Where Everyone Knows Bear's Name

As my health improves and my legal cases wind down, I’ve begun applying for post-lawyer and law-adjacent jobs. Recently a friend suggested I reach out to a local bar leader to chat about his experiences. Although we have mutual friends, I wrote in my introductory email that we hadn’t met.

He graciously invited me to lunch next week. But he disagreed with me:

“By the way, we have already met in Fairhaven. Your dog Bear and my dog have met at least.”

Everyone knows Bear. And Bear knows everyone – especially everyone who’s ever offered him a treat.

Bear’s ideal walk is a six mile “Grand Slam,” which involves three treats in Fairhaven, two along the Boardwalk, and four downtown. The newest addition to our route is the bank. Recently their security guard saw us in the parking lot and asked where we were going. I told him I was using the ATM after going across the street to the post office to get my mail and Bear’s treat. The guard told us our longtime Chase branch also has treats. Now Bear is a regular customer.

 

When the tellers first met him last month, Bear was still wearing a tee shirt to protect his bite wound. I got to tell everyone the story of how an unleashed bulldog named “Bubbles” almost killed Bear at Christmas. On our next visit to the bank, the goofy bro teller was the one who brought out the dog treat. He asked if my wife had been in a couple of days ago with Bear. He remembered a lot of the details about Bear and Bubbles. But he didn’t remember me. 

Most days our first stop is at Village Books in Fairhaven. As Bear lunged toward the front door yesterday, I heard a gentleman on the sidewalk with his golden retriever marvel “They let dogs into the bookstore?” 

 

Not only are dogs welcome in Village Books, but there are treats waiting behind each counter. Bear knows our rule – only one treat per establishment per walk. But he’s allowed to say hi and get backrubs from his friends at any counter. So Bear will try to get me distracted enough for him to bum an extra biscuit off some weak-willed bookseller.  

 

I heard the internal Village Book staff newsletter announced Bear had a haircut this week. Everyone is startled by the contrast. Yesterday a clerk at one of the counters leaned down to ask my dog if he wanted a treat. Then she saw me and realized it was a shorn Bear. 

 

At least she recognized me. But she only knows Bear’s name.

The best treats are at Chrysalis Inn, the biggest treats are at Rumors, and the most treats are at Village Books. But Bear would say the best company is at Acme Ice Cream. 

A sign on the door identifies Acme as “dog friendly.” The photo montage of canine regulars on the wall prominently features Bear. In addition to sharing waffle cone fragments and gourmet treats from Mud Bay, the ice cream scooping baristas have taught Bear to shake. On busy days, Bear charms new customers while patiently waiting in line. On quiet days, the ice cream scoopers and I socialize while Bear enjoys getting scratched. 

 

When Bear and I started our long daily walks during covid, the manager Maddie asked me to introduce myself. Since then every Acme employee has always greeted both Bear and me by name.

When Eleanor and Lynn had frequent braces appointments on the other side of downtown, Bear and I would often go on waterfront walks through Squalicum Harbor. There used to be a coffee shop in the marina with homemade dog treats. Whenever we’re in the neighborhood years later, Bear will drag me across acres of parking lots to see if this particular coffee shop has reopened.

 

The former coffee shop’s owner recently opened a pastry place downtown. Yesterday I went in to check out the wares, tying up Bear outside. The cashier looked out the window and exclaimed “I love Bear’s haircut!” She told me she knows Bear because she’s friends with one of the ice cream scoopers at Acme. 

The bank, post office, and gay bar are all closed on Saturday mornings, so Bear’s only treat option downtown is Avelino Coffeehouse. I go to Avelino for the exceptional baked goods and to show off Bear’s manners.

 

Yesterday a man with two canes ahead of us in line was invited to give Bear his treat at the counter. The man walked out beaming, and said “That made my day!”

I never tasted coffee until I was twenty-five. Now I’m a terrible coffee snob. In fact, since the Terminal Building burnt down in December, there’s only one place in Bellingham where I’ll order coffee.   

