Centrist

Centrist

by Quentin Smeltzer

My good, conservative friend recently sent me one of those emails detailing how Obama is destroying everything.  

When I wrote back, "Four more years" he posed this question:

"I guess this is all Bush's fault? and that you advocate a socialist state and declining economic opportunities for your son in the future?"

To which I replied, G_, I value our friendship far too highly and value email far too little to believe we have a wisp of a prayer of successfully debating this here.  But here are some views of mine:

1.  I consider myself a centrist.  Sometimes right of center, sometimes left of center, but a moderate centrist.  I respect and listen to opposing views.  I regularly find that I am wrong.

2.  Obama inherited an economy in a death spiral.  He has leveled off the plane and made it climb—with frustrating slowness—ever since.  So yes, I still blame Bush for any statistics that show the economy or poverty is worse than when Obama took office.  I consider this view to be factual.

3.  Obama is competent.

4.  He is tough on foreign policy and getting results.

5.  His personal life and the way he conducts himself are impeccable.

6.  I want low taxes but I think wealth disparity can be too great, especially if the rich are being taxed at historically low rates at the same time we are running huge deficits and live with decaying infrastructure.  I don’t want to hear about cutting Social Security--which I may need, by the way--while Bank of America execs pay themselves 20 million dollars a year and pay on average 18% in income taxes after deductions.  I don’t care if taxing the rich alone will not solve all of our problems: increasing their taxes is a step in the right direction.

7.  I define rich as rich.  It’s like porn:  you know it when you see it.

8.  I want an end to regulation and red tape, but at the same time I want industries that have shown a perfect willingness to blow up the entire economy in the pursuit of personal greed to be highly regulated.

9.  I do not want the Healthcare Reform Bill or Dodd Frank repealed.

10.  I don't worry much about Sharia law--not a big concern at this time.

11.  I don't want abortion outlawed and I think a true Republican should not care about one's sexual orientation.

12.  I am all for hard work and personal responsibility but I do not want to live in a Darwinian jungle.  I think people are better than that.

13.  This is about my son: the middle class has had no increase in wages for over ten years now.  We have less upward mobility now than twenty years ago and less than many other countries.  College costs are astronomical and growing.  Putting some checks on the wealthy and investing more in infrastructure and education is exactly what my son needs.

So that’s where I’m at.  Call me a raging liberal if you like; I think my views are healthy, centrist and grounded in fact.  I am perfectly happy to vote for a Republican with better solutions to these problems but I don’t see one now.  I am perfectly happy to call you my friend, listen to your arguments and adjust my opinions over time.

The Mission Trip to the Cheyenne River Lakota Indian Reservation

By Quentin Smeltzer

My church takes mission trips.  That is, a bunch of us who pay dues to the church (aka the members), pay some more money to go someplace rustic to help people and not proselytize to them; not even one itsy little bit.  I guess the idea is that if we go there and we are helpful and pleasant enough, some of the people we help might be sufficiently confused to look us up on the internet some day to figure out what that was all about. 

Which is the way I like it.  As I’ve written before, our church is basically a collection of whomever shows up and we believe whatever it is that we happen to believe.  We are Congregationalists, which as far as I can tell means we are earnest loiterers with mostly good intentions. 

This year’s mission trip was to the Cheyenne River Sioux Indian reservation in La Plant, South Dakota.  Actually, “Sioux” is a word the Indians don’t much care for.  They are Lakota, which means the people who help each other.  Sioux is a French word that means snake in the grass or something along those lines.  It may be the least of the insults the Lakota endure. 

History runs deep on the reservation.  In the 1800’s white settlers and gold prospectors were advancing on Indian lands.  The gold prospectors were mostly white too, but that's besides the point.  The Indians resisted.  Battles were fought.  Treaties were formed and then broken.  White settlement continued.  The Lakota and other tribes would raid the settlements.  The raids would generate counter-attacks by the US Army.  Atrocities were committed on both sides.

After many battles, including the Battle of Little Bighorn, the US Army was strengthened to the tune of 2,500 men by an act of Congress.  The Lakota, the Arapaho and the Cheyenne were finally defeated in 1877 and the Indians were confined by treaty to reservations.  In the following years the Lakota were coerced into signing away more of their lands.  Treaty promises to feed and clothe the Lakota were ignored.  Low-level conflicts continued and in 1890, fearing rebellion, the Army rounded up and killed at least 150 mostly unarmed Lakota men, women and children with Hotchkiss machine guns in the Massacre at Wounded Knee.    

