I haven’t posted too regularly lately, and I realize I’ve gotten behind on some interesting goings-on here at Zimmerscope. So, in short order, I will make four posts, each about an event from the most recent four months, starting with April…

On April 16th and 17th, I was at Eastern Washington University in Cheney (near Spokane), Washington. My university (Hamline) paid for my trip out there, along with some other students. There were thousands of students there that weekend from all over the country taking part in NCUR: The National Conference of Undergraduate Research. Basically, the best papers from the past school year were on display.

On Friday the 17th, I presented by paper, titled “Jehovah’s Witnesses: Their Policy of Shunning.” My presentation, like all the others, was grouped with other presentations of similar topic and was in a classroom where students and faculty could sit in and listen. One of the rules of the conference was that if you did not arrive on time before the set of presenters began, you should not walk in during a presentation, but wait outside the classroom until you hear applause; then you’d know that the speaker was completed and you could enter in between presentations. I was the third of four students presenting their research (all were centered on religious history) during that session.

After the session, right as I exited the room, I was stopped by a short, smiley, smartly dressed young woman who said: “Excuse me, are you James Zimmerman?” Pointing to my badge, I confirmed that I was.

She introduced herself and then said she had wanted to hear my presentation, but arrived just a little too late. And then…

SHE: So, I have to ask, what made you choose Jehovah’s Witnesses for your research topic?

ME: Well, I used to be one, so…

[PAUSE…her smile waned.]

ME: Are you a Witness?

SHE: Yeah. So, I wondering if you visited JW.org for your research.

ME: Yes.

SHE: Okay, good. ‘Cause, you know, it’s important to find out what an organization says about itself rather than reading false information or lies that are spread.

ME: Oh yeah, of course! That website’s the starting point, right? In fact, I mentioned that website during my presentation and I cited from it.

SHE: Oh, you did?

ME: Yeah. Here, you can have a copy of my paper, if you’d like. Then you can read what I discussed.

SHE: Oh, you have the paper with you?

ME: Yeah, do you want it? [I pulled it out of my folder as she tucked her jw.org business card back into hers.] I don’t need it anymore.

SHE: That’s okay. So, where are you from?

ME: I’m from St. Paul, in Minnesota. And I see you’re from [CITY OMITTED], Florida.

SHE: Yeah, I go to school there, but I live in [CITY OMITTED], Florida.

ME: Oh, is that near Port St. Lucie?

SHE: Uh…no…I mean, it’s about an from there. Why, have you been to Port St. Lucie?

ME: Oh yeah, I’ve been there several times. Everyone on my Dad’s side of the family lives there. Well, there and Fort Lauderdale. Of course, they all shun me.

SHE: Oh, okay. So you’re not a Witness anymore, then?

ME: No, I left after my son was born. I couldn’t pass on falsehoods to him.

SHE: Oh, okay. Well, you know, you’re always welcome back. You know, anytime you want, you can call up the local Hall and they’ll visit and start up a home bible study with you again.

ME: Oh, I know. I used to tell people the same thing. I was a Pioneer for over five years, and I’ve read the bible and studied probably more than any elder that would come to my door.

SHE: Okay, well it was nice talking to you.

ME: Yes, you too.

We shook hands again, and she pivoted 180 and walked down the hall. I went outside and joined my two fellow Hamliners who had attended my presentation.

Okay, so…three things:

FIRST: Notice that she asked – at a conference celebrating excellence in research – if my research on Jehovah’s Witnesses involved researching the Witnesses’ own documents. That’s a bit like saying, “Hey, I heard you researched the life of Frederick Douglas. Did you read his autobiography?” Yes: Of course I did. The question would be laughable if it wasn’t for the fact that it exposes the hubris of Witnesses: They truly believe that only they have the correct information about themselves and that all other sources are, in some way, flawed.

