I tried to stop eating meat when I was five. I was being tortured,
I believed, and the only way to stop the torture was to eat whatever
it was that was disgusting and came from some part of an animal. I do
not remember ever giving in and eating my school lunch; I do remember
being kept inside during lunchtime until lessons started again, no
time to run outside and play with my younger brother who always ate
his meat and did as he was told. My older brother was seven and no
longer in the infants’ school; he was always a far bigger rebel
than I was, which meant my own rebellions were mostly ignored, my
mother was busy with her general medical practice and us, I can
remember her riding her bicycle to visit patients while we stayed
home with her helper.
One day my clever physician parents – she was
a medical general practitioner, he was training in pathology - looked
at me closely, and took me to the Manchester Jewish Hospital to be
tested for leukemia. Meat is a main source of iron, I conclude that
my non-eating of it, and too few spinach leaves, made me anemic,
which is a symptom of leukemia. I wonder if I was better at hiding my
non-eating of meat at home than at Manchester’s Clayton Road Public
School.
I continue to be amazed at how dreadful my parents were at diagnosing me; even after I walked into a
pond thinking it was grass, it never occurred to them that I could
not see. I guess the fact that I could read from the age of four
meant to them that I could see, their explanation for my father
jumping in fully clothed to pull me out of the pond was that I was
unaware, clumsy, perhaps a little bit stupid.
My severe astigmatism
was diagnosed by a school nurse in New Zealand when I was six,
leading me to my first pair of spectacles, and an enormous respect
for nurses. This respect increased during two university summers
working as a nurse’s aid at a nursing home where the nurses were in
charge, but the non-nurse owners increased its profits by making all
patient clothes communal. I never knew who owned a second nursing
home, but I noticed the staff and the patients were happier when
belongings were kept separate, and clothes were returned to their
owners beautifully cleaned.
---
In the years that followed my walking into a bright green pond, I
went through years not eating meat without any plan. Mostly I did
not, but I certainly ate my mother’s Sunday lunches when she spent
Sunday mornings cooking roast lamb while I was as Sunday School and
church.
In the United States in the 1980s, my older children’s Hazleton grandmother
made the best fried chicken on the planet. Her name was Dot, and
their grandfather’s nickname was Peck; I enjoyed thinking about
them when I was walking around the Lake of the Returned Sword in
Hanoi, seeing women sell a toy with a large red dot on three strings
attached to a paddle, making a toy chicken peck. I had seen this toy
in their kitchen, a gift from their relatives who had urged them to
start a restaurant called Peck and Dot. Lost opportunity, with the
right help and investment, they could have done well. But they were
doing well, they had a house they loved, their income was sufficient
for their needs, and their children were all successful.
Peck used to say, “What can you give to a man that has
everything?” Without irony, he meant it. He was installing
television aerials after the mines closed and television came to
Carbon County; before Christmas in 1950 he fell off a roof, his leg
became gangrenous, and was amputated.
Eleven months later he and Dot
visited the hospital with their two-month-old son. This was Dot’s
favorite joke. Peck looked at the shocked expression on a nun’s
face and laughed, “They only cut off my leg!”
That baby went to
Yale on a full scholarship, Jefferson medical school and University
of Pennsylvania for an ophthalmology residency; I met him after my
karate class when friends took me to a party in Jefferson: we bonded
over him knowing what acetazolamide is, and us both having spent time
in Nepal. Sometimes falling off a roof, or other misfortune, ends
well. As an aside, he continues to work as an eye surgeon, I cannot
be more proud of him and his purpose-filled life.
Dot and Peck were both descended from Eastern European Catholic
refugees who came to work on the Pennsylvania mines and who were
fully part of the domestic war effort in the second world war; in
Bethlehem Steel and in Carbon County mines, respectively.
I was
fascinated that from their background, both of their fathers died
from black lung, they were enthusiastic supporters of politicians who
we have learned forty years later, destroyed that way of life. It
seems to me that citizens enjoy their lives, and instead of
believing that electeds were responsible for their good fortune,
believe that unknown, untested media stars are somehow responsible,
and will not only maintain the good life, but make it better.
