James M. Redwine

COVID

A Friend In Low Places

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Photo by Peg Redwine

The telephone call began ominously, “Mr. Redwine (?)” It is never a good sign if a professional office treats you as an equal. Usually such a call would start, “James, state your full name, your date of birth, social security number, and most importantly, scan in your financial responsibility history for the past ten years.” Now, that is more the attitude I would have expected.

 I responded, “Ugh, may I ask your name and why you are calling?”

“No, but feel free to contact your Congressional representative if you please, and good luck there too.”

The caller continued, “You were randomly selected for a couple of medical tests. Be at our office in Bartlesville Monday at 8:00 a.m.”

When I asked, “Can I ask …” all I heard was a click. I showed up Monday and followed orders. Tuesday, I received another call.

“Is this the party to whom I spoke last week?”

“Yes, may I ask …”

“No. We found a large kidney stone in your CT scan. It’s got to get crushed up and sucked out right now. Be here next Monday at 8:00 a.m. and no food or liquids after midnight the Sunday evening before.”

“May I ask …(click).”

I showed up Monday at 7:30 a.m. and the gate was opened at 7:55. A woman with a stack of legalese-clad releases asked me a series of COVID-19 related questions as she shoved the releases and a ball-point pen at me. I followed her unspoken directives and shook my head left and right as to COVID. Then, from behind her back she produced a LONG tube and told me to get undressed. I did and stood on the cold, tiled floor as she began to insert what felt like a fire hose into an area Mother Nature never intended to accept even a fine thread. By the way, a fine thread with a knot in it was attached to the tubing. From this point until about four hours later I have to hope someone knew what they were doing to me because I certainly did not. However, when I once again became aware of my situation there was an entire apparatus with tubing affixed to the apparatus Adam was made aware of when Eve coaxed him into taking a bite of forbidden fruit. Once the anesthesia wore off I really gave both Adam and Eve and that meddling serpent what for. Gentle Reader, I do not recommend kidney stone attacks for Monday morning pastime activity. OUCH!

Fortunately, my best friend from my old Air Force and Indiana University days had just sent me a great book of medical information for my birthday. Dr. Walter Jordan, O.D., has been my free medical advisor as well as an excellent source of information about all things IU since we first met in 1963. He has also long provided me with excellent reading material each year on my birthday. This year, by coincidence, he sent me Dr. Tony Robbins’ new book, Life Force, ISBN 978-1-9821-2170-9. Walt did not get the book to me in time to study up on the pain and misery of kidney stones. Nor did Dr. J have the opportunity to fulfill our long-ago made honor pact to use a 38-caliber solution to save me from a fate worse than watching IU lose the Big Ten Championship to Purdue. However, it is a wonderful source of information and I plan to recommend it to the office that attacked my lower quadrant.

Things have finally reached what we in the legal biz describe as a permanent and quiescent state and it appears I will survive although my friend Dr. Walt has been of more medical value to me than those “providers” who get paid for it. Anyway, as those who live in a “house” with kidney stones should not throw them I will forever hold my peace.

I do look forward to those days when we will, perhaps, all benefit from Dr. Robbins’ insights on how we might stop or even reverse the aging process. Of course, Walt and I have been around for so long Robbins’ book may not add much to our lifespan. But, Gentle Reader, I strongly suggest a trip to a book store or a library to read all of Robbins’ Chapter 4: pp. 96-120, “Turning Back Time: Will Aging Soon Be Curable?”

The Briar Patch

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Photo by Peg Redwine

Joel Chandler Harris, AKA Joe Harris (1848-1908), was born in the state of Georgia before the Civil War and worked on a slave-holding plantation as a teenager. After the war he became an associate editor at The Atlanta Constitution newspaper. Harris had lived and worked around the evils of slavery and he had absorbed the folk wisdom of slaves who were prohibited by law from formal education. Harris created his fictional writings using Uncle Remus as a wise and shrewd observer of human nature hidden within animal behavior.

Harris intended his writings as compliments to the ability of Uncle Remus to explain human foibles by giving animals human failings such as arrogance. In the story of Br’er Rabbit and Br’er Fox contained in Harris’ Uncle Remus: His Songs and His Sayings, the meanness of the Fox is used by the Rabbit to escape by getting the Fox to “punish” the Rabbit by throwing him into a briar patch. Of course, that is exactly what the Rabbit really wanted.

Unfortunately, due to our current misguided wokeness in many areas, the slave dialect used by Harris now interferes with the appreciation of the literature of The Song of the South and a great number of those pro-African American folk tales are no longer read. However, for those of us whose time of birth helped us escape the ravages of the current misguided ignorance in the area of children’s literature, Uncle Remus is still imparting wisdom, such as enjoying a proverbial briar patch. Or in my case, Peg’s banishment of me to the solitude of our bunkhouse when I got COVID and Peg did not.

