Tag Archives: American culture

After the Battle

Cynthia Kraack Posted on by

Surviving war does not equate to a free ticket home.

COVID-19 is like a world war with every country fighting unique battles to beat a largely invisible enemy. When a vaccine is ready, how will wearied populations move forward? How will first responders and all on the front lines find their equilibrium? Where will we mourn our dead?

A good number of the 40 Thieves on Saipan WWII platoon survivors re-enlisted for the Korean conflict. They had seen too much, experienced too much, to return to the family dinner table. For the rest of their lives, many fought the bloody Pacific Theater battles of their youth. Between 1.4 and 1.5 million World War II vets fought in Korea. My father was one of those.

Some WWI and WWII vets disappeared after finding home side re-integration in the United States too difficult. My father-in-law was one of those. Without credit cards and mobile phones, pulling up roots in the 1950s was far easier. The  women they left behind were granted the dignity of being known ‘war widows’ even if somewhere their legal spouse was alive.

Mental health issues have dogged veterans as long as men have waged war. Some WWII and Vietnam vets who had suffered as prisoners of war returned home able to rehabilitate. Others did the best they could. I worked with a well-functioning man who chose to remove his shoes and eat his lunch under his desk. He had spent months in a Russian prisoner camp and carried this vulnerability to the work world.

Hit with the double whammy of COVID-19 and economic tsunami, not all of us will have the tenacity to start over. Suicide rates in the United States have risen dramatically since the start of the millennium, particularly among white middle age men. Vietnam and Afghanistan vets are dying at their own hand daily.

The world will not be a friendlier place in 2021, so where will we find ourselves? In a New York Times op ed David Brooks writes about the US tide of “safetyism” that buffers children and young people from disappointment, from accidents of any size, from developing tenacity. He says that tenacity is not a feature of good character, but what people are trained to do. One of our first challenges will be to find tenacious leaders in families, communities, schools, corporations and government and ask them to help everyone to build the skill set. And to build supports for those who are struck with hesitancy or fear on the journey to our new world.

Surviving this virus war will be a different kind of battle. Stay home. Stay safe.

 

Door County Late Winter

Cynthia Kraack Posted on by

Plowed snow covers a neighbor’s stonewall. Deer follow each other’s tracks leaving pathways through the woods. Ermine patrol exterior of houses in search of mice. Squirrels catapult between bare tree branches.

Three days of bright sun makes a friend’s installation of solar panels look like a good investment. Melting ice sparkles down the rain chain. The back porch is clear of Friday’s slippery melt and freeze mess. XC skies, snowshoes and sleds drip dry in the garage. Snow polished dangerously on roadways two nights ago has been forgotten.

Weekend visitors have drifted through stores with clearance sales, cruised snow mobile trails closed much of an unpredictable winter, brought a much needed dinner crowd to restaurants and bars. Better to have people late in the season when businesses have been down too long.

Maybe there’s a tease of spring in the breeze. Maybe that’s a foolish dream with more windy days and possible snow predicted midweek. Still time to buy winter gear priced at fifty percent to wear during the duration. The biggest storms often come after chili dinners with friends followed by board games are not quite as fun, jigsaw puzzles fill too many evenings, and the good fireplace wood pile is low. It would be better if football hadn’t finished so early in the season. Catchers and batters camp feels disconnected from this reality. But everyone daydreams about t-shirts and sandals.

County baseball league guys hold their initial season meetings in bars as the high school kids earn their way to winter sports state competitions and those fortunate to have plans pack suitcases for a few weeks in places where palm trees offer shade at the side of a pool. With Easter early this year the little girls could be wearing winter jackets over pretty dresses and searching for eggs will definitely happen inside the house.

There’s still corn in the fields as seed catalogues fill mailboxes. It’s hard to leave the house without slipping feet into boots, jamming gloves in pockets of a warm coat and pulling on a hat. Survival habits for at least another month. The snow that is still to come will clog the driveway for a shorter misery factor. But winter has a way of staying relevant as long as it wants. Put on another pot of chili.

This is Our War

Cynthia Kraack Posted on by

Forty thousand people die from guns every year in the United States. Hundreds of thousands are injured. Sit back and consider those numbers then multiply each by ten to acknowledge family and friends traumatized by the violence.  Forty thousand domestic casualties in twelve months is more than all the Armed Forces casualties since President George Bush’s Desert Storm operation. While the loss of any US service person is tragic,  people back home don’t expect to make the ultimate sacrifice when shopping for their kids’ back to school supplies or worshiping on a Sunday morning or hiking in a national forest.

