Brock Booher's Blog

For the Love of Chocolate

Pod from the cacao tree with cacao beans

Of all the things I’ve learned in my life, learning to make chocolate from cacao beans has been one of the most gratifying. Give someone a piece of chocolate and feed them for a day. Teach someone to make chocolate, and feed their soul for a lifetime.

 

It was a rainy day in Costa Rica with tropical storm Eta raging across Central America and bringing more rain than usual for November. I took a right turn in Huacas in front of one of the best panaderías in the area and headed to a grocery store in Villareal to pass the afternoon and noticed a small billboard in English on the side of the road — Reina’s Chocolate. Being a chocolate lover for many years, I was immediately interested. About another kilometer went by and I saw the same billboard, but this time I noticed that it offered chocolate-making classes. Now, I was hooked. The store/factory was just about a half a kilometer from the grocery store I was headed to, so I stopped by to check it out.

 

Ron, an American expat married to Nica-Tica (a woman from Nicaragua who emigrated to Costa Rica) greeted me at the door and asked if I was alone. He was in the middle of a class with another couple and with the COVID pandemic going on, he wanted to limit interaction. Through my mask, I let him know that I was by myself and interested in the advertised chocolate-making class. He ushered me in.

 

The smell of warm cocoa hit me as I passed through the door of his showroom/factory. That deep earthy smell of cocoa beans being ground into chocolate paste overwhelms you and instantly makes you feel like wrapping yourself in a blanket next to a warm fire to watch some cheesy movie with someone you love. It smells like comfort. I imagine that if love had a smell, it would smell a lot like the aroma of dark chocolate being melanged in a wet grinder with raw sugar. It was love at first smell.

 

Reina prepared me a cup of cocoa tea made by soaking cocoa bean husks in boiling water as Ron introduced me to the couple that was just finishing up their chocolate experience in his showroom. They were all smiles and looked like they had spent the afternoon cuddling in a hammock on the beach watching the tide change and exchanging kisses instead of sitting at the counter in chocolate factory showroom. They had some sort of chocolate-tasting afterglow about them.

 

I sipped at the tea and listened to Ron describe the class, but after smelling the chocolate and seeing the look on the couple’s faces, I was sold already. We set a time for my wife, Britt, and I to attend his class the next week.

 

The next week we arrived at for the class a few minutes early, anxious to learn about bean-to-bar chocolate making using cocoa beans from Costa Rica. After a short introduction and a few instructions, Ron began telling us about the history of chocolate, including stories about ancient priestly rituals to modern chocolate icons. Cacao has been around for centuries in Mesoamerica. The cacao bean was used as bartering currency, for creating cocoa butter for treating burns, and for making a rich and bitter drink used during religious rituals. Cortés introduced cocoa to the Spanish royal court upon his return, but it was a few decades before they started mixing it with sugar and it became an exotic drink in high demand. Chocolate as we know it today is a relatively modern invention developed by a flurry of inventions and innovations which created chocolate in solid form in the mid to late 1800s. Chocolate is a modern miracle.

 

The process for making chocolate involves several key steps: harvesting the cacao beans, fermenting the cacao beans, drying the cacao beans, roasting the cacao beans, husking the cacao beans, grinding the cacao beans into nibs, winnowing the husks away from the nibs, wet grinding (melanging) the nibs into chocolate liquor, mixing the sugar and other ingredients in the wet grinder to produce chocolate paste, conching the chocolate, tempering the chocolate, and pouring the chocolate into molds. Each step in the process can change the texture, taste, and body of the chocolate and requires artisan skill to get premium chocolate.

Roasted cacao beans

 

Most manufacturers of chocolate rely on an average cacao bean with a standardized process of adding additional ingredients such soy lecithin, cocoa butter, sugar, and powdered milk to cover any imperfections in the bean. However, craft chocolate makers do not have that luxury. They must ensure that the raw product at the beginning of the project is superior and that the process is carefully controlled to produce a chocolate worthy of being called artisan chocolate.

 

We spent the morning learning about the bean itself and followed it through the process to the wet grinder. It was on the job training and we helped David, one of Ron’s employee, move the beans along the production cycle to the wet grinder. The wet grinder uses a turning drum with a granite base and two granite rollers that are tightened by a spring to grind the cocoa and added ingredients (in this case just sugar) into small particles. We poured in the cocoa nibs and the sugar and left it humming along as Reina and Ron rolled out the tasting tray and prepared us to sample small amounts of artisan chocolate produced in the facility. 

 

“The first thing you have to learn is not to eat the chocolate,” warned Ron. “You can’t taste chocolate with your teeth.”

 

We closed our eyes and let each piece slowly melt on our tongues exploding in our mouth with flavors inherent to the superior bean and released by the artisan process. Craft chocolate is not meant to be eaten. It is meant to be experienced. Each piece was a slice of heaven on the tongue. (No wonder the Mesoamericans considered chocolate to be the drink of the gods.)

 

Britt pouring chocolateAfter we finished tasting the various chocolates produced by Reina’s Chocolates, we went back

 to the wet grinder to check on the progress. The human tongue is amazing and can detect particle sizes down to 20 microns. The wet grinder needs to pulverize all the particles until they are smaller than 20 microns to ensure the silky-smooth taste everyone enjoys in chocolate. Our batch of chocolate had only been grinding for a couple of hours and was nowhere near that smooth. Good chocolate usually takes anywhere from twelve to seventy-two hours (or more) of grinding and conching to get the particle size below 20 microns. However, the taste was rich and vibrant in our batch in spite of the fact it had only been grinding a couple of hours. For the sake of experiencing each step, we poured our chocolate from the wet grinder into the molds and put them in the cooler for setting.

 

The only step we did not experience was tempering. According to Ron (and most other craft chocolate makers) it is the most difficult, and maddening, step. Chocolate is so appealing to the human tongue because its melting point is a few degrees below the average body temperature. The problem is that the six crystals in chocolate melt at different temperatures and behave differently. Crystal number five is the most desirable because of how it behaves in storage and with the human tongue. Tempering is the process of getting all the crystals to cooperate together and bond with the fifth crystal properly so that they all behave similarly. (If you want to understand the chemistry behind it, just Google chocolate tempering and you can spend hours trying to understand it.) If you have ever seen the chocolatiers pour chocolate on a marble slab and spread it with special metal spatulas while wearing a funny hat, you have seen one method of tempering. Because he didn’t want to overwhelm us, we skipped that step and took home twelve bars of fresh chocolate.

 

Sometimes in life we experience something or learn something that changes us or enlightens us in such a way that we are drawn, even compelled, down a path of learning and exploration we never expected. Learning and experiencing the chocolate making process had that effect on me. That night in our condo, I got online and researched the various machines for making chocolate at home. I watched videos about roasting beans, husking beans, wet-grinding beans, and yes even tempering chocolate. Like most hobbies or endeavors, it would take a few hundred dollars to get started, but everything was available on Amazon and could be delivered to my house by the time we got back from Costa Rica. I put a few items in my cart, but didn’t purchase them yet.

 

A few days later I stopped by and talked with Ron again and mentioned how intrigued I was by the class. He told me if I really wanted to start making craft chocolate at home when I got back, I needed to come spend some more time at his factory. This invitation was unexpected, but I took him up on it and went back to his facility to work through all the steps again. I have since discovered that there is a fraternity of sorts among bean-to-bar chocolate makers and this kind of mentorship is not uncommon. It must be the chocolate.

 

With Ron and David’s help, I roasted, husked, winnowed, and ground a batch of beans into nibs ready for wet grinding. He also let me keep the husks for making chocolate tea. He coached me on the various steps and reviewed the equipment list I was prepared to order. When I flew home to Arizona, I had two kilos of raw materials stashed in one of my suitcases. I was ready to make chocolate at home.

 

My first batch of chocolate

It felt like Christmas when I pulled the wet grinder from the box and set it up. With my limited experience, I measured the nibs and sugar before cranking up the machine and beginning my first batch of 70% dark chocolate. The machine was louder than I remembered, but it filled the house with the rich aroma of chocolate. I watched the process carefully, tasting the batch everytime I dipped the spatula into the machine to scrape the sides of the drum. My taste buds were in heaven! Sixteen hours later, I poured my first batch of dark chocolate into the molds. I had become a bean-to-bar chocolatier.

 

I posted a few pictures of my chocolate creations on social media and soon learned the everyone wants to be your friend when you have chocolate. People I hadn’t heard from in years wanted to stop by in the middle of a pandemic and visit. Others offered to provide their services as tasters and quality control. Requests came in for me to ship bars of chocolate with the Christmas cards we were sending out. I learned that chocolate brings people together.

My first chocolate bars

 

Over the next few weeks, I made several more batches of chocolate. It didn’t take long for me to use up all of the nibs I had brought back from Costa Rica, and I had to order some from other sources. The nibs from the Dominican Republic had a fruity, cherry taste. The nibs from Ecuador smelled like chocolate brownies ready to pull from the oven. When I let my wife smell the nibs from Peru, she immediately noticed the passion fruit smell. Each different source of beans was unique and provided a rich blend of tastes and smells making for a unique chocolate each time. 

 

Who knew how much impact a small billboard on the side of the road on a rainy day in Costa Rica would have on my life? Since that day, I have learned to turn the cacao bean into a bar of delightful chocolate. I have visited a working cacao farm and factory. I have made new friends, and rekindled a few old friendships, all because of chocolate. I could have easily ignored the signs, or simply just purchased a few craft chocolate bars from Ron that day to satisfy my chocolate cravings.

