Category: Nonfiction

Hope Is Local

On January 8, 2023

Hope Is Local

I grew up reciting the Pledge of Allegiance, took an oath, spent thirty years and one month serving my country, and still feel my heart swell at our anthem’s words “that our flag was still there.” I’ve always believed our country, our democracy, and our intent should present an example to others that the best way for a people to propagate freedom is to demonstrate their values by serving as what former President Reagan termed “this shining city on the hill.”

Ronald Reagan borrowed most of this phrase from seventeenth century Puritan governor John Winthrop, who never intended the metaphor to represent a democratic ideal but rather to serve as a warning that all eyes of the world were watching to see how a Protestant colony would govern themselves in the New World.

Political discourse has always been fraught with polemic arguments and wanton emotion. The difference this century is that we no longer interpret this dialogue through a newspaper report or magazine article. The miracle of social media allows us to witness firsthand the messy, complicated, and frustrating process of governing our country. When I bring up helpful advice retrieved from my middle school days, my seventh grader often admonishes me by saying, “That’s TMI, Papa. Too much information.” That’s how I feel about political debate in the current environment. TMI.

All eyes of the world are upon our “city.” If we are shaking our heads at our own leaders, then just imagine the example we are setting abroad. But I find myself turning apathetic—almost cynical—wondering what tools the common citizen has to combat the inertia gripping this country at the national level and taking the shine out of our city.

Growing up, I took road trips with my family in a yacht-length station wagon with fake wood paneling. I whiled away the hours by heckling my two younger sisters in the back seat. Once, after a sister-squeal too many, my dad shot one hand backward and cuffed me on the side of the head while maintaining perfect steering control with the other. I was unhurt, but it surprised the heck out of me. I felt the same type of surprise when the solution to my political apathy knocked on my front door.

Looking for hope? It’s right here at home.

The mayor of my town owns an auto repair shop and changes the oil in my car as often as I remember to have it done. (His reminders help.) He also leads a board of trustees that runs our community. I am amazed every day at how well they do their jobs.

Our local leaders are fixing chronic shortages in low-income housing and are directly addressing environmental damage on our town’s perimeter. Together, they are figuring out how to attract the tourists that keep our economic engine chugging without neglecting the essence that makes us a community. All in a nonpartisan effort to make our home better.

We live in a small town made up of a trifecta of worldviews. We’ve got the young folks barely hanging on out here as they guide river rafts, climb mountains, and try to make a living through outdoor adventure. They tend to lean to the left. There are also the local locals, longtime residents who pretty much make everything happen. They trend to the right. Finally, we’ve got the crowd that already made their fortune and are living their best lives in their mountain retirement home (or second home). It is hard to generalize with this crowd, but they are set in their ways, and they all lean one way or another.

Everybody here has a political worldview, but they don’t use it at the local level to divide or split us apart. Out here, we get things done. And in between making our community a better place, we celebrate together: an annual town dinner with rows of tables running the length of Main Street—all four blocks; an impromptu parade for a football team leaving for the state semifinals; and a Chocolate Walk celebrating local businesses.

I haven’t sworn off social media yet, but I’m proposing a new filter. I want to select “within ten miles” for my news feed because that’s where our country is getting things done. And that’s where I find hope.

* My friend and talented author/essayist Jerry Fabyanic graciously included my essay above in his book Food for Thought: Essays on Mind and Spirit Volume Two published this past fall. If you’re interested in reading more, the collection is available on Amazon here.

A Better Place to Be

By Cam Torrens

On December 1, 2022

In Blog, Nonfiction, Ruminating

A Better Place to Be

Harry Chapin tops my list of favorite writers. I know music aficionados out there are shaking your heads. No one who remembers this 20^th century folk icon thinks of him as a writer first. They picture a singer, a guitarist, and a storyteller. But I’ll argue all day that Chapin’s use of tone and mood put him square in the writer category.

New writers often struggle with the basic terms. What’s the difference between the tone of a piece and the mood created? It’s simple to define—but sometimes hard to identify.

Tone is the author’s attitude about what they wrote and it’s aimed at the reader. Words like formal, angry, and humorous often describe the writer’s tone.

Mood is the feeling the reader gets when they read the author’s words. When reading Lewis Carroll’s Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland,

“Do you know, I always thought unicorns were fabulous monsters, too? I never saw one alive before!”

“Well, now that we have seen each other,” said the unicorn, “if you believe in me, I’ll believe in you.”

you might experience a mood described by words like whimsical, amusing, or fantastical.