 

A couple of years ago Facebook kept sending me links to articles with headlines like “Best Coffee Shops in America!” that highlighted Bellingham’s Camber café. Eventually Bear and I passed Camber on one of our walks downtown. Here’s the sign next to the door:

We love dogs, we love your dog, however:  for health and safety reasons we must ask that you do not bring your dog past the front counter. The only exception is if they are a registered service animal with a vest.

 

Please wait outside with them and we will bring your drink out to you.

Everyone is very welcoming to Bear as we wait to be served at the counter. Then Bear and I go outside on the patio where I give him water and a treat from my backpack. 

 

I’m sure their dog treats would be delicious, but Camber doesn’t serve pets. Instead, Camber has amazing coffee. The ambiance is elegant yet comfortable. And they remember my drink. Last month the barista came outside and said “the order said an Americano with walking room and three shots, but I assumed it was a mistake and you wanted four.” 

 

Although I only visit Camber a couple of times a month, I’m always greeted by name. The last time I stopped by alone, the woman at the counter called me “Roger” and asked how “your dog” was doing. I’m sure all the baristas at Camber know Bear’s name. But they know I don’t need to hear it with my coffee.

Kosher Dogs

I was ten or eleven years old when I saw my first musical. It was a touring show at Vancouver’s Queen Elizabeth Theatre called Saturday’s Warrior. After the Broadway successes of Godspell and Jesus Christ Superstar, a group of musicians from Brigham Young University attempted to translate Mormon culture into musical theater. Saturday’s Warrior is about a family resisting worldly temptation and trying to get back to heaven together.

 

December 2023 found me back at the Queen E. This time I was onstage at the Vancouver Playhouse in front of sold-out crowds, singing carols together with a hundred of my gay brothers in Vancouver Men’s Chorus. And pretending to be Jewish.

Despite three decades in gay choruses, I’m still too much of an introvert to audition for an actual solo. But I have impeccable comic timing and a freakishly expressive face. Over the last few years I’ve confronted my anxieties by volunteering for micro-solos in VMC’s Christmas show. Each occasion involved a primarily dramatic rather than musical role. It turns out the contemporary choral repertoire includes a striking number of holiday songs where a lonely Jewish singer attempts to sing about dreidels before being shushed by Christian supremacists. Despite my Scottish / Mormon heritage, I keep getting faux typecast as the outnumbered Jewish guy.

 

For example, the Midwestern a capella group Straight No Chaser has created a raucous polyphonic “Christmas Can-Can.” It’s a cheery race between the chorus, a small ensemble, the orchestra, and the conductor. I signed up to be part of the small group when VMC introduced the song a few years ago. At our first rehearsal we had to assign a handful of short solo lines. “Not gonna do the kick line” went to the Asian bass. Next we needed someone to tell the audience “It’s not fair if you’re Jewish!” Without thinking, I pointed out I can easily play Jewish, and got the part. Afterwards I remembered PTSD was still a whole new adventure for me. There was a significant chance I would freeze when the time came to sing or say my four nebbishy lines. 

 

Fortunately, my fleeting solo came and went each night without any microphone glitches, wardrobe malfunctions, or PTSD episodes. Unfortunately, hundreds of blue-haired ladies and cute gay guys now labor/labour under the misapprehension that I’m Jewish. 

 

In subsequent years I’ve been assigned similar roles in other holiday songs. After one performance I got a message from a charming stranger who said the concert was “lovely” and I was “cute.” I hope his mother won’t be disappointed to find out I’m not really Jewish. 

Mark Burnham Photography 

 

The theme of this year’s VMC holiday show was “Cheers,” which meant lots of drinking songs. One of our recycled numbers was the “Christmas Can-Can.” I signed up to be part of the small ensemble because I’m too lazy to learn the chorus part. I was ready to let someone else take their turn being Jewish. But at the first rehearsal both the conductor and guy directing our ensemble pointed out “Roger already knows the solo.” I took the hint, and enjoyed being part of a revival. One longtime chorus member told me “It feels like Christmas when I hear you being Jewish.” 

 

However, current events made our repertoire fraught. The festive “Christmas Luau” was pulled after fires devastated Maui. Then war erupted between Israelis and Palestinians. Our perky “Boogie Woogie Hanukkah” number was replaced with a choral anthem in Hebrew. Nevertheless, our conductor chose to keep the “Christmas Can-Can.” He trusted the audience, and had faith in my experience and timing.

