Dog vs. Spiderman
Prelude
Our new friend Stephanie M. gifted us a bunch of dog toys, notably several stuffed Spiderman dolls. The contest of Dog vs. Spiderman has proven to be one-sided. The dog rips into the shells and tears out the cotton stuffing, leaving limp cloth Spiderman shells and severed limbs and heads strewn about the carpet. We can imagine dog-toy versions of Doctor Octopus and the Green Goblin cackling in delight.
The dog is in fact a one-year old puppy, a breed called a Beauceron, a herding dog native to central France. Last year my wife settled on priorities and did her research, selected a breeder in Quebec, drove up there with our French-speaking teenager, and the rest is personal history. We have spent the past year cleaning up accidents, managing chewed up shoes and kitchen gadgets, and in my case, training the dog to stop pawing at me and chomping (albeit lightly) on my arm or hand. The dog’s name is Sahvrai, which sounds vaguely French but isn’t quite.
In a couple weeks, for reasons I can’t completely explain, I will be driving Sahvrai and myself to Minnesota and back, in a rented Tesla, for the occasion of my father’s memorial service. The rest of my immediate family will be flying on Jet Blue and United.
David died last February; the delay in the get-together is due to the birth of the latest grandchild (Meghan’s boy) in Oakland. The little tyke’s family—very reasonably—did not want to subject him to air travel.
The original rationale for the Tesla was to save some money. I discovered that my local Hertz agency was offering a weeklong rental of a Tesla Model 3 for the acceptable rate (in today’s market) of $260. A few calculations showed that for a roundtrip drive of 2,700 miles, the gasoline for my beater of an internal combustion engine vehicle–an aging Saturn Vue–would cost about $400. I thought the expense for electricity for the Tesla would be about one fourth that total, or $100, which would include some free overnight charges at the motels. Add in the cost of wear and tear on the Saturn, plus the risk of it crapping out and/or needing repairs on the road, plus the novelty of a Tesla trip that at least offers a token hosanna or two to the concept of sustainable behavior—the decision is made, I sign up!
Which still leaves a lot to think about. Which still leaves a lot to unpack.
Back in September, 1979, I stuffed a few possessions into my aging and rusting Toyota Cressida, my father’s old car that he had bequeathed unto me. David and I then set out across the country to California to deliver me to my freshman year at Stanford University. We negotiated a long, grueling three-day trip across progressively harsher countryside in a car that was suspect to withstand it. In fact the muffler gave way on the first morning, in Iowa, an ominous sign, although we managed to get it repaired that very day at a Toyota dealer in Omaha.
That Toyota made it to California and back again, and in fact did so a second time. But eventually the rust proved too much, and a mechanic deemed the car unsafe for the road. We sold it for scrap in Seattle, Washington, where it is now (as I like to joke) a novelty end table in someone’s rec room.
David loved those trips. The open road, stops on the way for whatever held interest, and of course California, the promised land. Now I am repeating a road trip for his memorial, even though the Ohio and Indiana Turnpikes are less romantic than—and would not have interested my father as much as—the great American west.
I am anticipating the pressure to confront the past. Either from family and friends, or more likely, from myself.
In college and soon thereafter, I set my sights on medical school and becoming a doctor. From 1985 to 1988, I was a struggling and burgeoningly unhappy medical student at Kansas University School of Medicine. I took leave of that school in August of that last year in somewhat dramatic fashion, never to return. And despite my personal recovery and success in another career, plus wife and boys and house and pets and…everything else—the old failures still lurk in the cobwebby recesses. They’re still a thing.
On this upcoming trip, someone may indeed ask me why I left medical school. The more challenging question is why I pursued it and enrolled in the first place.
At my advanced age—and I will be celebrating a birthday on the trip—I have a lot of personal history. Whether it needs confronting, rationalizing, ignoring, acceptance, or some combination thereof, is a conundrum that I seem to face ad nauseum.
My son Nathen, the 6-year-old, enjoys watching the latest version of the Spiderman cartoons, which are noticeably different from the versions of my childhood, or even the childhood of my older son. Spiderman is now maybe ten or twelve years-old instead of a teenager. He has two friends who also have spider-like powers and costumes, and the team works together in fighting crime. Aunt May is no longer a doddering and fragile codger, but a single woman in her thirties, making her even younger than Marissa Tomei’s version in the recent movie. The villainous Doctor Octopus is also a young woman, albeit with eight tentacles and sunglasses.
