The Golfer & the Poet

Lawrence Ferlinghetti in front of his iconic SF bookstore in North Beach

"You are Whitman, you are Poe, you are Mark Twain, you are Emily Dickinson... You can conquer the conqueror with words" -- Lawrence Ferlinghetti (1919-2021)

Two guys made big news this week

They weren't politicians

They didn't use Twitter 

They came from two different worlds:

Our cultural obsession and our oldest confession

Their names shared the same news cycle

Likely for the first time 

One crashed in LA but survived

The other died in SF

Fifty-six years apart in life years

One was a golfer the other a poet

One question remains: Will the golfer

play again?

The poet will have his poems

read again, following a century

of thinking

Poets think, their tools are words

Golfers swing, their tools are clubs

Eldrick and Lawrence 

Tiger and Larry

Larry put inspired thoughts on paper, made books

for writers called Beats, like Kerouac, Ginsberg and Snyder

He made a bookstore into a hangout in San Francisco

City Lights

He took a lifetime of hard knocks, war and study

found himself a pacifist insurrectionist

Became poet laureate of the city

Expressed lovely words that broke hearts 

Struck nerves with simple twists of phrasing

Called writers to arm 

Last year his adopted city by the bay cheered him

at 100 

This week the national press revered him 

an orphan, a captain, a publisher, painter and poet

Tiger makes his comeback at the Riviera Country  Club in  Pacific Palisades, 2018.  PHOTO:KCS

Tiger has traveled a different road, no less bumpy

still farther to go, he's being watched, every move

A prodigy so young, a star so bright, invincible 

at his game

A man of color, beloved by the wide world

who knows him by name, the best ever 

who's paid the price of fame, greatness and pain

Into the dumps he went yet came back again

Now deja vu 

Another accident, another pin and screw to hold

together muscle, nerve and sinew

His adoring, hungry fans ask, can he, will he play once more?

Why can't he just be a man?  Be himself?

He cannot because he's more than mere mortal

He is Tiger

Peace, Love and Fire

On Valentine's Day a group of unmasked marauders barged into Trader Joe's market in Santa Cruz proving that ignorance and disruption are their calling card while shouting "peace and love." 

The above video captures this event and speaks for itself. I have a few thoughts about it below.

I believe it's a very mild version of what happened at our nation's Capitol on January 6. The connection is clear and I believe this kind of thing will happen again and is potentially very dangerous.

One obvious similarity between the two events is that members of the mob recorded videos of their activity. The above video was uploaded on YouTube faster than you can say "Operation Money Drop," the name of their "peace and love" caper.

Welcome to the age of social media, the age of Trump twitters and unruly mobs storming capitol buildings while snapping photos of themselves. We are in the midst of fake realities where anyone can make up their own lie, their own grievance or conspiracy to justify their actions, however disrespectful they may be of the rights and health of others.

I shop at this Trader Joe's store, and wait in line just like the folks who were waiting their turn to enter the store on this day. The store is careful to count how many people enter, ensuring that it does not become crowded with shoppers. The emphasis is on safety and they do a good job of it.

The unmasked gang cut in front of the line of people who follow the safety rules set by the store.

Boiled down to its essence, this is a blatant act of selfishness. It's all about me and what I believe. F-you! It's the F-you mentality. They call it "freedom" and pretend they're spreading "peace and love." This group claims that TJ employees and shoppers are victims of a mass scam. And they are here to save us! 

That is a lie, somebody's false narrative that gullible people have fallen for.

We know who the models of this kind of thinking and behavior are, or more precisely who spread the popular anti-government lies and conspiracies: Fox News, (the late) Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, Glen Beck, Sara Palin, Ted Cruz and the gang of Dividers. They foment hate and claim that you and they are the victims. They say those who disagree with them are the haters. They make a ton of money doing this.

Social media has enabled them and the conspirators we see here to spread their lies into the homes of people everywhere, people who may feel lonely, aggrieved, depressed. They go to Social Media for comfort and answers. It gives them someone to blame. It riles them up. 