---
Plant-based diet and contented cows
My son Al toddled into Haddonfield Monthly Meeting with me
and his older brothers in 1991, and was welcomed warmly. At first he
was part of the playgroup for tiny children during Meeting for
Worship, coming into the big hall for drinks and cookies with the
meeting adults and older children, and for a communal pot lunch meal
once a month. Allister loved this, an older member claimed he was not
going to touch anything until Allister has surveyed everything
available and commented on them all delightedly.
Al's childhood
progressed with Quaker retreats with Haddonfield Meeting and with
Philadelphia Yearly Meeting teenagers, and trips to Germany to visit
his father. He was interested in food and athletic, rowing and
cycling, and by the time he was 6’5” and sixteen he knew what he
liked.
Then
he came home from the summer week-long Philadelphia Yearly Meeting
Camp Onas. That night I was preparing pork chops for him and his
sister, when he looked over my shoulder and suggested quietly that
frying some mushrooms with onions would be better than cooking meat.
I was astonished, I had no evidence of him ever eating vegetables.
After a few days his brothers and sister explained why he stopped
eating meat, "They are all hippies" said one, the other told me they had
been shown a video from PETA and Al instantly, and permanently, became
convinced that eating meat was wrong. Or wearing any leather. Or eating
an animal products:
milk, eggs, cheese were immediately out. So was honey, because that
comes from bees being exploited.
Over the last sixteen years I have learned a lot from Al,
but as explained above, I was a natural advocate for plant-based,
non-exploitative eating, and have started to formulate a vegan start
kit for anyone who does not know where to start. Al is the
healthiest young person I know; he has never been ill and cheerfully
worked all through lockdown, as a sales associate for a liquor store
run by Indians from Kenya who worked for years as engineer. Well-run
business, good employers. Wonderful example of small business done
well.
Vegan is a term that is constantly ridiculed, often by licensed
healthcare professionals who are not licensed as
dietitian-nutritionists: Twinkies and colas certainly work as a vegan
diet, but they are not plant-based, and you will die sooner than is
healthy if that is your diet. Grass-fed cows, which an Irish
commentator says in Ireland are called cows, manage to turn their
plant-based diet into muscle and milk; we do not have enzymes or
stomachs to digest grass, but we can digest plenty of other plants,
and finding a plant that is a complete protein is not hard.
Plant-based diets can start with oatmeal, banana, and soy-milk with
tea in the morning; wholemeal bread with peanut butter and tomato and
spinach for lunch; and brown rice with lentils, black-eyed peas, soy
beans, onions, celery and cabbage for dinner.
I stopped adding salt to my food when I was twenty, once I moved
to a plant-based diet I realized I was not getting enough sodium so I
add Indian black salt to cooked food, along with various spices and
peppers. It is not as easy as eating everything except animal
products, but it is not hard either. B-complex vitamins can be a problem, taking supplements is a good idea.
Video of contented cows https://youtu.be/0JIa__noIoo
---
Soccer
The Philadelphia Unity Cup is a major, perhaps the major,
peacekeeping exercise of Philadelphia City government. I wrote about
the first finals which happened in the tumultuous days in Fall 2016
which included a transport strike, Doctors Without Borders setting up
in Independence Mall, the Veterans Day march and the presidential
election http://www.peacescientists.org/doctorswithoutborders.html.
Last night I was in the first information session on Philadelphia
Unity Cup. It is run by Parks and Recreation which controls
Philadelphia public parks and has oversight of school properties,
which has run the Philadelphia Unity Cup since it started in 2016.
Their director told us about how they pivoted and were kept very busy
since lockdown and the appalling toll of sickness and death since
Covid19 landed on us all. They hit the ground running, opening
recreation centers for food distribution, continued the effort into
food warehouses where food was boxed for distribution. They ran
summer camps and 300 play streets to keep kids alive and engaged; in
the fall they were busy making sure Philadelphia children had
internet access; and continue to run virtual sports programs.
Philadelphia Unity Cup will hold two more information sessions for
players, team captains, volunteers; applications for teams to
participate are due in May, games started at the end of August with
the final anticipated to be on October 16.
