My Complicated Relationship With NPR

I confess. I am an NPR junkie. I listen to it in the car, while I cook, while other people are watching the Super Bowl. I use ideas I get from NPR in my teaching. I drop NPR nuggets in conversation with friends. It's the best thing going in terms of intellectual stimulation and reliable news. And, yet, I get irritable with its liberal leaning, romantic meritocracy. When I say liberal, it's not because I am a conservative who sees "liberal bias" of the media everywhere. I say liberal because NPR is not radical enough for me. Coverage of issues on NPR stops short of calling it like it is, that corporations have high-jacked democracy, the the top 1 percenters control the lion's share of the wealth (and the means to get their message out to the masses), that we're going to hell in a hand basket environmentally, that we are a hair-trigger's millisecond from nuclear annihilation. I want NPR to get off its polite, liberal ass and take a stand for the social overhaul that I think is necessary for our survival rather than placate the very corporations that continue to fleece the rest of us, that will suck the last bit of living breath out of the planet to keep from giving their gold to those who most need it. It's time, NPR. It's the eleventh hour.

The Most Important Work

When time opens a window, when the air clears enough to see what really matters, when distractions settle and you can feel your beating heart, you have a chance to get it right. The tools you need for this challenge are imagination and action. Your imagining what might be that is the remedy for what pains you in the middle of the night, for the undone curriculum of your soul. In the still of morning, right before the dawn, you can see it if you look hard enough, are courageous enough to sustain your gaze on what you know needs to be done. The work is to hold that close and not forget as the day gathers momentum and then to take one step, and another, in the direction of that vision, to seek out others who have listened and join them in building a better world.

COVID as AFGO

Crisis turns existing ways of operating inside-out or upside-down, and that, my friends, might have have a silver lining. COVID may contain within it an AFGO, "another f#&king growth opportunity." While not what I would choose if I had a say in how life should go, this pandemic presents us with an opportunity to overcome "separation syndrome," or the idea that individuals are not affected by, and responsible for, other humans and our natural world. COVID, for one thing, underscores the idea that the health of others affects the health of each of us as individuals. The peeing in the pool analogy works well in this case. If we support behaviors that increase infection, that condone people getting sick, sooner rather than later, we too, more likely, will be sickened. We are connected whether we want to admit it or not. We are, as one good book says, our brother's (and sister's) keeper. It's time to re-assess how well the myth of radical individualism, of taking care of me-me and letting the rest of the world go to perdition, serves us, and look to composing a story that values the common good, that restores a social contract, a worldview that bypasses the idolatry of the self. It ain't just about you no more, and that might not be such a bad thing. 

Looking For Stolen Bikes, Episode Three: The Oracle Speaks

(Continued from Episode Two: Our seekers have been sent across the river to the portal of the great tunnel in search of the red bicycle. We resume where we left them at the end of Episode Two, the entry to the underworld.)

His eyes met mine for an instant of question and piercing appraisal before going blank with disconnection.  His look said "nothing to do with me," beneath the thick jacket he wore over his head as a kind of helmet or hood. He looked like Obi Wan Kenobi without his staff and an old Carhartt jacket instead of a robe. 

He kept coming toward us but tacked off to the side to avoid direct intersection. He meant to go around us rather than through us.

The incline from the tunnel to the street was not steep, but neither was it easy. It was littered with the debris of storms and the detritus of apathy. His jacket was off his head now, and I could see an abrasion on his scalp, likely from hitting it on the low ceiling of the tunnel.

He was gray and stooped, with hair that sprouted like uncut grass on his scalp and the sides of his head. He looked strong still and had a confident stride, not much older than I, if older at all.  He kept us in view in his peripheral vision as he climbed up to street grade and took the circuitous route toward the convenience store.

"Mind if I ask you a question?" I asked.

He stopped, looked right through me, and answered, "Nope. What can I do for you?"

He carried himself with a calm humility and alertness. Clearly not a predator, but more like a deer, he moved along the wall of the Quik Trip. But there was something else too, an air of poison, like a brightly colored tree frog, a color that says mess with me at your peril. I could see he was a long time survivor of the streets.

He carried some of the filth that goes with living in a storm tunnel, but he could have passed for a working man on a construction crew. I could see lesions on his skin in addition to the deep scrape on the top of his head. This was not someone who spent time in doctor's offices or dermatology appointments. He had, however, a mouthful of teeth, unlike many older homeless I meet, and a wry smile. OK he seemed to say, what's this all about? 

"We're looking for a couple of stolen bikes. One's my wife's bike and we're trying to get it back. We wondered if maybe you've seen it down there." I pointed toward the tunnel.

"It's a red mountain bike with a white fork," I added.

"What brand?" he asked.

"Gary Fisher."

"Seems like I have seen a bike like that. Is it a double suspension?"

