I sit slowly drinking a margarita when the song comes floating above the tables, around the freshly-painted room, and bumps up against me at the bar. The old man plays the melody with his thumb, the chorus with his fingers, and the Spanish words are sung softly. A one-man band. The song is unhurried and melodic, belonging to an older time.

And the guitar he’s playing? My goodness. It also belongs to an older time. It is chipped, faded, and peeling. Perhaps it was placed a little too close to the fire one day at some sing-along high up in the mountains. Or left out in the rain during a raucous rock festival. Or maybe even accidentally dropped off a truck.

More likely, the guitar has been played so hard and has been around so long, its musical bones are starting to show through the wood and age spots have appeared on its old veneer. But it plays faithfully.

“My name is Alfonso Martinez. I am 83 years old.”

Alfonso Martinez doesn’t speak English. I don’t speak Spanish. One of the owners of the restaurant where Alfonso plays, El Patron Mexican Restaurant & Cantina on Douglas Avenue, translates for me.

“I don’t know exactly why I started playing. Since I was little, I used to play the guitar.”

Alfonso Martinez strums slowly. A young couple comes into the restaurant and sits. After a bit, Alfonso excuses himself, walks over, sets down his tip jar, and begins playing. The song starts gentle and aching, then soars into the chorus, and then back to a lingering regret.

“This guitar has seen some use. It’s very old since Mexico. I brought it from Mexico.”

Alphonso stands next to me at the bar. Ramrod stiff. All business, as I sip my margarita and ask questions.

Mexico is where Alphonso was born and raised. He used to work for an advertising company there, but even then he would bring his guitar to work and play for people at lunch and during breaks. Eventually, he quit his job and began playing in restaurants. But then he saw an opportunity in the U.S.

“One of my friends brought me to Des Moines. It was many years ago that he brought me here.”

Alphonso begins to play his guitar as we speak. Picking and strumming.

“My voice is unique for here. I used to play in the Skywalk downtown. And I would play on the bridges.”

He leaves again to serenade an older couple in one of the brightly painted booths. A romantic tune. Slow and quiet, but then with a refrain that builds and builds, until he finishes the song with a crash of chords and vocals. The older couple and the other patrons applaud.

People are not exactly sure how to respond to a modern-day troubadour in a restaurant. After the first song, however, everyone settles in for a little show with dinner.

“It gives me joy to play for people. It is why I do it. I have people who return and watch me play. That is important to me.”

So, how many songs do you know, Alphonso?

“I know a lot of songs,” Alphonso says.

More than 20? says the lawyer in me.

He laughs. “More than 300.”

When do you play at El Patron?

“I play on Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, and Saturday. 5-8 p.m.”

And the rest of the time?

“I walk the rest of the time.”

Do you think about retiring?

“Retire?” Alphonso is amused by the question. “Always, forever play. I am going to die singing and playing the guitar.”

Alphonso leaves me at the bar to play for the folks in the other room. Straight-backed. Drake Relays cap firmly pushed down. Creased pants, ironed and pressed. Plaid vest buttoned down tight. Shoes polished.

It’s show time.

A slow strum. Just a light caress across the strings. A gentle plucking. And the guitar, beaten-up and aged and scarred, sends perfect chords echoing softly through the restaurant.

And then the old man begins to sing.

Joe

I sit at the bar at the Denver International Airport and watch Garth Brooks watch me drink a glass of wine. Apparently, he and I go way back and are closer than I thought. It’s nice to have a drinking buddy at the airport. Especially one that is such a good listener.

Why am I sitting alone with Garth drinking a glass of wine at the Denver International Airport?

Well, I’m waiting for my flight and it dawns on me that I have all the wrong clothes. Yup, everyone has a water bottle attached to their backpack. I don’t even have a backpack. Then they have a pillow either around their neck or jauntily off to the side. A pillow? No one told me that I was supposed to bring my own linens to the airport. See, I didn’t know there was a dress code. Ever since 5th grade, I’ve been just a step or two behind high fashion. It’s my gift.

And, then, there’s the bathroom issue. Listen, I was raised a Catholic. We don’t have bodily functions. Since people are not supposed to have bodily functions, why are all these people joining me in the bathroom at the airport? This is making me uncomfortable. I may never go to the bathroom again.

