Author Archives: Kathleen Fox

The glowing colors of a magnificent sunrise, a red fox tiptoeing through snow in the back yard, the face of a grandchild who has just discovered something new—another perfect "Kodak moment." And, of course, you don’t have the camera.

What’s the answer? You could try carrying a camera everywhere you go, hyper-alert for the next photo op, your finger poised to capture the moment for posterity.

Or not.

I remember a visit a few years ago to the Schonbrunn Palace in Vienna, a magnificent building filled with lush rococo gilding, carving, paintings, and statues. Its ceilings were painted with choir after choir of cherubs. It had more gold leaf than a fall New England landscape. To someone like me who thinks off-white is a color, its opulence was all more than a bit much. But even though it would be overwhelming to live in, it was marvelous to visit.

One man in our group went through the whole tour with his eyes glued to the viewfinder of a video camera. He couldn’t possibly have seen the full, wonderful extravagance of the rooms, because he limited his view of them to an inch-square screen. He was there on the spot, live and in person—and he missed it completely because he was so busy taking pictures.

I don’t mean to suggest there’s anything wrong with taking pictures. They can be works of art, images that stir emotions, and visual records of people we love. They can be a way to trigger and preserve memories. Still, you may not be creating any memories to recall if you focus all your attention on your camera and none on the experience you’re photographing.

Certainly, carry your camera. Take pictures when you have a chance or make an opportunity. Just don’t forget to look outside of the camera as well. When you fully experience where you are and what is happening around you, you’ll store images in your brain that are far more vivid than anything you can capture in a photograph.

In the Black Hills, we have a bit of a love/hate relationship with the annual Sturgis motorcycle rally. It’s fun to see the bikes, we welcome the 400,000-plus visitors (and the revenue they provide), and we enjoy the notoriety the rally brings to the area. We also tend to blink at some of the costumes or lack thereof, wince at the noise, and breathe a sigh of relief when the last Harleys rumble out of town.

Most of us also like to tell our own biker stories. Here is one of my favorites. It’s a true story that happened a few years ago to my friend Jan.

One day during the rally Jan had made a quick trip to one of the big discount stores to get some shampoo. She went into the store and was heading for the shampoo aisle when she spotted the biker. He was big, maybe six foot two or three, with long hair hanging in a greasy braid down his back and tattoos swirling up his arms. He wasn’t wearing a shirt, just a leather vest that showed his chest—complete with more tattoos—and the hairy belly that hung over his belt buckle.

He was standing in the middle of a wide aisle, looking up and down with that confused air you have in a store when you can’t find something. When a clerk sees a customer with that look, the appropriate thing to do is go up to the person and ask, “May I help you?”

No one was doing that with this guy. Jan saw a couple of clerks in the vicinity, but they were both busily pretending they hadn’t seen the biker. Which wasn’t really surprising, because not only did he look confused—he looked angry. He looked as if he’d had a couple of small children for breakfast and needed at least one more for dessert. Other customers would come down the aisle with their carts, get a glimpse of him, and peel off down the nearest side aisle as if they’d just remembered something important they needed to get in housewares or lingerie.

As Jan came closer, the biker threw his head back and bellowed, “Won’t somebody help me!?” The two clerks vanished. The other customers walked a little faster in the opposite direction.

And Jan? Keep in mind that at this time she was in her mid-50s, a slender grandmother with gray hair, all of five foot one in her sneakers. She walked up to the man and asked him, “What are you looking for? Maybe I can help you find it.”

She said later he looked like a little boy who was about ready to burst into tears. He told her he had gotten badly sunburned the day before. He’d hardly slept that night because his sunburn hurt, and he was trying to find some ointment to relieve the pain and help heal his sunburn.

Jan took him along to the pharmacy, grabbing her shampoo along the way, and helped him find some aloe vera lotion and a pain reliever. They went back to the checkout together. He told her this was his first trip to the rally, he really liked the Black Hills, and next year he hoped to bring his wife along—and if Jan wanted a ride on his Harley all she had to do was ask.

