Category: Thoughts

Choosing Against Our Interests

Posted on by Pete Schloss

(I took the above picture during a 2018 protest in Santiago Chili. The government was using “non-lethal” bullets to suppress protests. However, the ammunition permanently blinded hundreds of people. This demonstration was led by very brave women.)

I’ve survived. The bunker door is mostly open now and peering out I see that life hasn’t really changed that much. I’ve tried watching the news again, but only local and in small bits. It will be a while before I again find Steven Colbert’s political commentary funny. My vote for President was among the 48.1% cast, not the “other” 50.1%.

First an acknowledgement that democracy works. Nearly 150 million Americans set aside their daily routines to make their voices heard. Second, gratitude to the thousands of nameless election workers that made voting possible.

The margin of victory was less than 3 million votes. That is approximately the population of Chicago. Once again, the Electoral College result, 312 to 226, discloses how disconnected this historic dinosaur is from the popular vote. I find further criticism with the length of United States political campaigns, the unconscionable amount of money spent on the campaigns, and the disproportionate influence given to wealth in selecting representation in this country. Those are perhaps subjects for posts at another time.

Another 2018 protest I was present for in Chili. This one focused on economic condition.

My self-imposed post-election introspection has given me an opportunity to seek understanding and peace with the outcome. During the weeks leading up to the election, Christine and I often found ourselves wondering, “How can they consider voting so contrary to their own interests!?!”

The answer is that I was applying my own understanding of what was important, not theirs. Perhaps their interests included elevating the voice of a contrarian. Shaking up a system that hasn’t worked for them. Expressing frustration with a government that to them favors “foreigners” over “Americans”. Declaring dissatisfaction with rising prices and tailing wages. And believing promises (real or not) that were addressed to them.

Just as I looked upon them in the pre-election weeks as being voters against their own interests, it occurs to me that in post-election America there may be 48.1 percent of the electorate now wishing against their own interests, just to say, “I told you so.”

100 percent of America should wish for a strong economy. An efficient and fair system of immigration. Price stability and wages that provide the possibility of upward mobility. Safe streets and safe schools. An efficient justice system that fairly punishes the guilty and quickly frees the innocent. Stability in the world order… All of this and more without regard for which candidate was successful in the election.

I have friends who count themselves among the 50.1%. When they voice complaints, criticisms, and worse about the 48.1%, I know that they are not thinking of me. I know that they would not apply those assertions to me personally. Conversely, as a friend I would never apply to them the complaints, criticisms, and worse often spoken about the 50.1% by those of the 48.1%.

Putting the face of a friend on “them” is one road to an understanding that “they” and “we” are often “us”.

Peace Everyone. Pete

PS. In 1995 we hosted 16-year-old Svetlana as a year-long exchange student from Slovakia. She remains in our hearts a daughter to us. In 1998 we arranged a reunion of our exchange students in Prague. Christine and I offered to pay the room and board of any of the students who could join us for the 5 days. What they did not know was that I had booked 3 large prison cells in the former Communist prison. $13 per person, per night, breakfast included!

Svetlana, along with her older brother Alex and 8 other students joined us. Her parents and little brother were there as was the mother of another of the students. They opted for more conventional (comfortable) lodgings.

In 2018 we enjoyed a wonderful visit with Svetla and her husband and children in Bratislava, Slovakia.

Yesterday, we spent a delightful afternoon here in Kansas City with Alex, his 12-year-old daughter Ellen, and his friend Dasha. Alex is an attorney practicing in Prague, the Czech Republic. He was also an exchange student in Kansas City, spending 1993 with the Harper family in North Kansas City. Alex came back for a visit to attend his host-brother’s wedding.

Earlier this year, our 1992 German exchange student son Andre and his family visited us.

They now reside in Washington DC where Andre is stationed at the German Embassy as an economist. We hope to have them join us next February in Colorado.

Later in 2025 we will be in Norway for a month. Our plans include traveling to Svalbard Island, the northernmost civilian settlement in the world, located about 650 miles from the North Pole. While in Oslo we will visit our Norwegian exchange student daughter (1994), Hege and her family.

