Bradley and Vicente are two different individuals with two totally different entities of which they are proud. I don’t know Bradley at all, but I did casually know Vicente. So I made some assumptions about both, based on circumstantial evidence, which I admit, is always dangerous. But I’ve been dancing with the Grim Reaper since moving to Idaho 30 years ago as an environmental scientist and liberal Democrat. In Idaho, danger for my kind lurks on every corner, in the Capitol restrooms and behind every potato. In Bradley’s case I used a photograph to make my inferences, and in Vicente’s case, I used his English writing assignment. Bradley is probably a U.S. citizen, while Vicente is a citizen of Mexico wanting to become a U.S. citizen.  

Bradley: Proud of Being Selfish

A few hundred people demonstrated Friday against the coronavirus lockdown in Pennsylvania, an AFP reporter said, with many carrying signs declaring themselves “Selfish and proud”. (Agence France Presse, May 15, 2020)

Even though there have been hundreds of protests around the world since the Covid-19 invasion and the murder of George Floyd, this anti-lockdown rally caught my attention on the evening news because of what Bradley’s sign said. A few days later, around 4 a.m., the hour when brilliancy occasionally comes to me and fetid ideas overflow my brain like a clogged toilet, the low wattage light bulb in my brain lit up. Could Bradley could be expressing the sentiments of too many Americans who believe self-interest is of paramount importance and a desirable trait?

We lived in Alaska from 1981-1983. While there, I became friends with a man who had moved to Alaska just so he could build a runway and hangar for his aircraft, on his own property, without any restrictions. He succeeded. My friend was not a jerk or excessively greedy but simply single-minded; a selfish myopia.

Before moving to Alaska, I had read a book by Joe McGinness, Going to Extremes, about the year he spent in Alaska during the oil boom in the late 70s. He wrote about how so many Alaskans moved there because they wished to be totally free of governmental restrictions and do their own thing, like my friend. That attitude is not so much disrespect for others as it is simply not taking into consideration the possible negative impact of a personal action.

Now, 40 years later, we have come to this protest in Harrisburg where Bradley with his sign is inferring that his life is more important than the lives of others because lockdown procedures, even though proven to save lives, restrict his freedom of choice, whatever that may be. And in this case, his choice is not trivial but potentially deadly. Did Bradley follow the anti-lockdown practice through to a possible lethal ending because of him?  If he did, that still did not stop him.

Vicente: Proud of His Life

This photo of torture was taken somewhere in Latin America.

The Learning Lab (LL), here in Boise, is a literacy education center for low-income adults and families with young children, most of whom are refugees. Until Trump took office with his delightful immigration policies, schools like LL across the country flourished. LL had students represented from 50 countries not that long ago. I volunteered to teach students there, some who had witnessed unspeakable atrocities, not uncommonly to their families and before their very eyes. But, I found, as did other volunteers and staff, that many students talked openly about their horrendous backgrounds, and they never complained. They always came to class with huge smiles and seemed ecstatic to just be alive and in the greatest country on Earth. The class assignment below was written by Vicente, who I don’t believe had a tragic past. What follows is the result of one of Vicente’s writing assignments.

THIS IS MY LIFE.

FROM VICENTE.

Hi, this is Vicente, and I will talk about my life, In my poor opinion in think my life is great family , also I think my family are happy and this is very important for mi and I think for all father of family , My kids they are very good kids they have a good grades ,I love my wife she is a perfect women , mother and partner ,also I have a good job that make me happy because a do a lot of things this is one of the things of my life ,thank you so much for your patience.

Whriting for Vicente…

Conclusions

I know nothing about the backgrounds of any of the protesters at Harrisburg, PA. I can only speculate that all of them have the opportunity, but perhaps not the finances, to buy anything they want, drive anywhere they want, and have no fear of saying anything they want (unless, of course, they are a person of color). I also suspect they aren’t content because they feel the need to flaunt the fact that they are proud of being selfish, which says to me that they expect their wants and needs be fulfilled before those of others even if there’s insufficient for all. Greedy people never seem to be satisfied or happy. Sadly, we are a nation of too many greedy and spoiled people, taking our lives for granted and our every expectation to be met.

Bradley’s perspective on life is quite a contrast to how Vicente sees his new life in the U.S. I would bet Vicente expects very little, takes nothing for granted, demands nothing, and appreciates just about everything. In other words, Vicente is not greedy. He is happy to be alive and in what he believes is the greatest country on Earth. To him, America has opportunities to live a better life than he had in Mexico, but he still loves Mexico. I would never expect him to go to a protest such as the one in Harrisburg.  

