James M. Redwine

Adam

Blame Lucy

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Louis and Mary Leakey discovered some early human ancestors in Tanzania, Africa’s Olduvai Gorge in 1959. Donald Johanson discovered who may be our original grandmother in Ethiopia’s Great Rift Valley in 1974. He named her Lucy because he was a Beatles fan and listened to the song “Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds” right after his discovery. It may be uncharitable to Johanson and paleontology to point out many believe the song was a paean to LSD. On the other hand, those who question Lucy’s bona fides may find solace in this theory.

At the opposite end of those Doubting Thomas’ is the atheistic biologist Richard Dawkins from the University of Oxford who pushed human origins back to as much as five million years ago and posited his meme theory. Dawkins suggests that it is our replicating genes that determine who and what we are and why we behave as we do. One of his famous analogies to explain the evolution of human biology and behavior is to suggest we envision a long line of mothers holding hands all the way back to Lucy. And, as for me, my experiences with my mother and my wife, Peg, convince me there is some credence to the science of the Leakeys, Johanson and Dawkins.

Let’s envision Lucy, our grandmother, in her African cave while our mythical grandfather, call him Adam, goes out to hunt a mastodon for dinner. Adam is struggling with how to trick the massive beast to stampede over a cliff, but Lucy is back home planning for Adam’s return. After Lucy rearranges the lodge pole front door for the tenth time, she surveys the cave’s interior. She is dissatisfied with the position of the bearskin rug she had Adam move just yesterday. She makes a mental note to have Adam shake out the bearskin and figure out a way to attach it to the granite wall of the cave.

Next, Lucy inventories the two stone cooking utensils that Adam carved out for her last week and decides she must have another small one for their new baby’s meals. Lucy switches the positions of the two vessels for the third time. They look better to her now. Lucy gives the baby a bath in the stream running in front of their cave and realizes with only a few days of work with his stone hoe Adam could divert water right to their cave. Lucy resolves to mention her idea to Adam over a handful of fermenting blackberries when he returns.

Meanwhile Adam is full of a sense of accomplishment because he has skinned the mastodon and is hauling the hide, one ivory tusk and a huge chunk of meat back for Lucy to admire. Adam assumes his work is done for a week or two because Lucy will need to tan the hide, process the meat and make sewing needles from the tusk as she cooks dinner and nurses the baby.

Gentle Reader, you may wonder, or you may not care, why we are discussing the lives of Lucy, Adam and baby from thousands of years ago. Well, I will tell you. About three years ago Peg and I moved into our cabin on the prairie. By unspoken agreement Peg took over all space but my barn. This worked out fine until over the two years of COVID Peg had time to organize every inch of her Girl Cave, the Bunkhouse, the Cabin and even the neutral territory of our garage. Last week spring truly arrived and Peg turned her gaze on my barn. It has not been pretty.

As long as she did not have to look at my laissez-faire system of “if it ain’t in my way, why worry about it”, well, she didn’t worry herself with it. But once she opened the overhead doors and found the mother lode of “my stuff”, she focused her female/Lucy type DNA upon my space. It reminded me of when my sainted mother would venture into my room on a Saturday morning and turn it upside down. Peg and Mom and Lucy and all wives and mothers in between have spent about two million years of two X chromosomal fixation with organization of sons’ and husbands’ behavior. I guess my three-year barn reprieve is over.

Cabin Fever

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It is official. Peg and I have the fever. No, not that new-fangled COVID fever, but the original fever spoken of in Genesis, Cabin Fever. Why God could not leave well enough alone I do not know. After six days of hard work, He sat back, “And God saw everything that he had made, and behold it was very good” (Genesis, Chapter 1, verse 31). I guess “very good” was not good enough because after one day of rest God noticed, … “[T]here was no man to till the ground” (Genesis, Chapter 2, verse 5). For all those Biblical scholars, such as my sister, who posit God is actually female, this is strong support for their position. A perfect world could be made more perfect if there were a man to do work around the Garden of Eden.

Of course, Adam could not just lounge around grazing on all but one of Eden’s delights and enjoying eternal life, God had to give him Eve so there would be someone to point out this perfect world needed countless repairs and maintenance, sort of like our little log cabin on the prairie. The week before Christmas brought COVID’s resulting Cabin Fever boiling to the surface at JPeg Osage Ranch.

I do not know how the perfect home Peg fell in love with three years ago magically transformed into a property that constantly requires immediate repair. All I know for sure is I am much more adept at leisure than labor and Peg sees it as her wifely duty to save me from that condition. After all, it was Eve’s sin that brought man’s punishment of work into our lives.

Starting with COVID’s first reported cases in December 2019, Peg and I have gradually adapted from a life of travel, interaction with friends and family, concerts, movies, ball games and dining out to a world with only one other person in it. We have each developed coping skills to handle what may be a life sentence of one-couple isolation. I have reasonably and considerately allowed Peg her own space to do as she pleases such as laundry, housework, juggling family finances via the internet and gardening; there’s that Eve legacy again. Peg on the other hand seems to have a visceral reaction to my approach which is to memorize cable news reports and change sweatsuits occasionally. Hey, I do not concern myself with her choices.

