At the Therapist

“How has the week gone?”

“I don’t know. . . . not going well. . . I’ve been quite anxious. . . can’t get ahead. . . seems to know and is taking the opportunity to be more of a . . .over and over.”

“Are you ready to move on? What happened with. . .?”

“That went well I guess. I mean, I think it’s better, and it’s more . . . and different but I’d have to . .  and yeah, there is really nothing holding me . . , but I just feel so stuck. I’m not sleeping and I keep having that dream. I wake up sweating and can’t get back to sleep.”

“Tell me about this dream.”

“I don’t really remember it, I’m in a hallway, or a staircase, I don’t remember. I just get so anxious.”

“Would you be willing to try a little hypnosis. It might help you remember.”

“OK?. . . I mean, I guess. . .You think it means something? I keep having it. . . sure, I guess. . .”

“Let’s try. Sit up. Feet flat on the floor. Close your eyes. Breathe deeply. . . just listen to my voice. . . you are feeling a little drowsy. . . eyelids heavy. . . count backwards from 30. . .29. . . 28. . . hear nothing but the sound of my voice. . . imagine you are sleeping. . . . Are you sleeping?

“Yes”

“Good I want you to enter that dream you keep having. . . nothing in it can hurt you. . . it will be just like going to the movies. . . Are you in the dream now? Nod you head. . . Good tell me about it.”

“I’m walking down a long corridor. . . the walls are stone. . . it looks like a castle or something. . . it’s damp. . .I keep walking. . . I think I’m supposed to. . . I’m going around curves in the corridor. . . I can’t see what’s ahead. . . I have to keep moving. . . There’s something behind me.”

“Turn around and look behind you. What do you see?”

“Nothing. . . . just darkness. . . I have to keep moving. . .  faster . . . there’s a staircase, a stone staircase. . . it’s old. . .  it doesn’t look safe. . . there’s no hand rail. . . “

“Go up the staircase.”

“Going up. . .  there’s another hallway. . .  and another stone staircase . . .  running now. . . I stumble on the stairs . . . hurt my hand or maybe my knee. . . there’s a door. . .   there’s light behind it. . . I push on the door, but it won’t move. . . pushing harder. .  I throw my body against the door, but it won’t move. . . my shoulder hurts. . . I’m beating on the door. . I keep pushing . . . it won’t open. . . open! . . .  why won’t it open?. . . Why? OPEN!”

“Stop a minute and breathe. . . this is like the movies. . .  nothing here can hurt you. . . step back a little. . . tell me about this door.”

“it’s brown, wood, I guess, old. . . I push,  why won’t it open. . .“

“Step back a little more back down the stairs. . . can you se the whole door now/”

“Yes.”

“Describe the door.”

“It’s dark brown wood. . . worn. . . round at the top. . . paneled. . .

“Is there anything on the door?’

“I think so. . . yeah. .  .there’s a plaque on the crosspiece . . .old and very faded. . .”

“Can you read the plaque?”

“Well maybe. . .  if I get down on my knees. . . Yeah. . . it’s definitely a word. . . “

“What does it say. . . “

It’s faint. . .  hard to read. . . it says. . .  PULL.”

What dreams may come

In dreams our subconscious sometimes reflects our anxiety. I have the “unprepared dream” a lot. You know the one I mean. I’m taking a test I didn’t study for, I’m in an unknown play where I haven’t learned the lines or I’m presenting on a subject I know nothing about. That’s an imposter syndrome dream, a reflection of my insecurity. . . where I am anxious about doing something for which I think I’m unqualified or unprepared.

I don’t have the test dream much anymore. I guess I graduated and the curtain fell on my acting “career” fifty years ago, so those dreams are less frequent. But I retired six years ago and I’m still having unprepared work dreams. I’ve trained myself to wake, tell myself I’m “good enough” and figure out what, if anything, I might need to prepare.

Sometimes our dreams give us a message. Early in my consulting career, I was managing multiple projects, traveling internationally, and working more than a hundred hours per week. I had a recurring dream that I was trying to get over a hill on a skateboard where the wheels kept falling off.