Could everyone please leave? Thank you.

Finally, there was the incident on the way to the airport.

My wife and I stopped at a Denver Starbucks for a latte and chat before I left town. We sat at a table and talked as old married people do — I aggressively defended the position that I’m not a dope and my wife patiently set out the clear rationale as to why that category best defines the real me.

Thirty-eight years of marriage. She’s so head-over-heels for me.

I glance out the window and see a homeless couple scouring the parking lot for dropped money. As they make their way towards the busy street, I see an item of clothes left outside the door of the Starbucks. They must have walked right past it. Or maybe it dropped off the layer of rags they are wearing. A sad little pile left in front of the door.

As my wife and I leave, stepping carefully around the abandoned clothes like it was a dead squirrel squashed on the street, my wife suddenly exclaims: “Is that YOUR underwear?”

It is my underwear, folks. Yup, my green boxers are sitting in a clump in front of the Starbucks. For the last hour.

Okay, maybe my wife’s “dope” argument is not that farfetched. When I switched out of my dirty work clothes and put on my jeans, there must have been a spare pair of underwear stuck up the leg. And there they are. My underwear. In front of Starbucks.

And then it also dawned on me — my clothes were rejected by the homeless couple. They walked right on past. Not good enough to make the cut. This was a layer they didn’t want.

As they love to say in law school, “Who’s ox just got gored?”

Although, my youngest adult/child, when told this story, asked, with some mortification: “Did you pick them up?”

I’m afraid so.

Unsurprisingly, I am now sitting at a bar in the airport talking with Garth. Alone. With all my underwear in the right location, no water bottle attached to a nonexistent backpack, and having successfully found an empty bathroom.

And, yes, Garth, I will take another glass.

Joe

Frankly, the joy of being a grandpa caught me by surprise.

Listen, I’ve raised three kids, I know what children are all about. And, by the way, where is the gold watch for that job? After bleeding and suffering for each, giving them the best years of my life, all three have told me I can stop parenting them — now!

“Dad. Really. You have to go home, don’t call us, stop writing long texts and emails, no more FaceTime. Please leave.”

But what if they’re making the wrong decisions? What if they choose the wrong friends and the wrong partners? What if the sky is actually falling, and they’re eating sushi rather than taking cover? Who’s going to tell them, “Sleep tight, don’t let the bedbugs bite”?

I guess not me.

And don’t think I’ve been some ne’er-do-well who’s lazed their way through life and have all my eggs in this new grandpa basket. I tried to be a good prosecutor. Although I think I still carry the distinction of losing two murder cases against the same guy for two different murders. Perhaps that is why I primarily taught — cops, judges, lawyers. It was a good gig. How often do you get to teach a roomful of people who are all armed to the teeth, who are temperamentally aggressive, and who know more than you? I always felt a class was a success if I didn’t get shot. I taught with a thin veneer of bravado. Swore a lot. Got in people’s faces. Bulldogged around the lecture halls. Hoping always that folks wouldn’t figure out that I was terrified out of my mind. I was.

And I’m not dumb about relationships. Look, I’m still married. Same woman. The love of my life. We have grown old together. Although, this has allowed her grievances against me to accumulate into topical headings with subgroups and footnotes. For example, a recent failure to buy the correct yogurt. This error gets filed under the fairly innocuous category of “being a dope.” Ah, but “being a dope” gets filed under “failure to listen.” “Failure to listen” works its way up to “not standing up for my wife.” “Not standing up for my wife” finally gets to my family of origin — a repository of ill will that requires marital counseling, expensive gifts, and self-flagellation. And the source of all this disaster? Yup, vanilla yogurt rather than plain. There’s a certain beauty to this system, which I am still learning to appreciate.

But being a grandpa? I was so ready to be underwhelmed. To protect myself, I staked out my position early on.

“I’m not going to let any grandchild become the center of my life. I’ve got things to do. Stories to write. Places to visit. Wine to drink. I am not ready to be put out to pasture and left doddering with a new baby.”

I would usually say this with quite a bit of gusto and harrumphing and maybe even the stomp of a foot.

My wife would just smile, which of course irritated the dickens out of me and only made me put my position into concrete, forever, take-it-to-the-grave-type pronouncements.

