Restoration

by J. F. Krause

  Even though Rachel was a tad premature, the timing was great for Cynthia and Irma. Cynthia and Todd will be leaving for their Gap Year soon, and this will give her a chance to spend a few months with her new little sister while helping her mom cope with diapers and formula. In the meantime, Eric, Carl’s adopted son continues studying for his Bar Mitzvah. He takes his lessons with the rabbi very seriously I understand. The rabbi here in SLO is, like most of us, a transplanted Angelino. Her grandparents on her mom’s side were from Korea and her father arrived in California from Korea when he was just an infant. I don’t know how she ended up a rabbi, but I’m sure it’s a great story. She’s engaged to a fellow Korean-American. Her fiancé is Presbyterian. I’ve seen him at the Jewish Temple services she conducts, and Jane says the rabbi is often in attendance at the Presbyterian services. For the most part, people are a lot mellower about religion than before The Sickness. We tend to overlook little stuff, and frankly, after what we’ve all been through, it’s pretty much all little stuff. I remember hearing or reading something along those lines before The Sickness, but it didn’t really sink in until this past year.

  On the other hand, there is a small but very vocal group of people who have gone the other way with religion and are extremely reactionary in their outlook. They live in what we refer to as ‘The Villages’, a group of seven small communities strung out across the south from eastern Oklahoma to South Carolina. They won’t have anything to do with the Coalition and don’t believe in medicine and higher learning. The Villages started up when I was chosen as the executive director of the Coalition. For a while, they seemed to be shrinking but appear to have stabilized over the last few months. Mostly, they keep to themselves and seem harmless enough. They blame science and doctors for The Sickness. I don’t know much more about them since they won’t talk to us.

  I spent some time talking to the Education group on a conference call just a few minutes ago. It was decided to add the deeper instruction on government and diplomacy to the Gap Year studies. I agree with their thinking. Not every community has the same understanding of how and why government works and diplomatic rules are almost universally misunderstood. We decided that by including it in the Gap Year training section, we could make sure all our young people got the same information and had the same experiences. The one group that will miss the government and diplomacy training is the very first group that went through the program, the one with Anna and Zach. Too bad because they have been a barometer for me on how well the experience is being received. Anna and Zach will be returning from their year on February 20. I’m having lunch with all of our Gappers at Calloway House on Saturday. Marco is coming back with them after handing over the reins for Pendleton to Katerina Bruekner, his second in command for the first year. Marco is coming home to SLO where he will be in charge of our local militia training again. Most of our adults spend one evening a week training for something bad to happen. We figure the best offence is a good defense. It’s a great bonding experience for the community and actually a good fitness program. I’m not allowed to be part of any particular group, but I do get to attend the fitness training sessions. I go to Kevin’s group and then we carry on during the week at home. An innovation that Marco intends to implement is to allow families to bring their older children to training with them. He says the older kids can keep up just as well as the fifty and sixty year olds. I don’t know; some of the older people have really gotten pretty fit in the last few months, and I’m ashamed to admit it, but since I end up missing at least one training in three, and sometimes more, I’m among the weakest links in the workout group.

  I usually write these reports the very first thing on Monday morning. Sometimes other things intervene and I don’t get around to it for a couple of weeks and sometimes even longer. I might have skipped it this time, at least until next week, but I wanted to report on Irma’s baby.

  February 18

  Filadelfia was admitted to the Coalition as a full member community this last Friday, and Mennonites from around the world are already arriving. Gerte sent word that her three wards were allowed to leave Mexico with her. She’s a good woman and is a good foster mother to her three children. The Representatives’ meeting was lots of fun, of course. George was his usual annoying self. He made motion after motion but this time he didn’t get any seconds. In the beginning someone would often second him because they thought it was good to hear him out, and then we would get a vote of 1 to 25 on whatever he proposed. Now, they seem to dislike him even more than I do. I knew that as soon as he started making noise about how Filadelfia didn’t fit in with the Coalition, it was a guaranteed thing that Filadelfia would be admitted. Actually, if he’d just kept his mouth shut, someone else might have questioned the efficacy of offering them membership. After all, there were plenty of modern Mennonites who would have been willing to start a second Mennonite settlement that would have easily fit into the Coalition. For all I know, maybe George is smart enough to know that and wanted to rush their membership through without a thorough discussion. But if I start thinking like that, I’ll end up chasing my tail around in circles.