SECOND: Notice she encouraged me to study the bible with Witnesses? That’s another bit of hubris: The Witnesses believe that anyone who leaves their faith must be either ignoring or not fully comprehending the bible. Okay, first of all, no one fully comprehends the bible, and anyone who says otherwise is lying. Revelation alone is an incoherent mess of rambling contradictions…and that’s just one of 65 books. Second, an unbiased, impartial reading of the ‘decent’ chunks of the bible (and I use that term loosely) might – MIGHT! – lead you to Christianity or Judaism but, I’m sorry…no one becomes a Witness because they read the bible.

THIRD: Notice she said she wanted to attend my presentation but just missed it? Okay, I’m just gonna call bullshit on this one. For one thing, I was the third speaker, so even if she didn’t arrive at 1:00 sharp when the session began, she could have walked in after the first or second speech. I’m sure she saw the abstract about my presentation in the program and was intrigued, but attending would have put her in an awkward position: She knew a loyal Witness would not give a presentation about Witnesses, so she must’ve known the presentation would either be by an ex-Witness or someone who never was a Witness. Either way, she would be opening herself up to ideas about the Witnesses that she is forced to ignore as a loyal member. Had I said anything she found offensive (and I likely did within the first ten seconds of my presentation – see below), her Witness-carved conscience would have compelled her to get up and leave – a big no-no a the conference where they asked attendees to respect presentators and remain for the entire delivery.

I felt bad for her. There, at a conference to expand her mind, instead of listening in on a presentation that could have done just that, she felt duty-bound to wait outside and tell me about what I should have said. Oh well, at least she’s in college, which is a rarity for Witnesses. At least she’s got a chance.

Finally, look what I saw right outside the building where my presentation was. I grabbed a couple of their magazines and, before beginning my presentation, held them up and said, “Just so everyone knows, there are a couple of Witnesses right outside this building, so if anyone has
any questions for them, or if my presentation makes you want to join them, they’re right out there.” I talked to them after my presentation for a half hour. I asked them what they read in the bible that convinced them it was divinely inspired. Pretty much their bottom line was: In Leviticus, the Israelites were commanded to go outside the camp to bury their excrement, and that was really advanced. I told them that was pretty impressive – but since excrement smells bad and (presumably) literally tastes like shit…that such a command isn’t quite enough to make me want to worship the person who penned the command.

 

Stay tuned – I will be posting about other recent events soon:

May’s event is “One House”

June’s event is “The Unexpectedly Long Rocket Trip”

July’s event is “The Birdhouse”

After over nine years and five months, New Horizons space probe finally made it to Pluto today.

After a few aborted missions – most notable the Pluto-Kuiper Express – New Horizons was launched on January 19, 2006 with the express purpose of exploring the one last planet in our solar system that had not yet been explored.

Of course, later that year, the International Astronomical Union redefined the word “planet” to purposely exclude Pluto from the official roster of nine. Pluto is still a planet…it’s just a dwarf planet now. But that doesn’t make it any less interesting.

Through the nine-plus years of New Horizons’ journey, I’ve been tracking it’s progress. I’ve frequently visited NASA’s New Horizons page to see how long the journey has been, how far it has traveled, and how much longer until its closest approach to Pluto. Of course, I had a personal interest in the probe, since my name is on it (it’s true – type in my name here and you’ll see I’m listed).

By the time New Horizons had been traveling for a thousand days, Owen was also interested in the progress, and we tracked it on a wooden board we made together – every few months, he’d gently nudge the little probe-on-a-sting another half inch or so toward its destination.

 

This morning, I walked into Owen’s room and woke him up. He looked at me and said, “What?” and, without saying a word, I held up my laptop and showed him NASA’s countdown to the closest encounter – it read just over 5 minutes. “Oh, cool,” he said, and I gestured for him to move over and I sat on his bed next to him. We watched as the counter ran down to zero, then clicked over to watch a live newsfeed at NASA that included interviews with some of the leading astronomers in charge of the project. I then told Owen that New Horizons is so far away that, even traveling at the speed of light, the pictures it is taking right this moment won’t be seen by anyone for over 14 hours. I told him I had to go to work, but we’d check on it again tonight.

I wore my Pluto t-shirt to work today. Even though it’s 9 years old and very ratty. Who cares? Today is a special day.