Then the Denver snows melted and the darn baby arrived between storms — born a mile high.

Juliette.

See, I just didn’t know the secret. Because, of course, everybody talked about grand-parenting in such mewly terms.

“Oh, you’ll just love love love this little bundle of life.”

Are you serious? How’s that work for you when some little kid and her poor bedraggled parents are sitting behind you on the plane or at a movie or in the restaurant?

“You can spoil that grand baby without a hint of any concern for good parenting.”

Really? Sixty-five years of pretending to be the responsible guy in the room are going to just vanish and you’re going to suddenly wear a purple hat and dance naked downtown under the Crusoe Umbrella? I’m not holding my breath.

“You’ll see your legacy actually continue through the generations.”

Legacy? What’s that mean? When my first son was born, my mom said, “Thank goodness, your son doesn’t have your ears.” Well, that was a legacy averted. Whew.

No, But there is a secret not talked about. And it’s the real deal. It’s why you want a grandkid. It’s the big bonanza.

Here’s how it plays . . .

I was holding Juliette one night for a couple of hours, somewhere between midnight and 2 a.m. and I was telling her over and over as I snuggled her: “You are strong; you are beautiful.” My quirky idea of giving her the right tools for a good life.

And it hit me.

You get to clean-slate your own life. You get to be strong. You get to be beautiful. All those things you messed up, all the things you wished you’d done differently, all those times you wished you would have said the right thing, done the right thing, thought the right thing — this is your chance. Brand new little person. No judgements made by her. Your record is expunged and you’re off probation.

You are born again in the eyes of the just born.

That’s the secret, that’s the joy, of being a grandpa.

Born again grandpas.

You heard it here first.

Joe

I’ve been lost as a child. It was in an Iowa cornfield. You know, you’re young, you’re playing around with your cousins, running and hiding and yelling, and then, suddenly, you are completely lost. Green stalks block your vision in every direction. Is that the decaying remains of an old cornstalk or is that a child-eating snake? Of course it is a snake, and of course you look like a Tasty Tater from Tasty Tacos. One more statistic in the declining rural population.

I’ve been lost as an adult. It was driving to crime scenes as a prosecutor. There was no such thing as a cell phone in those days. I’d find a phone booth somewhere on Ingersoll or Hickman or wherever and call police dispatch. It wasn’t a stretch to imagine the conversation after I hung up. “It’s Weeg again. Lost. He’s at that phone booth on Ingersoll. I don’t know how he’s going to write a search warrant when he can’t even find the crime scene. He’s a dope.” And then a little while later I’d call from a phone booth on Douglas Avenue, still lost. I was always thankful my wife, who whole-heartedly agreed with the dispatchers’ assessment of my abilities, was home asleep.

But lost in Venice?

Lord, Des Moines is 12 hours away by plane. I am lost. My wife is lost. Our GPS on the phone is lost. And the water is rising. So much so, they’re selling plastic-bag booties to walk across St. Mark’s Square.

“Come into my restaurant. The best food in Venice.”

We stumble out of a dark alley and see a well-dressed man in the middle of the street, hands outstretched, large smile, ushering us into his restaurant.

He pulls the chair out for my wife, he smooths the table-cloth, he helps with the coats. He stands at attention in his white-pressed shirt and tightly tied half-apron. Waiting for us to settle. Then his hands take flight to explain the Italian-only menu and life in general.

Dario has been a server for 46 years. This is his profession and his love.

“I started when I was 14. An old waiter from a restaurant trained me. He taught me: tie the cloth on the wine; greet the guests; go and open the door; say goodbye. It must be personal. It is always personal.”

And Dario smiles, steps to my right. Pours the wine. Wipes the side of the bottle with a white cloth. And with a small flourish, ties the cloth around the bottle.

“There is no quality now. Some places cook pasta before and warm it up. Homemade pasta must be cooked on the moment. Only fresh vegetables. Broth with the head of the fish, not powder.”

Dario shakes his head, befuddled at the notion of a microwave for anything.

Dario, you are not a young man, where does this all end?

“Maybe I don’t stop working. Maybe I go on a trip. I think I would do this when I am very old. Maybe a small house in south Italy by the sea with a garden and grow tomatoes.” 