  What made George the angriest, however, was my little speech to the assembled Filadelfians while I was taking questions. I always forget that practically everything I say publicly is recorded and then broadcast. I’m a little surprised that people still listen to what I have to say.

  I didn’t intend for this to happen, but I seem to be defining our new government for people. They don’t seem to be aware that no one is telling me what to say. From my mouth to their ears. I suppose I could be dangerous, and maybe I am. But for the life of me, I can’t see how I could do anything but what I’m doing or, rather, what we’re all doing. There’s no money so I can’t get rich. I don’t want a harem since I’m gay, so the women are safe with me. Kevin would never forgive me if I started making eyes at anyone else but him, and that would be unbearable. I’ve already got the biggest house in town if you count Calloway House as a house. I never actually drive anymore so cars are no big thing. I’m way too introverted to actually want to be famous, and I’ve still become the best known voice, face, and name in most of the world without even trying.

  I probably have some of the best job security on the planet at a time when I could easily never work a day in my life and be just as comfortable. The one thing I really want is the very thing I don’t and can’t have: free time to read history books and science fiction. Don’t judge. Sometimes I fantasize about becoming a cheese maker. I’d have a lot of time waiting for it to age so I could read whatever I wanted, but I’m pretty sure cheese makers have to do more than sit around and wait for their cheeses to ripen.

  But back to George. I don’t think he’s thought much of anything through on his oppositional behavior. Actually, I don’t think he’s thinking through anything he does or says regardless of the topic. He may really think I’m some sort of an evil force, something I certainly hope isn’t true about me. (I’m very aware, though, that the potential for evil is there. It goes with the territory I’m afraid.) I just have to be vigilantly conscious of the choices I make. I wonder what George thinks my motives are. Maybe I’m missing something. Whatever his thoughts are, they’re likely to remain a mystery, unless, of course George decides to enlighten me, something he doesn’t seem willing or able to do, although he’s certainly tried.

  This time he wanted to know ‘what in hell humane libertarianism is’. Since I wasn’t really aware of exactly what I was saying at the time, and since I didn’t listen to the rebroadcast of my speech in Filadelfia, I didn’t know what he was talking about at first. Then it hit me. I did use that exact phrase.

  I decided to lay it all out for him again. We mustn’t make any laws that we can’t enforce, and there are very few we can enforce. We don’t really need many laws anyway, and it isn’t our right to impose rules on people other than the personal space rule. The one about your freedom ends where my nose begins. That’s most of the libertarianism p
art. The humane part deals with the necessities of life: food, shelter, medical care, water, protection, community. and so on. Pretty simple, but it’s not a social movement.

  He called me an anarchist. I pointed out that every aspect of our cultural life including family and country had been destroyed already by The Sickness; we certainly didn’t need an anarchist revolution to destroy everything again.

  Then he accused me of reveling in the destruction of our civilization. That didn’t dignify an answer, but I tried anyway. I answered that all the survivors had merely responded to the reality we all woke up to the day after everyone died. We made the best out of a horrible situation.

  I think this could have gone on for quite awhile except that Samantha Enderle, the Representative from Australia and the South Pacific generally, intervened and threatened to call for a vote to censure him if he continued to insult the ‘Executive Director’. After her last motion to censure him, he’s learned not to tangle with her. It turns out he didn’t like being censured.

  With George silenced for a few minutes, the Representatives themselves took up the discussion of what humane libertarianism meant and how we implemented it. To them it was a good thing and they clearly were happy to have a name for it. Then someone came up with the name ‘social libertarianism’ and the discussion veered to what that might mean. As I’ve said before, the Representatives don’t really have much decision-making power, but in their own way, they can define the conversation, and this is one of those occasions when they did just that.