Last night, Owen, Isla, and I tried to take a picture of ourselves at Pluto Time , but I didn’t think we did it right. Owen was upset, but I consoled him by telling him that today is the special day to do it, since today is the day of the closest encounter. Isla pat Owen on the back and said, “It’s okay Owen, tomorrow is Pluto Day.” But actually, we got a pretty decent photo…

Regardless, we tried again today…

Regarding the deluge of information received today, Owen says: “This is awesome, I’ve been waiting for pictures of Pluto my whole life!”

I say: “Me too, son. Me too.”

Happy Pluto Day everyone!

As of Saturday, June 6, former President Jimmy Carter will be exactly 90 years and 248 days old. That means he will have lived one day longer than former President John Adams, who passed away at the ripe-young age of 90 years and 247 days.

 

 

 

 

When Adams left his mortal coil on July 4, 1826 (the 50^th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence), he was already our nation’s longest-lived President. George Washington had passed away at the age of 67, and so Adams outlived his predecessor by over 22 years.

Adams held the record as longest-lived President for well over a century. It wasn’t until 1964 that former President Hoover became the only other former Commander-in-Chief to make it to his nineties. Alas, Hoover still fell short of being the longest-lived President; he lived a mere 90 years and 71 days. In fact, Adams’ record wasn’t beaten for 175 years, until Ronald Reagan finally took the lead as longest-living President in 2001. Adams then fell to second place.

And in the years since then, Adams has been steadily overtaken by those who have recently held the job of President.

In 2004, Gerald Ford eclipsed Adams, and eventually went on to eclipse Reagan, too. At 93 years, 165 days, he currently holds the record for longest-lived President, besting Reagan by 45 days.

On February 5 of this year, George HW Bush became the third President to live longer than Adams and, as of Saturday, Carter becomes the fourth. And thus, our four most recent Presidents are also our four longest-living Presidents. (This, obviously, excludes Clinton, Bush-43, and Obama who are all too young for this distinguished club. But being that they are all still alive, they all still have the possibility of one-upping Adams, as well.)

While Carter, for the moment, is merely the fourth-longest-living President, he does hold the record for longest retirement. He’s been an ex-President for over 34 years now, a comfortable margin over second place Hoover, who enjoyed a 31-year retirement from the Presidency. Incidentally, the shortest retirement of any President – aside from those who died on the job – was James Polk’s; he died a mere three months after leaving office.

And while Carter is both the longest-retired and one of the longest-living former Presidents, one distinction he’s never achieved is being the oldest-living President. Much younger men than him, such as Teddy Roosevelt, Ulysses Grant, and Lyndon Johnson, all achieved the distinction of being the oldest-living President. But despite his advanced age and lengthy retirement, Carter has never snagged this accolade. At the time of his inauguration, on January 20, 1977, he was younger than his two immediate predecessors (Ford and Nixon). He is also younger than his two immediate successors (Reagan and Bush-41), and thus, while all four of these men have, at one time or another, held the distinction of being the oldest living person who has served as President, Carter never has.

Regardless, outliving Adams is nothing to blush at. Congratulations to Carter who has now joined Ford, Reagan, and Bush-41 as one of only four Presidents to achieve this notable feat.

My friend, Regina Ciaccio, passed away on Sunday. She was 64 years old. (Here is her Caring Bridge page with information about her troubles, and here is her obituary.)

Regina’s family and my family go back several decades. Her mother, in fact, was best friends with my grandmother. In the mid-1970s, when hordes of New Yorkers moved to Minnesota – my mom’s family and my dad’s family included – Regina’s brother and other relatives were among them. But Regina stayed in New York through the 70s, and I only knew of her and her mother through stories my grandmother told. My grandmother even insisted she was “Italian by association,” attributing her gregarious nature and love of pasta, I presume, on the influence of Regina and her mom.

