Category Archives: Meditations

Adventures with “Big Bertha”

When I was a year out of college, I bought my parent’s old ’78 Chevy Impala station wagon, a huge green boat of a car with a 305 small block V8 engine. My mother, who liked to name cars, called it “Big Bertha,” or “Bert” for short; when she didn’t like the car she called it “The Big Green Monster.” I think it was the biggest car she ever drove. I don’t think she ever liked it much, but I was happy to buy it, because it was the only car I could afford.

I bought it in the summer of 1984 and drove it down to Philadelphia where I had been living. I loaded everything I owned into the back, and started driving home. I was on the northeast extension of the Pennsylvania Turnpike when the tractor-trailer rig in front of me blew a retread off one of its eighteen wheels. All I saw was this huge black writhing piece of rubber flying down the highway directly at me and, Wham! it hit the underside of the car, and suddenly the muffler was dragging on the highway and making a horrible noise. I limped along to the next exit, pulled into a gas station and was told they couldn’t fix the car until the next day. I must have looked pretty sick — I didn’t have the money to stay in a motel — so this friendly guy went out, crawled under the car with me, and showed me how to wire the muffler up so I could drive the rest of the way home.

I had been unable to find a job in Philly, but within a month of moving back to Massachusetts I had several job offers. I went to work full time at the lumberyard where I had worked summers, and pretty soon took a room in a shared house that was close enough to the lumberyard that I could walk to work. The big green station wagon sat in the driveway most of the week; by now it had rust spots showing through the green paint. Once or twice a week, I would drive it in to the Boston Museum School to take art classes. At first I was terrified to drive into Boston in rush hour traffic, but I soon learned that other drivers were wary of a huge green rusty station wagon driven by a long-haired, wild-eyed kid. Then one night after class, I walked out to where I had parked the car along the Fenway, and it was gone — stolen. I went back into the school (this was before cell phones, remember) and called the Boston police, who told me that the Fenway was covered by Metropolitan District Commission Police; I called them and they told me I would have to appear in person at their station up near the Charles River dam. So I walked all the way up there, and the cop on duty, being a Boston cop, was rude and unhelpful and did everything he could to keep from having to write up a report of the theft. At last he wrote it up, and I managed to catch the midnight train from North Station back home. Two days later, the cops called me at work: they had found the car where it had been abandoned by some joyriders. I went in to pick up the car at the tow company lot, paid their criminally high towing and storage fees. The inside of the car was trashed, but all the joyriders (or it could have been the tow company) really stole was an axe I had left in the back of the car. When I got back to the lumberyard, one of the guys I worked with showed me how easy it was to pop the locks in a Chevy Impala of that vintage — all you needed was a teaspoon, and it was actually easier to unlock the car with a teaspoon than with the key.

My buddy Will and I loved that car for driving up to the White Mountains for a backpacking trip. There was lots of room for our packs, it was easy to steer, and that V8 engine went up the steepest grades as if nothing was there. On one trip, the car broke down when we were a hundred and fifty-five miles from home. One hundred and fifty miles was the distance Triple-A would tow my car, so we walked to a phone, got a local tow company to tow us five miles down the road, paid them off, then called Triple-A, and waited a few hours for them to come out to tow us home. The tow truck driver was a friendly guy with a French Canadian accent, and he hooked the rear of my car up, and then we crammed ourselves into the cab of the tow truck, along with him and his girlfriend. He revved up the tow truck’s engine, and drove across the median strip of the highway — I looked out the back window to watch my station wagon bumping and dragging along through the grass behind us. We had a companionable ride home, talking cheerfully with the driver and his girlfriend. So ended that backpacking trip.

The station wagon got rustier and rustier. One spring day, I was driving home from somewhere, and I got to the traffic light that was two tenths of a mile from our house. The light turned green, and as I accelerated the car gave a sort of lurch, the front end dropped down, and the steering wheel pulled madly to the left. I managed to get the car home, driving pretty slowly. Late that night, when there was no traffic on the road, I drove the car over to the garage, with my dad following behind in his car in case anything happened. The next day, the garage called with the bad news — the whole front part of the car was so rusted that they didn’t think they could repair it. I asked around at work, and one of the guys knew someone who owned a garage that did welding work, but when he called them, they told him that if the car had a 305 V8 it wasn’t worth fixing, because those 305 V8 engines gave out at a hundred and five thousand miles. I always wondered if the front end had been weakened by the way that crazy tow truck driver dragged my car across the median strip; but it didn’t really matter, because the engine probably would have gone a few months later.

So after having driven it for about four years, I junked the car. Even though I didn’t know how I was going to afford a new car, I felt a sense of relief — when you get to the point where a car is an adventure rather than a means of transportation, it’s time to let it go.

I had a lunch meeting today at the Unitarian Universalist church in Fairhaven, and since it’s only two miles away I decided to walk. Just as I was setting out, I happened to run into Carol, and asked if she wanted to walk over with me. We talked the whole way, about people we know, about our work, about local politics. The walk seemed to go very quickly, and before I knew it we were in front of the Fairhaven church and we had to stop talking for the moment. Carol walked back home, and I walked into the meeting. After my meeting was over, I walked back home. The sun was shining and it was a beautiful late winter day and I noticed things I didn’t notice on the walk over: the skim of ice on sheltered parts of the harbor because the water is still freezing cold even if the air temperature was above freezing; the bright new gray-and-white plumage of the Ring-billed Gulls; , but this time the walk seemed to take much longer than it did while I was talking with Carol.

Spring watch

It was chilly and windy this afternoon, and I was feeling sorry for myself. It’s still winter, and it will probably snow again. The produce in the supermarkets has been limp and tasteless, as it always is at this time of year. The whole city has that sad, sorry look that New England cities get in midwinter, when unidentifiable trash has been blown into every corner where it will remain until spring when we finally get the energy to clean it up. The only good thing about February is that it is shorter than all the other months.

