Keeping Up Christian Appearances?

What do real evangelical Christians look like?

Hmmm. What are we supposed to look like?

Are we supposed to be wispy, kumbaya, peace-and-love groupies? Should we be in your face, thumping our Bibles on every bully pulpit we can find? Or must we disguise ourselves, blending into the scenery around us, picking and choosing our favorite parts of spirituality and pleasantly ignoring the stuff that makes us look legalistic?

What Do You Model?

Recently a gay, agnostic friend of mine asked me how Christians are expected to look and act. (Well, he claims to be an atheist, but secretly, I think he's less certain there isn't a divine being than he is that it's God.) Somebody had commented to him that Christians were supposed to be purposefully insular and cliquish to the exclusion of everyone who isn't our own kind. Yet my friend looks at me, a person who is relationally introverted and frustrated by it, and sees a disconnect.

If I'm supposed to be spending my time around goody-goody people, why am I friends with him? In fact, he knows he's one of my best friends, since I don't have many close associations at church. One of the reasons we get along so well, despite our vastly divergent worldviews, is that we share the same jaded view of pop culture, we've never been part of the popular crowd, and we both love Uncle Julio's restaurant in Dallas.

He lets me talk about stuff going on in church, and I let him talk about stuff going on in his relationships. We talk about our parents, our brothers' kids, and the people we used to work with. We met when we both worked at the same company.

Maybe I didn't model the proper exclusivity of stereotypical Christian relationships with my friend, so that's why now, he's curious about why I never seemed to hang out with a more holy-rolling crowd.

A Friend Indeed

I've heard of evangelical Christians who say they befriend unsaved people only to win them to Christ. I think that is a patently disingenuous, almost fraudulent reason to "befriend" anybody. What happens if the target for conversion never receives salvation? Do you dump them and move on to the next target? If you're not truly interested in having the friendship of another person, and they're more of a notch in your Gospel belt than a literal human being worthy of your time, how miserably cynical - and disrespectful of the humanity God has created - is that?

Besides, with my personality, as with my friend's, we're not ever going to be close friends with everybody. Neither of us have the charisma or the social magnetism to draw others to ourselves and have to fight them off with a stick. Well, my friend is far better-looking than I am, so if either of us had the chance, he would. But otherwise, maybe we do get along better with each other, rather than with some of the people in the social spheres in which you'd assume we'd circulate.

Is that wrong?

According to the Bible, in the book of James, "friendship with the world is enmity with God." But it doesn't say friendship with people in the world equates to hating God.

Don't Do Do's and Dont's

Yes, there are certain things believers in Christ generally do - or don't do - because they believe these things either honor or dishonor God. For example, we usually go to church, give money, read our Bibles, and help those in need because not only are we commanded to, but these practices help us develop in our faith. By the same token, people of faith usually avoid situations that could compromise morality. Depending on how we choose to do that, we tend to end up subscribing to lists of do's and dont's, in a pattern that some people describe as legalism.

And without going down a rabbit trail on this one, let's just say legalism generally can be described as performance-based religion. For example, some people assume that the reason I don't drink alcohol is because I'm legalistic, even though the real reason is because I'm concerned I could get addicted to it.

So do I look like a Christian? I don't drink alcohol, but a lot of Christians do. A lot of Christians claim to be ill at ease around gay people, but my friend and I get along fine. Granted, he's not a flaming, demonstrative homosexual. And neither am I a hellfire and brimstone type of Christian. Just as I'd probably become uncomfortable around a flamboyant gay person, my friend would likely have little to do with ranting fundamentalists.

But at least to me, it matters less whether I look like a Christian than if unsaved people like my friend know I'm one. When California radio preacher Harold Camping predicted the world would end on May 21 of this year, my friend and his partner quizzed me on how realistic that was, because they knew I am more balanced in my faith than Camping and his followers. When my friend throws his annual birthday parties, I'm never invited, because he knows the activities there wouldn't be compatible with my faith (although I've had church friends not invite me to their parties for the same reason). And we've had frank discussions about why I don't believe homosexual marriage is right, even though we both agree that married Christians have done a lousy job of proving me right.

Yet we're still friends. In fact, I'm confident enough that what I've blogged about today is accurate, I'm going to show him this blog entry.

So maybe I'm not what this acquaintance of my friend's would consider to be a poster-child for conventional Christianity.  Truthfully, I'm not sure what he thinks Christians are supposed to look like, but I have an idea, and I imagine I don't fit.  I don't tow the Republican party line, I'm not a neo-con capitalist, I don't not drink because I think doing so banishes me to Hell, I don't confine my friendships to the "right" people, I even let people be my friend who aren't saved, and I'm not afraid to point out foibles in the Christian culture.