Christine is fond of saying that a country is “foreign” until it has a face. These people and many others dear to us, are faces that have made the world smaller, more personal, and less foreign. We would do well within our country to do the same between the 48.1% and 50.1%

 

Let it be Said

Posted on by Pete Schloss

 

My parents loved each other, and they loved their children. Christine’s parents loved each other and their children. But early in our relationship we shared with each other that neither of us heard those words, “I love you…” spoken by our parents.

Perhaps the omissions were cultural or generational, but as we prepared to bring new lives into the world, we consciously inventoried the things we wished to model for our children from our childhoods. We also wanted to identify the things we wished not to pass along to them, and those things we wished to initiate as new traditions for our next generation.

Among those things we valued from our upbringings: A strong Work Ethic. Honesty. The Value of Education. Thrift.

Among those things we wished to focus on better presenting to our children: Inclusiveness. Kindness. Avoidance of Judgement. Giving and expecting Respect when earned. Giving praise for Accomplishment. Acknowledging Fault for a transgression and Giving Apology to those injured. Avoiding drawing Comparisons to another person. And expressing our Love and Affection openly.

It is gratifying to see our children raising their own children, our grandchildren, with the same conscious intention and values. Nowhere is this more apparent than in the expression of the simple words, “I love you”.

It is given as a greeting and expressed as a part of every farewell. It is never taken for granted, yet its omission would raise an eyebrow as being out of the ordinary. Unlike exchanges that have become social pro forma such as “It’s good to see you”, or “How are you?”, the “I love you” that we share has retained its character as a special gift between parent and child, grandparent and grandchild.

Leading up to my 50th birthday I resolved to offer that gift to each of my parents. Offering those words to them was difficult even though I loved them. With my mother it was at the end of one of our weekly phone calls, “I love you Mom” … quiet followed finally broken by, “I love you too, Peter!” Her surprise was palpable, as was her joy. From that day on every conversation between us included that expression of affection. She died in 2020.

With my Father it was not to be. Multiple Sclerosis had robbed him of his independence and the joy of life. His last years were spent in assisted living. When visiting him I would ask him how he was doing, his answer invariable was, “Just waiting…” It wasn’t necessarily to ask what he was waiting for.

I did take the plunge. “Dad, I love you”. To which he replied, “Oh well…” then trailed off to silence. I had to (and did) smile. It was affection given in the manner that he could express. This exchange was repeated at each visit thereafter to the time of his passing in 2009.

What was most important was that I was finally able to speak those words to him in the living years:

 Every generation blames the one before. And all of their frustrations come beating on your door. I know that I’m a prisoner to all my father held so dear. I know that I’m a hostage to all his hopes and fears. I just wish I could have told him in the living years.

Crumpled bits of paper filled with imperfect thought. Stilted conversations, I’m afraid that’s all we’ve got.

You say you just don’t see it, he says it’s perfect sense. You just can’t get agreement in this present tense. We all talk a different language, talking in defense.

Say it loud, say it clear, you can listen as well as you hear. It’s too late when we die to admit we don’t see eye to eye.

So we open up a quarrel between the present and the past. We only sacrifice the future, it’s the bitterness that lasts. So don’t yield to the fortunes you sometimes see as fate. It may have a new perspective on a different day. And if you don’t give up, and don’t give in you may just be okay.

Say it loud, say it clear, you can listen as well as you hear. It’s too late when we die to admit we don’t see eye to eye.

I wasn’t there that morning when my father passed away. I didn’t get to tell him all the things I had to say. I think I caught his spirit later that same year, I’m sure I heard his echo in my baby’s newborn tears. I just wish I could have told him in the living years.

(“The Living Years“, was written by B. A. Robertson and Mike Rutherford. Recorded in 1988 by Rutherford’s rock band Mike + The Mechanics.)

Peace Everyone. Pete

PS. My son Peter and I practiced law together for seven years until my retirement. It is an incredible honor to be a colleague with one’s child, to see them every day as an accomplished professional. Christine also cherished this experience but with our daughter, Renee. It was common for Peter and me to wish the other well upon leaving the office. Those exchanges included a hug and “Love you…”. Often as not this happened in the waiting room with clients present.