Dario, before we go I must admit that we are lost. How do we get home?

“Venice is a very small city. If you want to go anywhere, just walk.”

So we do. Until we are again lost in the narrow alleyways.

We cross a bridge into a small neighborhood. Ah, the Jewish Ghetto of Venice. Hidden away among the buildings are five synagogues, beginning from the 1500’s. Their story is the precarious story of the Jews worldwide. The word “ghetto” is thought to have first originated in Venice. On March 29, 1516, the Venice Senate issued a decree:

“The Jews must all live together in the Corte de Case, which are in the Ghetto near San Girolamo; and in order to prevent their roaming about at night: let their be built two Gates. . . and [they] shall be closed at midnight by four Christian guards appointed and paid by the Jews.” Riccardo Calimani, The Ghetto of Venice.

Yup, not only were the Jews imprisoned but they had to pay for the guards. Unbelievable. Now we are both lost, and sad.

We stumble out of the Ghetto and wander for blocks until we come across Giorgio. A complete change of tune. Giorgio Galasso works in a tiny shop down a narrow street as a mask-maker.

“My family lived in Venice since the 16th century. Before this I was an artisan of wood. There is no school in Venice for the mask. To learn, it is necessary to find other people who do the work.”

And Giorgio found those people and became a master mask-maker. He now teaches mask-making workshops around Italy and elsewhere. Although, with his malleable face and striking features, it is tempting to think Giorgio might have become one of his creations, like dog owners become their dogs.

“The mask exists because a segment of Venetian people used to be very rich. For 50 days there was carnival. All the people are the same during carnival because everyone wears a mask — the rich and the poor. The mask is really democratic. Everyone is equal during carnival.”

Good to know. But, Giorgio, with all your experience of Venice . . . how do we get unlost?

“You cannot get lost in Venice. It is an island. Just walk to the edge.”

Really?

Sure enough, Giorgio is right. There’s the edge.

Now, is that Des Moines in the distance? Got me. What’s that number for police dispatch?

Joe

They laugh. And not just with their mouths, like your teenage kids do when you tell a joke. Instead, their eyes sparkle, tear up, close tight, and sparkle again. Even their ears twitch. I mean real laughter.

And everyone and everything is fair game for their laughter: the President of France, their age, marriage, religion, Frenchmen . . . and me.

“Where are you from?” they ask.

Iowa, I say.

“Texas?”

No, Iowa.

“Ohio?”

No, Iowa.

“Oh, Eeowa.”

Uproarious laughter!

Really? Are you kidding me? This is the level of our humor today? I can’t help but smile.

This all began simply enough. I needed to find a leather-bag-repair-shop in Carcassonne, France. Apparently, I had stuffed one too many bottles of wine, hunks of cheese, and loaves of bread into my little leather bag and the strap snapped in complaint. A shoe-repair store seemed the ticket. So I found Cordonnerie Traditionnelle.

“Today is a special day. I kiss you.”

I guess this is what happens at a French shoe-repair store. Heck, what would have happened if I brought in boots to repair?

The traditional French kiss, left cheek then right, came from Mokhtar Bendahmane. Mokhtar had been called in by the shoe-repairman, Emmanuel Delcambre, to translate for us.

“Mokhtar, can I take a picture of you and Emmanuel?”

“Excuse me,” Mokhtar says. And he takes off to the back room.

Did I offend him?

Shortly, he returns dressed in a beret, a jacket, and a blue scarf.

What? You have French picture props?

He and Emmanuel are once more driven to laughter by Mokhtar’s antics.

Mokhtar begins to translate for us as I ask Emmanuel questions.

“I only repair shoes and pieces of leather for horses. I have been here 25 years. I am 68. For 22 years, I lived in a community. The aim was to live a Christian life and experiment with another kind of society, living an orthodox life with less power.”

Emmanuel looks like an ascetic monk dressed as a shoe repairman. I point this out to Emmanuel.

“There’s a story we tell to kids,” Emmanuel says. “St. Antoine goes into the desert and survives on almost nothing. He is the classic ascetic monk. One day an angel comes and says to Saint Antoine, ‘You are a great saint. I bring you to Cairo. I’m going to show you to someone.’ The angel took him to a shop of a very poor shoemaker. The angel says to St. Antoine, ’The shoemaker is a greater saint.’”