However, if this acquaintance sees Christians as sinners saved by the grace of God alone, through faith alone, in Christ alone, then I do fit.

And I pray that some day, my friend will, too.
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Firing Up the Texas Oven

As this summer's first mega heat wave spreads towards the East Coast, consider this:

Today marked the 19th straight day of 100-degree-plus temperatures here in Dallas - Fort Worth, with no rain, and 100-degree days forecast through at least next Wednesday.

That's purt-near hot, folks.

So take it from me when I say that all it takes is putting things in perspective and knowing how to cope with the heat to endure it.

Here's a handy-dandy 10-point guide to help you out:

1. Our low temperatures here in north Texas have been in the 80's. Think about that when your high temperatures settle back to around 82 next week.

2. Even here in north central Texas, on the topographical threshold of true prairieland, hundreds of miles from the coast, it ain't no dry heat. The only people who say ours is a dry heat are folks from Miami, Florida.

3. Texans don't wear ten-gallon hats much anymore - they're called 10-gallon hats because that's how much sweat pours from your head while you're wearing one.

4. All those black luxury cars, trucks, and SUVs people like to buy because they have an air of luxury actually have air alright: suffocatingly hot air inside those heat magnets.

5. You've no doubt heard about how we grill eggs on car hoods, but that's just a myth. Not because car hoods don't get hot enough, but because it can spoil the paint job. We use sidewalks instead.

6. All those brown lawns you see? We call that color "summer green."

7. During the summers, the only things that freeze up are air conditioner condensers because they're running nonstop.

8. The irony about hand-washing your car is that when you're finished hosing off the soap, the car is practically dry, but you're dripping wet.

9. Having a swimming pool isn't as much a status symbol as owning a commercial-grade ice cube maker for when the pool water gets too hot (I know at least one family who has one for that purpose).

10. Umbrellas can be just as useful on a clear day as they are when its pouring rain.

For years, native Texans have wondered what will happen when the state's long-running population boom outstrips the land. Personally, I don't think there's much to worry about when it comes to overpopulating Texas. The state has its own built-in population control mechanism: summers.
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Oppressive Glee in Beijing's Koolhaas

  

Stalking the city.

Stalks of steel poking up like weeds

We saw previews of it during the Beijing Olympics in 2008.

A controversial new building, ostensibly for China's state television company, that looks like no other structure on Earth. Chinese officials hoped it would be completed before the games, but only now, in the summer of 2011, is it readying to open.

Well, as open as the Chinese government well let it, since the building is going to be headquarters for the Communist Party's crushing mass-media propaganda machine.

China Central Television's New Home

Some critics stop right there and say that's reason enough for any self-respecting architect to have shunned the commission.

For myself, I have to admit that on a purely aesthetic level, part of me admires Rem Koolhaas' CCTV Building. As far as a wow-factor is concerned, it could be the coolest superstructure ever built. Squatting 50 stories above the capital of China, it looks like what a conventional square-shaped building with a courtyard would look like if you pulled up one end of the building and left it hanging in the air.

Without a doubt, it's the most unconventional skyscraper ever built, which isn't necessarily a compliment to the Chinese government. Like a cartoonish nouveau-riche social-climber, they've brashly commissioned wildly expensive and flagrantly inefficient buildings all over their country during the past decade. They've flattened entire neighborhoods of historically beloved, quintessentially sino-urban hutongs. They've also resettled over one million people to build the world's largest dam, and engineered a sleek bullet train to wisk people between brand-new central China cities in which nobody even lives yet.

Hardly any of their projects would have gotten off the ground in the world's current democratic, market-driven republics.

And it's this social manipulation on such an staggering scale which can be captured, at least in part, by the CCTV Building. As imposing as it is impressive, Beijing's celebrated trophy by Koolhaas embodies all that's still wrong with China.

On the one hand, Koolhaas' design draws people to it in wonder and spectacle. The Chinese government does this wonderfully itself, as witnessed by its dizzying economic opportunities and its execution of history's most lavish Olympics ever.

On the other hand, though, the building's design could be explained as Koolhaas taking a shape of contortions and hammering human elements into it. Kind of like communism does, using power, domination, and control to remind people inside who's more important.

Not themselves, but the structure around them.