Peter once shared with me that the day I told him that I was retiring was one of the saddest days of his life.

Night Vision

Posted on by Pete Schloss

 

They were three, each in their own world but sharing one thing in common. One was a sailor on night watch, peering into the blackness and barely able to discern the line between the horizon and sky. One a hunter who stumbled his way into the depth of the night woods hoping to greet day and his quarry for the season at sunrise. And finally, the third, a chronically sleep deprived romantic. She turned her eyes skyward not to find the familiar but to embrace the uncommon.

The night, moonless. Colors were extinct having lost the battle at evening dusk to the deepening shades of grey. Pinpoints of light as are the stars gave orientation to up but little more for the senses. Evolution had given their six eyes the gift of seeing color, now useless in the darkness. But their species had for untold primeval generations learned a trick, look slightly to the side and the eye may see what is invisible if looked upon directly.

Each shifted their gaze to make out the otherwise invisible. The mariner a hidden hazard to his safe passage, the huntsman his responding to the sound of a snapped twig, and the insomniac to find what might lie deeper in the celestial infinity. Each was rewarded by the “trick” of night vision…

At discharge my surgeon issued restrictions which would bind me for many months to come. No bending, no twisting, and absolutely no lifting. “I know you have been a very active person, but for the next 9 to 12 months you must live a very boring life. Your future long-term mobility and freedom from pain depend on it. I’ve done my part, now it’s your turn.”

Post surgical pain made following his orders easy, for the first week. As that ache subsided, I had to become active in the pursuit of my inactivity. A mind accustomed to the rapid pace of physical activity had to adjust, to fill in the void of idleness with a different awareness, not of things clearly “seen head on”, but of those things usually camouflaged by the “noise” of coming, going and doing. This was an exercise of night vision for the mind.

I wrote last week of the odd circumstances which led to my purchase of an unusual ship’s clock and barometer. I won’t recount that here other than to acknowledge my tongue-in-cheek suggestion that my deceased Mother might have been involved. Idleness and deeper contemplation have caused me to slightly withdraw my tongue from my cheek.

This week in that place between sleep and awake I found myself thinking about an unfortunate email exchange that occurred nearly 2 months ago. There had been silence between us since. At 5 a.m. I reached for my cellphone on the nightstand to again read my contribution to the misunderstanding. On my phone was an email received in my inbox not more than 5 minutes earlier. It was from the other party. Apologies and a welcome exchange followed.

The next day a similar scenario played out. In deep thought I wondered aloud to Christine about a friend I had not heard from since before Summer. I had barely finished my thought to her when, a “ding” announced the receipt of a text message… from my friend suggesting we get together for lunch.

7 years ago in San Juan, Puerto Rico, an innkeeper, Eddie, upon becoming aware of an unusual (fortunate) set of circumstances involving me and Christine, said, “Peter, in life there are no coincidences.” I have held those words close to my heart ever since.

There are things within our experience that are apparent yet remain unexplainable. Magnetism and gravity immediately come to mind. We do not dismiss them as “coincidences”. The three recent personal examples I have mentioned above could easily be relegated to the dustbin of “coincidence”, but they happened, and they were real in my experience. Reflecting on my life, similar events are neither rare nor unusual. Just because they are beyond my understanding does not mean that they deserve to be called “coincidence”.

My purpose in sharing these thoughts is not to convince you that they happen in my life, I know that they do. My intention is to give you pause to reflect and meditate upon your own life. Use your mental “night vision” to look slightly to the side and avoid the glare of everyday life. Look instead at what that glare may have hidden from you and come to appreciate that life is full of tiny miracles. They have always been there and will always be there. They do their part; it is just up to us to notice them.

Restore in your life the gifts of wonder and awe that were once yours as a child, “…in life there are no coincidences.”
Peace Everyone. Pete

PS. Yesterday Christine and I were enjoying the sun and fine weather on the patio of a local coffee shop. She and I shared a “whatever happened to…” moment. I reached for my cell phone and did a quick internet search. Christine saw my eyes grow large. Concerned, she asked what I saw.