Chapin used words, volume, tempo, and texture to deliver a distinctive tone and create a mood for his listeners…and he did it better than most. Look at the lyrics to Taxi or play the song here. Chapin’s tone is frustration—especially when he belts out the refrain, “I’ve got something inside me, to drive a princess blind…” But the mood he creates is nostalgic sadness. The listener warms at the story of past love but knows there’s no chance at reigniting it, especially after the line “Another man never would have let her go…I stashed the bill in my shirt.” 30,000 Pounds of Bananas blasts a tone of satire, but the mood created with changes in tempo (and Big John’s humorous inputs) is comedic horror as the listener perches on the edge of their seat waiting for the bottom of that hill.

A Better Place to Be captures Chapin’s talents best. (Warning: this is one of Chapin’s longest songs, so only keep reading and clicking links if you haven’t had enough Chapin for today—otherwise skip to the end of this blog) Written in 1972, this song remained Chapin’s favorite—a story about lonely people.

Chapin’s tone in this piece is sadness—a depressing sadness. The mood he creates is one of loneliness—the desperate need for human connection. To see how he uses his music for tone and mood, you can listen to the song here. Note his changes in musical tone between characters, his crescendos (…came back with my paper bag,) and tempo (shhhhh…I know just how you feel.)

But I’m a sucker for words and want to highlight some examples of how Chapin used them for tone and mood (full lyrics here):

– “an early morning bar room,” “started at his cups,” “fight her lonely nights,” and the little man not acknowledging the bar maid, all serve to create the sad and depressed tone Chapin intended.

– Nothing creates a mood of loneliness and despair like a dead-end job where “(sic) you watch the metal rusting and watch the time go by.” Later, we see a man so cynical about his chance for an emotional relationship that he’s given up on making a friend and settled on just making a play.“…but I decided to glide on over and give her one good try.”

– The man tries to turn on the light in the room but the woman asks him to leave it off. She can’t bear to see herself so low. But she needs someone or something as bad (or more) as the little man and says, “Anywhere’s a better place to be.” Desperate loneliness.

– Chapin ends his song in a more depressing tone than the beginning. The waitress is so sad about the man’s story and so sad about her own loneliness, she offers herself to him. And Chapin, the writer, slyly slips from sad to cynical as the little man “smiled a crooked grin,” and agreed to take her home.

I don’t consider myself a musician (sorry, Mr. Nelson—you did your best) and I haven’t done justice to how Chapin crafted his music (outside of his lyrics) to provide tone and mood. I feel it…I sense it…I just don’t know how to describe it. But I recognize good writing when I see it. You can get away with a non-literary line like “I did not want to share her, or dare to break the mood; So before she woke, I went out to buy us both some food,” if you have created tone and mood such that the reader/listener is hanging on your every word.

Harry Chapin did that for us with his stories. Thanks, Harry!

p.s. A link for everyone saying, “but you left out Cat’s in the Cradle…”

A Few Eggs Short of a Dozen

By Cam Torrens

On November 4, 2022

In Blog, Nonfiction, Ruminating

A Few Eggs Short of a Dozen

While our family tries its best to sit down together every night for dinner, it just doesn’t always work out. There’s Boy Scouts on Tuesday, a Zoom meeting every other Wednesday, and…to be perfectly honest, its football season!

These are legitimate reasons to announce to our household’s two remaining minors: “It’s make your own dinner night.” Loud rejoicing usually follows, much to our consternation. We adults have “game” when it comes to cooking, and this reaction never fails to chip away at the ego.

But the boys aren’t bad chefs themselves. They have taken one of our ancient family secrets and upped the game. Since you’ve read this far, I’ll share it: EVERYTHING TASTES BETTER WITH AN EGG (or two) IN/ON IT. Our Top 5 regulars are listed below:

RAMEN: Our 110lb middle linebacker is a soup addict. If you can pour it, he will eat it. But his go-to soup for breakfast, lunch, and dinner is ramen. With an egg. And a bunch of other stuff…but I digress.

RICE: Our 97lb defensive end (did I mention how small our high school is? These guys were middle school starters!) goes for rice. Does he put an egg in it? Not on day one. But there’s no holding back if it comes out of the fridge on day two. You know how that rice can get all hard in the fridge? The egg fixes that.

BURGERS: Questions? It goes right on the patty, sunny side up. Bring a napkin.

FRIED SALAD: I wish those boys ate more salad. Alas, this favorite is mine (the family vegetarian.) You take the salad that’s been in the fridge just to the point where it probably should be tossed out instead of just tossed. Open the lid and sniff. Remind yourself how the cost of produce has skyrocketed. Then dump it in the frying pan with olive oil and garlic. Fry on high for three minutes, make a hole in the middle and crack your egg. Flip after a minute and sprinkle on a layer of cheese. Don’t get no better.