An old friend told me “Fritz Perls, the German Gestalt psychiatrist, said we are all characters in our dream.”  Andre encouraged me to “play the hill, me, and the skateboard.” It turned out that I was abusing the skateboard (my body?) and I slowed down and asked for help at work and ended up being more productive.

The dream in the shaggy dog story above is like that. How can you step back and realize where you are your own obstacle. That isn’t to say that genuine obstacles don’t exist, but it is still useful to ask:

What is my part of this problem? How am I getting in my own way? Does my persistence inhibit me?

When you feel like you are “beating your head against a brick wall,” step back, or rise up. Can you go around the wall or over the wall, rather than through it.

Maynard and me

Maynard G. Krebs, pictured above, was the sidekick character in The Many Loves of Doby Gillis, the 1959-63 CBS TV series. Dwayne Hickman starred in the title role, and Bob Denver, later of Gilligan’s Island fame, played Dobie’s eccentric friend, Maynard. The character was created for TV and wasn’t in the Max Schulman books the series was based upon. Maynard wore a scruffy goatee, a stretched out gray sweatshirt, dirty low cut white Converse sneakers, and jeans.

Maynard was the show’s Shakespearian fool. Dobie created elaborate schemes trying to get some girl to notice him, and Maynard would say “Why don’t you just ask her out?” Dobie would ignore that advice and laugh track hilarity followed.

In one of the show’s repeated bits, whenever Maynard heard the word “work,”  his eyes would bug out, and he would say in Bob Denver’s squeaky high voice “Work?” and then attempt to make himself scarce. Dobie would talk him down from his anti-work panic and the show would go on.

If you google Maynard G. Kreps, he is referred to as “America’s first hipster.” He wasn’t a hipster; he was a Beatnik. San Francisco Chronical  writer Herb Caen coined this term for the Beat Generation Jack Kerouac, Allen Ginsberg, and William Burroughs, etc. Beatniks rejected consumerist capitalism, loved off-beat poetry, bebop and jazz. Caen added the Russian “nik” to mock their leftist views and characterized the beats as shiftless and lazy.

I loved Maynard. I was twelve and desperately trying to hold onto my boyhood. I hated school homework. I rebelled at household chores. My father despaired that I would ever learn to work. He found me jobs mowing neighbors lawns, and caddying for him and his golf buddies. I was a fan of Maynard, but not a fan of work. I wanted to play.

I did eventually learn to work. The first job I found for myself, soda jerk at Howard Johnsons, taught me who you worked with could make any job seem like play. Then I discovered acting and worked hard in a play. Eventually, I found myself in consulting, working 100 hour weeks and feeling my work had “purpose.”

But I always had a love-hate relationship with work. When I wanted to annoy my boss I‘d say:

“I figured out what I don’t like about my job.”

“Oh, really, what?”

“Workin’!”

Classic Maynard.

Noahpinion: Yes, we still have to work

A friend recently introduced me to Noah Smith’s blog Noahpinion. Noah calls himself an economic blogger, but don’t let the econ-bit put you off; his smart writing might start with economics, but veers into public policy, and philosophy, all in a fun, easy to read style. Noah’s recent post Yes, we still have to work, starts with some news about an experiment with Universal Basic Income (UBI), which found that even at $1000 a month 2% of workers in the study stopped working.  He posits that “a welfare program that causes a significant number of people to stop working entirely is unlikely to pass any reasonable cost-benefit analysis.”

Along the way Noah examines the same trope that produced the Maynard G. Krebs character, “kids today are lazy.” He rejects this idea with data, but this idea floats around a lot. Are GenZ  and Millennials “lazy?” Do they want the “whole world just handed to them?” I’m tempted to agree until I remember this is exactly what the Greatest Generation said about Baby Boomers and so I am inclined to believe that this is just something the Old say about the Young.

Smith debunks David Graeber’s Bullshit Jobs that says certain jobs are useless, noting that work satisfaction is rising. Noah presents valuable jobs lost (like economic bloggers) in an argument credited in a footnote to Douglas Adams’ The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy. Here’s the original:

“These tales of impending doom allowed the Golgafrinchans to rid themselves of an entire useless third of their population. The story was that they would build three Ark ships. Into the A ship would go all the leaders, scientists and other high achievers. The C ship would contain all the people who made things and did things, and the B Ark would hold everyone else, such as hairdressers and telephone sanitisers. They sent the B ship off first, but of course, the other two-thirds of the population stayed on the planet and lived full, rich and happy lives until they were all wiped out by a virulent disease contracted from a dirty telephone.”