31 years ago, I was involved in one of the saddest cases of my legal career. A mother, my client, was gunned down and murdered by her teenage son. This was done at the urging and contrivance of her abusive husband, his father. Both the father and the son were convicted and sentenced for the murder. An 11-year-old daughter was left an orphan. On my cell phone the search revealed a link to a 30-minute podcast about those events. The podcast was produced 3 years ago. After listening to the podcast, I downloaded the transcript. Here is the concluding dialogue:

Marie: …So, the kind-of forgotten person in this story is C___. I don’t feel that her brother and father consider her needs or future at all in their plans.

Sherry: No.

Marie: But after they murdered her mother, C___ was placed with some foster parents. And after the appropriate period of time, she was adopted by those foster parents. And it seems like she finally had the kind of family her mother always dreamt of giving her.

Sherry: That makes me really happy, because I know her mother worked hard to let her have a nice life. I’m just sad that her mother was never able to figure out how to be the one to give that to her.

Marie: Yeah. I wish her mother had survived and was able to be there with her. But C___ grew up, got married, and now she has a little boy of her own. She has kept in touch with that man who so many years ago helped liberate her and her mother from a domestic nightmare, just by listening and taking their stories seriously.

Sherry: Attorney Schloss?

Marie: You’re right!

Sherry: I’m so impressed!

Marie: Yeah. I’m really…I’m proud of him for keeping an eye on this little girl.

Sherry: I am, too.

Marie: So, after her mother was murdered, he stayed in the picture; both as her attorney and her friend.

Sherry: Nice.

Marie: He’s fought several fights on her behalf. And he just kept showing up – clear through her wedding day and beyond.

Sherry: Ohhh.

Marie: Yeah.

Sherry: That gives me chills.

Marie: I think it’s great that she had a paternal figure in her life who was more protective and kind. P___ (the mother) had once voiced her dream to Attorney Schloss. She wanted her daughter to live a life free from violence. And Attorney Schloss has remained in the picture, fighting for C___’s right to do just that.

Shery: I love that.

Marie: Me, too.

(musical interlude)

 

There Is Just No Time

Posted on by Pete Schloss

 

Out of time. In time. Time out. Timely. Down time. Borrowed time. Next time. High time. It’s about time. Pressed for time. Big time. Small time. Test of time. Ahead of one’s time. Nick of time. Good time. Devil of a time. All in good time. Only a matter of time. Time flies…

That is just a score of phrases involving “time”. I don’t have “time to consider” more, but you may choose to “find the time”.

I have a fascination with timekeeping devices, otherwise known as clocks. Not the modern quartz movements, but the classic mechanical ones. They are (somewhat) understandable to me, although some are remarkable for their age and complexity.

This astronomical clock, located in Prague, The Czech Republic, was installed in 1410. It is the third oldest of its kind and oldest one still in operation. Images from Wikipedia

I find the design and gear mechanisms elegant and fascinating. To me they reach into the past and have more in common with ancient human efforts to measure time through devices that marked the passage of a shadow, dripped water, burned candles, and allowed sand in an enclosed glass vessel to fall through a small orifice.

In my home is a classic Howard Miller Schoolhouse clock.

Its Westminster chime sounds every quarter hour. We have owned it since early in our marriage. It is “key wound”, in other words once a week I use a key to wind the mainspring that feeds power to a pendulum at a steady, measured rate. The length of the pendulum is adjusted by turning a small screw at the pendulum’s base. Lengthening the arm slows the clock’s “pulse”, shortening the arm speeds it up. Once the pendulum length is accurately set the clock “keeps time” to about a minute per-week. However, the change in house temperature between summer and winter is enough to expand or contract the pendulum and require readjustment.

I also have a minimalist German “Hermle Castle Clock”.

It sounds a single bell at the top of each hour. It too is “regulated” by a pendulum. However, the power to keep it going through the week is provided by the downward pull of a weight. Once each week I pull a chain which returns to weight to the top. You might say that it is gravity powered, and gravity (for timekeeping purposes) is a better constant than a spring. Again, it’s accuracy is dependent on the adjustment of its pendulum.