St. Antoine is flabbergasted and in total disbelief.

“St. Antoine says to the shoemaker, ‘Do you pray? The shoemaker says no. St. Antoine says to the shoemaker, ‘Do you sacrifice?’ The shoemaker says no. ‘Do you give up sleeping?’ The shoemaker says no. ‘Do you give up eating?’ The shoemaker again says no. ‘How is this better than me?’ Saint Antoine says to the angel. ‘He is more humble,’ says the angel.”

Really?

“I am not the shoemaker, by the way,” Emmanuel quickly adds.

“He is that close,” says his friend Mokhtar gesturing with his hands inches apart.

What about your job, Emmanuel?

“When I started this job,” Emmanuel says, “I discovered I was the king of the world. Because by this work, I can eat, my family can eat, I do something I love very much. I love working with my hands. It varies each day. I have no boss above me. One day a woman slapped her small son in my shop. I told her she would have to leave if she did that. I can allow whatever I want in my home.”

“He can dance when he wants,” Mokhtar adds. Of course, this observation required that Mokhtar dance a small jig.

It is time for Emmanuel and Mokhtar to get back to work. But Mokhtar leans in before leaving:

“One journalist asked the Dalai Lama, ‘What is the difference between somebody we know for a long time and a person who is a new friend?’”

Mokhtar gives me his last smile.

“The Dalai Lama said, ’No difference.’”

Kiss left cheek, kiss right cheek.

Joe

Although this is beginning to sound like an old love song, I have been hacked one more time. The post “Learn More About Who seems to be Worried About Shopping Essays and Why You Need to Caution” is not mine. I’m so sorry.

After the first hack, I purchased all sorts of neat-sounding services (is a “firewall” actually like a wall of fire?). But here I am. Hacked.

It feels a little like the Ghosts of Christmas might be visiting me for past wrongs. Hopefully this will soon be resolved by my malware service . . . and Bob Cratchit can carve the turkey and Tiny Tim will walk again.

Thank you for your patience.

Joe

Dear Readers:

A post just appeared, “Inspiring College Easy Cases Tips guide,” that I did not post. Someone has hacked my blog. I realize I’m long overdue for this new reality, but it still stings. I am taking precautions with my malware provider to remedy the problem. I apologize for any trouble for you — and I hope the hacker is not writing better stuff than me.

Joe

Des Moines, Iowa, certainly offers guilty pleasures. You know, like drinking a craft beer at a movie theater at 10 in the morning on a work day — a direct ticket to hell for any hard-working, sober Iowan. Or going to the farmers market and never once purchasing a raw vegetable — God invented breakfast pizzas for a reason, folks. Or lecturing your kids on the dangers of fast food — and then having an existential moment alone in the B-Bop’s parking lot with an order of large fries on one knee and a chocolate malt balanced on the other.

Yup. Guilty pleasures.

In the world of the Netherlands, there are other guilty pleasures.

Sure, sure, there are the obvious ones. Like the world-famous Red Light District that advertises sex for sale from the street-front windows. Trust me, nothing says “come hither” like a very bored-looking woman fully absorbed in her smart phone while wearing a bikini in a room the size of a closet. And then there are the oddly-named Coffeehouses that, surprise, surprise, don’t sell coffee. Haze weed–12 euro. Skunk weed–7.50 euro. Cappuccino–so priceless it cannot be purchased!

But sex and drugs pale when stacked against a true Dutch guilty pleasure — the infamous OLIEBOLLEN. “Oil balls” for the literalist among you. Deep-fried delights of love for those with a soul.

“Everything is pointing to the end of December. That is the New Year, when everyone by tradition comes to get oliebollen. The stand is very full. That is the time for champagne, fireworks, and oliebollen.”

Linnie Vermolen, a soft-spoken Dutch man who seems genuinely excited about Sinterklaas and Christmas and oliebollen, runs the stand Gebakkraam Vermolen in The Hague, Netherlands. His oliebollen stand, along with many other oliebollen pop-ups, appears on the first of November and disappears late New Year’s Eve.

Linnie is the king of oliebollen.