(Who says the Internet isn’t amazing? Imagine digging out my copy of HGttG to find this?)

Noah ultimately concludes that UBI is unlikely to be good public policy.

“Human labor is still incredibly valuable, and figuring out how to make human workers more capable is still how most value is created. And for that reason, we should focus policy on rewarding human labor more, and be wary of economic philosophies that claim that most human beings would be better off as glorified pets.”

His post rejects a no-human-work I Robot world and promotes the “a job is dignity” argument that Joe Biden’s father instilled in him. I have been unemployed and don’t remember it as joyful, but I’m still Maynard enough not to buy the absolute sanctity of work.

I do believe in work choice  ̶  not surprising for someone who was self-employed for 23 years. We all work for ourselves. If we choose to sell our labor to “the Man,” we ought to recognize the trade-off.

Some have the luck and luxury of finding purpose in work. Several times during my consulting career, alignment between work and purpose made work seem like play. The “I can’t believe they pay me to do this” euphoria was caused by important work, good people to work with, and achieving results for a grateful client. Those conditions didn’t always exist, but did more often than one might think.

I also got paid more as I rose. I liked that. Pearl Bailey said “Honey, I’ve been rich and I’ve been poor, and I can tell you rich is better.”

What part of retired didn’t you understand?

I never made rich.  I did stop asking for a “debt-free existence” every birthday. I got to retire, after waiting till seventy to take Social Security,  and downsizing from a house to a condo. I am grateful. I have friends my age who are still working, unenthusiastically.

I also have friends who can’t imagine why anyone would retire. Some offer me project work and are shocked when I turn it down.

“What part of retired didn’t you understand?”

“What do you do every day?”

“I write. . . a lot.”

Billie says ‘You’re still working; you’re just not getting paid for it.”

She’s right.

 

“Work?”

“I seek dead people”

My wife is an amateur genealogist. She spends her retirement researching her extended, extended family. She is a detail person, a puzzler, a rigorous researcher, and a writer. She uses all her skills pursuing records of her long dead relatives.

Giving gifts to support her passion is a challenge. I’ve considered books, but it’s like buying Sculpture for Dummies for Michaelangelo. I’ve settled on tee shirts and coffee mugs with dumb genealogy jokes, which, like telling consultant jokes to consultants, must get old.

Genealogy is history taken personally

Billie’s favorite TV show is Dr. Henry Gates’ Finding Your Roots on PBS. I sometimes join her watching celebrities reactions to unknown family stories. Children of immigrants learn their ancestors sacrifices; descendants of slaves, understand their horrific past in a visceral way.  Family stories touch us deeply.

At dinner, Billie sometimes overflows with a story:

“I can’t believe what this woman went through. In a twelve year period, she lost six children and had four who lived. Then her husband died. She married his brother and then two of their children died. Then they moved from Pennsylvania to Iowa. It was the early 1800s. Did they pack a wagon or walk?”

Or she’ll be frustrated with a puzzle she can’t work out:

“There’s no record of a Robert being born. He doesn’t show up in the 1850 census. He is nowhere in marriage records, but here’s his grave, death date 1864.”

Later, when she solves the mystery, she is like a six-year-old girl in a princess dress. “You won’t believe this. . . “

Side benefits for me

Billie did some research for my family reunion. I was amazed. For example, I’d thought both sides of my family immigrated in the late nineteen century. My mother’s and my father’s family actually arrived in the mid-1700s. I was hooked, not Billie-level, but intrigued.

She bought me an Ancestry.com membership and two DNA tests; I learned more. My mother’s grandfather was in the Confederate Army. My father’s grandfather and his brother, mustered into the Union Army of Indiana on the same day. These Blues and Grays were in different battles, but if either hadn’t survived I wouldn’t be here.