She declined the ride, but sent him on his way with a smile and a warm handshake—a gentle one, because of the sunburn. She went home with a good feeling along with her shampoo, and he went home to Indiana with a peeling sunburn and a positive memory of Rapid City.

Of all the people in the store that day, Jan was the only one brave enough to approach this scary looking guy. She was the only one with the compassion and the insight to look past his tattoos and his angry face to see the perfectly ordinary person who was tired and hurting and just needed a little assistance.

The moral of this story is: Don’t be afraid to look a little deeper than what you see on the surface. There’s much more to any of us than the way we look on the outside. Elegant fashions, grubby work clothes, or grimy leathers aren’t who we are, they’re merely what we’re wearing. Never be too quick to judge a bird by its feathers—or a biker by his tattoos.

There’s following the rules, and then there’s following the rules creatively.

A few days ago a conversation with my daughter reminded me of one of my favorite memories from a family trip some years ago. My late husband and I, with the three youngest kids, flew in his small plane to visit relatives in Michigan. A six-hour trip with only one brief stop for food and fuel, it wasn’t the most exciting mode of travel even for kids who were good travelers. The plane was too noisy for comfortable conversation, the quarters were cramped for five people, and the absolute rule was that they had to stay in their seats with their safety belts fastened.

About halfway across Lake Michigan, I looked back to see how the kids were doing. There were the two girls, dutifully buckled in, reading their books and munching grapes out of a plastic bowl on the seat between them. It was a perfectly ordinary picture—except that they were upside down. Their hair was brushing the floor and their gangly tanned legs and bare feet were propped against the backs of their seats.

Their younger brother in the tiny seat behind them may not have appreciated the feet waving in his face, but for the girls it was a perfect solution to the boredom and discomfort of sitting in one place for so long. They were following the rules to the letter: they were in their seats with their seat belts on. Nobody had said they had to be right side up.

The buzzword for being creative, a cliché by now, is to think outside the box. Sometimes maybe it works better just to turn the box upside down.

This morning I listened to a conversation between two fly fishermen. They were talking about using one’s wrist properly when you cast, and how someone else they knew was so good he could adjust the line in mid-cast, and the difference between dry flies and some other kind of flies (okay, so I wasn’t listening all that closely). They were having a wonderful time.

Apparently, they also have a wonderful time when they go fishing. It just sounds like work to me—especially because, after going to all that trouble, when they do catch a fish they just put it back.

When I was a child on a South Dakota farm, fishing wasn’t a sport on quite that level. It was a family outing for summer evenings or those days after a rain when it was too muddy for field work. We’d dig some worms, pile into the pickup with our bamboo poles, and head for a nearby stock dam.

For some reason, my father would always take his rod and tackle box and go to the opposite side of the dam. My mother got to help us kids fish. What with selecting the fattest worms and waiting for them to unwind from around our fingers so we could put them on the hook, untangling lines, watching dragonflies, finding just the right flat rocks to sit on, floating sticks on the water, and making sure the little kids didn’t fall in, somehow not a lot of real fishing got done.

Every now and then, though, one of us would catch a fish. Pulling it in was fun, especially if it was a bluegill and fought all the way to shore. But then somebody had to take it off the hook. After we got a little older, Mother wouldn’t do it for us, not even for the bullheads with their ugly green smiles and sharp whiskers. Sometimes the fish would flop off the hook by itself if we left it on the bank for a little while, but most of the time it was eventually necessary to lay hands on the slimy, slippery thing and take the hook out.

After we got old enough, we learned to help clean fish. As a fun activity, cleaning fish ranks right up there with going to the dentist. Of course, it did make us popular with all the cats, who always gathered around to watch and to wait for their share.