Picking Apart the Design

In the CCTV Building's exterior, we have an undeniably fascinating form of haunched pillars and a dramatic V-shaped prow. All of this requires an intricate structural system that, inevitably, defies conventional spacing and order. While the load-bearing elements in less-daring buildings can be less visible and, therefore, less of an interference with interior spaces, with Beijing's Koolhaas, the structural elements take over and dominate both the exterior and interior. They let people pass through, but they're ever-present, and imposingly so.

Splayed across the sleek glass walls of the exterior lays a black grid of steel structural supports, looking as if Spiderman's web got stuck on it, and some strands have already blown off. Perhaps Koolhaas intends for them to assure people going inside that he did his engineering homework, but it comes across as an afterthought to fortify the building in case of an earthquake.

Inside the CCTV confection, structural elements trump the purpose of space and, in some cases, even the execution of function. And while Koolhaas has made a remarkable attempt to incorporate these stubborn structural elements in his edgy interior designs, they also serve as an incessant reminder that the building is more important than the people inside it.

Enormous load-bearing poles appear to poke haphazardly through spaces from floor to ceiling, rudely interrupting the space, and dressed up to look like some sort of artwork or embellishment. It's like he had these beams running through otherwise usable space, and he tried gluing some sort of wallpaper on them to contrive some justification for them not being tucked away in an unobtrusive corner. After a while, however, I suspect his attempts to try and hide or apologize for the invasion of structural elements will become as tiring and frustrating as the propaganda that will be churned out of these spaces.

Comical Perspectives?

Seen from several bocks away, the CCTV Building morphs into some kind of klutzy cyclops lurching around the city, appearing to step over smaller buildings and the hordes of people and cars scurrying around like ants.

Very domineering, vigilant, and totalitarian.

Since that matches the character of his client, Koolhaas fulfills one of the basic requirements of any architectural commission: getting paid. But to the extent Koolhaas has simply played into the nefarious hands of his client, it could be considered a dismal monument for defeatist architecture.

Except, surprisingly, for a few Chinese culture critics who have developed a plausibly libidinous perspective based on what they suspect could be a subversive Koolhaas theme. Although most tall skyscrapers have a phallacized characteristic to them, some Chinese architects - perhaps miffed that their foreign peers have won all the big commissions - see in Koolhaas' design the explicit figure of a woman on her hands and knees.

For his part, Koolhaas has emphatically denied any pornographic overtones to his sculpturesque design. Unfortunately, he's been far more defensive of his complicity in the construction of an edifice whose functions could lead to human rights abuses.

Perhaps this cold, calculating narcissism is lost on an elite architectural community increasingly consumed by nihilistic pluralism. After all, Koolhaas isn't the first architect to dehumanize his craft. And it must be difficult to walk away from the billions of dollars China spends on these projects.

Symbolism Befits China More

As impressive as Koolhaas' CCTV Building is, however, how much more impressive would it be sitting in New York City, London, or even Tokyo, where the will of the citizenry and the logic of capitalism means more than it does in Beijing?

After all, any totalitarian state can build something like the CCTV Building if it's got the money. Meanwhile, I'm willing to celebrate the fact that Koolhaas' design in Beijing says more about the Free World than China realizes. Even if developers in the United States or Europe could pull off the myriad zoning and environmental logistics inherent in such a project, could they find a client or banker willing to spend so much money on what is essentially a whimsical pretension?

Having the world's coolest building is one thing. Having it so aptly portray its owners' motives and the tasks to be done inside of it, regrettably, is disconcerting.
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Dallas Redux and Reality

Yee-haw!

C'mon, y'all! Thar fixin' ta do a remake 'a Dallas!

(Translation: Ya-hoo! They're going to do a remake of Dallas, the 1970's television show.)

By now, you've probably heard that cable station TNT has commissioned a new show based on the prime-time soap opera Larry Hagman and Linda Gray made famous a generation ago.

And here in north Texas, where Dallas is still the largest city, some civic hand-wringing has begun as local leaders wonder how Hollywood executives will portray Big D this time around.

Back in the original show, Dallas was broadcast to the world as an oil baron's cutthroat battlefield filled with big cars, big houses, big hats, and big hair - even for the guys. And while, yes, that image wasn't entirely unjustified, it wasn't completely reality.

My family had just moved to north Texas from upstate New York when Dallas premiered, and like a lot of other "Yankees" who'd begun flooding the state from "up north," we couldn't tell if the city was following the show's lead, or the other way around. These days, we're told that initially, local Dallas boosters weren't impressed with the trite gaudiness with which Hollywood cast the city. But after tourism to the area and Dallas' international recognition took off, they learned to live with it.

Like almost anybody wanting fame, free publicity can cover a multitude of sins.

