"Taking Credit Where Credit Isn't Due"

Anna: Dad, how come the hair on your chest is gray, but the hair on your head is brown?

Earl: They gave me a choice.

No they didn’t. It’s just what it is. I’m an old man with a head covered with (mostly) brown hair. I’ve been asked about this a surprising number of times. Invariably by men. Invariably in an unfriendly tone.

“Do you color your hair?” they insinuatingly inquire, hoping because they’re younger than me and they’re already gray that my answer will be, “I do. Every twenty minutes.”

I take no credit for my post-maturely brown hair. It’s nothing I had anything to do with. The thing is, in this culture, having not gray hair when people the same age (and younger) generally do have gray hair provides a certain type of distinction. We live in a youth-worshipping environment that views aging as a disease. Many men (and women) spend large sums of money for hair that looks the way mine happens to look naturally.

My good fortune in the hair department is not really all that helpful. I’m still seen as too old to work in television. And I don’t think I’m fooling God.

“Brown hair. Too young to kill.”

It is my apparently minority opinion that an older person trying to look younger always looks like an older person trying to look younger. There’s always a “giveaway.” You have youthful looking hair but a neck that hangs down to your belt. Of course, this negative perspective comes from a guy whose hair forgot to turn gray. I doubt if I’d dye it anyway. I’d be afraid it would rain, and some telltale brown stuff would come running down my forehead.

I’m using “hair” as a starting point. The real issue is the absurdity of people receiving (or taking) credit for things they had absolutely nothing to do with. They said about George Bush, the Dad:

“George woke up on third base, and thought that he’d hit a triple.”

That’s one part of it – winning the “family” lottery. I never cared for the children of the rich, and not because they had better stuff than me, though that didn’t help. Rich people’s children seem to walk around with this swaggering sense of entitlement (though it could just be good posture from riding lessons). These guys act like they actually accomplished something, when what totally made them was being born into a family that happened to have money. It’s not like the kids had a say in the matter.

“You want to be born to a rich family or a poor family?”

“Rich, please.”

That never happened. And even if it did, you shouldn’t get credit for the obvious answer. I mean, who’d go the other way?

“I’ll take ‘poor’.”

“Are you crazy?”

“I don’t know. I kinda like to scuffle.”

There’s no question, there’s no answer. You get what you get. And whatever it is has nothing to do with you.

A bigger issue. Because it takes in a larger group of people.

Being an American.

I’m not referring to immigrants here. Those people (including me) made a choice; the majority of Americans – I think they’re still the majority – didn’t. Their ancestors may have, but not them. Ignoring their accidentally good fortune, Americans seem puffed with a sense of superiority, dismissing the fact that they could very easily have been born somewhere else.

I don’t know how “being born” works. I don’t know if you line up and you get the next country on the list.

“African Congo.”

“Pass.”

“You can’t pass.”

And off you go. It may work that way, it may not. But the result is the same as if it did. You go where you go. Again, you have no say in the matter. Taking credit for your location of birth makes no more sense than taking credit for having been born into a rich family or having brown hair after you’re supposed to anymore.

These things have nothing

To do

With you.

Then there’s the big one.

Genetics.

Beautiful woman:

“You see these body parts? I grew them myself.”

No you didn’t.

A man of remarkable height:

“I willed myself tall.”

I don’t think you did.

A really smart person:

“I’m a brain!”

No, you were given a brain. It just happens to be a good one.”

I’ve written about this before. (“Nature and That’s It” – Feb. 18, 2009.) In my view, the overwhelming majority of our attributes (I actually said all our attributes, but my smart former sociology professor friend, Shelly, guffawed at me derisively), the attributes that define who we were wired into our programming before we were born. There’s no

“She taught herself to have an even temperament.”

“How?”

“Every time she got upset, she said, “That’s not how I’d like to be.”

It’s not our call. That stuff was decided before we got there.

There are so many things about us that are entirely out of our control. Yet we still take what, to me, is an odd and unjustified pride, in who we are. A woman, so spectacularly put together she makes otherwise reasonable men drive into a tree. As she calls for the paramedics, there’s a good chance she’s thinking,

“I’m really hot!”