 

Each of my beleaguered Jewish lines gets smiles and laughs if it lands just right. Normally a missed landing wouldn’t be a big deal – there are a lot of other things happening on stage, and twenty other songs in the concert. But with the Holy Land in turmoil, I was terrified I would create an offensive distraction.

 

Although it stressed me out every night, I safely landed each comic Jewish line. And then I enjoyed the rest of the show.

Mark Burnham Photography

Rehearsals have started for VMC’s next show, which has the theme “Icons.” Our concerts are in June, so we’re still learning new music. In the meantime we’ve been asked to sing three songs at a fundraising gig next month. Two of the songs were part of our set at the Canadian LGBT choral festival in Halifax last May. I was pleased to discover I still have both songs memorized, including a surprising percentage of the choreography to “Don’t Rock the Boat.” 

The third number is an Irish drinking song from our concert in December. Unfortunately, when the conductor waved his baton I suddenly realized I don’t know “Nil Sen La.” 

One of my favorite psychology experiments tested the intelligence of farmers before and after harvest. The researchers found what they called a “scarcity mindset.” Before the harvest, while the farmers were still worrying their crop might fail, they tested an average of thirteen IQ points lower than their intelligence after a successful harvest. Chronic stress “makes you distracted, defensive, less rational, and effectively dumber.”

 

I have a lifetime of experience as a performer and public speaker. I can handle ordinary stage fright. At our June concert a couple of years ago, I kept my poise while introducing the song “Chosen Family” with a tear-jerking speech about being both a PFLAG son and father. But as a PTSD survivor I’ve learned to recognize the impact of extraordinary triggers and stressors. During our recent concerts, I thought I was phoning in “Nil Sen La” because it’s too high and I was saving my voice. In reality, I was so stressed about the four tiny solo lines coming up right afterwards that I couldn’t remember a word in Gaelic, or even the words “Dum Dee Dum.” Now I’m frantically memorizing “Nil Sen La” in preparation for our gig next month.

Bear and I walk for miles every day along the waterfront. My dog has both an uncanny direction sense and a perfect memory for establishments that offer treats. As I observed in “Fairhaven,” our local gay bar Rumors has the biggest treats, but the kitchen door at Chrysalis Inn has the best:  huge chunks of roast chicken breast diverted from the bourgeoisie’s Caesar salads. Bear will also drag us back to any place that has served him lamb or duck, long after the café itself has been boarded up.

 

When the Chrysalis Inn is out of chicken they usually substitute cheese. Which is fine – Bear loves dairy. The other day they had alderwood-smoked bacon instead, which looked delicious to me. But Bear is meh about bacon and pork.

 

I’m not Jewish. But Bear might be.

Grand Slam

Today Bear completed his first ever Grand Slam of Dog Treats.

Bear has both an uncanny direction sense and a perfect memory for establishments that offer treats. Our walks usually start in Fairhaven with stops at Village Books, Acme Ice Cream, and Bay to Baker Trading Company. Then we walk to Boulevard Park, collecting treats at both ends of the Boardwalk from the kitchen door at the Chrysalis Inn and then the walk-up window at Woods Coffee.

Today Bear led me along the rest of the waterfront trail to downtown Bellingham. There Bear finds treats at a coffee shop, a bank, a post office, and a gay bar. The bank is Bear’s newest conquest. Last week the security guard asked where we were going after he saw us park in the bank lot. I told him I was using the ATM after going across the street to the post office to get my mail and Bear’s treat. The guard told us our longtime Chase branch also has treats – who knew?

As I observed in “Fairhaven,” Rumors has the biggest treats, but the Chrysalis Inn has the best – huge chunks of roast chicken breast diverted from the bourgeoisie’s Caesar salads. Along the way, bookstore clerk Nathan gives the best scratches, and the baristas at Acme are Bear’s buddies.

Downtown schedules give the nine-element Grand Slam its high degree of difficulty. The bank and the post office are closed on weekends. The old post office is only open from 11 until 5, and Rumors doesn’t open until 4.