At first, I was offended when Peg handed me my toothbrush and a set of clean underwear and locked our cabin door behind me after she forcefully shut it. It was not that I wanted Peg to share in my experience of a sore throat, lethargy and endless amounts of crud being expelled from my body. It was more the feeling that a one-person leper colony was a rather lonely possibility, plus I really missed my favorite recliner and ready access to the refrigerator. Oh, and Peg too, of course.

Be that as it may, Peg sentenced me to two weeks of quarantine with the same lack of ceremony she would have exhibited if a door-to-door encyclopedia salesman had appeared with a sample case. You remember encyclopedias don’t you, Gentle Reader? You know, those things with pages, tables of contents and indexes that went the way of the dodo bird after Google came along. Well, that may call for a different column.

Anyway, here I am alone with the piles of books I never read, the piano I used to play and old photographs of friends and relatives I barely recognize. I have been rummaging through boxes and drawers filled with the most interesting stuff not seen by me since high school. What a strange looking dude I was with dark colored hair and a discernible jaw line. Who was that and who are those undecipherable young people around him wearing weird clothes?

Say, Peg, what is this thing that says Maytag on it? Is this where my clean clothes came from? It must be a miracle machine. How does it operate? By the way, there is no stove out here and after several days of eating the leftovers you sent with me, I am ready for some real food.

By the way, I have done my Paxlovid and am pretty sure I am not Typhoid Mary anymore. On the other hand, the bunkhouse refrigerator is stocked with leftover beer from our Fourth of July Family Reunion and the TV is constantly tuned to Gunsmoke reruns. The bunkhouse is the answer to every boy’s escape from his mother and every husband’s escape from constant inspection by his wife.

Clothes are in a pile where I take them off. The bed never has to be made to drill sergeant standards and every door knob and chair back is a hanger. But the most serendipitous of all? Peg is afraid to step foot in my little slice of heaven. I may claim to be eternally toxic. Bring on that Briar Patch!

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.

Madame DePeg

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In Aspen, Colorado
Photo by Peg Redwine

Charles Dickens wrote his novel, A Tale of Two Cities, about the French Revolution (1789-1799). Madame Defarge is a prime mover of the revolution who seeks revenge on the aristocrats for evil done to the poor. She maintains a record of who should be brought down by knitting their names into her needlework. She forgets nothing and patiently bides her time. Then she produces the list for the guillotine. Peg is a prolific and creative knitter.

During our COVID-enforced cabin fever I have often wondered how Peg can be so confident her memory of our past conversations is correct. Then yesterday as the thermometer hovered near single digits and we huddled in front of the fireplace while we talked and Peg knitted, it hit me. As Peg creates her marvelous hats, mittens and scarves she weaves in snippets of my naïve responses to her carefully crafted verbal mine fields.

Such innocent seeming statements from last autumn as, “Jim don’t you think someone should get some firewood ready for this winter?” and my careless response of “Uh huh” get woven into a woolen contract. My protests that I have no recollection of what promises Peg claims I made stand weak and alone when confronted with Peg’s forceful confidence.

It does me no good to complain that if we would just wait until spring such tasks as covering her countless plants or fixing run-on toilets or cleaning closets or doing practically anything but watching a ballgame on TV would not be so urgent. Peg just checks her knitting and says, “On such and such a date, you promised me ….” I am hoisted on her needlework petard with no way to contest her version of some long-ago casual conversation.

On the other hand, I really like the warm hats and mittens Peg knits for me, such as the hat I wore skiing that looks like Osage Chief Bacon Rind’s. Perhaps I should just accept that wives never forget and husbands never win in the battle over what was said by whom when. However, it seems unfair of Peg to wage this age-old war with knitted weapons of documentation. After all, she has studied yarns from Iceland, Scotland, Ireland and Vermont while I occasionally simply write them.

Not Rocket Science

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The Rule of Law is not the stuff of artificial intelligence and differential equations. It is not about the James Webb telescope that may help disclose where and when we came from. It is not about a cure for COVID. No, the Rule of Law is far more complex, and perplexing, than any of those things. However, if properly applied, the Rule of Law can help us understand and deal with these challenges and others.

Law sounds simple. Treat others the way you wish to be treated. Respect the person and property of others. These principles are easy to say but thousands of years of human history prove they are extremely difficult to apply. Our Declaration of Independence sets out the basics of our legal system, “…[A]ll men are created equal,” and all men have the right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. When Thomas Jefferson penned those simple ideals he owned slaves, and had children he did not acknowledge by at least one of those slaves. Also, women could not vote and the property rights of Native Americans were not even an afterthought. Were Jefferson and the rest of the 1776ers evil? No, they were human. We call these concepts ideals because the realities are nearly impossible to achieve. That is why we need the Rule of Law, to encourage us to try.

