Joli in the Morning

It’s morning. Dark. Got to go out.

Toenails click on hardwood as I get him.

I smell his warm breath. I sense he has heard me.

Soft nose poke. Poke. His hand gropes for my head. Ah, he’s awake.

Joli, go lie down. Lie down. I’ll get up in a minute.

I return to my warm spot. I lie down and wait.

I can’t really go back to sleep.

Got to go out. I click over to him again. I stand still and stare. Soft poke. His hand, again.

OK, I’ll get up.

I trot to the top of the stairs and peer out the window to the darkened street. I hear him get out of bed and walk down the hall behind me. He enters the bathroom and turns on the light. I trot in as he sits down. He scratches me behind the ears. I move closer.

Good morning, my dog. Are you the best dog in the world? Come here, my dog.

More head scratches, then a full back scratch as he pees.

I turn around and he scratches right above my tail. Good. Goood. I wiggle my butt back and forth so he gets all the right spots.

Got to go out. I trot back to the top of the stairs. I hear him putting on his clothes.

I go back to check. He’s putting on his shoes. Got to go out.

Soft whine.

OK, I’m coming.

I run to the stairs and down. He follows. He turns on the lights, puts on his coat and stands by the stairs. I run up two steps to the landing and give him my head so he can fasten my leash. I jump down and race him to the door. He opens the door and we are out in the cold.

The morning smells and the fresh air bring me to full alertness. I raise my tail and trot to the sidewalk ahead of him. I smell Shepard tracks in the snow at the sidewalk. Male. Old.

Paw prints in the snow. Is it a cat? A skunk? I sniff carefully. I female dog I don’t recognize. I pee on the track.

I trot leisurely up the street. Is that a stick in the snow over there? I check. Yes. I grab it and tug it out. A stick. My stick. I show it to him.

Got a stick? Give me that stick.

He pretends to chase me. I pretend to run away. Small play growl. We trot up the street as he pretends to grab my stick.

He can’t get it. I run ahead with my stick. At the corner is a fireplug. A lot of dog sign here. I smell five other dog neighbors. Male Golden. Male Pit Bull. Male Boston Terrier. Female Pharaoh Hound. Female Pit Bull. I know them all. I pee by the plug as he catches up.

WAIT.

I stop and sit on the curb. I look down the street. There are never any cars out this early.

OK.

We cross. I stop at a street drain. I smell prey, small. Always here. I never see it.

A nearby large bush is a hiding place. More dog signs. The Shepard again. I drop my stick and pee.

We head back down the street. We approach the house with the cats. I slow.

Any cats today?

I stop and peer into the dark. There are many cat-sized shapes to watch. Any movement?

OK, let’s go.

I’m pretty sure that’s a cat on the porch. I stand completely still and look.

I don’t see any cats. Let’s go.

I think it moved. He tugs gently. I want to look some more. That’s a cat, I’m sure.

Come on, Joli. There are no cats today.

He starts down the sidewalk, reaches the end of my leash and pulls me firmly. That’s a cat, I know it. I don’t want to give it up, but he’s pulling me. That cat is watching. I’ve got to get it.

LET’S GO, JOLI.

He gives a sharp pull on my leash and my head comes around. I follow. I catch up.

There is more dog sign at the small garden wall. The same neighborhood dogs. I pee again.

We’re almost back. I grab a new, smaller stick. I turn to the street right across from home.

WAIT.

I sit and look up the street. Still no cars.

OK.

I gallop into the street with my stick. He chases after. Play growl, shake, louder play growl. He chases, hand out to grab my stick

GIVE ME THAT STICK.

I gallop. I shake the stick and gallop. He can’t catch me. We run into my yard.

I smell my own scent everywhere. I need to check for new smells. By the bird feeder I smell a strong scent of squirrels. Many squirrels. I look toward the trees, but nothing moves in the dark. I smell a neighbor cat, wait, two cats. More cat sign at the edge of the back deck.

We move back down the yard into the darkness. Snow crunches under paw.

Hop in, Joli. Go to the bathroom. Hop in.

I carefully walk into the garden. I sniff until I find a clean spot. I squat and poop.

Good dog. Take your time.

I’m finished and circle away. We run slowly back to the house and onto the porch. I turn and survey my street. Nothing is moving. I hear a car. I don’t see anything. He stands quietly next to me. We listen. Nothing. The breeze. Nothing. A small sound. Nothing. A cold brush of clean air. Listening.

