Columns
Letting Go
About 4:30 a.m. on February 06 in the country of Georgia Peg and I were awakened by a strange squeaking/creaking sound as if a giant was rolling around on bare bed springs. The sound appeared to come from above us and all around us. We checked through our small apartment and even ventured out on our 17th floor open air balcony and into the indoor hallway.
Peg advised we should exit our apartment but I said, “max nix, let’s go back to sleep; it is probably just a neighbor moving furniture.” These two reactions pretty much sum up how Peg and I address most situations. It turned out it was a neighbor, but the neighbor was the neighboring country of Turkey that was dealing with another kind of giant, giant 7.8 and 7.6 earthquakes. Our apartment in Batumi, Georgia is only 12 miles from the Turkish border and as it turns out, a little less that 400 miles from the epicenter of the quakes.
When we turned on CNN at 7:00 a.m. we learned about the devastation caused by Mother Nature. As we had just spent a week in Istanbul, Turkey the middle of January we were anxious about how the people of Turkey and its bordering countries, Georgia and Syria, had fared. Georgia came through unscathed, but Turkey and Syria have lost over 16,000 people to death and many more thousands to injuries, loss of homes, water, food, power and shelter from the bitter cold.
The large Radisson Hotel building across the street from our apartment building had some internal shaking and furniture movement but our only effects, as far as we know, were the sounds caused by the barely swaying internal girders. We did have friends in other parts of our city who felt strong tremors and swaying structures. One of our friends told us she wanted to run out of her 10th floor apartment with her 3 year old daughter, but her husband said, no, he was going back to sleep, besides, it was cold outside. I guess the differing reactions Peg and I had to the quivering earth may be universal for wives versus husbands.
We were gratified that several friends and family members were so concerned about us we received emails and messages. They know our six-month mission to work with Georgian judges will soon come to an end and they want us to be safely home. As for us, we are beginning to feel our tour among our new friends, “getting short”. Of course, some folks reacted just as I did, that is, no reaction.
As we watched the relief and recovery efforts on TV we couldn’t help feeling as though we had been shot at and missed. Unfortunately, thousands of our fellow human beings were not so lucky. The videos are hard to look at and the feelings they raise are visceral. The entire catastrophic tragedy is summed up for me with one image, a father sitting in shocked disbelief, haunted by his inability to remove his young daughter from her tomb beneath huge slabs of concrete. He was just able to grasp part of her arm she managed to slip through a crack. The father held her hand as her life ebbed from her. He undoubtedly will always fault himself for being unable to do the impossible.
Istanbul
In 2016, Peg and I were signed up for a Danube River Cruise that included a right turn off the Danube and a flight south for three days in Istanbul, Turkey. Because there was unrest in Turkey in 2016 Americans were advised to avoid Istanbul until things calmed. Being raised during the 1940’s to the 1960’s we heeded our government’s advice. We had already visited Amsterdam, Vienna, Slovakia, Hungary, Croatia, Serbia, Bulgaria and Romania and other ports of call, but we always regretted not getting to Istanbul, the one-time Constantinople and capitol of the Holy Roman Empire. We finally joined the Ottomans, Greeks, Romans, Byzantines, British, etc., etc. and landed in Istanbul for a week in January, 2023.
We woke up early for breakfast and were amazed to have our morning coffee only a few hundred yards away from the fabled Blue Mosque, Hagia Sophia Mosque and the ancient Hippodrome where Constantine and his Roman soldiers raced chariots almost 2,000 years before we arrived. Since we are Americans and, as the great French sociologist Alexis de Tocqueville noted in 1835, we always eat breakfast much too early, we had the sixth floor dining room all to ourselves at 7:00 a.m. We had our choice of any large window looking through the morning mist at much of the history that eventually made the revelations of Christianity and later Islam the dynamic forces they became. It was an exciting and intriguing panorama. We could not wait to finish our non-bacon breakfast and go walk where Constantine and so many others had.