LEFTOVERS: Mix everything together in a large frying pan and fry on high. Add an egg or two to give the mass enough consistency to form a Leftover Pancake. Add cheese on top. Bring on the sriracha.

The daily egg consumption is subtle—“Papa, I only used one…”—but consistent. I do the bulk of the grocery shopping and I’m not sure it’s normal to buy two 18-egg cartons once a week.

Or is it?

Let me know your go-to recipes with egg…or suggestions on cutting back!

Welcome to the Jungle (It Gets Worse Here Every Day)

By Cam Torrens

On October 4, 2022

In Blog, Nonfiction, Ruminating

Welcome to the Jungle--It Gets Worse Here Every Day

In which I’m driving in a parking lot accident…inside a $30M aircraft

It’s autumn of 2003 and our C-130 unit is still running balls to the wall supporting the Global War on Terror. In the past twelve months, we’ve moved from Pakistan—flying night low-level airdrops into Afghanistan—to Oman, where we supported the initial invasion of Iraq. We’re given four months back home at our base in Arkansas to “recharge” before we deploy to Qatar for another round of “fun in the sun.” Lots of hugs and kisses (and tears) as we return home from the desert and settle in for a temporary round of family life.

I’m the commander of this unit and I’d love to tell you morale is high. But it’s not. We’ve all been on the move since 9-11 and there’s no end in sight. Our families know this is just a stopover to get the aircraft overhauled and try to restore some sanity for our airmen and our spouses. Unfortunately, I get more than one aviator in my office, head hung low, explaining how they are trying to reestablish control of the household, only to discover their presence is superfluous. Those guarding the home front managed things just fine while our fliers were gone and certainly didn’t need advice on how to keep a tight ship.

So, it’s no surprise when a month or two after we get back, I’ve got aircrews ready to get back on the road. Not to the desert, boss—I can wait for that. But how about that three-day mission through Vegas? Or what about that Alaska trip? And I’m just as guilty. A four-day trip to South America pops up and I’m thinking to myself…the commander needs to keep up his flying currency as well, right? What I don’t realize is this little hop down south will result in more updates to my currency than I’m asking for.

Here’s the mission: Deliver Combat Rubber Raiding Craft (CRRC—also known as Zodiacs) to a remote airfield in Columbia. Are there other details? Yes. But we just deliver beans and bullets, so we aren’t privy to the “why” and I likely wouldn’t be able to share them here if I was. President Bush’s Plan Columbia is in full swing and our special operators probably have a menu of options: 1) destroy drugs 2) eliminate drug traffickers 3) train Columbian forces in counter-terror operations 4) tell their grandkids about whitewater rafting east of the Andes…

I’ve got a young crew. Normally, the scheduler would have fixed that. Regardless of how good the commander thinks he or she flies the plane, the mid-level captains are convinced we just do paperwork, go to meetings, and suck up to those above us—we’ve no business behind the yoke without adult supervision. They’ve done well with their choice of an engineer—he’s crustier than I am—but the rest of the crew has a combined time in the squadron of about six years. And I should have recognized that taking only one loadmaster (who’s never flown outside the US) with a plane stuffed with bulky rafts is probably not fair to the young man.

We overnight in Panama City, Panama. The next day, we drop into Cali, Columbia for gas before the final leg into our narrow 3K’ strip east of the Andes. All is well.

Our mission planning warns us we need to ensure there are no other large aircraft on the ground before we land at our final destination. There is no taxiway, just an off-ramp of corrugated metal mats forming a path through the mud off the end of the runway. If a plane is on the ground and another lands, there is no legal way for the plane on the ground to get to the runway and no way for the landing plane to turn around and take off again.

We call with these questions and request clearance to land. The combination of broken English and great Spanish was clear enough for us. We’re cleared to land.

We put the plane down on brick one and I silently smirk at those silly schedulers worried about my rusty pilot skills. My smile fades about 2K feet down the runway as I see the telltale triangle of another C-130 tail loom into view.

“You see that, boss?” My engineer asks.

“Yep.”

“Yep.” He replies.

We stop on the runway and get the other C-130 on the radio. Its props are turning and they are ready to go. They’re none too happy with our arrival and the resulting delay in their departure. After a few minutes of coordination, we come up with a plan. The other aircraft will hug the eastern side of the metal mats, while we hug the west. The only way it will work is if one of our aircraft allows its nosewheel to go off the metal and into the mud while turning. Since we’re the ones in the wrong, (landed with another C-130 on the ground already) we get to do the nosewheel maneuver.

