There was a time when differentiating between truth and lies was possible. One could readily tell news and propaganda apart, too. But when entertainment entered the mix, the willing suspension of disbelief began to creep into judgments between fact and fiction. The blending of reality with fantasy crippled the ease of telling right from wrong, good from bad, and love from hate. Authenticity, once simple and clear, became clouded with questions of motive. How knowledge was spread took on as much—or more—importance as what was shared; once-reliable sources of information could no longer inspire confidence. Even trusted resources of impartial news strayed, filtering reporting through a biased lens. Sources that once delivered unimpeachable information transformed into the machinery of indoctrination. Conspiracy theories, delivered as undeniable truth, replaced verifiable facts. These new realities changed impartiality, which once had been highly valued, into something suspicious, dubious, and probably manipulative. Right-leaning political philosophies infiltrated news media; in response, left-leaning political philosophers shed their badges of honor and did the same. Healthy suspicion about the legitimacy of information morphed into healthy paranoia. Centrist philosophies, deprived of sustenance and weakened from malnutrition, slipped into a coma of unawareness. Rational thought reportedly died peacefully, surrounded by irrational enemies who were ready to use their weapons to complete the task if starvation failed.
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The remnants of Hurricane Helene continue to wreak havoc from Florida to Appalachia and beyond. One of the relatively few clear memories I have of growing up involves Hurricane Celia, which destroyed my parents’ house when I was in high school. I recall that we sought shelter the evening after the hurricane winds had subsided. After being turned away from an elementary school, we found shelter in a Methodist church that night. My memories of the aftermath in the days following the storm are vague. I remember only that members of the family split up for several days and stayed with various friends and neighbors until my parents could find a rental house. We stayed in the rental until the wreckage of our former home had been cleared away and a new house built in its place. Many, many people in Corpus Christi experienced similar hardships. But our experience was not even remotely as severe as that wrought by Hurricane Helene’s devastation. Though there was some flooding, it was nothing like the inundation caused by Helene. Most of the damage, if my fading memory is reliable, was caused by wind; apparently, tornadoes spawned by the hurricane were responsible for the destruction of our house. We were in the house when the wind ripped off the roof and flooded the house with rainwater. I was terrified. I can only imagine the terror experienced by people who went through the damage wrought by Helene. And the aftermath of storm clean-up and rebuilding lives will extend the terror and its after-effects for a long time. People affected by the hurricane will need help immediately and for many months to come. I hope people who can afford it will donate to help the victims. I will contribute what I can.
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My next chemotherapy treatment is scheduled for next Thursday morning. I hope to spend no more than 4 or 5 hours in the oncologist clinic. I expect to have a PET scan scheduled after this treatment or the next one, three weeks later. The scan will, I hope, give my oncologist enough information so she can give me a reasonably reliable prognosis. Of course, I hope the scan will show that the treatments are effective in killing the cancer. If not, I expect another combination of chemotherapy drugs will be in order. Time will tell.
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I miss shoe repair shops. Years have passed since I last took a pair of shoes in for repair, but I can still remember the wonderful smell of those shops. I do not know exactly what I smelled—leather, obviously, but there must have been other contributors, like leather treatment chemicals, to the odor. Cobblers are few and far between nowadays. Like so many other consumables, shoes today tend to be discarded, rather than repaired. Different materials are used in their manufacture than in times gone by, I suppose. But I suspect the root cause of the disappearance of cobbler shops has to do with the cost of repairs versus the cost of replacements. Mass manufacturing and cheap overseas labor combine to make repairs uneconomical, compared to replacement. I do not bemoan paying overseas workers to make shoes, but I think they should be paid reasonable wages…which would no doubt increase the cost of shoes and make the cost of repairs more competitive. Watching a cobble repair or rebuild a shoe fascinates me; the skill and the care given to making a pair of shoes look and feel and smell and behave like new is amazing. But athletic shoes, which I wear almost to the complete exclusion of others, are not designed to be repaired…not like leather dress shoes, anyway. Once a pair of athletic shoes have been worn to the point of inadequate performance, I think repair is impossible. Maybe that is the primary cause of the decline in cobblers’ shops.
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I need want another espresso. A few years ago, I put myself to the test by “doing without” various things I enjoy for a month at a time. If nothing else, those experiences of “doing without” clarified for me how withholding something unnecessary (but desired) made me acutely conscious of my privilege in being able to have easy and immediate access to things. Things like coffee, meat, alcohol, social media, and various other luxuries. Some people thought my little experiment was pointless…”why torture yourself…what does it prove?” I could never explain it to their satisfaction. But, to me, the experience left me feeling more gratitude for those luxuries and more empathy for people who are not as fortunate as I in having such easy, ready access. I may try it again. But not today. Not until I have another espresso. Ach!