Instead, I chose the satisfying journey of learning to make bean-to-bar chocolate, and it has been a delicious journey.

Lessons From a Dirty War

All wars are dirty, but some wars are dirtier than others.
Most of us in the United States think of civil wars within the context of our own civil war where the geographic lines were clear and the combatants wore different colors. The reality is that in most civil wars the battle lines are not so clear and combatants not so easily identified. In the 1970s and early 1980s Argentina suffered through a quiet civil war that played out in the shadows while average citizens tried to continue with their daily lives. No battle lines were drawn on the map. Combatants dressed like ordinary people. Neither side followed the traditional rules of war. The violence spiraled out of control until the conflict degenerated into “La Guerra Sucia” (“The Dirty War”). 1
With political unrest and incivility dominating the news and our own cities burning, we may have the makings of a civil war within our own borders. Perhaps it would be wise for us to learn a few lessons from Argentina’s Dirty War.
The end does not justify the means, even if you seek a “righteous” end.
Napoleon supposedly said, “God fights on the side with the best artillery.”2  Men and women on both sides of the battle lines invoke the name of their god for protection and victory, but most often, in the name of a military victory, they ignore or rationalize a departure from the moral code given by that same god. They justify deceit, torture, and killing innocent people as long as they achieve a righteous ending. 
The rebels of Argentina called themselves “Montoneros” adopting a pejorative term used for indigenous raiders of a past era. They pledged to fight against the encroaching and evil imperialist Yankees of the United States in the name of the oppressed people and replace the current quasi-democratic governments with socialism. They spoke of championing the cause of the downtrodden, the worker, and the poor. The road to victory would be long and require them to fight by any means necessary.3 
The first act of violence was to kidnap and execute the former Argentine dictator Pedro Eugenio Aramburu for his “crimes.” They left his body in a farmhouse outside of Buenos Aires and it wasn’t discovered for almost a month. They began the violence, but it was far from over.
In November of 1971 they took control of a Fiat car manufacturing facility and torched 39 vehicles. In July of 1972 they bombed in the Plaza de San Isidro injuring and killing policemen and a fireman. They bombed the Sheraton in October of 1973. Then on September 16, 1974, they detonated over forty bombs in one day in the Buenos Aires metropolitan area. The indiscriminate violence most often killed or wounded the innocent working class they had pledged to liberate. Hundreds of workaday soldiers and policemen were killed or injured by the attacks. In 1976 over 150 soldiers or policemen were killed by the Montoneros.4 
In spite of their claims of altruistic intentions, the socialist revolutionaries had a history of capitalistic extortion of their own. In addition to the bombings they kidnapped and/or assassinated military leaders, political opponents, and foreign business executives. Sometimes they held mock trials and executed them, and other times they demanded ransoms to finance their revolution. They extorted millions of dollars for their cause, including $60 million (the largest ransom in history) from the kidnapping of the Born brothers, heirs to a large food supply chain conglomerate.5 Then with the help of the shady banker, David Graiver, they invested their capital in a variety of questionable banking ventures.6 Extortion and capitalism seemed to work well for the socialist revolutionaries hell-bent on stopping the capitalist extortionists.
The Montoneros hoped that the violence would destabilize the country and provide a fertile philosophical ground for their anti-imperialist message. However, their lackluster manifesto didn’t resonate with the average Argentine citizen and they only alienated the majority seeking stability and peace.
To make matters worse, the political leaders of the day failed to quell the violence and often just looked the other way leaving the police and military to endure the violence. By March of 1976, the Argentine military leaders had reached their limit. A military junta took over the failing government with General Videla as acting president. Then the real violence began.
Having borne the brunt of most of the terrorist activity, the military junta began to crush the enemy. They called it El Proceso de Reorganización Nacional (The National Reorganization Process) or El Proceso for short. The goal was to defeat the urban guerrilla forces and restore order and security in order to save their nation. Like the enemy they were determined to defeat, they felt justified to use any means necessary.7 
The civil unrest degenerated into “La Guerra Sucia,” a dirty war where any act of torture, violence, extortion, kidnapping, or murder was accepted by both sides as a necessary means for accomplishing a “righteous” end. Both sides claimed the moral high ground while they systematically abandoned the moral code they claimed to live by. Without the rule of law, a civil war became a dirty war. Anarchy prevailed and liberty was lost on all sides.
The military junta set aside due process and began to “disappear” anyone considered to be subversive to El Proceso. They muzzled the press and other free speech. They raided homes in the middle of the night and arrested citizens without due process. They set up secret prisons with torture chambers filled with thousands of captured guerrillas or anyone else suspected of subversive behavior. Executions took the form of anything from a simple bullet to the head, to tossing drugged prisoners out of aircraft into the ocean. Captured expectant mothers were kept alive until the babies were delivered. Those babies were given away to families loyal to El Proceso and the mothers were never heard from again.8
In the process of “saving the nation,” thousands of innocent people disappeared. The violence put an end to the enemy, but it also destroyed any shred of the rule of law that may have remained. Thousands of people disappeared in the name of a process that was intended to restore order. 
In the end, neither side achieved the victory they hoped for. The Montoneros were destroyed and scattered, never to achieve the socialist change they hoped for. The military junta returned power to elected civilian officials and many were prosecuted for their crimes. El Proceso eliminated the immediate enemy, but left a gaping hole in the psyche of a country that will take generations to heal. The ends did not justify the means, nor did the means achieve the desired end.
Right now, we see violence in our streets. Rioting, looting, and destruction of public property are being used as tools for political change. Lawless behavior is lauded as a necessary means to accomplish a “righteous” end. The rule of law is being trampled in the name of social justice or for the sake of security and order. Both sides are abandoning their moral code in order to achieve victory even as they plant their flag in some moral high ground that has long since been abandoned.
If we aren’t careful, the violence will spiral out of control and we may find ourselves in the middle of our own dirty war. We must NOT abandon the rule of law to achieve victory or we will lose the battle, the war, and our liberties.
Listen to the voices of the marginalized, especially when you don’t understand their plight.
On April 30, 1977, a dozen mothers linked arms and marched around the Plaza de Mayo. Each of them had a child that had disappeared without a trace because of the government crackdown on subversion. At the time they defied the order against assembly and marched around the plaza across from the Casa Rosada (the equivalent of our White House) to protest the military government’s suspension of due process and the violent results.9 Nobody seemed to notice.
It is estimated that almost 30,000 people were “disappeared” during Argentina’s Dirty War. Perhaps they were guilty. Perhaps they were innocent. Perhaps they were simply in the wrong place at the wrong time. Perhaps they were only guilty by association. It didn’t matter. They were rounded up in the middle of the night, incarcerated, tortured, and executed. Their bodies were buried in undisclosed locations or dropped into the ocean. Any record of them or their disappearance was eliminated. There was no presumption of innocence. They were never given due process or a trial. They were “disappeared” from existence.
At first the group of mothers walking around the plaza went mostly unnoticed. Leaders scoffed at their insignificance and called them ‘las locas’ (crazy). People said to themselves, “Their children were probably guilty anyway. They deserved what they got.” Their voices were easily dismissed, but the “Madres de la Plaza de Mayo” (Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo) persisted.
On December 10, 1977 (International Human Rights Day), the mothers published the names of all their missing children in a newspaper ad. The very same night, Azucena Villaflor (one of the original founders) was kidnapped from her home and never heard from again. Most likely she met the same fate as the missing children—tortured, executed, and disappeared.10 The junta hoped the intimidation tactics would silence the protests.
A few months later, the group had grown from dozens to hundreds of mothers who locked arms every Thursday and marched around the plaza. Their movement began to gather attention, and political momentum. They could no longer be silenced or ignored. In 1978 Argentina hosted the World Cup and won, but while the country celebrated the victory, international journalists spotlighted the mothers walking around the plaza every Thursday. Their simple act of protest turned the tide of public opinion, both domestically and internationally, against the ruling military junta.
It took several years, but eventually, the military finally capitulated and returned power to civilian elected officials. A group of mothers and grandmothers managed to captivate a nation and force a change. But what if people had given more credence to their claims earlier? Could innocent lives have been saved if the voices of the marginalized had been heeded sooner? If the military junta had listened to their protests and made policy corrections could they have actually achieved the goals outlined by El Proceso? Perhaps, but we will never know because the voices of the marginalized were largely ignored. Eventually, many of the military leaders were prosecuted for their crimes. 
In spite of our understanding, or lack thereof, of those protesting (peacefully) in our streets, we should make an extra effort to understand their plight. Is there truth to what they say? Have they been marginalized in some way that we can redress? Can we make sure their voices are heard even though we may not agree with the solutions they propose? Sometimes just taking the time to validate the emotions of those who feel slighted or wronged can deescalate the situation and cool the rhetoric. Then we have the opportunity to have productive dialogue and effective change.
It starts when we take the time to listen to the voices of those who feel marginalized, even if we don’t understand, or agree.
Peaceful exchange of power requires us to put principle over personality and politics.
It is impossible to discuss the political history of Argentina without spending hours on Juan Domingo Perón. He began his rise to power in the military, climbing to the rank of Colonel in his early thirties, and began his political career after supporting the military coup of 1943. He quickly climbed from cabinet positions to the Vice President and was elected President of Argentina in June of 1946. Charismatic and politically astute, President Perón formed alliances with disparate political groups and remained in power until September of 1955 when he was ousted by another military coup of his enemies and exiled. (The incoming military junta outlawed his political party and even the mention of his name.) Even from exile he continued to influence Argentine politics and eventually returned for another term as president in 1973 and died in office July of 1974.11
Unfortunately, his story is an archetype of the generalissimo-cum-dictator that is so prevalent in history. Argentina suffered through six military coups in the 20th century (1930, 1943, 1955, 1962, 1966 and 1976).12 Countries cycle of from military coup to popular president to dictator back to military coup because the power resides in a single strong executive and not with the people. People put their trust in an individual and not in principle. Liberties protected by enduring and tested law were only as good as the current self-appointed leader.
When the cycle repeated itself in 1976, people were willing to turn a blind eye to the heavy-handed approach of the military because they had been conditioned to accept violent exchanges of power followed by liberty-limiting measures of the new government. Peaceful exchanges of power by election had become a distant memory. This gave the military junta tacit approval to eliminate human rights and the liberties of the individual in the name of security.
When you put a person or politics over principle you begin to ignore or rationalize away the bad behavior of the candidate or elected official you support and accept actions you would vehemently condemn from a political rival or opponent. You tell yourself that such behavior is justified because the opposition is underhanded and intellectually dishonest. You begin to defend the person, or party, at all costs, no matter the behavior, in an effort to remain in power. (By the way if you are reading this and thinking this applies to your political opposites, you are part of the problem. Go look in the mirror.) All candidates and elected officials are flawed and imperfect. They are all human. We will always have to overlook some imperfections in order to vote for them. However, we should support them and their causes without worshipping them. We should celebrate their victories even as we speak out against their bad behavior or ineffective policies. We can vote for them without idolizing them.
We have a long tradition of peaceful exchange of power through the voting process. But it is more than tradition. It is a principle upheld by time-tested law and constitutional principles that elevate the liberties of the individual above the power-seeking politician. For the process to continue, we must continue to put principle above person or politics. We must accept the legal results of elections. If we win, we should be gracious in our victory but guarded in our support of the victor or the winning party. If we lose, we must suffer patiently until our next opportunity to vote, but allow the elected officials room to perform their duties without constant threat of legal action. Above all, we must not allow any person or political party to persuade us that violence or the suppression of constitutional liberty is necessary while we still have a fair election process in place.
We have suffered through turbulent times as a nation, including one civil war with battle lines drawn geographically. We are experiencing turbulent times today, and if it continues to escalate the battle lines will be invisible ideological lines that cut through homes, neighborhoods, and cities. Because of our protected liberty to think and speak as we please, this ideological civil war will pit brother against sister, neighbor against neighbor, and friend against friend. We will be surrounded by both allies and enemies at the same time. 
Perhaps we can avoid an escalated conflict by learning a few lessons from Argentina’s Guerra Sucia. If we can learn from their history we can avoid justifying the means by the ends, give an ear to marginalized voices, and vote for candidates (or party) without worshipping them. Maybe it can help us avoid our own guerra sucia. I certainly hope so. Buena suerte!