And it works! Some US contractors are out helping clear the wings, and we’re able to maneuver ourselves past the other plane so that our tail end points toward their “ramp” where several single-engine aircraft are parked. My nosewheel is still in the mud, but it’s maneuverable. The other C-130 takes off.

While the copilot and I head into a tent to use a SAT phone and let our headquarters know we made it, the engineer is checking out my nosewheel and shaking his head, and the navigator is doing…well, she’s doing that nav stuff.

No one’s watching our young loadmaster who has a bunch of jungle-fevered contractors yelling at him to hurry as he works through his checklists. He flawlessly offloads the rafts, but as he raises the ramp at the rear of the aircraft, he forgets an important step: Ensure Door is Clear. Unfortunately, one of the “helpers” has left a tie-down strap in the clamshell area of the door and when the hydraulics complete their cycle, thousands of pounds of pressure punch the buckle of the strap through the skin of the aircraft. We now have a hole in the airplane.

I can’t believe it. I’d just Q3’d (disqualified) a crew in Afghanistan for bending metal on the aircraft when they took out a light stand. Not their fault. Definitely their responsibility. Those are two different things. Now here we were in peacetime, in daylight, on a milk run. Bending metal.

I get permission to fly the aircraft back and we prepare for takeoff. The first thing we have to do is back the aircraft on the metal matting so the nosewheel is back on a solid surface to turn toward the runway. I’ve got spotters on both wings to make sure we don’t bump anything while reversing, and the loadmaster is watching out the back end to ensure sure we don’t hit any of the single-engine aircraft. The last time I had this much attention on my back end was at my annual flight physical.

We move backwards approximately ten feet when there is a sudden metal-on-metal screeching sound so loud it penetrates our ear protection. I stop reversing.

“What was that?” The nav asks.

“That’s the sound of my career ending,” I reply, never at a loss for a smart-ass remark, regardless of circumstances.

We shut down and survey the damage. As the weight of the main wheels sank into the rear of the metal matting, it caused the front end of the matting to “pop a wheelie” out of the mud and into the bottom of the aircraft. Since all eyes are on the wings and tail of the airplane, no one notices the metal scraping our underbelly until it collides with the nose gear door and shears it partway off.

While the engineer hack-saws the remaining portion of the gear door off the aircraft, I make my SAT phone calls, first to my boss back home. Then to headquarters. I brief my commander my policy of “bending metal” and how I need to be Q3’d. He tells me I don’t need tell him that. Get that plane home and I’ll have the disqualification paperwork waiting when you walk down the steps.

And so we do. Flying under 150 knots (that’s slow even for a Herk) and below 10K’ (except for an hour on oxygen when we climb over the Andes) we limp home over the next several days. We stop for an overnight again in Panama. No beer. We just sulk. And then back to the states.

They say you can’t recover from a taxi accident and you can kiss your career goodbye if you have a Q3 in your records. I have both because of our little Columbian adventure. Back in Arkansas, I take two proficiency rides with an instructor, where they review important things I know, but didn’t utilize on my mission:

-if you’re unsure about your landing environment and will not get shot down, then do a fly-by and check things out

-if you’ve got an inexperienced crewmember under pressure, don’t leave them alone so you can get a cup of coffee and make a phone call

-if you’re backing up, ensure you have people watching the whole aircraft and not just the back end.

I take my check ride a week later and return to qualified status. By the end of the month, I’m commanding a deployed squadron in Qatar, and we’re doing great things for our troops in Iraq. Even get to send an aircraft to Iran with relief supplies after an earthquake. I take special joy in putting a female pilot in command of that mission.

I’m never sure whether my career continues because it’s a time of war and we need the bodies, or because I’m a commander and someone is taking care of me. I like to think the decision was in higher hands than those.

But I still think that responsibility thing is pretty important.

Anatomy of a SAR Mission–Iowa Gulch

By Cam Torrens

On September 14, 2022

In Blog, Nonfiction, Uncategorized

Anatomy of a SAR Mission--Iowa Gulch

GULCH: a deep or precipitous cleft. Especially: one occupied by a torrent

After I retired from the Air Force, I found my niche in our local Search & Rescue unit. I was a tad concerned when I showed up—dangling from cliffs, setting splints, and river rescues aren’t really in my wheelhouse. But I figured I’ve done enough trotting/hiking/walking over the last five years to be of use carrying all the crap that’s required for the missions.

