A ROUGH HISTORY

It's a safe bet prehistoric man ate a lot of things we wouldn't eat today. Bark. Moss. Scaly little bugs. Prehistoric man was always hungry. There's not a museum anywhere that doesn't have a diorama of a cave family hunkered down around a gnawed-on slab of something raw. And in some of those exhibits you can see one caveman sitting by himself off in a corner, trying to invent fire.

Because cave people were always hungry, they'd try to eat almost anything. Just imagine how hungry the guy was who first picked up an oyster, looked at it and thought, "Yum-yum!"

If you ask me, the primary function of an oyster is to convey that yummy sauce to your mouth. It's only good manners that keep us from sucking up the sauce and spitting the oyster into the nearest potted palm.

Early man died of many things while discovering the world: spear points, animal bites, all manner of septic infections from bad scratches, not to mention falling things. Like rocks. Big trees. Mastodons. If you were standing in the wrong place at the wrong time, a falling mastodon could be fatal.

I doubt colon cancer was high on the list of causes of death. I can't find evidence anywhere of any prehistoric coroner who ever pulled out a Mount Blanc fountain pen and wrote "colon cancer" as the proximal cause of death.

If prehistoric diets had anything going for them, they had fiber. We call it "roughage" today. And it was. Lots of prehistoric remains have been unearthed that show teeth worn down to stubs, but as far as I know not a single archaeologist has ever discovered the remains of a prehistoric man with a bad colon.

Roughage is still with us. I find it interesting that while Mother Nature has spent aeons putting roughage into our food, we're determined to get rid of it before we'll eat what's left. We peel our cucumbers and carrots and apples; we want our orange juice strained; most of us won't eat a potato peel unless it's deep-fried and coated with melted cheese, sour cream and chives. I'm not sure what "bacon bits" are actually made of, but I'm pretty sure they don't count as fiber. They're sort of today's equivalent of bark or beetle carcasses.

We'll gladly gorge ourselves on gourmet chocolates, but no matter how expensive those little morsels are, we all try to avoid the ones with fiber in them. You know...the ones with coconut centers.

Everyone hates those little strings you find in celery, but besides being good natural fiber, they're handy for flossing the peanut butter or cream cheese out of your teeth. No one eats naked celery.

Here's the truth: we all ought to eat a lot more fiber than we do. If we did that, we'd put a lot of gastroenterologists and surgeons out of business. Stock shares in Metamucil and CorrectAll Natural Grain would fall like a Minnesota thermometer in January. And if we ate more fiber, we wouldn't have to use our garbage disposals more than once or twice a week.

Let me prove my point: have you ever met a chicken with a bad colon? Of course not, because chickens get all the peelings and fiber and roughage even a farmer won't eat. And a hard-working farmer will eat almost anything that falls on his plate. I know. I have some cousins who are farmers in Oklahoma, and I've tried to keep up with them at meal time. It can't be done - but that's another story and I'm out of space here.

Face it: we should all eat more fiber, even if we don't like it very much. It's good for us. And we can always think of it as a taste of prehistoric history.