"Why am I supposed to wear a mask everywhere I go?"

"It's the government's fault!"

"Everything's a scam!"

When I last checked, this YouTube video had received 984 "likes" and 994 "not likes." 

I clicked "not like."

What's in a Photograph?

PHOTO:FCS

I'm guessing that this photograph of me was taken in 1958 shortly after I turned 11-years-old. That's between being a little guy and a teenager, when everything begins to change, preadolescence. The picture was taken in our driveway on Hennepin Street in Kellogg Park, a housing tract in west Pomona. Today this very spot is where LA County freeways, "10" and "57" intersect.

It was a fun time because my greatest worries were about things like, will I get a new bike for Christmas?

This green Schwinn Corvette three-speed with chrome fenders was that bike. I don't think I had ever seen a more beautiful sight than when I woke up that December morning and found this bicycle in my living room, gleaming like a star from heaven and ready to be ridden.

My parents had taken me to Coates Bicycle Shop in Pomona where we had checked out bicycles and I had fallen in love with this green one when I took it for a test ride. I wasn't sure if it would be my Christmas present.

"We'll see," said my mother, not making any promises.

"I don't know," added my father. "It's up to Santa Claus."

I wanted to believe in Santa Claus because I didn't want to let go of my childhood, but deep down I had serious doubts. The night before Christmas I snuck out to the garage to snoop around and see if there was a bike hidden among my father's tools and boxes. His car took up most of the space. It was a black and turquoise 1957 Studebaker Silver Hawk with that lingering new-car smell inside. Many new cars of the mid-Fifties were two-toned with art-deco colors.

In those days, middle-class families bought new cars every three or so years. It was an annual ritual to go downtown to see the new models when they came out, especially the Chevrolets, Fords and Chryslers, the "top three" manufacturers of automobiles.  My dad and I enjoyed viewing the latest designs with cool fins, chrome embellishments and V8 engines that rumbled with power. My father preferred Studebakers, mainly I think, because of his childhood association with Studebaker horse-drawn wagons while growing up on a farm in North Dakota. 

Frank Samson with his 1957 Silver Hawk. Mt. Baldy in the background, upper right. PHOTO:KCS

Thanks to famed industrial designer Raymond Loewy, Studebakers were unique in several ways, both in design and technology. Loewy's principle of cleanlining "reduced the look of a product to its essence." He also designed household appliances including refrigerators, part of the mid-century modern look. 

In the early Fifties, Loewy gave Studebakers a modern cleanlining style with a series of Starliner Coupes which included the Golden and Silver Hawks. They were later credited for influencing Chevrolet's Corvette and Ford's Thunderbird and Mustang. Most American cars of that era were large tank-like vehicles made of steel that handled the road like boats floating on water.

Although only a two-door couple, the Silver Hawk was our family car. And it was an eye-catcher. I remember friends clamoring to ride in it. My dad was not a flashy guy but his streamlined black and turquoise car belied his everyman mien. He purchased it at Fletcher Jones' Studebaker in Pomona.

My new Schwinn Corvette was every bit as cool as my dad's Silver Hawk. That Christmas morning, I jumped on it and rode around the block, feeling a sense of pride and independence. I had never owned anything so precious and useful. I was able to shift into three different speeds with the flick of a lever attached to my handle bar. I would have to get used to the hand brakes, front and back. I was only familiar with pedal coaster brakes.

It was easy. I quickly adapted.

Before long I was riding all over the place, to school, Little League, St Joseph's church and plunge. I lived on my bike. I rode it across town to see my friends from school, including Steve Koski and Mike Mullin, who lived in south Pomona.

To make my bike even cooler, I replaced the stock handle bars with "risers," the popular "in" look handlebars that resembled deer antlers. I also added a "goose neck" to raise the bars even higher. I put "mud flaps" on the fenders. Eventually, I began to put decals on the chrome fenders, like some people put decals on their car windows.

