Reflection and Grading My Parenting Efforts

I would give myself a grade of B- with respect to my parenting efforts and results. My work is not done, but I am getting close to being effectively done on a day-to-day basis; maybe five more years until it becomes essentially official.

I never really planned to be a parent. There certainly was a general presumption and expectation for my generation, and really every generation that proceeded me, that you get married and have kids. I spent a decade having fun before any of this happened. I am glad I did, but I think that was a reflection of my true nature which is born out of selfishness. My parents talked about being grandparents on occasion but they never really put any pressure on my brother or me. I had some friends whose parents obsessed about being grandparents. And maybe that pressure happens to girls more than boys? I was not against being a parent, but it was not something that I gave much thought to or had some compelling desire for. For me, being a parent just happened. There was essentially no planning. Somewhere between believing it was what I was supposed to do and our inherent ‘horny-ness’ resulted in having three kids.

This was 2007 at our place in Maine. In hindsight, this was a good time for me but I appreciate it more now than I did at the time.

My kids are fundamentally good people. That is the primary reason why my self-grade is as high as it is; more due to their abilities and less about my contributions. At the core of being a parent, you fear your children’s ability to successfully navigate the world. That certainly is the case for me. Woven into that concern is a selfish desire to cut the financial cord and not having to dwell on this fundamental concern on a daily basis. I will have been effectively a ‘full-time’ parent for about 30 years. That is a long time for what is a pretty intense responsibility. And I recognize that it is not unique to me. Also it is very apparent that you never stop being a parent. Even as they become adults, you are still ‘on the job’. However, the frequency of that work goes down, hopefully. I suspect that when issues do arise, the severity will be higher. This is a reflection of one of my key takeaways of parenting. When they are young, challenges are high frequency and lower severity. When they get older, it flips to low frequency, but when problems do arise the severity is higher. There is also the reality that when your kids are older, ‘what you don’t know can’t hurt you’. The opposite of the old adage, but in this respect, the ‘hurt’ manifests itself as an ever present worry.

When I look at pictures of my kids when they were young, I think they are so cute, wonderful and I long for those days. I think it would be magical to spend five minutes with the younger version of each child. To be able to observe and interact with that version of them now would be very meaningful. My ability to appreciate that version of them would be very different now verse when I was in those moments. Not to mention just giving them a giant hug and squeeze would be amazing. And yet, during that time, I must confess I was not the most attentive and involved parent. This is really the essence of my greatest regret as a parent. I would like to think that I share this with many other parents. Unlike me, my wife really stepped up and was the ever-present parent. That condition has not changed much. My preference was to mostly focus on work or other activities that allowed for time by myself. This is the core of my many shortcomings as a parent. As I reflect on that, I realize that this was the time to shape my children into being the people that they could and would become. I would assign most of the blame for any shortcomings my kids have now to either my interest in doing other things or lack of tenacity and endurance to persist in engendering good habits and characteristics.

This is a picture of Ben and Sara kayaking at a ‘resort’ just north of San Diego. My wife had gotten a recommendation from a friend that it was a great place to go for the weekend. She really wanted to take the kids there. She wanted us all to go but I said I needed to work and so she went with them by herself. That was a mistake. I should have gone. These situations came up throughout their youth and continue even today. I don’t always make the right decision.

Another primary regret is my memory of the details of their youth fading with every day. I think this manifests itself in two ways; I forget some of the very real struggles we had with each child, and more upsetting, I forgot some of the really good memories when they were in this very special period of their lives. They are refreshed when I see pictures. We did a pretty good job of taking pictures, particularly when they were younger; those efforts were less frequent as they got older. When I scroll through these old pictures, I have a pang in my heart that I did not provide them what they really deserved.

My wife is a good Mom and really goes out of her way to do things for her children. She was very generous with her time for them. This was good because it is not my first inclination. I have heard it said that we find characteristics in a mate that we are deficient in and while this was sheer luck for me, it was true with respect to being a good parent.; maybe it is intuitive that we recognize these capabilities in finding a mate? She is 100% Italian and the stereotypes of Italians and how they parent has a lot of merit. She goes to great lengths to do things for them. Many of which I would not have done myself from a style perspective.

My generation of parents have been often accused of ‘helicoptering’ or ‘bull-dozing’ on behalf of our kids. I certainly saw some of this amongst or friends and neighbors. And we certainly were not immune to these tendencies. I was definitely a lot more independent as a child and more adventurous. There were times where my children would be playing out front with neighborhood kids and while I wasn’t always out there to supervise, I definitely felt as though I should. Our street was a little dangerous with respect to vehicle traffic, but not terrible. My wife and I did not see this condition the same way.

In my mind, our primary directive as parents is to create children that are independent and able to successfully navigate the world. This includes them leaving the nest. My wife would be with her children forever. My sink or swim approach drew ire with both my wife, and particularly with my mother-in-law. We would battle on how best to help them. Essentially it was the providing villagers fish verse teaching them how to fish. I would like to believe that this dueling approach resulted in a pretty good end result; essentially good cop, bad cop. I wonder also how much of this condition was specific to our own upbringing and how much of it is just typical for most parents and their children.

I believe Alfredo was seven in this picture. We were at our summer home in Maine on our honeymoon and this really marks the beginning of Alfredo’s new parental reality of a split parenting experience.

Alfredo is our oldest. He is my stepson. However, since I was a big contributor to his parent’s divorce, I feel a lot of responsibility with respect to his well-being. To the best of my ability, I have tried to treat him as if he was my child. I think I have been fairly successful in this effort. He is a good kid and is smart and capable. The split of his parents did have an effect on him. I debate with myself how profound the impact was thinking in one moment it was not significant and then believing there are some real scars. When he was young and would get dropped off at our house for the week after spending the weekend with his father, there would be some hostility for nearly a day until he would calm down. This was a pretty consistent phenomenon. In 2001, we moved from the Bay Area to southern California. Alfredo stayed in the Bay Area with his father. This was essentially his entire middle and high school experience. We would fly him down for the weekend, holidays and would send him to summer camp along with summer vacations. We would see him a lot, but this too had some impact on him.

This was a picture when Alfredo was visiting. Sara and Ben really enjoyed their time with him when he was visiting. And so did Alfredo for the most part. That being said, I think there was some struggle for him goin back and forth.

He did manage to graduate high school but was not a good student. There was not a real focus on the importance of school with his father and step-mother; although he does have a half-sister that is quite the student. When high school was winding down, we pushed him to think about going into the military. He was going to be a sailor in the Navy for a moment but that didn’t come to fruition. He gets quite exercised when he cannot control his environment or doesn’t have clarity about the future. This doomed the Navy option. He made a half-hearted effort at community college but this was mostly a time of play. After about two years of this, he decided to move down to southern California with us. Shortly after arriving, he got a job at a Verizon store and did very well selling cell phones. Within short order, he was running the store. It was a real success. But after about a year, things began to take a turn for the worse. He got hooked on opiates which resulted in us kicking him out of the house and ultimately getting arrested for selling opiates. This began a year-plus journey getting clean. If there was a silver lining, he took getting back on track seriously and was able to get back to ‘normal’ in a meaningful way. Through a court program, he cleared his record and has been clean and successful for a few years. He is very capable and has lots of abilities but has yet to figure out how he will channel those capabilities. This is certainly a source of worry as a parent but we are optimistic.