My DNA tests show 1% Cherokee DNA and a little snooping on Ancestry found that my great, great grandmother was the daughter of Chief Thomas and a white woman. Chief Thomas survived the “Trail of Tears” and died in Oklahoma.

My father’s family always steadfastly maintained they were English, but they were from west of the Rhine river, at various times German, French or Swiss land. I also have 3% Ashkenazi Jewish DNA, probably from that line, but I am unsure where. . . yet.

My paternal great, great, great, grandfather moved his family twelve miles from Hagerstown, Maryland to Franklin County Pennsylvania. Before then my last name was spelled variously Koller, Köller, Kohler. After the move it was spelled Culler.

Family stories

There is family lore that my father’s family were Huguenots, French Protestants, persecuted in their local area. Perhaps they were followers of John Calvin unwelcome in Catholic Alsace, Northwest Switzerland, or the Rhineland. Or was the persecution in Hagerstown, a German Catholic area, before they moved to the English dominated Pennsylvania? Or both?

Perhaps the most famous story I know of tracking ancestry from family lore is Alex Haley’s Pulitzer Prize winning book Roots: The Saga of an American Family (1976).  Haley, a writer  (The Biography of Malcolm X) and screenwriter (Superfly),  heard stories about his ancestor, young Kunta Kinte captured next to a kuambe belongo (river), brought to Maryland and sold as a slave. Haley used family stories, language and cultural traditions to track his family history long before Ancestry.com and Family Tree DNA. The Roots television miniseries opened Americans eyes to the horrors of slavery and the importance of oral tradition.

“I finally found you, you old African!” he exclaims in the final scene. Haley travelled to Gambia and found a shaman who had memorized members of the tribe. Before written language this is how genealogy, and all history, was recorded. Now we depend on family bibles, government records, family lore and maybe one genealogy “nut.”

Family records

Billie is her family’s generation recorder. She writes histories and distributes them to relatives who express gratitude, but rarely read them. It is an endless, thankless task.

I gave her a tee shirt:

“My work is done. I found everyone in my family tree and all my records are documented,    (said no genealogist ever).”

Occasionally, she vents about the sloppiness of some of her fellow researchers.

“How is it possible to record a person as the mother of another person, when the birth certificate shows she was born after her supposed child?.”

You can guess who manages our home records.

Learning from our history

How has genealogy enlightened me?

I was surprised that my father’s stories collapsed generations. The “four Culler brothers who immigrated to America and moved to Indianna” were four generations from the immigrants.

I asked Billie what she had learned. She replied, “that I am a grand amalgam of many people, who all lived lives while the history we read about – the founding of the country, the Civil War, the Depression – was happening around them. I am, we all are, a combination of all those people.”

“And yet,” I said, “we are each unique. We all get a slice of available DNA so my sister’s reflects my father’s side and I favor my mother’s Scots-Irish.

My family history, includes people who stayed in one place and those who moved families hundreds of miles in buckboards. There are families who prospered, and some who lost everything. There are stories of heartache and resilience. And, as Billie said, I’m connected to all of them.

Billie and I each discovered an ancestor family living in William Penn’s Philadelphia who may have been friends, a previously unknown connection between us. Perhaps if everyone studied genealogy we’d know we are all connected more than we imagine – each a unique leaf in the family tree of humankind.

The trail began in a yellow green wood.

“Don’t get your feet wet!” My mother admonished as I leaped across a trickle-stream not bothering with the log bridge.

Was I six? Seven? I’m pretty sure it was before Cub Scouts and that was eight. The leaves had just started to turn, so before my October birthday- September? Carolyn wasn’t there, but Connie was. My sisters are eleven and six years older than me. Caorlyn, later called Lynne was too grown up to be much of a part of my boyhood, except for the dog she bought me when I turned nine, without asking my parents. Connie regressed to be my first playmate, but that didn’t last when she became a teenager, so definitely not eight yet. Maybe five going on six? Probably six going on seven.

Mount Monadnock was less than an hour’s drive from our home. It is in Jaffrey in southern New Hampshire. We went on a family adventure driving in the old gray Willys. Connie and I counted pastured cows as we looked out half-rolled-down windows on our own side of the backseat. “Oh there’s a cemetery; you lost all your cows.” Connie gloated. “That’s NOT fair!” I pouted sticking out my lower lip, which made her laugh and improved my mood.