I wanted to be cool, and I felt that my bike represented my coolness. Many of the older teenagers I knew who owned cars customized their vehicles, giving them names painted on the doors and fenders, like "Little Darling" and "Rockin Robbin." They also added pinstriping, lowered and "raked" their cars, making the rear-end higher than the front. Cruising was big in my valley town. 

I made sure my bicycle wheel hubs and chain were well oiled while I continued to "customize" its style. My dad, who appreciated the "stock" design of appliances and vehicles never said anything to me about what I was doing to my bike. I can't believe that he found it appealing. I would learn to appreciate the  "mint" stock design of a car, or bike, the hard way.

One hot summer day, when I had nothing else to do but seek shade in the garage, I surveyed my bike whose once pristine chrome fenders were covered with tacky decals. I realized that I had spoiled its beauty. I attempted to remove the decals yet only made matters worse by scratching the chrome. So I decided to paint the fenders. At the hardware store I bought a can of gold spray paint.

Upon finishing my paint job, I stood back and made a quick appraisal of my labor. My beautiful green and chrome bicycle looked hideous with gold fenders. The gold was a flat color with no shine or sparkle. It was not at all cool. I felt sick whenever I allowed my eyes to focus on my bike. 

I turned 13 during this period. Other parts of my life were looking up, especially in track and field where I was excelling in running and jumping. My parents were wrapped up in the seriousness of my mother having been diagnosed with breast cancer, which they spared me and my sister, Mary, by not letting us know, which I later regretted.

My father traded in his sporty Silver Hawk for a family-friendly light blue Studebaker Lark station wagon.

They decided that we would leave Pomona and relocate near my mother's sister, my Aunt Cecelia, and her brother, Ronald, a Jesuit priest who was teaching at Gonzaga Prep in Spokane, Washington.

Before we left for Spokane, I rid myself of a green and gold bike. I painted my entire Schwinn black. It still performed well and I would soon be riding it on the streets of a new to me, yet old Pacific Northwestern railroad town, while making new friends.

The guys I met in Spokane were curious about someone from the Golden State. They checked my clothes and even my bike, looking for clues to the latest trends.

"Flat black," one remarked upon inspecting my bike and its unique color. "So that's what they're doing in California." 

I just nodded.

© Kevin Samson,  from Silence of the Oranges, a working title memoir.

Sunday Morning Ecology

PHOTO: KCS

On a recent Sunday morning a small white car traveled along West Cliff Drive, a popular and scenic roadway in Santa Cruz that winds along the bluffs overlooking the Monterey Bay. Faint light in a muted purple sky foretold the advancing morning. It was the period of dawn before sunrise when tiny wrens, barely visible, dart among bushes looking for seeds and worms, and crafty raccoons, following a night of scavenging, quietly make their way back home among the cliff rocks and into storm drains.

The pedestrian-bike path that runs along the side of the road was dotted with a few joggers, people walking their dogs and a scattering of surfers toting their boards heading toward the water, dark silhouettes getting a jump on a new day.

The white car hugged the cliff-road at a medium speed, neither too fast nor too slow, hardly noticeable save for a half-opened rear window through which a large dog poked its head, seemingly observing the inland side of the road marked by private residences, cypress trees and an open field where a predator bird perched atop the highest branch, scanning the ground for scooting rodents.

It was just another slowly evolving Sunday morning in Da Cruz.

The car rolled along, winding its way to the end of the road where the entry gate to Natural Bridges State Park had already been opened by a Park Ranger, allowing vehicles access to a circular parking lot with views of the coastline and bay. The white car pulled into the empty lot and parked briefly. The driver, a male bundled in warm clothing, got out of the vehicle and with his iPhone captured a photograph of the rising sun on the horizon. 

Then the car moved on, turning back onto the road, heading easterly in the opposite direction. It found a parking space in a pull-out public lot. The car faced the ocean. The headlights went dark but the radio continued to play, not music but the sound of a man with a British accent speaking in an erudite yet comical manner about ecological awareness.

The driver sat motionless, like a storefront mannequin with eyes fixed on a distant horizon, his head and ears covered with a cap.  He was alone except for the dog, who curled into a comfortable position on a car bed. A seagull cried and waves rolled in. The sea rocked to and fro. A dolphin fanned the water’s surface.

