After tucking my son into bed and giving him kisses, though he is explicit in letting me know that maybe he’s getting too old for kisses at the ripe old-age of nine, and ½ he quickly reminds me, I wander downstairs to set the mood for the writing of my essay on E.B. White. I felt it necessary to set the mood to channel my inner essayist and to also warm my feet that have grown cold in this drafty house with the fall season abundantly upon us. I begin by lighting a fire in the fireplace. I feel White would appreciate that, first of all, and it does give my frigid toes relief from the chill. I remember a CD I found recently after cleaning out a billowing closet that contained far more than the maximum occupancy load should be. The CD has 22 tracks related to nature sounds. I had bought it on clearance at the local market when I was having trouble sleeping a few years back and thought the calming sounds of the ocean, wind and frogs (yes, frogs!) would relax me enough to drift off to dreamland, which actually worked far better than I had assumed it would, so much that I’ve never stayed awake long enough to hear every track. I’d say I got my money’s worth. Though I don’t have a dachshund, as White did, I do have a Shih Tzu named Ewok that is nestled up to my side for warmth and moral support.
With the mood now ready for witty, insightful, heartwarming essay writing to occur, I flip through the roughly 20 books I checked out from the local library that include works by E.B. White, a memoir of him and Katharine’s life, a book of his writings at The New Yorker, a book of poems, and even two children’s books written about him, hoping they will help me tackle the Muhammad Ali of essayists. If you’re not a boxing enthusiast, I also equate White’s writings to Michael Jackson. At first thought, you may think they have nothing in common, however during the 1980’s Michael Jackson couldn’t write a bad song if he tried. The same seems to be true of White; I have not come across a story or essay of his that I have not enjoyed. All of them would have merit if there were to be released on a “Greatest Hits Album” like Michael Jackson, though it would need to be a double or triple disc to include all my favorite White essays.
In my cozy, living room with the flames ablaze in the hearth, the crickets chirping from my CD and my fluffy dog looking up every few minutes in hopes of a good scratch behind the ears, I feel the room couldn’t be more welcoming to my friend Andy at this point. I hope he doesn’t mind if I refer to him as Andy. I feel after reading so much of his work, we are fast friends and formalities are no longer necessary. Warmth, nature and animals seem to come hand in hand with Andy and I’ve got them all in my 12x14 living room to gather inspiration from as I write. I feel Andy would be a proud papa if he could see me now! As a matter of fact, Andy’s dog is mentioned in many of his essays, specifically Bedfellows, which we have talked about today. He talks of his dog Fred with love and good memories. Though Fred has been dead for seven years, Andy can still feel his presence in bed with him, can smell the skunk scent on him, and even becomes a little irritated for Fred being an “uncomfortable bedmate” even in death. However, the affection and companionship Fred shared with Andy is still vastly apparent even years after his passing.
My dog Ewok has moved to the other end of the couch, curled up with his head on the arm, periodically growling at a car door or train whistle he hears in the distance. I try to imagine life without Ewok. Though the house wouldn’t be empty; I have a boyfriend (my better half) and a son (who is my other better half), life would be lonelier and a whole lot sadder if I didn’t have Ewok to come home to every evening, waiting by the front door to jump up and greet me with licks and furry paws. There’s just something about the unconditional love from a dog that makes a terrible Monday seem not quite as bad when I get home in the evening, and I think Andy would agree. The way Andy chose to write about Fred in Bedfellows isn’t your typical “this is how much I love my dog and why” method, though. Andy points out that Fred was not what he would call affectionate, unless you count when he laid his head on Andy’s knee while riding in the car, which Andy chalked up to nausea. He also writes that Fred deflated Andy’s ego instead of building it up. But I believe the fact that Andy recalls many little details of the late Fred, feels him in bed with him, and writes about him with such personality and cleverness, that Andy had more affection for Fred than he did for some people. And rightly so. Anyone that enjoys animals and owns pets probably understands this dilemma.