All the cemeteries were on my side of the car going, but her side coming home. “Why can’t we go a different way? She half-whined and Mama and Daddy laughed. “Fair’s fair”

I ran into the woods despite being warned to stay with the family. Connie caught me up. “Don’t make Daddy mad, kiddo. Besides, it’s a long walk- you need to take your time.”

“Alan, come over here and look at this. That’s a lady slipper. No, don’t pick it. You need to let it be so it’ll come up again next year. We have some of these in the woods behind the house.” I looked at the hanging gossamer pink lantern next to a dark green broad leaf and was six-year-old unimpressed, but humored the old man. “That’s neat, Daddy.”

I first noticed the warmth of the day as the trail started to rise. Those in our party, who hadn’t been running back and forth and up and down the trail, seemed less bothered by the heat and the incline than me, but I remember Mama saying, “Alan, that’s all the water we have,” as I gulped at the thermos she’d brought in a big straw bag.

“Let him drink, Nan. They’ll be a stream up a ways.”

The trail got steeper. I struggled. I may have started to whine, and whining was definitely not approved behavior in our household. That didn’t stop me, but Connie, ever-the-seismograph for my father’s volcanic impatience jumped in. “Alan Cay, remember Thomas?” Thomas, the Little Engine Who Could, was a favorite story in our house and a lesson used to get me to do many things from finishing my dinner to, now, climbing a mountain.

“I think I can. I think I can,” Connie softly chanted. Soon I picked up the chant. “I think I can. I think I can,” my little legs chugging up the mountain.”

“Thank you, Connie,” said Mama softly.

“I think I can. I think I can, whoo, whoo.”

“I know I can. I know I can,” I sang out as we broke out of the hardwood onto a first outcropping of rock. “Breaking out of the trees” is a hiking exhilaration that has never gotten old and this, my first experience of it, still thrills in my memory.

I was quickly disappointed as we could now see the top of the mountain. “It’s way over there?!”

“Come on, Thomas. I think I can. . . .”

So we started down into the conifers between our position and the peak. Soon there were fir needles cushioning our sneakers and smelling like Christmas. The cool dark green of the forest was broken here and there by vertical golden shafts of sunlight that kept me looking for fairies among the trees.

The downhill-into-the-elfin-glades euphoria didn’t last. Soon the trail wound uphill again. “I think I can. I think I can. . . . How much further?”

“Alan Cay, look here’s a toad, by the water. Look he’s wet and you can see colors on his back.” A cup dipped into the stream. Water never tasted so good before or since.

“I think I can. I think I can. . . . I know I can. I know I can.”

We broke out of the trees a second time, this time from dense fir and spruce onto the granite dome that is the summit of Monadnock, “the mountain that stands alone.”

Mount Monadnock is only 3100 feet tall. As summit views go, it is far from the most spectacular I have seen in my life, but in my brain pictures it remains more vivid than most.

 

I love the bumper sticker. “Get High on Mountains.”

 

Hiking is now a family legacy and Thomas has stayed with me all my life.   “I know I can. I know I can.”

“Fred?”

“Yes, Shishya?”

“Why, do you live here?”

“Ah, Shishya, the mountains are a transition between earth and sky. How else can the seeker find change but by traversing transition?”

“But Fred, the path up here is so strenuous.”

“Shishya, Shishya, the road to change is always hard. The rocky trail to these heights is but a symbol.”

“Have you always lived here?”

“No Shishya, I have taken up residence in other transition points. I lived for a while in an island cave on a cliff by the sea, but many people came arriving by motor boat rather than row or sail, I found it disturbed my aikyam. Besides, everything was damp all the time. I accept the oneness of the universe, but I don’t really like mold. I also lived for a while in a hut at the edge of a forest, but people just ‘dropped by’  on their way to somewhere else. I tired of wood gatherers and hunters. Hunters were the worst. Ahimsa to a hunter? It is beyond their understanding of their dharma.”

“I understand, Fred.”

“Do you, Shishya?”