(Sorry for the trouble with the footnote formatting.)
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The Time Traveler's Dilemma

April 2015
“Who gets this truck when you die?”
I looked in the rearview mirror at my five-year old daughter, Rylee, in the back seat and smiled. “What do you mean?”
“This is a great truck. Can I have it when you die?”
May 2020
My daughter Rylee and I rolled out of our home in Arizona as the sun was coming up, intent on driving to Salt Lake City, Utah, before the sun went down. The fifteen-year old truck carried a load of used furniture, needed personal items, and hopes for the future. I volunteered to drive the first shift.
The pandemic and the early morning combined to make traffic light as we left the valley of the sun. I looked over at my baby girl curled up in the passenger seat with a pillow and fuzzy, blue blanket sleeping in a position that would certainly make my aging body ache after just a few minutes. She seemed at peace with her sleeping position and glad to be taking the road trip. After two weeks at home sheltering in place, I was certainly ready for some windshield time. I left the radio off so she could sleep.
My mind drifted back to my first solo cross-country drive from Kentucky to Utah in a 70’s vintage Mazda RX2. The silver car hummed along Interstate 80 while the sheepskin seat covers my mother made kept me comfortable on the way to my future. It felt liberating to take to the open road with everything I owned stuffed into the back seat and trunk. My listening menu drifted between radio stations along the way and cassette tapes from my personal collection. I kept a signed, blank check from my parents’ bank account for emergencies, along with enough sandwiches and snacks to last me for the two-day drive. The smell of fresh-turned earth filled the afternoon air as I drove through Nebraska with the windows down.
Just like today, life was full of uncertainties, but of different types. The Cold War raged, coupled with the threat of nuclear winter. I only had enough money for one semester of tuition and room and board for a month. I had no safety net other than the meager help the blue-collar parents of ten children could offer. Like my daughter, I was full of hope in a bright future, in spite of the overwhelming evidence of a menacing world awaiting me. It was an act of both blind stupidity and sheer faith.
Now here I sat, more than thirty years later, in the driver’s seat of an old Nissan truck with my youngest daughter curled up asleep next to me wondering where the years had gone.
After a couple of hours and a fuel stop, Rylee woke up. She volunteered to drive, but I stayed behind the wheel for now. We chatted about mundane things for a bit until she plugged in her phone and turned on a podcast. (That would have been a nice option thirty years ago driving across Nebraska by myself.) We listened together stopping occasionally to opine about the comments presented. Together, we questioned the validity of the information offered or validated it. We were two people listening to information in the same space but with very different points of view and nowhere to go if a difference of opinion arose. It was a refreshing change to the social-media-fire-and-forget method of personal interaction.
You would think that an adult child’s opinion about life would not be that different than the parent’s opinion, but you would be wrong. I have found that in the realm of philosophical opinions about life, the phrase, “The apple doesn’t fall too far from the tree” is absolutely false. If we raise our children correctly, they will be as independent, stubborn, and full of sheer hope for the future as we were. It is every successful parent’s dilemma: If you teach your children properly, they will be able to think for themselves, which means they may not choose to think as you do. As a parent you are stuck somewhere in no-man’s land between pride at their independence and incredulity at their divergence from your way of thinking. I’m learning to default to pride.
At some point, the conversation drifted to time travel and the works of Neil deGrasse Tyson. “He says that even if we could travel back in time, it’s impossible to help yourself. You could help the various other versions of you in the other dimensions but you couldn’t change your own future. It’s impossible,” she said. (This was an unexpected twist in the conversation, but since I couldn’t go back in time and change it…) “I think I would like to go back in time and talk with myself.”
“Do you think you would listen?” I asked.
“Sure. Because your future self has experienced life and knows how some of your choices will turn out.”
“If that’s the case,” I asked. “Why don’t children listen to their parents’ advice?”
She thought for a moment and then chuckled, caught in my parental ruse. “I guess that’s true.”
“You see,” I explained. “Knowledge is different than skill. I know how to shoot a three-point shot in basketball. I stand beyond the designated line. I toss the ball at just the right arch and send it through the hoop. Three points. But just because I know how to shoot a three-pointer, doesn’t mean I have the skill to do it. Skill is born of knowledge, but they aren’t the same thing.”
I went on to explain how that if your knowledge-laden, future self could have a conversation with your inexperienced past self, the passing of knowledge would not be enough. Knowledge would have to be forged into skill. An addict from the future could pass on helpful knowledge to her past self, but could not pass on the hard-earned skills required to break the addiction. Anyone who has overcome a bad habit can go back in time and impart knowledge to his past self, but not the skills required to overcome the bad habit. That takes repeated effort and practice. A master piano virtuoso is unable to impart the skills honed by hours of effort and repeated drills at the keyboard by simply telling someone what to do. Knowledge can be transferred, but skill cannot. Skill must be earned through effort.
We breezed through the uncrowded streets of Las Vegas amazed at the empty parking lots and shuttered businesses. When we stopped for lunch, I turned the driving over to her. I struggled to keep quiet when I felt she was too close to the vehicle in front of us or when she glanced at her phone, but I managed to let her command the vehicle without my interference (most of the time).
When we crossed over the Utah border, it dawned on me that in spite of the fact that I had owned the truck for fifteen years, we had never taken it on a long road trip. I told her this was the first time. She laughed and recounted all the accidents the truck had been part of over the years. She and her brothers had managed to rough it up a bit as teenage drivers. It was simply part of the developing process, I acknowledged. As a parent, I had expected, even anticipated, the accidents.
“What are you going to do about your car?” I asked. (Her vehicle was experiencing mechanical difficulties at the time.)
She sighed. “I don’t know. I have to figure something out.”
“Maybe I’ll sell you this truck,” I offered.
“I’ve wanted it since I was a little kid.” She laughed.
“Yes, you did.” I smiled. “If you had known that was a possibility you might have taken better care of it as a teenager. Besides, you might not want it now because you know it’s history.”
We both laughed.
Life is meant to be lived. We were never intended to sit still and avoid failure. On the contrary, failure is an integral part of acquiring knowledge, skill, and ultimately wisdom. The dilemma of every parent is teaching your children to be independent while knowing full well that no matter how much you teach them, they will not become who they need to be without failure. You only hope you can help them avoid catastrophic failure, but even that is sometimes unavoidable. Your only recourse as a parent is to be prepared for the crashes and hope that both of you are around to discuss the lessons learned.
It is impossible for us to travel back in time. Even if we could, what would I go back and tell myself? If I could go back thirty years and ride in the passenger seat on that drive across Nebraska with the windows down, could the knowledge I impart make a difference in my life? Perhaps, but knowledge is not enough. Wisdom must be earned. Skills must be practiced. Life must be experienced. The time traveler’s dilemma is the parents’ dilemma.
Here I sat with a younger version of myself at the wheel of my well-used truck making a similar fateful trip. She is strong, independent, and full of hope for the future. I have knowledge. She has youth and exuberance. I have wisdom forged in the crucible of my mistakes. She has her sense of wonder for the future. Try as I might, I cannot pass on all of my hard-earned life skills that make me who I am. She will have to develop those skills using the same process I did.
We made it to Salt Lake City before sunset and she dropped me off at the airport to catch my flight back to Arizona. I hugged her at the curb, grateful for the time we had to talk, to laugh, and to learn from one another. As my baby girl drove away in my rickety truck, I didn’t see her as a child, but as a grown, independent, and capable woman. I could give her the truck, but she would be better served by buying a truck of her own with hard work and effort. I only hope she stays for a few days when she brings it back home to me.