You didn’t do anything!

“What are you mean? I made an otherwise reasonable man drive into a tree!”

Your body did that. You just happened to be occupying it at the time.

In the future, I want to go more deeply into what it means to be us. Who exactly is this “me” I keep talking about, and am so very, very proud of? I’m thinking that when you subtract the stuff we happen to be the passive recipients of – our family relationship, our country of origin, our genetic makeup, for starters – there may not actually be a whole lot of “me” left.

"It Happened Again"

When something happens once, it’s, like…so? But when the same thing happens again, something beyond the normal range of ordinary behavior, you have to stop and wonder,

“What’s going on?”

Building a case, as if one were needed, for Canadians’ consideration for others:

On my last trip to Toronto, I told the story of a smile-inducing exchange between myself and a thoughtful Canadian Customs Officer. I’m on the plane, reading some six hundred-page distraction, so I won’t look out the window and notice I’m in the sky. A flight attendant comes around, handing out Customs Forms for us to fill out and present to the authorities in when we arrive. I diligently complete my responsibilities, and as I notice the form says, “Do not bend”, I slip it between the pages of my book, to insure that the document will be perfectly flat.

We land in Toronto. I line up at Customs, my official form neatly nestled between pages 328 and 329 of my big book distraction. When my turn arrives, I find myself facing a well scrubbed, mid-twenties, female Canadian Customs Officer waiting to execute her duties.

I set my book down on the counter in front of her, my Customs Form secured between its pages. The officer reaches for my Customs Form, then abruptly stops, a look of concern playing across her face.

“Is that your bookmark?” she inquires, unwilling to remove the form until she had ascertained whether it also served another purpose.

(Contrast this – I can’t help myself – with the surly U.S. Customs Officer I once coughed in front of who gruffly barked, “Cover it!”)

Okay. Fast Forward:

My most recent visit to Toronto.

Anna and I share a room in the hotel. I wake up before her. To allow her to continue sleeping, rather than switching on the light, I take a pillow and my book, and sit on the floor by the window, so I can read by the streaming morning daylight. Anna eventually wakes up, I say, “Good morning”, and we start the day.

We return from our day’s activities, in the interim, the room has been cleaned up. My book in no longer by the window where I’d left it. I look around, finally discovering it, sitting on the night table beside my bed. I pick it up, and immediately notice that there, at the spot where I’d left off, in the form of a small square of paper torn from the hotel’s complimentary notepad, placed there by someone other than myself…

was a bookmark.

I’m telling you, these people are really nice.

"Appropriate Compensation"

I bought a book for my recent trip to Toronto to read on the airplane. I have specific requirements in an “airplane book.” The book has to be absorbing enough to make me forget that I’m reading it forty thousand feet in the air, but not be so good that, should we happen to crash, I would feel badly that I didn’t get to finish it.

The book I chose was John Grisham’s The Appeal. Grisham’s novels easily meet my “airplane book” requirements. Our local bookstore carries an entire shelf them. While trying to decide which “Grisham” to buy, I noticed something very strange. Every Grishman book I looked at had a quote emblazoned across the cover announcing that it was “Grisham’s best book in years.” I wondered where they kept the less successful Grisham books that he’d written in between.

I chose The Appeal because it’s Grishman’s most recent outing. Plus the cover quoted The New York Times proclaiming, “John Grisham delivers his savviest book in years.”

I also liked the book’s cover. It showed three “judges”, dressed in robes, walking away from the camera. This led me to wonder about the auditions behind such an undertaking.

“Bring me three models the backs of whose heads look like judges.”

That sounds like a pretty tough assignment.

I won’t say much about the book, except that the writing felt like it was written not on a computer but by a computer, and after 482 pages, we find out that the bad guys win. Oops, I gave away the ending. Saw-wy. Consider it a rescue. Do you really want to read a book where despoilers of local groundwater systems wind up lighting victory cigars? It’s unlikely you’ll be seeing The Appeal on the big screen. Though I’m generally anti “obligatory upbeat ending”, on this occasion, I am enthusiastically “pro.” I mean, what was Grisham thinking? These people were poisoning children!

“Those things actually happen.”