So, who better represents the values and ideals for which America stands? Who is proud of America for the right reason(s)? Who would make a better neighbor? Does it matter? I think it does matter because it says a lot about how we see ourselves in an incredibly diverse and complicated nation. I believe that both Bradleys and Vicentes exist abundantly in America, so they both are true in that sense.

Obviously, to me, Vicente represents the ideals and values upon which this country was founded: humbleness, generosity, compassion and freedom from tyranny. Bradley is not only exercising his right to free speech; he is already practicing what he espouses. He would have to know, unless he is totally ignorant, what his myopic and greedy anti-lockdown position could lead to. He could potentially be guilty manslaughter, however unintentional that may be. The writers of the First Amendment certainly didn’t write the amendment with the idea that any action could accompany any speech. Speech alone is harmless, while actions may come with horrible consequences. That’s why we say that, “actions speak louder than words.”

Repeating what I said at the very beginning, Bradley and Vicente are two different individuals with two totally different entities of which they are proud. Bradley’s pride doesn’t extend past his nose. Totally inward – directed. Vicente’s pride is the exact antithesis: totally outward – directed. Extrapolating a little, Vicente is not only proud of his family, he is already proud of his neighborhood and his anticipated new country. When my wife and I lived in Mexico for four years with the Peace Corps, we repeatedly found loving, compassionate and giving Mexicans who would take the shirt off their back for you, even if it was their only shirt. I literally had that happen once when I spilled a bottle of salsa on my favorite Mexican shirt, after a tiny too much tequila. A little old lady ran to her house and returned with her backup T-shirt for me to temporarily wear, taking the dirty one with her to wash. I think all she really wanted was to gawk at my my 6-pak abs and rippling lats.

A nation of Bradleys would be a nation of selfish individualists who place their needs above that of community and country.  Bradley’s perspective only serves to push us further down the road of societal polarization, which is exactly what we don’t need in this time of multiple global crises and exactly what our current president wants to Make America Great Again—MAGA. A monoculture. His is a totally unrealistic and unwanted nightmare, not totally unlike Hitler’s was. A country of robots which is what he “owns” now in his base. How else can one explain it? Lobotomies aren’t cheap on the black market.

While Trump thrives on a polarized country because he believes that “to divide is to conquer” and he desperately wants to be the conqueror. In contrast, Abraham Lincoln was worried about a national schism when he delivered his famous 1858 House Divided Speech where he said, “A house divided against itself cannot stand.” More Bradleys and fewer Vicentes would mean exactly that: a strengthened inequality. One would think that a mix of both types would be good, but I don’t think so. That assumes that the deck would not be stacked, when, in fact, it is. The Bradleys would come to the table with money and power and with a desire to win even if it means lying and cheating. The Vicentes would come with only their humble selves. Isn’t that what we have now? An entire field of migrant workers, invisible against the shadow of one Republican Texan billionaire, and aspiring against overwhelming odds. Currently, America is a faltering democracy. I like to believe it isn’t a 737-Max on final descent. Hope springs eternal. The protests today are good, regardless the flavor, only if they lead to real change. And that change won’t happen if all we do is reshuffle the stacked deck and continue, business-as-usual (BAU). When the dust has settled from both Covid-19 and our racism, if we return to BAU, we should update the definition of insanity and reconsider our dreams of ever becoming a true democracy. Maybe we never were one but that makes our goal all the more desirable; it will be a new experience.

I published Going to México in 2017 after returning from serving almost 4 years (2007-2011) with my in the Peace Corps Mexico program. The book contains ten short stories about experiences we had during those years, mostly humorous, some poignant. The story in the previous post, Papá Ricardo, was taken from the book.

I believe the book evokes reasons why so many people love México and why living there changed our lives forever. In the introduction I wrote, “I remember very vividly one night walking to downtown Querétaro and my wife, Sonya, saying, ‘We probably will never have life this good again.’ And even though I had been working all day in a small village and was beat, I could only agree with her. And I still do.”

Going to México can be purchased as a paperback ($14.99), or Kindle version ($6.99) through Amazon books.

(November 16, 1942 – April 27, 2010)

“Si, Mi Vida, Lo Que Tu Digas”

Since I’m not going to be here on Fathers Day,tomorrow, and I really have nothing written about my biological father, I am going to include one of the stories from my book, “Going to Mexico,” about our Peace Corps host family “father.” In the Peace Corps, all volunteers need to stay with a host family for 3 months. The Lepe-Zepeda family, in Queretaro where we did our service, was our host family and we came to love them as kin.