Our Constitution sets forth America’s aspiration to form a more perfect union. Surely none of our Founders was naïve enough to believe perfect self-government was achievable. That is not why goals are set. Just as it is the struggle of life that can separate us from all other animals and, perhaps from some humans, it is government’s role to help us strive for perfection. We have often fallen short and we always will. But just as we are fighting the war on COVID in fits and starts we can face our past failures in how we have behaved and strive to be better. There will never be a cure for our occasional imperfect collective missteps. That is why we need to acknowledge our past failures and seek to avoid future sins. We should do this together.

In her book, On the Courthouse Lawn, Sherrilyn Ifill points out the irony of many lynchings being carried out by large numbers of a community right at the seat of justice, the county courthouse. Also, our courthouses are often the site where the legal system has been used to deny human rights, such as through the separation of Native American families and establishment of some guardianships that led to murder.

Community recognition of these subversions of the Rule of Law is important. Monuments that show society admits its wrongs, even if long past, can help people heal and avoid new injustices.

Name, Image, Likeness

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As of July 02, 2021 the NIL of collegiate athletes are no longer the property of their school and the National Collegiate Athletic Association. Each student athlete, depending upon many factors such as the laws of the state where their school is located, may sell his or her fame to the highest third-party bidder. Colleges may provide stipends designed to “enhance education” but may not pay athletes to play. However, third parties such as wealthy boosters as well as corporations may.

Until six months ago it was an unpardonable sin for amateur athletes to be caught acting as though they owned their own financial souls. In the land of the free and the home of individual liberty, beginning in 1906 when the NCAA was founded, Big Brother was in charge of amateur athletics, especially at the collegiate level. Of course, Americans being Americans, countless ways were found to transgress the rules without paying any price. The unpunished sins of many were paid for by the examples made out of a few, the greatest amateur athlete in the world for one.

Jim Thorpe was a Native American born on the Sac Fox Nation in Indian Territory (Oklahoma) in 1887. Thorpe was taken from his family when he was ten years old and sent to Haskell Indian Institute in Kansas then at age sixteen to Carlisle Indian Institute in Pennsylvania. During parts of the summers of 1909 and 1910 Thorpe was paid $2.00 per game to play semi-professional baseball. In the Olympics of 1912, where baseball was not an event, Thorpe won gold medals in both the pentathlon and decathlon. The 1912 Olympics were held in Stockholm, Sweden. Sweden’s King Gustav V in awarding the medals to Thorpe said to him, “Sir you are the greatest athlete in the world.” In 1913 the Olympic Committee took Thorpe’s medals away from him and expunged his records because of his semi-pro baseball participation. The medals were returned to Thorpe’s family in 1983, thirty years after Thorpe’s death. I guess it is true, “Timing is everything”. Had Thorpe won his medals after July 01, 2021 no sin would have been assessed. In fact, under the new NIL rules Thorpe would have probably made millions, legally, while still an “amateur”.

The management of NIL and amateur athletics in schools now falls under the same entities that have been charged with addressing COVID. The federal government, each state, counties, cities and schools have a say and a role. What could go wrong?

While it is the right thing to finally put the ownership of an athlete’s Name, Image and Likeness where it belongs, with the athlete, there will undoubtedly be much to consider. Some will be good. For example, my alma mater, Indiana University, has labored in the football vineyards unsuccessfully for years. But one of IU’s alumni is billionaire Mark Cuban who is a rabid IU fan. I say “Go, Mark!” And Harvard, not known for football for a hundred years, has celebrated drop-outs, Bill Gates and Mark Zuckerberg. Do you think the honorary doctorate committee may take note? Then there is Princeton alum, Jeff Bezos, America’s wealthiest possible booster. What Jeff did for Amazon perhaps he can do for Princeton athletics. After all, Princeton played in the first college football game against Rutgers in 1869. Renewed glory may await if NIL swag can be offered and the transfer portal can be properly greased.

And please let me say I am fully in favor of everyone being the sole owner of their own NIL. If athletes can market themselves, my only objection is that my high school sports career was of no value to anyone. I believe capitalism and individual liberty is a good system. And if chaos at the top of college sports caused by NIL is good for college sports and if money in the hands of alumni is the mother’s milk of NIL, the future of college sports looks exciting.

My position is athletes should have control over their own images. And call me cynical, but I believe imaginative schools and boosters can find ways to categorize practically anything from books to private jets as “educationally enhancing”.

As for regulating NIL and putting that regulation in the hands of the same people who for the past two years have attempted to address COVID, I say, “Please leave it alone, let the free-market system work it out”. However, I am a little concerned with the effect collegiate NIL laissez-faire competition might have on amateur sports below the college level. When Tee Ballers start threatening to enter the Little League Transfer Portal unless their parent coach provides a new bicycle, we may need some way to reign things in.