Finally, I have two key wound clocks that don’t have pendulums. Both were found at estate sales.

“Time out” for a thematic detour:

Christine likes estate sales, I don’t. I consider them to be sad affairs where the things once valued by a departed loved one are sold at a steep discount, Memories Not Included.

One day Christine was heading to an estate sale just a few blocks from our house. “Is there anything you want me to look for?” After giving it some thought I replied “Yes, a classic key wind brass ship’s clock that keeps time and chimes the “watch bell” sequences.”

It really is something I had long wanted. My mother once bought me a small non-chiming version powered by a battery, along with a matching barometer. I treasure them because they were a gift from her, and it was what she could afford. Someday they will be memories not included.

Just before Christine left for the sale she pressed me to join her. “Come on. Keep me company and besides you have the time and aren’t doing anything else right now.” (“Have the time” is really my creative thematic addition)

Anyway, I was guilted into going. A short walk on a pleasant day and we were at a 100+ year old estate size home, more mansion than house. Upon entering, (and this is the honest to god no bull-sh** truth), the very first thing that I saw was, “a classic key wind brass ship’s clock that keeps time and chimes the “watch bell” sequences”. A $1,500 Dollar value (memories still not included) and it became mine for only $70. Is it just possible that my deceased mother, Pauline H. Schloss, who loved me dearly, was involved?

A week later Christine was heading off to another estate sale and showed me the online advertisement: “Isn’t this just like the ship’s clock you bought last week?” It was. Another “Schatz”, a German made devise, the twin to my ship’s clock but this one a matching barometer. Urging was unnecessary, I drove. I have since mounted them on a slab of olive wood.

They are displayed between the humble battery powered version and equally humble barometer gifted to me by my mother during her life. (Thanks for these new ones, Mom! I love you.)

Well, “it’s about time” I returned to topic:

In addition to the wonderful German “Schatz” ship’s clock and barometer, Christine has found a beautiful 40+ year old Howard Miller “Downing” key wind mantle clock.

It has a German “Hermle” movement and deep 8 tone selectable chimes, Westminster, St. Michael, or Whittington, which sound on the quarter hour. Another bargain.

The ship’s clock and mantle clock are the least accurate, but still good to within a few minutes a week. The mainsprings which power the movements have more stored energy (power) at the start of the week than at the end of the week. Thus, they tend to run fast at the beginning of the week and slow down by week’s end. Where the repeating arc of the pendulum in the other clocks “regulates” time through a simple “escapement” mechanism,

these two clocks rely upon more complicated “escapements”. An escapement is a mechanical device that allows the clocks power to “escape” at a measured constant rate. In the case of these pendulum clocks it is around 5,500 beats per hour. The key wind clocks use a more complicated escapement consisting of a balance wheel and spring. They beat at the rate of approximately 12,000 beats per hour.

I also have a few mechanical watches that are “automatic”.

They have a flywheel in the mechanism that moves with the wearer’s motion and keeps the watch mainspring wound.

They are very accurate, their escapements and balance wheels releasing very precise amounts of energy at the rate of 28,800 cycles (beats) per hour. They are able to maintain accuracy of around +- 5 second per day, which is remarkable given that the watches are constantly in motion on the wearer’s arm, and they are continuously subjected to changes of temperature and pressure. As accurate as these are, they pale in comparison to the precision of a modern quartz movement, the quartz crystal electrically “pulsing” 32,768 times each second. These are capable of daily accuracy measured in the hundreds of a second.

By the way, the most accurate “atomic clocks” are now able to gain or lose less than a second every billion years!

Timekeeping devices have become ubiquitous. There are “clocks: in our stoves, microwaves, kitchen timers, some bathroom exhaust fans, thermostats, home weather stations, autos, cameras, smart phones, tablets, and computers. The list goes on and on. Try counting all these devices in your home. You will not only be amazed, but you will continually find more that you missed first time around.

And it is all a fiction! They don’t work in my house, they don’t work in your house, they don’t work ANYWHERE!! They don’t measure time because “TIME DOES NOT EXIST”! What all of these devices purporting to measure time actually do is measure the change in the status of something, not “time”.