We hired a guide even though the Turkish people were not only open and friendly, but also generally able and willing to speak English and help assist us in our quest to experience great architecture and artifacts. We were impressed that both the marvelous Blue Mosque with its glittering blue mosaic tiles and the even more overpowering Hagia Sophia Mosque were open for free to any member of the public without regard to faith or lack thereof. At the Blue Mosque they had a free lecture on Islam and gave any visitor who wanted one a copy of the Quran in any language one chose. Peg and I accepted one in English to replace the one we had been given at an open house at the mosque in Evansville, Indiana in 2005 that had somehow been misplaced in our moves. Although Peg and I were both raised Christian we thought we should at least know something about another faith practiced by over 1/4 of the world’s population. I have, also, donned a yarmulke and accepted invitations to synagogues and Peg lived in a Jewish neighborhood when she was a child. I have not found either the Islamic or Judaic experiences to be harmful or the Christian one either for that matter.
Anyway, after being amazed by the Roman columns and fortresses, the aqueduct and especially the gigantic fresh water Roman cistern carved out of the solid rock beneath Istanbul, we visited one more religious relic that, whether genuine or apocryphal, truly astounded us. In a museum attached to the Sultan’s Palace was a glass case protecting what was claimed to be the bones of the forearm and hand of John the Baptist brought back from the Holy Land by the Sultan. Whether in truth or myth, it was still inspiring to be close to a hand that baptized Jesus. Now, even a skeptic such as I had to suspend analysis for awe by that sight only two feet away.
Later that week we took a boat cruise on the Straights of the Bosphorus and sailed from Europe to Asia then back again. The world map showed we were extremely close to two of the great battlefields of history, Gallipoli and Troy. To think we were riding on the same waters as thousands of Australians and Turkish soldiers who struggled in that great WWI slaughter and also where one of my childhood classic heroes from the Iliad, Achilles, helped bring down “the topless towers of Ilium” was worth every inconvenience and the six year wait since our first attempt to “conquer” Istanbul.
I urge you, Gentle Reader, to follow the steps of those who did so much to make us who we are. They may be gone but you will never forget them for helping to make us, us.
Brothers From Other Mothers
This week I ran into a man whose family has connections to Ukraine. They live in the country of Georgia now as Peg and I have been doing for the last five months where we are working with the Georgian judiciary. His perspective on Russia’s invasion of Ukraine is quite personal as is the perspective of the Russian man who sat next to me on a flight from Istanbul, Turkey to Batumi, Georgia last Wednesday.
The two men looked quite similar. Both were rather tall and athletically built and about 40 years of age. One man’s native language is English but the other speaks fluent Russian. His English created several entertaining exchanges for us that we worked through in mutual good humor. My Russian barely qualifies as communication even though Peg and I picked up some phrases when I was in Russia in 2003 working with the Russian judiciary.
I also managed to pick up a few Ukrainian words when I was in Ukraine in 2000 working with Ukrainian judges. I tried my Ukrainian lexicon with the man whose relatives speak Ukrainian, but it was more comic relief than communication.
Both men have children and both would like to see the war between Russia and Ukraine ended immediately if it can be done in a reasonable manner as each sees it. Peg and I are much more aligned with Ukraine than Russia, which the Russian obviously suspected when I told him at our mutual introduction Peg and I were Americans. He was initially rather cautious in his comments but once he decided I did not hold him responsible for Putin’s military decisions, he relaxed quite a bit. Unfortunately, our flight was only about two hours in length so he and I did not have time to bring Ukraine and Russia to the Peace Table.
He did share several deeply personal experiences and emotions with me during our short flight. When I told him our son had boxed at West Point and that I had helped train both amateur and professional boxers, he opened his mouth and showed me a set of perfect lower teeth. He said he had boxed in Russia and once got into the ring against a much larger boxer without wearing a mouthpiece. He had $3,000 worth of false teeth and a hard-earned lesson about uneven and unfair fights as a result.
The English speaker is a swimmer and an avid hiker who believes physical health is essential to mental health and both men do not hesitate to strongly state their views which are closely related to what kind of future their children may look forward to in a post Ukrainian-Russian war environment.
If the two fathers were to be placed together in a lineup, I would have a difficult time picking out which one was which. Both are about 6 feet tall and weigh about 200 pounds. Both have very short cropped, light colored hair and lean facial features. They could be brothers if looks were the only criteria.
They could, also, be brothers if their concerns for their families and their countries could be considered relevant DNA features. It struck me that both of them might be better choices for leaders of Ukraine and Russia than what we have, although this is purely my thought, as neither of them made such a suggestion. Of course, their natural national allegiances probably interfere somewhat with their ability to set aside any magnanimity. However, each of them recognized the children in the other country are not to blame; only the adults may be held accountable. That is, if the adults come to a realization they should be.