Except this time, California's television folks need to understand two things. One, not only is Dallas definitely not what the original series' producers envisioned it as being, but two, it's become a far more diversified place with surprisingly individual neighborhoods that may not exactly transition well into television.

Differences

What used to be one of the most WASP-ish of towns has had two female Jewish mayors since the first TV show, hosts one of the largest gay communities in the country, and has become white-minority.

Indeed, Dallas essentially exists as two distinct cities. There's the relatively white, relatively upper-middle-class North Dallas, and the mostly minority, mostly poor South Dallas, with a bit of a mix scattered throughout its eastern neighborhoods.

North Dallas sits mostly east of Marsh Lane and north of I-30, while South Dallas takes in everything else. Downtown is kind of the anchor of the split, and the closer you get to Downtown, the greater the mix between whites and minorities, and rich and poor.

The wealth of north Dallas starts with the supremely exclusive and virtually all-white enclaves of Highland Park and University Park, both of which share their own elite school district, and are surrounded by Dallas proper. Then comes Preston Hollow, where some of Texas' largest and most impressive estates sprawl behind towering walls, along winding lanes lined with towering trees. More money is tucked into gentrifying neighborhoods east of Central Expressway.

South Dallas' poverty doesn't really start until after you get past a couple of trendy inner-city districts, the sprawling freeway interchanges, and the softly-worn yet attractively venerable North Oak Cliff and Kessler Park neighborhoods, where some houses rival those of Highland Park.

Then the poverty hits you, with block after block of overgrown lots, crack houses, liquor stores, dilapidated apartments, pawn shops, and taquerias (Mexican restaurants). Hispanics comprise the largest group of minorities in Dallas, which sometimes agitates blacks who, along with many whites, have grown frustrated with the city's large population of illegal immigrants. Significant pockets of Middle Easterners, Asian Indians, and Hispanics live along the northern LBJ Freeway corridor, and east of the city's recreational White Rock Lake area. To this day, blacks stay pretty much south of Downtown, where they were segregated not so long ago, and where housing values remain the lowest.

Whereas the original TV show tried to claim Dallas' suburbs for the city itself, these days, most of the suburbs in Dallas County have their own identities and don't want to be lumped in with the identity of their larger neighbor, the county seat. In particular, Plano and Richardson are home to many "silicon prairie" firms and even have their own fine arts organizations. Irving and its master-planned Las Colinas district, snuggled up next to our bustling international airport and home to some of the world's biggest corporations, is a bitter rival of Dallas' when it comes to businesses relocating to the area. And Frisco, one of the blandest new exurbs you'll ever visit, isn't even in Dallas County, yet that's where most of the middle-class whites from Dallas are flocking these days.

Livin' Large in Big D

Since this new show will likely follow the same path as the original and feature modern power brokers squabbling over money and sex, the producers should understand that money in Dallas has gotten old enough that it's starting to look a lot like it does on the East Coast. That means expensive foreign cars, yes, but a surprisingly understated wardrobe, where the label speaks louder than the design. Money has also become much more discrete in Dallas, where smallish houses in the Park Cities can command hefty premiums simply because of their address, not necessarily their built-in amenities.

Of course, discrete in Dallas still isn't the same as discrete in Manhattan, Short Hills, or Westport. Bling still counts for something in Dallas, as does perfectly-styled hair, even if it isn't big. Make-up, too, has to be flawless, whereas in Manhattan, you never know if the unadorned face walking towards you on Madison Avenue belongs to a housekeeper or a hedge fund manager.

Nevertheless, Dallas is home base for Neiman-Marcus, one of the most under-stated fine retailers in the country, and also boasts a staid Rolls-Royce dealership. It's difficult to tell whether Lexus, Mercedes-Benz, or BMW is the official car of Dallas, since so many models of each prowl the city's streets. And they're almost all black - a beastly color, considering how hot our summers get here.

Ahh, yes: summers. If Dallas were a truly well-rounded city, it would be located near an ocean or one of the Great Lakes, or maybe some mountains. As it is, Dallasites have to make do with some man-made reservoirs, private swimming pools, and relatively inexpensive airline flights to Colorado. Some people insist on baking in the heat by jogging in wilted parks, sweating on water-sucking golf courses, or gasping in open-air patios at prestigious restaurants, but most simply hit the many local malls or multiplexes for stuff to do indoors.

The world-renowned Dallas Symphony Orchestra plays in the equally-impressive Meyerson Symphony Center, and a historic trolley rattles through a newly-trendy Uptown restaurant district. One of the area's most successful shopping center moguls built a remarkable sculpture palace, the Nasher Sculpture Center, and an increasingly popular light rail system continues to spread through the city.