On the way home we walk off-leash through Western Washington University so Bear can kiss the boys and bum cigarettes off the girls. According to both Bear and my iPhone, today we took the shortest possible Grand Slam route: 6.6 miles, in two and a half hours.

Fairhaven

Fairhaven Village is Bellingham’s historic neighborhood. This week the Fairhaven community grieves the loss of its oldest commercial building in a fire. The Terminal Building was home to the Harris Avenue Café and Tony’s Coffee.

 

I’m part of the Fairhaven community because we share a dog. The last time I went into the coffee shop in the Terminal Building, Bear waited on the sidewalk while I ordered my usual: “Americano to go, four shots, black, 16 ounce cup with extra room because I’m walking my dog.” The barista looked outside and asked, “Is your dog Bear? I used to work across the street at Acme, and I miss him.”

Bellingham is blessed with an amazing network of trails. If I got to choose the route, we would stick to the waterfront or go through the woods. I’m a writer, so I like to commune with nature while dictating to my watch. 

But Bear is a people person. In particular, Bear is a people-with-treats-and-hugs person. Several welcoming businesses in Fairhaven keep dog treats behind the counter. Bear has calculated the shortest route to each such establishment. (If they’re closed, Bear insists on being compensated with something from my backpack.) Trading treats for hugs has become the highlight of many Fairhaven folks’ day. At Acme Ice Cream, the dyed-haired baristas have taught Bear to shake hands. At Village Books, Bear can count on Nathan for the best back scratches. On busy retail days, Bear’s contribution to the ambience can close a sale. On quiet days, there’s time for every lonely dog person to get a personal cuddle. 

 

Then Bear shakes his hair as if humans have cooties, and prepares to move on. As Heather at Acme said the other day, “I know you’ve got your other spots, Bear.”

This fall we expanded our treat-seeking itinerary. Bellingham residents who live in the neighborhoods around Fairhaven all receive copies of Southside Living, a glossy local real estate magazine. A recent article with the headline “Meet Skylar, a Fairhaven Regular” described one dog’s foraging route. Bear and I were already familiar with Village Books, Acme Ice Cream, and the Woods Coffee outpost in Boulevard Park. But we hadn’t heard about some of the other treat-offering businesses that Skylar regularly visits, including the toy store down the street. On our next walk through Fairhaven, Bear stopped by to introduce himself to the toy sellers. 

 

It turned out to be fake news – they politely directed us next door to Bay to Baker Trading Company. This made Bear think we’re supposed to stop at every shop on the block. But he quickly figured out which door had treats behind it. Now whenever we leave Acme, Bear drags me straight down the street to Bay to Baker. At each Fairhaven location, Bear offers all the loving craved by the various dog-starved baristas, bookstore clerks, and college students we encounter. But it’s the treats that bring him back.  

Long walks with Bear help me think clearly enough to get my work done. It’s been a challenging year. This summer we averaged over nine miles a day. During the darkest time of year we’re down to six miles a day. But this week we welcome Christmas, the solstice, and the return of light and hope. 

 

In addition to walking along the seawall in Vancouver or on other trails in Bellingham, this year Bear and I have walked along the Boardwalk connecting Fairhaven and Boulevard Park almost every day. Bear thinks it’s because the Boardwalk links the supply of treats in Fairhaven to his friends at Woods Coffee. Bear is a dog. 

 

Boulevard Park has always been my favorite spot in Bellingham, with its rocky beach and spectacular view of Canada, the Olympic Mountains, and the San Juan Islands. Nowadays our path takes us past the spot where the city has poured concrete for a bench donated in honor of Henry King, the genial homeless man who used to sit near there. Henry always saved food to share with Bear. He and my brother Doug Leishman both died this spring. Every day I walk along the waterfront with Bear and think of them fondly.  

Bear’s favorite spot in Bellingham is nearby, at the south end of the Boardwalk. We learned about the kitchen door at the Chrysalis Inn from the Southside Living article revealing Skylar’s secret pirate treasure map. It’s already become Bear’s dream destination. Nevertheless, this stop on our Fairhaven pilgrimage is bittersweet because Bear can’t count on a treat every time.