OK, sweetie.

I turn and push my head against his leg. He unfastens my leash and opens the door. Warm air and my home smells pour out on us. We go in and he closes the door. Home.

Thanksgiving 2010

Dawn

The coldest morning so far this season

Across the valley directly east the Dome is silhouetted by a band of bright orange sky

Joli, my morning companion these many years trots jauntily up our block at my side

As the sky turns pink, the crisp air fills with thousands of crows

A light is on in our neighbor's kitchen

She's up early working on another festive family meal

I recall the many years my mother would rise at dawn to put the turkey in the oven

Her preferred way to express her love for her family

Last night near midnight I was wakened by the sound of heavy equipment

City workers removing the piles of leaves the neighbors have been stockpiling

I know as I drift back to sleep the season is turning inexorably to winter

Now the snow can come

I miss those long ago childhood Thanksgivings

My brothers and I no longer gather, now that our parents have passed on

I'm sure they will be reminded too, as they sit down today

We give thanks for what we have and what we have become

Electing Guardians

When I'm getting ready to vote, especially when there are numerous local, state and national candidates up for election, I turn to the League of Women Voters for help. Our local papers publish the “Voter's Guide” and post an easy to use electronic version on their web sites. I find it very helpful. For each candidate the Guide includes a picture, lists party affiliations, age, address, email, web site, birthplace, family, education with degrees earned, professional, political, military experience and community involvement. There is also a list of group endorsements. Each candidate is asked to provide short answers to three questions pertinent to their potential position.

This information helps me understand which candidates best share my interests, experiences and political views, but I fear it is too unwieldy for the average voter. For example in my Congressional District (NY 25^th) Dan Maffei [Democrat/Working Families, incumbent] is running against Ann Mary Buerkle [Republican/Conservative]. One's a lawyer with a degree from Syracuse Law, the other has a Master's Degree from Harvard's Kennedy School of Government. One's young, married with no children; the other is older, divorced with six children and 11 grandchildren. They are both Catholics. One was a Congressional staffer and on the Board of the Spanish Action League; the other is a Right to Life organizer and volunteers at a domestic violence shelter. While this information helps paint a fairly detailed picture of each candidate, it takes a lot of time to review, especially for all the candidates. In many cases it's pretty hard to compare candidates, kind of an apples and oranges problem. What is needed is a quick and reliable way to judge the basic competence of candidates.

Personally, I always prefer smarter candidates over those more intellectually challenged. Therefore, I suggest the League start to list every candidate's IQ in the Guide. I'd love to hear a candidate casually point out they are smarter than their opponent. “Vote Smart” could become a watchword. The League could offer free and reliable IQ testing. If a candidate refused to list their IQ, it would be taken as a sign that they are not particularly proud of it. I grant that not every Mensa member would necessarily be a good legislator, but at least I'd feel they have the potential to absorb information and make rational decisions.

Statements by certain candidates this year also have made me wonder if we ought to require all candidates pass the same US Citizenship test as is administered to immigrants. The questions are not all that hard and it would be a comfort to know that every legislator knew the basics of civics.

Finally, it occurred to me that any candidate for office ought to take a sort of civil service exam that would be scored by a non-partisan government agency like the Office of Personnel Management (OPM). OPM tests tens of thousands of civil servants every year. Everybody who takes a test for a particular position gets a score, then government employees are hired from the top score down. I'm sure a fair “legislative service exam” could be devised. Scores would be reported by the League and the voters could decide on who gets hired. No one would be disqualified by getting a low score on such a test. I'm guessing most voters would vote for the candidate with the higher score.

As I was mulling this over, I was reminded of Socrates' reflections on the education of legislators (he called them guardians) in The Republic. Plato believed that good government can only be achieved when legislators shared certain basic personality traits and knowledge. Without such a common background, they could not be expected to govern well and society would descend into a chaotic state where everyone fought simply to advance their own narrow self interest. Sound familiar?

I don't think members of Congress will ever be mistaken for philosopher-kings, but I maintain a faint hope that many actually are trying to do the public good. On Tuesday, please go out and vote. Until the League adopts my suggestions, do your best to pick the smarter candidate.

