Opening My Eyes

Every morning when music from the radio wakes me, I dutifully push myself out of bed and stumble into the bathroom to brush my teeth and swallow the first two pills of the day. I am a creature of habit. The saying is, “I can do it with my eyes closed,” I don’t open my eyes until I pop those pills into my mouth.

What happens when something happens that disrupts the routine?

Life has a way of changing plans. Sometimes big and dramatically. I never foresaw spending my old age languishing three days a week in dialysis, unable to travel. Last week my 46-year-old son David took me to Fort Worth for the first time in a year and a half. It was as big a thrill as the first as the first time I saw Paris with him when he was 13.

There are also little breaks in routine that can be annoying. To pass the time during dialysis I read current magazines: TIME on Mondays, New Yorker on Wednesdays, Newsweek on Fridays. Last week I read the New Yorker as usual on Wednesday. I discovered an unexpected interest in an article on apples. After years of selling nothing but Washington Delicious and Macintoshes, growers are rediscovering the taste of old varieties.

The mailman must have decided to read Newsweek himself before bringing it to me. It did not show up in my mailbox. So? On Friday I read the Smithsonian. I did not regret missing Newsweek. The Smithsonian was full of interesting bits of information. In one of the first pages I learned that last year China produced 36 million tons of apples, eight times the amount grown in the U.S.

An article on the great defense attorney Clarence Darrow explored the ethics of bribery and perjury. Darrow was accused of bribing a juror to prevent his clients being sentenced to death for murder in a Los Angeles bombing that killed 20 printers and newsmen. Put on trial for bribery, the author found evidence that Darrow bribed another juror to obtain his own acquittal.

Was Darrow justified in committing a felony? Darrow claimed his conscience was clear. His friends forgave him “because they shared his conviction that the vast power and wealth arrayed against labor unions, and the often violent and illegal tactics of corporations, justified such extreme measure to spare the defendants.”

My reaction: With today’s bombings in Jerusalem and Kabul, does anyone remember when terrorist attacks were perpetrated by our fellow Americans in Boston, Oklahoma City, and Los Angeles? It is always difficult to climb over the fence and look at a situation from the other side.

Meanwhile, in Saturday’s mail I found new copies of TIME, the New Yorker, and Newsweek. Now I am all set for next week. If I don’t find anything to rant about, I’ll finally get around to telling you more about the trip to Germany and discovering Tilman Riemenschneider.