The Hat Tree

The Hat Tree (circa 1968)

I wish I were a hat tree standing in the corner,

Laughing in a clown's hat, or don a derby to be a mourner.

I could change my whole personality with each different hat;

Without schooling, I put on a mortarboard and that would be that.

A scholar or dunce, a Mexican, Frenchman, or Russian;

I could be almost anything I want without too much fussing.

Ah, the quick change could be mine were I not an unchanging man,

But merely an imaginative hat tree set in the corner to stand.

In Preparation

In Preparation

With anticipation, imagined or real,

Resources are mustered and new plans are made

In hope to ease the anxiety I feel

For the future to which I am conveyed.

Some target the “soon”, say the coming week,

And some the “perhaps never to arrive”.

But to be ready then, I now do seek

Skills and supplies I will need to survive.

At least, perhaps I should so endeavor

To stockpile for every contingency;

Fretfully to scheme for any whatever,

Cede now’s is for maybe’s emergency.

But, I think, I do not worry enough.

Oh, I trouble some for the tomorrows

And about where I will store all this stuff.

But not for doom and the fear it borrows.

‘Though misfortune may come to knock me down,

Should I forfeit the boons of here and now,

To sulk with a forced, self-afflicted frown

And cut discomfort’s delay as I bow?

And when that sad downfall never does drop

And I leave with preparations unused,

Will lost opportunity for no swap

For very bad investment be confused?

How like a lottery becomes this game –

To be near certain to lose a little

And so unlikely a fortune to claim

When from life a small caution we whittle.

And when we took too many tiny nicks

From comforts we had for those we had not,

It was not our future which we did fix,

But more woes into the present we brought.

Let’s prepare for the known generously,

But, for the multitude of maybes, wait.

Allow life’s heap to serve capriciously

For those things we should not anticipate.

Sauce for the Gander

Sauce for the Gander

Most of us have entertaining pastimes in which we like to indulge. They may need to struggle to find moments of time amongst our many more compulsory tasks, but we are disinclined to neglect them entirely. They seem to be the difference between living and having a life.
 
Often our cherished indulgences are not particularly “good for us” in terms of the more practical activities in living day to day. The inebriation of alcohol consumption may be its entertainment goal, but it comes at a cost in deficiency in many life skills, such as judgment, emotional control, and coordination. It is most unfortunate when such a pleasant indulgence is interrupted by the demands of the everyday world to be elsewhere. The circumstances demand a return to a sober lack of impairment while the simple facts of metabolism make that impossible. Thus we have the clash of “I need to get home” and “I should not be driving”. When we cannot (or will not) resolve this problem with alternate transportation (taxis, designated drivers, walking), we invite trouble to sit besides us as a copilot.

How does a society solve this dilemma between desired indulgence and ubiquitous obligation of the everyday life of work, community, and plodding along? We have tried punishments, such as fines, incarceration, and denial of driving privileges. We have campaigns for designated drivers and responsible drinking. We have instituted treatment programs to instill better understanding of the causes and consequences in hope of promoting better judgment and control by the individual (before he starts drinking). Perhaps these have all had an effect to lower the co-occurrence of drinking and driving, but the problem persists in tragic amounts. A new strategy may be needed to move society's efforts to the next level.

The mistarget of our current DWI penalties is to disallow the person to drive, the socially requisite activity. The repeat drunk driver has often been shown to be scarcely motivated by the absence of a driver's license. He believes he is compelled to continue driving in order to meet his daily responsibilities.

What we need to remove is the person's permission and ability to drink. Certainly as a condition of treatment and correctional supervision, we often do prohibit drinking. The difficulty is in verifying and enforcing this ban. More than occasional spot checks by law enforcement officials are needed. A philosophy and method of community surveillance and access control must be established.

Specifically, we must license the right to drink. Under the powers of the 21st Amendment, the States now regulate and monitor the businesses which distribute and sell alcoholic beverages, but their customers remain largely unrestricted and undocumented. Our sole rule seems to be a prohibition against “under aged” customers for which we expect DMV documentation as proof of age. But what we actually need is “proof of responsibility”.

