Books, Sunshine, Cards, and Nudity: Notes from the North

I'm fresh back from vacation (Yes, another one... what? Well, how is it my fault you aren't an academic?), this time a week on the northern shores of Lake Huron, away from it all with my father, brother and uncle. There we were, four men surrounded by water, miles by boat from the nearest other human, having with us only what we had brought.

It wasn't exactly the state of nature; I shouldn't get carried away. We had a roof over our heads - even if it's beginning to bow a little in the middle, and a kitchen with a stove and propane refrigerator. We even had running water and electricity the two hours a day or so we ran the generator. But for the most part, it was just us, separated from civilization.

But even there, even among only four people - and close relatives at that - informal rules dictated quite a bit of what we do; you don't do dishes if you cook dinner; don't leave food out - it attracts animals; it's a family place, we have to make sure to sweep out and clean up in a particular way before we depart. Our habitual games of hearts are punctuated not only by the rules of the game, but the informal norms that govern our particular - and lax - feelings about table talk.

But that isn't what I want to write about; I'm sure I will spill a lot of digital ink in future posts about the norms in small familial groups - there are too many opportunities and too much material. I want, instead, to spend a few words talking about what I did leave behind. Even for just five days, it was wonderful to be freed from the little social and personal rules that govern so much of what we do, and even more wonderful were the small, daily revelations that one rule or another didn't apply while I was on the island.

I didn't ever have to worry whether an email required an immediate response or how long I could wait before responding; no electricity, no internet, no computer, no email. Ditto a phone call: should I pick up? How long a conversation will it be? When will I have to call back? But - gloriously - my phone was turned off and across eight miles of water in my car. Oh! And the car! Should I drive or walk to the meeting? Can I turn left here? Am I speeding? Is that a cop? They seem trivial - and they are, for the most part - but the regulations that guide our public facade, the norms that guide our interactions with others, and the rules we impose on ourselves (have I watched too much tv today?) impact almost everything we do.

But not this last week. I didn't have to worry about who's watching when I swim - no one's around (and - as those of you who know me have guessed - swimwear is banished). I didn't worry about too much tv, the requirements cell phones and email insinuate into our lives. I didn't have to worry about what the check engine light on my car might harken (though I do now...). All I had to contemplate was the beauty of a sunset.

Rather than subject you to my further rantings, I'll supply those of a much more talented writer. Edward Abbey brings a touch more sarcasm and misanthropy, but the sense of freedom is roughly the same as he writes about rafting through the wilderness.

"My God! I'm thinking, what incredible shit we put up with most of our lives... the constant petty tyranny of automatic washers and automobiles and TV machines and telephones - ! ah Christ!, I'm thinking, at the same time that I'm waving goodbye to that hollering idiot on the shore, what intolerable garbage and what utterly useless crap we bury ourselves in day by day, while patiently enduring at the same time the creeping strangulation of the clean white collar and the rich but modest four-in-hand garrote!"

It's the "petty tyranny" that most catches my attention, and Abbey is wise to notice - in mid 60s at that - that the extent to which we come to depend on our appliances can rise to a certain despotism. This is not really my reaction - most things in moderation, most things in moderation - but I have to confess: only up there, only free from these day to day shackles, do I ever really let it go and do this:

Feels good.

Alex's Got a Gun

It turns out that very little has to happen before someone puts a deadly weapon in your hand. You would think - hope - that before someone hands you a Glock 9mm and fifty rounds of ammunition, they would give you fairly detailed information about how to use it without accidentally putting 9mm holes in yourself or others. As it happens? Not so much.

What actually happens when five spectacularly out of place graduate students go to a shooting range? First, a surly employee asks if we have a Groupon in a tone that suggests he already hates us for being rubes with a Groupon, and then we fill out forms saying we understand that this is dangerous and agree not so sue them for any reason whatsoever. We give them our drivers licenses. When asked if we've ever used a gun before, we all say either  "no" or "not a handgun" (which I think amounts to the same thing: "I don't have the faintest idea how to actually use what you're about to give me"). I detect a faint eye roll from the range employee.

He reaches under the counter and pulls up two Glock 9mm and two Smith & Wesson Sigma 9mm.

