Category: Soapbox

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)

 

Having THAT Discussion

Posted on by Pete Schloss

Surgery on my lower back is scheduled for this coming Monday. I expect to be on the table for at least 4 hours. A robot will be involved. I am no stranger to the surgeon’s knife having previously undergone surgery on right foot, left foot, right knee, both shoulders, and brain surgery in June of 2023. This is not a resume I wish to further develop.

I have come to think of surgery as analogous to taking one’s car to the dealership for a major repair. You entrust your car/body to the care of (hopefully!) an expert and skilled mechanic/surgeon, expecting to receive it back in proper working order. In each case there is usually sticker shock, “How could it cost THAT much?!!” One difference is that the car dealer often provides you with a loaner car. Maybe the day will come when surgeons provide a “loaner body”. For now, the anesthesiologist turns off your consciousness and puts it on the shelf awaiting instructions to reactivate you. Where do we go in the meantime? That is a question for poets, philosophers, and perhaps at one time Timothy Leary:

“Whenever in doubt, turn off your mind, relax, float downstream.”

I came upon another quote by Leary that has absolutely nothing to do with this essay, but that I feel compelled to share: “Women who seek to be equal with men lack ambition.”

Yesterday Christine and I had the “What If…” discussion. We have done so before the other surgeries, before the 4 times I sailed on a 45-foot sailboat over a thousand miles offshore in the Atlantic, and on other occasions that “what if…” became an uncomfortably real consideration.

There is the practical side to the talk: How to get into my computer, where passwords are stored, what bills are not on autopay, decisions to be made regarding investments, Social Security, and Medicare…

There is the “Last Wishes” part: Cremation not burial, a “celebration of life” not a funeral, Yes, beer-wine-liquor-music and fun, (renting banquet space at the Boulevard Brewery would work). No tears! Which special mementos to which child/grandchild…

…and then there is the important part: What Christine, my family, and you my friends have meant to me, what I wish for my children/grandchildren, and gratitude…

Whatever I endured in any past life, (again, a question for poets, philosophers, and perhaps Timothy Leary reincarnated) this life has been a reward. In looking back on the pages of my life I see that every chapter has been full of choices, decisions, and outcomes that turned out better than I had a right to expect.

I have every reason to believe that Monday, after the surgeon completes the repairs on my body and the anesthesiologist restores my consciousness, the physical healing will begin. However, if something doesn’t go as planned I want to make sure that everyone knows that I have lived a storied life, and I leave it with nothing but gratitude. For each of you I hold the wish that you Have Fun (because life should be fun), Do Good (as in your best and what is right), and Be Safe (for the sake of those who love you).

Peace Everyone. Pete

PS. From my earliest years I’ve been aware of the impermanence of life. Some might consider such thinking morbid. When I was in elementary school I was an avid reader of adventure fiction, both classics and contemporary. My “prayers” then included the wish that I not die until I finished the most recent book.

I am currently reading “A Trick of the Light” by Louise Penny. It is the sixth book in the Armand Gamache detective series and I hope to finish it before next Monday. However, I wanted to give a strong recommendation to this exceptional series of novels. The plot surprises, character development, and the presentation of the fictional Canadian village of “Three Pines” are superb. While each book centers upon solving a murder mystery, the various side plots are a study in human nature, love, loss, and so much more. I look forward to continuing the next volumes.

60+ years ago a very young Peter Schloss would have gone to bed saying, “God please let me finish this book before…”

Written at Kansas City, Missouri, September 23, 2024  

Original “tatting” (a form of lace-making) by my friend, Wendy Mejia, https://www.etsy.com/shop/WooWorks3

Friends, Neighbors, and Dog Whistles

Posted on by Pete Schloss

(The image above is of our 15-year-old granddaughter, Delaney, who donated 20 quilts that she made over the last year to the infants in the NICU of Kansas City’s Childrens Mercy Hospital.) 