When Will We Live Again?

I did a double take when I read the headline—“Meridian woman arrested during protest after refusing to leave a closed playground.” Sure enough, forty-year old Sara Brady from Meridian, Idaho, refused to leave a playground that had been closed. She, and several in her party, intentionally went to the park and allowed their children to play on the plastic playground equipment that had been closed by the city. When the police showed up and asked them to leave, it turned into a confrontation that ended with the mother of two in handcuffs. She was charged with trespassing. (You can watch the video here - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R-B1qujVjNE)
What would drive a suburban housewife into an act of civil disobedience?
I’m a risk taker. I ride a motorcycle. I’ve been skydiving—twice. I fly airplanes. I have six children. I discuss politics on social media (sometimes). For me, a life without risk isn’t worth living. Risk is an inherent part of life. Death will come for us all at some point, but the life we live before that day is largely determined by the risks we take. If we spend all our days avoiding risk, then we haven’t really lived. Therefore, I take risks.
Like all of you, my life has been turned upside down by the pandemic. I have taken the recommendations seriously in my personal efforts to slow the spread of a deadly disease. I have canceled travel plans and avoided gatherings. My hands are chafed from washing and I wear a mask in public, without any embarrassment I might add. My list of home improvement projects has dwindled dramatically. Binge watching has become a new pastime. Drive-through restaurants are now fine dining establishments. Video conferencing with family and friends has replaced social gatherings. I’m alive and well, but I would hardly call this a life worth living.
When will we sit at a restaurant table with family and friends to celebrate a birthday, a wedding, or the birth of a child? When will we gather to watch a concert, a sports event, or a graduation? When will we gather to worship, to learn, or to simply have fun? When will we travel to see wonders of the world and connect with the people and places that help us feel connected to fellow travelers? When will we play at the crowded beach, the crowded park, or the crowded gym? When will we embrace our friends, our families, and our elderly?
When will we hustle to the office, the store, or the shop to accomplish the work that puts food on the table? When can we launch a new venture, large or small, that will fill the need in the marketplace and increase our personal wealth? When can we learn a new trade or skill that is in demand and increase our earning capacity? When will we restore the supply chain, the hospitality industry, and the travel industry? When can we invest in the market and expect a return for the future?
When will we take risks again? When will we live again?
No doubt, this disease is deadly, but if we allow this disease to bring our lives to a complete halt, then are we really living? Life is inherently risky. Part of living, truly living, is taking measured risks—driving a car, playing a sport, starting a relationship, taking a trip, flying a plane, getting married, having a child, or building anything. Any cure that causes us to stop taking risks has the potential to be more lethal than the disease itself. If we huddle in our homes in fear, we have stopped living already. Apparently, the suburban housewife from Meridian, Idaho, was willing to risk exposure to a disease (along with her children) and potential legal action to start living again.
The most dangerous argument out there right now is that we only have two choices—lockdown our society (and economy) or expose everyone to a deadly disease. We have boiled down a complex, multifaceted issue into a binary decision. The social media mobs on one side try to shame anyone less averse to the risks posed by the disease, or on the other hand activists try to shout down anyone who advocates for restricting gatherings or social interaction. Advocacy groups for each of the two camps are cranking out the memes. When Sara Brady was arrested she told someone to call the Idaho Freedom Foundation, an organization dedicated to promoting libertarian values and less restrictive government. Her arrest also sparked a fake news articles stating that she tested positive for the virus. Both sides dug ideological trenches and lobbed philosophical mortars. She was discounted as an anti-vaccination shill and lauded as a freedom fighter, depending on who you listened to.
This is not a binary choice. We have multiple options and just because we choose one course of action does not mean we are unable to adjust or change our course. We can certainly find a way to protect the public, ensure the rights of the individual, and minimize the risks. For us to live again we must stop thinking of this crisis as a binary choice. We can find alternative solutions that balance the risks and benefits.
Professionally, I am a risk manager. I’m charged in taking a machine into the sky several miles above the earth filled with passengers and bring them safely to the ground again. The risks involved are enormous, but I manage to do it several times a day without incident, because I have been trained to manage the risks. The FAA outlines four basic principles to risk management: 1) Accept no unnecessary risk. 2) Make risk decisions at the appropriate level. 3) Accept risk when benefits outweigh dangers (costs). 4) Integrate risk management into planning at all levels. (Pilot’s Handbook of Aeronautical Knowledge, page 2-4) Perhaps we can apply these same principles to coping with this pandemic.
Accept no unnecessary risk. The other day I went for a run through a park and noticed a young couple making out on the hood of parked car. Clearly, they were not practicing social distancing. In the same park, groups of people gathered to exercise and share the same fitness equipment. I kept my distance and kept running. I’m sure you have seen similar examples of people ignoring the call for social distancing simply to satisfy a personal desire instead of a need. Sara Brady could have chosen to let her children play in the open area of the park and avoided the risk of exposure, and arrest. She could have avoided unnecessary risk. On the other hand, a distant family member working in the medical profession has been exposed twice to the disease because the risk was necessary for him to do his job. Sometimes risk is necessary. Each individual will define what is “necessary” risk differently, but avoiding unnecessary risk implies that some risk is actually necessary. For us to live again, we must learn to avoid unnecessary risk while taking necessary risk.
Make risk decisions at the appropriate level. This is where governmental agencies operate. We look to our government to help us determine which risks are unnecessary. Governments impose speed limits, construction codes, banking regulations, and a variety of other federal, state, and local laws determining the level of risk we are willing to take as a society. If I’m out riding my motorcycle, I can choose how fast I want to go, but if I break the speed limit, I know I’m taking on more risk, including the risk of a speeding ticket. The risk decision is ultimately left up to the individual. Similarly, governments have the power to order us to shelter in place or avoid gatherings to stop the spread of the disease based on the perceived risk. Based on my first amendment rights, I have the right to peaceably assemble and expose myself to risk of the disease, even if good reason keeps me from taking that risk at the moment.
Sara Brady felt otherwise. She, and those she supports, were protesting the overreach of government interference in their ability to manage risk at the individual level. The laws allowing for quarantine and lockdown are in direct conflict with some of our basic rights. If we abdicate our rights at the first sign of crisis, we really don’t have any rights. It is a balancing act between what is best for the group and the rights of the individual. However, we must push the risk decision to the lowest possible level. For us to live again, we will have to restore the rights, and risk decisions, to the individual.
Accept risk when benefits outweigh dangers (costs). Thousands die each year in car accidents, but that doesn’t keep us from getting in our cars and driving to work or the supermarket. We accept the risk because the benefits outweigh the dangers. Likewise, we make risk decisions based on costs, like choosing not to break the speed limit because of the high cost of a speeding ticket. Sara Brady accepted the risk of exposure and arrest because she felt the benefits outweighed the dangers (costs).
The cost of shutting down our entire economy will be staggering. Unemployment estimates look to be worse than during the Great Depression. Since the begin of the pandemic our unemployment rate has gone from 4% to over 20% with 33 million people out of work. Every one percent increase in unemployment will cause a 3.3% increase in drug overdose deaths and a .99% increase in suicides.  “If unemployment hits 32 percent, some 77,000 Americans are likely to die from suicide and drug overdoses as a result of layoffs. Deaths of despair.” (https://nypost.com/2020/04/14/we-must-count-the-deaths-from-shutdowns-as-well-as-from-coronavirus/) How do we plan on flattening that curve?
The dangers of this disease are real and the measures taken reduce the risk of exposure, but we are foolish to think our current course of action is risk free. We have chosen a path based on the perceived dangers and costs of the moment, but we have not properly assessed the other risks associated with our choice. At some point, the benefits of continuing this course of isolation and economic shutdown will not outweigh benefits. The price will simply be too high. For us to live again, we will have to accept the fact that the benefits of opening up the economy outweigh the dangers and costs of exposure to the disease.
Integrate risk management into planning at all levels. In other words, mitigate risk at all levels through proper planning. When we have to accept risks, we can mitigate those risks by planning and preparing to deal with them. I can plan to mitigate risk at a personal level by wearing a mask, keeping my distance, and washing my hands frequently. Businesses can mitigate risk through extra cleanliness, providing space for distancing, and allowing employees to work from home when able. Hospitals can mitigate risk by stockpiling personal protective equipment, ventilators, and medication. Governments at every level can mitigate risk by educating its citizens, providing resources to combat the disease, and preparing infrastructure for the next pandemic. The mayor of Meridian, Idaho, felt strongly that he was mitigating risk for his citizens by shutting down the playground. (According to current information, the virus can live for several days on plastic.) If we want to live again, at some point we will have to accept the risk, but we can prepare to manage the risk at the individual and societal level.
Instead of a binary choice, we have multiple options to start living again. We can find a way to safely interact without spreading the disease. We can protect those at most risk while allowing others to get back to work. We can continue to practice cleanliness and hygiene without cocooning ourselves in some underground bunker waiting for the end of days. We can risk interaction with one another using caution and measures of protection. This need not be a choice between two evils—complete isolation or the complete chaos of a pandemic. We need not arrest mothers at playgrounds.
When will we live again? As humans, managing risk is in our DNA. Risk is an inherent part of life. Managing those risks is the cost of doing business and actually living. I’m a risk taker, but so are you. I believe that if we follow a few sound principles for managing risk, we can find a way to manage the impact of this disease and continue living, because the alternative is not a life worth living.
I for one am ready to start living again.