If the increasing numbers of mass shootings, domestic killings, urban murders, accidental tragedies, or individuals using a gun to end their lives were happening elsewhere, we might suggest these were signs of war. There might a call to send troops and support civilians dying in the cross fire.

Instead we work and raise our children and care for those more vulnerable in communities we can only hope are safe that day. Our elected leaders accept money from the ever powerful lobbyists of the gun world. Because too many politicians like the money and power, there is denial that a domestic war exists.

You and I can never raise the money these politicians–both men and women–require to change their minds or rhetoric about assault rifles. My brother and uncles never needed military grade firearms to hunt grouse or deer. There are an estimated fifteen million military-style rifles in civilian hands. Mass shootings are difficult to accept as part of the price of protecting some individuals’ personal freedom to own what they want.

There is another statistic that is difficult to accept–about sixty percent of gun-related deaths are suicides. Stop and consider the heaviness of that fact. Significant experts tie the flood of illegal drugs including opioids with the astounding number of guns in our country to violence and rising suicide numbers.

Some say it is too late to work our way out of this gun tsunami. Giving up on a safer future for our children and grandchildren because of facing difficult decisions and an angry minority today doesn’t feel American. It feels reasonable if a person wants a traditional rifle or handgun and can prove they have received valid training in safe handling of that weapon. That was how the US once lived. A country where people can own multiple weapons capable of mass shootings and stockpiled ammunition sounds like a nation where the body count will continue to rise. A country engaged in a passive aggressive sort of domestic war.

The Thousand Dollar Physical

Cynthia Kraack Posted on by

For the past five years I relied on individual health insurance plans with high deductibles. A minor, in-office surgical procedure cost about $2,300 including lab work. I paid all the cost out of my pocket. The annual physical was covered as preventative care except I asked a couple of questions and those were coded as diagnostic and resulted in billings that I paid. In 2017 it appeared that each question was worth about $130.

This year I am in a more generous healthcare insurance setting and was cautious about asking questions at the annual physical. The explanation of benefits arrived this afternoon with a cool $1,042 charge. Holy cow! I’m not responsible for paying that amount, but am blown away that just the physician component could be so costly. Lab fees haven’t been posted yet. We’re talking five minutes of rooming by a CNA and about twenty minutes of physician time in a regular clinic setting. No technology or specialty care.

When your doctor tells you what immunizations need updating and suggests you go to the drugstore or a drop in clinic because they charge about half of what the medical practice will bill, that’s uncomfortable.

For all who are self-employed, under-employed, or employed in a small company with no insurance, these stories can be game changers. Unfortunately this isn’t a new story unless you are one of the thousands who have decided to start your own business. About 30% of the U.S. workforce are self-employed or work for someone who is according to the Pew Institute.

Have leaders in the healthcare world lost connection to reality? What percent of annual after tax income should an individual, or family, be expected to commit to basic healthcare?

The integrated healthcare delivery systems that grew out of giant mergers and acquisitions of physician groups were supposed to provide improved quality with greater efficiency. I worked in that sector during the first decade of consolidation. The thousand dollar physical suggests the experiment didn’t work.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Freedom of Speech

Cynthia Kraack Posted on by

Writers need readers. Simple enough. I’ve taken advantage of Facebook to boost postings and engage with new readers. I blog, both on my website and with other writers and bring links about those posts to Facebook. But I have become cautious about posting anything but easy thoughts on my website (cynthia@cynthiakraack.com).

All who have reacted in a civil manner to postings or photos are greatly appreciated. The hatemongers and brutes on Facebook are another experience. Respectful disagreement appears to have disappeared into rambling, often vulgar, statements that not only disagree but also add opinions about the supposed personality of the writer.  While blog responses can be prescreened, not so on Facebook.

I began my writing career as a journalist. People disagreed with editorial content and called or wrote letters. We also had a few cranky folks who would show up at the office. They weren’t fond of conversation, were more prone to raise their voice to tell you their thoughts, maybe with a few vulgarities, even pound on a desk. Sometimes we’d call a family member to help us out, a time or two we called the police. In general, people owned their opinions with names and addresses on letters or by talking face to face. We didn’t deal with people hiding behind threatening screen names. We never expected to be harmed, stalked, or killed.

It is a different time. While holding the right to free speech dearly, I am perplexed about how to deal with the verbally abusive responders. At this point I hide their comments. I hear from others that this is part of today’s communication and just not pay attention to what is ugly. Unfortunately I can’t forget.