Sara was a very cute baby. This was in our first home in South San Francisco. I miss this version of Sara. As time goes on, I have a harder and harder time really remembering these versions of my kids.

Sara is my firstborn. She arrived early in our marriage which was fine since we had an ‘instant’ family with Alfredo. Mandy was over the moon that she had a daughter. She was a pretty easy baby and this persisted through most of her childhood. Sara would grow to be both independent and stubborn. On the whole, I think these are pretty good characteristics. We used to take her everywhere with us particularly when she was young. Many of these outings were me trying to hold onto my single lifestyle with my many friends in San Francisco.

When we moved to Southern California, Sara cruised through elementary and middle school. She was a good student and active in many different things like soccer, brownies and had a large group of friends.

In high school, she got off to a great start both academically and made the cheerleading team as a freshman. She was a flyer and really one of the best in the group. She had done a lot of cheerleading competitions and performed really well. I was very impressed. Some time as a Junior things began to take a turn. The group of girls and mothers that were a part of cheerleading was a fairly intense group. Some of the girls started to turn on one of Sara’s friends in some cruel ways. Sara to her credit stuck with her friend. This was certainly a moment of integrity for her. Unfortunately, it resulted in her becoming a bit of an outcast among the cheerleaders. Further one of her best friends in elementary and middle school had joined the cheerleading as a junior. This one-time friend turned on Sara in some very unfortunate ways.

Sara during this time got her first boyfriend, Dakota. This situation was also a contributor to her alienation with some of her old friends in cheer. For some odd reason, some of their mothers had opinions about this as well. Dakota was a pretty good kid all things considered. I will confess that having a daughter with a boyfriend is a situation I really don’t care for; my guess is this is shared with many fathers. And while my boys really have not had any girlfriends, I definitely see this differently based purely on the sex of my children, right or wrong. Dakota came from a broken family and was essentially raised by a single mother. He was definitely searching for his identity. He was also religious which as a father of a daughter, I would like to think had some upside, despite my own perspective on religion. Ultimately they broke up sometime in her senior year. There was some drama around this but it ended up all working out.

The result was Sara really wanted to leave it all behind. She also made a pretty compelling case that she was not getting the academic support she needed which of course carried weight with me. We ended up enrolling her in a private and one-on-one school for the remainder of her high school experience. This worked out pretty well, although a little part of me wonders if toughing it out would have been the better choice. This culminated in a graduation ceremony where Sara was recognized on a number of occasions for being a standout student and a member of the community. My ultimate assessment was this experience really was turning lemons into lemonade.

Sara went through the college admission experience and ultimately was accepted into a handful of colleges. She ended up picking the University of Arizona. We were all very excited and proud of this accomplishment. I did struggle with the price tag but rationalized that it was going to be worth it. We dropped her off and got her all set up in her dorm room. She was in a room of four girls. They were pretty nice but my wife struggled with this and did not paint the most positive perspective on that particular arrangement. Her skepticism was an issue for a few weeks prior to her arrival and continued to be confirmed during her first semester. Nonetheless, Sara made friends in the dorm and was on her way. Things seemed pretty good the first semester. There were many late-night Uber trips that we saw because we were paying for them. I just saw this as her taking advantage of the social component of college. She came home for Christmas and had failed a couple of classes. Essentially ‘dog at my homework’ situations. In retrospect, the writing was on the wall but she went back for the next semester and I had hoped she would figure out the academics. She didn’t and was academically unable to return after her freshman year.

As I look back on this effort, I don’t regret trying. Despite listening to some pretty smart people make some compelling arguments against college, it is my reference point and all things being equal, I would prefer my kids to have a college education than not. For Sara, academics was always a bit of an uphill battle. She is a doer at heart. Her success for the last year and half in high school at Halstrom Academy led me to believe she could be successful in school. College requires focus and balance between academics and social fun. Sara was unable to do what was needed on either fronts.

She got a job at our local Nothing Bunt Cakes. She quickly worked her way to being the manager which I thought was quite the accomplishment. She was there for a while and was quite successful. That being said I would push her to think about the next thing. Ultimately she is reactive and not proactive in her life. After a couple of years she began to get a bit restless in the position exacerbated by an owner who was a little crazy. She ended up getting fired but the separation was mutual.

She got a job at our local Mercedes dealership making cold calls. This is okay for now but I believe she has a lot more to give and accomplish. I am waiting for her to see this in herself and really start her life. Sound familiar?

Early on in our life in Southern California, my parents and brother came out to visit for the holidays. We went to Big Bear and took the kids tubing in the snow. Ben was pretty young. He liked it but he was always a pretty cautious kid. This has persisted through his life.

Ben arrived not long after Sara. He was a pretty big baby. My wife had a pretty uneventful pregnancy and popped him out pretty quickly despite his size. I always would joke with her that she was just starting to hit her rhythm birthing kids. That being said, we both knew this would be our last and we probably were now in over our heads with three kids.

Ben was a good-natured, curious, but a bit shy as a young child. He was adored by his grandmother who watched him when he was young in her home in Daly City. We could not have asked for a better arrangement. She watched all three kids for a considerable length of time which was great both from a child-rearing perspective and financially. Ben was definitely special to her. For those first two years, he was treated like a king. I realized after a while that he really needed to go to pre-school, if for no other reason to have toy ripped out of his hands by some other kid to let him know that life was going to be different than his great treatment with Mamma. So off to RW Drake in South City he went to join his sister.

This was Ben’s first day at RW Drake. He was joinging his big sister who definitely would take care of him; this persists even today. This is one of my favorite pictures.

He was pretty young when we moved to Orange County and effectively only knows Southern California as his home. A situation I still sometimes have a hard time wrapping my head around. Initially he spent time at a daycare with his sister in Irvine called Stepping Stones. That was a good experience. When it came time for kindergarten, his birthday was very close to the cutoff and we decided to hold him back. His sister was definitely ready but he was a little young. We sent him to a private kindergarten before going to kindergarten at Foothill Ranch Elementary. He would always ask if we held him back and for a long time we would tell him that we didn’t. I am not sure if we have ever really disclosed what happened. I think it was a good decision. If for no other reason to feel good about the decision, he ended up with a pretty good group of friends from his K through 12 experience.

His elementary school experience was pretty good. He did have a buddy named Cole who he was (and is) very close to through the majority of his elementary school experience. Cole during these times was fairly mischievous and this meant a number of teacher and principal meetings for Ben, and of course, his parents. They generally consisted of the need to focus on schoolwork and to stop being disruptive to the other students in his class. The two of them together were definitely rambunctious but I feel Ben was the side-kick in most of these activities. Academically he was a little above average but typically tested very well on the state exams. My conclusion of this circumstance is that he didn’t try hard enough. This would a theme between him and me that has persisted throughout his life so far. I expect it will probably continue for the foreseeable future.

Ben moved on to RSM Middle School which was a bit of the same as his elementary school experience. He became very friendly with the Assistant Principal Mr. Bajork only because Ben would do something that required a meeting. The infractions were never of a serious nature but required some form of discipline.