O Little Town of Bethlehem

“O little town of Bethlehem, how still we see thee lie.”
I love that Christmas hymn! In my mind’s eye I can envision some small desert village with smoke rising from the chimneys of modest homes into a starlit night while shepherds tend to flocks nearby. I can imagine the newborn baby Jesus wrapped in swaddling clothes and lying in a manger while the villagers smiled on. I must admit that my recent trip to the Middle East almost ruined the hymn for me. Bethlehem was nothing like I imagined. Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem (You may notice the red and yellow flags from the tour company.)
As our tour bus entered the outskirts of Bethlehem, we were greeted by a large red sign with a message in Arabic, Hebrew, and English. It read, “The entrance for Israeli citizens is forbidden, dangerous to your lives and against Israeli law.” That was not exactly the welcome I was expecting. Our bus navigated the crowded streets dodging cars, pedestrians, and other tour busses. It was not the quaint, bucolic village I expected. Like most of the area around Jerusalem, it was hilly and roads wound up and down the hillsides lined with homes, apartment buildings, and the occasional inn or hotel. Eventually we arrived at a large parking structure for busses where a man in a paramilitary uniform directed traffic. Somehow, with shouts and hand signals, our driver managed to jam our bus into the underground building with more than twenty other busses. We followed our guide with his yellow flag brandishing the tour company name – “Fun For Less” – through the chaotic parking structure with the smell of diesel fuel in our noses. Even before we left the parking lot, we were attacked by vendors selling everything from women’s scarves to ornate, olive-wood carvings. We climbed the stairs and walked up the street to tour of the Church of the Nativity, the oldest Christian structure, built over the grotto or cave where Jesus Christ was reportedly born. The noisy street was crowded with shuffling crowds of tourists, aggressive vendors, and annoyed local residents hurrying about their business. It was nothing like I had imagined, and the phrase “How still we see thee lie” did not come to mind.
Britt entering through the Door of Humility We entered the Church of the Nativity by stooping through a very low door appropriately named, “The Door of Humility,” which opened up into the main hall adorned with 44 columns. Although built for Christians by the mother of Emperor Constantine, the site today is divided and administered in parts by the Roman Catholic, Greek Orthodox, and Armenian Apostolic churches and is a divided structure. We passed from one area to the other and eventually down into the grotto. The dark cave would have provided shelter to the weary traveling family unable to secure more comfortable accommodations. I imagine it would have been a source of peace and comfort to Mary and Joseph in difficult circumstances. Since that historic night, the site has experienced its share of turmoil – ransacking armies, terrorists holed up seeking sanctuary, and even brawls between monks of different Christian sects. I was reminded of the “dark street” mentioned in the hymn intended to represent our current human condition. “Yet in the dark street shineth the Everlasting Light.” Inside the Grotto
After touring the Basilica and the grotto, our group moved to an alcove in the courtyard. As we listened to a lecture from the educator Michael Wilcox, the loudspeakers from the local mosques sounded the afternoon call to prayer – “Allahu akbar!” – and were reminded of the religious and political tensions of the region. Then, while Christian tourists, priests, and monks ambled by, we began to sing Christmas hymns. We were not professional singers, but the acoustics of the alcove carried our voices. A crowd soon gathered around us. During the singing I looked into the faces of our group and saw the devotion in their eyes. These were good people trying to follow the teachings of Jesus Christ in their lives. The Spirit testified to me, “Where meek souls will receive him, still the dear Christ enters in.” A passing monk
After my experience in modern Bethlehem, I imagine ancient Bethlehem differently than I did before. Like today, the ancient city was full of political strife. After all, Joseph and Mary only traveled to Bethlehem because of the decree of an occupying ruler. Like today, it was full of the hustle and bustle of a busy town with street vendors, shopkeepers, and travelers. I imagine it was a noisy, smelly place with its share of discontent and contention. Life, with all of its imperfections and irreverence, filled the ancient town of Bethlehem. Yet, in the midst of all of the commotion and banality, a miraculous child was born. My guess is that many in the town of Bethlehem didn’t even notice the birth because they were so caught up in living their lives. They were so busy building, selling, cleaning, eating, sleeping, and just existing that they had no clue that their best and only hope had just been born in a small cave in their town.
Are we like the ancient inhabitants of Bethlehem? Are we so busy studying, texting, entertaining, eating, sleeping, cleaning, playing that we miss our best and only hope? Life, with all of its activities and demands, can sometimes distract us from the miracles right in front of us. Are we so busy with the demands and distractions of this life that we miss the gift of eternal life that Christ brings us. “How silently! How silently! The wondrous gift is giv’n.”
Bethlehem may be nothing like I imagined. It may not be the scene of peace and tranquility I envisioned. However, in the midst of it all, Christ was born. Bethlehem may not be at peace, but I testify that the Gospel of Jesus Christ can bring us everlasting peace. I testify that He is the wondrous gift given to us today to bring and hope to our lives.
Take a moment this Christmas season to stop and unwrap the wondrous gift of Christ.
The "site" inside the Grotto