Assume that before the “Big Bang” there was an endless and infinite nothing. There was and could be no “time”. At least not until there was something to measure from. Once the “Bang” occurred there was a point at which an interval was created. Even though that moment occurred over 15 billion years ago, we “measure” it not in terms of “time”, but in terms of other intervals: The orbit of our planet around our sun is 1 year. The phases of our moon are loosely used to define a month. The spin of our planet defines a day… and we use smaller divisions of hours, minutes, and seconds to further define intervals. But all are created from an event or the change of status of some object. Even the super accurate “atomic clocks” don’t measure “time”, they measure the change of status of an atom or an isotope or the difference between two states of energy.

Well, I could go on but you have better “things to do with your time” and Christine says I’ve already “used enough time” on this post.

This has been brought to you by “too much time on my hands”. 
Peace Everyone. Pete

PS. A reading recommendation: Longitude by Dava Sobel is the true story of John Harrison, a carpenter and amateur clockmaker who in the 1700’s created the first chronometer, a clock accurate enough to calculate a ship’s position while at sea. The story of his monumental invention, the 18th Century equivalent of putting an astronaut on the moon, and the intrigue that followed reads like a spy novel. The book is well illustrated and less than 200 pages.

Below is a picture of my sextant, used to determine my boat’s position on the Atlantic Ocean when out of sight of land. It is only as accurate as the timekeeping devise used in conjunction with it. Consider it an “old world GPS”.

Written at Kansas City, Missouri, October 7, 2024.

 

The Invisible Color of Pain

Posted on by Pete Schloss

I am home. Surgery, the fusion of two vertebrae (L4-L5) proceeded on schedule Monday morning, September 30th, at 7:15 a.m.. The 6-hour procedure (4 hours in the operating room and 2 in recovery) were necessitated by a herniated disc, a cyst impacting the spinal cord, and a general collapse brought about by a well-used/abused 72-year-old body. The excruciating pain preceding surgery has been replaced by the slowly abating post-surgery pain. Pain, to distress, to ache, to discomfort, to… relief? I’m not there yet, but is that a glimmer of light I see at the end of a spinal canal? Perhaps.

First meds included oxycodone and large doses of Tylenol. I was discharged on Tuesday, October 1st, with 15 Oxy pills (one every 4 hours as needed for pain, call for a refill) and take 1000mg Tylenol every 6 hours. There are still 10 Oxy pills in the bottle, and it has remained unopened since Wednesday.

Until recently I have been a very strong walker. It is amazing to me how quickly atrophy can set in. Today I “hiked” 10 minutes around the inside of my home and climbed two flights of stairs 3 times. That was a good start, and I will repeat twice later today. Outside and around the block tomorrow? Again, perhaps. Inactivity is toxic but too much activity is potentially catastrophic. It is for me to find compromise.

I once read that women who have experienced the significant pain of childbirth soon forget the pain and often embrace the thought of doing it all over. As a man, I cannot validate this. Christine says it is so. What I can say is that the very real and tangible pain I experienced has disappeared, like a ghost. I know I could once “see” that demon. It had color, red. It had shape, sharp and angular. It stabbed, pierced, wounded and assaulted me, relentlessly. I was helpless. I can still see what it did, but IT has vanished from my “sight”. Unlike the joy a woman experiences in bringing new life into the world, I do not invite this pain’s return.

It is an effort to share this with you. Sitting at a computer is not comfortable. But I am thankful for all the good wishes, encouragements and prayers. 

Tomorrow my first post-surgery shower! It’s the little things. Peace Everyone. Pete

PS. My last post (September 23rd) included a postscript about a book I was reading, “A Trick of the Light” by Louise Penny, the seventh book in the Armand Gamache detective series. I am a notoriously slow reader, plagued by mild dyslexia and lexical agraphia (an inability to spell or recall letter sequencing in words… thank God for secretaries, word check, and Christine. If you only knew!).

I have been so captivated by the series that in spite of the surgery, I not only finished book seven, but book eight (“The Beautiful Mystery”) and have begun book nine, “How the Light Gets In”.

They are that good. Pete

Written at Kansas City, Missouri, October 4, 2024