Author: Tom Stock Page 21 of 30

The fall festival prompted the taste for a frank. I want a frank on a soft bun slathered with mustard. So I buy the frank and a beer and go sit on a bench near the gazebo with music and the rest of the crowd. I try to open the mustard packet but no luck. I try both ends looking for the tear spot. I try again. I can’t open the mustard packet! Now I’m getting impatient. I can taste the mouth-watering mustard-clad hotdog and feel the soft bun melt in my mouth.

But with no mustard, I am frustrated. I can’t eat a hot dog without mustard! I begin to shake as I imagine myself bringing this morsel of comfort food and delight up to my wide open mouth and closing my jaw around this treat.

I’ve thought about this for  almost an hour. I am expectant and excited.  I grab the packet and tear it open with my teeth which is difficult. Finally I see it, that mustard color and smell that mustard smell. I spread it on the brown tube of meat and know that I am close, very close to the first bite. But, but, but, the mustard only covers half the dog. I tear open a second packet with more gusto, having given up on where to tear. I smear mustard on the rest of the dog squeezing as hard as possible to get as much mustard out of the impossible difficult to  open pack I take a sip of beer, take a deep breath, and the time has finally arrived. I slowly raise my hand and bun and frank and mustard to my open mouth and squash the soft bun, teeth sinking into the warm frank, and my happy tongue savoring the taste of mustard. My taste buds reconnecting with that mustard taste . The satisfaction is overwhelming. The whole struggle of all those moments of frustration has come down to the thirty seconds it took to devour, vanquish, destroy the object of my desire…a simple hotdog on a bun with mustard.

Fire hydrants are like mushrooms that sprout from the miles of mycelium underground pipes. We don’t see ground water until it pops up in creeks, pond, lakes, and marshes. These, to me, are astounding. The word awesome is overused, so I’ve going to overuse an new term. The fact that we have water pressure because of elevated tank reservoirs is why the fire department can turn on hoses and we can turn on faucets.

I toured the Suffolk County Water Authorities lab complex in Hauppauge. The bottle lab, the pathogen lab, the volatile compounds lab, the herbicide, pesticide  testing lab and the museum with valves, photographs, pipes, geology, and history. Astounding.

Lab supervisor Francesco, who oversees the Volatile compounds lab showed us gas chromatograph machines that can pinpoint harmful, cancerous molecules to parts per trillion said with pride that the lab holds itself to the highest standard. He smiles and says “New York State’s lead level is 15 ppm. We hold it at 5ppm”. This tells me that the Suffolk County Water Authority has our back. We’ve got probably the purest water in the state. Nothing escapes the blue lab-coated chemists who wear latex gloves while they titrate, look under microscopes, and tend to their computers. These lab rooms are the reasons why we have safe potable water all the time.

With 1.5 million Suffolk residents and 800,000 cars, thousands of cess pools, millions of opportunities for chemicals to leach into the water table, the Water Authority has to monitor its over 250 wells on a regular basis. That’s a lot of small sterile plastic bottles. When they see something, they say something. Protecting the public is their highest priority. Let me say it again…astounding.

Water air and soil are probably the post taken for granted resources that we are in contact all the time. We are 70% water. I love to see water in the clouds and ocean waves as well as my adopted Sampawams Creek. The creek’s water quality is impared. This is not astounding.

The 700 employees work behind the scenes. They maintain over 300 miles of pipe. Let me say it one more time in capitols …ASTOUNDING!

“There is not a single thing different inside of everything than is in each of us. We’re all made of the same stuff. It’s the construction that’s different. That construction has a long period – going back some fifteen billion years to the beginning. We are left with construction plans in our DNA and genes that contain blueprints of all those earlier construction projects.”

Albert Sweitzer said these words in a lecture in 1913. He wanted us to see our connection to the big picture. Who, for example, recognizes themselves in their pet dog? There is no physical resemblance, but there is reciprocal love. We recognize ourselves by the dog’s love because we love. We see the dog having the same functions we have.