The Winding Road

The celebrity on the front cover of the inflight magazine was laughing and the title’s headline suggested that she was “in a good place.” I stared at the cover and sighed before shoving it back into the seatback pocket in front of me. I couldn’t say the same at the moment, but I was on my way to a good place in hopes of lifting my mood.
As I get older, my sense of wonder seems to wane. It isn’t like I stopped caring about what’s happening in the world, but I just don’t see the value of keeping up with it all. That same attitude begins to bleed over into all the areas of my life until I’m no longer fascinated with a sunrise, or moved by a sunset. My whole attitude slowly evolves into one of “been there done that” and I lose interest in the things that once brought me joy, not because I no longer enjoy them, but because I have lost my sense of wonder. The intrinsic value of the event itself hasn’t changed. I just don’t get as excited about it as I used to.
This happens for several reasons. Perhaps I have been disappointed too many times before and no longer expect the world to produce anything that might surprise me. Maybe I’ve done so many exciting things and they no longer feel exciting. Life’s challenges may have numbed me into a state of existence in which I no longer live, but simply exist as I stumble from one crisis to another. The result is the same—I just don’t feel like putting forth the effort to get excited.
Yes, the celebrity may have been in a good place, but at the moment, I wasn’t. My mood tasted like old yogurt, bitter and slightly sour. I wanted to be in a good place also, but instead I felt like I wasn’t any place at all. I felt like I was traveling a dark, unfamiliar road wondering where it would lead in spite of the help of a trusted navigator and pleasant traveling companions. My thoughts and emotions were unsettled by a heavy dose of stress at work, regrets over parental failures, and debilitating self-doubt.
My flight was taking me to Atlanta, where I would rent a BMW K1600 motorcycle and tour the Smoky Mountains and the surrounding states with several family members—a two-wheeled family reunion. I was hoping the trip would help improve my mood.
I awoke before my hotel alarm the next morning. Maybe I was more excited than I realized. When the attendant at the motorcycle shop rolled out the rented BMW K1600 motorcycle and gave me a short orientation, I was nervous. It was bigger than my bike and I was worried about how it would handle on the highway. I shoved all my clothes and gear into the saddlebags, slipped on my helmet, and started north to the rendezvous point.
In spite of being three hundred pounds heavier than my motorcycle, the K1600 handled like a smaller machine. The six-cylinders purred like a jet engine and provided smooth acceleration and ample power at any speed. The adjustable windshield and upright riding position also made it as comfortable as a rocking chair on the front porch. My troubles seemed fewer and fewer with each mile I rode, but I knew there would be some unexpected twists and turns ahead.
We all converged on Fall Creek Falls State Park, Tennessee, and met near a large waterfall. A family favorite for many years, the secluded park is full of wooded hikes and beautiful waterfalls. It certainly qualifies as a “good place.” We took a break and jumped into the cool water before riding on to Athens, Tennessee for the night. We all had a connection to this place, but life had taken us down different roads and across different thresholds. We came together to ride, even though our life’s journey had taken us along different roads.
The next morning, we got an early start on the Cherohala Skyway heading southeast to Robbinsville, NC. For forty-three miles we wound our way along the ridgeline in and out of the low-lying clouds. Built in 1996, this stretch of highway serves only one purpose—scenic driving. It isn’t the straight interstate highway with multiple lanes of traffic carrying the commerce of a nation. It isn’t a mountain road connecting a hidden valley to the outside world. Instead, it takes you to the top of the mountain and gives you a sweeping view of the world around you as you enjoy the motion of every twist and turn. The road invigorated me and I felt a spark of wonder.
We stopped at a graveyard in Robbinsville. My brother-in-law was riding and old green BMW motorcycle that once belonged to a friend now resting in the cemetery, a victim of a violent crime several years ago. His life took an expected twist, that by not fault of his own, cost him his life. I was reminded that life’s difficult journey could end unexpectedly. We paid our respects to a young man whose life ended too soon, but whose memory lived on.
Out of Robbinsville, we headed northwest on highway 129 towards Deals Gap and the Tail of the Dragon. The famous stretch of road with 318 turns in eleven miles calls to riders like a siren from a dangerous coastline. The Tree of Shame (a collection of motorcycle parts left over from various crashes) located at the beginning of the ride reminded of the real dangers found on this section of the road. I elected to ride ahead of the group and face the Dragon alone.
The comfort of the straight and easy road gave way to constant hairpin turns and switchbacks. I eased into the pace of the unforgiving road and then slowly picked up speed trying to challenge my abilities without scaring myself. The large machine purred along accelerating and decelerating at my command and I settled into a rhythm with the road. A few times I pushed harder than I should have and found myself at the edge of my capabilities. I passed a couple of bikers with less ability, and I was passed by a biker with more ability. My sense of wonder may have waned, but that stretch of road demanded my attention. If was unwilling or unable to give it the attention it deserved, my sense of wonder would have met me head on as I recklessly rounded a corner and either ended up in a ditch or on the grill of oncoming traffic. Towards the end of the stretch I began to throttle back and relax, but then I rounded a corner and slammed on the brakes for a flock of wild turkeys in the middle of the road. Sometimes, life demands all that we have. Maybe it needs to wake us up to its challenge and beauty.
We met up at the end of the Tail of the Dragon and continued our ride together cruising the back roads of the countryside along small creeks and through less-travelled hollers and passes. We paid homage to my parents by spending the night in their hometown of Burkesville, Ky. Most of the trip I lived off of fried food and soft-serve ice cream, but that night we rode the bikes through the cool evening air to our cousin’s house for the best meal of the week. Joe David and Linda put out a spread in their country home that would make a five-star restaurant jealous. After dinner, we watched for deer in the road as we eased our bikes back to the Alpine Lodge above Burkesville.
We got a late start the next morning and headed south before turning east on Judio Road. After dodging a deer, we eased our bikes onto the ferry at Turkey Neck Bend and crossed the Cumberland river. We continued east along Highway 100 passing through the small country towns with their county courthouses, multiple churches, and Dollar General stores dotting the landscape. I remembered traveling the road many times as a child, but now I felt like a stranger. Riding a rented motorcycle with my hi-vis yellow jacket, I looked like a strange tourist in the land of my childhood. After so many years away, my sense of identity with the location had a waned and I no longer felt worthy to call myself a Kentuckian. But what place did I identify with? What “good place” would I call mine if not my childhood home? My feelings were punctuated when we passed my parents farm. With their passing, the farm was sold and now strangers live there. I twisted the throttle as I rode by trying to ignore the piece of land that I once called home.
That evening, I took a solo ride through Simpson County, the county of my childhood. The country road was dark and I rode the rented motorcycle more like a little old lady on her way to church than a man out gallivanting around the countryside of his childhood. I wasn’t in any hurry. Maybe because the night air was cool and comfortable after the hot and sticky day I had experienced, or maybe because I wasn’t excited about where I was going. Either way, I putted along on a machine designed to go twice the speed I was traveling. In the dark I could see my destination, but it looked nothing like I remembered. I pulled off the road onto an old semi-circle driveway with grass growing up through the crumbling asphalt. Once there was a large brick building on the spot—my elementary school. It proudly stood on a small rise along the country road, the flag fluttering atop the large pole in front. Now it was simply a farmer’s field full of soybeans. The playgrounds and ballfields behind the school had been plowed up as well. The only vestige of the vibrant structure was the crumbling section of the driveway I parked on. For a moment I remembered the wonder I felt my first day of school. I slipped the bike into gear and rode away.
We had one last destination together before we split up and returned back to our separate lives. In Marion, Ky, our Granny was about to turn 96 years old, and we vowed to pay her a visit together. She greeted us with strained voice and vibrant smile, happy for our visit. She still manages to live by herself, with a little help. After a short visit and an unsuccessful attempt to get her to ride to the restaurant on the back of one of the motorcycles, we piled into her old car and drove to lunch for some of the best fried catfish and hush puppies in the entire state. She smiled and enjoyed the familiar setting content to be seen out and about with some of her grandsons, grandsons-in-law, and a one great grandson. I wondered if she still enjoyed the twists and turns of life or if the simple act of going to lunch at a nearby diner was enough to excite her about living. We left her sitting in her easy chair with a smile on her face.
My older brother started for home as the rest of us motored south to the Land Between the Lakes. The trip was drawing to an end and we had chosen the bucolic highway through the park as our final stretch together. After four days of twists and turns the meandering stable highway felt peaceful, and boring. The tree-lined highway felt like a Sunday afternoon drive with your grandparents. It didn’t challenge us. It didn’t push us. It barely kept our interest. As gorgeous as it was, the road failed to capture or spark my sense of wonder.
After we traversed the park, riders began to peel off and go their separate ways. I soon found myself alone on the busy highway wishing the ride together could continue. The next morning, I chased the sunrise on my way back to Atlanta feeling melancholy about ending the trip. After I returned the rented motorcycle and boarded a flight for home, the same inflight magazine with the laughing celebrity greeted me.
Maybe I didn’t start the trip in a good place. I really couldn’t say that I finished the trip in a good place either. The stress of work, family, and self-doubt still loomed over me. However, I was reminded that the journey, along with its twists and turns, is more valuable than the place. The road of life is full of surprises. Sometimes the challenging road can scare us a bit. We may not be ready for the turn and might find ourselves at the edge of our abilities hoping we don’t end up in the ditch, or on the grill of some oncoming vehicle. But the twists and turns of life can elevate us more than the long straight stretches of highway. The straightaways have their place, but to a motorcycle rider the long straight stretch can lull us into complacency. Life would also be boring without the twists and turns.
Life is a journey, not a destination. Maybe life is meant to be a ride not a place. I accepted the fact that I wasn’t in a good place, but I realized that I was on a good journey full of challenge and purpose. I wasn't on the long straight highway of complacency and ease.
I smiled at the winding road ahead.