The man lazily shifted his gaze from the ocean to his side view mirror and fell upon a strange and potentially troublesome sight: a black and white police vehicle. He turned the other way, to his right, and was surprised to see a second, large black-and-white.

His small white car was cornered by the police.

A uniformed officer approached him on the driver's side, a second officer stood behind.

"What's going on?" said the officer.

"I'm listening to the radio," the man answered.

"Just you and your dog?"

"That's right."

Faint tension rose from the man's stomach. The situation might have easily been laughed off, after all, he had been here a thousand times before. This was his neighborhood. For years, this had been his Sunday morning ritual. 

"Can I see your license?" said the officer, a young man roughly 20-30 years old.

He presented his California Driver's License.

"We received a call that someone in this car, with your license plate, got out of the car and tagged that sign." 

The man in the car noted the sign, which was smudged with black paint, as if one tag had been painted over another.

"Well, that's not true officer. I don't like tags."

"Can I have your license, please."

The young officer took the man's license and went back to his vehicle while the second officer approached the man.

"Do you live around here?" the second officer asked. He, too, was young.

"Yes, right around the corner. How about you?"

"No, I can't afford to live here, and I wouldn't want to live in the same community where I work," mentioning something about the safety of his children.

"Lift your hands in front of you, palms down," the young officer continued. "Now turn them over." He was looking for signs of spray paint.

The man in the car was Caucasian not Black, yet he considered the possibility if he were, or if he were Latino. How near violence would he be? Would he feel more threatened?  Did he appear to be a gangbanger?

He understood that if he were to show any sign of resistance things could get worse. He could be the victim of mistaken identity.

After a short period during which the man engaged the officer in small talk, the first officer returned and handed over the man's driver license, apparently satisfied.

"The caller had identified the tagger to be 30-years-old. No offense, but you don't look thirty."

The man, in his early seventies, shrugged, amused by the idea of a 74-year-old tagger. But then, he thought, why not, the country suffered a 74-year-old tweeter.

"Sorry for interrupting your morning," said the officer.

"You're just doing your job," the man replied. He caught himself saying, "thank you." 

He was thankful that the neighborhood was being patrolled, especially if gang members were marking boundaries. Yet the protocol seemed overly formal. He found it unfortunate that the officers were not part of the community. He recalled that it wasn't always this way, although even then young officers often seemed overly zealous, oblivious to the greater reality of shared community. It's a tough job, especially since our small town is a destination for recreation with a transient population of day visitors and others who stick around.

The police drove away and he resumed listening to the voice on the radio. We want to control our world, said the voice, yet in reality it is beyond our control. It's not a matter of letting go, it's more like not holding on. 

The man thought about holding on to the past in an ever-changing world, the need to continually adapt, not to be rigid and allow himself to trust his instincts, as if he were riding a wave on a surfboard.

He stepped out of his white vehicle. He let his brindle-colored dog out as well. Having broken a sweat while sitting in the hot seat, he removed his jacket and cap. It was chilly outside. The air smelled fresh. A golden light cast across the pale brown cliffs covered with green ice plant. The dog sniffed the shrubbery.

The Perfect Birdbath

PHOTO:BBS

My wife Barbara has a thing for birdbaths She can't get enough of them.

It's a simple equation for her: the more birdbaths the more birds will come to bathe, flutter their wings, and fly away to tell other birds who will also come. Pretty soon our backyard will be the most popular bird spa in the neighborhood, with flocks of chirping, happy sparrows, wrens, robins and finches.  Or something like that.

I really don't know. Because I'm a klutz. I break birdbaths. Typically made of clay and shaped like a fancy dish on a pedestal, birdbaths are very fragile. If you bump into a birdbath, the dish will likely fall off the pedestal and crack into irreparable fragments.

I know, because I've made that happen. Not willingly. I would never consciously hurt a birdbath. I'm all for putting them on the endangered species -- or endangered crafted pieces -- list. It's just that birdbaths jump out at me when I pass them.