This is fiction! You can have any ending you want!

(Here, as a sidelight, is why I don’t “get” fiction. Page 306. “He estimated the cost of the Lawsuit Victims for Truth mailing at $300,000 (actual cost: $320,000).” What is he talking about? There is no “actual cost.” The whole story is made up!)

I’m making a turn here. A better writer would handle this transition more artfully. I’m just saying I’m making a turn.

The Appeal, not unlike Erin Brockovitch, involves a trial and, duh, an appeal, where a small town’s families have been seriously damaged, and in some cases killed, by corporate polluters. Let me place this clearly on the record. When it comes to corporate polluters seriously damaging and in some cases killing small town families or families of any sized community, I am unequivocally against it. That is a terrible thing for them to do.

However…

Here is my first concern.

If I made the laws, convicted corporate polluters who caused people to get sick and die, after paying the “actual damages” to the victims, should not pay any further, what they call, “punitive damages”, which they have ways of recovering, but should, instead, be thrown into jail, where fellow inmates, informed of their behavior, could sidle up to them in the yard and pummel them with lead pipes. Okay, maybe that’s too rough. My main point is: For punishment? Not “punitive damages.” Prison.

My second concern.

Where “punitive damages” go.

Right now, “punitive damages” are paid, along with “actual damages”, to the plaintiffs (and of course, to the plaintiffs’ lawyers, the standard split being, two thirds – to the plaintiff, one third – to the lawyers.) I understand the theory behind “punitive damages”. “Punitive damages” are an additional punishment meted out to evildoers over and above the “actual damages.” I agree with the theory of “punitive damages.” Evildoers should be additionally punished for their actions, although, as mentioned, I greatly prefer “punitive prison”, with or without the lead pipes.

What I don’t understand is why the “punitive damages” are given to the plaintiffs (and their lawyers). What is the reasoning behind their receiving the “punishment” money? Do policemen keep the money from the traffic tickets? No. That goes somewhere, maybe into some kind of a fund. Why can’t “punitive damages” go someplace too?

If people are truly outraged by the huge awards handed down by juries, instead of capping the amounts of those awards, why not pass a law requiring “actual damages” to go to the plaintiffs (and their lawyers) and have “punitive damages” go somewhere else? Like to help pay off the deficit, or to medical research, or to bankroll some other worthy enterprise. Unless there’s a persuasive explanation, I see no reason that “punitive damages” should go to the plaintiffs. (And their lawyers.) That side has already been compensated, hopefully fairly, by the “actual damages” award.

You can skip this next part if you’re not comfortable with dark humor. I’ll see you tomorrow.

I have never been able to understand the connection between not being alive anymore, due to negligent behavior, and a large sum of money being handed over to your family. I am baffled by the whole idea of “money for dead.” Leading to a computational industry, where experts assess precisely how much money the deceased person is worth. Does this enterprise really speak flatteringly of us as a people? What kind of culture puts a monetary determination on somebody’s value as a person?

In The Appeal I learned that dead children are worth less than working adults. The children weren’t earning any money, so there’s no “lost income” to factor into the payment. On the other hand, the experts seem to overlook the fact that children, being younger, have had a larger portion of their lives taken away from them. There’s no money being allotted for “curtailed lifespan.”

When you think about it, who can predict how much those children might have made? They could have grown up and become rock stars. Or one of those corporate CEO’s who ruined their company and was paid tens of millions to go away. You never know.

The rationales underlying compensation awards seem arbitrary and ridiculous. But say, somehow, it gets done. The amount is determined, the check goes out. Then what?

Your daughter dies from drinking poisoned water. Her parents get a million bucks. What are they going to do with it, buy a new daughter?

Dad always wanted a boat. He buys one with the award money. He proudly sails it around. People ask,

“What do you call her?”

He says,

“The Dead Daughter.”

He probably wouldn’t call her that. It might be too painful to name it after her at all. But whatever he does, he has to realize he’s sailing a dead daughter boat. What does that feel like?

“She’d want me to have it.”

Yuh.

The breadwinner dies, you need to have money. I get that. Someone’s permanently injured and requires lifetime medical care. Of course. But someone dies who was not contributing financially, and you get this huge pile of money. What exactly are you supposed to do with it? And what is its connection with the actual loss?