Some myths and stories need to be rewritten to meet changing sensibilities. And who wants to tell the same story over and over again?
Main Event
The Tesla is a well-built vehicle. It’s responsive, easy to handle, feels very safe and sturdy. The regenerative braking takes some getting used to—taking your foot off the accelerator causes a more sudden slow-down than a newcomer would expect. But really it’s fine, and certainly more economical than an ICE (that’s Internal Combustion Engine, among us cognoscenti.)
Nevertheless, the experience of driving a Tesla, especially on a long road trip, is markedly different than a typical car. I feel like I’m in a mash-up of science fiction movies. The car delivers its various beeps and alarms when I do something it doesn’t like, and in extreme circumstances, such as when a truck approaches too closely in the lane to your left, it will take over the steering briefly (Alien symbiont protecting itself and its idiot human host.) The car speaks its commands to navigate us to the obscurely-placed charging stations (Neo and Trinity getting their exits from the Matrix.) The charging stations are always the same row of stoic obelisks, white with red trim, hiding in plain sight in a quiet section of a parking lot for a restaurant or shopping mall or other enclave of freeway-exit America. (Confronting the beachhead of an alien invasion.)
More science fiction: The rear camera displays a picture with a hint of sepia tone, suggesting an image not only from behind the car, but into the past as well. I keep expecting to see our family’s ’66 Mustang or Nash station wagon, with David behind the wheel, following me. Beside him is my mother, with the younger me and my brother Danny in the back seat.
David was born during the Great Depression and lived his childhood through World War Two. He followed his father’s example and became a cardiologist, and he led a successful and distinguished practice for many years. In his early twenties he married my mother Rhea and they had four sons together, although the third son died as a toddler, ultimately to a flu pandemic, while the second died tragically as a young adult. In the 1980s my parents divorced and my father married Maggie. Soon they were raising their daughter, Meghan, and David became the dad to Maggie’s son, Michael.
One of the indelible moments of the weekend was listening to Meghan deliver her eulogy and including one of David’s favorite puns: “Things are not what they a-pear to be.” When I was growing up, David repeated that joke whenever a pear was sliced open, and I guess he kept on repeating it in the years that followed.
I was proud to send David and Maggie a box of pears every Christmas, from the gourmet fruit company that David loved. Those pears were—and are—the best fruit around. I am proud to send the same box to my mother, too.
Sahvrai the dog was quite confused when the trip began, but gradually she figured out the routine. I folded down the rear seat and lined it with blankets, adding a dog toy or two. She spends most of the car time just lying quietly, maybe napping, sometimes looking forward at the goings on. Then when we stop she is ready for walkies, which she enjoys, nose to the ground, sniffing absolutely everything. The main problem is that she will not eat her dog food, although she is always ready for a bit of human food—a bit of cheese or bread or some orange, or a scrap of meat. Pouring milk on the dog food helps sometimes.
Did you know that Love’s Truck Stops have dog parks? I make a point to stop at least once a day at a Love’s for the dog park, which Sahvrai enjoys. Absolutely the best time comes when another dog shows up, and the two dogs happily chase one another at high speeds. Otherwise, Sahvrai chases after her kick ball, but sometimes just drops it. I think she misses my wife, whom she loves in the way that dogs do.
At the memorial gatherings, no one asks me about medical school. But I talk about the experience anyway. And my cousins reply, “It was something you had to get through.” They likely are right. I had blinders on back then, strapped tightly across my forehead. I *had* to go to medical school, I *had* to become a doctor as my birthright demanded. And….did I have to fail? Could the experience have come out differently? Perhaps, but there is no way of knowing. I do not believe in The Almighty’s Big Book of Fate, new yearly edition every Yom Kippur, available at your local Barnes and Noble or online at Amazon.
The final memorial event of the weekend is a gathering that I organized for the extended Berman family and many of their friends. As per my plan and wishes, I have my son Maxwell read the letter from Reuben to David, written near the end of Reuben’s tour of duty in Europe. The same letter was read at Reuben’s memorial service in 2004. The letter is about the Kaddish, the Jewish prayer for the deceased, and how Reuben wanted David and his siblings to say it when the time dared arrive. In my introduction I turn to Maxwell and tell him that I do not expect him to read this letter when the time comes for me. Then I lead the assembled in reciting the prayer and a short addendum, the Shehecheyanu, because David was fond of that one.
