When "definite" pronouns become "indefinite"

(My grammatically astute dog, Zeus, gave me a knowing wink as my wife let fly with another mysterious pronoun.)

Last night, Management said to me "Why do you think SHE does that?"

I looked around the room to see if there was a SHE anywhere in sight.  None.  Our dog Zeus is a male.  Our daughter left home 20 years ago.

I replied: "Who are you talking about?"
Mgt.: "Angelina Jolie"
Me: "Why does she do what, and what are you talking about?"
Mgt: "Why doesn't she talk to HIM?"
Me: "What do you mean?  I saw Angelina with Brad Pitt at the Golden Globe Awards on tv the other night, and they seemed  fine with one another."
Mgt.: "No.  Why doesn't she talk to her father, Jon Voight?"
Mgt. again: "You know.  I really love that man."
Me: "I had no idea you liked Voight that much.  He is a good actor."
Mgt.: "No. I love Obama.  He is such a great family man."
Mgt. again, as she stares at the floor on the other side of the kitchen: "Isn't he cute?"
Me: "Well, I like the guy, but I don't think of my President as cute."
Mgt.: "No silly.  Zeus.  The way he puts his head on his crossed paws and watches us talk."
Me: I looked at Zeus and I swear he gave me a knowing wink; this IS an articulate dog with a pretty good command of the English language.

What the hell!!  This is no way to live.  Constantly having to guess to whom the pronoun refers in every sentence.  What ever happened to nouns, or better yet, proper nouns, like a person's name?  Management is trying to have a conversation with me, and complains that I don't talk enough.  But this "conversation" becomes an interrogation of her by me to keep my head above water, as the "its", "his's", and "they's" fly about the room like confused moths searching for the sun.  And once I figure out which SHE or HE Management is talking about, she shifts gears and is on to a new set of celebrities, or politicians, or relatives to whom she is referring.  This is a real problem, especially as I continue to age and my brain cells disappear or harden into little nuggets.

So, more often than not, when Management asks me "Why is HE doing that?", I simply say with all the earnestness I can muster, "I really don't know honey.  Life is a mystery."  Of course, Management doesn't begin to appreciate fully how much of a mystery it really is to those of us on the receiving end of those damn indefinitely defined definite pronouns.

(For a classic and comical rendition of the pronoun problem, starring Daffy Duck and Bugs Bunny, go to this Youtube video.)

A voracious appetite for novels

(My wife could probably read all the books shown here in a month.)

My wife spends more time reading novels than she does talking to me, and she talks to me a lot. During the past three weeks, she has finished eight novels, and she is half-way through the ninth. Of the approximately two dozen authors she loves to read, they, collectively, can not publish fast enough to keep up with my wife's appetite. She sends them notes of encouragement from time to time to spur them on: "Do you really need to take a vacation this year, when you should be writing?", "Please don't get another dog; they take up a lot of time." "I recommend you limit your family size to only one child. Valuable energy is expended on raising children." "If I were you, I wouldn't spend precious time watching tv." "Coffee, or some other strongly caffeinated beverage, might improve your efficiency."

Her book habit was also getting expensive. At about $12 a pop for a new paperback, I was having to cut back on my cigars and scotch. On more than one occasion, she bought a book at the store only to get home and realize she had already read it. The publishers had changed the paperback cover, and she had not recognized it. So I strongly encouraged her to use the public libraries, which she resisted because the new books were always checked out, and there was that dreaded due date when we had to drive into town to return the book, and who knew what germs were hidden in that Ludlum plot from a previous reader's sneeze. But eventually, she acquiesced. Sometimes I do win an argument with Management.

Actually, there was a time when she had no choice but to use a library.  During 1986-87, we lived in Monteverde, a remote village in the Tilaran Mountains of Costa Rica mostly inhabited by American Quakers.  Quakers hold education in high esteem, so they had a nice little library there.  There was absolutely no place within a 4-hour drive to buy a book that was worthy of my wife's attention.  The library was within walking distance of the farm house we were renting, so she spent a great deal of time there.  In addition, the house we rented was owned by the family of a former law professor from George Washington University, and it contained a very nice collection of books.  After my wife had read everything of a fictional nature in that house, she started gobbling up the novels in the Monteverde library.  At the end of that year, I noticed that she had not been reading for a couple of weeks.  When I asked her about visiting our local repository of novels to resupply, she quipped, "I've done that library."