It was in this period that he began to venture out with his group of buddies to get into mischief around our community. He was never the instigator; which I have mixed emotions about. There were a few late-night pickups when he was allegedly sleeping over someone’s house and they snuck out to do something stupid and got picked up, twice by law enforcement. One of these incidents happened when we were ‘hosting’ the sleepover. And one of these occurrences required a parent meeting at one of his friend’s houses. It was a bit of a flashback for me as I had a similar situation at roughly the same age. All the parents gathered at this one house with the boys present; as I recall it was about five or six of them. The results was effectively ‘to do better’ and I wonder ultimately what the effect was, but it had to be done out of principle.

Ben had a reasonable sports career. He really likes sports and is pretty big and strong but was never going to do anything beyond high school. As a young kid, it was essentially baseball and soccer. He was above average at both. His soccer career concluded when he was about 12 and he had an epic last game where they were losing and he asked to go in goal. He was able to shut down the other teams scoring and the game was tied up. It came down to penalty kicks and he stopped a couple as I recall and their team prevailed. In some ways, this may have been his peak moment in sports. Baseball fizzled out for two reasons. His last team in the ‘majors’ of little league was on a team where the coach’s son was on the team who was good but his father thought he was the best. His father let the son get away with murder particularly around practice; mostly not attending. He would then play his kid all the time particularly as pitcher. The kid had a number of meltdowns when things weren’t going his way. It was deflating for everyone, especially Ben. He also began being afraid of being hit by a pitch and so his batting got pretty bad which did not endear him to the coach. He really wanted to quit on this team but after a number of heated arguments, he begrudgingly stuck it out for the remainder of the season. However, that was end of the baseball career.

This was one of Ben’s travel teams.

By chance one of his good friends started playing lacrosse and asked Ben if he wanted to as well. Ben said yes. This was the beginning of a pretty long journey in the sport culminating in playing varsity in his junior year. He was pretty good. When he was young he was very defensively minded despite being placed on attack most often. As he got further and further into the sport, he would either play attack or midi. He really didn’t have the speed or endurance for midi and would push for attack. His high school teams had some pretty prolific scorers of which he was not one. He would get scoring opportunities but would often defer to some of the other players. He did score on occasion and always had pretty reasonable shots on goal. I went to pretty much every one of his games. In high school, I missed one game (I can’t remember why) and Ben ended up scoring three goals. Go figure!

With respect to college, Ben was determined to go. I think a lot of his motivation was mostly because his two other siblings failed in their efforts. It was an area where he knew he could decisively beat them in something. He was not a great student prior to college. He is smart but his work ethic is only average; does enough to get by. He was accepted into a number of schools but narrowed it down between the University of Arizona and Oregon University. We visited both schools even though he had been to U of A a number of times with his sister. I liked Oregon quite a bit and thought he might pull the trigger with respect to the Ducks as their Business School was good and their football and basketball teams were very good. I believed that the capability of the institution’s sports teams would play a big part in the overall decision. In the end, he opted to go to Tucson mostly because I think it was something he was more comfortable with; he had been there a number of times and it more closely resembled home. He is doing well there and I have every expectation he will graduate from the Eller School of Business … on time!

I would consider my track record with respect to college and my kids to be sub-par. My family had a good college track record prior to my kids. My grandfather and father both went to Harvard and were both accomplished students. My brother went to a better college than I did, but neither of us lived up to the high bar created by the previous two generations. There was a great deal of importance put on college in my family. As we were getting close to certainly Sara and Ben getting ready for the process, I listened to a number of very smart people make some pretty compelling arguments as to why college was not the Return on Investment (ROI) it once had been, and for some kids clearly a bad option. That being said, it was what I had done and was most comfortable with so I believe all things being equal, it is better to have that piece of paper than not. My failure really started with not being persistent and determined to engender good study habits. And once that condition is allowed, probably somewhere around second to fourth grade, it is hard to put the horse back into the barn. And this was largely a parenting failure. My brother has two girls and I think he is doing a better job in this respect. While it is early, I suspect both my nieces will end up going and completing school. So should that be the outcome, my two kids who don’t have a diploma is largely on me.

This was taken at Sherry’s wedding; Mandy’s cousin. Besides being a good picutre, I think this was a point in my kids life were things started for the first time to get serious with respect to what they might do with their lives. It was a time of endless possibilities and potential.

I believe the summary of my kid’s childhood years is a good upbringing with lots of benefits and privilege; less so for Alfredo as he spent essentially third grade through high school with his dad. This type of upbringing I think tends to make kids a little lazy and a general lack of the hunger and desire that would be helpful, arguably necessary throughout their lives.

Today I find that I want to have experiences with my kids, but getting them to come along is getting harder and harder. It is ironic, or maybe even tragic, that when they wanted me in their lives, I was distracted by my own interests and now that I want to be in their lives in a more meaningful way, they are distracted by starting their lives. I would like to think that I am not alone in this situation but nonetheless that does not diminish the guilt and tragedy of this situation.

Not-so-long-ago I was told by a wise friend of mine that his father told him that the most important thing he could do to be a good parent was to be interested and active in what your kids like and want to do, irrespective of what you might think of that activity in the moment. In retrospect, that advice was spot on. In the moment, I tried to shoe-horn in things I wanted them to do. My wife was a lot better at this than I; a recurring theme. Another ‘if I could go back’ item I would certainly would take advantage of.

Part of my interest in engaging them with experiences is I wish they were more adventurous. I would like to see them go off somewhere new and either start a life adventure or maybe even a new chapter in their lives. My wife on the other hand is very close to each of them and would be happy to have them all around her for the foreseeable future. This will most definitely be an area of tension as the cord is cut and they begin their lives.

In summary, the overarching feeling I have as a parent is worry and concern that they will not be able to successfully navigate the world. This, of course, is what I suspect all parents spend their time thinking about. I find that this manifests itself in my becoming the grouchy old man yelling, expressing concern that they will not measure up and generally need to ‘step up their game’ to have a chance at success. I try not to make our now limited time together just me telling them what they are doing wrong; this is a work in progress. That being said, they all have the capacity to be good and successful adults despite shortcomings of their upbringing. And I am hopefull they will. I guess this is the essence of being a parent?

God did not create Man, but Man may create Heaven

We are in very interesting times and what our future may look like, endlessly fascinates me. I merely consume lots of great thinking from others. I wish I was smart enough to formulate a unique theory. Our potential, or maybe likely future, boggles my very average mind. And there are some wild ideas about the world we will live in and what it might look like in the not so distant future. Some of those potential scenarios are very optimistic, but many paint potentially dark and scary outcomes. This is a personal exploration of some of that thinking and my humble guess at our future.

Religion is also a topic I find to be very fascinating. I think there is a corollary to our future. Why are we religious? What has been the impact on our history and how is it impacting individual behavior in our quickly changing culture and society today? I think the battle of religion against science and reason has yet to play itself out. I believe that religion’s purpose, need and usefulness, is eroding quickly; arguably its usefulness is already behind us but we have yet to recognize this as a whole. Will there be some reckoning where things come to a head or does religion fade away during this century? Maybe religion becomes reconfigured because we have an innate need to belong to something that is greater?