 

It’s a trick of lighting. Behind the glass door a long hall leads to the kitchen. Although we can see everything happening inside, Bear’s friends usually can’t see him unless they happen to be on their way to grab something from the walk-in fridge next to the exit. Bear is patient. But some days we need to move on without a restaurant treat.

 

Bear would say it’s worth the wait. Even the gourmet dog treats at Acme can’t compete, let along ordinary Milk-Bone® biscuits. One time the busboy brought out a huge piece of applewood-smoked bacon. (I would have eaten it myself, but he insisted on cuddling with Bear until the bacon was all gone.) Most days Bear gets generous chunks of chicken breast that didn’t make it into someone’s Caesar salad. 

 

Usually one of the dog-friendly kitchen workers emerges from the walk-in refrigerator with a handful of tender chicken. Occasionally they’ll bring out the whole plastic tub from the fridge. The first time I saw the treat tub, it was labeled with an expiration date and the name “Skylar.” But Bear has been busy exerting his charm. Now the tub just says “Woof!”

Postscript

This morning after I finished this essay and posted it to my blog, Bear and I walked to Fairhaven. Bear said hi to his friends at Village Books and Bay to Baker Trading Company. At Acme Ice Cream, Maddie’s farewell was similar to her co-worker Heather’s:  “Go see your other friends, Bear!”

 

Bear’s next stop after Fairhaven, Chrysalis Inn, is near the top of the Taylor Dock, where the Boardwalk begins. Before Bear started getting chicken at the kitchen door, this little park used to be one of our regular water stops. (Now Bear prefers to wait until the shelter on the Boardwalk, so he can cleanse his palate after his Caesar salad.) Even before we learned about Skylar’s secret stash at the Inn, Bear was already hanging out with the kitchen staff during their smoke break.

 

Today a couple of busboys on break called Bear over to say hi. Just as I was saying “We should have texted the kitchen to let them know Bear was on his way,” one of Bear’s favorite treat-boys came out the door – a piece of chicken breast in one hand, and an unlit cigarette in the other.

 

Typhoid Merry

I almost got to be a super-spreader. 

 

Instead, I’m isolating in my room with Bear – the first in our family to test positive for covid despite all the social distancing, masks, vaccinations, and dodged bullets. 

I got covid without even noticing it. When Bear and I got home from our usual long walk Wednesday afternoon, I had an email from someone who attended the same festive gathering in Vancouver on Sunday. After feeling a little under weather for a couple of days, he failed a home covid test. He suggested we all check our coronavirus status. Most attendees promptly reported negative results – other than an unlucky few. 

 

I’d taken so many covid tests before. This time I squeezed four drops into the plastic well, then watched the bright red line instantly light up. 

After observing so much suffering during the pandemic, my own experience with covid has been blessedly anticlimactic. I’ve had no symptoms. The kids all stayed virus-free as we finished the last week of school. 

 

However, the December schedule is a mess. And I’m still trapped in “isolation”:  staying at home except for long walks in the woods with Bear; letting the kids feed themselves as the dishes pile up; and either wearing a mask as I try to get work done at my desk, or hiding in my bedroom while Christmas music plays on an infinite loop. 

Before the covid surprise, I was planning to drive back up to Vancouver on Wednesday night to attend a holiday sing-along event hosted by friends at a club downtown. According to the CDC chatbot’s calculations, Wednesday was my most infectious day. 

 

Ironically, I’d already decided to skip the Xmas sing-along and save myself for a New Year’s trip. Instead, I told the kids I was loopy on Theraflu. I hadn’t actually taken any. I just wanted to cover up my decision to take the day off, stay home, and do edibles while pretending to be sick. Still, I’m glad I checked my email before I changed my mind about heading to the piano bar. My boisterous caroling would have contaminated numerous unsuspecting revelers with aerosolized coronavirus.

 

Instead I’m in isolation for ten days. Blame Canada.

This is what covid looks like (Xmas 2022)

Seasons of Bear

Bear is approaching peak foliage. I can tell from the sudden spike in gushing compliments as we walk along the trail. 