“I have done this for 28 years. I was doing this when I was 20. My mother first. She even worked here yesterday.”

A group of kids come up to the stand. Gerda, Linnie’s aunt, laughs and jokes with them as she serves out the hot oliebollen. Some plain, some with raisins, others with apples or cream. They are gently sprinkled with powdered sugar and placed on napkins to be eaten immediately.

My mouth waters.

I forget my next question.

Fortunately, Linnie continues the interview by himself.

“Oliebollen is a Dutch tradition at the end of the year from a very long time ago.”

He’s absolutely right. There’s a Dutch painting by Aelbert Cuyp from 1652 that shows a young woman with a basket of oliebollen. And there’s even a recipe for oliebollen in a 1667 Dutch cookbook.

Linnie pulls a fresh batch of oliebollen out of the frier. I set down my tape recorder and hold out a napkin like the poor, starving Oliver Twist in the workhouse.

Oblivious to my suffering, Linnie continues working at the deep fat fryer.

“This is like a donut, but different. A donut is like a little bit cake. This has gist. For the rising.”

Gist? Of course, yeast.

But what about all the calories in oliebollen?

“Every morning when I’m here, I take one. And every evening when I leave, I take one.” Gerda tells me this with the clear authority of a mother’s stamp of approval.

Gerda instantly became my mother as I look to her in the hopes of finally getting an oliebollen.

She turns to help another customer.

Ahhhhhhh . . . . . . . I lean weakly against the inside of the stand.

By the way, oliebollen is not just about a taste delight, it is anchored in the harsh reality of surviving the night. Apparently, the German goddess Perchta goes a little berserk around the winter Yule time. Without much provocation, she will cut open your belly with a sword while you sleep, which is not a good thing. Fortunately, if you eat enough oliebollen, THE SWORD SLIDES OFF YOUR BODY! No kidding. I’m not making this up. This is why we have oliebollen at this time of year.

Oil balls save lives. Now there’s a jingle that should be made into a Christmas standard.

More customers arrive, to my growing disappointment and rumbling stomach.

“Every year there is an oliebollen competition. Last year I won first place in The Hague. Secret people come to judge. And we surprisingly won.” Linnie says this in the matter-of-fact Dutch manner that carefully guards against bragging. But he should be bragging. Winning this newspaper-sponsored event is a big deal in Dutch world.

“We work very hard to be good. But we like it very much. Everyone who comes to us is happy. And when they leave . . . they are even happier.”

And, at last, I too am happy.

Linnie claps me on the arm and smiles with his twinkling eyes. Gerda gives me a big sack of hot oliebollen. And, with my armful of oil balls, I’m suddenly back to my ordinary life . . .  a life of guilty pleasure, of course, as I wipe the powdered sugar from my lips and rub my sword-resistant belly.

Joe

Paris is warm on the autumn night we visit. My wife and sister-in-law and I wait patiently for the Eiffel Tower to light up and sparkle as it does on the hour. Not a large crowd. Although the darkness pushes us all to the light like the draw of a campfire. Time stops. Then the tower begins to sparkle. A shared wonder comes from the crowd and echoes around the grassy fields. The tower is mesmerizing. My wife and sister-in-law embrace in joy. My oh my.

After a while, I look below the Eiffel Tower into the dark. Rows of blankets are spread out on the asphalt path. And hundreds of plastic Eiffel Towers blink and wink and dance in enticement as young men hawk their wares.

The blankets are a necessity because they allow the trinkets to be folded up and tucked out of sight when the police patrol by. And after the police are gone, out the plastic Eiffel Towers come again.

“Do you want to buy?”

A tough gig selling trinkets under the Eiffel Tower with one eye always cocked for the police and the other scanning the crowd to make a sale. Yup, there are easer things to do than to sell Eiffel Towers under the Eiffel Tower.

It turns out the French police conducted a large raid in late September before our visit: “French police have seized 20 tonnes of miniature Eiffel Towers in a crackdown on the illegal souvenir trade in Paris. . . But those selling the miniature Eiffel Towers are often migrants forced to flee from police checks.” The Guardian, September 20, 2018.

Really? Undocumented immigrants? Quelle surprise!