The Constant Tug of War Between the Human and the Machine

The other morning, I was driving to the airport and realized that I had forgotten my cell phone. I panicked. How would I stay in touch with my wife for the next four days? How would I be able to keep track of my schedule? How would I board the plane without my digital boarding pass? What important events would I miss on social media? How would I manage my hotel reservation? I was in the middle of rush hour traffic and knew that if I turned around and went back home to get my phone I might not make my flight. I turned around anyway.
Since the first primitive human picked up a rock and fashioned it into a tool to change his or her environment, we humans have set ourselves apart from other species by developing and using tools to advance our way of life. Nowhere has the use of complex tools shaped our lives more than in transportation and communication. We have developed increasingly complex tools that both improve and dictate our daily lives. Clearly these innovations have made our lives easier, connected us more with each other, and made the world a smaller place.
We live in an increasingly automated world. Digital assistants, self-driving cars, cleaning robots, package-delivering drones, and AI customer service agents are just a few of the automated features in our modern society. We interface with some form of semi-automated or intelligent machine almost from the time we wake up in our smart houses until the time we set our alarms on our smart phones before going to bed. We are never far from a host of other wireless devices designed to make our life easier, better, and more connected. But have the tools themselves transitioned from servant to master? What happens when these intelligent machines become smarter than we are?
The recent deadly accidents involving two Boeing 737 MAX8 airplanes highlights again that the epic tug of war between the human and the machine continues. At one end of the rope is the creative, adaptable, and intelligent human. At the other end is the increasingly cognitive and almost sentient machine. It is a battle that will continue as long as humans employ complex machines to do their bidding. The full investigation of these two accidents will yield pertinent information about the design, training, and employment of the aircraft, but already we can glean several important lessons from the accidents that can be applied anywhere we employ intelligent machines to improve human life.
Before I continue, let me state categorically that I love the Boeing 737! It has been the most successful airliner in the history of aviation. I have operated it safely for well over 12,000 hours across this great continent and to Hawaii and back. I have flown it into low visibility weather, short runways, and heavy rains. I have flown old versions ready for the boneyard and new ones fresh from the factory floor. I have also deadheaded (a passenger in the back being transported to my next assignment) or jumpseated (on the fold-out seat in the cockpit) for thousands of hours as well. I have flown multiple versions—the 200, 300, 500, 700, 800, and yes, the MAX8. The Boeing 737 has always brought me safely home.
Not only has the Boeing 737 always brought me safely home, it has been the workhorse that has afforded me a comfortable lifestyle as a professional pilot. It has put food on my table, put diapers on my young children, and put my young adults through college. It has allowed me to take my family on good vacations, drive nice cars, and pay for braces for all my children. The Boeing 737 has been the economic engine that put a nice roof over my head and funded my 401K. That machine has afforded me a lifestyle that otherwise may not have been possible. This discussion is not intended to cast stones but to highlight lessons we can all use as we develop and employ the intelligent machines in our lives.
In our modern world, we shouldn’t be thinking in terms of which is better—human or machine. Instead we should be asking, “How can we develop machines that humans can employ to advance our way of life?” It should not be a question of human or machine but more a question of human andmachine. Then our focus productively moves from the question of why should we employ these machines, to the question of how should we employ them. How do we interface with smart machines in a way that retains our humanity and advances our way of life?
The world of aviation has struggled with this question for many years, particularly as the automation tools in the flight deck have become ubiquitous and dominant. The proper employment of automation has helped make aviation the safest form of travel on the planet, statistically speaking. Pilots have learned to use automation as a tool, without allowing it to become the master. In the process of improving and employing automation in commercial aviation, pilots developed automation philosophies, policies, and procedures that ensure the proper employment of, and interface with, the aircraft automation. These rules have not been developed in a vacuum or in some ivy-covered tower of academia, but in the real world where the cost of the lesson is paid in the blood of pilots and their passengers along with the capital of crumpled aluminum and broken glass.
Essentially, three basic principles provide a framework for managing the tug of war between the human and the machine.
·      The human should possess the same basic skills performed by the machine.·      The human and the machine should be able to interface easily.·      The human should always have the power (and knowledge) to override the machine.
The human should possess the same basic skills performed by the machine.
Smart machines are wonderful tools that accomplish complex, repetitive, or mundane, tasks efficiently. They unburden the human from complex tasks such as in-depth mathematical equations. They reduce the workload of repetitive tasks such as routing incoming phone calls to the right department. They liberate us from mundane tasks like washing dirty dishes. However, what happens when the machine malfunctions?
Because of the more powerful, and more efficient engines on the Boeing MAX8, an adjustment had to be made to the flight controls to inhibit the aircraft from entering a stall (a condition where the wings are no longer producing lift and the aircraft begins to fall out of the sky) in certain unusual situations. Designers of the new airplane relied on intelligent technology operating in the background (without the knowledge of the pilot) to keep the aircraft safely within the flight envelope. The engineers and designers called it Maneuver Characteristics Augmentation System (MCAS). If the thrust of the new, powerful engines forced the nose of the aircraft past a predetermined angle, the MCAS adjusted the pitch by moving the large horizontal stabilizer and pushing the nose of the aircraft downward to prevent a stall. In and of itself, this design feature is robust and almost transparent to the pilot, until something goes wrong.
Computers, no matter how intelligent, are only as good as the sensory information they can gather. Garbage in. Garbage out. In the case of both the Lion Air and the Ethiopian Air accidents, it appears that the angle of attack sensor (the sensor that warns of an approaching stall) was giving the flight computer erroneous information. With no other sources of information to crosscheck, the computer activated the MCAS and began forcing the nose downward to prevent a stall that was not occurring. Additionally, other false warnings sounded and displayed in the cockpit. The pilots became disoriented and did not analyze the problem correctly or apply the designated corrective action. Like the computer, the sensory information they were receiving did not correlate with their knowledge and they were unable to save the airplane. Garbage in. Garbage out. Tragically, everyone onboard the aircraft paid for the breakdown of both machine and human with their lives.
When the machine malfunctioned, the human in the equation did not apply the basic skills to continue safe operation of the machine. Why they were unable to do so is not clear yet. The training and ability of the pilots will come under scrutiny, as it always does in an accident. Likewise, the distractions caused by the malfunction and the design features of the pilot interface with the aircraft will be analyzed. Changes in the aircraft design will not be enough to ensure safety. After the investigation, professional pilots will study the report. Every pilot of the Boeing 737 MAX8 will receive training to handle the malfunction if it occurs again. They understand that their lives, and the lives of their passengers, depend on the basic skills of the human operator.
What happens when we no longer know how to do simple mathematical equations, drive a car, or fly an airplane? If we rely entirely on the increasingly capable and intelligent machines to perform complex and dangerous tasks, we may find that the human ability to perform those same tasks will atrophy and perhaps disappear entirely. We must ensure that the human in the equation possesses the basic skills to perform the tasks performed by the machine, or when the machines fail, we will not be able to survive.
The human and the machine should be able to interface easily.
When the automation does something unexpected, pilots will often jokingly say, “What’s it doing to me now?” It’s an indication that the pilots either lack knowledge, or the system does not allow for proper interface, or both. Either way, the result is technology in charge of the process, and pilots that have become passengers.
When the ill-fated Lion Air 610 took off, the stick shaker (a small vibrating motor attached to the base of the pilot’s yoke) immediately activated on the captain’s side. The annoying motor is a warning to the pilot that the aircraft is dangerously close to stalling and that a recovery is needed. In addition, the pilot’s screens indicated “IAS DISAGREE” a warning that the right and left side airspeed indicators (indicators that let the pilot know how fast the airplane is flying through the air) did not agree. Most likely, the captain’s instruments also displayed other unusual and erroneous information. The noise of the stick shaker and the unusual display information are powerful distractors, but professional pilots train for these situations and should be able to follow emergency procedures and safely land the aircraft. But what if you add one more thing?
In the case of the Lion Air accident, the one extra thing was the moving horizontal stabilizer trim. The horizontal stabilizer on the tail of the aircraft is controlled by an electric motor that can be operated manually by the pilot or automatically by the autopilot. The stabilizer is a larger aerodynamic control surface than the elevator controlled by the pilot’s yoke. Because it is a larger control surface, the horizontal stabilizer can override the elevator. In other words, if the nose of the aircraft is pushed down by the horizontal stabilizer, the pilot can pull back on the yoke as hard as he wants and the aircraft will still enter into a dive. This is what happened when the MCAS, being driven by erroneous information from a bad sensor, pushed the aircraft into a dive using the horizontal stabilizer. The pilots had the power to turn it off (and should have), but because of poor interface and the distractions caused by the malfunction, they did not. (Note: A jumpseating pilot on the same airplane the day before recognized the malfunction and instructed the crew on how to alleviate the problem. This is most likely because of the vantage point he or she had when the malfunction occurred.) (https://reports.aviation-safety.net/2018/20181029-0_B38M_PK-LQP_PRELIMINARY.pdf)
The more that automated systems confuse or distract the human, the more dangerous and ineffective those systems become. Ease of interface with the machine is essential.
The human should always have the power (and knowledge) to override the machine.
There’s an old joke among pilots. The flight deck of the future will have one pilot and a dog. The pilot will be there to monitor the aircraft automation and ensure that it performs correctly. The dog will be there to bite the pilot if he tries to turn off the automation and actually fly the airplane. Humorous as this sounds, the human should always have the power, and knowledge, to override the machine.
Somewhere during the certification process of the Boeing MAX8 the engineers had to decide how much information to tell the pilots that would be flying the airplane. Too much information and the FAA might require lengthy and unnecessary training. Not enough information and the pilots would not understand what the aircraft was doing when an automated system took control. It is reported that Boeing “…decided against disclosing more details to cockpit crews due to concerns about inundating average pilots with too much information—and significantly more technical data—than they needed or could digest.” (https://theaircurrent.com/aviation-safety/what-is-the-boeing-737-max-maneuvering-characteristics-augmentation-system-mcas-jt610/) It was assumed that a malfunctioning MCAS would appear like the similar malfunction of a runaway horizontal stabilizer in which all pilots are trained. They walked a dangerous tightrope between education and information overload.
In Boeing’s defense, the decision to keep updating the B-737 and not redesigning it entirely provided pilots with experience in previous models a knowledge and experiential base from which to learn the new iterations. Although this philosophy comes with the inherent danger of not explaining significant changes to newer generations of the aircraft, it is countered by the improved safety of familiarity. In other words, familiarity of pilots with past versions of the aircraft increases the chances of safe operation of future versions of the aircraft, as long as differences are properly explained and trained.
According to the accident report, the pilots of Lion Air 610 counteracted the MCAS over twenty times before it caused the aircraft to crash. (https://spectrum.ieee.org/riskfactor/aerospace/aviation/indonesias-safety-committee-releases-preliminary-report-into-lion-air-crash) Each time the MCAS forced the nose of the aircraft downward by using the horizontal stabilizer trim motor. Each time, either the captain or the first officer used the manual switch on the yoke to override it. Boeing procedures dictate that when the stabilizer runs away, that the motors controlling it should be turned off using two small switches on the throttle quadrant. In effect the pilots revert to manually controlling the large horizontal control surface and don’t allow the automated system to make any further inputs. Because these switches are critical during a malfunction and runaway of the horizontal stabilizer, this cutout feature gets tested during every initial preflight check.
It appears that the pilots were overwhelmed by the other distracting events in the cockpit and did not recognize that the stabilizer was moving without their input. As the flight progressed, for some reason they stopped countering the automated response of the MCAS with the manual switch on the yoke and the aircraft became uncontrollable. They had the power to override the automation, but perhaps because of insufficient training, confusion, and distraction caused by other warnings, it appears they didn’t.
Automated systems should never have ultimate control of the machines we operate. Humans should always have the power, and knowledge, to override the machine.
In spite of these recent high-profile accidents and the tragic loss of life, air travel is by far the safest form of transportation. According to Ian Savage, a professor at Northwestern University, between 2000 and 2009 air travel accounted for 0.07 deaths per billion miles of travel. Cars accounted for 7.28 deaths per billion miles. (http://www.cityam.com/215834/one-chart-showing-safest-ways-travel) You are one hundred times more likely to be part of an accident driving to and from the airport than you are while flying on your flight. This safety record didn’t happen by accident. It is the combined effort of aircraft manufacturers, government regulators, airlines, and the pilots that fly the airplanes. We will take lessons from these tragedies as well to ensure that they don’t happen again.
Advances in automation have helped make aviation the safest form of travel today. It is the combination of human and machine working together in harmony that allows for that safety. The tug of war between man and intelligent machine will continue, but in the end if we don’t follow some of the basic principles learned through these tragic accidents, we will lose that tug of war and humans will pay for it with more loss of life. Even worse, we may lose our own human autonomy to intelligent machines.
The most optimum way to move forward in this age of increasing technology is a combination of human and machine where the machine serves the human, not the opposite. We must be able to employ increasingly complex and capable tools without fear that they will one day become our masters. Like the first human that fashioned a rock into a tool, we must maintain basic skills, learn to properly interface with tools, and when necessary, abandon the tool that no longer serves our best interest.
I hurried home that morning and got my cell phone because it has become an integral tool in my everyday life. I only made my flight because I employed another new technology. I drove my Tesla in the HOV lane. The combination of human intellect and intelligent machine saved the day.