The first thing I notice is that they look heavy; they are, actually. These aren't trifling weapons. The former, for instance, is used by the New York City Police Department. Over the course of maybe ninety seconds, we are shown how to load bullets into a magazine, how to put the magazine into the gun, how to hold the gun, and how to pull the trigger. We are told that they won't give us any more advice or tips because it might eat into their lesson revenue. I'm not making that up, and I'll say it again: they refuse to go beyond this hideously brief introduction to machines that routinely - often accidentally - end people's lives, because they want me to need to take lessons from them later.

I am then handed four police issue weapons and 200 rounds of ammunition.

It's worth noting that the date is July 20, 2012. It's been about seventeen hours since James Holmes walked into a movie theater in Aurora, Colorado and killed twelve people (and maimed 58 others). One of his guns was a Glock 22, a handgun very similar to the one I now hold in my hand.

We'd made these reservations weeks before, and seriously considered canceling them and just taking the financial hit, but ultimately decided to go. We would have had Aurora on our minds, anyway, but it's made utterly inescapable by the two giant flatscreen TVs at the gun range, both tuned to 24 news discussing the attacks. It is, to say the least, heavy and surreal.

We walk across the room to the range officer (who, it seems, also already hates us). He tells us to keep the guns pointed down range at all times, where to clip the targets, to sweep up our spent shells when we're done, and he equips us with ear and eye protection. Which turns out to be exceedingly necessary. Guns are loud. No: really loud. If you haven't fired one - and I had fired a small bore rifle when I was about ten, but that was it - they're louder than you think. Even with ear protection that renders conversation almost impossible unless you're two feet away and staring directly at your conversational partner's mouth, the sound of a gun being fired hurts my ears. The "bang" kids use to simulate a gun when they're playing is woefully, desperately inadequate. It's louder than a firecracker, and it's only two feet away. But it isn't really until the guy next to use starts firing some serious caliber weapons that we finally come to acknowledge that you really are setting of a small bomb. In your hand. And that small bomb propels a piece of lead alloy up to several thousand feet per second.

This guy, by the way, unnerves us. He's wearing military-esque navy pants and matching shirt with combat boots. He has a pair of pistols: an enormous semi-automatic and a revolver with a truly concussive blast. You can see the flash from the bullet when he pulls the trigger, and it's over a foot in diameter. The pistols have a home in his police-style holster. All of this wouldn't be so alarming except his aim is truly terrible - considerably worse than ours and we just learned how to do this. We suspect he is not military at all. We keep an eye on him.

There is no way to use one of these without being keenly aware of how powerful it is, how deadly it is, and in our case this comes with what we later decide is a healthy dose of fear. I did not find it to be either pleasant, or exhilarating, but rather unnerving and anxiety producing. Each time I step up to the lane to fire off another magazine I think this time I'll be calmer, but each time I have to take a few breaths to keep my hands from quivering. Each time I finish my rounds, I feel relieved that nothing bad has happened. Each time I think this time I won't approach the gun like I would a coiled snake, but each time I do. Maybe this is a good thing, but it didn't make it very fun for me.

In fact, none of us classified it as particularly "fun." Nothing tragic happened; we went for pizza after, not to the ER like so many had to in Aurora. But we all felt unsettled, and I don't think it was because of the twelve victims who hadn't even been dead a full day. I just think firing a gun is unsettling. I doesn't relax me to walk up, carefully pick up a heavy metal object, pull a trigger, set off a small - but not THAT small - explosion in my hands and see what happens.

This isn't a post about gun control, it's really not. I, personally, favor much tighter restrictions on handguns and assault weapons, but I think everyone should go and do this. I think I would eat a lot less meat if I had to see an animal butchered every time I wanted a burger (much less if I had to go out back and kill a pig myself if I wanted bacon in the morning); I think this experience really cemented a lot about the gun control debate for me. Others will undoubtedly draw their own conclusions, but my two takeaways were this:

1) I would NOT feel safer with a gun in the house. I would feel considerably less safe and it would make me nervous all the time.

2) I feel a much deeper appreciation for the scary power a gun has, and the cavalier nature in which total amateurs (us) were allowed to use them at the shooting range convinced me there should be much tougher restrictions on how easy it is to get a hold of them.

But that might just be me. Go fire off some handguns at a range and see if you feel the same way. Just don't expect it to be fun, and definitely don't tell those guys we sent you.