  By the time I got home, I was already aware that people were discussing ‘social libertarianism’ and ‘humane libertarianism’. They weren’t debating or arguing, they were discussing it. And it wasn’t just in SLO, it was pretty much everywhere.

  In a nutshell, social libertarianism is taking on the meaning of planning to take ongoing care of the basic needs of the populace while limiting, as much as possible, the scope of the rules and regulations under which people live. Humane libertarianism is defined as taking care of the basic needs of the populace as a temporary necessity also while limiting, as much as possible, the scope of the rules and regulations under which people live. I’m afraid we may have set off the beginnings of two political parties.

  The only thing I can say that was good about these discussions was that George didn’t like either of our two proto-parties. It turns out that he’s an authoritarian. I can’t see anyone buying into that.

  Our first Gappers will be home this coming Friday afternoon. We’re having a welcome home party for them at the football stadium. We’ll also get the chance to assess what value the Gap Year provides.

  February 25

  The party was one of the best things that could have happened. After Thanksgiving, Christmas, and the Anniversary, I think everyone was ready to move on. Here in SLO, all told, we have just over 150 Gappers at various stages of their Gap Year, and eleven of them were in the very first cohort.

  Anna, who had, at first, been a little reluctant to go since she would be leaving her brother and Chanelle behind was an enthusiastic returnee. She clearly had a great time and gave a rousing speech at the party. All eleven of our graduate Gappers spoke at the party about their experiences. This week, they are going to spend some time at the high school letting the kids who will be leaving for their Gap Years during the next few months know what they can expect.

  I was able to spend an afternoon talking to our Gap alumni at length about the overall experience. They liked most everything, but all of them wanted to get out in the world and experience someplace other than Pendleton. Or maybe I should say in addition to Pendleton. They shared that idea with the leaders at Pendleton before they left so I’m pretty sure someone is thinking about what they said. They liked international sign language and felt it was a good way to save spoken languages that might be endanger of dying out post sickness. They actually liked having recruiters and presentations from the military branches, but they didn’t think we gave enough self-defense options, beyond just taekwondo. They also thought teaching Esperanto, while interesting, was out of place at Gap. First of all, they had so much on their plates already, and second, they were learning International Sign Language. They felt Esperanto was a threat to the local languages but ISL wasn’t. I agreed to pass their thoughts along.

  One of our boys will be leaving in a few days to join his newfound girl friend from Puerto Madryn, Argentina. She’s already back home, but the two of them will only be there for a couple of months before they start at the university in Santiago, Chile. After that, they will be settling permanently in Puerto Madryn. At least, that’s their plan. The young lady, Monica Botha, has an older brother who survived and is a pharmacist in Puerto Madryn, a city in Argentina originally settled by Welsh immigrants over a hundred years ago. While Puerto Madryn has a strong Welsh heritage, Monica’s family background also includes ancestors from a large group of Boer immigrants who arrived soon after the British defeated the Boers in South Africa at the turn of the 20th century. She and Scott Highbarger, the young man from SLO, will be completing their pre-med university studies in Santiago and then continuing through the med school system depending on their areas of medicine. Both of them had already been enrolled in pre med in college before The Sickness. Scott seems very smitten with her, and since he didn’t have anyone left here in North America, South America seems to be a good choice for them.

  On the other hand, one of our young ladies came back with a young man from Bangalore, India. They plan to attend the university here in SLO. The other young people are coming home to the university here, too. And Anna and Zach have both decided to spend a few months here before they enroll in the Air Force College in Colorado Springs.

  That little announcement wasn’t a surprise, but it led to a serious discussion between Anna, Chanelle, Kevin, and I.

  We met in the Calloway House basement that Todd will be vacating when he leaves for Pendleton in May. I figured that was more casual, and even though this was a momentous decision we were making, I didn’t want it to be formal. By the way, Zach will be staying downstairs in one of the extra bedrooms until they leave for Colorado Springs. Anna is staying upstairs in one of our guest rooms.

  “Anna, since you’re going to be leaving for the academy in a couple of months, have you and Chanelle discussed her status as your ward?” Kevin is usually the family spokesperson for us.

  “Yes. We’ve talked about it, haven’t we, Chanelle?”