I shared with each man my concern that Russia might be of the same mind a friend of mine who was a supporter of Israel had in 1973 when Egypt could have overrun Israel with its superior, but non-nuclear, military power. At that time most experts believed Israel had stolen enough nuclear secrets from America to construct nuclear weapons. Now, we know they have.
Anyway, my friend stated his passionate support for Israel included Israel’s “right” to destroy the whole world if Egypt were about to destroy Israel. Such nihilistic blindness is what I and my new acquaintances most fear in our current war.
Let’s Talk Turkey
The country of Turkey borders the country of Georgia to the southwest. The city where Peg and I have been working for the last five months, Batumi, Georgia, is about 12 miles from the Turkish border. Because Turkey requires U.S. citizens to have a 90-day tourist visa we have not been able to just travel into Turkey from Georgia until this past week. The “simple” procedure to obtain a visa took a long while.
Both Turkey and Georgia are located where east meets west, that is, where Asia and Europe meet. Thousands of people travel from Georgia to Turkey and Turkey to Georgia every month. Peg and I encounter numerous Turkish citizens on the streets of Batumi every time we go for a stroll or eat in one of the more than 500 restaurants in Batumi.
Just as the many Georgian friends and acquaintances we have the pleasure of seeing and working with, the Turkish people we meet are friendly and pleasant. It is also helpful that many of them speak English.
All of the countless Batumi coffee shops feature Turkish coffee that we like to intersperse occasionally with our preferred “Americano” coffee. Also, due to the Arabic influence, the wonderful treat of fresh baklava is ubiquitous. It goes great with the extremely strong Turkish coffee in its postage stamp size cups.
Sitting on the cusp of Asia/Europe, both Georgia and Turkey have thousands of years of colliding cultures. That rich and exciting mixture is in full bloom today in both countries.
Istanbul, the former Constantinople, has been a home for humans for over 8,000 years and has been ruled by Byzantines, Greeks, Romans and others. Constantine, Roman emperor from 306 AD to 337 AD, named the city Constantinople and made it the capitol city of the Holy Roman Empire and the seat of Christianity, that Constantine declared to be the state religion in 312 AD. Both Turkey and Georgia have large numbers of Christians, Muslim, Jews and other believers and non-believers.
With their rich, diverse cultures mixing for thousands of years, Georgia and Turkey provide countless lessons as to how people can coexist even when their beliefs compete for acceptance or even dominance. Peg and I have been welcomed by numerous people from several competing beliefs and ethnicities. We have found the Georgian and Turkish people to be open, friendly and interesting. It is a good feeling to both observe and mingle with all of these various cultures.
Photo by Peg Redwine
Food For Thought
Peg and I have been away from our U.S.A. home for almost 5 months now and we are each missing some of what makes our cabin on the Oklahoma prairie so special. Peg is nostalgic for kids, grandkids, great grandkids, siblings and friends, you know, Gentle Reader, the things most people get misty-eyed over. I feel her pain but, frankly, I find that what our current home in the old Soviet Union country of Georgia really needs to join the family of democratic nations is a good bowl of chili and some hand-rubbed and torturously slow smoked Oklahoma beef brisket accompanied by a few ears of southern Indiana sweet corn.
And while Georgia claims to be the 8,000-year-old birthplace of wine, a theory which Peg and I have certainly tested, I thirst for a cold Corona with salt and lime. One cannot truly swig a real draught of room temperature red wine as you can a long swallow of cold beer to follow the piquant spice of garlic and cayenne pepper. Tell me, is it any wonder these Georgians worry about some crazy Russian neighbor on their northern border wanting to once again invade them and take their most valuable natural resource, their wine? Russia has no chili, no brisket and nothing but vodka to drown their sorrows about pesky Ukraine; of course Russia is a concern.
I have written several columns about how America could better address Russian aggression than by throwing forty billion dollars worth of military assets into the same type of winter Napoleon and Hitler did. Russian generals January, February and March may not know much about military strategy, but they sure know plenty about the logistics of winter warfare.