“I think so. But, what of those pilgrims who are not able of body, Fred?”

“That is what Zoom is for, Shishya.”

“And the obtuse phone tree, and ever-crashing scheduling software are the difficulty of the path?”

“Exactly. There may be hope for you yet, Shishya.”

The young apprentice farmed a small root vegetable patch on the south face of the mountain and bartered pilgrims’ gifts with the market merchants down the mountain for whatever else they needed. The apprentice cooked and cleaned and greeted those who came to see Fred or checked-in on those held long in the Zoom “your host will join the meeting soon” space.

Shishya studied with the master seven years. Each year they had at least one conversation, where Shishya asked Fred questions. The conversation above happened in year two and Fred was particularly talkative. It isn’t that they didn’t talk at other times. There was certainly no vow of silence.

“The carrots are quite sweet this year.”

“I tried the guano the hermit-up-mountain suggested.”

“That guy is bat-shit crazy!”

“I wonder when the snow will stop.”

“Weather. Isn’t it nice we’re having it.”

But every so often Fred would say, “Tell me, Shishya. What are you learning?” That was Shishya’s cue to probe the wise one. Why did Fred do what he did when he did it?

“Fred, why do you tell people ‘not to be a thief?’”

“Why do you think, Shishya?’

“I think I understand why you said that to the war-lord. He steals the lives of the many. He steals their homes by destroying them. He steals women’s dignity and oneness with their bodies by assault in the name of his dominance.”

“True Shishya. Kaluk is driven by revenge for hurts beyond time, which rules his memory, and blocks new input to his heart or his head. He tries in vain to forget the stolen-hole in his center by stealing others’ capacity for forgiveness, just as his mercy was stolen in his life and in stories of endless humiliations suffered by his father and his father’s father. The stolen-hole deepens with each generation. The only thing that will begin to fill it is not to be a thief.”

“I see. But why did you tell the drunkard and the opium smoker not to be a thief. Is it because they were stealing to support their addiction. Weren’t they only hurting themselves?”

“Ah, Shishya. We never only hurt ourselves. The stolen-hole in the addict hurts those who love him or her. Addicts seek numbness to hide the hole, but the numbness only steals their own joy, digging the hole deeper, which hurts us all. When you are in a hole, the first action is ‘stop digging,’ so – do not be a thief. We are all connected. We can be connected by joy and love or we can be connected by fear and pain. The joy connection seems better to me. . . . Just sayin’.”

The years of apprenticeship passed slowly punctuated by small talk and stupid jokes.

“ Hey Shishya, Knock knock”

“Who’s there?”

“Apple.”

“Apple who?”

“A -pple-ase pass the chana chaat.”

(groan)

“Knock, knock”

“Who’s there?”

“Apple.”

“Apple who?”

“Apple -ication. Learn through doing, Shishya. Practice makes better; nobody’s perfect”

(groan)

“Knock, knock”

“Who’s there?”

“Orange.”

“Orange who?”

“Orange you glad I didn’t say ‘Apple?”

(groan) “Fred! Come-on, man! You’re killing me!”

“We are all dying, Shishya.”

One day the master called the apprentice. “Shishya, your apprenticeship is now complete. Today you become a sadhu-journeyman. It is the beginning of your wander-years, make sure they are also your wonder-years.”

“Fred, can I now tell you how corny you are?”

“Shishya, when have I ever stopped you? But tell me before you  “wonder as you wander,” what have you learned these seven years?”

A final exam. Shishya took a deep breath and began:

“To sin is to hurt anyone or any living thing, including yourself. The first sin is stealing; to be a thief, whether to steal a life or a rice bowl, safety or dignity, is to deepen a hole in one’s being.”

“Life is change. To change is always a steep path. I may stumble. I may fall back, but if I keep putting one foot in front of the other I shall progress.”

“That is good, Shishya. Now, any questions for me?”

“Well,  yes actually, Fred, two:

“First, you encourage all pilgrims to follow one meditation practice:

‘Breathe in joy, gratefully; breathe out Love for all the world.’

“What is behind that?”