Despite this history, despite being forced into a dysfunctional welfare state, despite being a culture of hunters and warriors stripped of the ability to live their own identity, the Lakota are warm and welcoming, with a wonderful sense of humor.  Their spirituality revolves around their connection to the land, the sky and all of creation.  They celebrate bravery and honor: the bravery of their men and their women.  Even the bravery of their horses is honored in song and story and dance. 

On my previous mission trip to Orland, Maine I mostly tooled around in a pickup truck with my buddy, Bruce, shopping for electrical parts which I helped him install in the homes of the poor.  In the evenings we had showers and good meals.  One day we went hiking in Acadia National Park and then we had lobster for dinner.  Not a bad gig.  The reservation, on the other hand, was different… very, very different. 

First of all, there was no running water in the community center where we encamped.  And we slept on the floor.  There were no showers.  There were no bathrooms, just outhouses, three of which blew over when a microburst of wind raged across the open prairie without warning. 

The mosquitoes and other biting insects were voracious.  Bug spray had no effect.  And the ugliest dogs you’ve ever seen in your life milled about the camp more like matted homeless people than pets. 

We worked seven days straight, which was not smart.  Some people like to push themselves to extremes and then push themselves some more—you know, so it really hurts—and then there are the other six point seven billion of us who were not our leaders on this particular mission trip.  So that was some bad luck right there.  Especially for me, as I happen to be one of the six point seven billion who don’t consider heat exhaustion "fun."

In ninety degree heat under a relentless sun, we upgraded houses in the mornings.  Then we ran a day camp for the local children in the afternoon when the real heat kicked in. 

Before our first day-camp we were told that what the children need most is attention:  a hug, a piggyback ride, a game of catch.  Many of these kids live with grandparents; the parents are gone, taken by drugs, alcohol or poverty.  So we gave hugs and piggyback rides and played catch.  Some of the boys feigned initial toughness.  But that quickly melted away once they realized we spoke to them with no agenda.  Which was easy, because we don’t have one. 

Other boys seemed starved for attention—they would cling to my back and legs, wrap their arms tightly around me and refuse to let me go.  The girls were more likely to hang back, but they wanted piggyback rides too. 

At one point I untangled myself from the boys long enough to give one of the girls a piggyback ride.  She was maybe six or seven years old with beautiful, black hair and black eyes.  She climbed aboard but she didn’t cling to me like some of the boys had.  Instead, she told me to run.  When I did, she stood on my hands, stiffened her body and threw her arms skyward.  Then she did something that made the hair prickle up on the back of my neck:  she let out a warrior’s cry:   Wah hay!  Wah hay! 

Maybe it was the heat exhaustion, maybe I has hallucinating, but suddenly I was not some old guy giving a child a piggyback ride:  suddenly I was her adrenaline-amped horse charging across the high plains, carrying my precious young warrior headlong into battle.  It gave me chills.  It made me want to keep running with her forever.  It made me actually want to go into battle, which is worrying. 

So what did we learn here?  What did I learn?  One:  before you go on a mission trip, check the schedule and pencil in a day off when no one is looking.  And two: don’t worry.  Even if you are led by happy, committed masochists, experiences you could never have imagined might just make it all worthwhile. 

The Worst Place in the World

The Worst Place in the World

SmeltzerNation, 2/15/2011

First, I want to apologize for taking down yet another post.  While it was all good-natured sport making fun of my English colleagues, it turns out that they have this thing in England called “the internet” which allows people there to read what I write as easily as people here in my own little corner of my own little town.  Whoops! 

But don’t worry; I’ll put that bit back into my next book.  It will be safe there.  Because absolutely no one reads my books. 

Anyway, after making fun of the English I made a shocking and ironic discovery much closer to home.  It turns out that I live in possibly the only state in the entire United States of America that does not allow the most fun thing to do in the entire world:  quad bike riding.  In fact—and here is the deep irony—I was in England of all places when I discovered that quadding is the most fun thing a married man my age is allowed to do in the entire world.  Only to then come home and discover that this most fun and exciting of all things to do is not allowed in, yes... Connecticut.

Now, I want to make sure that you know what quad bikes are:  they are those four-wheeled, outdoors, ride-in-the-mud thingies with big tires.  They are different from off-road motorcycles in several significant ways.  First, when you ride a dirt bike into a mud hole, the front tire stops and you are flung over the handlebars like a rag doll.  The quad bike wallows through the mud and pulls you out the other side, producing an enormous grin on your face. 

When you go into a corner in the woods on a dirt bike, and you hit a rock or a root, the front tire goes one way and you go the other, flung over the handlebars like a rag doll.  When you go into a corner on a quad bike and you hit a rock or a root, the quad bike goes over the root or the rock and you keep going, producing an enormous grin on your face. 

