Skin Color, It's A Hot Issue

It’s summer time at the Old Place and interesting things are beginning to happen. The state bird of Louisiana, the mosquito has begun to make its presence felt (Slap my arm, say OUCH!).  The poison ivy starts to climb and sunburns make us all look like Washington Redskins!  Ha!  Oh sure autocross season is in full swing and the bikini girls are out in force but hey, you do not want to see me in a Speedo!  Most of my Southern bretherin’ do revel in the heat, spending long hours after work and on the weekends outside.  Whatever your particular outside endeavor is please allow me to caution you, heat can be a killer.  Ordinarily I would spend this time talking about the importance of taking frequent breaks in the shade, keeping hydrated and how not to confuse fluid replacers with energy drinks.  This morning though I am going to do something I normally would never think about doing. . .  I am going to play the race card!  It’s all right folks, it’s nothing like that.  Anyone who has taken basic first aid has learned about the various stages of heat emergencies and how important it is to be able to recognize the signs.  Whether it is the cold clammy pale skin and heavy sweating of heat exhaustion or the hot dry red skin associated with heat stroke most of us know what to look for and what to do.  But what about folks of African, Hispanic or Mediterranean descent, would they turn red too?  Hmm, good question.  The answer is actually, no.  An African American with very dark skin will usually turn a deep purple color, while Hispanics tend to achieve something of a mahogany tone.  Is this really a safety issue?  I’ll let you decide.  This past week I did an impromptu pole of our African American, Hispanic and Native American workers and found only two who already knew this.  Why does no one teach this?  Likely this comes from the old belief that since darker skinned folks come from tropical regions, they are naturally more tolerant of heat.  Okay, let’s look at that logically. We all know that darker colors tend to absorb heat while lighter colors reflect heat. This is called, “Solar Radiative Heat Gain, and it differs significantly among individuals and between populations.  Studies indicate that lighter skin reflects about 30-40 percent of total solar radiation, while dark skin reflects only 18 percent or less.  That would seem to suggest that darker skinned folk would have MORE trouble with heat rather than less. In fact, there have been over 108 distinct studies related to heat tolerance.  Of the myriad of factors studied the greatest influence on individual response to heat tolerance is acclimatization or “just getting used to it.”  The remarkable aspect of the acclimatization response is the ease by which it is accomplished.  It is rapid, effective, and occurred even when the tests were performed in a temperate climate in winter. That’s right friends the studies even included native Eskimo tribes. Furthermore, all normal, healthy people who were tested were able to acclimate whether to extreme heat or extreme cold.  What can we learn from all this?  When it comes to teaching about the dangers of heat, play the race card.  Everyone regardless of race, color or creed needs to know how to spot the signs of heat stroke in everyone and to treat it as the life threatening illness that it is.

Sitting in a rocker at the Old Place, with a glass of iced tea, I am Col. Jim.