Turns out the number one asset I brought to the organization was not having a Mon-Fri job. Who knew?

I used my packhorse skills last week on a mission over in Iowa Gulch. The map below shows what was happening. Day 1 of Bighorn Sheep (Rifle) season. Three hunters took the Missouri Gulch trail up (see red line) above 13K’ and scoped out a herd. The next morning, they crested the ridge north of Missouri Mountain and bagged a sheep. The successful shooter had felt like ass all day and by the time they butchered their kill, he had puked forty times with blood spotting his vomit. They picked the first downhill stretch in the direction of their parked truck—Iowa Gulch (the marker between the red line and our SAR route blue line)—and called 911.

Three of us dispatched to the Missouri Gulch Trailhead, planning to hike west to Iowa Gulch and then up to the hunters with oxygen in case the helicopter with our team doctor failed to find a suitable landing site near the subjects. Over the next several hours, we watched the helo circle above, searching for both the hunters and a landing site. They spotted the subjects but couldn’t put the bird down. Eventually, the chopper landed on the Missouri Ridge at about 13K’ and our doc began hiking down the gulch.

We kept hiking up.

Our ground team left one member at about 10.3K to act as a visual and radio relay with our trailhead radio operator down on the road while myself and the other team member continued up the gulch. We rendezvoused with the subjects just above 11K at the same time our doctor caught up with them on his descent. It was dark. Doc evaluated the still-puking subject and gave him a choice: we spend the night on the mountain, then climb back up to the ridge in daylight for a helo extraction, or attempt a night-time descent. Funny how no one in trouble relishes the thought of going back uphill. The subject chose the descent.

My toting talents continued to be of use. After hooking our patient up to the oxygen. I carried the bottle and tubes and tucked in close behind the subject for the 4-hour descent. Of course, the alternative was to help the subject’s fellow hunters pack out 150lbs of sheep meat…baaaaa-d idea.

It was slow. Traction was an issue. Just when we thought we were out of the rocky gulch and had nothing but forest and a river in front of us, one hunter tripped over a bee’s nest. That took a while to straighten out and left a few welts. Forded a knee-high river around midnight and climbed up to the road and the ambulance, where the EMTs treated our sick subject and admired our bee stings.

Decent story with a good ending. No serious injuries. What the subjects didn’t realize is that in the Rockies, if your map doesn’t show a trail near the gulch you are considering, you shouldn’t use it for a climb or descent. Many of the gulches cliff-out with impassable waterfalls. These hunters got lucky, and the safer alternative would have been the shorter climb back to the established trail.

Under Where?

By Cam Torrens

On August 6, 2022

In Blog, Nonfiction, Ruminating

My kid (any of them): Papa, have you seen my water bottle?

Me (pointing): Yeah, it’s under there…

My kid: Under where?

Me (laughing): You said “underwear!”

My kid: (silence)

Underwear is funny.

Some might disagree, but they’re likely the same hi-falutin’ snobs who probably wouldn’t appreciate the humor found in the unexpected release of trapped gas.

We’ve got a hard drive around the house somewhere with a picture of my oldest boys when they were two and three with tighty-whities pulled over their heads as part of the superhero game they were playing. Always a good photo to pull up at Christmas—especially if they’ve brought home a girlfriend.

When I was four, I tried to smuggle Fig Newtons into my bedroom by hiding them in the back of my own tighty-whities. My dad wasn’t fooled by the strange droop in my drawers, and rather than multiple spankings, I only endured one swat and some smushing which rendered the cookies inedible. Got to stay up late for a second bath, though!

A few close calls in the venerable C-130 (4 Fans of Freedom, Hero of the Skies) where bad food in Africa, small arms fire in Afghanistan, and one specific Iraqi SAM in early March 2003 may or may not have resulted in underwear checks at the end of the mission.

These are the stories of youth and probably explain why those of us who haven’t quite grown up still laugh at them. But it doesn’t explain why my best underwear story happened in middle age.

It’s 2011 and I’m only six months away from a move to Beijing, China, to take a job in the US Embassy. In the lead up to this assignment, I spent over a year learning Mandarin Chinese, several months diving into Chinese culture and a couple of weeks learning social skills (I know. I know.) The Chinese course’s capstone event is a four-week language immersion in Beijing. Courses in the morning. Exploring Beijing in the afternoon. And the rest of the time living with a host family that speaks no English.