Recently I watched an episode of the National Geographic show called “The Year Million” which was a series that focused on many theories and aspects of what mankind will look like in the year million; a long way from 2017. One episode called "Dude, Where's My Body?" suggests that in the not-so-distant future, we will be able to load our minds and lives into a digital state and vacate our biological life. This what they called the Metaverse. This theory resonates with me for a number of reasons.

What is the Metaverse? Good question. However, before we answer that question, let us start with making sure we have somewhat of a baseline on the characteristics of Heaven; mostly as a concept. Before I define this, I must state that I am no theologian nor am I religious. That being said, from my perspective, heaven is a state that humanity can go to if they are deemed to qualify by their God. We vacate our earthly bodies and live in a higher state with all the others that came before us and have been good or deemed worthy. An afterlife is the essence of this concept and found in most religions. We live in the 'house of God' and historically, the heavens have largely been portrayed to be above the clouds and beyond Earth; consistent in what our knowledge of the world was 2000 years ago. We remain there for eternity in a virtuous state. Certainly not a perfect description but I think this hits the major elements. This desire for an after-life or some aspect of immortality is found in most religions. Of course, this gets to our core fear as mortal humans, that life is finite. I certainly do not want to die.

Another thing to think about is that there is also an alternative to heaven in most religions. We of course refer to this as Hell; primarily a Christian concept. There does seem to be a binary choice in all religions split by good and evil. What is also an interesting condition is that while we often refer to all life on Earth as ‘all living creatures of God’, Heaven and Hell in many religions is reserved for only human life.

Now the Metaverse is a ‘virtual reality’ in which users not only interact with but enter and live in a computer-generated environment. And like Heaven, we vacate our Earthly bodies, and go into a higher state; in this case, a virtual and digital world. The Metaverse today would require several evolutionary steps from a technical, biological and energy perspective. With the growing speed of our technical capabilities, I suspect the Metaverse becomes a reality in the next fifty years. We would, in theory, be able to remain in the Metaverse for eternity.  You would be able to interact with all other humans who have also entered the Metaverse. The similarities between the core elements of Heaven and the Metaverse are substantial, with the exception of two key points; the first is that man will create the Metaverse and God created Heaven, and second, Heaven is not real and the Metaverse will be.

The Metaverse is a collective virtual shared space, created by the convergence of virtually enhanced physical reality and physically persistent virtual space, including the sum of all virtual worlds, augmented reality, and the internet.

Now, the likelihood of the Metaverse I think is high. What is uncertain is how virtuous it will be. First, I believe the only way the Metaverse does not become a reality is if mankind self-destructs before the technology needed to make the Metaverse becomes a reality. In respect to what the Metaverse will be like is also dictated by the fallibility of the human condition. There may be no overriding virtuous and high moral standard governed by a God in the Metaverse. There is a real possibility that the Metaverse may contain both Heavenly and Hellish like conditions because there is not a single God-like force directing and controlling good morality. The simplicity of the binary choice between good and evil being judged by an all-knowing God is aspirational. What is concerning is a world created by the frailties and complexities that exist within the human condition puts the likelihood that the Metaverse is heavenly in question, and may be even certain. This could be a key difference between the Metaverse and Heaven. I think there is a real potential that the Metaverse embodies both Heaven and Hell. If this is the case, then the Metaverse could mirror our life on Earth. If this were the result, then the only advancement would be immortality.

My quick view of religion is that it allowed us to make sense of a world that we did not understand. We lived in a world where there really was only one truth, and that was death. You can view this mortal reality in two ways; that there was finality and everything ended, or there was some next step after this life. This next step is aspirational and I think embedded in what makes us human. Additionally and maybe more importantly, the potential of moving to an afterlife provides a control mechanism for those that ruled. To create a possibility that there was a next step, mankind was able to impose a morality condition that was beneficial in controlling the growing masses in a time where there was limited opportunity to impose control on humanity in an overarching manner. However, as we grow smarter and gain more knowledge about our world and the Universe beyond, the likelihood of a God, Heaven and Hell, and all that goes with religion becomes less reasonable, rational and necessary.

In turn, we are growing and evolving to allow us to get to a point where we will be able to shed the limitations of biology and become immortal. I think the Metaverse is a near-certain future; barring the potential that our self-destructive ways don’t get the better of us first. What the Metaverse looks like when we get there is significantly less certain. The core decision or eventuality boils down to whether the Metaverse will be just good, like Heaven, or human nature will create a condition where there is good and bad, much like our historical mortal life. There are a lot of questions that we must contemplate in the Metaverse. Is the Metaverse an event horizon? Or is evolution finite or infinite? Is the Metaverse the end of humanity? Or will we have a mortal coil that is our umbilical cord to humanity in the Metaverse? What will the process of entering the Metaverse be like; gradual or a quick download? What will our sensation of this new world be like? One could presume that because there will be the capacity to shed the limitations of our current world that this new reality will be many times more sensational than what we know today. May be infinitely more sensational, and will that be good or bad, Heaven or Hell?

I will certainly spend the rest of my days observing and exploring how likely the Metaverse will be in our future. From a personal perspective, I suspect that I will unlikely be able to take advantage of a life in the Metaverse. I suspect I will be on the outside looking in of this opportunity. And for someone who does not want to die, I find the cruel and personally disappointing. They only silver lining is that I believe my children will have the opportunity to enter the Metaverse. And I hope it is Heavenly. I find it ironic that it is very likely that the fiction our ancestors created will essentially come to fruition as the result of our evolution and making.

A Political Journey

I have always liked politics from a young age. In one way or another, I have had a real interest in the world becoming a better place. I think politics is a big part of the change; good and bad. My view of the world today verse what I used to think and believe as a politically engaged teenager and young adult has definitely changed. I wonder if my political journey is unique or others tend to follow the same path as they age? My guess is that there are two directions that people take as they age; either like me, you tend to grow more empathetic and considerate of your fellow man, or alternatively, you get jaded and become a curmudgeon.

When I was young, I very much embraced conservatism. I was a sophomore in high school when Ronald Reagan was elected. Alex Keaton was not just amusing on Family Ties, but I saw a little of me in him. It was also a way to rebel against my parents; of which I did a fair amount of for about ten years probably starting somewhere in the early eighties. I remember being very proud of my Republican Party membership card signed by Lee Atwater sometime in the early nineties.

This was appealing to me as a young man.

I went to college in hopes of being a physics major. I had really enjoyed high school physics and did pretty well on the AP test. I took the introductory courses in college and did well. In the second semester of my sophomore year, I took an intermediate molecular and atomic physics course. The professor was exactly what you would think a college physics professor would look like; wiry, balding with glasses and very soft-spoken. The class was Monday, Wednesday and Friday at 8 AM. The time of day was not ideal for a college student. This professor spent the majority of the class with his back to the class and his face about three inches from the blackboard. He spoke in a monotone voice and very softly. It was hard to learn during the class. I was always pretty good at cramming and making up ground on any shortcomings from the classroom experience when getting ready for a test. The first test for this class, I spent about two hours in a study hall at the end of my dorm floor. I just could not wrap my head around the material. Within those two hours, I slowly came to the realization that I had hit the ceiling of my physics knowledge. My physics aspirations were over! And so I opted to be a Political Science major. Quite the left turn. My school was well known for ‘PoliSci’ and I really liked the topic. I am happy with the end result. Most of my college piers took their Political Science degree and became either attorney or went to DC. I did neither.