Papá Ricardo and Me

After a few tequilas, with a straight face, he asked me who I thought had the last word in a Mexican matrimonial argument: the husband or the wife. Knowing that most Mexican families are strongly matriarchal, I answered that most likely it was the wife. “No,” said Ricardo, “the Mexican husband ALWAYS has the final word.” “And what is that?” I asked. “Si, mi vida, lo que tu digas,” he said with a rumbling chuckle. “Yes, my love, whatever you say.”

In what remains of this short portrait, I want to continue to share some aspects of Ricardo Lepe’s personality, which was dominated by humor. Having said that, I find it extremely difficult to sketch a funny human being with words and photos; humor has everything to do with nuances which can only be captured live or on video. Regardless the short comings of this portrayal, Ricardo left a huge impression on me. Ricardo celebrated his 67^th birthday on November 16, 2009, in true Mexican fashion: a small fiesta with family, friends, a trio of guitar players and a very local famous singer—his lifetime companion, Maria Zepeda. Maria’s singing began as passable, but improved with each caballito of tequila, the traditional super shot. A caballito of tequila is frequently drunk the macho way by both men and women—neat and quick.

Even though Ricardo was only three months my senior, he was “Papá” to me. This stemmed largely from the fact that as part of the first three months of Peace Corps training, the Lepe Zepedas became our Mexican family. We lived with them, and Maria and Ricardo became our Mexican mamá and papá, their adult children, our siblings.

Ricardo was a great teacher of Mexican culture over the 2 1/2 years we knew him. He especially taught us about Mexican humor, all by example. He was a virtuoso in a culture that placed a very high premium on comic relief. Mexicans seem addicted to fun, and humor is a huge component of that. Everyone knew, remembered and told jokes of all types. The most painful to listen to for non-Spanish speakers were the shaggy dog stories that went on FOREVER, and were rarely, if ever, funny—at least to us English speakers. When the punch line was mercifully delivered, you would be the only person standing, mouth agape, usually because you didn’t know that it was the punch line while everyone else would be doubled over in convulsions of laughter.

Ricardo’s humor may, in part, have been due to his hangdog, Rodney Dangerfield deadpan expression. He was modestly overweight and even looked somewhat like Dangerfield. This tended to give me a warm, confident feeling when I was around him. It made me wish at times he’d pull me in and smother me in his bear-like embrace.

Prior to our arrival in México, the Peace Corps had arranged for all volunteers to live with a host family for three months. We were all nervous about where and with whom we would be living. We met our hosts, Papá Ricardo and Mamá Maria with some anxiety, on our second day in México, in the lobby of the Peace Corps office. Host families were there to meet their volunteers and escort them to their new homes. Ricardo grabbed our bags and began lugging them to his little car. Somewhere in that process, they both gave us huge welcoming hugs. Maria almost immediately told Sonya in the back seat during the short drive to their and our new home, “We love you.” Sonya was a little taken aback, but she instinctually knew that Maria meant it. Their home was on Alcatraz Street. Alcatraz, of course, is a famous prison in the United States, but in Spanish, paradoxically, it is a flower, a calla lily.

That first evening, we sat in their living room, and Ricardo and Maria introduced us to themselves as well as to ponche. Ponche is a traditional, homemade Mexican Christmas punch made with brandy and various fruits, including apples, oranges, guavas, and tejocotes (apple-pear combo), and brown sugar or pilloncillo, and cinnamon. But Ricardo also made his own special pomegranate and tequila concoction, which we liberally sampled. It was then that we became acutely aware of Ricardo’s excellent sense of humor.

After a few glasses of ponche and Ricardo’s home brew, we were feeling like we’d known each other for years despite the language barrier. We wandered downtown for an introduction to Querétaro’s night life. Even though it has been a decade since that first day with the Lepe Zepeda family, my recollection of it is crystal clear and not lacking considerable emotion.

With our three months of training completed, we needed to move out of the Lepe Zepeda’s home into more permanent quarters. It would have been a very sad day indeed had it not been for the fact that we moved just around the corner to Magnolias Street, only five minutes walk away. We got to see our adopted family regularly. Ricardo continued to be my favorite and most colorful Mexican friend.

