago, we raked the leaves from our eight trees. Two days ago, we trimmed back the garden growth you see around the front porch. Yesterday, we put away the porch furniture.
We used to do all three tasks one after the other.
Now, we work on one in the morning and nap after lunch.
We have a friend, Jon, who is a little younger and in good health, as far as we know, who sold his house and moved into a condo unit on one of the senior campuses. He didn’t want to be a bother to his brothers when he could no longer care for himself, so he’s taken the first step into the assembly line of services.
For almost two decades, I’ve told myself I will not be like my mother, who, psychologically, chained herself to her home until her sons had no choice, as she had started wandering outside at night.
As I sit here writing this story, in the comfort of my home, I worry that I will be just as vulnerable as she was to not accepting that my aging body and mind have placed me in a region where I need help.
My kindergarten teacher said we shouldn’t lie, even to ourselves, especially when it’s so easy to do.
Photo of the Tuesday morning crew by Food Pantry Director Matt Tapscott
After the sermon, Jesus said, “Give them something to eat,” and then turned a few loaves of bread and two fish into food for thousands.
For our community in northeast Iowa, the miracle of providing sustenance to those in need comes from volunteers.
Meet the Tuesday morning crew. It includes nurses, an optometrist, a dentist, a basketball coach, a college president, a farmer, several small business owners, a banker, and, I’m guessing, a candlestick maker.
When a pantry client fills out a registration form, they put their name, address, and the number of people they live with, period, as in nothing else is asked.
Yesterday, we handled 1200 pounds of food donated by grocery stores and 2000 pounds from a regional government distribution center.
In 2025, the pantry will distribute 330,000 pounds to 2,000 families.
Above all, Jesus and other spiritual guides need someone on earth to stock the shelves.
When I got home, I realized it was open — had been down for two hours — while I stocked shelves at the food pantry, on a step ladder, with ten others, men and women. Perhaps, at our age, no one noticed or cared.
My barn door, in mixed company, such quaint language, exposing my age.
It ain’t easy being 76. At least I’m no longer in front of a classroom. Unless it’s a Life Long Learning class, with other — what’s the current correct term — older Americans. But in my last class, someone offered, “Aren’t we North Americans?” and another, “What about Canada?”
Next time, I’ll stay behind the podium.
In the safety of my bathroom, as I stood in repose, I thought, This is my chance to begin a meditation routine. One of my favorite Medium writers, Gary Buzzard, provides ‘One minute can change your life.’
Fifteen miles into my three-hour road trip to the Okoboji Writers and Songwriters Retreat, I turned my Subaru Forester around. Adjusting the rearview mirror, I had noticed a tiny hair sticking out of my right nostril. Or was it my left? Mirrors are confusing.
But not the image of my grooming kit sitting on the kitchen table, and not in my suitcase. Anticipating a new experience makes me nervous. I blame my mother for sending me to kindergarten at 4. Since then, any new playground seems overwhelming.
Throughout my 76 years, I’ve had many security blankets. Ever since my nose and ear hairs started sprouting at an ever-accelerating rate, three decades ago, it’s been my personal care utensils.
What would my writer workshop cohort think of me, with a log sticking out of my nose? It’s easy for real writers not to care about insignificant matters such as personal grooming. They have books that sit as sentries, mocking the pretenders as they wait in line to register and be assigned their rooms.
Photo by the author
You understand the problem, don’t you? Perhaps you, too, in similar circumstances, have felt like an imposter, even when surrounded by a gaggle of charming, ordinary-looking people, some of whom, truth be told, could use a trim here, a snip there, or a tuck somewhere.
Photo by the author
“And all,” as one of our presenters reminded us, “are writers with unique stories to tell.”
Even trimmed, snipped, and tucked me.
The Middle
Iowa, believe it or not, is a writer’s paradise. It has the famous Iowa Writers’ Workshop located on the campus of the University of Iowa. And now, planted five years ago, this annual late September three-day conference is rooted in a beautiful piece of land surrounded by five interconnected lakes in north central Iowa. It has grown from 50 participants in the first year to 300 this year.
Every morning, we would gather early in this tent to hear a little music and short introductions by the day’s workshop speakers.
Photo by the author
We would then scatter across the wooded Lakeside Laboratory campus to one of fifteen options, with two 75-minute sessions each morning and afternoon. The intention is to have each workshop small enough for conversation and tutoring. The number of participants in the ten classes I attended ranged from ten to twenty-five.
The speakers were uniformly gregarious, professional, and insightful.
Photo by the author
To give you a sense of the smorgasbord of choices, here were mine over two and a half days.
Storytelling Basics
The Art of Brevity
How to get others to care about your memoir
How to find and grow your original idea
Opinion writing: Finding your voice
Lazy Use of Language and Rethinking Words
Investigative Journalism and Democracy
Songwriting as Storytelling
Poetry as a coping tool
Making Broccoli Delicious (about how to make a dull story interesting)
And here are my favorite quotes from presenters.
I have to write to live.
Find the angle that nobody else sees.
You are the only one who sees things as you do. That is your power.
A story (memoir) is a vehicle for transcendence.
I moved back to Iowa from Florida because I noticed that in Florida, I saw no bookshelves and very large shoe closets.
One secret to writing is to create momentum. Always leave something unfinished for tomorrow.
The reader looks for any reason to stop reading. Don’t give them that reason. Never start a sentence with THE and do not overuse commas. And put your hook in the first sentence. Eliminate spare wording. Hemingway never wrote a sentence of more than 12 words.
Begin your story with a scene (action, dialogue, character, and setting).
The End
It turns out I wasn’t the only imposter.
I met many who questioned their writerly credentials.
John has self-published two mysteries, but “don’t real writers find real publishers?”
Dennis, a retired Navy officer and attorney, has stories inside him that have started to come out, with the help of last year’s workshop, so his wife sent him back for another dose. He’s taking baby steps.
Kathy, whose husband died four years ago, has just finished a book that has been accepted by a New York publisher for a “memoir of mourning” that she started writing after the first Okoboji workshop.
Ernest, a self-described blue-collar worker, has kept a journal for years, and now “it’s time to give it form and structure.”
Hi, I’m Paul, with a few scholarly articles in a fifty-year academic career. In the spring of 2018, I wrote weekly stories for friends and relatives about a four-month experience with college students on the island nation of Malta. After retiring in that same year, I started a blog on WordPress, paulmuses.com. A few years later, I joined Medium. Now, 700+ stories later, I guess,