Happy Farther's Day

Yes it is "Farther’s" Day here at the Old Place and as the author W.P. Kinsella would say, “the memories are so thick you have to brush them away from your face.”  You heard me right, Far-Ther’s Day. You might remember farther back when I introduced you folks to the Old Place, I told you my Grandfather built it and my father used to bring me up here. Farther back in the day some Native American’s father likely discovered this lake while out hunting.  It was pristine of course and a lot smaller, probably not much more than a mountain stream backed up behind a beaver damn.  Farther back than that, well who knows?  Not able to look farther back with any certainty let’s look farther ahead.  We’ll be headed to church at 10:00.  Farther on after that Ms. Melinda and MaryHannah have a special day planned for me.  Farther back in this blog I mentioned W.P. Kinsella.  Most of you know the Kevin Costner film, Field of Dreams was based on Kinsella’s novel, “Shoeless Joe,” the movie tells the story of a novice Iowa farmer named Ray who lives with his wife Annie and his daughter Karin. Ray had a troubled relationship with his father, who was a devoted baseball fan. Walking in his cornfield one evening, Ray hears a voice whisper, "If you build it, he will come." Ray then sees a vision of a baseball diamond in his field. Annie is skeptical, but Ray plows under his corn to build the field. As months pass by, nothing happens. One evening, with despair and creditors closing in Ray’s daughter comes to him and says, “Daddy, there’s a man out there on your lawn.”  It is “Shoeless” Joe Jackson, a deceased baseball player idolized by Ray's father. Thrilled to be able to play baseball again, Joe returns with the seven other players banned from baseball in the 1919 World Series scandal. The story rolls on with Ray helping "Ease the pain" of a disillusioned 60’s radical and author Terrance Mann who dreamed of playing for the Brooklyn Dodgers.  Ray tries to do the same for a long dead nobody named Archibald "Moonlight" Graham who became small town doctor after one game with the New York Giants in 1922, but never got to bat.  As things move farther along Ray gets angry wondering out loud at last, “what’s in this for me?”  It is Shoeless Joe who reminds Ray why he sacrificed so much saying, "If you build it, he will come."  Joe glances toward home plate. The catcher removes his mask and Ray sees it is his father as a young man. Shocked, Ray surmises that "Ease his pain" referred to his father, but Joe counters that the voice referred to Ray himself.  Ray introduces his father to his wife and daughter, then asks, “hey. . . Dad, ya wanna have a catch?”  The farther I go down my time line, the more I realize why God designed us to need a father.  Some fathers are living legends some fathers are just plain folks.  As fathers ourselves let us all resolve to go farther than needed, farther than required, farther than expected.  Then Our Father Who art in heaven, He will take us there, father than we ever imagined!

Sitting in a rocker at the Old Place,

I am Col. Jim.

Why We Care About Safety

Here at the Old Place we look out for each other.  One morning I was taking my walk around the lake when I noticed Ms. Edith sitting on her back porch with a stranger.  It was a young man; his head was bent over, he had a cup of coffee in his hands and he was crying.  Edith got up patted his back and walked over to me.  The fella had recently lost his young bride to an act of violence leaving him a widower at 28 and his 7 year old daughter Teresa motherless.  All of a sudden all my problems seemed like Disney World.  As I began to pray with them the names Edith and Teresa kept appearing in my head, and I wondered what God was trying to tell me.  I had been reading recently about a rather unique saint, a Prussian born Jew and former atheist named Edith Stein.  Moved by the tragedies of World War I, Edith became a nursing assistant in a hospital.  Drawn to the Catholic faith, she was admitted as a Discalced Carmelite nun taking the name Teresa Benedicta of the Cross.  Eight years later she was martyred in a Nazi gas chamber.  God had chosen that moment of tragedy to show me again why safety is a ministry.

Of course safety is also the law.  The philosopher Aristotle said that, “Law is reason free from passion.”  Does that mean that law is sufficient reason on its own to be safe?  I believe rational arguments and inferences alone do not give us trustworthy knowledge.  Safety is about people.  Silly, emotional, passion filled children of God.

As I reflected on the young man’s pain, I remember St. Teresa saying that, “Our knowledge of someone else’s pain is direct knowledge.” Say what?  Well, we know other people have a mind like ours sure because we know that we think, feel, decide, suffer, rejoice and etc.  Think of Rene’ Descartes’ phrase, “Cogito ergo sum, I think therefore I am.”  We all have experiences influenced by the world outside our own bodies but what makes those experiences interchangeable between us?

In his 1995 Evangelium Vitae, Pope John Paul II, now St. John Paul the Great clarified this when he wrote, “Recognizing the reality of a person as opposed to a mere human organism is as fundamental as recognizing the reality of being.”  In other words, recognize the soul in all persons.  So what’s it go to do with safety?