Fancy paper doilies

On a back street in Oneida, NY sits the shuttered Smith-Lee factory. The company was founded in 1898 by Charles A. Lee in nearby Canastota. Its original product was paper milk bottle caps. In 1899, Monroe C. Smith and Hurlburt W. Smith joined as partners and the name changed to Smith-Lee. Home delivery of milk in reusable glass bottles was growing fast in those days. Business boomed. Growth was so rapid that in 1900, the factory was relocated to Oneida, where a larger work force could be maintained.

The company prospered. In 1932 it stayed competitive by merging with a competitor, the Kleen Seal Corporation of Liverpool, NY, but retained the Smith-Lee name. After the end of World War II, with the introduction of the paper milk carton, the milkman and thus the milk bottle began to disappear. Smith-Lee knew it needed to diversify to survive. Its first new successful product was the disposable paper plate. Then in 1971 it acquired the Milwaukee Lace Paper Co., a leading manufacturer of paper lace doilies.

Over the next few years it became one of the preeminent providers of high end paper napkins, lace doilies, place mats and paper tablecloths for restaurants and country clubs across the nation. Finally in the spring of 2009 after 111 years of continuous operation it was acquired by a larger competitor, Hoffmaster Group of Oshkosh, Wis., and immediately closed. All 70 employees lost their jobs. Products bearing the Smith-Lee name are now manufactured by Hoffmaster. http://www.hoffmaster.com/AboutHoffmaster/History.aspx

I had quite a few Smith-Lee employees as clients during the 20 years I represented injured workers. Many of them had upper extremity injuries sustained in the process of making lace doilies, simply called “lace” by employees. Paper doilies are made using a punch press with a sharp die to cut stacks of paper into the desired patterns. Multiple large sheets of paper are positioned on the press, then BANG, they are cut into intricate designs. The machine operators then separate the resulting doilies by pulling the stack of paper to the edge of the machine surface and breaking them apart by pushing down all around the edges. The stack of separated doilies is then shaken to remove the small chad, then packed for shipping. Boxes of 1,000 doilies wholesale for between $50 to $150 depending on design. One operator can produce many thousands of fancy doilies per shift.

This process requires frequent and fairly violent use of the shoulders. After a few years of doing this job, operators tend to develop a problem called thoracic outlet syndrome. Thoracic outlet syndrome is a relatively rare condition caused by compression of a narrow space near the arm pit. Blood vessels and nerves coming from the spine pass through this small space below the collarbone and above the ribs. Frequent compression of this space from overuse of the shoulders pushing downward results in numbness and tingling of the hands, neck and arm pain, poor circulation in the arms and arm weakness.

The first client with thoracic outlet I had from Smith-Lee was a young woman in her 30s. She found a surgeon who promised her he could widen her thoracic outlet by removing part of her top rib. It didn't work. After several painful years during which she tried to recover, she retrained as a phlebotomist. Her arm and neck pain never went away. While I was still representing her, a second young woman from Smith-Lee came in with the same problem. She was also on “lace.” She didn't have the surgery and eventually got better with physical therapy. She also didn't go back to work at Smith-Lee. Next a middle aged man came in. He had worked at Smith-Lee for years making paper plates. When he hurt his back doing that, they put him in “lace” as his light duty job. He also developed thoracic outlet. He never worked again.

The pattern seemed compelling to me. I contacted the union steward at the plant and told him I felt that the “lace” job needed to be redesigned to be safer. He agreed but never got back to me. I called the adjuster at Smith-Lee's insurance company and told her the story. She agreed it seemed compelling. She got the company to agree to an inspection by an occupational safety expert. When the inspection showed “lace” to be causing the injuries, the insurance company required the factory to make changes as a condition of policy renewal. The factory changed insurance companies instead.

Now the factory is closed. Fancy paper doilies are made elsewhere, probably using the same process, causing the same inevitable, but avoidable injuries. It's something I think about every time I see one of those damn doilies. I can't help it. I know some of the victims.

Making Chocolate

I met a man this week who worked for years at the Nestlés chocolate factory in Fulton, NY. He started as a laborer in the “Liquor and Flavor” department right out of high school. Over the years he worked his way up to inspector in the same department. He was happy there and was good at his job. Then in 2003, Nestlés closed the plant.