THE BURDEN OF CHOICE

Take the world's population and subtract the American population figure; stack the numbers side-by-side and you'll see the probability against being born an American. Yet each of us has beaten those long odds.
We may thank God, Fortune or Fate for being born citizens of a country where we have the liberty and freedom to make choices. But it is this very freedom -- the freedom of choice -- which can also undermine our Nation and cause its eventual demise.
In the most undeniably wealthy nation in the world, we take for granted the daily ebb and flow of choice; it rarely impacts us on a significant level. Witness our homes, filled with the trappings of capitalism: the telephones, televisions and appliances; the driveways where rest two or three or five automobiles; the array of garments in our closets and on our shelves, the larders and refrigerators burdened with edible stock. The solidly-built walls which shield us from the elements, the comfortable carpets underfoot, the custom draperies and wall trappings all of which attest to choices made in a land where we are free to toss it all every few years, move to another place and begin making more choices.
Consider that in most countries indoor plumbing and fresh water are considered items of luxury. Transportation may be "modern" only in the sense that a vehicle is powered by an internal combustion engine; picture a farmer using a powered tiller to pull a wagon to market, burdened not only with crops to sell but his family as well. Consider in how many nations a bicycle is used as a commercial vehicle. Picture a meal of fishcakes or something similar prepared over a slab of rock surmounting an open fire.
Look at the materials most of the world uses for its dwellings: adobe, wattle, scraps of wood, canvas and flapping cloth. See people in their native attire; colorful, quaint, and the only clothing they possess. Ask a citizen of the world when they last saw a dentist, opted for cosmetic surgery to rid themselves of excess fat or asked their doctor to write a prescription for stress relief.
Looking at the trappings of American daily life, I wonder whether we are making good choices. Our homes are filled with more consumer goods than we need, even with America's preference for convenience and comfort. Look at the useless trinkets and fads being hyped on television and lapped up by consumer with disposable income. Walk into virtually any garage in America and try not to trip over the items being stored there until they're wanted again or placed at the curb to be buried in landfills where many of the world’s citizens would find a treasure trove of utilitarianism.
Consider the acres of woodlands and native creatures being displaced at a phenomenal rate by estate homes, golf courses and luxury villages. Think how a world citizen might take possession of a small abandoned ramshackle inner city structure, gladly expending weeks and months of labor to make it habitable, luxuriating in gas heat, electric lights, running water and indoor toilets.
"Well," you might say, "we've worked for all that. We've earned it." I disagree. We have simply defended our good fortune as a predator defends its kill. That we have done so honorably, nobly and sometimes at huge sacrifice of life and fortune I don't deny, but it is still a defensive posture. We snarl and snap at any hungry creature daring to salivate at the fringe of our largesse.
We have become so accustomed to choice that our decision-making process is often flawed and trivialized. I don't advocate a return to Calvinism and most of us wouldn't be comfortable in the spare surrounds of a monastic existence. But I do think we must be more aware of our choices and to the implications of each choice we make.
We choose to stuff ourselves with convenience store confections that culminate in health problems. We choose the drive-through rather than the inconvenience of making our own sandwich from our well-stocked refrigerators. We choose to drive our car two blocks to the library rather than make it the short, brisk cardiopulmonary workout most of us need.
We choose to fill our homes with plastic gewgaws and collectible trading cards rather than with books; we rarely take the time to write Thank You notes or to correspond with friends except through the speedy superficiality of the Internet.
We choose the mindless and hypnotic sway of the television over intellectually challenging pursuits, and we have chosen the escapist masturbation of video games over the interaction of personalities in a heated game of Bridge, Chess or Monopoly.
We have become so mired in our consumerism that the very economic and political structure on which our capitalistic lifestyle rests has ceased to have any appeal. Instead of "MacNeil-Lehr," we choose the superficiality of "Survivor" or the titillation of "Jerry Springer."
We've chosen to let governmental agencies and functionaries make choices for us rather than burden ourselves with intellectual involvement, to express our concerns at civic meetings or to inconvenience ourselves with going to our polling places to cast our votes. Sadly, we show more concern when making a choice between scented and non-scented toilet tissues.
Freedom of choice. That's America.
But choice is a responsibility, and it's a burden we should bear gladly.
History will tell us one day whether our freedom to choose will continue, and that story will hinge on the choices we make today.

I WANNA GO LIKE MAX

c.2008VirgilTeague

If you ask me whether an animal has a soul, I'd be hard-pressed to say no. No doubt I have some animistic leanings; I once apologized to a tree for felling it to make room for a cabin. But there is something, call it what you will, that animates even the most insignificant creature.

Maybe it's just a projection of our own insecurities: there is a hope in each of us that someone will be there to care for us kindly and lovingly when we can no longer function effectively and painlessly.

Max proved this to me. Maxmillion Dollar Apple was his kennel name. He was supposed to be a miniature dachshund, but it seemed as if he were cobbled together from spare parts: the body of a standard-sized dachshund, miniature legs, a small and pointy head, and more tail than absolutely necessary. Nonetheless, he was my mother's best buddy for eleven years.