Its school district may be in shambles, and its crime rate sagging only by degrees, yet Dallas still manages to hold its own in terms of desirability against the brand-new gated communities popping up in what was only parched farmland when the original Dallas aired.

"Where the East Begins" Doesn't Have the Same Ring

Perhaps much to its disappointment, however, the search for an identity - which has so far confounded Dallas - inevitably brings up the subject of Fort Worth.

Thirty miles to its west, and home to a legitimate cowboy heritage, Fort Worth proudly claims to be "Where the west begins" and "Cowtown." With the bona-fides to back it up.

Even Big D's fiercely beloved Dallas Cowboys play outside the county now, here in Arlington, right next to Fort Worth. Convention-goers staying in Dallas routinely board buses to Cowtown where they can watch a real cattle drive in the old stockyards, party at the "world's largest honkey-tonk," Billy Bob's Texas, and dine at what is probably the most famous Mexican restaurant in the state, Joe T. Garcia's (although I don't particularly care for it myself).

Fort Worth may not have the reputation for wealth and ostentation that Dallas does, but it's got enough energy industry tycoons to fund a far more diverse and internationally prestigious arts and cultural district than Dallas has. Its municipal politics are far less corrupt and divisive that those in Dallas, and its cross-cultural civic life much more cohesive.

Perhaps that mix doesn't make for as provocative a television show as someplace like Dallas, but interestingly, I don't hear many folks in Fort Worth complaining about all the attention their neighbor to the east may be getting from Hollywood.

After all, Dallas' most famous resident is probably Jerry Jones, owner of the Dallas Cowboys, while Fort Worth's is probably Van Cliburn, the acclaimed concert pianist.

Which, in a way, says a lot about each city, doesn't it?

Boy, howdy - now ain't that sum'um?

(Translation: My goodness, you're right!)

Chances are, you could probably tell whether somebody will bother to watch the new Dallas based on which one of those wealthy locals they'd want as a neighbor.

As for me, I haven't cared much for the Cowboys since Tom Landry was fired.

Oh yeah - that's been since the original Dallas, too.
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Kim, We Hardly Knew Ye

 

Kim Talley was found dead in his bathroom yesterday.

I didn't even know his last name until after the cops arrived.  To us here in our neighborhood, he was simply "Kim," the cancer patient.

And right now, you know about as much about him as we did.

Yeah... that much...

The Martin House

We'd met Kim two years ago, after he moved into a house across the street.  Formerly a conventional 1950's-vintage single-family home, it had been converted into a hostel of sorts for cancer patients by an altruistic cancer survivor named Carole Anne.

An architect and businesswoman here in town, Carole Anne had bought the aging Martin House from its namesake family's heirs, and turned almost every room into a single-room-occupancy apartment.  Each remodeled room was available* at an exceptionally low cost for patients being treated at our internationally-renowned Arlington Cancer Center.  All the patients share a common living area, kitchen, and laundry room, plus a secluded patio.

And I say "internationally-renowned" because Carole Anne's second resident was a young man from the Netherlands, who came to Texas with his wife after they grew frustrated with their home country's medical offerings.  Oddly enough, they hired "black cars" (the term I learned in New York City for chauffeur-driven Lincoln Town Cars and Chevrolet Suburbans) to take them all over town.  Sometimes even stretch limousines would sweep up to the curb beside the Martin House, adding a bit of panache to our quiet neighborhood.

During her own battle with cancer several years ago, Carole Anne appreciated being able to return to the privacy of her own home every evening after arduous treatments.  However, she knew of other patients from out of town who were staying in local hotels.  Since most of these treatments last several days, hotel tabs can get expensive quickly; Arlington plays host to many tourists visiting our amusement parks and national sports stadiums, so rates are not cheap.  Plus, most hotels aren't known for their soft, homey comforts.  So in a burst of beneficence, Carole Anne purchased a couple of houses in residential neighborhoods here in Arlington for patients who would prefer to stay in a less anonymous environment during their treatments.

You already know about her second resident, but her very first patient, a young man who came with his wife and small children from Louisiana, moved in before remodeling had even been finished.  Arlington Cancer Center represented the last hope for this sickly father and husband, who arrived relatively full-figured and burly, but was emaciated the last time I saw him.

After a year or so of fighting his disease, the father died, and his bereaved family returned to Louisiana.

Not before, however, they'd cleaned out the Martin House of the furnishings Carole Anne had acquired for all the rooms and kitchen.  Extended family members came over from Louisiana to help the new widow pack up, and their packing included virtually everything that wasn't theirs.