“Shishya, we often forget that we are surrounded by joy, the laughter of a child, the star-like jewels of dew in the grass, or any blessing that makes the journey from the gift of our senses to our heart. We also too often breathe without being grateful for, or aware of, our breath. Prana is life, and our only duty to life is to be thankful for it. So our in-spiration is joy and gratitude.

And as we breathe out we can replenish the joy we absorb with Love. I am not a follower of the prophet Jesus, but he once said something I find profound. As recorded by his disciple John, Jesus said, ’God is Love.’ Think on that for a minute. He didn’t say “God is like Love’ or God expects Love,” he said ‘God IS Love.’” So if there is a Way as the Taoists say or an Eight-fold Path as the Buddhists pray or a universal duty, Dharma, Love should be upon our breath, the life-force we put out into the world. We die a little (expire) each day, so we should ex-pire, breathe out, with Love.

And the second question, Shishya?”

“Well. . . I always wondered. . . why are you called Fred? It’s a strange name for a sadhu.”

“Is it? I did not know that. Well . . . in the early 1960s, I visited America. There was character named Fred in a short animated television film. Fred lived in a house of stone and he seemed approachable and ever so joyful – so I took his name. Yabba-dabba-doo!”

 

 

I am grateful to my LinkedIn connection and fellow BizCatalyst 360 scribe, Dr. Ali Anani,  for inspiring this story.

 

The Trial

I was called for jury duty three times in two years always in spring or fall consulting busy-season.

“So just when would be a good time for you, Mr. Culler.”

“I’m free the three days before Thanksgiving, your honor.”

“Fine. The clerk will schedule you. Next.”

At the county courthouse at 8:00 a.m. on a November Monday, I was impaneled as an alternate on a trial for which jury selection completed Friday. The same judge welcomed me by name and released another juror, to “prepare Thanksgiving dinner” and directed the plaintiff’s attorney to begin his opening statement. “Try to be brief, counselor.” He wasn’t.

It was a civil trial, a dispute between two neighbors. The plaintiff’s attorney was fiery, “. . . will show that the defendant, Mr. Charles T____, did through negligence and willfully malicious intent cause the injury of my client, Mr. Robert J_____. . . such that he is no longer able to earn his living. . . .“

The defense attorney was briefer. He said there was no negligence and that the defendant “took actions to prevent the plaintiff from annexing his property and that any injuries sustained by the plaintiff were caused his own actions.”

The evidence was presented by both sides over the next two days.

The two neighbors lived in the hills outside the city. Bob’s family lived there for generations and his father sold Charley the land on which he built his house. Bob was a plasterer, Charley had a landscaping business.

Bob asked Charley if it would be OK if he parked a car on the flat space at the bottom of Charley’s property when they had guests. Charley agreed. When Charley didn’t mow the spot, Bob grew impatient and mowed it. Then Bob paved the parking spot on Charley’s land, without asking Charley. Acrimony grew. Angry words flew between Bob and Charley and their spouses. There were “always cars parked there” making it hard for Charley turn intro his driveway with his landscaping truck.

One day Charley came home to find that Bob had erected a basketball hoop on two 6”x 6” posts cemented into the ground. Charley’s driveway was blocked by cars owned by Bob’s son’s friends who were annoyed that Charley was interrupting their three-on-three basketball game. Charley exchanged rude words with the boys and told Bob to “Take that hoop down and never park there again.”

Days went by, more rude words were exchanged, but no action taken and b-ball games lasted until late at night. Someone set up lights on the “court.”

Charley’s chainsaw cut the hoop stand at ground level; he moved it to Bob’s property and then dumped a four foot high pile of dirt and stones on the asphalt on his property, eight feet from the road rendering the space (and “court’) unusable. More inappropriate language was  exchanged.

About a week later, Charley answered the door to a policeman who informed him there had been an accident on his property. He came down to find Bob standing next to his car the front two wheels of which were on the pile of dirt and stones. Much swear-laden yelling ensued. Bob wanted to press charges because Charley had “created a safety hazard.” Officer D____’s report described the pile of dirt as “completely off the road” and concluded that Bob “either lost control of his vehicle or drove off the road on purpose.” The report concluded there was no crime, nor safety hazard. The dirt pile was visible for 100 yards. Someone took pictures of the approach, both driveways,  and the car on the dirt pile with a measuring tape showing the distance from the road. The officer said he “encouraged the neighbors to resolve their differences without involving law enforcement in the future.”

