It Didn't Happen On Lake Wawasee Or Did It

It is 34 years since I spent a few days at a cottage at the Georgian Bay in Canada. It was the middle of summer and I was working as a camp counselor.

Technically we slept outside of the cottage and cooked our meals over a campfire. We promised our teenage charges that if we were visited by bears or moose we would deal with them.

I remember asking the Israeli guy with me how to say moose in Hebrew and if he had learned any good tricks for handling them in the army.

He laughed and handed me a paddle and said to push the canoe into the water very fast.

There have been other moments and other trips to visit other lakes throughout my life. Some of them had native American names like Wawasee and others were simpler like Pinecrest.

Been to Lake Michigan, Erie, Huron and Ontario but somehow never made it to Superior.

Been diving in the Pacific ocean and the Red sea. Swam in the Mediterranean and the Atlantic but never the Indian.

I Know Things

I know things some of which have been obtained through experience and some by intuition or some other method that can’t be simply explained.

I feel people thinking and know when they are going to call or thinking about getting in touch as well as when they actively cut off connection.

Sometimes I know why and sometimes I haven’t any idea whatsoever what illogical and irrational reason has led them to do as they have done.

That is the joy of people.

Been more than a little chaos in the world lately and more than a little uncertainty. Got people asking me my thoughts on the violence at UCLA and I shrug my shoulders.

“The administration owns this. The flames in this fire started burning long ago and they didn’t do anything to try and extinguish or control them. It was predictable if not unfortunate.”

They ask me if I am not more bothered by it and I say “not as much as you might want.”

“The tribe has been on edge for months and many feel like we are under attack. The lack of response in some areas may have been misunderstood as weakness. Now they know it is not and that we’re not shtetl Jews.”

It is not ideal or the way I want things to be but neither is living in this other space in which people hold their breath and wait for the other shoe to drop.

We’ll get back to a place where diplomacy is the order of the day and the way forward but it might be a rough road getting there.