Two years of Cabin Fever finally erupted into full-blown crisis this past weekend when Peg noticed a tiny water leak in the bathroom. It would not have rotted through the floor for quite some time and that is what I politely told her. Well, her reaction was not fit for a column in a family newspaper. She demanded I turn off the fascinating program I was watching on archeological discoveries in the Bermuda Triangle and loudly said, “Do Something!”. Something turned into one full day of me attempting to understand the mysteries of plumbing then another two days of going without the use of the bathroom and waiting for a plumber who told us, “It’s hopeless after your input, now everything will have to be replaced. That will be $100 for analysis of the problem, $200 for parts and $300 for labor. Of course, that’s just an estimate; it will be more if you insist on helping.” When the plumber left, I calmly pointed out to Peg that for the price of a few wet rags we could have saved all the bother for some time. Again, her response was not printable.

So here we are in our own little Garden of Eden waiting for someone to cure COVID and perhaps return us to the halcyon days of yore. One positive thing is, since Peg is not talking to me, I can finish the entertaining program I’m now watching on the mating dances of fruit flies without interruption and without Peg’s demand that something must be fixed, “Right Now!”.

By the way, I hope you had a Merry Christmas and that you and yours have a COVID-free New Year. As for Peg and me, I can only wish for at least an occasional maintenance-free week or two during the long dark period between the Super Bowl and the start of the 2022 football season.

Do We Want To Fool Mother Nature?

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China’s National Science Review reported in March 2019 that Bing Su of the Kunming Institute of Zoology has inserted human genes into monkeys. His apparent goal was to investigate how the brains of early primates developed along different paths with monkeys remaining in the trees and Homo sapiens progressing to the Internet.

Chinese scientist He Jiankui while at the Southern University of Science and Technology in Shenzhen, China claims to have modified the genome, the DNA, of twin female humans in an attempt to preempt the possibility of them someday contracting the HIV virus.

Both of these researchers dealt with DNA and CRISPR. DNA is familiarly known as deoxyribonucleric acid and CRISPR is an acronym for clustered regularly interspaced short palindromic repeats. The genome is the famous Double Helix discovered by James Watson and Francis Crick in 1953. DNA is our 23 pairs of intertwined chromosomes that make us us. CRISPR is the DNA from viruses that might protect us from other viruses such as HIV.

Gentle Reader, if I were you I would not rely upon this exposition of biological knowledge from me for answers you may wish some paid tutor to give on your child’s SAT test. Please remember, I was an English major.

Instead of science, let’s you and I turn to literature for our analysis of genetic engineering. We can start at the beginning. In Genesis, that was written about 400 BC if we look to the Dead Sea Scrolls for a date, Yahweh was doing a little human manipulation when he decided Adam needed a companion. The DNA from Adam’s rib was used to create Eve. The Bible does not explain why two Adams was not the result. However, blissful ignorance was the life these humans led until fruit from the Tree of Knowledge was eaten. Some may think it’s been all downhill since.

About 300 years before Adam and Eve those marvelous Greeks were writing about Achilles who was the product of a human, Peleus, and the immortal nymph, Thetis. This mixing of DNA’s of differing species helped lead to the sack of Troy.

Of course, Jesus, about 2,000 years ago, was a similar product of the human Mary and a god who used genetic merging to create a Prince of Peace. To my way of thinking this was evidence there may be some true benefit to Mankind from such genomitry.

As for me, I could support the manipulation of human genetics if we could create drivers who would not clog up the passing lane and who could survive at least a few moments without a cell phone stuck in their ear. Also, as a husband, could we not embed in wives a gene that allows for beer and football instead of yard work?

My Side Hurts

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When God took a rib from Adam and made Eve He started us down a slippery slope. I may not have been in The Garden of Eden but I am pretty sure I know how the first conversation between a man and a woman transpired:

 

Adam:   That is the most beautiful apple tree in the history of the world!
Eve:       It needs to be pruned and it looks like some of those apples are ready for picking. Since you were here  first, you do it.

Adam:   I have never seen a finer fig tree.
Eve:       Somebody needs to pull off some of those leaves so I can weave them into a new dress. You are taller than I am, you pull them off. By the way, what’s a dress?

Adam:   Isn’t it great to have all this to ourselves?
Eve:       It’s about time you quit just cavorting around as if you were in Paradise and helped me take care of these kids. And don’t give me that excuse about watching football. Tom Brady hasn’t even been drafted yet.

Adam:   Would it be asking too much for you to maybe fix a meal?
Eve:       A meal! Here, have a bite of this apple I just had you pick.

 

Actually, Gentle Reader, I was not thinking about the Genesis of life but the beginning of the never ending spring at JPeg Ranch and my own Eve’s inability to see anything that doesn’t involve a job for me that just has to be done right now or our home will crumble like the Tower of Babel.

For example, with this glorious February weather I thought Peg and I would both enjoy a peaceful walk about our rural home. I was half right.

Jim:       Isn’t this marvelous weather?
Peg:       Do you believe all the sticks and limbs that blew down this winter? I guess I’ll probably have to gather them all up myself. Of course, since you’re so much stronger than I am, you might want to do it?

Jim:       Boy, the pond is sure clear. Maybe I should grab a rod and reel and try for a fish or two.
Peg:     Or, you could help me put the fountain back in. However, since you weren’t around when I took it out, I’ll probably just do it myself, even though it would be a lot easier for you to reach the cable since you’re taller.

Jim:       Don’t you think this weekend would be a good time to just build a fire out of that wood you want me to pick up and watch the spring flowers gradually appear?
Peg:       If you mean those early dandelions, sure. Maybe this year you’ll get some of them before they reach beanstalk status.

 

Oh well, so much for an early Spring in Paradise.