I arrive at my host family’s apartment late in the evening after getting snowed in at Chicago for an extra day. I’ve rehearsed my apologies in Chinese on the taxi ride into the city, but when I explain, Shushu (Uncle) just gives me a blank stare and

turns to his wife Ayi (Aunt) who returns the blank stare. They both start talking and my gut sinks as realize I must have got off in the wrong country. I arrived so proud of my 15-month progression in Mandarin, and I haven’t understood a word so far. And from the looks on my host family’s faces, the Chinese I am speaking is also unrecognizable.

Fortunately, Shushu has the universal translator stored under the sink. He pops the bottle open and we share a couple shots of erguotou, a sorghum-based liquor popular with Chinese workers—kind of like PBR, but with five times the alcohol content. By the time we hit the sack, I still don’t understand Shushu’s Chinese, and he doesn’t understand mine. But we’re communicating perfectly. Ayi just shakes her head.

Over the next few days, I’ll sort out the language issues in class. My instructors teach me how to understand the nuances of the Beijing accent, and at home with Shushu and Ayi, I begin to understand most of what they are saying. Mostly I nod my head, because they still give me that “deer in the headlights” look every time I open my mouth.

Shushu and Ayi live in tight quarters like most Chinese city dwellers. The table folds out from the wall, an alcove with a curtain serves as their bedroom (and a nursery for their granddaughter who spends the day with Ayi,) It’s clear they gave up their real bedroom—the only other room in the house—for my stay.

But wait—I failed to mention one more room. The bathroom measures approximately four feet wide and seven feet deep. Never have I seen so little space multipurposed in so many ways. The sink empties through a hose leading to a drain near the toilet. Above the toilet is the showerhead and the entire bathroom floor slopes toward this central drain. You shower by closing the lid of the toilet and standing with your feet on each side while spraying yourself. A washer dominates the rear of the bathroom, so close to the toilet you could switch the clothes to the dryer (if they had one) without getting up from the toilet. And criss-crossed on the ceiling are nylon lines with clothes hung up to dry. Everything is clean—but the tight quarters make me nervous. My first shower feels like bathing in a phone booth.

It’s day three at Shushu and Ayi’s house, and they are starting to nod when I speak to them. I told them I was going to shower, and they even pointed toward the bathroom. My language skills are improving! I’m sure the towel and soap in my hands has no bearing on their comprehension.

At the sink, I test the luke-warm water and decide to just shave my face rather than the patches of hair that stubbornly try to grow from my bald head. In and out is my bathroom strategy tonight. I lather up and after I rinse the shaving cream from my hand, I reach above me for my towel I’ve hung on one of the drying lines. As I pull, it catches on the rope and when I tug harder, the rope bows toward me like a rubber band, then springs back, causing the remaining drying clothes to jerk toward the ceiling.

I’m unsure whether the ensuing time period allowed me to utter “Oh, shit” or whether I just thought it—it’s hard to remember because time suddenly slowed. I stare at the ceiling as the clothes fall back on the line, but as soon as I let my breath out, one article of clothing slips off the line and falls. I drop my towel and reach up but cannot snag the white material before it falls between my arms and settles on the surface of the water in the toilet. I bend over and recognize (OK—obviously I don’t recognize…but there’s no way Shushu would wear these…) Ayi’s underwear.

My first instinct is to pull them out, wring the water, and hang them back up to dry—I mean, if my dog can drink out of my toilet at home, how dirty can the water be? I stare in the mirror, my heart pounding, and remind myself I’m a grown-up. The “pretend it never happened” strategy is not a grown-up move. I reach for the underwear, then stop. If I pull them out and take them to Ayi, I’m not sure my Chinese will adequately convey the gravity of the situation. She might just nod and say, “Yes, they haven’t dried yet. Please put them back.” And trade concerned glances with Shushu about the strange 老外laowai*.

I decide to man-up. After cleaning the shaving cream from my face and putting my shirt back on, I step out of the bathroom, turn the corner, and face Shushu and Ayi, who wear questioning looks on their faces. I take a deep breath, bow my head toward Ayi, and announce: 你的内裤掉了厕所Ni de neiku diaole cesuo **(Your panties fell toilet.) Ayi’s eyes widen, and she rises from the table and walks past me into the bathroom. I’m mortified. I follow behind her and watch as she looks in the toilet, cranes her head up to the nylon ropes on the ceiling, then fishes her underwear from the water. I hear Shushu laughing behind me and I don’t have to know much Mandarin to know Ayi’s telling him to shut up.

Fortunately, Ayi would never insult a guest, and our relationship quickly recovers from my initial buffoonery. I’ll always remember that day as a turning point, when I began communicating in another language.

And underwear is still funny.