In the world of chocolate, “liquor” is 100% cacao. It's the starting point for all chocolate products. To make liquor, the seed pod of the cocoa tree is harvested from plantations in the tropics. Each pod contains from 20 to 50 seeds. It takes about 400 seeds to make a pound of finished chocolate. After harvest, the fresh seeds are fermented for three to nine days to develop flavor, then the beans are dried for about a week. Dried beans are shipped to a factory where they are roasted for 30 minutes to two hours at high temperature, then the outer shells are cracked and removed. The kernel of pure chocolate that remains is called a “nib.” Some high end manufacturers further roast the nib to achieve a darker color and flavor. The nibs are then milled and pressed to liquify the cocoa butter and produce chocolate liquor (also called unsweetened). The remaining solid, “cocoa cake” is ground to make cocoa powders. Chocolate liquor is blended with sugar, butter, milk and other ingredients to produce the various types of chocolate: semi-sweet, bittersweet, milk chocolate, etc. Here is a good definition of each type: http://www.ghirardelli.com/chocopedia/varieties.aspx

At Nestlés in Fulton, chocolate liquor and many other ingredients arrived at the factory by rail and truck. The first part of the manufacturing process was “Liquor and Flavor” where the fellow I met worked. Here the raw materials were blended to make a paste. Chocolate refiners, a set of big rollers, crushed the paste into tiny flakes that determine the smoothness of the final product. The result is poured into giant vats (called a conch) to be heated and “conched.” Each batch of chocolate is constantly stirred for hours or even days. Conching reduces moisture, drives off any lingering acidic flavors, and coats each miniscule solid particle of chocolate with a layer of cocoa butter. Finally, the finished chocolate undergoes tempering, a heating and cooling process, that stabilizes the product. http://www.ghirardelli.com/chocopedia/making_manufacturing.aspx

As an inspector in liquor and flavor my informant used to test batches being conched for proper viscosity. He would scoop a sample out with a spatula and spread it on a glass plate. The number of thick lines that formed on the plate was used to determine moisture content. He would also test individual chocolate batches in a lab to be sure the percentages of the mixtures were right. He told me that the amount of flavoring was generally determined by weighing. For example, if vanilla needed to be added, large buckets of extract would be precisely weighted before being dumped into the mixture.

The Fulton plant is shuttered and empty now. Nestlés decided it was obsolete after over 100 years of production. The Swiss food giant opened its very first American factory here in 1899. When it closed, the last 467 employees had no other local place to work. All but one of the other factories in town, including a giant, nearly new, Miller Brewing plant, had already closed. http://www.nytimes.com/2003/05/02/nyregion/when-the-chocolate-melted-nestle-factory-closing-leaves-town-reeling.html?pagewanted=all My informant had to drive 35 miles to Syracuse every day to work making concrete blocks. He was back to working as an “unskilled” laborer at age 45.

Standing in front of the bank of abandoned loading docks last weekend vividly reminded me of another hot summer day back in the mid-1990s when Merry and I and friends toured the plant on what turned out to be the last open house factory tour. Even outside the giant plant the air was saturated with chocolate. Inside the oldest section of the plant every piece of woodwork had absorbed so much cocoa butter from the air that the wood was dark and oily. Signs warned the steps to the second level might be slippery.

Upstairs we marveled at the completely automated chocolate morsel machine. At one end a plate with a hundred or more tiny nozzles dipped to almost touch a wide moving conveyer. When the plate rose it left behind a hundred perfectly formed warm chocolate chips. The plate rose and fell about once every ten seconds. Thousands of small bits marched down the line passing through one giant refrigerator after another, each a few degrees cooler. The entire apparatus was at least a block long. At the far end the conveyer passed under a sharp edge freeing the morsels. Inertia carried them into a huge funnel. An endless river of cold chocolate chips poured through the floor around the clock to be bagged downstairs. Millions of chocolate chip cookies would be made with those morsels.

The entire place was spotless. The employees we encountered obviously took great pride in their work. This was the home of Toll House® chocolate chips. This was the birth place of the Crunch® candy bar way back in 1938. Now it's empty, another victim of mega-corporate efficiency. Before they decided to close it, here's what Nestlés had to say about the proud history of their Fulton operation.

http://www.sotherden.net/nestles/Nestles.htm

The little town of Fulton looks pretty ragged these days. Its largely working class population commutes or left town forever. This is the story of faceless capitalism all over America. I'm powerless to do anything about it. It makes me sad.