"Yes."

"Yeah, I think I've seen it down there, but I can't say when exactly. People come and go all the time. Some are regulars, you know. But some just pass through. Leave stuff like bikes down there all the time."

He kept looking around me, never directly at me.

"They put stuff in these cavities," he said. That was his word, "cavities." It sounded odd to me, and I pictured holes in the walls, like decay in dentition. "There are these smaller caves, kind of like storage areas, in case they come back or need to hide something. Gotta be careful about other peoples' stuff tho."

"I could go take a look if you want," he said. "It's not too far to the first cavity. Guys leave stuff there all the time. I might have seen it there."

"I'd appreciate it if you would look. I'll give you twenty dollars if you find the bike and bring it back out," I said.

He perked up a little at that, but not so much that it made that much of a difference. He would do this money or not.

The three of us watched him walk back down the spillway into the tunnel.

"You think he'll come back?" asked Sean.

"I'll give him half an hour," said Aaron.

"I think the money might make it worth coming back," I said.

We milled around the parking lot as a County Sheriff cruiser checked us out -- three guys in a tight group, one looking like CIA operative, another like an ad for Patagonia outdoor wear, and a third looking like he should be grading papers.

I waved and the sheriff nodded, apparently deciding we were harmless enough.

The sun was warm, early summer warm. I could feel the change of season coming. I wondered about the people living down there in the tunnel and what they would do when the weather went from hot and dry of Sonoran First Summer to anvil-headed giants of Second Summer and the monsoons that would surely scour that tunnel of anything not welded in place. What was it like to live in darkness under the Quik Trip, the traffic of River Road, and the commerce of Sam's Club?

Absolute darkness, concrete walls and floor, one way up and another down, people coming through your space at any hour for any reason, carrying what they carried to survive and to move. Movement is life. Bikes help you move. Bikes were gold, dragon's gold, worth hiding away, deep in the the lair.

The Oracle emerged as promised but with no bike.

"It wasn't there," he said. "But if you give me your phone number, I can call you if I see it. I can set it aside in one of them cavities. He took it deeper into the tunnel; that tunnel goes almost a mile, maybe more than a mile. There are parts I don't even know, caves and cavities so deep you think you're never going to get out."

The dragon was going to keep all his gold this time. His lair was too deep and we were not ready to penetrate the dark sufficiently to meet him.

Sometimes the dragon wins and the Oracle can only take you so far. 

"No, I don't think so. But thanks anyway."

"You know... I could leave it in the bushes over there.  That way, if you come by to check, you might find it. Nobody would look in there."

"If I come by this way, I might do that," I said. "We'll have to keep looking too."

"Yes, that's right. You have to keep looking. You never know when you might see that bike or the other one. You said there were two. Well I might see the other one too. You never know."

His eyes told me more than his words. It was up to us, but he might cross our path and play some role if the stars lined up. He was willing if we were.

He had his own business to attend to and we had ours.

He offered his hand, and, again, I had to refuse.

"You know. The coronavirus," I said.

He nodded. Another "Whatever."

"Well good luck," he said.

"You too," I answered.

We're all just looking for some space to live our lives and few things to make that life easier and more enjoyable.

The three of us returned to Zappo, drove back across the running river, the exit of the big tunnel, and the bridge, said our good byes and went our separate ways: home, food, and work, still hoping to regain what had been taken, what had been lost.

The search goes on.

Looking for the Stolen Bikes, Episode Two: The Tunnel People

(Continued from Episode One, in which I found myself out of luck and out of quarantine on the south bank of the Rillito River after an encounter with some homeless men. I was told one of the stolen bikes might be found in a tunnel across the river. One of them pointed me north, and I am looking at where we might have to go.)

Across the Rillito River, running clean and cold with snow melt from the mountains north of Tucson, a pair of large drainage tunnels framed a group of men lounging in the desert sun of late winter. Most had shirts off. A few smoked, sitting on the floor of the opening to the tunnel. Theirs was time, time to waste, to wonder, to watch riders roll by, recreating on expensive bikes, bikes worth more than they might earn in a month or two or three.

Must be nice, they might think, to wear tight shorts and colorful jerseys and glide along on a machine that is so light and smooth it almost does the work for you, or has a motor and does do the work for you. So close, but so far. 

Homelessness can make people desperate. These men did not look desperate, but discouraged or demoralized. Baggy pants hung below hips over boxers with waistbands up to abdomens. They were young mostly, the surplus labor force in a holding pattern, outsiders keeping each other company.

At least that's what I told myself as we planned what to do next.

Aaron arrived in Zippy, the '97 Nissan 200 SX that had seen better days. It was missing the rear bumper, had a bungee cord holding the trunk lid closed, and dents from various episodes of bad luck, hard knocks, sharp edges, moving objects, maybe an asteroid or two. It had some antiquated surfer-dude bumper stickers, like "Life's short. Go surfing!" and climbing stickers "Knot now. I'm going climbing."