That blatant thievery really knocked the charitable wind out of Carole Anne for a while, but she plowed her energies back into her project, and before long, with other patients coming and going, Kim had moved in.

Kim Talley

Carole Anne made a point to come over and tell me about Kim, who was indeed a special case.  He - and whatever family he had - were estranged from each other, for a reason she didn't fully understand.  He was short, and slight, but we don't know where he was born, what he'd done for a living, if he'd ever been married, or had fathered offspring.  His cancer had cost him his voice box and most of his throat. So he kept a writing pad and pencil with him, and had developed an ability to grunt and wheeze some basic word sounds to communicate.

Indigent from years of expensive health issues, and chronically sick from the length and severity of his treatments, there seemed to be little he could do to provide for himself.  Indeed, there were days where Kim could barely function.  From what I gathered, most of his care at the cancer center was written off since he literally had no way to pay.

Kim wasn't nearly as old as he looked, which on a good day, was about 85.  I'm not kidding, or trying to be disrespectful, although he was probably in his late 40s. With skin which was practically translucent, surgical scars cris-crossing his neck, incision holes pock-marking both arms, a patchy hairline ravaged by chemotherapy, and glassy eyes bereft of emotion, the sight of him was disturbing at best.

Sometimes new sutures would bleed, and yellow puss would occasionally drip down his neck.

Being so dangerously thin, with zero body fat and hardly any muscle, he loved the summer heat here in Texas that wilts the rest of us.  For a while, he drove an old, black Isuzu Trooper whose air conditioning had quit years ago, but that didn't bother him at all.  Once, after the Isuzu broke down, a generous neighbor anonymously arranged to have it fixed at her expense.  Last summer, however, it finally gave out for good, and another neighbor loaned Kim a nice bicycle for some modest transportation.

Final Weeks

Not that he always had the strength to ride it, however.  The Martin House is perched on a slight hill, and lately, Kim sometimes needed to balance himself while mounting the bike by resting a foot on the slope of the lawn.

About two months ago, his Isuzu, which had been sitting in disrepair in a corner of the driveway, disappeared.  A neighbor mentioned that he hadn't seen Kim in a few days.  Finally, another neighbor called Carole Anne and asked after him.  You see, Kim had become kind of a community project for us.

As it turned out, Kim had been in the hospital, but none of us here in the neighborhood still knows why. Carole Anne had mentioned something about pneumonia, but somehow in the neighborhood grapevine, the idea that he'd undergone more cancer treatments got into the narrative.

At any rate, one afternoon I saw him again, on the front porch of the Martin House, in a thick exercise suit, in 98-degree weather.  The next day, I noticed he'd again come outside, but this time, was only wearing his underwear, and acting strangely.  I went over to see if he was OK, and quickly discovered he was rather disoriented.  However, when I asked if he wanted me to call Carole Anne, he vigorously shook his head, and went inside.

After about a week, I learned from a neighbor that he'd witnessed further disoriented behavior by Kim, in his underwear - again.  Another neighbor said she'd seen him in the middle of the street, lurching around in circles like a drunken sailor.  Finally, one evening, Kim fell off of his bike in front of the neighbor who'd loaned it to him in the first place, and he marched Kim back inside the Martin House with instructions to let us drive him to wherever he really needed to go.

Anything More?

By this time, our little cluster of neighbors had become frustrated at Kim's distressing condition, our ignorance regarding ways to provide effective support, and what appeared to be a certain ambivalence on Carole Anne's part regarding his care.  Little did we know that Carole Anne had already decided Kim no longer could function safely on his own.  She'd been phoning every agency and hospital she could think of, trying to get more help for him.

Since Carole Anne is neither a family member, a legal guardian, or power of attorney, however, even her efforts were proving futile.  She grew increasingly angry that nobody wanted to help a sickly, indigent man who couldn't talk who wasn't a senior citizen or a veteran.  Various government programs would provide medication, some public health benefits would cover hospitalization, but no minimal-care housing facility would - or could - open their doors for somebody like Kim.  That had been partly the reason Carole Anne had offered to let him stay at the Martin House in the first place.

Last week, Kim fell off his bicycle again, scuffing his legs, whose skin was as fragile as Kleenex.  He was so weak, he couldn't even pick himself up off of the pavement.  Another neighbor and I happened to be in our yards when we heard him fall.  Seeing him there, splayed across the pavement underneath his bike, Kim reminded me of what Beetle Bailey looks like after Sarge is through beating up on him.