But then at four o’clock I went outside to take a walk, and the sun was brightly shining, and I realized that two months ago it would have been dark already at four o’clock. The days are getting longer very quickly, and the first day of spring is less than a month away.

Spring watch

Down on State Pier this afternoon, the Herring Gulls were strutting around as usual, looking to steal food from one another, or from another bird. They were looking particularly bright and cheerful today, and I finally realized why: almost all of the adults have finished molting, and they are now resplendent in their breeding season plumage.

This can only mean that breeding season is coming soon, or has already started. Because the rooftops of downtown New Bedford are the site of a Herring Gull nesting colony, this means we will soon have to listen as the Herring Gulls scream and squawk their love songs to one another on the roof of our building. I am not looking forward to Herring Gull nesting season.

Winter walk

The warm spell over the weekend melted most of the snow and ice. That meant the sidewalks were mostly clear, so today Carol and I walked all the way to Fairhaven center and back — a good four miles round trip, and the longest walk we’ve been able to take since December. Although the sun wasn’t out it was a mild day, with temperatures in the low forties and very little wind. We walked, and as we walked we talked about our family and friends, and our jobs, and local politics. When we were almost back home, Carol looked up at the cloudy sky and said, “It’s one of those timeless days, isn’t it?” We could have kept walking and talking for another couple of hours, except that we both had to get back to work.

Winter

Every morning this past week, I awakened before my alarm went off. With the days now perceptibly longer, the first light of dawn appears in the sky before the alarm sounds. Just as happens every year at about this time, I have been awakened by that first light of dawn, dim though it is. And, as usual at this time of year, I need significantly less sleep these days than I did in December and the first half of January, and my appetite is less. Best of all, my mood has perceptibly lightened with the increasing length of daylight. Even though they’re forecasting snow for Tuesday and Wednesday, it feels as though spring is getting closer.

Touching God

“I admit that through my adult life I have lacked religiosity. But I make no boast of it; understanding, as I do, how essential religion is to many, many people. For that reason, I have little patience with the zealot who is forever trying to prove to others that they do not need religion; that they would be better off without it. Such a one is no less a zealot than the religionist who contends that all who ‘do not believe’ will be consigned to eternal hell fires. It is simply that I have not felt the need of religion in the commonplace sense of the term. I have derived spiritual values in life from other sources than worship and prayer. I think that the teachings of Jesus Christ embody the loftiest ethical and spiritual concepts the human mind has yet borne. I do not know if there is a personal God; I do not see how I can know; and I do not see how my knowing can matter. What does matter, I believe, is how I deal with myself and how I deal with my fellows. I feel that I can practice a conduct toward myself and toward my fellows that will constitute the basis for an adequate religion, a religion that may comprehend spirituality and beauty and serene happiness….

“The human mind racks itself over the never-to-be-known answer to the great riddle, and all that is clearly revealed is the fate that man must continue to hope and struggle on; that each day, if he would not be lost, he must with renewed courage take a fresh hold on life and face with fortitude the turns of circumstances. To do this, he needs to be able at times to touch God; let the idea of God mean to him what it may.”

  — So wrote James Weldon Johnson, in his autobiography Along This Way, back in 1933. Reading this, I imagine that Johnson would have felt quite at home in one of today’s Unitarian Universalist churches. He would even have felt at home in one of our more progressive Unitarian or Universalist churches back in 1933, except for the fact that he was black, and in 1933 both the Unitarians and the Universalists were basically lily-white denominations. Well, be that as it may, I still like to imagine what Johnson would have felt if I could have said to him: That’s pretty much what I preach from the pulpit, and in fact I’m going to steal that last line of yours for my next sermon. And what you say is pretty much what we do in our church: we don’t have religion in the commonplace sense of the term (which is these parts means orthodox Christianity); we try to practice conduct towards ourselves and our neighbors that constitutes our basis for religion; we feel Jesus is a great spiritual and ethical thinker who inspires us; and each day, if we would not be lost, we take a fresh hold life life, and we renew our courage to do this by touching the face of God, whatever God may mean to each one of us individually.

Last night’s rain

Last night I sat and listened
to the rain falling on the city.

I was sitting indoors, warm,
dry, cozy, with work to do. But still,
I kept listening to the rain.

Last night’s rain came in waves:
soft, then pounding loudly on the roof.

I kept imagining it
meant something — I don’t know — climate change —
greenhouse gasses — some world disaster —

Last night’s rain was only rain.
It rained and rained and finally stopped.

I went to bed. Nothing happened.
I dreamt — I don’t know what — vividly —
At first light, I came awake.

The rain melted snow, it swept
debris down, it crept under our door.

Memory

Still down with the flu. At about three this afternoon, I hauled myself up out of the chair where I’d been dozing, and stumbled down to the kitchen to make some tea. It has been a gray, rainy day, so I turned on the lights in the kitchen.

A memory kicked in: those winter afternoons back when I was in elementary school, my older sister and I would arrive home on a gray day at about three in the afternoon, and walk into the kitchen where mom would have the lights turned on. I’d have an apple for a snack, I don’t remember what my sister would eat. Then I remember watching public television while it got dark outside, kid’s programs like Zoom, and then there was a time when we watched an exercise program called The Beautiful Machine, and then when my younger sister got a little older we’d watch Sesame Street and Electric Company. Then it would be dark.

The memory lasted for just an instant. For a moment I craved an apple, and started walking towards the refrigerator to get one, but my stomach rebelled. Then the memory was gone. I made a pot of tea, drank it, tried to read the newspaper but couldn’t concentrate, ignored the headache, dozed again.