Zippy had been my car for a while, then it was handed down to Sean, then to Aaron. With each step down the ladder of ownership, it had grown more oxidized, faded, wrinkled, decrepit, and loved. It was a doddering old dog, drooling its way from destination to destination, loyal to the end. We keep things, cars and bikes, rather than upgrade, usually. I guess you could call that a character defect, or grasping pathology, but it was the way we did things, the way we looked at things, had to do with the role things played in making our lives better. People need some things to define themselves, to use as tools and beauty and fun.  

The cars in our family have names like Zippy, Zappo (Sapo, or "toad" in Spanish), Soobie, DeRanger, and others, but we are not particularly a car-crazed group. The vehicles all have around 200,000 miles on them and look worse for the wear. My truck, for example, has been totaled three times, but that's another story.

Suffice it to say, Aaron's car had character. He parked it next to Soobie and Zappo. Now we were three, each arriving in his own vehicle, an embarrassment of riches. All for the cause of finding our lost sheep, the missing bikes. 

Aaron stood incongruously tall from the driver's seat. At six-three, he didn't seem the fit for a mini coupe. He fit better in the trucks he drove on the open road, the big eighteen wheelers he piloted back and forth across the country.

"What's the plan?" he asked, eyes behind black aviators shaded by his trademark black cap and shaved head. "I've got the pepper spray if we need it."

"It's not here," I said, keeping six feet of social distance because of the coronavirus. Even sons are not exempt from quarantine protocols. "We have to go across the river to the Quik Trip. There's an opening to a big storm tunnel there. A guy said that's where the bike is. We'll take Zappo. Oh, and keep your distance... no physical confrontation, and take it easy, keep it low-key, mellow."

So we piled into Zappo for the short drive up to the Quik Trip. As described, there were dumpsters behind the store and next to the opening of a large tunnel. We had driven almost a mile from the mouth of the tunnel, where it emptied into the Rillito. This was a long tunnel.

Walking from the activity of the convenience store past the dumpsters, we left the world of commerce, busyness, and light and gazed into a stooped-over world of cast-offs, makeshift shelters, and darkness. I was hoping that whoever was there would be near the opening. They were not. What was there, were shopping carts, dumpster treasures like old chairs, wood pallets, blankets, and random junk. I swear I saw a flat-screen TV, but that has to be more my faulty memory that actuality.

A smell of rot and piss emanated from the dank, stagnant air inside the opening. If ever there were a vector for contagion, this had to be it.

"I'm not going in there," said Sean.

"Me neither," said Aaron.

I read a sign scrawled on a large sheet of cardboard: "Do not enter this tunnel without a light. It's fucking DARK in here, and we will not save you or come looking for you or care about your screams. Bring a fucking flashlight!"

Fair enough I thought. Don't go in without light.

I peered in as far as I could see as my eyes adjusted, and I could make out a shelter of sorts of tarps and cardboard. It looked like shelters I have seen in slums in Central and South America. It showed resourcefulness in the face of lack. Here too was testimony to the harsh life assigned to those who don't fit, can't fit, or don't want to fit into the role of wage earning consumers. Like the virus, this disease was spreading, if my experience this morning was any indicator.

There were tracks in the sand, bike tracks, and shopping cart tracks. It was clear from the tracks that many people passed by here, that the tunnel was home to several, maybe a dozen, or two, or more, people. I had heard of the homeless camps along the river, that they were growing and that there were more of them, but I did not know people were living in storm drains, tunnels that ran with fury and flood when the rain fell hard enough. This was a harsh lesson about poverty and despair, which I saw here in abundance.

But there were no bikes to be seen. If the bike was here, it was further down the tunnel than I was willing to go. It was clear to me that we would not recover the bike today, or maybe ever.

I retreated to the railing above the opening to the tunnel and considered options. I could come back with a flashlight or headlamp. I could just wait and see if the bike and rider came out.

As I sat with these options, a figure began to emerge from the darkness and entered the light at the source of the tunnel. He paused to let his eyes adjust after turning off his flashlight. He looked at home in the dark, out of his element in the bright light of traffic, of consuming, of high-speed hustle.

He blinked and looked right at me.

What Happened When I Went Looking For A Stolen Bike

The message came in while I was reading online student drafts, seated at the table on my porch. It was spring in Tucson, and snow-melt was running in the Rillito. Sun shone. Gold finches, cardinals, Gila woodpeckers, and Gambel's quail chirped and squawked and sang. The fountain gurgled its happy little melody.