Jokes, particularly doble sentidos (two interpretations), are a Mexican obsession. You cannot really appreciate the Mexican office environment or a fiesta without being able to tell and enjoy jokes, especially doble sentidos. When I attempted to retell a Mexican joke or the rare one of our own that I remembered or at least remembered everything except the most important part, the punchline, Mexicans were always polite and pretended to enjoy it, usually with a soft chuckle. Most of the time they were clueless as to the meaning, which was more likely due to my weak joke-telling and language skills. Sonya was better at both, so I functioned best as her laugh track, especially if her joke looked like it was going to flop.

Of all the jokes Ricardo told me, two stand out in my mind, and I actually remember their most critical details. Most likely due to Ricardo’s skill, these two jokes never failed to make us laugh each time we begged him to retell them. Both are about abused—or allegedly abused—husbands, a common theme in Mexican jokes. One is the story of a baseball catcher, Carlos, who habitually returned home drunk after games and continually got smacked across the head by his wife, Margarita, who kept a bat by the door for just such occasions. Carlos never got through the door if he was drunk—regardless whether the team had won or lost. Finally after one night when he had taken an exceptionally bad beating, one of his teammates recommended, “Carlos, why don’t you go back to the locker room and get your catcher’s mask and wear it home for protection tonight?” Carlos thought that was a great idea, so he did just that. When his wife came to the door, she looked at him weaving around on the stoop with his mask on and screamed, “Foul ball!” Up flew Carlos’s mask and “smack” went Margarita’s bat.

The second joke is about José, a jobless guy whose wife, Lupita, wants a divorce because José doesn’t do anything around the house except sit, watch TV and drink beer, with the family cat and dog snoozing on either side of his feet. He realizes he needs to see his priest to avert the divorce. After hearing his story, the priest says, “Well, José, why don’t you do some jobs around the house if you really want to save your marriage? You don’t work and your wife does.” José responds, “I can’t. I can’t even get up from my Lazy Boy recliner.” “What do you mean?” says the priest, “you’re not an invalid.” José counters, “Well, let me explain. In my left hand I have the remote, in my right hand the beer bottle, with my left foot I’m scratching the cat, and with my right foot the dog.” Apparently, neither man in either story tried, “Si, mi vida, lo que tu digas.”

Ricardo had a fascination for Sponge Bob, the bizarre children’s cartoon character, watching it with his grandchildren or even alone. I never saw it, but he did talk about Bob frequently. His pronunciation of “Spongay Boob” brings a smile to my face even now. I can still hear him, in his gravelly bass voice, telling me about Bob’s latest absurd antics.

Five months following his birthday fiesta, Papá Ricardo was dead of cancer. Maria invited us to visit Ricardo a week before his death, and he was still telling jokes, albeit in a more subdued voice, from his bottomless fountain of humor. I will always miss him, not just for his comedic nature, but for the truly wonderful, loving and generous person he was. He and Maria, and their eldest son, Beto, who lived with his parents at the time, Beto’s brothers and sons, accepted Sonya and me as members of their family from that very first moment we left the Peace Corps headquarters and drove home in their car.

At his wake, Sonya and I were surprised not only that it was held the very same day of his death, but to discover that very few people, if any, appeared to be grieving. In fact, most were even laughing and telling Ricardo stories, virtually none of which I understood. Consistent withthe Dia de los Muertos (Day of the Dead) celebration and Mexican philosophy, the wake revealed the striking difference between the way we Americans and the Mexicans view death. To Mexicans—predominantly Catholic—death is intended to be a celebration of life on earth, but perhaps more importantly, a better life ahead in heaven. That isn’t to say there wasn’t sadness and grieving; there definitely was at the somber mass held later for Ricardo, but even then the music theme was rock.

In consideration of death, of all the holidays and fiestas that Mexicans celebrate, the one that impresses me the most is Dia de los Muertos, held the two days following Halloween, November 1-2. I doubt we will ever celebrate in our country the demise of our loved ones by dancing, eating and drinking on their graves—and telling jokes. It is in no way macabre, but rather a very healthy way to keep deceased loved ones still in the minds and discussions of the living. As far as Ricardo is concerned, I will continue to celebrate his life by telling his story, and, however poorly, frequently trying to tell his jokes—if I don’t forget the punch lines.

I went to see my dentist the other day, a devout Mormon and normally a very funny guy and I took the opportunity to ask him how Mormons feel about Trump. He pulled back his mask and got too close to my face and shouted, “I really don’t know about the majority of other Mormons, but do you want to hear what I think, Dave?” “Sure,” I said, knowing that I had made a terrible mistake. “I love the guy. And do you know why, Dave? I don’t like his tweets, but HE TELLS IT LIKE IT IS!!” He practically screamed the last part. He went on to add, “He is beholden to no one but himself, his supporters and the America he loves. Unlike all the other cowardly political robots, from Romney to Obama, he is his own man.” Fortunately, at that point, they called him from another cubicle, so I grabbed my free soft toothbrush and dental floss and fled.