Bob sued Charley for one million dollars for injuries, pain and suffering caused by Charley’s negligence and malicious intent. Testimony took two days.

Tuesday at 5:00 p.m. the judge charged the jury to begin deliberations that evening because of the holiday. Dinner would be served at 6:00 p.m. He reminded the jury that our job was to follow the law. Was there negligence? Was a safety hazard created?

“There’s been some emotional testimony, but there is also documentary evidence, police reports, deed plots and photographs. Perhaps you can reach a verdict this evening and have tomorrow free,”  That was optimistic. We the jury were undecided when they sent us home after 9:00 p.m.

The Deliberations

I used to tell this story being judgmental about some fellow jurors  who were influenced by the emotions in the case.

“Bob really hurt his shoulder. He can’t do work over his head and ceiling work is more than fifty percent of his work as a plasterer.”

“There is no way I would let anyone speak to my kid like that. Charley’s lucky it wasn’t me.”

Some didn’t understand the law. “Let’s fine them both $10 and tell them to be better neighbors.”

“That will a hung jury and they’ll have to try the case all over again.”

“Why don’t we find for the plaintiff, but only award him $1.”

“Because on appeal the verdict of negligence will stand, and only the amount will be appealed, and if there was negligence, then $1 is not a reasonable award.”

At 5:00 p.m. on Wednesday, we the jury agreed that the documentary evidence, photos and police report indicated that the pile of dirt was off the road, on Charley’s own property. In spite of our misgivings about disrespect and bad language, Charley could legally place the dirt there; there was no negligence. We found for the defense.

The plaintiff’s lawyer requested to “poll the jury,” ask us each how we voted and why, and I was momentarily petrified, because I thought our fragile consensus had too much to do with the holiday. The judge denied his request and sent us home.

Lessons Learned

At the time, my lesson was that I never wanted to rely upon “a jury of my peers.” Too many on the jury didn’t understand the law, were swayed by emotion, and felt pressured by the press of the holiday to think clearly or make good decisions. I felt like Henry Fonda in the film “Twelve Angry Men,” the 1957 Sidney Lumet film, which is arguably the best example of one man using reason to overcome emotion and ensure that justice prevails.

Yeah, but. . .

Feelings are important especially when considering issues of intent and malice afore-thought.  Charley did have malice. Bob did hurt himself, at least, if we believe doctor’s report. I still believe we made the right decision.

Upon Further Deliberation

Thirty-five years later, I have been distressed wondering about the effects of the wars the world and I revisited this case, because that’s what Bob and Charley had – a war, a small war perhaps, and as far as I know no one lost his life – but a war, none-the-less.

I don’t know what happened after the trial with Bob, Charley, and their families, but I don’t imagine that their relationship improved easily. I doubt that the legal remedy led to reconciliation and bonhomie.

One man felt ownership and protectiveness of his land. One said “my father owned it long before you got here. Your land is my family’s legacy.”

One felt a favor had been abused. The other said, “you weren’t using it and besides I improved it.” The favor had become a given, expected, deserved.

Both felt angry and disrespected. Words hurt and destruction of property hurts. Injuries are long-remembered. Bob talked bitterly of his son’s humiliation being called names in front of friends.

There was recriminatory testimony, which started with “They always. . .  or They never. . . .”

The law didn’t really serve either family. True, Charley won that case and he avoided a million dollar judgement, but the conflict was likely to go underground, beneath the visibility of the law.

Some of my early work as a consultant was in intergroup conflict resolution. Rules, what should happen, never resolved conflict. What worked was if each party could listen to the other side, and be able to state the other party’s point of view and the feelings associated with it.

Then the parties could establish accepted behavior and a grievance process when things went awry. Even that didn’t always work, but it was a start.

The court could have mediated conflict resolution with Charley and Bob, but that really isn’t the role of the court. Family and friends could have an intervention. But only Charley and Bob could commit to make it work.

I am unsure what it would take for Bob and Charley. What about the rest of us?