Over this halcyon moment hung a pall of quarantine from COVID 19, the novel coronavirus. We teachers and other non-essential workers were "sheltering in place" to keep the virus from infecting so many that the healthcare system would be overwhelmed. That fact stuck in my joints, made me feel tight, confined, resistant to any movement.

The message overrode the quiet moment with the urgency of a distress call. Ricky I. was following someone riding one of our stolen bikes. He wanted to contact me and didn't know how. I switched from reading student papers to fight/flight/chase mode with all the adrenaline that comes with that. I punched my phone number along with "I'm here." into the social media post. Immediately my phone rang.

"I saw your bike. I know it from the photos you sent out. It's a positive ID. Definitely the bike. The guy riding it is way too big for it too. It's clearly not his bike," Ricky said. "He took it down to a homeless camp in the wash by Tucson Mall, Stone Avenue, near the bus transit center."  

"Thanks," I said. "I'll head over."

"You want me to wait here?"

"No, I'll take care of it."

"You sure?"

"Yeah."

I had no idea what I would do, but grabbed a phone, a camera, and my folding knife. I got out of my stay-at-home shorts and put on some jeans and a tough looking t-shirt. I didn't know what I was getting into.

I called Sean and Aaron, my sons, and we all agreed to meet up at the transit center and head over to the camp.

Sean brought a big u-lock and a key to lock the bike if we found it. Aaron brought a can of pepper spray in case things got nasty. I had my GoreTex hiking shoes and grungy baseball cap.

Sean and I arrived first and walked over to the railing above the camp. I could see the makeshift shelters and some movement below between the tarps and the tents.

"Hey," I yelled. "You have my stolen bike and I want it back. Bring it out or I'm calling the cops." I held up my phone. "It was seen here a little while ago. We know you have it."

A young, tough-looking guy in a wife-beater stepped into view. I could see tattoos and well-defined muscles. He was carrying a glass pipe of some kind. I guessed he had just taken a hit of something.

"Come on down," Tough Guy said, somewhat threatening, "and fucking look. We don't have your bike. And I didn't steal your fucking bike."

He stood there below me, in the brush, defiant in the sun, a young man used to confrontation, ready for anything, pipe in hand.

Another young guy joined the first, then a third. It looked like there were quite a few, and things were getting a little tense.

This was a standoff.

"I'm not coming down," I said. "I just want the bike."

I decided to dial it back a bit.

"I didn't say you stole it. And if I did, I apologize. But we just want the bike. It's a red mountain bike with a white fork."

"We don't have it. That guy left. He took the bike with him."

The tone changed and became more of a negotiation, an exchange of information.

"It's my wife's bike. I want it back."

"It's not here."

As we talked the second guy was approaching and climbing the bank of the river toward us. He had a closely shaved head and tattoos. He was built low and tight, like a boxer. He did not seem threatening though, just on his way somewhere.

I noticed others leaving the camp also. Women, men, older and younger. The camp had more people in it than I thought possible given the size. They were dressed for work, did not have the tough or druggy or gang-banger look of the other young guys. There was more going on here than I thought.

"Your bike is across the river in the tunnel by the Quik Trip," Boxer Guy said as he approached. He was giving me intel., trying to help out.

"It's behind the dumpsters in a tunnel. That's where you'll find the guy who took your bike."

Through all of this Sean had been watching, holding his phone, ready to shoot video if necessary.

Tough Guy had turned and gone back to the shelter of the camp. Boxer Guy offered his hand for a handshake, but I declined saying "It's this virus thing." He nodded with a look that said "whatever," and rode away on his BMX  bike.

Sean and I headed back to the cars to follow our tip, the insider info, and where it pointed: Quik Trip. Across the river. Behind the dumpsters. Into the tunnel.

What we would find there was more than we would have ever guessed.

(To be continued... )

Social Distancing -- Day Six

My thoughts have oscillated between denial, dread, and wonder at the changes wrought by the pandemic. Beneath those thoughts, when all clears for just a moment, is the awareness that this virus might kill me or others I know. Following that thought is the corollary of how to live the days I have if they are only a few. That sobering realization is more than I stand, so I quickly change channels to something more palatable. I have not yet really made the mental transition to being in quarantine. I still roll out the habits of distraction -- going out to eat, dawdling at coffee shop, working out, driving to get groceries. This helps time pass, but I know I need to look this thing in the face and act accordingly. So I self-isolate, aware that I am not alone in the project. The fact of trying to change the behavior of an entire country's worth of people sits heavily with me. The enormity of social behavioral shift is not unlike that of trying to do u-turn with an oil tanker. They don't just turn on a dime. Neither do people. Yet, I and they are doing it, sort of. We'll see what the numbers say... Two weeks from now -- once the real casualties begin to add up -- the ones who are most cavalier about distancing will be out enforcing the practice with the vehemence of their fists. We'll see.We'll see whose turn it is when the virus comes knocking.