I must go back to St. Teresa for an answer.  The object of our awareness at first is awareness of a consciousness outside our-self, let’s say one that “appears” to be in pain.  When we allow this awareness to unfold to its fullness, we find ourselves actually aware of becoming of the other person, in a sense “remembering” or “recognizing” their pain as if it were a memory in our own personal experience.  We achieve what amounts to intimate knowledge of others, a caring that transcends any desire to merely prevent pain but to eliminate it all together.  The struggle for safety is a supreme act of virtue and as St. Thomas Aquinas said, “nothing, except sin, is contrary to an act of virtue.”

Sitting in a rocker at the Old Place, I am Col. Jim.

No Time For A Parade

All over the country there are parades this Memorial Day honoring our fallen heroes.  There are no parades up here at the Old Place, but there is plenty of time for reflection.  I’m reading a small blue binder.  The author paints a vision of a terrified young sailor standing on the smoking, listing deck of a US destroyer.  A Japanese torpedo has just blown off the stern taking 19 of his shipmates to their deaths and leaving the ship dead in the water in the middle of a major sea battle. I could almost smell the cordite and hear the explosions.  As I close the binder, I see a patch glued to the front of it depicting a young wild Indian shooting a bow and arrow.  The arrow is pointed down.  I like to believe that is because he is shooting at that Japanese submarine, the preferred prey of our WWII destroyers. That patch is the unit insignia of Destroyer Squadron 23, “The Little Beavers” activated on May 11, 1943.  Under the command of then Commodore Arleigh “31 Knot” Burke, DESRON 23 earned a Presidential Unit Citation fighting 22 engagements while destroying a Japanese cruiser, nine destroyers, one submarine, several smaller ships, and approximately 30 aircraft.  That young sailor was a small, “Foote Note,” if you will, to this story aboard the Fletcher Class Destroyer USS Foote, interestingly the same class as our own embattled USS Kidd.  Wilbur V. Rogers was not even old enough to drink when with seabag hoisted over his shoulder he gazed up the gang way toward the ship that would be his home for the next two years. There was nothing special about the young sailor from Jonesboro, Louisiana.  Rog served in the Main Battery Director targeting enemy aircraft with the deadly twin 44 mm cannons.  He told me once, “You could get those guns to fire together or alternate.  I never liked it when they fired together.  If I could get them firing alternately that meant there was always lead in the air!”  Rog ultimately told me about the Battle of Empress of Augusta Bay. “It was 3 O’Clock in the morning and we had just executed a hard left turn to come up on the starboard quarter of the USS Converse.  A minute later a Japanese torpedo struck us at an angle behind the aft 5 inch gun mount.  We were making 31-knots and immediately went dead in the water.  All we could do was watch as the stern section, with 19 of our shipmates, turned slowly and began to sink.”  The Foote was repaired and returned to the war ultimately taking part in siege of Okinawa.  So, what’s it got to do with safety?  Those of you who know the Old Col know I’m a bit of a submarine nut.  So one day my father-in-law introduces me to his best friend Wilbur Rogers, with Marathon Oil and a tin can sailor.  Needless to say we eyed each other with some suspicion.  As I got to know Mr. Rog and listened to his stories he gradually became the grandfather I never had.  He took me on personal guided tours using our USS Kidd as a substitute for his long gone Foote.  As Rog shared, his stories of his shipmates, their battles and their laughter came alive.  This is a very difficult story for me to end.  “We all get old if we live long enough,” Rog once said.  Well I guess that’s true.  Mr. Rog and his sweet bride Ona Vee have had to leave Baton Rouge for Shreveport to be closer to their daughter.  To say I will miss him is not enough.  My world will be just a bit dimmer without Rog around.  His life and his character are a brilliant and blinding devotion to his family, his friends and of course to our country. Sadly, there will be no parade for Mr. Rog, but I send him on his way with “Fair winds and following seas” Mr. Rog, you will be missed.  

Sitting in a rocker at the Old Place, 

I am Col. Jim.