Resiliency, however, kept Kim going.  The next day, he was back on the porch, appropriately clothed, grinning as best he could despite his misshapen mouth (so many surgeries had damaged his facial muscles), holding up his hands to demonstrate how much he was enjoying the heat. I saw him again on Sunday as I was driving home from church, and he was walking along the street under the blazing sun. I stopped and invited him to ride with me in my air-conditioned sedan back to the Martin House, but he waved me off, even though, finally, he didn't look like he was enjoying the heat very much that day.

A police officer working his death scene at the Martin House yesterday said he saw Kim on Monday, walking along a street near our neighborhood.  That evening, another cop found him collapsed against a stop sign nearby.  Since the police knew Kim from various 911 calls to the Martin House, the officer asked if Kim wanted to go back there, or the hospital, and Kim had opted for the Martin House.

As far as we know, that was the last time anybody saw him alive.

Around noontime yesterday, one of the other patients at the Martin House decided to check on Kim, because the television in his room had been on non-stop since at least Wednesday morning. Upon entering Kim's room, he saw Kim's feet extending from the bathroom door, and knew the worst had come.

Exit Softly

There will be no funeral.  Carole Anne called the one other person Kim told her he knew, his power of attorney, an uncooperative woman in Fort Worth.  But this "friend" of Kim's couldn't have cared less that he'd died - except that she wanted his Isuzu, if he still had it.  Carole Anne told me her attitude had been the same throughout this two-year ordeal.  Finally, Carole Anne told this "friend" that she'd clean out Kim's personal effects, donate them to a local charity, and sign his corpse over to the county morgue.

Legally, that's all she can do.

Last night, I commiserated with the neighbor who'd paid to get his Isuzu fixed, and we wondered if we should interject ourselves into the tableau of dysfunction that was Kim's final days, and arrange some sort of funeral.

We looked at each other and, with grim faces, decided that if Carole Anne couldn't do anything, it would be on the head of Kim's power of attorney if she let his passing go unnoticed.

Not the way any of us in our neighborhood want Kim's sad life to end.  After all, his was still a human existence, if not necessarily humane.  I'm sure there could have been more that the rest of us might have done - collectively and individually - to help him, and we all had logical reasons for why we didn't.   In the end, though, even cops at the Martin House yesterday, as they took statements from us, congratulated us for the amount of empathy we did display.  People languish in sickness and die all the time without anybody noticing, they said.

Still, it's a hollow praise, isn't it?  None of us think we acted extraordinarily to Kim.  We didn't really give him any extra common decency that we wouldn't accord anybody else.  Perhaps that's a nice thing to know about my neighborhood - that we do actually make some effort in looking after each other.

So yesterday afternoon, as the coroner's van arrived and the attendants wheeled their gurney into the Martin House to collect Kim's spent body, I stepped outside onto our front lawn.  It was beastly hot, but I stood silently in the shade of a gracious oak tree, paying my last respects as the corpse was brought back down the sloping lawn of the Martin House, and into the white van.

Mom and Dad were standing, together, inside - in the air conditioning! - watching solemnly from our large bay window.  And the street was silent, the Texas summer air almost hot to the touch, the leaves on our neighborhood's tall trees motionless, devoid of any breeze.

As if nature itself didn't know what to say.


* Update October 2021:  Thankfully, the Martin House returned to single-family-residence status about six years ago. Things were never quite the same after Kim died.  Newer practices in cancer care, plus the advent of Air BNB and other smartphone lodging apps, also reduced the need for that type of cancer hostel.
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Bikers Dying to Look Macho

Get a dictionary. Look up "ironic."

If it's been updated since this past weekend, your dictionary's entry might include this story as an example:

While riding his motorcycle in a rally staged to protest helmet laws, Philip Contos had an accident, hit his unprotected head on the pavement, and died within minutes. Doctors ascertained that his lethal brain injuries would not have been sustained had he been wearing... his helmet.

Don't you wonder if, right now, Contos might love a second chance to change his mind?

American Bikers Aimed Towards Education (ABATE), the group which organized the rally this past weekend near Syracuse, New York, is opposed to laws mandating helmets for anybody on a motorcycle.

And then Contos inadvertently proved why their position is a fallacy.

Wipeout

In 1959, my uncle was piloting his motorcycle along a scenic, rural stretch of roadway on an idyllic coastal island in Maine. Rounding a curve, police suspect the tires of his bike lost traction while going over gravel and pebbles along the roadside, and my uncle crashed.

A kindly farmer discovered him, dead, and before long, the whole community in that sparsely-populated corner of the county was shaking its collective head at the tragedy.

