DECEMBER 21, 2023 – Early this morning I’d wanted to address (here) the recent decision of the Colorado State Supreme Court on the question of whether the Fourteenth Amendment prohibits the Duly Defeated from standing for election as president. To offer my two cents’ worth in any viable currency, however, I decided I’d need to read the court’s 130-page majority opinion plus the three—count ’em—dissenting opinions, not to mention the sources cited in all four opinions. For good measure, I’d also have to delve into articles—pro and con—authored by recognized constitutional law scholars.
And why? So I could write a cogent post?
But then I called a time-out. What was I thinking?! When it comes to the Duly Defeated’s right to stand for election, my opinion matters zilch—no matter how well-grounded in fact and legal analysis. All that matters is not my opinion—smart, dumb, or in between—but my actual vote, “good” or “bad.”
With that, I moved on . . . or rather, moved out of my chair. In the moment, what mattered far more than today’s blog topic was the precious 10-minute block of time that our second grade granddaughter had with us before it was time to leave for school.
The night before Beth and I had rescued two soup cans from recycling to make a “string-and-can” telephone for Illiana’s amusement. After jumping to, I rounded up some string and from the workbench in the garage, I retrieved a hammer, stubby roofing nail, and couple of bolt nuts. Beth and I had each made a string-can telephone back in the day. Each of us distinctly remembered the contraption working effectively. Beth was perfectly happy to replicate her “back in the day” construction method, which simply involved tying double or triple knots in each end of the string after it was passed through the hole in bottom of the can. Or rather, that’s what she proposed.
Me? No, even though that’s exactly how I’d built my “string-can” telephone (because that’s exactly how my Cub Scouts den mother had instructed us)—with an effective outcome—I had to go hi-tech and tie each end of the string to a metal nut.
Beth generously deferred to my modern revisionism. We then instructed Illiana on how to use this ancient contraption, which I was sure would amaze, just as a Van de Graaff machine would (I thought) when it was turned on, generating static electricity that would cause her long hair to stand straight up and out. She cooperated, though her skepticism seemed to outweigh curiosity.
“Say, ‘Hello over there!’” I told her (outside my can).
“Hello over there!” she said.
I heard her just fine—with both ears, but better with the one that wasn’t covered by a can. I then told her to put her can over her ear and hold it very tight so that there was maximum tension in the string.
“Hello, Illiana!” I said into my can.
By this point I sensed that the experiment was a certifiable bust, thanks to my insistence on the hi-tech modification. (Since there wasn’t time to retie the string as Beth had originally suggested, the experiment was at an end.) But despite my flaws and foibles, our granddaughter has a forgiving temperament. She can humor me, too: “That’s science for you,” she said, whereupon it was time to leave for school—where presumably she’d actually learn something that wasn’t a bust.
As she and I sailed eastward along Larpenteur Avenue, I mentioned the sad news that our friend Don was entering hospice. “You know, Don, whose wife Sally was my piano collaborator in all our house concerts at Jenny’s house [where Illiana and her parents lived until she was three-and-a-half]. Among many other things, he’s a poet, and we took you to his poetry reading last May, remember?” I said.
“Oh yeah, I remember him,” she said.
“I’m sad, Illiana, as are many other people because Don and Sally have so many, many friends.”
“I need to make him a picture,” she said.
“That would be nice,” I said.
A moment or two lapsed before I continued. “Life can be sad, Illiana, because for each of us it ends at some point. There’s just no getting around that, and that’s sad.”
“We don’t live forever, Grandpa” she said, as if repeating the concept would make it any more understandable.
“No, and it would be a problem if we did live forever, because just think about it—there wouldn’t be room for us all if everyone lived forever, just as the woods up at the lake couldn’t exist if trees didn’t die, because if they didn’t die, in short order the woods would become impenetrable and soon thereafter unsustainable. So ironically, life can’t go on without death.”
“Is God immortal?” Illiana asked in a quantum leap.
“Illiana, you ask the greatest questions,” I said. “And like all great questions, the question of God’s immortality is actually a whole bunch of questions, starting with what we talked about a couple of weeks ago on the way to school—remember?—starting with the definition of God.
“To get at that—the definition of God—I think you have to start with this: did you you know that everything in the world, everything you see—the ground, the hills, the mountains, the oceans, everything around us, plus the moon, the sun, planets, the stars, all of it, everything, was at one time smushed together into such a tiny ball, you couldn’t even see it. But just try to imagine how much that tiny ball weighed. Then, for reasons scientists are still trying to understand, the tiny ball exploded, and over billions of years, stuff formed—planets, stars, everything.
“In there somewhere, Illiana, in that tiny ball—or was it before the tiny ball? No one knows—you might find the definition of God or at least a definition of God.”
I glanced in the rearview mirror and caught a glimpse of her pensiveness as she peered out the window. Just then I brought the car to a full stop at the four-way stop a block from school. As I prepared to make a right turn, a car on our left doing at least 40 blew right through the intersection, not even bothering to slow down. Illiana noticed immediately.
“How do you like that, Illiana,” I said. “While we’re addressing the immortality of God—or at least wrestling with the definition of God—that driver could well have sent someone (including herself) straight into eternity.”
A few seconds later we pulled up to the school entrance. I looked over my right shoulder to watch Illiana exit the car. I said my usual: “Smile, be kind, pay attention. I love you.”
“I love you too, Grandpa,” she said. She shut the door and with her backpack over one shoulder, scurried toward the smiling greeter.
As I drove off, I reminded myself what mattered most in life. The Fourteenth Amendment was as far from my thoughts as was Tristan da Cunha.[1]
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© 2023 by Eric Nilsson
[1] One of three parts of the British Overseas Territory of Saint Helena (where Napolean was consigned to exile) in the South Atlantic, reputed to be the remotest island on earth.