*non-Asian foreigner

**It was only after I returned to the US and told this story to my Chinese instructor that she reminded me I forgot to use the directional word “进jin (in)” in my sentence. I’m sure Ayi was quite unsure what actually “fell” in the bathroom until she entered.

A Small, Small World

By Cam Torrens

On May 9, 2022

In Blog, Nonfiction, Ruminating

There is nothing more cliché than Disney’s song “It’s a Small World” *

The parlor game, Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon, probably made the actor more famous than fighting sand worms or getting his shoelace caught on a tractor.

But isn’t coincidence amazing? It’s like an affirmation that the impossible is actually…possible.

1989. I am stationed in Zweibrucken, Germany flying the mighty C-23A twin-engine Sherpa, a plane also known during its brief seven-year Air Force tenure as “the slowest, ugliest plane in our fleet.” I’ve just graduated from flight school and moved from a shared apartment with a twin mattress on the floor and a giant Orca pool toy hanging from my ceiling. I’m confident I’ll decorate my new abode in Germany differently, now that I’m an Air Force officer and a qualified pilot.

But single occupancy apartments are scarce in the villages surrounding our base near the French border. I end up living on the second floor of an old farmhouse in the 500-person village of Rosenkopf, about five miles east of the base. The first floor has been modified—the foundation split into a series of stalls for the pigs my landlord raises. The smell of dank hay and the livestock reminds me of the couple years we lived on a farm in Oregon along the Columbia Gorge. Good memories.

I bring a couple of my squadron mates over to check out my new digs the day after I move in. I ask if they smell the hay. I see them look at each other before one of them, a blond-haired Captain who’s been in the squadron for two years already, speaks up. “It smells like shit.”

But I love it. The house. The village. There’s only one other American family in the town and only a handful of German families with any English skills. A great opportunity to learn the language.

Six months later and I’m best friends with the elderly German couple two houses up the hill. The husband, a bed-ridden World War II vet who spent most of the war as a POW in America, and his gregarious non-English speaking wife who makes it her personal mission to feed me. Two of their three daughters also live in the old farmhouse and before long, I’m spending holidays with them—an amateur Thanksgiving effort on my part, and them folding me into a memorable Christmas picnic in the woods with sleds, schnapps, and sausage. We become good friends.

That spring, I’m sitting next to the husband’s bed and he’s helping me through a conversation in German while we both drink beer. With each gulp of Parkbrau, I feel my German language skills improving. He’s describing his third daughter—the one who lives in the US—and her family. She had married a GI some twenty years before and she and her husband and grown boys live in northern Idaho. I switch to English.

“I used to live close to there—a little town west of there in Washington called Kettle Falls.” I have no idea why I’m telling him this. I was in 7th grade when I lived there, and the population was less than 1,500. I don’t remember a stoplight.

My friend’s eyes flash. “That’s where they lived before. In Kettle Falls!”

I shake my head. “Are you sure? It’s a very small town.”

“Yes, Kettle Falls. When did you live there?”

I do some mental math. “Around 1976.”

“That’s when my daughter and her family were there. They lived there for about five years.” He calls for his wife and rattles off our discovery in German. I understand enough to recognize he’s asked her to go get a picture.

She comes back and thrusts the picture in front of me. Her husband is staring at my face over the back of the photograph to see if I recognize his daughter.

I’ve never seen their daughter or her husband in my life. They’re posed for a family picture with their two boys sitting in front of them. I stare closer.

“That’s Chase and Del…Sanborn,” I stab at the photo with my finger. “From Boy Scouts!”

I hear a “Mein Gott” behind me from my friend’s wife and he utters something—also in German—I don’t understand. I explain to them that their
grandsons and I went on camp-outs together, built snow caves, and cooked with Dutch ovens. I leave out the stories of lighting farts, a stolen Playboy, and a wedgie gone bad. Because I’m a mature Air Force officer now…and I don’t know how to say “wedgie” in German.

They insist I call their grandkids on the phone right away until we calculate the time difference and realize it’s midnight in Idaho. The next morning, I’m back at their house and they are holding the phone to my ear. Del, the younger of the brothers, is on the line and we both marvel at the odds that I’m standing in his grandparents’ house. We catch up on each other’s lives. After ten minutes, we run out of things to talk about, and I hand the phone back to his grandmother. We’ve never spoken since.

But it’s a story that I’ve never tired of telling. Ask a hundred random Germans if they’ve heard of the farming village of Rosenkopf and ninety-nine will say “nein.” (did I just do an English-German homonymic alliteration? Is that a thing?) Ask a hundred Americans what state has a town named Kettle Falls and ninety-nine will have no idea. But there I stood, in a German farmer’s kitchen on the phone with his grandchildren, my childhood Boy Scout buddies.