How do we recognize ourselves in a dragonfly?   Again, common functions provide the answer. What is important is the reason why we should look for similarities in all things. All is sacred. Every single smidge of matter, no matter how tiny or how huge, no matter how complex or how simple, offers us a looking glass to reflect. Communion of all different matter each with its own individuality is the key to understanding the reason for the universe. All things in the universe have three characteristics. They are interconnected, they are differentiated from one another, and they each have their own individuality.

If we recognize ourselves in the humblest of creatures, such as a caterpillar crossing a road, is there not the possibility that we will treat that caterpillar with respect and dignity?

Behind the endless diversity of life and non-life, we seek to recognize a spiritual creator that participates in everything. Seeing God in all creation is a good way to respect, treasure, and preserve.

I sat in the waiting room shaking. The principal wanted a meeting with me. I shook, sweat, and waited for the reprimand. I applied corporal punishment on one of my students. I squeezed his arm in anger. He pushed my buttons all too often. My classroom management was very poor. I happen to teach in one of the most challenging junior high schools in Suffolk County

I waited a long time stewing and imagining the worst. Finally “The principal will see you now.” His secretary said. I looked grim, I looked guilty, and I had been here before for the same offense. I had good reason to believe that my teaching job was at stake.

“What did he do.”? I stuttered, stammered, and choked as I told my side of the story. “He pushed the boy next to him off his chair. I walked over, took his arm and escorted him out of the room.”

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Twenty years ago, there were three environmental “R’s”; Recycle, Reduce, Reuse.

Recently a fourth “R” has become an upgrade to the first three; Refuse. At the checkout counter at Best Market, the clerk asked me “Do you want plastic bags” I was pleasantly surprised. I see clerks spreading open empty plastic bags for the next customer. The fifth “R” is Rethinking. I saw the word used on a Face book page of Carl Safina. It had me thinking, oh wait, Rethinking.

Recycling has reduced the refuse stream but, recycling implies that we keep consuming recyclable items. Reduce means consuming less recyclables. Reuse also falls into this category. All of these first four, have awakened us all that we have to cut back. Cutting back is a rethink.

At 7-11, I noticed five cars parked in front of the entrance all idling. The mindset is…”I’m only going to be a few minutes, why turn off the engine.” I turn mine off, and often bicycle to the store. Here is a major rethink that ascends to the corporate level. How do I rethink a policy to stop the idling? I’d start by communicating my concern. Gas is being wasted. Air is being polluted. Here is a chance for 7-11 to rethink. If this fails, I have to persist. Arrange a meeting with the manager of the store. Ask for their bosses, work my way up to the top level and CEO. I did this.

To rethink is to evolve, to make a midcourse correction. Radical rethink, micro rethink, it’s all good. Don’t hold that thought…rethink it. The little things to rethink are personal habits we have developed. Some of these fall into the five “R’’s”

When I wash my hands in a sink, I shake off the water enough so I don’t have to use a paper towel. This little thing is a rethink.

“Taxing a behavior tends to reduce it.” (“Faced with a new tas, Berkley Drinks Less Soda.” New York Times 8-25-16. All of us buy garbage. Packaging becomes garbage. For example. We made franks for supper and tossed out the plastic wrapper. Which goes into the trash can, into the garbage truck, and ultimately into a land fill. To rethink this chain is to try something new. Where to break the chain. I could go to a meat store and buy franks with paper wrapper. At least paper decomposes. A good, healthy tax on the second    can of garbage will have people trying to compact, reduce, rethink. Perhaps use bigger garbage cans, perhaps dumping in a vacant lot.

For rethink to become a reality, even on a community level, will probably take decades. Rethink can lead to substantial change. Ultimately, rethinking all six major institutions has to happen to begin to save our oceans, our land, our biota, us:

Financial; Education; Health; Legal; Political; Environmental

John Muir reminds us “When one tugs at a single thing in nature,one finds it connected to everything else.”

Let’s start in our own world. Find something you do, rethink it, see what  happens, one finds it attached to the rest of the world.”

If any major rethinks occur in any of the above institutions, the reverberations with be seismic!