But in the early 1980s, recently divorced, Regina and her two sons finally joined the rest of her family in Minnesota. I recall my family being very excited to have her in town, and it was at a dinner party back then when I first met her sons. My Dad was so happy to have his childhood friend living so close, he introduced her to me with his arm around her and giddily noted that she was – to the day – exactly one year older than he was. That evening, her younger son Joel tied a necktie on me so tight I couldn’t breathe, so I ran to her older son Henry (who, like the rest of us kids, was banished to play in the basement, but was too old to play and so just sat on the couch and watched TV). Thankfully, Henry loosened the tie in time and I’m still taking in oxygen as of today.

At the other end of the decade, Regina invited my grandparents over for dinner. It was just another in a series of get-togethers they’d enjoyed over the decade, but this time, Regina called my parents and invited them, too. My parents, being the social butterflies that they were, declined the offer, but Regina called back to see if maybe I could come over with my grandparents – I could entertain Joel, she said. And so, one evening in October 1989, I traveled the hour-long car ride out to the small town where Regina, her sons, and her roommate Val lived. The house smelled wonderful – they had prepared some sort of Italian dish that I had never heard of, and there was Billy Joel, Tony Bennett, and Frank Sinatra music playing on the stereo. Having not seen each other in probably half a decade, Joel and I became fast friends that evening – discovering our mutual love of old movies, rock music, and laughing at our families.

A month later, having nothing special to do during the Thanksgiving break, Regina again called my parents and asked if I wanted to spend the long weekend at her home. I was so excited to go! A week later, on the Wednesday night after school let out for the Thanksgiving break, my family drove me to a parking lot in Shakopee, where we met up with Regina’s family (it was a good mid-way meeting point).

I spent an even longer time at Regina’s during the Xmas break.

And over the summer, I probably spent a total of two weeks at her home.

And for the next four or five years, I went out there as often as I could.

And here the thing I want to note specially: When I was there, I wasn’t just there to be with Joel, I was there as a guest of the whole family. At nearly all my other friends’ homes, we’d play down in their basement, or we’d go off by ourselves to the movie theaters, the malls, or the restaurants. But at Regina’s, it was different. Joel and I played board games with Regina and Val. We ate all our meals with them, and when Joel and I decided we were going to see a movie, Regina said, “Sounds like fun, I’m coming too.” A few times, Joel and I rented movies and his mom would request that we not watch them until she got home from work because she wanted to watch them, too. And I don’t mean that she did those things because she was trying to keep an eye on us, she did them because she genuinely enjoyed spending time with her son and with her son’s friends. We talked about all manner of concerns – and she really wanted to know how I was feeling or what I was thinking about certain issues in life.

I even went grocery shopping with them, she expected me to help put away the groceries, and I had to help Joel with the dishes every evening – and Regina even hollered to me one evening to come back in the kitchen and “fix” the cups, which I had placed upside down in the cabinets. I argued that upside down was better – because then dust didn’t settle in them. She argued that right-side up was better, because then they’d dry thoroughly and, anyway, no cup was going to languish in their cabinet long enough to get dusty. Regina had no qualms about fixing my hair or telling me to straighten my shirt before we went out. And in the car, we all sung along to Billy Joel tunes. And every time we passed under the “Noel” sign that hung in town during the holidays, Regina shouted “Leon” – because that’s what it looked like as you drove away from it and she thought my ability to talk backwards was hilarious.

She was so outgoing and so friendly, I never knew what to expect next. One day I walked in the door and she introduced me to another person who was living with them for a while, and every time I came over there were new people I’d never met before that she, Val, Henry, and Joel declared to be their best friends. Honestly, this sometimes annoyed me, because I just wanted them all to myself, but now I see that they were just extremely hospitible – they opened their home and their hearts to everyone they met. Another time, I walked in the door and everyone was dancing…there just happened to be a great song on the record player and, even though some unpronounceable Italian meal was getting cold on the table, how could they resist? Even once I had my driver’s license and was free to go where ever whenever, I still loved going to their house for a few days to “get away from it all” – Regina’s house was my vacation.

Of course, in time, I really was too old to sleep over at their place. Once I was married, Jennifer and I got together with them a few times, but not often. Joel’s ever-expanding circle of friends left me behind as I was comfortable with my same small repertoire of buddies. Still, it was always a treat to see Regina. At every religious convention, every family gathering, every wedding, we greeted each other with a hug, and she asked, “How’s my boy?” as if she viewed me as her kin.