Impossible? Obviously not.

God. Fate. Karma. You believe in what you believe, and I’ll stick with my beliefs. But I think we can agree it’s a small world out there. And all things are possible.

* “It’s a Small World” is also the third most annoying family road trip song behind “99 Bottles of Beer on the Wall” and “This Is the Song That Never Ends…”

Red Famine: Stalin’s War on Ukraine

By Cam Torrens

On March 1, 2022

In Blog, Book Reviews, Nonfiction, Reading

BY anne applebaum

Non sequitur: a statement (such as a response) that does not follow logically from or is not clearly related to anything previously said.

I used a non sequitur several weeks ago. Not that I would have self-identified my error through the use of the Latin term—wouldn’t want to pile pretentiousness on top of ignorance, right?

The topic was Ukraine and the potential Russian invasion and the appropriate international response. I believe my input to the dilemma was something along the lines of, ‘not that I condone Putin’s actions, but it’s worth considering Ukraine, as a country, has only existed for 30 years. Sure, there is a long history of Ukrainian culture, but the reality is that Russians have lived in eastern Ukraine for much longer than the country has survived as an independent nation-state.’

I guess I threw out my remark to show an inkling of knowledge about Ukraine and Russia. Who knows, maybe it worked because I didn’t get much of a reply from the person to whom I was talking. But something felt off about my comment. It might have been factually true, but it was neither insightful nor relevant.

So, I did what I always do when I realize I’m behind the power curve on an issue. I hit the books.

I started with Tim Judah’s In Wartime: Stories from Ukraine, a 2016 book of interviews and descriptions from pro-Ukrainians following the 2014 Maidan Revolution and pro-Russian rebels manning fortifications in eastern Ukraine. Judah traveled the corners of the country pulling tales and opinions from everyday people on the streets while giving his unfamiliar readers a geography and history lesson (I’d never heard of Bessarabia in Ukraine’s southwest—600K people speaking primarily Russian but ethnically Bulgarian, Moldovan, Albanian, Gagauz and Roma. You travel through the country of Moldova just to get to this part of Ukraine.) I finished the book knowing much more about modern Ukraine than I did before.

In February, I took a seminar on Putin’s Russia and listened to a lecture by the Foreign Policy Association on Russia as a nuclear state in decline. The presentation was online and recorded and presented on the day Russian forces invaded Ukraine. Suddenly, many of the discussion questions were obsolete.

But the mother lode of Ukraine background proved to be Anne Applebaum’s Red Famine: Stalin’s War on Ukraine. As the title suggests, the book focuses on the 1932-33 Ukraine famine—or in Ukrainian, the Holodomor. Pulling from primary sources, including diaries and recordings, the description of the tragedy is heart-wrenching and serves as both a reminder of man’s capacity for cruelty and a harbinger of future atrocities in the impending World War.

I recommend the book, not solely for Applebaum’s characterization of Stalin’s reasoning (collectivize the farms to increase grain exports and finance his economic plans, mobilize poor peasants against richer peasants—kulaks—to provide scapegoats in crisis) or his execution (refuse to lower grain quotas during the famine, take food from farmers’ homes, bar starving peasants from entering cities in search of food, relocate Russians to the eastern Ukraine to make up for the 13% of the population who were deported or starved to death,) but also for the excellent history she provides of Ukraine before and after Russia’s February Revolution of 1917. She wraps up the book with an epilogue summarizing the period from the famine to modern day Ukraine.

This book opened my eyes. How can you discuss a country’s history of sovereignty if they’ve never been given a chance? Ukraine sits at the crossroads between Europe and Asia, the second largest country on the European continent with some of the least defensible borders. Ukrainian culture reached its peak over a thousand years ago, before being invaded by the Mongols, dominated by the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth and taken over by the Soviets.

The international community won’t tolerate Italy reclaiming Great Britain just because they used to be part of the Roman Empire. They won’t put up with Great Britain trying to force India back into the British Empire. The list goes on—and I recognize there’s probably another fancy Latin phrase that describes a logic fallacy in my argument.

So, two points:

Ukraine deserves to have its sovereignty supported (for all of you asking about the military option…that’s a different essay for a different day)

Check out Applebaum’s book from your local library or buy it. Especially if you need a refresher (or a primer, in my case) on Ukraine history.

Note: Amazon links are for reference only. Recommend using your local library!