Just A Gull

Hot and sticky already at 9:45 a.m: I cringed at what was in front of us that day. It was, and would be, the kind of day in which you could be sitting in an air conditioned room and barely notice the difference.

It would be brutal and unforgiving. Nobody's fault, of course, but the world around me would be better off if it ended sooner. Meanwhile, I had an appointment in 15 minutes. I hate being late to anything.

I had plenty of quarters with which to put into the parking meter. I'd had a run-in with some company that ran a cement ceilinged parking garage just two blocks away. Apparently, I thought I had sent them the necessary money to cover expenses, but apparently not. I heard from them a month later, some outfit out of Colorado. I no longer owed them $13.50; the price had now gone up to $55.00.

Miffed, I wrote them a letter. I explained--of course, without proof--that I had been having a difficult time taking the needed photograph to record my presence. A young lady had come to the rescue and had done it for me. From reading the sign, I knew what I had owed them. Without any other sign of having paid it off, I sent them what I believed to be another payment, this one by check for $13.50. As politely as I could, I had added that I would not be utilizing their facility for any reason at any future time.

That wasn't enough. Their rather terse response was that I hadn't proven my good will to their satisfaction. They returned my check and the cost of that lack of proof was still $55. If they were going to send a collection agency for it, they didn't say. Maybe I was supposed to take their return of the check as evidence that they meant business.

It was kind of a pain to come up with the requisite number of quarters to park on the streets of Milwaukee,  especially now in this growing cashless society. But with the reminder that things could be worse, I didn't mind the obeisance all that much.

I reached into my pocket and pulled out the change. Suddenly, coming out from between two other parked cars was a gull that obviously had landed from Lake Michigan nearby. It walked oddly in two ways: It had a slight limp in its left leg; and it seemed to casually wander into the middle of the street with no hurry at all concerning getting out of traffic.

I wondered whether it had been hit on the head by something, or it had stunned itself by flying into a business building with windows top to bottom. But two seconds went by that changed everything: During the first, I believed that it needed to get the hell out of the road as soon as possible, and that it would start flying any second now, after being confronted with certain doom by an onrushing car. During the second, that's exactly what happened. Except it didn't fly.

I'd like to give the driver the benefit of the doubt. I wonder if they were glancing toward some building and simply didn't see the gull, or they were conversing with someone either on the phone--look, I know people shouldn't do that, but it's like obeying speed limits; you only stop if you see a cop--with the same result.

What I don't want to think is that, having clearly seen the wayward gull, the driver of that unfortunate (for the gull) next vehicle just simply ran it down on purpose, without stopping or braking or anything. I'd hate to think that someone could be that cruel.

But we're not in that time anymore. We're in a moment when tough luck can easily be tough beans. We don't need to care about that kind of stuff anymore--or, maybe, no one will hold us to account if we don't. We have a whole government like that now. The leader of that government doesn't have to worry about what will happen to him if he breaks the law recklessly or cruelly, whether he cheats us all and hoards money, or whether he hunts people down under flimsy excuses. Nothing, now, will happen to him at all.

So, yes, the gull was run down, not 20 feet from me, as I watched. Get ready for the worst part: It didn't die then. It managed to survive someone's vehicle bearing down on it at 15 or 20 miles an hour.

I have no idea what kind of pain that causes, and of course neither do you, but it tried, through sheer survival instinct I suppose, to absorb it. And, amazingly, it could still walk--but not far. It got to the inner part of that traffic lane, just about on the line, now limping far more noticeably, and put up the kind of defense mechanism that signified either desperation or futile protection or acquiescence to its fate.

There was beauty in it, the kind that birds give off while simply living, which this bird was only trying to do. Maybe it knew it was at its end when it limped closer to the center of the lane and put its left wing over the rest of itself, shielding against its certain end. There was a quiet splendor in that, a graceful acceptance. A defiance, even.

Perhaps I had been too sensitized, or maybe re-sensitized, to the graceful, placid beauty of birds. Just the day before, I had descended back into the big city from the Rhinelander area, where I had shared a week at a cabin with my family. From the shoreline of one of those thousands of inland lakes, we had viewed, for instance, loons piercing the evening quiescence with their haunting calls, and a mother duck which took seven babies past the small dock at just about the same time every night. For no other reason, birds add serenity to our lives if we take but a few moments to enjoy them.

Gulls, understandably, are a bit more annoying. Living maybe a mile from Lake Michigan and renting a parking spot outside my apartment, I suffer the occasional indignity of gulls (I've never actually seen it, but it's a strong guess) dive bombing my car with splats or, nicely aimed, long white streaks on the doors. They are, as I assume you've noticed, hard to get off, too. With the label of aggravation attached, it's difficult to view them as a helpful addition to Mother Nature. Maybe this one was wandering the street after having helped himself picking on someone's garbage; they're known for that, too. Not exactly majestic.

So maybe that was on the mind of whomever chose to run this particular gull down that morning: It's just a gull. There are plenty more around. They don't do much good. And that one won't crap on anybody's hood anymore. 

And yet, and yet: It was a one-way street. It could have been dodged. There was plenty of room on the left. The car didn't even need to stop. Would it have stopped for the mama duck and her seven babies? Nobody would have stood for that first degree murder.

So do we have a phylum of Birds We Can Kill Without Guilt? Consider chickens, which we eat by the millions each day, or fish. It's sometimes easy to forget that we are part animal, part not. The difference is supposed to be that we can show compassion and sensitivity, and that it should come first before all other actions and emotions. But the animal instinct within us fights it, wants to dominate. We have seen the results too often and too frequently. 