Watertown NY 7/22/10

The thumping, undistinguished rock music was almost loud enough to drown out the howling child seated with her large family at the table behind mine. It was Thursday at TGI Fridays. I felt dislocated. The décor contributed to my mood with its smash-up of Cracker Barrel and Hard Rock: a faded orange motorcycle seat, a fake road sign for Rock and Roll Avenue, a reproduction album cover from Abbey Road, tons of other detritus of popular culture from two or more decades ago hung haphazardly on a rough brick wall.

My waitress appeared. Drinks? I asked for draft beer. What size? What do you have? A small one and a big one. What's the difference? The big one is only a dollar more. I mean, how big is the big one? She didn't know. Her black tee-shirt advertizing the featured faux-Caribbean meals currently on the menu was accented with three Miller Beer caps with winking red LED lights.

Seated immediately in front of me was a young guy with very short brown hair dressed in Army fatigues. The current “dress” uniform is faded camouflage with the pants tucked into dust-colored boots. The patch on his sleeve marked him as a member of the 10^th Mountain Division stationed at nearby Ft. Drum. His round, clean shaven face suggested Iowa to me. A patch bearing his name, “Miller,” was sewn over his right breast pocket. When he got up to go to the men's room I could see he was tall, probably about 200 pounds and in good shape; every inch the soldier the Army wants staring out of its recruiting posters.

Specialist Miller was accompanied by a young, dark-haired woman who sat with her back to me. I never saw her face. She fiddled with her hair, restyled it into a fancy twisted pony tail and ordered a fruit drink off the Caribbean menu. Shortly after it came, her soldier sent it back. They had forgotten the banana. When the soldier came back from the restroom he playfully put his hand on his companion's head. She didn't flinch. The two of them seemed so comfortable in each other's presence I strained to look at their left hands to catch a glimpse of a wedding band. Nope. I wasn't surprised when the soldier complained to the waitress that their bill was wrong.

My food arrived. As I dug into grilled salmon with spicy kung pao sauce, I glimpsed a guy crossing my field of vision outside the window. Was he actually wearing a three piece suit to eat at Fridays?

My question was answered a moment later when this very slim young fellow and a slightly chubby woman friend were seated just across the room from me. She was causally dressed with a simple white blouse, tan capri pants and pink flip-flops. He, on the other hand, seemed straight out of Pee Wee's Big Adventure, absent the red bow tie. He was wearing tight, apparently brand new, dark jeans short enough to show light gray socks and shiny black pointed Italian loafers. On top he wore a jet black dress shirt with a silver tie and dark gray vest. A perfectly tailored gray shark skin suit coat with silver pocket handkerchief completed his ensemble. His black hair was as short as the soldier's but included a little flip at the right temple gelled in place. Horn rim glasses drew attention to his narrow face.

This couple fiddled with their menus. When their waitress approached, the young woman handed her a “Stripes” membership card entitling them to a free appetizer. I knew this only because my waitress had tried unsuccessfully to recruit me for a Stripes card a few moments earlier. While they waited for their food they fell into a highly animated conversation. He languidly waved his long fingers to emphasize points. Several silver rings accented each hand. His wide smile and perfect teeth flashed continuously. She seemed entranced by him, but not in a sexual way, more as a valued friend.

I finished my meal. I looked around the rest of the dining room. Most of the other people were dressed in casual clothes, a scattering of NASCAR shirts, shorts and jeans. None seemed to take any particular notice of Specialist Miller or Pee Wee. As I headed back to my hotel I wondered what these two very different men talked about with their women friends. What was the nature of each relationship? How was it possible that two young men with so many apparent differences could inhabit the same space-time continuum?

Never assume a place is not culturally diverse just because it's far from the center of the universe.

Gaspésie #4 – Reford Gardens and home

Merry and I love visiting gardens. Our long-standing desire to visit the historic Reford Gardens was part of the reason we decided to vacation in Gaspésie this year. We learned of this garden some years ago on our first visit to Frank Cabot's amazing garden, Les Quatre Vents, on the north shore of the St. Lawrence. You can get an idea of just how wonderful Cabot's private garden is at: http://www.northerngardening.com/public_gardens/les_quatre_vents.htm Les Quatre Vents is far and away the most beautiful and most interesting garden I have ever visited. When we found there was also an important garden on the south shore, we wanted to visit, but since it is much further down the river we had to save it for a separate trip. It took us almost ten years to return.