What’s your experience and do you have any advice?

Of What We Remember

Cynthia Kraack Posted on by

In decades past, around ten in the morning on Memorial Day, the veterans of foreign wars marched down Main Street in our small town with the high school band, tractors from the local implement dealer, the mayor in a convertible, the Knights of Columbus and enough other groups to call the gathering a parade. Many came in from the surrounding farms to line the streets then follow the marchers to the fairgrounds for a town picnic.

That’s the belief system I in which grew up. The Vietnam War tested Memorial Day. Vietnam vets weren’t welcome in the feel good ceremonies. VFW posts frequently didn’t allow Vietnam vets membership for all kinds of sad reasons. Vietnam vets changed from their uniforms to street clothes before leaving the airport at discharge, were spat at on the street by anti-war protesters who confused fellow citizens with policy makers, were let go from jobs by ignorant folks who called them wicked names.

One Memorial Day weekend my employer sent me to a national editorial association meeting in New Orleans. I was young and excited about the trip, but also sad about missing our traditional holiday gathering. I asked another attendee why the conference had been scheduled on this weekend. Southern born she gave me a sixty- second history of how her family considered Memorial Day a Yankee holiday to rub defeat in the faces of Confederate states.

There have always been divisions in this large nation. Sometimes the schism is about human rights, sometimes about policies too onerous for one large group of people to accept, often about disparity in the quality of the illusive American Experience. Television was blamed for delivering the Vietnam War to families’ living rooms and for pushing the curtains back on civil injustice. Social media has the praise or curses for changing the tone of political discourse today.

What do we remember on Memorial Day?

When veterans were asked to stand during the St. Paul Saints baseball game yesterday I felt the same quiet tears begin that I’ve experienced since September 11, 2001. Old and young, male and female, they raised a hand. Shoulders were set, chests puffed, heads held proud. Rightfully so.

It would be comforting to believe these brave citizens could continue to protect our country against divisiveness within, sinking respect abroad, and the powerful war weapons of nuclear devices, digital mayhem, and men greedy for their own power.

“Life played a giant joke on those of us living unassuming lifestyles twenty years ago. When the men who played with power ordered those who played with destruction to send out their weapons, billions suffered.” — Minnesota Cold

I say that I write speculative fiction to deal with what I fear about the future. Minnesota Cold was written ten years ago about a time ten years from now.

If only everyone from Washington, D.C. to the people living in our neighborhoods can remember what we hold in common, find our way to shaking hands, and talking about a common future over a plate of picnic foods. On Memorial Day, we could honor the sacrifices of the past by building for a better future.

More Baby Goats!

Cynthia Kraack Posted on by

Sometimes news stories reach resolution. Bad storms end, a small airplane crash results in no fatalities, a child is returned to family. But the big stories involving a certain cast of Washington D.C. personalities have no immediate resolution. The bells they ring reverberate night and day in our lives.

What we need on social media and television now are more baby goats in pajamas, more baby otters nursing from tiny bottles, ducklings climbing out of fountains. More emotional cowbells to cover Washington D.C.’s discordant sounds for at least a few minutes.

Let’s go out and buy puppies or tiny mice that will eat off spoons. Let’s get together with friends and teach each other how to play banjo or drums. Maybe during the summer we should bring back the Macarena and hold neighborhood dance parties.

Prolonged stress doesn’t do the body any good. Let’s make a pact to stop recording TRMS and watch only the early evening national news before gathering with others to practice our stress relievers. For fifteen minutes let’s give control over to a three year old doing the hokey pokey followed by graham crackers and apple juice. Or vodka and tonic for the adults.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Aldo Leopold Weekend

Cynthia Kraack Posted on by

March 4, 2017, sixty-nine years after Aldo Leopold penned his final contribution to A Sand County Almanac, a marathon reading of his work begins in a small building called The Schoolhouse in the Clearings Folk School in Door County, Wisconsin. Pine trees can be seen through every window. A few birds flitter past during the ninety minutes. Eight inches of snow dumped during a nasty storm earlier in the week glistens outside with puddles beginning to form where the day’s sun and temps clear out cold stuff one more time. Leopold, the man known as the father of wildlife ecology, would appreciate the setting for this local event celebrating Aldo Leopold Weekend.