If you have heard this once from a Trump diehard, you have heard it a million times. That perspective is so obviously contradictory, mindless, fallacious and defenseless, it is pathetic. The Washington Post (1/20/2020) found that within his first 3 years, Trump told 16,241 lies, while the New York Times (12/14/2017) found that in 8 years, Obama told 18, most unintentional and later corrected. In any given work hour, Trump told 2.6 lies while Obama told .001. Trump told 2,600 times as many lies as Obama. Trump supporters will scream that both the Times and the Post are liberal newspapers but I seriously doubt that either world class newspapers would jeopardize their reputations by printing front page lies about lies. Many of Trump’s alleged accomplishments are documented falsehoods perpetrated by himself, his kennel of lapdogs, and Sean Hannity. If your boss told 21 major lies every day about the financial and physical state of the company, wouldn’t you be a little queasy about job security? Would he make a good leader of the free world? In reality, Trump is telling it like it isn’t, rather than like it is.

It is true that I am very proud of a small mountain named in my honor in Antarctica. Trust me, I did not do anything heroic such as saving a group of Emperor penguin mountaineers who had fallen into a crevasse to earn the honor. One major purpose of this blog is way more than a story of an unimpressive black pimple currently sitting amidst a sea of ice, at 1,800 ft. (550 m.) above sea level, and not much above the surrounding ice sheet. The fact of the matter is that it’s still there and will always be there long after the surrounding ice field is gone. I joke that as it becomes more prominent, an old Antarctic friend’s glacier is disappearing. Greegor Peak is a deeply personal testament to climate change and all the global and personal changes that are going to occur over the coming years.

The little mountain is in the Ford Ranges of Marie Byrd Land in West Antarctica. Marie Byrd Land was named after Marie Byrd, the wife of the great Antarctic explorer, Admiral Richard Byrd. It is west of McMurdo Station 711 mi, the main U.S. Antarctic Research Program (USARP) base of operations. Direct from Boise, Idaho, where I live, to Greegor Peak, is 8,241 mi. The West Antarctic Ice Sheet is of tremendous concern due to its abnormally high rate of melting, especially the Thwaites Glacier, also called Doomsday Glacier because of its potential to raise sea level. It is not far from Greegor Peak.

Thwaites Glacier

Following is the description of Greegor Peak from the internet:

Greegor Peak (76°53′S 145°14′WCoordinates: 76°53′S 145°14′W) is a peak 550 metres (1,800 ft) high 3 nautical miles (6 km) west-southwest of the summit of Mount Passel in the Denfeld Mountains of the Ford Ranges, in Marie Byrd Land, Antarctica. It was mapped by the United States Antarctic Service (1939–41) and by the United States Geological Survey from surveys and U.S. Navy air photos (1959–65). It was named by the Advisory Committee on Antarctic Names for David H. Greegor, a biologist with the United States Antarctic Research Program Marie Byrd Land Survey II, 1967–68.^[1]

I had been in Antarctica during the Antarctic summer, from December 17, 1967 to February 22, 1968.  I was there as a graduate student from Ohio State University, helping a botanist from OSU, Dr.Derry Koob, collect non-vascular plants (mosses, lichens, algae). I had just finished an MS in paleoecology from OSU as a graduate student of Dr. Paul Colinvaux, renown paleoecologist, and I was free before going to University of Arizona in the fall of 1968 for my doctorate.

Over three years later, I received the following letter from the National Science Foundation dated April 30, 1971, making the name, Greegor Peak, official.

NSF Letter of Confirmation

The story of Antarctica and Greegor Peak is an example in a long list of experiences of my life, from one amazing adventure to the next, many of those serendipitous or coincidental, or “right place, right time,” literally almost from birth to the present. During those 77 years, I came close to death twice that I can remember. From these personal stories, some already written eventually will be collated into an short autobiography which I’ve been working on since January 24, 1943. It will be published as a book, similar to “Going to Mexico,” the number 1 bestseller somewhere, still flying of the shelves and swan diving into the trash, is still available for a limited time only on Amazon. Meanwhile, as I write them, I will post excerpts from the stories on Greegor sPeak.

The next Greegor sPeak entry will explain why and how this honor came about in 1971, and a couple of my more memorable stories, mostly humorous stories, from those 2 months on the ice. 

USARP Official Seal and Antarctic Service Medal