For instance, I truly believe our dog Ewok has the most annoying whine that could ever be heard, especially at 6am when he hears 98.9 The Rock blaring from our alarm clock upstairs. Sometimes I’m able to make it to the bedroom door and halfway down the hall to the bathroom before I hear the beginnings of his “let me out to potty whine.” Many times, it starts as soon as he hears my feet hit the floor as I get out of bed. His whine is the last thing I want to hear when I’m half asleep, wishing it were Saturday and I could just turn the alarm off and go back to bed. I mean, how inconsiderate is he to expect me to dash downstairs and let him outside when my number one concern is finding my glasses on the nightstand so I can see to walk ANYWHERE without falling? Why is my trip to the bathroom not as important as his?! Or secondly, let’s consider the fact that we can’t even walk into the kitchen without Ewok sensing it, no matter where he is in the house, and running full speed at our heels in hopes of getting some dog food, or better yet, some people food. I’ve never been watched so closely when I eat before. Ewok sits quietly, at attention with mouth salivating while we eat dinner, with the familiar flicker of hope in his eyes that we will give him a taste of our meal, though his favorite person to stalk during meal time is my 9 year old. I have my suspicions that Ewok gets a rather large volume of healthy vegetables in his diet thanks to my son.
Even with all these little inconveniences and annoyances that Ewok brings with him, I wouldn’t give him up. He is a part of the family and the joy he brings far outweighs the early morning whines and constant stares during dinner. Andy missed his little Fred so much that even though he was an “uncomfortable bedmate,” Andy recalls the feeling of Fred lying on the bed with him like it was yesterday, though it was seven years before. Andy goes as far as comparing Fred to politicians of the day, such as Harry Truman, because like Truman, Fred was a “strong individualist and held unshakable convictions.” Affection for Fred? I think yes. Andy cleverly, much more cleverly than I, points out what could be called Fred’s shortcomings but that doesn’t discourage me from Fred, in fact it makes me wish I could’ve met Fred and could’ve seen the two of them together on the farm. Andy states that Fred’s grave is the only grave he visits, but throws in that it’s not out of grief but out of sadness to think of his own death while being surrounded by a lovely wood and orchard; but Andy doesn’t fool me. He gave Fred a grave, in a beautiful spot, with a headstone, that he frequently visits. Acts such as these aren’t done for just anybody. Being a pet owner, I understand the frustration that comes along with having a dog, but the rewards greatly outweigh them, which is why we deal with the whines, the dinner stares, and the “uncomfortable bedmate.” I believe this is why Andy laid Fred to rest, in a location that happens to be what Andy calls a “natural journey” from his home.
Andy tackles religion in politics in Bedfellows, also. As someone who is not a huge fan of politicians and often gets bored listening to them slander one another, I can easily be turned off by the sheer mention of the word Republican, Democrat, or campaign. However Andy links Fred with his views about the presence of prayer or the lack of prayer in a democracy, which for me, keeps the essay interesting and alive. It’s quite amazing to me, how Andy takes two things that at first glance couldn’t be more different than one another, the family dog and politics, and ties the two together with fluidity, wit, honesty and his personal tone. I often think I may be trying to perfect that particular skill of Andy’s for a lifetime.
I get up to put another log on the fire and disrupt Ewok’s peaceful sleep. He looks up at me begrudgingly and I give him a little smile and a pat. I’m making progress through my CD, too. I’m grateful that at last I’ve been able to hear a few tracks that before now never received my attention. This one sounds like leaves blowing in an autumn wind with a small stream trickling through pebbles closeby. This CD is so pleasant that I wish I would’ve taken the time to listen to it in its entirety before now. Time: another strong theme in Andy’s writing and one that can be seen in everyone’s life every day of every year. Andy is ingenious like that, taking something that happens to every living thing without us always being aware of it, and writing about it in a way that makes you stop and think and pay closer attention to little things that may be gone in an instant.
With my fire radiating once again, I return to Andy’s essays, this time Sootfall and Fallout. In it Andy speaks about pollution in the air, soil and waters of the Earth. Written over 50 years ago, the issue of pollution is more widespread than ever now, and makes me think of the recent BP oil spill. Time has increased the amount of pollution in the world plus even more ways pollution can be made and distributed around the world. Yes, there are campaigns to “go green,” buy hybrid, and reduce reuse recycle, which is wonderful, but mankind may have harmed the earth in ways that are irreversible, which I believe Andy would agree with. Being such a lover of nature, Andy would likely be conscious of recycling, saving energy, and so forth and would be a supporter that any amount of pollution and radiation in the air is too much. He speaks of old ideas, the era before the H-bomb, being comfortable with one another: plainly put, “the good old days.” Andy writes of political viewpoints regarding pollution and nation’s dependence and interdependence with each other; how pollution affects those in Turkey and Texas equally and borders and nationality are irrelevant when it comes to the affects pollution has on all living things in the world. Again, the talk of politics and world issues that I feel I have little to no control over would normally not be one of my favorite subjects but Andy’s word choice, reference to past historical events, light humor and sometimes sarcasm, and compassionate sincerity melts all my reservations away and peaks my interest as much as if I were reading about Snooki from my favorite show Jersey Shore.