A few years later, I moved to San Francisco. Despite the history and reputation of this city, it had little to no effect on how I saw the world. I loved almost everything about San Francisco, but my conservative view of the world saw little change in the nineties. In the midst of the Clinton presidency, I saw little positives about his tenure and results. The Monica Lewinsky episode was red-meat for some good ‘Slick Willy’ bashing.

Toward the end of the nineties, is when my political and social views began to change. My view on social issues, in particular, became more relaxed and liberalized. Before the decade was over, I was married with three kids. This experience definitely began to shift the way I saw the world. The realities of being a parent changes one’s perspective. I would also like to think that this was also a result of some wisdom with age and personal growth. The hard edges of how I previously thought the world should work began to round. My thoughts on how others should conduct themselves has lost its intensity. I definitely became less judgmental. Some perspective and the willingness to show empathy that others situation may not align with my own view on how things should be, but as long as it was not hurting anyone, who cares. An ethos of live and let live, really began to set in. In the new millennium, I would characterize myself as fiscally conservative and socially liberal.

I remember the 2000 election and the episode of the ‘hanging chads’ and was very happy the elections swung George W. Bushes way. I recall having the feeling that he was easily the better of the two choices. I must confess there was an aspect of taking some joy of ‘hating’ Al Gore as much as thinking Bush was the better choice. This is much the same way that I feel about the Yankees and Lakers as a Red Sox and Celtics fan; I almost take as much joy when the opponent suffers as I do when my teams succeed. When 9/11 occurred, I thought #43 was pretty terrific. Certainly his highlight as President; although I view his presidency very differently today.

In early 2000, I moved to Orange County whose reputation is a conservative island in a predominantly liberal state. Another characteristic of the OC is the number of ‘new churches’ with the most notable being the mega-church Saddleback which is but a stone’s throw from my house. This experience and people I began to run into both professionally and my day-to-day life began to make me rethink some previously held conservative values and loyalty. Over this decade I became to really struggle with the religious right and its impact on the Republican Party. I began to realize that religious dogma has no place in a society that progresses through science.

In 2008, Obama’s election created a lot of hope that we were really making progress as a nation and culture. I spent much of his presidency working on environmental issues. I became very interested in this space after seeing Al Gore’s movie Inconvenient Truth. Oddly enough, the man I was happy to see lose the 2000 election now became the source of much of my work for the next eight years. I now often wonder how different our world would be if Al Gore did not lose that election.

During the Obama presidency, I really began to see the impact the religious right was having, and I took issue with their efforts. I began to see these views began to really galvanize in opposition to Obama. There seemed to be really a tug of war between a society changing through progression and those who wanted to cling to the way things used to be. I understand that change is scary; the theme of this entire site is the good and bad of change, knowing that change is inevitable.

I think the next twenty years or so we will be tumultuous with the inevitability of liberal progress driven by science and technology but those who fear that unknown future desperately clinging to the past. Hold on tight! I hope that we will come out the other side a much better world. Human nature is such that we can be very self-destructive and hopefully those tendencies are not realized through the growing power and impact of our scientific and technological progress. It feels like the scene at the end of the Empire Strikes Back where the Millennium Falcon fires the fatal shot to the Death Star and barely flies out of the explosion. Hopefully, we share the same fate!

My Mother-in-Law, Mamma

I married into an Italian family and for the last twenty years or so, I have had an education on the Mediterranean perspective of the world. Suffice it to say there is a real difference between my Yankee, New England upbringing, and the Italian perspective, particularly as it relates to raising children.

I always liked this festive picture of Mamma who was helping get ready for my daughter's Tea Party Birthday.

Sara Leonardi was born August 18th, 1931 in the town of La Spezia to Ippolito Leonardi and Leonilde Chiappini. She was the youngest of seven children. A good portion of her childhood had the backdrop of World War II, Mussolini and Fascism. I have not heard a lot of her first-hand accounts of these times, but it certainly left a mark on her. Probably the most meaningful of which resulted in her leaving Italy in the summer of 1950 to travel to America where she would eventually meet her husband, James Vernazza. She would never return to Italy and her new life began in Daly City, California (gateway to San Francisco ;) with another very Italian, and now American family, the Vernazza's.

Many people have told both me and my wife that I am either very understanding, kind or patient to live with my mother-in-law. And while appreciate their thinking that I am a good person, I suspect it has more to do with Mamma than me. Mamma's sole purpose is to serve her grandchildren, and secondarily to help the household in general. So from that perspective, it is hard to not like her and appreciate all that she does, despite the fact that from a style point of view, there is not always alignment.

Mamma also speaks primarily Italian. Her daughter understands her perfectly but responds to her strictly in English, and Mamma, in turn, understands her with very few exceptions. The same holds true for my three kids, however, the condition of mutual understanding is not quite at the level it is between Mamma and her daughter. However, my ability to communicate with Mamma is quite limited and challenging. I know a very limited number of Italian words and Mamma understands a very little amount of my English; which I think is no different from the English delivered by her daughter and grandchildren, but somehow for her, it is not the same. Our communication is very dependent on physical gestures, volume emphasis for our very short messaging strategies in hopes of getting the point across. I would say about half of our communication when it is strictly the two of us, results in failure and frustration. Needless to say, she and I have never had any deep, philosophical conversations. There is a wide array of topics that many relationships generally cover, but that has never been a part of our relationship. It is this condition that makes me wonder if this is why we have a good relationship of mutual understanding? Of course, this does not mean mutual agreement. All in all, living with Mamma has been quite good. However, there are certainly sources of irritation, puzzlement and hilarity.

My relationship with Mamma began when I started dating my wife (maybe too obvious, duh) and I thought the fact that she only spoke Italian was very cute and very much intrigued me. However, my life of communication struggles would really first reveal itself in a phone call I would try to make to my now wife. I have recorded this story because I think it is better delivered and understood in an audio recounting then trying to convey it in written word. 