Back then, there were no helmet laws, just as there were no seatbelt laws for cars. Or, for that matter, any of the many Nanny State laws Americans deride today. Safety was an individual responsibility, yes, but some dangers weren't widely acknowledged. Today, we have all sorts of studies proving how essential motorcycle helmets and seatbelts are, plus public awareness campaigns to spread the word. But my late uncle, at the time the most free-spirited guy in my Mom's family, probably would be bristling at them were he alive today, just as Contos, the motorcyclist in Upstate New York, did this past weekend.

Celebrating his "freedom" to ride unprotected.

There Are Reasons We've Got Too Many Laws

Granted, like ABATE argues on their website, the best way to prevent motorcycle-related death and injury is good training for motorcyclists to avoid accidents in the first place. Helmets aren't always going to save lives, nor can helmets prevent accidents. But doesn't that still miss the point?

Helmet laws aren't intended to prevent accidents, either. They're intended to prevent deaths and brain injuries so the motorcyclist can live to ride another day. The health benefits of wearing a helmet are indisputable, and should be enough to encourage bike riders to voluntarily wear a helmet so that a law wouldn't be necessary.

But they don't, so it is.

ABATE argues that since many motorcycle-related deaths involve alcohol and/or unlicensed motorcyclists, how will adding yet another law to the mix really make bike-riding safer? People who will drive a motorcycle drunk probably won't bother to strap on a helmet, either.

With that logic, however, we could unravel our legal code backwards to virtual anarchy which, while that may sound attractive to knee-jerk Americans, isn't conducive to a civilized, productive, and beneficial society.

I'm Not a Wuss

I suspect the real, deep-seated, motivating force behind the animosity towards helmet laws involves the thirst for freedom, the craving for the adrenaline rush, and an infatuation with the bad-boy image riders get by not wearing a helmet. Helmets don't let your hair shoot back in the breeze (I'll have to take somebody else's word on that), they can look dorky, and - at least for people who bristle at rules - they can create the impression that you're a slave to government totalitarianism. That you're a pawn of the Nanny State. That you're a wuss.

Most people don't ride a motorcycle to convey an image of being a wuss. My own uncle didn't, and "wuss" wasn't even a word in 1959.

But that's the main issue here, isn't it?

It's not about demanding the freedom of helmet choice. It's not about the right to be stupid. It's plain and simple selfishness on the part of people who don't like being told what to do, and the lifestyle celebrated by people who don't like being told what to do.

Ironically, it's the very same people who don't like being told what to do who usually need a nanny, and that's why Nanny-State-creep has been taking over the United States. People who don't like being responsible and making good choices usually cause a situation when somebody else has to make those choices for them. All of a sudden, people begin to realize that we've become engulfed in a sea of laws, and automatically assume that laws restrict freedom. But what is freedom, anyway? Hasn't the term "freedom" been taken out of context here?

Free to Be...

No, not every motorcycle rider is a scofflaw or habitually irresponsible. And no, it's not particularly fair for all motorcyclists to be penalized because of the bad behavior of a minority. Most bike riders will live their entire life without getting into an accident, let alone needing to protect their skull as they bounce down a concrete road. So for them, having another law requiring something that's common sense seems onerous.

But since enough people don't exercise common sense and take advantage of inventions designed to protect them, since the economic costs of accidental death and brain injury can be enormous, and since the social costs of not wearing a helmet can be devastating to one's family and heirs, who's the one with a disjointed perspective?

We all know about health and life insurance factors when it comes to irresponsible behavior. We also sympathize for family members left behind when loved ones die simply for not taking basic precautions. And I speak from my own family's grief when it comes to motorcyclists not wearing helmets. It's a selfish decision to make, not wearing a helmet, and a pointless way to die or, perhaps even worse, end up spending the rest of your life in a vegetative state.

Here in Texas, you don't have to wear a motorcycle helmet if you can prove that you have enough insurance to cover your hospitalization should you get injured while not wearing one. And maybe that's a decent compromise, if you insist on refusing to protect one of your body's most critical organs.

But whenever I see motorcyclists riding around helmetless, I don't see a person demonstrating personal freedom. Or somebody wealthy enough to afford extra insurance. Or some masculine, macho, testosterone-fueled cool dude. Or dudette.

I see a person demonstrating a profound lack of common sense.

After Contos' death in New York, some readers responding to news coverage of the tragedy echoed a common refrain: they'd rather die free than being forced to wear a helmet.

Yeah. I'm sure that's what our Founding Fathers had in mind while they were fighting the British 235 years ago.

"Life, liberty, and the pursuit of death by lack of common sense."

Doesn't have the same ring, does it?
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