“We thought the money would make them feel better.”

“Are you kidding me?!”

“Well, what are you proposing instead?”

I don’t know. People need to be punished, and people need to be compensated. But the idea of assessing monetary value to a life, and that getting the payment somehow balances the books, and most importantly, that there’s any reasonable link between money and unimaginable emotional agony…
There’s something wrong there. It just doesn’t make sense.

"The Israel Bonds Debacle"

Two things bring this story to mind. One was the less that sunny reaction to my post concerning the late nineteenth century Polish rabbis who visited the area that would someday be Israel and reported back, “The bride is beautiful, but she’s married to another man.” The other was my recent visit to Toronto, where I saw my Mom, who now, due to advanced dementia, is only someone you can sit with and sing to. The connection brought back memories of happier times.

My mother once worked at the Toronto branch of the Israel Bonds office, arranging fundraisers and typing up a storm. It was the perfect job for her. Unlike myself, my mother was extremely social. And whatever job she had, it always involved typing. The woman used all the fingers. She was really good.

One year, after my college term had ended but camp had yet to begin, my mother got me a job helping out in her office. I can’t recall the entire range of my responsibilities.

But I vividly remember this.

On the day in question, I was in charge of a major mailing. I was handed a number of boxes filled with (in total) five hundred sealed envelopes, envelopes containing letters of solicitation saying something like, “Buy Israel Bonds”, or “Come to a party and buy Israel Bonds”, “Stay home and buy Israel Bonds” or “If you’re too cheap to buy Israel Bonds, plant a tree.” I don’t actually know what the letter said. I didn’t read it. My job was to get the envelopes stamped and out to the donors.

The office included a heavy standing-on-the-floor electric stamping machine. The way it worked was, you stacked up a pile of envelopes at one end of the machine, you pressed a button, the envelopes, one at a time, would go away somewhere, and when they reappeared at the other end of the machine, there was a metered stamp on each of them. Not that complicated.

There were things you needed to watch for. You had to make sure the envelopes didn’t go into the machine backwards; otherwise, the stamp would be printed on the back of the envelope instead of the front. The envelope also had to go in right-side up, so the stamp would appear at the top-right of the envelope and not at on the bottom-left. My job was to insure that those things didn’t happen.

Five hundred envelopes. The procedure would take time, because you could only stack maybe ten envelopes at a time on the “Insertion Tray.” (That may not be the technical name for it. I may be making that up.)

I begin the process, stacking my first pile of letters on the “Insertion Tray.” I press the “Start” button. One by one, the envelopes are sucked in and slip through the machine. I stand there watching. There is nothing else to do.

Except for this.

As the stamped envelopes start accumulating on the “Catch Tray”, it is also my job to occasionally remove some of them, so the stack of letters won’t pile up too high and start falling on the floor. So you see it was a two-part job. Maybe even a two-person job, though I was handling it alone. I had to prepare letters going in, and skim off the accumulating pile at the other end. An easy job? Maybe. But it was no piece of cake.

I make my first visit to the tail end of the machine. I scoop up the stamped envelopes, and begin arranging them in the box I had brought them in. That’s when I noticed the problem.

And it was big.

(The next part happened faster than I’m writing it. Read fast to simulate the rhythm, and imagine an exciting movie score in the background.)

I’m remembering nine cents as the price for mailing each of these letters. It may have been less. Charity mailings have special low rates. Let’s say it was nine cents. As I stack the already metered letters in the box, I notice the price of the stamp the machine had metered onto the envelopes. It was not nine cents.

It was two hundred and sixty-two dollars and eighty-five cents.

As I look on in horror, two more letters have passed through the machine, metered with stamps which were considerably higher than nine cents. I’m in absolute shock. I had obviously squandered an enormous amount of money. But also, I mean, how would you feel donating to a charity where the letter you receive asking for money has a two hundred and sixty-two dollar and eighty-five cent stamp on it?

“I was going to send fifty dollars. That’s not even a fifth of the stamp.”