Some law-abiding drinkers will surely protest this intrusion of yet another government regulation and registration (You may take this bottle from my cold, passed out hands! (but it will be empty by then)). The departments of motor vehicles probably went through the same hassles when they were empowered to promote highway safety through the registration of vehicles and trained drivers. Nonetheless, all but the most die-hard libertarians now accept their role (if not their actual fees, rules, and paperwork).

Whether or not the departments of liquor control establish educational requirements for registration (or a learner's permit program), once the qualified drinker has received his license, he will have the necessary documentation to purchase and consume. Vendors under DLC regulations will not merely guess whether the buyer needs to prove his age, but will now be trained and required to see the drinker's DLC license. A revocation of this license attacks the drinker's voluntary (ignoring, for the moment, medically treatable addiction) desire in advance of its averted consequences if the sanctioned offender feels a transportation need. It moves enforcement from the relative anonymity of highway traffic requiring police intervention to the communal, face-to-face transaction with the regulated vendors. Beyond the highway, this community-based access control system may prevent drunken disorderly conduct and more violent crimes, such as spousal abuse and brawling.

Will vendors break the rules or make errors with false documentation? Yes, almost certainly, but not usually. Will friends serve alcohol to unlicensed friends? Yes, but perhaps a “do you know who is drinking your beer” campaign could heighten everyone's awareness of their role in enabling (or preventing) such violations.

Let's make “responsible drinking” everyone's responsibility. It is not prohibition on law-abiding citizens to regulate; it is society-wide control to be proactive and involved in preventing known violators from abusing privileges we might all wish to enjoy.

Mirror, Mirror

Mirror, Mirror

Light! The cover has been removed.

“What may I show you today, Mistress?” Little do you know that I cannot display anything that is not already within you as you stand in front of me. Shall I show you your fears, your hopes, your hatreds? Oh, yes, I see them all as you pose, peering into my surface. They are as real and as false as your own thoughts, but you will believe them readily when I reflect them back to you.

“Mirror, I command you to show me the greatest threat to my reign,” the Mistress demands. Not to your kingdom, eh, but to your position upon its throne. Perhaps, for the kingdom’s sake, that would be only your own face. But that is not your question or the answer you desire to justify your actions.

“As you command.” Your fear, it is then. Look upon your face grown old, fading into the face of your stepdaughter who is your current heir. Oh, what a curse to repay my vanity! Once I saw no farther than my own self-delusion as you do, Mistress. I felt no love, no pity, nothing for anyone except myself. And now I am trapped with only a view of the world through the eyes of another, condemned to parrot back only that given me through that narrow peephole.

“Ah, Snow White. I knew it! She plots against me! She sullies my majesty amongst this kingdom’s peasants and peers alike.” Yes, if you think it so, then you will make it so. I do not stare into Snow White’s soul and thoughts, so I do not know. But, at last perhaps, I have learned not to believe in the shallow view of reality bound by one person’s self-centered mind. If I could teach you that lesson, Mistress, I might be free of this curse.

“Well, she simply must go! But, how? How, Mirror, may I rid myself of this troublesome child?” Might I show you your own doubts? See, the people love her, even you know that, Mistress. To harm her is to arouse their ire. But only if they suspect you, you think. Perhaps a trip from which she never returns. Oh, how pleasantly you imagine yourself sending her off in the royal carriage, disappearing into the forests. To meet her future husband and their king, you have told everyone. But, bandits, brigands! The forests are full of them; you will make sure of that by disguising your own men. No, not men; only one man. You can see his face, the wretched poacher you condemned this morning. Mistress, your doubts are too easily defeated by your scheming mind. “Yes, Mirror, that is what we will do.” We? No, Mistress, you have no accomplice in me.

Darkness – Mistress has all she needs of me today.

Or have I abetted her in treachery again? Oh, ancient wizard, I have had enough. I see that I was wrong. Seeing only myself as important hurt those around me. Perhaps I even knew that then, but I did not care, for I was not them. Did they burn from this inability to speak their thoughts to me, only permitted to say what I wanted to hear? They at least could leave my presence and have discourse with other people. But as I isolated myself within that small world that was only me, you have left me alone in the solitude of another’s life, not even my own to control. Will my remorse satisfy your spell?