Doug Pimm was a supervisor at the Missouri State Probation and Parole office where I began my first post-college job. He was hard spoken and gruff. He was also an ordained Episcopal Priest who traded his New York parish for a “more captive audience” in the Missouri Department of Corrections.

When you got beneath his rough-cut exterior, Doug deeply cared for people, among them his officers and the offenders we supervised. By the way, Doug married Christine and me. His price was a Wilson 2000 aluminum tennis racquet. In 1977 that was about all we could afford.

Doug once told me that real friends are rare. To Doug, real friends are the people who will drop everything to give you aid. He said that most people can number their real friends on one hand. By Doug’s metric I am blessed. Discounting for the impediments of geography, I count many of you as my true friends, more than I can count on my fingers and my toes.

The “Good Samaritan” gave aid to a stranger, not a “friend”, but a neighbor. Christianity is not the only major religion to recognize the importance of reaching out and giving aid to one’s neighbor. Nor is it the first religion to do so. Virtually all religions recognize the imperative of seeing the humanity in each of us.

The political and religious gulf that existed between the Jews and Samaritans was a canyon that made our current “culture wars” look paltry by comparison, and made Democrats and Republicans look like fraternal twins.

Christ intentionally chose the Samaritan as the giver of aid to a stranger, a Jew. The Samaritan had full knowledge of the religious/political identity of this stranger, yet humanity made the Jew his “neighbor”.

My friends and neighbors include, Republicans and Democrats, Right to Lifers and proponents of Reproductive Choice, the spiritually oriented and atheists, Gay, Straight, Trans… My friends would not qualify their assistance to me on my stand with regard to these modern-day controversies.

I suspect that most know where I stand on these and many other issues, but I resist throwing my beliefs in anyone’s face. I know that I won’t change any minds by my words, but I might by my example.

Social media is a wonderful tool for keeping in touch with friends. Unfortunately, it is also a megaphone that magnifies the latest “dog-whistle” in the news cycle grossly out of proportion to the actual importance of the issue in our everyday lives. Draw attention not to our differences, but to our similarities. The former already has countless voices (usually raised in anger), it is the latter that cries quietly to be recognized. I am not suggesting silence about your opinions, just suggesting you offer thoughtfully given information, not an incitement adding to controversy.

I am asking you, my friends and “neighbors”, to resist the urge to jump on and parrot the latest “dog-whistle” call to arms. Most often the expression of righteous indignation is someone else’s and we are enlisted to magnify that indignation for their benefit, not ours. Look among your friends and neighbors who are of a different political party, a different religion, a different race, a different nationality, a different sexual orientation, and ask yourself, “If they were in need, would I withhold my aid based upon the differences in our beliefs?”

Christine and I live on the corner of a busy intersection in the city. It is a rare month that there is not at least one collision at this intersection. Upon hearing a crash, Christine is among the first on the scene to offer assistance, whether that is by calling 911, directing traffic, or inviting the often shaken but mobile drivers into our home. She doesn’t try to first determine who was “at fault”, and certainly doesn’t ask about their socio-political stand on the latest controversies cycling in the news.

Follow her example. Peace everyone. Pete

Written at Kansas City, July 30, 2024.

PS. Here is an update on my condition: I had an MRI of my spine on Sunday evening. There was much confirmation based upon the nature and severity of my pain. Varying degrees of deterioration of certain vertebrae, most serious in the lower back. There were also a couple of surprises. A couple of bulging disks and a cyst protruding into the spinal column.

On Monday morning I had a lumbar epidural injection of steroid medication. It went well and later that day I experienced significant relief. Today minor pain has resurfaced, but nothing like my recent experience which verged upon debilitating. This is the next step in a conservative treatment approach. We shall see if the benefit lasts.

In the meantime, Christine and I are off to Colorado for most of the month of August. I have ordered a log splitter that is to be delivered on Monday. Britton is accompanying us for just next week to lend a hand. We laid up an impressive supply of firewood that awaits our efforts to split it.

Pete