After her demise, life changed for Max. I didn't have the time or inclination to cater to his every whim as my mother had. No longer would he be tucked into a human bed each night with his head on his very own pillow; there would be no treats passed to him from the plate of a human being at dinner time; his inventory of chew toys was reduced to a mere half-dozen. In short, Max found that he was not, as he'd always assumed, the center of the universe.

Still, he got regular checkups from the vet, his nails clipped, an occasional bath, good quality dog food and the run of the house and the two acres surrounding it. In fact, in some ways life improved for Max: he didn't have to take his walks at the end of a leash, he could hide his chew toys wherever he liked (I'm a bachelor and rarely go poking around in dusty corners or under the bed), he could chase squirrels and bark at every bird that dared poach a worm from the yard. He could doze for hours in the warmth of the sun from the vantage point of the deck attached to the back of my house, and - his favorite thing - he could go for car rides standing up in the passenger seat with his pointy nose out the window where all manner of exotic scents tickled his fancy and fueled his doggy dreams.

Max always preferred the company of women. Let a female visitor show up at my house and Max would do his best to monopolize her attention, jumping up on the couch to lie with his head in her lap, soulful brown eyes begging for a caress from a perfumed hand, tagging along wherever she walked, sitting outside the bathroom door until she reappeared. He had no sense of propriety whatever.

I'd been reluctant to take Max in. I had my own pal, a female Golden Retriever named Ginger. But where else would he go? After all, he'd been a good companion to my mother for eleven years. And I'll admit after a while he became a fixture at my house, too.

He still thought he was in charge in many ways. He insisted on being the first through a door, for example, and thanks to her affable personality, Ginger allowed it. His dish had to be filled first or he'd register his displeasure by plowing into Ginger's dish, scattering kibbles and grumbling around a mouthful. He got used to sleeping on the floor, but only on his own blanket - and it had to be over a floor register for the warmth he found there.

But time passes, and in his sixteenth year, Max was running down. The birds and squirrels were safe since his arthritis had grown so bad he had to be carried into the yard several times a day to do his business. Jumping up onto the couch became impossible, so he'd whimper and plead to be lifted up to lie quietly while I read or watched TV. Filmy cataracts showed up on his eyes and he began to bark at shadows. He was almost deaf, lost interest in his toys and slept most of the time.

One day his rear legs just wouldn't support him. He'd tried to get to his food dish by dragging himself slowly along the floor and seemed confused by this development. I knew his time was short, poor fellow. He couldn't even turn his head to gnaw at an itchy place and it had been some time since he was able to lift a leg to scratch.

I called the clinic. After some discussion, I said I'd bring him in one last time. To their credit, they understood my angst.

Max lay quietly in the passenger seat of the car on his blanket as I picked up a chicken snack at a drive-through. Chicken had always been his favorite food, and I hand-fed him as much of it as he wanted. When we got to the clinic I left him in the car while I went in to fill out the necessary paperwork and explain that I didn't want Max subjected to the smells and sounds of the place.

After a few minutes, a young veterinarian and his assistant came out to the car. She opened the passenger side door, turned and sat in the floor of the car in her nice white uniform. She took Max's head in her hands, stroking him and speaking softly. He sighed. He always did like women.

I got into the driver's seat and patted his back while the vet inserted a needle into Max's foreleg. There was no resistance: Max had a stomach full of chicken, was warm and comfortable lying on his favorite blanket with his head cradled by a gentle young female.

The vet attached a tube and a syringe to the needle, then looked up and asked me if I was ready. I could only nod; my eyes were full of tears and my throat wouldn't work. He slowly depressed the plunger as his assistant continued to stroke Max's head.

Max looked up at her, closed his eyes with a big contented sigh, and just drifted away.

As difficult as it had been to make the decision, euthanasia was the kindest thing I could offer this creature who had been a part of our family for sixteen years. And despite my grumblings about his many odd habits and preferences, I'd come to love this odd little dachshund in spite of myself.

I have some hope that when I am old and tired and used up, there will be someone with the courage and generosity of spirit to help me make the transition to wherever or whatever lies beyond, to make it possible for me to drift away in comfortable surroundings with my head in the lap of a pretty lady who keeps telling me what a handsome fellow I am, despite my short legs and ungainly body.