Young and old, writers and environmentalists, students and philanthropic retirees, wait their turn to read selected pieces. Everyone willingly hands their attention and time to listening one more time to Leopold’s insights about the ways of nature as highways and manufacturing were changing America in the 1930s and 40s. No one checks cell phones or watches. Stories about fishing, about birds, about snow melt, about prairie flowers lost to road construction written near The Shack in Baraboo, Wisconsin by a wise man. Humor, detailed description, a few lessons tucked into each about caring for the land because it is ours communally.

A Sand County Almanac would be a good read for any person who thinks about the land, or to nurture awareness of our environment. It could be a nice present for Ryan Zinke or even Mr. Trump, who might prefer the audio format.

 

 

Winter Stillness

Cynthia Kraack Posted on by

Rabbit tracks are the only interruption of a stretch of yesterday’s snow stretching from my window to a neighbor’s stone garden walls. Lines of sparkling white rest on the bare tree branches that fracture a cloudless blue sky. Sunshine is decorative when the temperature stops climbing.

As a writing prompt snow has a lengthy positive playlist—a blanket hiding all that is gray, an invitation to be a child, flakes on lashes, a fairylike sparkling dust. And there are days when the snow prompt elicits other words—glaring cold hiding the garden’s green, icy curse on a safe journey, smothering the earth, driving animals further to find food, treacherous underfoot, frozen tundra, blinding, endless, isolating.

The newspapers this morning are filled with grave concerns about the future of our country. I am caught in an unhealthy ennui, held captive creatively, unable to find peaceful stillness. A sentence begins, crawls on screen, then my eyes return to the rabbit tracks on yesterday’s snow and wonder if the furry critter is nesting under the stones in my neighbor’s garden, what it eats in the winter, how badly the next four years might be. Will Minnesota Cold become my reality?

Mo Udall once said something like Reaganomics promised all people equal ice, but for the poor it would all come in the winter. And while our departing President challenges us to continue to hope, his words are tempered by the reality of the world where there is a whole lot of hostility and inequality.

If I wrote romances or mysteries instead of literary and speculative fiction, winter might be easier. Passion and puzzles sound like better mental escapes than thinking about emotional change or dystopia.

My Grandfather’s Face

Cynthia Kraack Posted on by

Urban shoppers might walk away from farmers’ markets in the rural area where I grew up. There’s IMG_3626nothing exotic among the produce displayed. Tomatoes look like those ripening on a backyard vine. A dozen green peppers, as many red, and a handful of orange are the choices today. Big onions with dirt still clinging to the skins wait next to baby red potatoes. For fruit lovers there is a bin of large red pears, apricots, baskets of plums. The first of the new apple crop waits in plastic bags on large flat tables. They are costly, but will be in pies all over the county this weekend.

My grandfather worked a half-acre garden, berry patch and fruit trees, to feed his five children and wife. Potatoes, carrots and onions filled the winter fruit cellar. Tomatoes, peas, beans, corn, cabbage, cucumbers and fruit were canned. Into his nineties he spent time in his garden daily during the growing season. Family or friends could stop for a visit and leave with cabbage and a sack of potatoes.

Feeding his family was tough. While holding a job working the on the railroad during the Depression, my grandfather liked to end his day at a local tavern. He had a reputation for losing his way home in a very small town.

My step-grandmother raised chickens and baked bread. He hunted and they canned venison stew, rabbit stew, wild turkey with gravy. Hams he earned by working weekends on his brother’s farm dried in the attic with other meat stored in the town’s cold locker. His family ate decently because of what they could put away during the good times. And there were plenty of bad times when dinner was bread fried in bacon grease. My father found it hard to forget or forgive those years.

IMG_3627Buying sweet corn in my car at a farmer’s stand, I saw a handsome old man getting down from a tractor. He wore faded jeans, a long-sleeve shirt tucked into a belt circling a slim waist. Turning, he smiled at me and touched his forehead, a gesture I remember in the good memories of my childhood. He winked as he walked past. Blue eyes in a tanned face topped by thick white hair. Not quite fifty miles from my grandfather’s original home, this man could possibly be a relative.

Twenty years ago a priest delivered my grandfather’s eulogy. He spoke of the kindly old man who loved to be surrounded by children, about the cardboard boxes of produce left at people’s door when they most needed help, about a person I hardly knew. My father moved us away from our hometown when his father’s reputation followed us into grade school. My grandfather was still working, still drinking.

I didn’t get to know the man the priest described. The man who remarried a kindly woman and changed the way he approached the world. Through the last three decades of his life, my grandfather became a man who would be missed. Knowing of his evolution made a deep impression in me, one that often drifts into my writing.

Another revelation on a quiet September day.