That's what happened some years ago to Barbara's favorite birdbath which resulted in a broken dish, her broken heart and my broken manhood. The concave platter where the birdies bathed, ribbed along its circumference like a pie crust, fell and cracked into pizza-like wedges. And, like Humpty Dumpty, they couldn't be put together again. Only the pedestal remained, a pillar of stability.

If only I could say that about myself. I've prayed to the great Thunderbird in the sky for redemption.

Then one bright morning, while innocently riding our bicycles and enjoying the warmth of sunshine and the fragrances of ripening oranges and lemons on trees, Barbara suddenly exclaimed:

"Look, there's a birdbath just like mine!"

I turned to see, and sure enough, lying in a patch of tall grass next to the sidewalk was a birdbath dish without its pedestal. It was barely visible, but exactly the same as the one I had broken. 

It obviously belonged to an inhabitant of the house upon whose front yard it lay. 

"Maybe they would like to get rid of it," offered Barbara, hopefully. We continued on our way, discussing a strategy of how to approach the issue, agreeing that we come back again soon. It was a favorite route since we have friends who reside on the same street.

On subsequent bicycle trips, the birdbath dish remained, seemingly untouched and certainly without water. One day when I passed by while walking our dog, Frida, I saw a woman and a small boy out front of the house.

"Hi," I said. "I was wondering if that is your birdbath?" I pointed to the dish on the ground practically overgrown with unruly flora.

"It belongs to someone else who lives here," she said. "It belongs to Shing."

"The animals come by to drink water from it," said the little boy, in a heartfelt voice.

We had never seen any water in the dish. But we had seen five or six cars parked in the wide driveway of the two-story house.

"Well," I said, "my wife has the other part to it -- the pedestal. It would be a great gift for her." I confirmed with the woman the name, Shing, as owner of the birdbath, before she and the little fella drove away.

The next time I passed the house, on MLK's birthday holiday, a tall, thin elderly man was out front. I remember the day because there was a "Black Lives Matter" flag I hadn't seen before hoisted on the garage.

"Hi," I said. He noted me with a quizzical gleam in his eyes, his tan skin creased by the sun.

"I was wondering if that is your birdbath?"

"It belongs to my wife," he answered.

I explained our situation and how Barbara would love to have the birdbath, since she has the pedestal for that exact dish. I didn't mention that I had broken the dish.

His expression lightened. "That's really nice of you to ask," he said, acknowledging that it would be easy to steal. "I'll talk to my wife and let you know. I'll leave a note on the dish for you. What's your name?"

I told him my name and asked for his. "Rocky."

"Great. Thanks, Rocky."

I was excited to tell Barbara. So we made several subsequent trips by the house, each time finding the empty birdbath but no note. Although we continued to pass the house, our hopes began to dim.

Then one day while riding by on my bike I saw Rocky. I called his name and mentioned the birdbath.

"Oh, I forgot to ask my wife," he said. "Write a note to me and leave it on the porch, so it won't blow away." 

Upon hearing this latest development, Barbara found a piece of cardboard on which she designed a sweet, colorful plea for the birdbath with ribbons and bows, mentioning that she had the pedestal for it.

I dropped it off on Rocky's front porch.

A couple of days later Barbara received a text from a woman who lived at the house. She said she was not the owner of the birdbath but would ask the person who is. Signed, Eve.

Barbara and I looked at each other in disbelief. Why didn't she just give the note to the owner of the birdbath? She was another intermediary. We had addressed three different inhabitants of the house without getting to the source. 

I felt as though we were in the midst of an abstruse Raymond Chandler caper in which personas faded in and around a residence of characters, none of whom were capable of divulging a hidden truth that only a mysterious majordomo -- a queen bee -- might reveal, at the cost of driving us crazy while the object of our desire sat in full view, like a pie on a window sill, too easy to purloin.

On our next trip by the house, where the empty birdbath still lay unmoved, we decided that Barbara should give it one last try, and follow up with the person who had texted her. Had she heard anything from the owner of the birdbath?