Roland Barthes, a French philosopher and theorist, wrote an essay years ago on the Eiffel Tower. He spoke of how the Eiffel Tower dominates the skyline of Paris.

“And it’s true that you must take endless precautions, in Paris, not to see the Eiffel Tower; whatever the season, through mist and cloud, on overcast days or in sunshine, in rain — wherever you are, whatever the landscape of roofs, domes, or branches separating you from it, the Tower is there.” The Eiffel Tower, and Other Mythologies, Roland Barthes, translated by Richard Howard.

And so it is.

There’s the Eiffel Tower in the distance, just like Barthes claimed. Unmistakably majestic.

And the folks at the bottom of the Eiffel Tower selling trinkets?

Not a one in sight.

And the 11,100,000 undocumented immigrants in the United States (according to the Pew Research Center)?

Nope, can’t see them.

And the 40,000 undocumented immigrants in my home state of Iowa?

I certainly can’t see them.

And my undocumented immigrant neighbor and wife and children who milk the cows and serve the fries and babysit our kids?

No way can I see them.

Of course.

Anything else would require looking under the tower.

Joe

It is with some shame that I acknowledge that I’m a fan of Brené Brown, a shame researcher. I don’t want to be a fan. She is way too popular, way too smart, and way too much a cliche for the manly man I’ve always striven to be. Jeremiah Johnson, the old movie Western from 1972, is my role model for a man. A stand-alone guy. Tough. Gutsy. And able to survive against all odds. Yup, that’s me. A Mountain Man.

Oddly enough, the “Mountain Man” approach hasn’t worked that well for me.

When the old prosecutors, after a day of trial, would say, “Joe, let’s have some whisky to celebrate,” I’d look around the bar to see if they serve chocolate malts . . . with maybe a little whip cream . . . and a cherry?

“What about those Cubs?” every man in America asks at the water fountain. And I unerringly respond about this Chicago baseball team with questions like, “Did the Cubs score a touchdown last Saturday?”

And how about fixing a car, or pounding a nail, or cranking a wrench? Sorry, my wife still watches the neighbors with envy as the husbands fix and hammer and repair while I’m doing rolling-like-a-ball in Pilates class. Nope, Jeremiah Johnson I am not.

Which of course gets me back to Brené Brown, who advocates embracing your vulnerabilities as a pathway to dealing with shame. Of course, who wants to do that? I certainly don’t want to embrace anything but a donut. But facing uncertainty and risking yourself is apparently the ticket out of the shame party.

Thus, the FiveFinger Vibrams. You know what I’m talking about. The totally dorky shoes that have five toes splayed right out there for the world to see. I love them. I could argue to you that since I was in an accident they allow me to feel the ground in a way that gives my numb feet some balance. That would be true. But, really? I just love how they feel. Period.

But don’t get the wrong idea, they are the opposite of cool. One of my Dutch friends is Margreet. She is kind but unfailingly honest (for instance, she asked me when I first arrived in Holland why I had grown so fat — you try to answer the “why” of that question). When I asked her about my FiveFinger Vibrams, she said I should do what I want but the shoes are “a little strange.” This is from the most tolerant people in the world!

And I don’t stop at shoes, I also love hats. Pretty much any kind of hat. And since I have a large head, and the wind blows incessantly in the Netherlands, hats generally perch precariously on the top of my head unless I tie them down with a nice string around the chin. Very stylish while you bike . . . and very similar to hats worn by circus clowns when they are peddling around the ring on their unicycle while juggling balls. I know this. I asked Margreet what she thought of my hat. “The string around the chin? Really?” She shook her head.

Ah, but then I got a physical challenge. My therapist (that acknowledgement alone kicks me out of the Mountain Man Club) said she’d love a picture of me at an outdoor cafe in my shoes and hat. Really? Both at the same time? Here in the Netherlands?

So, here I am, sitting at a cafe on Fredrik Hendriklaan, The Hague, Netherlands. Yup, I’m the guy in the funny hat and funny shoes. Possibly scaring those small children to my side.

And when I asked the young Dutch man to take this photo, he had only one reservation.

“Really? What’s the problem?” I asked.

He hesitated and then said in excellent English: “Are you sure you want the shoes in the photo?”

I rest my case. Welcome to the Shame-A-Palooza.

Joe