Soon thereafter, I had my first Thanksgiving dinner with the Vernazza family and this was going to be another education in Italian thinking. I have now come to believe that within the genetic makeup of Italians, there is a gene that creates a primal fear that you may serve a meal that will not provide enough quantity for the people dining. This fear becomes heightened when you are entertaining and there will be individuals outside the customary circle of usual suspects. The result is insane quantities of food. So my first Thanksgiving with the Vernazza's was really my first formal function with my wife and her family. As a kid, Thanksgiving was a pretty formal and memorable event for me. With the west coast and Italian factor, I had no sense of what this Thanksgiving would be like. So when I arrived at the Vernazza castle (ironically located on Castle Street), I was not completely sure what was in store for me. At this stage in my life, I was also at my peak ability to consume impressive quantities of food, and my abilities would definitely be tested on this day. When I arrived, there was a bountiful amount of finger foods. This would also be my introduction to prosciutto which I have enjoyed quite a bit over the past twenty years. So after some serious grazing on hors d’oeuvres, it was time to sit down and begin the meal. First out was was the tortellini soup. Mamma hand makes each tortellini that contains some mixture of boiled vegetables and meat and then enclosed in handmade pasta. Very good, and who am I to turn down the second helping that was essentially forced on me. Next were two generous trays of lasagna, and I love lasagna. Hmmm .... Okay so it was not the giant turkey I was expecting and the Norman Rockwell'esque Thanksgiving experience I was used to, but when in Rome, do like the Romans. Mamma's lasagna was very good and is legendary in our family - well deserved, although her prodigy does not love it the way most guests and non-Italians do, which is another story for another day. I will say my previous lasagna experience generally included running down to the corner store to get the Stouffer microwavable lasagna which I liked, until my introduction to Mamma's efforts. I would go on to consume a very generous first and second helping. And my memory is a little fuzzy, but there is a good chance that I had thirds as well. At this point I was stuffed and very happy. And again, not the Thanksgiving foods I was used to, but none-the-less quite good. Welcome to the Italian lifestyle! But wait, what is that out of the corner of my eye? Holy shit, it is Mamma coming out from the kitchen with a turkey! And not just a regular turkey, but a gigantic one. At this point, I am a little pissed at my soon to be wife for not giving me the heads up that the lasagna was effectively an appetizer. And so to be a good guest, I took a generous serving of turkey, stuffing, vegetables and mash potatoes. Somehow I stuffed more food into me. Now I went from pleasantly stuffed to downright uncomfortable. And this does not even cover the dessert that was brought out afterward. So this was my first introduction to confirming the stereotype of Italians and the belief that they serve, and expect their guests to eat a lot of food. Interestingly enough, they do not hold themselves to the same quantity standards they do for everyone else. No question this stereotype is true, and again, there is definitely a genetic condition that creates this primal fear of not being able to provide bountiful quantities for those that sit around their table. The result is overestimating what people can realistically eat by at least a factor of two.

I come from Scottish ancestry and along with my New England, Yankee upbringing, I have always had a disdain for waste. Eat what you take was very much my childhood. This condition combined with my mother-in-law and wife's perspective that they must not be caught short on quantity of food for any meal has proven to be a challenge and a problem for both my waistline and wallet. To make matters worse, these Italians are not great consumers of the leftovers that are a condition of most meals. The result is I eat too much in hopes of not throwing the food away, and despite my efforts, we still regrettably throw too much away. This is definitely one of several personal disappointments in my life.

Mamma is very superstitious. I think it is a combination of the generation she comes from and her religious upbringing. This view of the world manifests itself in a couple of ways. One of the more entertaining (and irritating) situations that arise often is that a major life event cannot happen on either a Tuesday or Friday. This includes new jobs, doctor appointments, births, graduations, etc. One of the more entertaining events that was impacted by Mamma's day of the week fear is when we bought our first home. The purchase had to run through probate as the previous owner had died and this took a long time. My agent finally called me on a Thursday night and said I could get the keys the next day. I was very excited and called my wife and said we can get in on Friday after work. We were living with Mamma at the time and my wife's first thought was we can't go in for the first time because it was a Friday. My reaction to that was bullshit! I just spent a couple of months jumping through hoops and we are going in as soon as we can, which just happens to be a Friday. I was not going to be denied. So we lied to Mamma and said we were going out to dinner. We went to the house and went in as first-time homeowners. This was a big deal. We walked around inspecting everything and then we went into the garage. The door to the garage was spring-loaded and when we walked in, the door shut behind me and locked. I had lunged back to try to catch it but was too late. Damn!!!! As the door was shutting, I realized in that instant that I put the house keys on the kitchen counter. I walked out a side door and around the house and of course the front door we locked behind us when we first went in and now could not get in. Right there was a window that I peered into to see the keys sitting on the kitchen counter. We tried everything to get back into the house. Of course, everything was locked other than the garage. So I was now forced to call a locksmith to break into my now new house of 16'ish hours. And to add insult to injury, I had to pay him about $100. When we got back in, I got the giant 'I told you so' from my wife. Needless to say, we did not share this with Mamma because her concern would have gone way beyond getting locked out. She would have concluded that the house and all that entered, were going to be cursed and damned for eternity. And when something bad happens from time to time as is the expectation in life, we would have been reminded we got the house on a Friday!

Another manifestation of her superstition revealed itself when our kids were small. I was raised Protestant and have not practiced religion for the vast majority of my life. I think Mamma realized this about me after a short period of time. From her perspective, this was not an ideal situation, but somewhat hypocritical as she was not a fervent churchgoer. There was a history of pretty strong activity with the Catholic church, but that had activity had waned some over time. However, for major events, the importance of church was strong. And so when her grandchildren were born, she was quite insistent about getting them baptized. As I dug into why this was such a big issue, the answer was an education about Catholicism that I was unaware of; apparently you are considered to be an animal, or not human in God's eye until you are baptized. Mamma was determined to have her grandchildren be considered human. I am guessing that this is all so they would be admitted into the 'pearly gates' when it is all over. Needless to say, we obliged her wishes and our kids received the Catholic 'golden ticket' to the hereafter!

This is the preparation for Ben's baptism at the Saints Peter and Paul church in the North Beach (Italian) section of San Francisco. You can see Ben being held by his Uncle and namesake quite wary of what is too come; God's cold water on the head! Mamma second to the right holding Sara's hand is thinking to herself, 'now all my grandchildren will be legit Catholics!'

The stereotype of Italian grandmothers is not an exaggeration. They are unbelievably dedicated to their grandchildren, particularly the boys. And Mamma is no exception to this rule. This first played out as she provided daycare for all three of her grandchildren which was very good for my kids, and worked out very well for me, if for no other reason than the price was right. The Italian grandmother prime directive is keeping people fed and warm, and this applies in an exaggerated approach with grandchildren. All three of them got a steady diet of baby food, homemade soups and the Italian staple, pasta. With Ben who was her last, he was so doted on that I was anxious to put him in 'preschool' with his sister. The condition of being overly cared for is certainly a good problem to have, but I felt strongly that he needed to have a toy ripped out of his hands by some kid because this was the opposite of the experience he was getting with Mamma who was waiting on him 'hand and foot'. I don't recall completely what we told her as to why there was going to be a change, but my guess is we probably had to lie to Mamma and say that he needed to go to school because some higher authority required it. Needless to say, my kids got a very caring start to their lives. Thank you Mamma!

Mamma loves her grandchildren!

After Mamma moved to the US, she lived in Daly City, the 'Gateway to San Francisco' for most of her life. We then moved to Orange County, California in 2002. Instead of leaving Mamma up north in Daly City, she moved down with us in Southern California and has lived with us ever since. This has been a good experience for everyone involved generally speaking, but it certainly has created some amusing situations. The following are some of her idiosyncrasies and habits. 

Mamma loves bread. Which I guess is based on her being Italian and is not altogether surprising. My wife will buy her a French (ironic) baguette seemingly every day. There is a family theory that bread was a very important part of her World War II childhood and general survival. Apparently for many meals, all they had to eat was bread and saving it was very important. Today, she dutifully cuts at least six to ten pieces for dinner almost every night. She eats about half of them herself and always tries to sell the others to anyone who might eat them. Most often, she is the only one eating the bread. This leaves at least two or three uneaten pieces and about six to nine inches of uncut baguette. Needless to say, a significant portion does not get consumed. Now she will use breading for various recipes and I don't see very much bread thrown away. Sometimes there will be a few leftover halves of bread in the freezer for future use, but there is a significant amount of bread that has to go unused and generally speaking, it is unaccounted for. Where does it all go? You would think maybe the local bird population would be grossly overweight, but this is not the case. I am pretty certain it does not get tossed despite her proclivity for throwing perfectly good things away. So I have concluded that she is stuffing it in some wall cavity in the house and when she finally passes away, we will discover some giant store of moldy bread squirreled away that she was saving for the end of the world!