Thinking quickly, though I’m not certain I had the right to use that phrase, I switched off the stamping machine, halting the continuous flow of letters. By then, twelve envelopes had gone through, all stamped at two hundred and sixty-two dollars and eighty-five cents. An alert employee might have checked to see what price the stamp meter was currently set at before beginning the stamping process. I didn’t do that. I assumed it was set at nine cents. It wasn’t.

Somebody before me had obviously mailed out a really big parcel. You could do that with that machine. That was the other way it worked. Besides sending envelopes through automatically, you could print up a gummed label at whatever price you wanted, and stick it onto the parcel. That’s apparently what the mailer before me had done. I suppose they could have switched the stamp setting back to nine cents after they finished. But they didn’t.

And the next guy didn’t check.

And so, twelve letters later, letters that should have cost…twelve times nine, which is…nine two’s are eighteen, carry the one, nine one’s are nine, plus one is ten…a dollar eight, instead cost, twelve times one twenty-six eighty-five, which is…I gotta get a calculator, I’ll be back….

Gulp

Three thousand one hundred and fifty-four dollars and twenty cents.

As Jon Lovitz exclaimed in A League Of Their Own: “That would be more, wouldn’t it?”

It could have been worse. If I’d let all five hundred of envelopes go through without noticing, I could have blown…

One hundred and thirty-one thousand four hundred and twenty-five dollars.

That's a considerable bite out of the Israeli defense budget.

I didn’t do that. My alertness had saved the Jewish Homeland one hundred and twenty-eight thousand two hundred and seventy dollars and eighty cents. Not bad. But, somehow, I still felt really stupid.

And ashamed.

The question now was, “What should I do?” Should I fess up and take my medicine? Or should I find some way of covering it up. Knowing what I’m made of, only one decision was possible.

I covered it up.

I went back to the machine and set the stamp meter for nine cents. I then printed up twelve nine-cent gummed labels, which I plastered on top of the transgressing two hundred and sixty-two eighty-five stamps, thus, literally, covering up my mistake. I put the other four hundred and eighty-eight letters through at nine cents.

And that was that.

For years, I have kept this story to myself. I suppose, visiting my mother, I could finally have confessed. But there’s this miraculous possibility she’ll start speaking again, and I couldn’t take the chance. I think she’d be really mad.

My visit seems to have compelled me to come clean. Now the secret’s between me and you.

I’m counting on your discretion.
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It was a wonderful trip. Relatives and friends were welcoming and warm. Thanks for having us, you guys.

Till we meet again.

"Telling Moments"

I’m ten years old. I’m sitting in Toronto’s minor league ballpark, Maple Leaf Stadium, at the bottom of Front Street. In those days, Toronto had a minor league baseball team with the same name as the city’s historic hockey team

The Leafs.

My friend as I have purchased front row Box Seats, directly over the (home team) third base dugout. A buck-fifty. A lot for a kid, but we splurged. It’s a special day.

The major league Milwaukee Braves have flown in for their annual exhibition game with their “Triple-A” affiliate, my beloved Maple Leafs. Such games are a longstanding tradition. Decades later, I would witness a similar exhibition between the “A”-ball South Bend Silver Hawks, of which I was then a part owner, and their parent organization, the recent World Champion Arizona Diamondbacks.

The games have a predictable progression. The big leaguers strut their stuff for a while. But by the fifth inning, the equipment manager is pitching, and the traveling secretary’s playing third base.

It was exciting watching the Diamondbacks playing the Silver Hawks. But not as exciting as when Milwaukee came to Toronto when I was ten.

We arrive early, uncrowned royalty, heading for our front row seats. The Braves are on the field, taking infield practice. Standing directly in front me the Milwaukee third baseman, the spectacular Eddie Matthews. During his career, Matthews would be a nine-time All-Star, hit 512 home runs, and upon retirement, be elected to Hall of Fame. The guy was a superstar. Up there with Mickey Mantle.

So what do I do? I immediately start razzin’ him. And his entire team. And I’m merciless. I mean, the things that came out of my ten-year-old mouth.

“You’re over the hill, Matthews. You can’t play anymore. Big shot major leaguers. Think you can beat up on us minor league nobodies. You’re in for a surprise, Big Boy. We’re gonna make you look silly. We’re gonna embarrass you bad.”