The last time I saw Regina was completely fortuitously – Jennifer, Owen, and I were about to board an airplane to visit my Dad in Florida. There, in the terminal, was Regina. It was odd to see her alone…I hardly recognized her without a group of friends or family in her vicinity. She was just sitting there, reading quietly. In the hustle to get on the plane, Jennifer and I decided not to approach her until we boarded. There was an empty seat next to us and so, once the seat belt sign shut off, I walked over to Regina. I placed my hand on her shoulder and I said, “Hello Regina, would you like to come keep us company?” She looked up from her magazine and breathed in surprise. Her face lit up and her eyes became watery, it was almost as if this Italian New Yorker was positively suffering without having anyone to talk with, and she heartily accepted my offer. She came and sat by us and, for the next two hours we talked…about baby Owen, about her grandchildren, about Val, about the trip to Florida, and other things. As we got off the plane, Regina phoned Val to say she’d arrived safely and she said, “Guess who I was with on the plane?” And then she told Val that we were an answer to her prayer – we gave her comfort and distraction from an otherwise nervous, lonely time on an airplane.

So I say she was my friend – even though she was a quarter-century older than me – and not merely my friend’s mom. Uniquely, Regina alone was the one parent I looked forward to visiting just as much as my peer. She was both an extroverted, gruff New Yorker, and a warm, sensitive human being. She treated everyone – including her son’s 12-year-old friend, with respect and dignity. The idea of being both a parent and a friend to one’s children is, I know, not universally held by all moms and dads. But I try – only try, not succeed – to keep that in mind with my kids: they’re not tenants rooming in my house or little servants to boss around, but real people with their own opinions, hopes, and needs. And I hope, someday, they’ll look back on me as both their parent and their friend.

Thanks to Regina, I know it’s possible.

I still want to change my middle name.

I’ve written about this before. Over four years ago, I wrote a blog explaining that seeing my middle name in print was becoming a bit jarring. (Click here for that post, and scroll down to the subheading “June 16, 2010”.) I wrote about it again in early 2012, writing that I was trying to decide on a replacement middle name.

So here’s what I’m thinking: I will change my middle name, legally, to Denali.

Here are the pros:

*It starts with a D. My current middle name likewise starts with a D, so my initials will remain unchanged. I like my initials – JDZ – so I’d hate to see them change.

*I once read a book about Denali National Park. It was a great book, filled with amazing photos of the park. I decided then (this was back in 2002) that I would like to visit there someday. So…Denali has been a goal of mine for some 12 years.

*It sounds cool. At least, I think so. I don’t know anyone else with that name. All too often, unique names equal weird names, but I don’t think so in this case. This time, unique seems really cool.

*It has three syllables. This is good because that means it fits well with my monosyllabic first name. It also means that I’ll have a grand total of 7 syllables in my name, which is what my wife and all three kids have. So…yay! We’ll match.

Okay, now here are cons…

*It sounds feminine. You know, because it ends with a vowel sound. Like Rosa…or Mimi…or Netanyahu. I know that in some languages, adding a vowel sound almost automatically feminizes a name or term but, thankfully, no habla españo. And, anyway, Denali ends with an “ee” sound, not an “a” or “ia” sound.

*It’s appropriating Native American culture. Okay…actually I’m mixed about this one. In the book Neither Wolf Nor Dog, the author noted how anyone who has the slightest bit of Native American ancestry makes a big deal over how great that is. People say things like, “Did you know I’m 1/16 Cherokee?” or “My great great grandfather was 1/8 Lakota.” So, it’s with great hesitation that I say…my great grandmother was a Blackfoot Indian. But since “Denali” is Koyukon and not Blackfoot, I certainly don’t have any more claim to the culture than I do to Greek, just because one of my other great grandmothers was German. To me, the bigger issue is…so what? We gave our first child a Scottish middle name even though we are not Scottish. I don’t think my choice of names should be limited only to those cultures that I, or my recent ancestors, have haled from.

So, I’m looking for some feedback. What do you think?