Mamma is a 'stuffer', and you might ask, what do you mean? She is very concerned about having a clean house, which is great and I have been blessed for the most part of this never-ending goal she pursues. However, she will clean and organize based on what it looks like and pursue the most expedient approach to putting stuff away. This manifests itself in situations where there is something lying around and that item gets put away in a drawer or cabinet that is closest to where the item has been left, and not where it really should go. Of course in the grand scheme of things, this is by no means a deal-breaker, but I find it to be a real annoyance. Just put it where it belongs! Even if the steps you need to take to make it happen, are significantly more than the expedient 'stuff' that is her approach! Her daughter is a bit of a 'stuffer' as well, but mercifully not quite as bad. It is hard to know if this practice has left its mark with her grandchildren who for the most part don't seem to put anything away; nagging parent perspective. I am hoping the stuffing cycle is broken with the new generation, but there is much work to be done before this hand reveals itself.

Mamma's view of cleaning is 'if you are not burning nose hairs, you are not cleaning!' She loves bleach in particular, and she uses it liberally everywhere. Her grandchildren have protested vigorously about her bleaching of their clothes which either discolors the items, or over time, makes the fabric weak and prone to ripping. Our kitchen and bathrooms get a fair amount of bleach and this really knows no boundaries; our kitchen cabinets are faded and spotted. I have begged Mamma's 'bleach pimp', my wife, to stop buying this unnecessary addiction, but after nearly fifteen years, I have watched gallons and gallons of various bleach brands getting totted into the house after their customary Saturday shopping trip.

Mamma on occasion surprises me and one of those pleasantries includes her use of wool balls as an alternative to dryer sheets. I ran an eCommerce website called BuyGreen.com and would ask Mamma to try many products; because if she liked it, average consumers would love it. So wool dryer balls got tested as one of many products, and these items became Mamma approved! And approval was definitely not the case for all items I asked her to try. And for a considerable period of time, she really has been quite protective and careful with these three baseball-sized wool balls. And why does she love them, because she only speaks Italian I cannot be totally sure, but I would hope it is because they work and we avoid the very nasty chemicals found in most dryer sheets. Probably wishful thinking, but ultimately the end result is all that matters.

One of her most curious habits is she talks and swears at the television. She is very involved in most of her shows which is a relatively small population. They all generally create some out loud verbal commentary, but some shows elicit an unusual amount of vocal energy. As best I can tell, either game shows or Mexican soap operas generate the most action. Her favorite shows include RAI which is Italy's national public broadcasting company, a few of the Mexican soap operas, a variety of cooking shows on Food Network and when someone is downstairs with her, channel 7 which is our local ABC affiliate. The latter is a concession to the predominantly English speaking element of the household. I work out of the house upstairs in our loft and she typically watches in the family room/kitchen during the day. The game shows on RAI and Mexican soap operas generate the most amount of vocalization and consume the majority of her time when I am working. During the game shows she generally utters 'stupido', often over and over like a machine gun. When she really gets worked up, she might be telling the poor participants how dumb they are ten times a minute. I am perplexed by this in that I wonder how someone can stick with a show that is full of stupid people and or activity that is so clearly frustrating to her; or so I think. I would definitely search for something else and turn the channel for things far less annoying or interesting. We also believe that they show the answer to the viewing audience and so when the contestant gets the wrong answer, she concludes they are stupid because she has seen the answer. I am not sure whether she actually knew the answer or not. I am not even sure she goes through the review process when she sees the answer as to whether she actually knew it. And if she did not know, you would think maybe there should be some empathy for the contestant, but this is not the case and they are all just 'stupido'. In respect to the Mexican soap operas, there are lots of 'ooohs and ahhhhs' with a liberal number of 'ah fanculo' and 'stupido' sprinkled in. And while I have never really watched one of these for any length of time, they definitely are a bit racy. There is a part of me that wonders how much critical thinking is going on with respect to the fictitious nature of these stories. She has on occasion suggested that there may be things going on in her life, or more accurately she observes in the rest of the household that are the same issues she has seen on these shows. If only our lives were that interesting!

She will not go to bed until her daughter comes home. I guess old habits are hard to break, or maybe you never stop being a mother. She will also stay up for her grandkids, although she is 'off duty' the second my wife gets home with respect to being responsible for her grandkids. If I were to come home but my wife is not home, she will stay up until my wife returns. Clearly she has a lot of confidence and respect for my abilities to be at least quasi-responsible parent and manage the welfare of the rest of the family. I suspect she thinks that both my wife and I are pretty incompetent as parents and that she has to stay alive to make sure her grandkids make it to adulthood and leave the nest or something like that?

As I have suggested earlier, she is superstitious and another way this manifests itself is trying to predict the outcome of important events by playing solitaire. This is particularly true for upcoming events with her grandchildren. I will come downstairs and Mamma has busted out the playing cards and will have a hand of solitaire going on the couch. I am not exactly sure how prediction happens with solitaire, but there are times I will ask her what the outcome will be of the event she is concerned about, and I will get a thumbs up or down. Clearly there is no analysis going on relative to the accuracy of the cards, much less the rationality of the practice altogether. 

I have found myself on occasion trying to fight her on some of the practices I find ridiculous. For instance, in this period of converting to HD television, I have shown her more times than I care to say that if she adds one thousand to her favorite channel, it will be in HD. I show her that the picture is clearly better and on top of it, the old stations have a giant black border of the unused screen. I will change channel 56, the Food Network to 1056 and then point out the difference of the HD picture, after having shown the deficiencies of the old channel. And despite my efforts, she will have gone back about ten minutes later to the older channel.

She also loves to throw stuff away, if it does not get stuffed first. Everyone in the family harasses her about this, but stuff gets chucked all the time; except for bread. She also won't allow us to use 'every last drop' of food. If there is some left in a bottle or Tupperware, she will throw it away and open a new one. Sometime what is left over is a fair amount She has some internal clock that decides, this has got to go and suffice it to say, her clock does not run nearly as long as my clock does. This habit I find is a contradiction to her childhood during WWII, but her actions clearly prove that I am wrong and this is not the case. Needless to say, I am quite good at fishing stuff out of the garbage.

This is James Vernazza in a family picture with his wife Sara (Mamma), daughter Mandy and mother Nona. I believe this was taken in May of 1971. He was a dentist and passed away 1994 from cancer, probably the result of his radiation exposure at work. He was survived by his twin brother and sister, both have subsequently passed away.

My kids and I only know Mamma and for this side of our family, her husband is merely a name, James Vernazza. My kid’s grandfather is known only through images they have seen from pictures. I never met him either. He died of cancer shortly before I met my wife. From all accounts, he was a good husband, father and I suspect would have been a good grandfather. I think about the fact that there is this hole in our family and yet it just sort of is 'what it is'. My mother-in-law does not really talk about him much and if she did, because of our language challenges, I suspect I would be somewhat oblivious of her remembrances whenever they arise. RIP James Vernazza, I wish I had the chance to meet you.