Why hasn’t Commander-in-Chief Biden read my columns and called to ask my advice? I would tell the President the same thing I would tell the Georgian McDonald’s and Kentucky Fried Chicken stores just two blocks from our Batumi, Georgia apartment that put out poor imitations of Georgian food disguised as quasi-American cuisine; they could make billions with a good bowl of real chili and a beef brisket sandwich. These Georgian people are smart and their traditional Georgian food is both tasty and interesting. This is probably due to thousands of years of mixed cultures from both Europe and Asia. But if we could just introduce them to what truly makes America so strong, Russia would not stand a chance.
I confess, it is not just the war effort that moves me. If we don’t get some fine southwestern chili and bar-b-q and succulent southern Indiana sweet corn soon, Peg and I are going to have to fly home and rely upon friends and family for sustenance.
The Good, The Bad, The Average
Is it an end or a beginning? A New Year of hope or a past year of regret? A harbinger of exciting new adventures or a specter of hovering doom? I guess one way of discerning whether we are going to gaily anticipate, as the tune says, “Oh, the good times are coming,” or gloomily dwell on, “I took the blows and did it my way,” is to make an accounting of 2022. After all, if past is prologue, perhaps we can peer into the future by studying the past. But, as the sorceress Cassandra who was blessed by the gods with the gift of prophecy but also cursed because no one would believe her forecasts of coming disasters, we might see the freight train coming but ignore it anyway. Nuclear war anyone? Ah, well, let’s count some blessings and justify some bad choices from 2022.
I would say my number one blessing during 2022 is that I am not related to Harry and Meghan. When one has family like that, other bad relationships fade into royal oblivion. It’s not that my family is perfect; my older brother and my three older sisters still assume I cannot tie my shoes without their help. But let’s move on.
The 2022 college football season was pretty much a bust. The Indiana University Hoosiers, of course, never disappoint because we never expect anything. However, the Oklahoma Sooners had better be rebuilding or else the whole apparatus is falling apart. And the Oklahoma State Cowboys looked more average than average can bear. Come on, Pokes, do something! Peg, not I, cares about the Purdue Boilermakers who got clobbered in their mediocre bowl game. As an IU alum I didn’t mind, but Peg’s two brothers are Purdue grads so she was upset. If 2023 is a rebuilding year, I just hope the crumbling Roman Coliseum is not the model our teams are emulating.
Speaking of disasters and rebuilding, we had two, that’s right two, water leaks in our cabin at JPeg Osage Ranch in 2022. One came from a clamp that slipped off of a water heater hose and the most recent, December 23, 2022 (Merry Christmas), was caused by a connection to the ice maker on the refrigerator. Did you, Gentle Reader, ever worry about your refrigerator attacking your home? Me neither. I’ve worked construction and made countless home repairs to everything from fountains to garden hoses and never once had to deal with a refrigerator water leak. Happy 2022 all’ya’all.
Now did anything good occur in 2022? You bet. Peg successfully rehabilitated after her hip replacement surgeries and I managed to learn about three chords on the guitar, although Peg will not countenance me trying to sing along as I strum. She claims my key changes are bad. What’s a key?
Well, I have revisited about all the chagrin I can stand and the 2022 bright spots are fading fast, so on to 2023. My predictions are mainly connected to Peg’s and my work in the Republic of Georgia that sits right on the Black Sea directly across from Ukraine and has Russia on it’s northern border. What could go wrong?
Putin, the Grinch who is trying to steal Ukraine and who already occupies 20% of Georgia, looms large in my reading of bird entrails. The only bright spot I see is our son Jim’s observations about Russian military equipment he fought against in the Iraq War, the Gulf War and briefly in Afghanistan. Jim says it was junk then and it’s junk now. Of course, even nuclear junk might ruin our whole day in 2023.
But I boldly foresee a world where Putin comes to his senses and Zelensky re-thinks his thirst for revenge. Both leaders will most likely end up accepting less than half a loaf of what they want. At least that’s my hopeful, if naive, bet.
Regardless, “When the dealing’s done and there’s time enough for counting” in 2023, I predict “Sunshine and lollipops”. Why not dwell on the positive? After all, Harry and Meghan will surely shut up sometime. But, until then as both King Lear and King Charles found out, “More sharper than a serpent’s tooth is a thankless child,” especially ones who are mistreated by allowing them to live in palaces and spend their time with sycophants such as Oprah.