Is that also why we feel a twinge of regret even though we need to trap a mouse that's inside our kitchens, but we hate rats so deeply? Is that why there are solicited mails sent to me several times a month trying to save dogs and cats, elephants, even donkeys?

I wanted to run after the offending car and yell at the driver: Do you know what you just did? But if he did, it no longer mattered. If he didn't, it no longer mattered.

I briefly considered lifting the gull out of the street and carrying it to the adjacent park to perish in peace. But, I surmised, that might take hours of torturous pain. Better to leave it where I knew there was a decent chance for some other driver to finish it off. Besides, I hate being late to anything.

I turned to walk to my appointment, in resignation. Having witnessed its injury, I couldn't possibly watch the gull's ultimate demise. When I returned, my wish for it had been granted. It had been completely smashed against the pavement. Maybe someone saw this as a mercy killing; maybe someone saw it like a bug. Maybe it had already died. I was glad and sad.

I pulled out of my parking space and noticed that I could either run over the carcass again, or gently squeeze between it and a pick-up whose fender stuck out a bit too much. I chose the latter.

I couldn't make myself participate in what was then, and especially now, a pointless act. I made one meaningful only to me. Only I had watched it get run over. Only I had witnessed its purposeless execution. Only I had given the creature and its fate more substance than there would have been. Somehow, it mattered.

Be well. Be careful. With some luck, I'll see you down the road.

Mister Mark

Not After 75. Period.

When last we spoke, I had read the first reviews of Jake Tapper and Alex Rosenberg's book Original Sin, which detailed the sad, and in some ways infuriating, story of how Joe Biden's inside team tried, but failed, to hide Biden's infirmities, both physical and mental, sufficiently for him to run for, and possibly win, a second term as president.

If you read the book, you'll see that it was a disaster slowly building. It finally exploded in front of the whole nation with Biden's abysmal performance at his debate with then 45, now 47--partly because Biden got out of the race far after he should have to give Kamala Harris, his vice-president and de facto successor because there wasn't time to vet another one, enough slack to build a successful campaign (which she might have won anyhow had she been willing to step up and address the shouting nonsense that her opponent's campaign was making over trans- issues). 

Tapper and Rosenberg are right: Trying to describe the damage it was causing in words held no advantage over watching it and seeing a good man dissolve in front of one's very eyes. It simply couldn't be stopped. Everyone around him knew it. Nobody wanted to be the bearer of bad tidings, so the Mad Hatter's Tea Party went on far too long into the night.

Had Biden been even ten years younger when he ran, he might have maintained the energy and quick thinking it takes to win a second term. 71 is not too old in a political career, and several presidents and many members of Congress and the Supreme Court have proven that. But he wasn't. He was 81, and the strains and pressures of the toughest job in the world had taken their predictable toll.

The present president, as awful as he is, will (if he hasn't already) fall prey to the same, wearing, inevitable forces that time grinds in overtaking even the best of us--and he's certainly not that. By the time he's done with his term, whether he tries to skirt the Constitutional safeguards against another term or not, he will be 82 years old, older than Biden. His mental abilities have already been seriously questioned: They won't improve over the next three and a half years.

So it's time to consider an age limit for the presidency, Congress, and the federal courts. The Constitution was written, debated and (don't forget) compromised on in days when, if someone lived past 70, that was quite an accomplishment; vaccines (despite the idiot we have for Secretary of Health and Human Services) had not been derived at that point, and people fell prey to all kinds of diseases for which all we need today are either a prescription or a shot. Despite a temporary drop caused by COVID, we're still over 75 in the average life span. I think that's a good pivot point.

I propose a Constitutional amendment: No one past their 75th birthday can hold federal office unless they are finishing an elected term. That will make members of the House of Representatives no older than 76, ever; no member of the Senate past 80, ever; no president older than 79, ever; and no member of the Supreme Court older than 75, ever.

It's not term limits I seek; it's age limits. If you're elected to the House at the earliest point, age, 25, you can still serve for 25 terms, which are quite a few. In the Senate, if you start at 30, you can still serve eight terms. If you're president, you have to start at an age of 74, at the very most, and then you get one term and one term only. If you're on the Supreme Court or any other federal court, you stop at your 75th birthday, and that's that--but then, you've probably been there a while anyhow.

There are no guarantees about any of this, but it's a surer bet that any federal officeholder won't succumb to senility or a decided lack of energy while in office. We won't have the specter of Strom Thurmond of South Carolina being towed to the Senate floor, whenever he was able to be so mobilized, at age 100. Yes, we lose Nancy Pelosi, who in her early 80s, remained an excellent House Speaker. But that adjustment, once it is seen, can be made to give even a slightly younger person a leadership position, while maintaining the experience it takes to do it effectively.

I say this advisedly, because I'm going on 74 in a few months. But I gave up on higher office when my time at the National Education Association ended--and I was 57 when that happened. I'm not making anyone over 75 in government quit immediately; they can remain in office. I'm not reaching into state government, either, though perhaps some might copy an established federal example. States can function as they wish--but the same inclinations remain. Perhaps states might pass laws that create such barriers ahead of federal amendments, too; it's happened before like it did with women's suffrage, and there's nothing preventing them from doing it here.

It's time we consider this seriously. We are going through a time when people are supposed to be living longer but lose the substance of what they need to govern before they pass away. Safeguards, though imperfect, need to be constructed. I think this is one of them.

Be well. Be careful. With some luck, I'll see you down the road.

Mister Mark