We stopped by our friends' house on our way home. Matt was out front. Barbara recounted the mystery of the birdbath, which at that point, seemed unsolvable, when suddenly her cell phone pinged.

The message said. "The birdbath is yours. Happy birds are on the way!"

We were less than a block from the house. Had she been watching us, surreptitiously, from an upstairs window? The timing was uncanny.

Elated, Barbara replied: "Yay! We will give it a good home!"

We raced home, I jumped into my car and drove back to the house of many cars and the prized bird spa, picked it up and brought it to our backyard, very carefully.

We cleaned it and placed it on its pedestal, filled it with water. Barbara texted back a photo of the completed birdbath --pedestal and dish -- with the words "happy, happy, happy birds! Thank you!" 

Eve's reply was swift:

"Perfect!!!"

I hope to God that I don't break it. 

The Long Ball

"Hank Aaron is the only man I idolize more than myself." -- Muhammed Ali 

Henry "Hank" Louis Aaron died this week at age 86, one of the greatest baseball players of all time who began his career in the Negro League in 1951 with the Indianapolis Clowns.

Everyone who grew up during the 1950s and 60s knew the name Hank Aaron. It was period when baseball was truly the American pastime. I remember Sister Gualberta suspending class so that we could listen to the '57 World Series on the radio while sitting at our desks.

The New York Yankees were playing the Milwaukee Braves and the names Mickey Mantle, Yogi Berra, Whitey Ford, Warren Spahn, Eddie Mathews and Hank Aaron filled the hot, stale classroom air. Our inland, valley town of Pomona would reach into the 90s and sometimes 100-degrees in September and early October. 

Following 30-minutes of running on asphalt for recess, we repaired in our classroom, my arms wet with perspiration as I laid them on the top of my desk. Whiffs of bologna in wax paper left over from lunch lingered from metal lunch pails in the cloak room, while the excitable voice of the broadcaster calling the game from the small electronic box held our attention. Windows would be cracked open. We had no air conditioning to cool us down. 

Neither did we have any thoughts about the color of the players' skin. Baseball was a major sport and everyone seemed interested. At least the room was silent to listen. I wondered if the girls really liked it, or if it was just unique free time to draw or daydream? The World Series was being beamed into our classroom. How cool was that.

When I think back to those names today, I realize that Hank Aaron was the only Black player who comes to mind from that Series, which the Braves won in seven games. In that seventh game, Aaron had two hits in five at-bats, one run-batted-in (RBI) and scored a run himself. His batting average for the 7-game Series topped all players with an impressive .394.

It was a big deal for Milwaukee to beat the vaunted New York Yankees. Aaron won the National League's Most Valuable Player honor.

He went on to break Babe Ruth's career home run record at 755, but it was his steady batting of 3,771 hits (third all-time) that produced 2,297 runs through 23 seasons that made "Hammerin Hank" so valuable. He didn't have the flash of Willie Mays or a name like Mickey Mantle.

After he completed the 1973 season with 713 career home runs, getting ever closer to breaking the Babe's record, he began receiving death threats. He wasn't worried about his home-run count. "My only fear," he said, "is that I might not live to see 1974."

I remember hearing about those threats and having a hard time understanding that such discrimination still existed.  I was living in my own small, white bubble, realizing that racial prejudice did exist but not being affected by it. It was an issue for "them" not me. 

So it was that the most consistently productive yet quiet and understated baseball player of an era, who weathered discrimination and came near being killed for the color of his skin, died during the week of President Joe Biden's inauguration, that included the first dark-skinned, Afro-Asian female Vice President, Kamala Harris. 

One week earlier our nation's Capitol was the site of an attempted take-over by insurrectionists, white supremacists and conspiracy kooks, instigated by a President of the United States. In between the two events we celebrated Martin Luther King's birthday. 

As a nation, I feel as though we have rounded second base and are heading for third. Mr. Aaron did his job. Thank you, sir, may you rest in peace.

