Aitch Simpson

When I was a young man, every small town had one or two shoe repair shops, or cobblers as they were known.  Those days are now gone.  My small town in Vermont doesn’t have one, though Chittenden County, along with the City of Burlington, does boast three or four by my count.  As we increasingly become a throw-away society, fewer and fewer repair shops for appliances, shoes and electronics can be found.

Repair shops were often owned by men that were tinkerers, and offered jobs for men that had that talent.  Before the modern era, back into the earliest days of the colonies, blacksmiths filled the position in communities as “fixers of broken things”…   Not only did the blacksmith repair objects that were broken, he created nails, bits  and hinges…  materials that could be used to build homes, harness and agricultural equipment.   Smiths were  valued members of the  community as were the cobblers and repairmen of my youth.

But, alas, times have changed.  I occasionally remark to those around me “the old ways are best,” as much to cement my position as the local conservative curmudgeon contrarian (CCC) as it is to remind them that there are qualities in the American character that we simply cannot afford to lose, qualities that have separated us as a people from other peoples  before and since the revolution that separated us from the Kings of England.

Nowhere were the virtues of  the American people more exquisitely rendered than in Toqueville’s Democracy in America. If  you are interested in what America was, and what I believe America must retain if it is to remain  “That shining city on a Hill”, you must read this book.

According to Toqueville, Americans were doers. He was astonished at the number of community organizations created to fix the problems of the  towns  he visited in his travels across the then nascent states, and all without the aid of government. This  in distinct contrast to France, where government was deemed the best solution to a community’s problems.  This is perhaps, I believe, one of the most telling of his observations.

As government intrudes more and more into our lives, becomes more responsible for the rearing and education of our children, care of the indigent and infirm,  and soon a greater control over the health care that we receive, we give up that control and responsibility for our community to others.   Liberty requires personal responsibility.  And when we give up that responsibility to a government distant or near, we give up our liberty as well, and liberty, my friends,  is hard won and easily squandered.

The cobblers, blacksmiths and radio repairmen may be slowly passing away.  And though I may  bemoan their passing, I do not yearn for a “simpler time”.  To do so would be to yearn for that which has never been, for the complexities of life have been with us always.  They have simply been different from generation to generation.  But the myths, the collective consciousness that sustain us, the ideas of freedom and liberty must remain with us, and we must maintain our commitment to them, our responsibility to them,  or our experiment in self-government must surely fail; these, are something we simply cannot afford to throw away.

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Steve Jobs is dead and we are diminished by it.  I wrote the following post a couple of years ago, but at this moment in time, I think it appropriate to resurrect it.

Jake the Dog

Over the course of our lives, we may, if fortunate, meet someone along the way who, by their clarity of thought and intellect, the force of their convictions or moral certitude,  or through the cultivation of their faculties and capacities, are set so far apart from us mere mortals that in their presence we are most always  in a state of awe.

The uniqueness of these types of individuals truly stretch the definition of what it means to be human.  They are outliers on the Bell Curve.  They pull us all to the right of that curve, and as a species we are all the greater for it.  Yet, as human nature might have it, we feel also in some ways both diminished and humbled by it, for we are shown our own limitations.  Because to exist in their presence is like living in the light… We seem but  shadows in in comparison,  yet shadows filled with wonder and joy.

Until recently, I had not considered that the phenomenon of which I have been writing might also extend itself into the animal world, but friends, I am here to tell you that it does.  A little over a year ago, Jake the dog entered my life, and he has enriched me in ways that before his coming would have been simply unfathomable.

He is the smartest damn dog I have ever seen.  If I tell him to go outside and pee… well, he  goes outside and pees.  My children don’t mind me that well.  Not that I tell them to go outside and pee mind you.  In Vermont we go to the bathroom inside the house and cook outside… at least in the summer.  As a matter of fact, this is a complete reversal from my  life in Kentucky as a young man, where we peed outside and ate inside.  So much for progress, but I digress.

Yes, Jake the dog is a very special animal.  Aside from being extraordinarily beautiful, he is also strong and athletic.  He will trot alongside my bike for ten miles smiling the whole way.  He is ready to go anywhere, anytime to do anything at a moments notice.  You cannot throw a ball that he cannot catch in his mouth.  I have considered trying to teach him to pitch, cause if he could, I’m thinking a multi-million dollar salary as a short-stop for the Red Sox.  Yes, he is that good.

He likes to catch a Frisbee over his shoulder, but if he can’t he doesn’t mind doing an amazing somersault in the air to grasp it between his teeth.  He does this with such aplomb and ease that it is mind-boggling, and his humility is simply astonishing.  You can’t make a bad throw with a frisbee or a ball as far as he’s concerned.  He’s just happy you’re throwing the damned thing.

He has nearly ruined my self image of cantankerous curmudgeon.  I feel a certain shame in admitting it, but if he wants to sleep in bed with me and the wife… well, he sleeps in our bed.  I do not have the heart to deny him.

He is a hell of an animal, and I feel almost undeserving of the attention that he gives me.  He is a vessel of such grace, kindness, love and friendship, that I feel truly privileged to walk this earth with him.

So my friends, I say lift a glass to the Jakes of our world and their equivalents in the  human category.  We are enriched and ennobled by their presence among us, and though they might sometimes  remind us of our weaknesses ,our frailties, our inadequacies, we are much the greater for their existence, and perhaps better Frisbee throwers as well.

And to this I add, goodbye Steve.  I raise my glass to you.  You will be missed.

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