Perhaps this Snow White deserves the Mistress’ anger. There are evil people in the world, as I well know. Why must my old, scorning habits treat the Mistress with such disrespect? I want to believe I have learned my lesson, but even bound within this torturous prison, I still feel superior to the one person with whom I have contact. I was more beautiful than she, more clever too. Maybe, you should visit the Mistress too, wizard. But you have not yet, so perhaps I was deserving of a fate she has not the villainy to deserve. Hah, I was even better at being bad!

You used my own mirror as your snare, did you not, old man? I have seen it through her eyes – the runes have destroyed its frame, but I recognize it. You were no savior of the people. A lesson, ha! You were not trying to teach me anything.  I had thought to use you, but you were merely a glutton for power and I stood between you and my father's wealth and secrets. You spirited me in here, threw me in a sack, and carried me out of my own home like a peddler of used goods. How long ago did you leave me in the attic of this castle, bundled out of sight? How long before the Mistress found me and, at last, removed the sack?

Ah, that was a surprising discovery for both of us! Suddenly seeing light again, I awoke and looked at my mirror, I thought, only to see somebody else’s face. She was the new young bride, second wife to the old king, unsure of her place in his palace. As she thought about her concerns, I saw them. And scared the daylights out of her as I displayed them upon my surface instead of her simple reflection. Back into the sack she plunged me.

My confusion was joined by my anger. Oh, I still do not know what you did, husband, but I have been piecing it together. Before Mistress returned in curiosity weeks later, I had plenty of time to think. And I have been thinking of you and this enchantment for more than a decade since. I will get free someday. Through reform or revenge, I will find the key to break this spell. If you still exist, wizard, beware!

When Mistress came back, she cautiously uncovered me. She stood to the side where I could not see her, nor could she see my surface. “Mirror, what are you?” she asked.

“Your servant, Mistress,” I replied, hardly believing my own words. I, a servant? That is not what I planned to say in my weeks of awaiting her return. That is what she wanted me to be! I could think and scheme all that I might, but I was ensorcelled to do her bidding.

“And how can you serve me, Mirror?” my Mistress asked as she stepped in front of me. I gazed upon this young and frightened lady and saw her intense determination to overcome any obstacle. It was that fire in her soul which had brought her back to me in her frustration of being the second love of the king. She had known the king’s first wife, although she was only a child when they were married. And only a teenager when the former queen died a year after the birth of her child, Snow White. But her circumstances had changed much between her childhood and her teen years, for her family estates on the frontier had fallen to invaders and her family was slaughtered in the struggle. Her willpower had allowed her to escape into hiding, survive that destitution, grow strong and beautiful despite it, and attract a grieving king’s attention when finally he arrived to reestablish the realm’s authority within her family lands. This I saw and, as it entered my mind, its images played across my surface, to the amazement of both my Mistress and myself.

And now, she was unsure that she had truly captured the king’s heart. I saw her doubts and I fed them back to her. Oh, I was furious with you, husband, as the abasement you had heaped upon my imprisonment and exile dawned on me. I could not tell her what you had done to me, but I could chose to build her doubt into resentment with her own thoughts. The scenes of her flaming home. The reminder of the years before the king responded. Even her memories of the king’s embraces of his first queen and coddling of his infant daughter aided my design for revenge upon husbands, if not my own, well, then any husband would need to do.

Oh, yes, I supposed I was wrong to do it. If becoming a better person was the means to winning my freedom, I threw away the key that day. The Mistress is a clever minx though. Could I really have influenced her into doing anything she would not want to do? She certainly dreamed about it. And soon she schemed, staging her plans upon my surface. Ah, I enjoyed the way her mind worked.

But her revenge has not freed me. Her power has not freed me. Her confidence has not freed me – indeed it has bound me more tightly, for now she uses me for purposes in which I have no interest. She is a petty and mean woman. I would not have looked in her direction when I had a choice. Oh, husband, how do I escape? I might even love you if that would shake off this curse. But I think I would prefer to destroy you.