Their most generous sponsor in 2016, 2017, 2018 and 2019 was Goya;
for which reason I was never interested in condemning the bizarre
theatrics around Goya foods. I do not know whether Goya will return;
they bought full uniforms for 22 members of each team, I believe in
2019 there were 53 teams. Divide and conquer is a favored, and
effective, technique of war-lovers, I really hope we can all come
together and support the Philadelphia Unity Cup no matter who
sponsors them, I know it would be really difficult finding a major
sponsor as generous as Goya. I believe the CEO of Goya has been
removed. Philadelphia Unity Cup is a wonderful opportunity for a
generous sponsor to be seen doing good, I am hoping small sponsors
and big sponsors will step up to work with the director, Bill
Salvatore.
More about my interest in soccer later. And please know that
spectators are always welcomed. Free soccer games as summer winds
down; it does not get better than this. The games are held all around
Philadelphia; I enjoy getting around by Patco train, Septa train and
bus. Bicycle ways are opening up constantly, and Patco and Septa are
firmly committed to renewable energy sources. The future is bright if
we understand that peace is our first priority, and we stand together
against stupidity and war-lovers.
Playlist of videos I have uploaded from PHL Unity Cup games.
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLCrbXnlogpfetJEYM-WcWfb0YQe_fN-1d
----
Another of my few passions is the Aces Museum on 5801 Germantown
Avenue. I first wandered in in March 2012 when I was briefly
exploring the possibility of making a movie on the Biafran air war. A
course in Wharton and research showing that the two biggest air-war
movies made lost money. Since the movie-makers were George Lucas and
James Cameron that idea evaporated, but I had discovered Parker Hall.
I have written a lot about Aces Museum and its charismatic founder
Dr Althea V Hankins. Dr H’s father was in the segregated military,
it hurts me to say that such a thing existed; in a humane world the
family would be royalty. Mr Hankins was a nephew of Marcus Garvey,
and in the coalition in Detroit responsible for getting elected the
first Black representative in the 20th Century.
Dr H has more stories about him, and other veterans in the Aces
Museum; everyone is welcome, every veteran is honored. I have seen
tears pouring down the faces of veterans being honored, Vietnam
veterans are mostly older now, but being spat on and told they were
baby-killers never stops hurting soldiers who were sent to a tropical
country by their government. Many did not return. When Philadelphia
Inquirer moved homes its memorial to Vietnam Veterans was moved to
the museum which you can stand in front of, remembering young people
whose lives were destroyed or ended.
Go to the Aces website https://www.acesmuseum.online/
to see about visiting the museum physically or virtually. May 26th
is their festival for their Day of Honor at Vernon Park, directly
opposite. I will be there. Probably be some great music, and food.
Donations are accepted.
I have made and posted some videos from my visits to Aces Museum.
They are not edited, and it shows.
Playlist of videos I have uploaded
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLCrbXnlogpffo6cSKeru_OVC9_bTirKBP
-----
I am a late devotee of soccer, my interest was originally
in the
statistics which morphed into watching my first two games, which were
quarterfinals including Ghana in first, a hospital room on Roosevelt
Island with Nigerians, and second, a local pub of Ghana vs USA with a
single Nigerian and an enthusiastic American audience. We slunk out
quietly, Ghana had lost.
The first time I was aware of the FIFA World Cup I was in
Amsterdam working in a lab in 1986. By the time I returned to
Germany, the semi-finals had been played and the final was Argentina
vs Germany. Forty years after the Netherlands had been liberated from
the Nazi death-grip, the Dutch were understandably not huge fans of
Germany. I was told that the game would be between the Nazis and the
ex-Nazis.
Lothar had invited his friends to watch the game, opening
the doors to his purple-flower-filled patio, with local Rhine wines
and “real” beer. I was often told that only German beer is real
because it contains only three ingredients. Soccer and beer. Germany
won, but I remember nothing of the game. I was too busy enjoying the
beer and conversations with Germans to watch it.
Lothar is the late father of Al and his sister. Parkinsons sucks. Play and watch soccer when you can.
----
Every Wednesday aka Fourth Day at 6-6:30pm. Monthly Meeting of
Friends of Philadelphia Meeting for Worship.
Zoom space open earlier for greetings and chats, afterwards for
fellowship. We cover a lot of ground, some amazing discussions, all
are welcome. Join Zoom Meeting: https://us02web.zoom.us/j/87526260118
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