Going to the Dogs

“This did not just happen.”
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The eye doctor was stern in his assessment as I sat in the exam chair trying to explain that “all of a sudden” my vision had changed.

His words were not merely a diagnosis, they were a life lesson, a lesson I failed to retain.  Numerous remedial opportunities have presented themselves in the 25 years since that eye exam, but yesterday the lesson was driven home; I can see clearly now.

I was walking the bike path as usual when a caravan of bikers approached from the opposite direction.  Leading the pack was a man pulling a bike trailer, a tiny pup tent on wheels.  As the cyclist passed me, I peeked inside the trailer expecting to see a contented toddler instead I saw an actual pup, an Irish setter, sitting up still as a statue.

The encounter surprised me, but it shouldn’t have.  On nearly every street in my busy urban community there are businesses dedicated to the pet population: veterinarians’ offices, pet groomers, pet stores, doggy day cares, and pet spas offering blueberry facials to canines.  I have heard of dogs in hospice care, cats receiving chemotherapy, and goldfish undergoing surgery.  When I was young, I never thought I would live to see a time when we lavishly pamper our pets and euthanize people, but here we are.  Nine states and the District of Columbia now have death-with-dignity, right-to-die, or assisted suicide laws.  At the same time, life-enhancing and life-extending services are offered to our pets.  Employers now provide benefits such as pawternity leave and health insurance.  When an animal’s life does end, there are televised services and memorials.

I grew up on Lassie, Rin Tin Tin and Old Yeller. I had a dog when I was young. I've got nothing against pets.  What I wonder is:  What other all of a sudden changes have been creeping up on me?

Plastics were new when I was a kid.  We went from re-usable, heavy, glass milk bottles to single-use, waxy cardboard cartons and on to the modern miracle of lightweight, sturdy, throw-away plastic.  But we didn’t stop there.  Just about anything manufactured today contains or employs plastic in the process.  Plastic now overflows our landfills and oceans.  It will soon bury Mother Nature.  Didn’t anyone see this coming?

​Every adult I knew throughout my childhood was a smoker.  Heck, as a ten year old I could walk into a store and buy a carton of Kent cigarettes for my dad.  No one asked me for ID which was good, because all I had was The Monkees Fan Club membership card.  Now recreational marijuana is legal.  I guess we didn’t learn much from the problems we encountered with tobacco.  I am no doctor, but is it ever a good idea to suck smoke into your lungs?  Of course, half of the country is on fire; I guess we are all sucking on one giant stogie.  Do we need this type of population control for the planet and revenue enhancement for the health care industry?

My father was a pretty good amateur photographer, and he loved National Geographic magazine.  Our family had a subscription.  I spent many hours studying photos of mythical sanctuaries like the Galapagos Islands, Antarctica, Mount Everest, and the Great Barrier Reef, places most of us could only travel in our imaginations.  Scientists, photographers, filmmakers—people like Jacques Cousteau--were the only ones who set foot in these sacred places save for the indigenous people and animals.  Now all of these locations are travel destinations bringing in millions of dollars in revenue along with the heavy, crushing footprint of tourists.  Will these fabulous natural resources soon become once-upon-a-time places?

The internet became popular in the 1990s and was soon followed by social media.  No one that I know anticipated the destructive force this new medium would become.  No one made any rules.  No one sought to regulate the system.  Now that computer algorithms are in charge of our sanity, are we too out of touch with reality to act constructively and remember our manners?

I grew up in a world of two functioning political parties.  Today, American politics are unrecognizable. The F-word is preferable to “compromise.”  “If you can’t beat ‘em, seize ‘em,” seems to be the new rule of thumb.  Traditional media and truth have been de-legitimized, science and scientists excoriated, and voting protections dismantled. Racial and ethnic groups are being demonized.  Don’t all of these actions smack of other terrifying eras in history? If history is such a good teacher, are we just terrible students?

Maybe we never learn.

The path to destruction is a sold-out venue, but as long as someone is making a buck or a name for himself…

Last week, Jeff Bezos launched himself into space.  Thank you Amazon shoppers and employees. One ten minute flight and Bezos is ready to commercialize space travel.  I suppose that will become necessary as he wears down American infrastructure with his trucks and two hour delivery, burdens the land with packaging materials and inventory that is cheaper to throw away than re-stock.  Now there are galaxies to exploit. The good news is that we have plenty of plastic bottles we can ship into space if aliens, like us, need to relieve themselves.  Is the new American ambition to fulfill Amazon’s orders and Jeff Bezos’s dreams?

Just this morning I heard a climate scientist being interviewed on the radio.  He reported that in one two-week period, the temperature in the Arctic Circle rose 61 degrees, and yet, due to doubters, the world is having trouble facing the problem of global warming which is worsening more rapidly than the models predicted.  I am no expert, but if a person has ever sat in a crowded high school gymnasium on graduation day, can there be any doubt that humans heat up the environment?

I am not against change.  Indoor plumbing and toilet paper top my list of favorites, and I know a few people leading active lives due to heart and kidney transplants.  But our parents did warn us about jumping off the bridge with everyone else.  Because we can, should we? What about the long run? 

Some argue that in the long run, we are all dead.  True enough, but most of us are not in a hurry to get there.  And what do we owe to the future?  Will our children wake one morning in an authoritarian country at war over water?  Will they step outside beneath a cluttered, falling sky and find that all of a sudden, it is too late for them?

Now that I can see more clearly, I realize that most of the changes affecting us do not happen all of a sudden.  There are many opportunities to correct course.  The world might be going to the dogs, but when I looked into the eyes of that Irish Setter as he was being pulled along in a bike trailer, he didn’t seem to be relishing his inheritance.  He looked terrified, too.​ 

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A musical footnote:  A Little Good News Today --​                                                                                    

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