"We shall overcome because the arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice." -- Rev. Martin Luther King

Facing Future

"Nothing is free in the land of the free." -- Russell Banks

Like a drug addict who can't take one hit without wanting one more, I don't seem capable of opening Facebook without making a single comment and letting it go. I want more. Combined with my seemingly insatiable curiosity about what's happening in cybersphere, Facebook is my entry drug.

Through FB I've reconnected with friends, relatives and classmates from as far back as first grade, before stereophonic sound, before Elvis and the assassination of President John F. Kennedy. There is an inherent bond with those "friends" that transports me into a pure and wistful nostalgia as though time stands still.

My hometown of Pomona, Calif., has a FB group page with historic photos, stories of people I remember, places where I grew up, purchased my first bicycle, experienced my first date and played sports  It is a tremendously popular page. I voyeuristically revisit those early years through the simple touch of a keystroke.

These are elements of FB that I enjoy, where I get my "high." I realize I'm exposing myself to huge audience of advertisers, spies, voyeurs and trolls who doubtless do not have my best interests in mind, nor my family's. Yet I continue to happily hand over free personal information to them: what I "like" "love" what makes me "laugh" and "care" and say "wow" about.  Sometimes with a photo of myself, just to confirm my identity. 

You're welcome, FB.

I watched the 2020 Netflix film, The Social Dilemma, about the evils of FB, most notably the motivations behind building a mega storehouse of personal data about private citizens.  Don't fool yourself, they say, the platform is not designed for our personal welfare but the well being of FB. Most convincing are the producers of the film -- the same folks who were involved in the creation of social media -- who have quit FB, and presumably all social media. 

The've hightailed it to Hawaii and live in multi-million-dollar yurts amid plumeria, breadfruit and papaya trees. With good wifi connections.

After several years of being an active user, I quit FB cold-turkey a couple of months before the election. Buoyed by my initial enthusiasm, I was able to let go for a few weeks, not even sneak a peek of what my friends were up to. I felt relief. That lasted until shortly following the election, when I chose to browse through my FB news feed.

I found the familiar look-at-me posts from the usual suspects. What a life some have, compared to my modest accomplishments. It's an easy habit. I've posted my share of look-at-me's. The realization hits that those who are truly successful do not post on FB.

I've tried to keep my number of "friends" low -- around 200 -- and hold that figure to people I actually know, rather than assemble an impressive number to show the reach of my popularity, or expand my "audience." Easier said than done. You meet new friends and want to keep in touch, share your thoughts and experiences. You receive friend requests from those who share your opinions. Do you "friend" them? 

My wife, who is not on FB, gives me that skeptical look: "Do you really have 200 friends?"

Since we're locked down and sheltering, FB makes socializing easy. Being a news junkie, I also enjoy catching items that I would otherwise miss. Thru FB, I discovered the astute and incredible daily reporting of Heather Cox Richardson. I also found myself in an uncomfortable tet-a-tet with an old friend. We worked it out, acknowledging two different political-cultural realities.

A recent piece in the New York Times how FB incubated insurrection presents a documented argument of the power and influence of FB through spreading propaganda. Some individuals seeking recognition and acceptance find status and popularity by posting conspiracy theories. Apparently there's a wide audience for grievance. Group pages are more difficult to monitor, they can spread conspiracies like a novel virus.

My hometown group page is carefully monitored by a "web master." Incendiary and political opinions are not allowed. I realize this is a good thing that will likely ensure longevity and credibility for the page. Although easier on the nerves, it still fixes you in the FB nexus.

My dilemma of whether or not to use FB is a question of will power. Can I be a "light user"? Can I refrain from jumping into political spats, not post photos of everywhere I go, control my urge to proselytize, while continuing to scan my news feed, offering a "like" here and there? Keep it simple. 

My birthday came and I received many kind wishes. It felt good, and humbling, on an otherwise hapless day of bad news and isolation during COVID. 

Can I have a daily glass of wine without becoming a wino? 

If a tree falls somewhere on FB and I don't know about it, did it really fall?

I'll just take a quick look-see. No harm in that.