Finally, of course, would come eating the fish. Fresh perch or bluegills, breaded and fried the way my mother cooks them, are perfectly okay eating. But to me, they’re really not worth all the trouble of catching and cleaning them. It’s a heck of a lot easier to just put some chicken breasts in the crock pot.

In spite of all this, I actually do enjoy going fishing. I like the quiet of a small stock dam on a summer evening when the sun is just going down and the water is so still you can see yourself in it. I like the murmuring beauty of a shaded Black Hills creek. I like the drowsy peacefulness of sitting on a sun-warmed rock on a lazy afternoon. I like watching nursery schools of infant minnows drift by or seeing trout swirl to the surface. I just don’t like having all those pleasant inactivities interrupted by occasionally—despite my best intentions—catching a fish.

So now, if I go fishing, it’s as the designated non-fisherman. I trail along with a fisherman dedicated enough to pay attention to the fish and leave me in peace.

Then I find a just-right rock or a comfortable place on the bank in the sun. And I sit. Sometimes I read. Sometimes I sketch. Sometimes I watch dragonflies and butterflies, find shapes in the clouds, listen to the birds, or pull long weeds and nibble on the stems. It’s relaxing, enjoyable, and quite fish-free.

I don’t have to trouble myself with finding the right fly, or remembering to bring the bait, or untangling a line from trees or snags. I don’t bother the fish, and they don’t bother me. All of us are happier that way. 

Just in time for Independence Day, the Senate has again rejected a Constitutional amendment to prohibit desecration of the United States flag. That’s the good news. The bad news is that the amendment failed by only one vote.

When we recite the pledge of allegiance to the flag, we aren’t really stating our dedication to the flag, but to the country of which it is a symbol. The flag in itself is just a construction of red, white, and blue fabric. What we honor when we salute the flag is the pride, the history, and the freedom that it represents.

I feel privileged to live in the United States. I am deeply proud of this country and its history. I absolutely believe that each of us has a responsibility to protect our way of life and our ideals.

One of the most important of those ideals—one we should never take for granted—is freedom of speech. I can write letters to the editor expressing completely outrageous opinions, and the only consequence is likely to be other people writing equally outrageous letters back. I can rant in a public place about Congress or the President or the mayor, and nobody is going to burst through the door and haul me off to jail.

And, if I feel it necessary in order to make my voice heard, I can plant myself in a visible public spot and set a flag on fire. Among the freedoms our flag symbolizes is the freedom to burn one. The Supreme Court has ruled more than once that burning an American flag is Constitutionally protected free speech. That is a freedom we need to preserve.

Freedom of speech is not limited to speech that the majority agrees with. It is not limited to courteous, dignified, or sensible discourse. Accepting and living that freedom means tolerating even expressions—such as burning a flag—that we may find repulsive or outrageous.

The Flag Code sets out the appropriate way to treat the flag that represents our country. It specifies that the flag should never be used for any advertising purpose or printed on anything meant to be used and disposed of. It also states that the flag should not be used as part of a costume or athletic uniform, except that a flag patch may be used on the uniform of military personnel, fireman, policeman and members of patriotic organizations.

Yet, this time of year, it is routine to see flags in ads for Independence Day sales. Tee-shirts, hats, and even swim suits have flag patterns. If you want to go on a Fourth of July picnic, you can buy paper plates and napkins with flags printed on them.

Which person is the true patriot—one who uses the flag in a newspaper ad? One who wears a bikini printed with the flag? One who wipes the ketchup off his chin with a flag-printed napkin? Or one who burns a flag in heartfelt protest?

The only real danger to our flag comes from those who would trivialize it in the name of patriotism. It is a superficial patriot who believes preserving a flag is more important than preserving the liberty it represents. Bully for the Senators who took their patriotism seriously enough to stand against a constitutional amendment to outlaw flag burning. Such a law would be a long and dangerous first step toward restricting one of this nation’s most fundamental liberties.