At the beach at Lake Nokomis

It’s summer, and the weather is hot and sticky. As I walked past my daughter sunbathing in the yard, I recalled hot summer days of my own childhood.

We lived in what would today be called an exurb. It was the 1960s, and air conditioning was still a novelty. So on those extra shimmery days, there was not much to do except sweat and pray for a thunder storm to cool things down. We didn’t have a pool, and there were no lakes nearby except rural, weedy Lake Alimagnet.

But occasionally for a treat, we’d pile into the car and my father would take us to Lake Nokomis in the city. It was a grand lake with lots of people and big sandy beaches. It even had swings and a snack bar!

But most of all, I was impressed by the teenagers lounging on the float just beyond the roped area for little kids. I’d stare at the girls in their filled-out bikinis and the boys with their baby abs as they lay completely motionless in the sun listening to WDGY on transistor radios. They were so mysterious, and so grown-up! How I longed to be older and join them! I once tried to swim out the float but when I could no longer feel the bottom of the lake under my feet, I got scared and turned back.

Years later I took my own kids to Lake Nokomis. As I splashed near the shore with my youngest while anxiously scanning deeper water for my eldest, I spotted a couple teens lying idly on the float. They looked so relaxed and carefree! I so wanted to join them! I stared for a moment then turned back to my youngest.

Cross it off!

A couple years ago, I developed arthritis in my left knee and for the last 15 months have been using a knee brace that I call the “Forrest Gump” model. (Or as my loving children say to me, "Run, Mom, run!") While the brace was being fitted, I foolishly asked the orthopedic technician if there was anything else I could do to forestall surgery. Yes, he replied, lose weight (yeah, well…) and strengthen your knee muscles (what – exercise?!). Not the kind of thing a couch potato like me wants to hear.

But after nine months of false promises and self-delusion, I finally bought an elliptical, or cross-trainer, in December. I’ve been using it religiously ever since.

I started slowly adding 3-5 minutes every two weeks. I’m now up to 35 minutes a day. At the end of each workout, I check my heart rate. I hit a milestone a few days ago when my results went from “very poor” to just “poor.” This has happened only twice, but I’ll take what I can get! And although after five months I haven’t lost an ounce of weight (this gut is going nowhere), my overall stamina is a little better. I also know I’m making progress because I sweat like a pig. Just recently when my daughter saw me after a workout, she exclaimed, “Mom, you’re all wet! ... Is that sweat? Ewwwww! Stay away from me!”

Most amazingly, however, after years of turning up my nose at even the thought of jogging or a gym, I’ve found myself almost enjoying it! It happens when I hit my stride – that smooth, easy rhythm that makes you feel like you could go all day. Too bad it takes 25 minutes of huffing and puffing to reach those magical ten. Ahhh, endorphins!

But even better, I’ve found my mind settling. I do my best thinking on the toilet, in the shower, and now, on the cross-trainer. I won’t go so far as to say it gives me peace of mind, but, shall we say, equilibrium?

How long will I be able to keep this up? I don’t know. But this momentary balance of head and heart is not half bad.

Corporate give and take

A few years ago, I spoke with a man who lived in Sweden but owned a business with manufacturing in Thailand. He traveled to Bangkok regularly to check on production. Thinking about the low cost of living in Thailand for “westerners” or people with money in their pocket, I asked him why he didn’t live in Bangkok. Ugh! Too noisy and too dusty, he replied. He much preferred Sweden.

Although far away, it makes sense that his company located production where wages are low, raw materials cheap, and corporate taxes, I assume, correspondingly minimal. That’s what companies do – produce things as inexpensively as possible.

And although I’ve heard Thailand is a lovely country, I’m not sure I would want to live there full-time either. But there’s the rub: When I don’t live where I work, there’s not a lot of incentive for me to care what happens when I’m away as long as I get what I need to keep my business going.

I’m not implying my acquaintance was a heartless or uncaring person. But as they say, he “had no skin in the game” – literally. As long as he didn’t live in Thailand, I assume he had no direct interest in whether or not the community where he did business recouped its return on investment, and then some, in the roads, utilities, and other publicly funded infrastructure and services that benefited his company.

In this age of distant and diffuse corporate ownership, we need policies that reduce the disjuncture between absentee owners and local responsibility. We obviously can’t tell people where to live and work, but we can do a better job of creating tax and ownership policies that make companies behave as if they have a long-term vested interest in communities from which they derive their profits. (After all, in the United States, corporations are “persons.”) We need to reestablish the connection between where companies do business and what they give back to host communities.

Or think of it this way. We need to tax company owners and corporate shareholders for the privilege of not living in Bangkok.


See related post Age of selfishness (or getting my way - what I want, when I want, how I want).