So we returned to the states, and to the plethora of large public libraries and bookstores that abound.  Jesu, Joy of Man's Desiring!  Heaven on earth!  Hosanna in the highest!  Out of the wilderness we have come, into the light of a Barnes and Noble, of libraries on wheels, of more ISBN numbers than one can fathom, and into the country that boasts The Library of Congress with 33 million cataloged books.  I would soon become a book widower again.

Finally, back at home, I kissed my wife goodbye, dropped her off at the Ithaca library, and reminded her that we have an anniversary coming up in eight months.  Could she spend some time with me on that important date?  It wouldn't have to be all day, just a few hours in the evening for dinner or a movie?  She wondered if it was OK if we went to a restaurant that was well-lighted, and not too noisy, a place suitable for some light reading?  I suppose the waiter could put another candle on the table.  Maybe he could also turn down the romantic mood music they usually play there.  We could order ahead so that the hostess would not have to interrupt us very much with questions about entrees and dessert.  When the big night came, everything came off without a hitch, even though my wife's book bag knocked over a glass of cabernet sitting in front of me.  Small price to pay for some quality time alone with the woman I love.

At present, my wife is working her way through the tiny library in Danby, where we live.  This should take only a few weeks.  But you know, the irony of all this is that I published a digital book in April, and my wife has yet to read it.  What's up with that?  I'll bet if I used the pen name "Daniel Silva" or "Jeffery Deaver", she would have devoured my book while the ink was still wet, so to speak.  But I'm not complaining.  After all, if I need to know something about international spies, or fingerprint analysis, or explosives used by terrorists, all I do is ask.  I rarely use Google anymore.

Black bears are returning, and I like it

(Ben G, a bear cub who lived in our house for a few weeks, a long time ago.)

I've waited 31 years for this day.  And then this week it happened.  We had definite evidence of a black bear in the neighborhood.  Two neighbors reported damage in their backyard that can only come from a bear, and one had the unmistakeable photo of muddy bear prints on his deck.  Bears have been reported sporadically in my county for about a decade or so.  I always assumed it was probably a young male who had dispersed from Pennsylvania to the south, but then a sow with cubs was spotted a couple of years ago.  Bears are definitely here now.  (New York State has always had three viable bear populations: on the Allegany Plateau in southwestern NY, the Catskill Mountains, and the Adirondacks.  But bears were extirpated in the rest of the state more than a century ago.)

We moved into our home in the young forest of upstate New York in 1980, when the trees on our property were only about 20 years old.  The hill on which we live had been a cattle pasture until 1960, so when the cattle were removed, trees with wind-blown seeds started to invade.  The forest was not very impressive, as forests go, for our first decade or two there.  But then, it began to look and feel like a real forest.  The trees got larger, dead trees fell over from wind or disease and began accumulating on the ground, patches of ferns and mosses and forest wildflowers like trout lily began to flourish.  Ash and maple and aspen were beginning to be replaced with oaks and hickories.  If I could just live another couple hundred years, I would really be impressed at the maturity that can only come with time.

But our 12 acres is not an island.  Our property is contiguous with hundreds of acres of more mature woodland, some of it part of a state forest.  So the bear template was in place on the landscape; it only needed to get older, more bear-like.  The habitat on my hill is no longer great for pheasants, grouse, or cottontails; it is now habitat for turkeys and bears and a wonderful variety of woodland songbirds.  All we needed was to add a couple of bears from Pennsylvania and, voila, you have the start of a viable bear population.

In the early 1980s I stood in front of the picture window in our living room and told my wife that before we leave here I'll bet we see a bear from this window.  Well, that has not happened yet, but it will.  It's getting close now.

