A Day at The Pond [View all]

[H2O Man]

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Years ago, a Clan Mother told me that at times when the world is spinning faster and faster, it is good to find a quiet, still place. And so it is with my pond. I like to go out early in the morning, around the time the sun is coming up: I fill the bird-feeders, and toss some food onto the surface of the pond for the fish. Then I sit with a cup of coffee and watch a small section of the world move at a natural pace. The older I get, the more I appreciate each morning.

Soon, one of our "house cats" comes to the pond's edge. Although I prefer dogs, one or two of the herd of cats that inhabits our home and property are never far from my feet. This one likes to come to the pond with me daily. He watches the fish snatching food from the water's surface with an intensity tinged with frustration.

My older daughter comes out, with coffee and a book. She has been dealing with the pressures of youth: she graduates high school in two months, and had decided what university to attend two days ago. She had the option of graduating a few years early, but opted to stay with her own class. This allowed her to take two years of college-credited courses, and to work part-time for county agencies including Social Services, the District Attorney, and Family Court. She is beginning an outline for her speech as valedictorian; I will be, as a school board member, handing her the diploma she has earned.

The school board business takes up a lot of time. Although our school is the best in a four-county region, it faces the harshest budget cuts from the state. So much for rewarding success. Governor Andrew Cuomo inherited an educational system that spends 17 times more per student in the NYC-Long Island region than in the upstate; still, for reasons that I suspect have more to do with his planned 2016 presidential run than with students' futures, he is intent upon slashing our funding.

Chloe suggests that we take the row boat out to the middle of the pond. As we go out, I tell her about the local "tea-partiers" who attended Tuesday's board meeting to complain about the increasing costs of public education. Although we actually made substantial reductions, they are still angry ....anger and hostility are the requirement for tea party membership, I suppose. Although I am still in my first year on the board, they have identified me as the "enemy." They know that the teachers' union endorsed me -- the first time they publicly backed any candidate -- and that I beat one of the tea party leaders. If I said that the sky is blue, they would be furious; if I said it isn't blue, they would be outraged.

At the Thursday meeting, a state assemblyman attended the second board meeting. Though he is a conservative republican, we are friends. He assisted Onondaga Chief Paul Waterman and I years ago, in saving an ancient burial ground from being mined for gravel. I contacted him a couple of months ago to discuss the state cuts in education, and he is making a sincere effort to help level the playing field.

After the long boat tour of our small pond, my daughter brings the boat to shore. While there is no track practice on Easter Sunday, she wants to go to the track to get a few miles in. She asks if I'm okay alone? A week before, a bee flew into my eye, and stung me as I attempted to wipe it out; my vision has been hampered since then, to the point I may seek medical attention. More, after speaking in Albany on Wednesday, I took a hard fall down the stairs to the stage. (Yikes!) Yes, I am okay.

In the early afternoon, I went to the house to prepare a meal. Both of my sons will be coming over: one lives a couple towns away, working as a fork-lift driver; the other works construction on Long Island. It's the first time all six of us will be sitting down together for some time. After our meal, my older son walks out to the pond with me, to see this season's new koi fish; we count about 25 new ones, with interesting variations of the coloring of the mature ones.

By late afternoon, both sons have headed back into their own futures, and my daughters are taking their mother's car to visit friends. My wife had been seriously ill earlier this year -- with more doctors' and ER visits, and time in the hospital -- than I can keep track of ..... a very rough three months. She is returning to work full-time this week, and is going to read and rest. I will go back to the pond.

Chloe had bought me two books when she visited the university on Friday. One was about Irish literature; I suspect her oldest brother borrowed it. I take the other one ("We are the People our Parents Warned Us Against: The Classic Account of the 1960s Counter-Culture in San Francisco"; Nicholas von Hoffman; Elephant Paperback; 1968) and one of my dogs back out to the pond.

Kelly is a boxer-mix, white with blue spots. He is also a tumbling clown, habitually in a happy mood. He seems torn between demanding constant affection, and seeking to follow every scent through the fields and woods. Though both of his parents love to swim, Kelly only walks about 16 inches into the water, repeatedly, to get drinks. Then he comes back and gets me soaked. He makes it impossible to read, and so I build a small fire and try to dry out. I remember my late friend Jay's saying: "White people build big fires, and have to stay so far away that their backs are cold; Indians build small fires they can sit close to, and stay warm."

On Monday, April 16, I will be bringing a group of pro-environment, anti-hydrofracking grass roots activists to Pace University's Law Clinic, to meet with Robert Kennedy, Jr. We will be discussing the struggle to protect our region from the energy corporations that seek to drill for gas, making this a "national sacrifice area." Any time I am preparing for a public meeting where I have to do a presentation, I like to sit out at my pond and make a mental outline. It's that calm place, where I can get ready to venture out into the rapidly spinning world.

There is a scene in an old movie, "The Emerald Forest," where an old chief calls the area where "progress" is destroying natural resources "the Dead World." That "Dead World" is spinning faster and faster, destroying more and more of the Natural World. As I sit near my pond, I am surrounded by life: the pond itself teems with life; the birds are at the feeders for sun flowers; Kelly has chased the cat --his good friend inside the house-- up a tree. I've hoped that whoever lives here after I pass .... maybe one of my children, perhaps followed by a grandchild's family ..... will be able to sit here, and enjoy the same miracles of life that I am enjoying now. But hydrofracking threatens to destroy that possibility.

A few minutes after the sun goes down, some dark clouds move in. A rain shower puts the fire out. Kelly and I head back to our house, where I continue to read my new book.