  “Uh huh. Can I still live here with you and Bobby?”

  “Of course, but we’d also like to be your actual, official guardians, too, if you don’t mind.” Kevin did the talking, and I was just sitting and saying nothing, my favorite thing to do when I can get away with it.

  “I think I’d like that, but would that make Jerry and me brother and sister?”

  “Yes, it would, sort of I guess.”

  “Would that mean we, uh, we, uh, we couldn’t get married when we grow up?”

  Anna smiled discretely, and Kevin and I looked at each other in surprise.

  “You want to marry Jerry?” That was me.

  “Yeah. If he isn’t gay. Is Jerry going to be gay?”

  That’s when it hit both of us. Jerry and Chanelle had been inseparable ever since they met just after we left the hospital on our way over to the Richard Nixon Library.

  “I’m guessing he isn’t, but who knows? He’d only 12. And yes, if you and Jerry both want to marry when you’re older, you can still marry, even if both of you are our children and in the same family. Only biological siblings can’t get married. You’re never going to be biological siblings no matter who your parents or guardians are. But why do you think Jerry might be gay?”

  “Because my mom, my real mom before The Sickness used to say the best ones, you know, men, were, uh, like, uh, married or, uh, gay.”

  We tried, but we all laughed at that, even Chanelle. “Well, your mom was teasing a little. Zach isn’t gay, and he’s not married. Todd isn’
t gay, and he isn’t either. There are lots of really nice men around who aren’t gay, and even some gay ones that aren’t that nice. It’s just a fun thing to say sometimes. And I’d pretty much bet that Jerry isn’t going to be gay. I was starting to think Cedric might be gay, but not after he and Nelda hit it off.” Kevin is always making us laugh, and we all laughed again.

  “Ok, then if I can still marry Jerry if you adopt me, I’d love to be your kid.”

  “Good. We’ll tell the school on Monday that we’re your new guardians. We’ll also take care of it with the city leadership. You also need to keep in mind that you can’t marry anyone, even Jerry, until you’re older. And you both can always marry someone else if that’s what you decide. Just not now.”

  “Ok. Thanks. I love you Kevin. And I love you, too, Bobby. And you, too, Anna.”

  We talked for a couple of minutes, but Chanelle clearly wanted to tell her brothers she was now their sister so we hugged her and she ran upstairs.

  I wanted to know what Anna knew and when she knew it. “Alright, tell us everything you know about Jerry and Chanelle.”

  I felt like we were gossiping about 12 year olds, which is what we were doing, of course.

  Since both Anna and Zach gave up there houses here in SLO, they are both staying here with us. Contrary to what I was expecting, they asked for separate rooms. Evidently, girls sleep in the girls’ barracks and the boys sleep in the boys’. I never asked, but that’s what I gleaned from our conversation. I’m guessing that didn’t slow many of them down though.

  Anna and Zach will be leaving for the Academy not long after Todd and Cynthia leave for their Gap Year.

  One thing I’ve noticed about Anna and Zach, they are older somehow. All our young people seem more mature than their counterparts before The Sickness, but Anna and Zach are even more so after their experience at Pendleton. Maybe that would have happened anyway, but I think it’s one of the benefits of the Gap Year. I wasn’t really familiar with what high schoolers were like before The Sickness, but it seems that all the pain and horror of losing their whole world full of families and friends has affected our young people in a profound way. For that matter, even the elementary school children seem wiser and more mature, and even though my experience as a teacher was cut short at a year and a half, I think my observations are pretty spot on. Because of the increased maturity that seems to have become a part of our young people’s personas, I was a little worried that Jerry and Chanelle were going to be more romantically entwined than I wanted them to be at 12. Fortunately, it seems that the maturity thing stops short of effecting their sexual development. Thanks to the school sex education program, they understand far more than I did at their age, and thank goodness their hormones are still not in overdrive. For that matter, thank heavens Kevin seems to know what he’s doing. Even though I taught fifth graders, I wasn’t experienced in dealing with full-blown adolescents. Sometimes living with Kevin is like living with ‘Father Knows Best’.