I had no idea where this is coming from. Am I that kid? With the mouth? I’m usually pretty quiet. But, you’re anonymous in a crowd, a few Cokes under your belt…swaggering Bigtimers facing minor leaguers playing in Canada. Though no one had asked me to, I felt my duty to take these visiting hotshots down a peg.

I keep at it for about twenty minutes, really rippin’ ‘em to shreds, especially Matthews.

And then it happens.

First baseman Joe Adcock, tosses an easy grounder to third. The ball goes through Matthews’ legs, continuing into foul territory, towards the third base dugout, stopping

Almost directly in front of me.

And there it sits.

An authentic, professional baseball. Totally unguarded. Maybe three feet away.

The next move is obvious. I jump over the wall, snatch up the baseball, and climb back into the stands, waving it aloft, like an enemy scalp.

I do not do that.

What do I do?

Nothing.

It’s a Moment for Truth. When you show what you’re made of. And I just sat there. Apparently, what I’m made of is Jell-o.

I don’t know, I was probably worried that if I ran onto the field, they’d throw me out. I’m a Good Boy. Good Boys don’t get ejected from ballparks. Good Boys stay in their seats. Even when the ball’s sitting there in front of them. Three feet away.

No. That wasn’t the reason I didn’t move. That’s just the cover-up reason. The real reason was I was scared. Scared of what? I’m not exactly sure. That people would boo me, that I’d pick up the ball and then not be able to climb back over the wall, I don’t know. I just knew this. Nothing bad would happen to me – aside from the lifelong shame and embarrassment – if I simply remained in my seat.

So that’s what I did.

Matthews lopes over to retrieve the ball. Passing me on his way back to his position, he looks me straight in the face and says, “What’s the matter?”

Oh, my God, it was a set-up! Eddie Matthews, enjoying my youthful taunting, had deliberately let Adcock’s practice toss go through his legs, allowing the ball to roll my way, so I could jump onto the field and pick it up. This wasn’t an accident. Matthews had done it for me.

And I just sat there.

There are times you wish you could do things over. This isn’t one of them. Why not? It would not cheer me to discover that if the situation were repeated

I’d do exactly the same thing.

"Some Early Wisdom"

Last year, I attended a UCLA Extension class on the origin of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. I learned a lot in that class. But this story in particular stayed in my mind.

When the Zionist movement was first getting started at the end of the nineteenth century, two Polish rabbis were sent off, to check out the place they hoped would someday become the Jewish homeland. After investigating the land that Zionists longed for but had never seen, the rabbis returned home and delivered their report.

“The bride is beautiful,” the rabbis told them, “but she’s married to another man.”

This is hardly the last word on the subject. But those early words, I think, are worth remembering.

"True, Whether You Like It Or Not"

Writers hate to believe this. But when something rings true, whether you like to believe it or not, it’s undeniable.

I’m working on Major Dad. Unlike other series I’d been involved in creating, this one looks like it’s going to run. I’m curious as to why that is. Which shows you the magical nature of success. If they’re honest about it, even those responsible are not fully certain as to how they pulled it off.

I put everything I had into Major Dad. Talent, time, enthusiasm and effort. But I do that with all my shows. I wondered, “What did I inadvertently do differently this time?” I really wanted to know. So I could do it on purpose the next time.

It turns out, it has nothing to do with that. Since, I’ve got a note to someday write a post on, “What Makes A Hit”, I’m reluctant to blow those dazzling insights right now. I’ll just make this one point, and then skedaddle.

Feeling uncharacteristically confident, I ventured musing about Major Dad’s success in front the show’s star, Gerald McRaney.

“Why do you think we’re doing so well?” I inquired. I wasn’t fishing for a compliment. I really wanted his opinion.

McRaney’s answer was simple and shatteringly on the money:

“They like the guy,” he replied.

A lesson in humility.

No matter how brilliant your script, no matter how skillfully you assemble the elements, if it’s a TV series, no matter how favorable the time period, it’s going no place

If they don’t like the guy.
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"He's doing shticklach. He's out of town."