Small Wonders

"When you do nothing, you feel overwhelmed and powerless. But when you get involved, you feel the sense of hope and accomplishment that comes from knowing you are working to make things better." — Maya Angelou According to the American Cancer Society, almost 1 in 8 women in the United States will be diagnosed with breast cancer in their lifetime Rose Marie Hunt had beaten breast cancer once. But when it came back, and metastasized to other parts of her body, Jessica Cribbs knew her mother's prognosis wasn't good.

Few drives are more monotonous than Golden State (5) Freeway through California's Central Valley. But what does make it worse is a big-rig crashing into a tractor-trailer, bursting into flames and closing three of the five southbound lanes when you're trying to get home from a family vacation. One's mind wanders in inching traffic, 90-plus-degree heat and having exhausted "99 Bottles of Scotch on the Wall." So here are a few things I thought about while stuck on the Grapevine the other day; more musings from the Muffin Top Man: One of these days, Thing 1, my 8-year-old daughter, is going to figure out that we've never put film into that cheap camera she's been playing with since she was 3. And on that day, there will be much fear and trembling and gnashing of teeth.

Third in an occasional series When Art Chudabala was a boy, his father took him on weekly fishing ventures off the Southern California coast. On one of these excursions his father caught a huge mackerel and hauled it on deck. His father immediately filleted it and took a bite of the raw, still-warm flesh. "There was blood running down his cheeks," he told me. "That was hardcore." Art, a Burbank resident, recalled this story as we left the fishmonger's stall at the farmer's market and perused the other vendors looking for his next meal's muse.

With so much wrong in the world today — the Dodgers' disintegration and Arnold's improprieties, Weiner's lewd tweets and Sarah's revisionist history — I've been looking for something uplifting to read to take my mind off the dark and destructive forces swirling about us like tornados in Massachusetts. What better than the final words of a young father dying a slow death to pancreatic cancer? A few years late, but I am reading “The Last Lecture,” by Randy Pausch. As you may recall, Pausch was a computer science professor at Carnegie Mellon University who was asked to partake in the school's “last lecture” series, wherein an instructor gives the hypothetical final lecture of their career.

Did you see it? Did you watch the world tumble hopelessly into the abyss last week? When the greed and selfishness of your power brokers slammed headlong into the greed and selfishness of mine? When spoiled, selfish bureaucrats with better healthcare and retirement funds than you and I could ever dream about argued about what we, “the American People,” wanted; each side refusing to compromise in their quest to portray themselves as our guardians. Did you see it? Just when we thought the dust had settled, others chimed in telling the world that our credit was no longer good here; the same suits that not long ago told us something called a “mortgage-backed security” was AAA, good as gold, told us that America was not.  So a bunch of people with bags of money cried “Sell!

Foggy mornings. Searing days. Cool evenings. Thus marks the seasonal change in our SoCal bubble, where summer and autumn wage battle, neither letting us know who will win until winter's had her say. The seasons don't change so much as argue for two months; one day cold and rainy, the next blistering hot. Pull out the extra blankets, flannel shirts and wool sweaters, then nature's whim peels the clouds away and smothers us with her stifling heat,...

Impermanence. Though it creeps up on us silently, change has a habit of striking in the moment. Like the long-building earthquake that jolts us from sleep; or seasons that argue thunderously with wild temperature fluctuations before one relents. Little ones' pants, yesterday scraping the ground, are Capri length today. Apples and peanut butter, last week's favorite snack, this week conjure upturned noses and gagging sounds. And my daughters must now bend low to see themselves in a mirror that was not long ago just the right height.

Well, well, well. Wishes do come true. In October 2009, I wrote in this column that I wanted it to snow on Southern California. I wanted to see our cities blanketed in a layer of white in hopes such an act of force majeure would bring society to a standstill. It took 16 months, but it happened. And this time I didn't have to drive 90 minutes to shovel the stuff into the bed of my truck, haul it home and dump it on the lawn so the kids could experience a snow day. When it started last Saturday, I was in line at the Handy Market paying for my tri-trip sandwiches and ribeyes.

I have the smartest daughters in the world. I know this not because Thing 1 and Thing 2 have perfect grades (though they scored very well on last year's standardized tests). I know this not because their teachers send home notes detailing their exploits and benevolence (though Thing 2 did lend a lunchless kid a dollar the other day). I know this not because the Nobel Prize committee announced it (though a source tells me they are short-listed). And most importantly, lest you accuse me of nepotism, I know this not because I am their father and adore them with the searing intensity of a million suns.

Last week, in my little corner of your local newspaper, I contemplated the ills of society. I offered my opinion on humanity's great downfall, be it political, spiritual or social in nature. Namely, that all of us are so absorbed in our own interests and realities we can't be bothered to consider the needs, beliefs or concerns of others. Thanks to everyone for their feedback to my latest delusion of grandeur. And, no, I was not dropped on my head as a child. I fell. A lot. Now I'm not so naive to think that any of our problems will be solved by a new seat warmer in the White House, the adoption of a new tax code, the limitation or expansion of certain inalienable rights or by holding hands globally and singing “Kumbaya” until pixie dust rains down from the heavens.