Author: J. Thorp

Some Things Never Change

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The laugh’s on me:
this year’s man
is last year’s man.”
—Ching An

Today was the first real day of autumn, in my opinion. Yesterday was blustery—windy, damp and grey—but that happens year-round in the Midwest. Today, however, dawned almost crisp—chilly enough to watch your breath curl in the sunlight, and dry enough by midmorning that a walk across campus sent the first yellow leaves skittering from underfoot as I went.

Those who know me know I love this time of year best … so why did I greet autumn with a touch of melancholy?

This summer marked the busiest on record for the Thorp clan. We traveled east and west to see family and friends, we played baseball and soccer, we volunteered, we practiced and performed tai chi, we celebrated and mourned with friends, we closed and liquidated a day care, we freelanced, and we did our jobs. We worked and we played. And occasionally, we slept.

What I didn’t do was write—or at least, not the things I hoped to. I wrote speeches and papers, and I’m mostly done with an article for the Journal of Asian Martial Arts. But my book stagnates, my fiction blog is just a shell, and this … well, you can look to the margin to see how much I blogged.

The truth is, with so many priorities, we scrambled through the summer just getting the day’s “musts” taken care of. When everything is a priority, nothing is.

I’m overextended, but what else is new? I always overcommit, always underestimate the time involved, and never, ever accomplish everything I’d like to. I know this about myself and can’t seem to compensate. This year’s man is last year’s man. Some things never change.

Bridging the Miles

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I remember, while in college on the East Coast, calling an old friend in Michigan. I hadn’t seen her in a long while, and the miles of interstate made it seem longer. It occurred to me what a marvel it was that we could be nearly a thousand miles apart and speak to each other in real time, with no delay. In my mind’s eye, I pictured a map of the United States, with a flashing red dot in Big Rapids, Michigan, and another in New Haven, Connecticut, and I insisted she talk over me for a moment to drive the point home that not even the length of a word could separate what not so long ago would have been a journey of weeks.

Today I live hundreds of miles from from my family, and hundreds from Jodi’s, as well, and it’s easy to appreciate (or even take for granted) how quickly we can reconnect with each other, good news or ill, important or trivial. I’ve wondered, at times, what people did not so long ago, before the Internet and phones, when they wished to feel close to distant dear ones …

Another friend, different from the first, contacted me via the Web from Texas several weeks ago. I haven’t seen her in years, either, and we had a very nice exchange through the course of the day. In the evening she dropped me a final note, asking if I’d seen the full moon that night. I admitted I hadn’t and said I would sign off and check it out. She indicated she was going to do the same.

I logged off, closed my laptop, and called to Puck, our Schnauzer. I opened the front door and stepped to the porch. The moon hung just above the rooftops, brilliant white against a clear dark sky. I gazed up at it, and in my mind’s eye, I saw a map of these United States, with the moon shining just the same over Albertville and Houston, and my friend and I with up-turned faces. In that moment, the light in the sky seemed less a moon and more a mirror, the reflection familiar even after the years and across the miles. A smile creased my cheeks as I raised my hand in greeting.

The Man Who Fed the World

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Norman who? How is that an American wins the Nobel Peace Prize, the Presidential Medal of Freedom, and the Congressional Gold Medal (a feat only accomplished by four other people in history: Martin Luther King Jr., Mother Teresa, Elie Wiesel, and Nelson Mandela) and throws a National Medal of Science in to boot, and most people don’t know who he is?

How is it that an Iowa farm boy and wrestler comes to the University of Minnesota, almost isn’t admitted, and accomplishes these things? How is it that this man is credited with saving as many as a billion lives and is a household name in certain developing countries, and people here are talking about Brett Favre?

I wouldn’t know him either, except that I work at the University and wrote about him once, so I read his biography. Check out this story, then this great commentary from a few years back, then consider picking up the book, The Man Who Fed the World.

Borlaug not only worked to develop strains of food crops that would grow in areas of the world facing famine, but he taught the people to raise those crops and to continue his scientific work on their own. Not only did he bring new technologies and fertilizers to these areas to boost production, but he advocated for laws and public policies that helped farmers and the hungry.

And when people criticized him for advocating inorganic methods of increasing yields, his response was to invite them to join him in working among the world’s hungry, and then talk. He didn’t oppose organic farming; he simply knew these regions couldn’t grow enough food quickly enough that way to feed those who needed it and was unwilling to choose who would starve.

He didn’t give fish; he taught fishing. He may be the most remarkable man you’ve never heard of.

Trevvy, King of Beasts

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Trevor likes gorillas. He likes to act like a gorilla. The great ape may be his favorite animal, in fact.

So the other morning, over breakfast, Trevor abruptly announces, “Y’know how the lion is the king of the jungle? I think the gorilla should be. Because all he would have to do is pick up the lion like this,” — and here he mimes picking up something with a tightly clenched fist — “and PKEHHUUWWH!” — and here he throws a hard punch with his other fist, accompanied by a sound effect somewhere between a gunshot and a bowler’s strike.

Everybody laughs. “Trevvy,” I say, “when you said, ‘pick up the lion like this,’ what exactly did you mean?”

“I meant like when an animal picks up a baby animal by the back of the neck,” he says matter-of-factly.

“Just wanted to be clear,” I said.

That’s quite a gorilla.