Mamma lives in a bedroom downstairs. She is often the first one up in the morning so that she can get her grandson's snack and breakfast together in anticipation of his day at school; god forbid the prince do it himself. On occasion, she is not the first one up and when I come down and see that her door is closed, I always wonder if today is the day? I am convinced that she is just going to 'keel over' one day and die - I hope it is quick. She is 'strong as a horse' all things considered and so hopefully it will not be for a while, but this scenario is certainly on the horizon and a real possibility. I dread that day.

Sara Vernazza is an extraordinary woman and her family is lucky to have her in our lives. Her contributions have and will continue to be considerable. She is fiercely protective and caring about the well being of her offspring, and for an Italian grandmother, that is exactly the way it should be. Molto bene!

The Fear of Death has caused so much Death

Why do we have religion? This is a topic I think about a lot. I am not religious and as I have aged, I think the need for religion becomes unnecessary in a world of reason and science. This is the half-full view. The other side of this coin is I think there is a strong case to be made that religion is also quite destructive, and should be eliminated accordingly.

The Crusades were a campaign aimed at recovering the ‘Holy Land’ from Muslim rule. The term "Crusades" is also applied to other church-sanctioned campaigns. These efforts were largely about killing others who did not pray to the exact version of their God. While the Crusades were specifically the result of Christian doctrine, this view is generally shared amongst all religions.

So with that in mind, I think the first reason we have religion is this innate feeling mankind has that there is a higher power. We are prone to ponder our existence and the meaning of life. As we explore this intellectual rabbit hole, one possibility is our purpose is the result of this powerful guiding hand. I must confess that I too wonder about this possibility. Even today, I cannot totally rule out there is a creator, but our growing knowledge and understanding of this world strongly suggest that it is highly unlikely.

The second reason for religion is that the existence of God(s) has provided a way for us to reconcile our world and the many unknowns. From a historical perspective, it is pretty easy to understand why religion came into existence. It is not hard to imagine many thousands of years ago that events like hurricanes, earthquakes, plague, famine, the sun, moon and stars were the result of God’s creation, displeasure or affirmation. An easy answer for a world that was not well understood.

The one unknown that every human contemplates is death. This is a very scary proposition with generally two options, finality or something more. And God knows which one is more palatable. So depending on the religion and God(s) that you happen to ascribe to, you are generally provided a convenient and easily understood package that allows you to contemplate a future. In many instances, the religious answer is that we continue in some fashion whether that is in another place, like Heaven, or here on Earth provided through a new body and life. In my mind, and based on a growing knowledge of our world, there is little question that the likely reality is we only have one chance at this life. A conclusion that I find depressing and would prefer not to accept. Instead, religion lets all believe that those who go before us are in a ‘better place’, and waiting for us to allow for a grand and emotional reunion. And just to put the cherry on top, we get to remain in this place of bliss and tranquility with all those we love, for eternity. This assumes that in the only life we are certain of, we have met some moral and behavioral threshold that allows us entrance after we have been judged by our God.

So this condition of morality and good behavior during our Earthly life has a nice ancillary benefit of controlling and managing the masses. Religion has afforded many leaders the two-pronged benefit of being a source of power being the conduit to omnipotence and control over society. This creates a strong motivation for people in or, that desire power, to instill these tenants in a society that is either controlled by religion or at least highly influenced by religion.

So the titled irony that our fear of death has resulted in death for many of us, is both a shocking and mysterious reality for me. The basic premise being we are religious as a result of this core fear of mortality and religion is the greatest source of premature death throughout our history; probably infant mortality is higher. Every war for the past 2000 years is either directly or effectively caused by religion. I would suspect that our human tribal condition is fueled by religion. In one way or another, religion is responsible for all wars and human conflict through the vast majority of human history. The result has been untold and significant death. At minimum, this is ironic. In actuality, it is a vicious circle and reality demonstrating the self-destructive nature of the human condition.

Galileo is one famous scientist that found themselves in conflict with religion. In an odd twist of fate, his scientific studies were funded by the Catholic Church. However, when he concluded that the Earth orbited the Sun, his inquisition began. This is one example of the long history of science and religion being in conflict. When will the reality of science allow society at large to see that religion is no longer something modern society needs.?

Today religion finds itself in an interesting period. As our society improves its knowledge and reason and can communicate this thinking to larger and larger portions of society, one would presume people will become less religious. Secularism and atheism have seen growth, particularly in the last ten years. That being said, religion still has a firm grasp on large portions of our world. Today, religion is still causing the deaths of many. And this likely will not go away anytime in the near future.

Will we ever overcome this fear as a species, or will it result in the end of humanity?

A Quest to Climb the Highest Point of Every State

I have decided to try to climb the highest point of every state in America. Why? I am not sure I have a really meaningful answer other than I enjoy hiking, it is a good way to see the country and I like a challenge.

This decision was made right around my 50th birthday so maybe one could surmise that it is the result of a mid-life crisis. And I am not sure I know what a mid-life crisis is other than the reality of death is starting to have some real meaning and for me, this a way to stall that inevitability.

This was a trip to Mt. Katahdin at a tripping camp called Pine Island that I worked at for six summers during high school and college. I love this mountain and found that I was a pretty good hiker.

In high school and college, I worked at a summer camp in Maine called Pine Island Camp that sent out a lot of hiking and canoeing trips. I enjoyed both but excelled on the trail. There were a lot of good trips that I went on, but Mt. Katahdin was my favorite. The mountain was visually stunning whether standing at the shoreline of Chimney Pond, climbing Cathedral trail, the view from the summit, traversing the Knife's Edge or descending Dudley Trail and Pamola Peak.

I haven't done much hiking between the end of college and now, but I am lucky to live close to some pretty good hiking. So recently, I have started getting into 'training' for this challenge.

So my plan is to climb each of the highest points, not peaks in each state. In most instances, the peak and point are one in the same, but in a few instances, the highest point is really a peak that splits two states and the actual peak is not in the state that you are counting, and often not the highest peak in that state; my home state of Connecticut is a good example.

I did a lot of hiking at Pine Island Camp. When I was a counselor, we would take young men all through out New Hampshire and Maine; a lot of it on the Appalachian Trail. After camp was over, some of the other counselors and I would go do trips on our own. This was at the Pinkham Notch trail head getting ready to go up Mt. Washington via Tuckerman’s Ravine.

Since this idea came about when I was fifty and I plan to do 48 states, I will need to climb about five peaks a year. I am thinking I need to have an endpoint to the challenge and I worry about my capacity to accomplish some of the harder peaks after sixty.

I do not have a specific order other than I am going to try to knock out as many of the biggest ones I can early in the process. And I will try to at least climb a couple at a time to make the associated travel costs as minimal as possible. I do not plan to do Denali in Alaska because I concede that it is beyond both my skills and capacity. So my general description is the highest points in the continental 48, although I can see adding Hawaii as both doable and a good reason to visit the state.

So away I go. You can follow my progress here or on PeakBagger.com

Mt. Katahdin was my favorite mountain and I climbed it many times. It was easily the most dramatic in my limited experience of hiking in Maine and New Hampshire. I thought I looked really cool with the red, white and blue bandana and the Ray-Bans.