The old-fashioned patriarchy is unmistakable: My grandfather Reuben to my father David, to me, to my son Maxwell. An echo of Abraham to Isaac to Jacob, and repeated among Jewish families everywhere. But whatever our little ceremony represents, it is not accurate, or at least incomplete. V’dor-vador, the passage from generation to generation—at least in modern times, the concept cannot be modeled by a straight line, either through people or through time. The true legacy of David was on display at the earlier gathering in the afternoon, where the speakers were all four of his living children, as well as Maggie’s niece, now a top-drawer physician, and several family members and friends. We all received something different from David, and he from us. We all take something different into our futures.
The car trip is unusual for all sorts of reasons. I’m the only human traveler, so I can drive and stop as I please, but I have a tight itinerary, plus a dog as passenger. I promised myself not to leave the dog alone in the car for longer than 10 minutes at the most, and it’s a promise I keep.
So I modify my behavior. No eating in restaurants, only take-out or patio dining. In a traffic jam on I-81 in Pennsylvania I call ahead to Angelo’s Pizza place in Wilkes-Barre and order a pie to go. I had researched Angelo’s in advance, the reviewers all love it. I eat slices in the car while driving; it’s very good. I share a piece with the dog.
The next day, in Toledo, Ohio, I pull into my next culinary destination, which is Tony Packo’s. This place became famous thanks to actor and Toledo native Jamie Farr, who played Klinger on M*A*S*H, and who managed to work lots of his favorite hometown references into the scripts. The specialtie-de-la-maison of Tony Packo’s is the Hungarian sausage, served with fries and pickles—and it’s delicious. I eat it in the car. I share some fries with the dog.
Approaching Cleveland, the navigation app routes me to a charging station in one of the sad, downtrodden neighborhoods along the east side. As I walk Sahvrai around the parking lot, we discover a large cache of empty beer cans–the brand is something called Milwaukee Best, which I had never heard of. What the hey, the dog isn’t pooping, so I fill up the plastic bags I’m carrying with the empties and other trash I find. Neighborhood clean-up! I stow the bags in the frunk (Tesla-speak for “front trunk”) and make the whimsical plan to cash-in the trash in Michigan, the next state en-route, where you get an extra 5 cents per can. This particular knowledge comes courtesy of Seinfeld, another television show, where it is a plot point for Kramer and Newman.
At Kroger’s, the cans earn me a total of $4.50. And how to spend that treasure? The store is having a sale on pumpkins, and so I chip in an extra buck and get a big round beauty that comes to puzzle my wife when she eventually discovers it. I give the pumpkin as a house-warming present to Michael Meagher and his family. They have us all over for dinner. Sometimes, everything works well.
I listen to the radio. I want to listen to my CD collection, which includes all my favorites, but CD players in cars have gone the way of cassettes and eight-tracks. The Tesla is equipped with lots of on-demand entertainment options that I can’t access because I haven’t paid for them and/or can’t figure out how to use. So I listen to the radio, and that’s not so bad, because I hear things I never would search out otherwise. I find stations that play jazz and stations that play blues. NPR has some interesting interviews. I also find some classical music, which calls my father to mind once again. He knew the canon (Mozart, Beethoven, Brahms, and all their friends) and played it regularly on the clarinet in various orchestras, well into his 80s, until his wind gave way.
Another indelible moment: The cemetery attendant lowers a small canister of ashes into the ground, then fits over it a metal plate embossed with my father’s name and dates. She screws the plate into the ground. My father is now part of the cemetery. A sacred place. You can visit, but you can’t live there, because living there is not what the cemetery is for.
We are all on one-way journeys. Birth to death, with lots of interesting stuff in between, as my father enjoyed, but still.
But still.
Aftermath
The electricity charges for the Tesla proved to be more than twice the amount I expected, in part because my nights of free charging totaled to exactly one, and not the four or five that I had counted on. I found cheap motels and I found motels that would accept dogs and I found motels that had free charging for electric vehicles—but a scant few met all three criteria.
I am now on a business trip, but all other parties are back at their homes, or in the case of Maxwell, at school in Rochester. The Tesla has been returned to the Hertz agency, which received it perfunctorily, as if it were any other car.
While driving the Tesla and patronizing the superchargers, I thought I was at the forefront of the future of transportation. Today’s news states that the Tesla company has been losing money and is selling off some assets—British Petroleum is buying some of the charging network—and the car companies are now stating that electric vehicles might not be the golden future after all. Oh well, who knows? The future is a story yet to be written. Anything could happen. Or not. We’ll all find out—and maybe make a difference, too—in the days ahead.