In Andy’s post script 6 years later, he writes that pollution has only gotten worse since his initial writing of the essay. I don’t have the numbers from 1962 or from today in 2010, but I would bet a large sum of money that the pollution and radiation stats have multiplied many times over since this post script. With the way our society puts fear into the public’s hearts with reports on mad cow disease, weapons of mass destruction, and swine flu (take your pick of a multitude of things), pollution does seem to be one of the greater concerns currently. After watching the news and checking out news online daily, I am afraid to let my son eat snow during the winter (white snow of course) or try to catch raindrops on his tongue in fear of acid rain. Am I just paranoid or overprotective? Maybe. But a mother will always be paranoid and overprotective when it comes to her little boy. The comforting thing about Andy is he doesn’t try to solve all the world’s problems with grand theories however he does give both a factual and personal account of history during the time, which is still relatable half a century later.
Andy’s essay Unity has similar themes in it: the concept of peace between all nations, a united world, and how everyone says they want those things but nobody knows how to achieve it. One sentence that struck me was “you could relax every last tension tonight and wake tomorrow morning with all the makings of war, all the familiar promise of trouble.” It made me think back about 9/11. I began that day like so many before it. My son was only 7 months old at that time and I was feeding him his baby food breakfast of mashed apples and milk when a friend called and told me to turn on the television. From that moment on I was glued to the tv for days; couldn’t take my eyes off the horrible events that had happened; couldn’t stop listening to the witness accounts, to the family’s looking for missing loved ones, to the wife who’s husband was aboard United 93 and called to say how much he loved her and the kids and that him and other passengers were going to try to regain control of the plane from the hijackers. When I woke up at 7am on Sept 11, 2001, I was relaxed from tension and in a matter of seconds the makings of war and promise of trouble was upon my country. I will never forget that day as I’m sure everyone old enough to understand what happened will always remember where they were and what they were doing that morning that changed so many people’s lives.
Andy talks about weapon control and the debate over whether reducing weapons and armies could bring about peace. Andy doesn’t buy that option, stating that “weapons are not and never have been the cause of the trouble.” However nuclear weapons could eliminate everyone and everything on this earth, so is an agreement to not use nuclear weapons what could bring about this peace? Of course Andy again doesn’t have all the answers to these questions. With all the intelligent, experienced leaders and military in the world, nobody has yet to come up with a way to bring peace to all countries and all people.
I guess my point is that the three essays by Andy, Bedfellows, Sootfall and Fallout, and Unity all deal with politics and national and international issues that were important when written and are still as important years later when read in a college course at The University of Kansas. Andy’s details, compassion, honesty, humor, generous vocabulary and interweaving of personal story with public concerns is far above what I have achieved in my essay here. I am quite certain if I tried to write about the control of weapons, pollution or politics of any sort, you all would have been asleep faster than my nature CD puts me to sleep. But Andy is able to capture reader’s attention, engage them in topics that may normally sound stuffy and boring, and breathe life into words on a page for others to enjoy, share, discuss and ponder. Although neither Andy nor I are able to bring world peace or solve some of the biggest issues that have been facing the world for centuries, I am able to find solace in my bedfellow Ewok, in the hopes of people working together for less pollution in our future and through unity and peace first with my own family and then my community. If only that peace were able to keep moving right along from community, to city, to state, nation and world. If I indeed ever figure out how to accomplish that, I believe I will write an essay about it so another avid reader, nature protector and unifier can take it to bed with them to read one day.
The fire has now gone out, the CD is on the very last track, quite appropriately tree frogs in a rainforest, and Ewok has moved back to warming my feet. The worlds problems and my own will still be there tomorrow, but for tonight I will sleep harboring passionate and safe feelings from Andy’s essays and the comfort of the good old days.