Day 7 - To Métis-sur-Mer

After hiking in the morning and a nice seafood (what else?) lunch we finally headed west on Route 132. I had settled on Métis-sur-Mer as a promising destination. In the nineteenth century this village was a favorite vacation spot for Scottish families from Montreal. The village is still composed of mostly English-style cottages with high privacy hedges. The village spreads along a large bay on the River with a picturesque lighthouse at the western end. We looked at an inn in the village center, but decided instead to stay in a very private small cottage right on the river at Auberge Métis-sur-mer www.aubergemetissurmer.qc.ca/bienvenue_en.htm. From our porch we could see some small rocky islands and the lighthouse. Seals occupied the rocks further out. We were the only diners at the superb restaurant maintained by the Auberge: poached salmon with baby shrimp. The meal was perhaps the best we've had on this trip of very good fish dinners. We fell blissfully asleep despite the bright green light that flashed across the bedroom, three flashes in an row, six times a minute, warning sailors along this rocky coast.

Day 8 - Reford Gardens at Grand Métis

After a nice breakfast at the Auberge, we drove about 5 minutes west to Reford Gardens http://www.jardinsdemetis.com/english/. A giant Adirondack-style chair marks the entrance. This is largely a woodland garden built along the banks of a stream. Because of the compressed late spring this far north almost every conceivable spring flower was in full bloom when we visited. There is an impressive azalea garden. I was also impressed by the gentian garden as well as a nice collection of primulas in full bloom. Of course, we saw the famous Himalayan blue poppy that is the garden's trademark. At the heart of the garden, on a lawn with a belvedere overlooking the River, is the summer home of Elsie Reford, the original designer of the gardens. An extensive exhibit in the house shows how 19^th century robber baron wealth was used to transform this place into a pleasure ground for wealthy Anglophones from Montreal.

The garden is now a non-profit directed by Elsie Reford's grandson, Alexander. In recent years the garden has hosted an international garden design festival that, unfortunately, was not yet open when we visited. One piece from an earlier festival was set up on the main lawn. It consists of a dense group of blue stakes of various heights painted different shades of blue and orange on each side and set up to walk through. The effect is hypnotic and fun. I had to laugh as I heard some folks from a bus tour walk up and remark, “It's just sticks.” One serious fellow heard me laughing and noted, “some people are easily amused.” We wandered through a collection of other more traditional contemporary sculpture. We both agreed sculptures made of rounded boulders tightly contained in rusted steel by Jean Brillant were especially wonderful. Finally, we relaxed with some nice salads in the garden gazebo (green beans and onion for me, smoked mackerel and potato for Mer).

We both liked this garden. It has charm, is nicely laid out and very well maintained, yet we agreed that it does not qualify as one of the great gardens of the world. It aspires to this greatness, and may someday achieve it. It was a very pleasant way to spend part of our day.

Back at the Auberge I indulged myself with an hour massage by Lise, then a light supper of fresh baked bread, salad and a savory mushroom soup. We watched the tide come in one last time.

Day 9/10 – Home again

We reluctantly leave the Auberge after breakfast. We need to make miles today. We hope to get at least to Montreal by nightfall. We stop briefly near the village of St. Denis to look at the long dike built to recover marshy fields. On to the small town of La Pocatiere where we have a very nice lunch at Cafe Azimut. Merry visited her sister, Nora, in small this town with a major agricultural college back in 1971 while Nora was attending French language Peace Corps training before being posted to Africa. We get back on the highway and after some hairy driving in a thunderstorm we pull into the Comfort Inn at Boucherville, a suburb of Montreal, about 4:30. We're up early the next day and make it to the bridge at Ogdensburg before lunch. Because of our long trip through Quebec we expect problems at customs, but this doesn't happen. When I say we are bringing back some smoked salmon, the customs agent helpfully does the math to show we have well less than the 50 pounds allowed. We pass the time traveling south on I-81 trying to imagine a utopian novel that would include all our progressive values. Home at last, we meet our dog sitter, Mary, as she is just finishing her last visit. Joli is happy to see us. Ah!