Since I have reached the age when I prefer grinning to being flung over the handlebars like a rag doll, I greatly prefer the quad bike.  Only, they are not allowed.  Not in Connecticut.

According to the Connecticut Department of Environmental Protection:

“Effective January 1, 2006, except where specifically allowed, riding an ATV on state or municipal property may result in charges of criminal trespass. (Public Act 05-234)

At the current time, Connecticut does not have any public areas open to quads.  Additionally, there are no State managed areas open to dirt bikes although the Army Corps of Engineers facility at Thomaston Dam is available for two wheeled trail bike riding.”

So, dirt bikes aren’t allowed at Thomaston but trail bikes are?  Hmm…  So what about quads?  Are they allowed at Thomaston or not?  According to the US Army Corp of Engineers:

Thomaston Dam has designated trails for two wheeled trailbikes, open May 1st through October 14th CONDITIONS PERMITTING. Three and four wheel vehicles are not permitted.

So they are not allowed in Connecticut, period, not even if CONDITIONS PERMIT.   Which leads me to wonder, why would I, or anyone else for that matter, live in Connecticut?  Our roads are jammed, our state is in debt, our taxes are rising and our schools are struggling.  We pay the highest amount per gallon of gasoline in the entire country.  And we aren't allowed to go quadding. 

I have heard it said that Connecticut has the most highly educated populace of any state in the union but really, if we knew anything, we would know that quadding is fun.  A lot of fun.  More fun, say, than spending two and half hours driving the thirty miles from Stamford to Fairfield on Interstate 95.  More fun than plugging our 3.7 billion dollar budget gap.  More fun than driving our SUVs into gigantic potholes, which would be fun if we were driving, say, quads.  And much more fun than being throw over the handlebars like a rag doll, which, however, is allowed at Thomaston Dam. 

Thanks, Connecticut.

Retreating Thoughts

Retreating Thoughts

By Quentin Smeltzer, www.SmeltzerNation.com, 1/8/11

Every year our church holds a men’s retreat where the men of the church don’t retreat so much as they venture forth to a simple lodge in the woods near a lake for two and a half days of camaraderie, prayer, discussion, a hike and an indoor golf tournament.  The accommodations are rustic.  The food is hearty but simple.  The thoughts shared are sometimes profound, sometimes prosaic.  I always laugh and I sometimes cry.  Let me amend that:  I always cry and usually at the oddest, most unexpected moments. 

They say men cry more at movies then do women, and we cry more at movies if we see them on airplanes.  I can also attest that we cry more in a cabin in the woods.  The words that pop out of our mouths and into our heads in new places with new people are new and unexpected as well.  Or maybe we’re just cry babies. 

This year I found myself well up when we were discussing transitions and I realized, maybe for the first time in my fifty four years, that I may well lose my father to old age in the not too distant future.  He is eighty one. 

My dad and I have reconciled after some turbulent times.  I love him and I know he loves me.  But there are so many regrets, so many things said and unsaid, so many things done and undone. 

Just ten years ago in my mid forties I believed I had no regrets and now my life is packed full of them.  How did this happen?

I have made many changes in my life and most of them have been for the better.  I gave up drugs and serious drink but somehow I recently decided to take up smoking.  Let me amend that as well.  If I said I took up smoking your children and mine might read that and start smoking.  And I would not want that.  If I said I took up smoking, my insurance company might raise my rates or deny my claim.  It’s a funny world we live in.  America may be the freest country in the world but we are far from free.  I am not free to tell you I have taken up smoking even one cigarette a day.

Thinking about a passage we read from bible on this retreat I finally realized how to see God.  God is us; people, and all creation.  So I understand that part now.   What I still don’t understand is why we live and die.  “Why do we die?” I asked Nick, who works for Pitney Bowes. 

“It’s all about the cycle of life,” he said.  “It’s a transition.”

“Ah,” I said, but I still don’t get it. 

If I did take up smoking it would not be because I want to die.  I want to live forever and in fact, I hope to get younger with each passing day.  Smoking may not improve my chances of attaining these two goals but, let’s face it: they are kind of a stretch anyway.

If I did recently take up smoking, say, just one cigarette a day, I might have smoked my one cigarette standing on the balcony outside my lodge room just now, listening to the snow melt from the trees in the dark of night.  I might have had this thought, that if I wasn't smoking I would just be standing there.  But because I was smoking—if I was smoking—I was doing something.  Something half stupid.  Something half mystical.  Something that isn't allowed at this lodge or almost anywhere in the world anymore, but something nevertheless.