For this old naturalist and nature lover, why is it important to have bears back in this ecosystem?   There is something special when you live or spend time in an environment where all or most of the biotic elements are still there.  In the case of bears, it adds a certain mystic or mystery to the forest that was not there before.  I don't have trilliums in my forest either, but their addition would not increase my wonderment nearly as much as having bears.  There is also an element of danger, of now having to look over your shoulder once in a while.  Not as intense as some places.  I spent a little time in East Africa, where there are elephants, buffalo, and lions, animals that can kill you in a New York minute.  And although black bears kill about as many people in North America every decade as grizzly bears (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_fatal_bear_attacks_in_North_America#Black_bear), the cost/benefit ratio of having black bears here is tolerable for me. (Because black bears are found in virtually every state, and grizzlies are found in only a few, the encounter rate between humans and black bears is much higher than the encounter rate with grizzly bears.  Only a tiny percentage of these encounters results in an attack).

In the eastern U.S., we sanitized the environment several centuries ago.  We cleared almost all of the forest, we shot or trapped all the big predators, we made the world safe for toddlers.  Western Europe has been this way for a long time; scenic pastoral vistas, but boring as hell biologically.  We were on our way to becoming as "safe" as western Europe, but the return of bears suggests we might be able to save some of what we almost lost.  Now, let's see what we can do about wolves and cougars.

My personal ambivalence on Veterans Day

(GIs raising the flag during WWII.)

Yesterday we "celebrated" the day when the country recognizes our military veterans.  I am a veteran of the Vietnam era, although I was sent to Korea instead.  I abhorred the idea of having to go in the first place, I never wanted to be there after I got inducted, and I couldn't wait until it was over.  Because of my reticence about the entire experience, I never allow myself to feel proud for having served.  Although I am technically a veteran, I never feel like one. I am neither ashamed nor proud that I served, it was simply something I had to do.

In 1968, I was drafted into the Army, but then enlisted instead of accepting the draft.  In those days, you had 30 days to make this decision once you received your draft notice.  Enlisting meant that I had some choice over what I might do for an "occupation" in the Army, but it meant spending three years in the service instead of two.  That is, you paid for getting a little choice (no guarantee) by spending an extra year in the military.  I wanted to accept the draft and take my chances, but my wife insisted I enlist and get some choice.  She didn't want me to end up in the infantry serving in Vietnam, but I did not want to spend more time in the Army than I had to spend.  The biggest disagreement we have had in 50 years of marriage occurred over this issue only two months after getting married that year.  We argued, she won, and I enlisted for three years.  In hindsight, she was correct as usual.  I was one of the lucky ones.

I relate the disagreement between my wife and me as an admission that I did not want to be in the military, I considered it a waste of three years of my life, and I rebuked the idea that our country should have gone to Vietnam in the first place.  Therefore, I never feel as though Veterans Day relates to me in any meaningful way.  On that day, I mostly think about WWII vets, my father's generation, and the incredible sacrifice they had to endure to fight a global war that was unavoidable.

The Vietnam era presented a serious dilemma for hundreds of thousands of young men who did not want to serve and who did not want to go to Vietnam.  My friend and college roommate dropped out of university, was drafted, and six months later was killed in Vietnam.  He saw his 4-month old baby only once.  My mother and my wife's parents disagreed with our belief that the war was not justified; my wife and I praised the anti-war demonstrators while our parents cursed them, although with the passage of time they came to agree with us.

As a result of this internal conflict in draft-age males, some men simply checked out of American society and left the country for Canada.  Some of them figured out a way to fake the results of their physical exam so they could fail.  Some joined the National Guard so they could remain in the states.  Some had important relatives or friends who could influence local draft boards.  Some went AWOL after being inducted.  Others did as they were told, and were later killed or wounded in Vietnam.  Now, three decades later, we have a Vietnam War Memorial that stirs more emotions in me than any monument I've ever seen, and Americans can happily vacation in Vietnam.

Sometimes governments force individuals to make decisions about their lives that are almost impossible to satisfy.  Deciding whether to participate in a war is probably the most poignant, because the costs to individuals are huge and measurable, and the benefits are rarely clear.  But on Veterans Day we honor those who served, without being able to comprehend the complex set of emotions that is certainly still within them.  With the benefit of hindsight and age, the reasons for our earlier choices become clearer. If we had to make those same decisions today armed with a lifetime of observations of the world and the way it works, they might not be so difficult.  But when 20-year olds are encouraged or forced by national policy to make these same decisions, the responsibility for their choices should rest with us all.