Sometimes

I am an angry man.
That may surprise a few of you who think you know me, and it may likewise seem out of synch with the smiling picture you see of me on social media and on my website. The statement, no matter how out of character or out of place it seems, is indeed true. I am an angry man, sometimes.
This past week I listened to the celebration of life for Herb Kelleher, one of the founders for Southwest Airlines. He was loved by many; admired by many; hailed by many as one of the most successful businessmen of our day. He helped start the most profitable, and successful, US airline in aviation history. He was remembered for his wit, his laugh, his tenacity, his courage, and his larger-than-life personality. However, as his close friends discussed the great man, they also talked about his faults and weaknesses. He forgot and lost things regularly. He was unorganized. He probably drank a little too much Wild Turkey. In spite of his weaknesses, he was by many standards wildly successful. He made a difference in the lives of thousands, even millions, of people because of what he accomplished.
Every man (and woman) has faults and weaknesses, but they are only threads woven into the tapestry of character that we weave throughout our lives.
Like most of you, I followed the confrontation between high school students in MAGA hats and the drum-beating Native American protestor in Washington DC. The incident itself made me cringe on multiple levels. I was grateful it didn’t turn into a physical confrontation. I was disappointed at the rush to judgement and the hateful things said of the participants. Almost immediately I saw hateful memes and heated arguments full of name-calling and vitriol blanketing social media. Somehow, without ever being there, we all became experts in human behavior and omniscient diviners of the human heart. We rushed to judgement and became social-media mobs with hashtags, likes, and tweets, instead of pitchforks, torches, and buckets of tar.
Every enemy we face is a fellow human being, until we vilify them and contort them into a monster through our own interpretation of their intent, character, and soul. In his book, The Gulag Archipelago, Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn said, “If only there were evil people somewhere insidiously committing evil deeds, and it were necessary only to separate them from the rest of us and destroy them. But the line dividing good and evil cuts through the heart of every human being. And who is willing to destroy a piece of his own heart?”
Everyone you meet is a mixed bag of good and evil, of virtue and vice, and of heroism and villainy. The same thing is true of the person you see in the mirror. Do you offer the same gentle judgement and the same merciful hand to both? Evil does exist in the world and should be contained, but perhaps we need to start by trying to root out the evil in our own heart first.
I am an angry man, sometimes. But I am also a kind man, sometimes. When I am weighed in the balance, which side will tip the scale? Will I be remembered for my faults, or for my strengths? Will I be judged by my successes, or by my failures? Truthfully, I hope that I am remembered for all the good, and evil, that sprang from my heart. Hopefully, people will judge the entire tapestry I have woven with the acts of my life and not pull only at the dark threads.

The House Is Quiet Now

The house is quiet now.
The decorated Christmas tree shines in the window and the lights on the house cast a red and green glow in the night. A mountain of neatly wrapped gifts awaits. The pantry is stocked with treats and the refrigerator is overflowing with food. The beds are all made with clean linens and the smell of scented candles wafts along the hallway. Everyone will be home for Christmas soon.
The house is noisy now. Everyone arrives with holiday greetings and a warm embrace. The kids chatter on about school and friends. The grandkids squeal with delight at the sight of the miniature train as it circles the tree and blows its whistle. The kitchen is filled with the sounds of tinkling glasses and pots and pans. Animated conversations fill the living room and rise above the sound of background music. Laughter echoes down the hallway. Everyone has arrived for Christmas.
The house is crazy now. The bathrooms are constantly full and hot water is scarce from time to time. Mealtime is an undertaking akin to feeding a starving army marching across Siberia in the wintertime. Siblings fight over the comfortable seats on the couch and jockey for position in front of the television to play video games. Wrapping paper seems to have proliferated through every room in the house. Offices have become spare bedroom space with mattresses on the floor. The doorbell is constantly ringing as deliveries roll in. Everyone is anxious for Christmas.
The house is happy now. Christmas morning has arrived! With a prayer of thanks the festivities begin. Presents are distributed and one by one the ribbons and wrapping paper are discarded. Eyes light up at the sight of cherished gifts. The words, “Thank You” and “You’re welcome” are repeated over and over again. The smell of waffles with buttermilk syrup and bacon invite everyone to the kitchen. Everyone is happy that Christmas morning has finally arrived.
The house is dirty now. Piles of wrapping paper are scattered across the living room. Dirty dishes languish in the sink waiting for their turn in the dishwasher. Discarded socks litter the entryway and shoes clog the hallway like cars in a traffic jam. Crumbs from cookies and homemade bread await the broom. Fingerprints cover the refrigerator door handle. Damp towels carpet the bathroom floor. The washing machine hums along trying to keep up. Everyone wonders how Christmas could make such a mess.
The house is stressful now. Travel arrangements are checked and suitcases are stuffed with gifts. Work emails must be answered and school beckons. Linens are stripped from the beds and piled in the laundry room. The alarm clock is employed once again. Quick farewells are exchanged and tears wiped from cheeks. Vehicles are packed with bodies and suitcases are stuffed into trunks. The car exhaust lingers in the garage like spoiled perfume. Everyone has departed after Christmas.
The house is quiet now.



Matching Christmas Pajamas Yay!

Social Media Makes Us Stupider

The other day I did something dangerous—I gave a political opinion on social media. I didn’t promote a particular political party or specific candidate. I didn’t call anyone names or malign anyone’s heritage. I supported and promoted the rule of law. Period.
It all started when my nephew posted an opinion about a current political policy. His comment was passionate and thoughtful. He believed something should be changed and he expressed what he thought should be changed and why it should be changed. He supported his argument with his morals and was respectful in the process. I read his comments and although I agreed with his passion on the topic, I did not agree entirely with the methodology he promoted to achieve the end. We agreed (in general) on the desired results, but not on the methodology. His comment made me think and I responded with my opinion on the matter.
After posting my comment, I saw that several other friends had commented on the same topic with a variety of positions. I thought, “Maybe I should write down my thoughts in a coherent, logical structure and post them for others to see and we can discuss this important issue rationally.” Wrong.
I have friends from a variety of political views. I’m okay with that. We live in a country that promotes freedom of speech, and I believe in robust debate about important issues. When I peruse social media I am bombarded with memes, news articles, and headlines from both sides of the political aisle and the political slant on the issues. What I don’t see is open, honest, rational discussion on any given topic. I am constantly bombarded with sharp rhetoric packaged in memes and one-line statements intended to alienate and divide. Nobody really wants to have a discussion. They just want to give their opinion and shut down any contrary opinion with name-calling and SHOUTING.
My post garnered responses from several people and was shared by several friends. One commenter asked if it was okay to disagree with me. After a few posts some of the people commenting began to post point and counterpoint. For the most part, the discussion remained civil, but nobody changed their mind about anything. One friend shared my post, and the responses of people who didn’t know me were a lot more mean-spirited. The conversation spiraled downward into slights, innuendo, and labeling. One person stated with great confidence that I would have surely sunk Washington’s boat as he crossed the Delaware river to attack the Hessians.
After a few days, everyone moved one and the conversation waned. Nobody changed their mind. Nobody walked away from the exchange with a new perspective. We were all just as stupid as we were when we started, and maybe stupider.
Why? Social media doesn’t lend itself to an engaging conversation or exchange of ideas. It is the classic case of failing to listen because you are formulating your response instead of trying to understand the other person’s viewpoint. The mechanism limits the fluid exchange of feelings and restricts the back-and-forth conversation that enlightens both parties and helps them arrive at a point of learning and compromise.
People are emboldened by the perceived anonymity that social media provides. It’s much easier to sit in the safety of your living room and smear someone personally than to say it to their face. It takes little courage to fight a Twitter war. It takes little intellect to troll someone and attack their viewpoint with half-truths or name calling. There are no heroes in a battle of memes.
It is impossible to capture difficult abstract thoughts in short bursts of emotion. Complex issues really cannot be boiled down to a few characters on a screen. It is true that aphorisms have the power to inspire and guide, but they won’t solve multifaceted issues with no right or wrong solution. Complex issues require lengthy discussion and often need time to percolate before the solution presents itself. Social media abhors the lengthy, careful argument.
I love my nephew and enjoy exchanging opposing ideas with him, and I wish that social media could create that same space. It should be a space for open, rational discussion that enlightens us and makes us think. But in the end, social media has reduced us to pictures with words, pithy digs, and one-line zingers that malign anyone with a different opinion. Social media just makes us stupider.