 

Although Bear’s glorious autumnal pelt will be on display for the next few weeks, we didn’t purposely aim to accent the fall leaves with his hairdo. As with every other necessity of life during these trying times, dog grooming appointments are hard to find. Bear and Buster are scheduled for haircuts in October. Until then an increasing proportion of enchanted strangers will swoon on the Boardwalk, and say things like “Your dog is so cute!” and “Aw, fluffy!”

I prefer Bear’s “little rascal” look in the weeks after his haircut. With short curls he looks and feels like a pied plush toy. He doesn’t overheat on walks, or smell too much between baths. And without the wild bangs, it’s easier to see Bear’s charming face and his expressive one-blue-and-one-brown eyes. 

Before I was in charge, everyone just let the dogs’ hair grow. Eventually the tangles and mats get so bad there’s no alternative to getting a buzz cut. My son says when Bear is shaved he looks like a blotchy weasel.

If you wait long enough, Bear’s hair gets so long he looks like a Tina Turner wig. Or a tribble. 

Other than during his blotchy buzzcut phase, Bear is a handsome and well-proportioned canine specimen. (In contrast, Buster has stubby legs and the dead eyes of a serial killer.) Bear is more attractive than anyone I’ve ever dated, and obviously way out of my league.

 

Bear is also blessed with smarts and a charming personality. If a merchant offers him a treat once, we can never walk past that store again without trading cuddles for snacks. (In contrast, Buster is skittish and has zero recall – each treat at Village Books is an awkward surprise.) Bear has become the favorite of every barista, book clerk, and ice cream scooper in Fairhaven.

I know it’s time to schedule a haircut when folks start referring to Bear as “fluffy.” (Personally, I prefer the word “shaggy”; “fluffy” feels like poodle shaming.) 

But I recognize Bear is more universally attractive when his hair gets a little longer. He’s like the ideal dog produced by an algorithm – not too big for people who like small dogs, not too yappy for people who like big dogs, and with perfect hair for everyone. If Jennifer Aniston were a dog, she would look just like Bear.

 

So for the next few weeks I will overhear a lot of “oohs” and “ahs.” I will answer questions about Aussiedoodles. I will explain “heterochromia” is the word for having two different colored eyes. I will thank smiling strangers for their compliments, and let them cuddle with Bear. 

I won’t tell them I’m not a dog person myself. I’m a Bear person. Bear’s person.

SEEKING

We live next door to Washington’s third largest university. Unsurprisingly, on our walks Bear and I frequently encounter nerds.

 

The other day we ran into a young man on campus in obvious need of a dog fix. As he gave Bear a glorious tummy rub, the student exclaimed “He has heterochromia!” That’s an impressive nerd word – Bear was indeed born with two different colored eyes. My kids picked Bear out of the litter because of his soulful blue eye and his earnest brown eye.

 

After the Western student finally tore himself away from his canine cuddle, he asked whether Bear is an Aussiedoodle. Another remarkable nerd display. When I ask how he guessed the correct breed, he said it was because he observed Bear exploring the world. 

Heterochromia is less noticeable with Tina Turner bangs

In her book Animals Make Us Human, autistic animal husbandry expert Temple Grandin reminds us humans are animals too, with brains that evolved over millions of years. Grandin uses the model of brain function described by neuroscientist Jaak Panksepp four decades ago in his research on the neural bases of emotion. Panksepp identified seven primal emotions. Grandin follows Panksepp’s custom of labeling each in allcaps:  CARE, FEAR, LUST, PANIC, PLAY, RAGE, and SEEKING.

 

CARE is the emotion underlying parental love. LUST fuels sex and sexual desire. PANIC (or GRIEF) signals distress to an animal’s “social attachment system,” and “probably evolved from physical pain.” The separate emotion of RAGE evolved from animals’ experience of being captured and held immobile by a predator. According to Grandin, “frustration is a mild form of RAGE that is sparked by mental restraint when you can’t do something you’re trying to do.” 

In contrast with PANIC and RAGE, the core emotion PLAY “produces feelings of joy.” As I wrote in “PLAY On!,” the same neural pathways that inspire Bear and Buster to boisterously frolic at the off-leash park became the foundation for quintessentially human urges like art and music. All seven of Panksepp’s categories represent very human emotions whose effects can also be observed in other animals. 

In Panksepp’s model of animal brain evolution, SEEKING is the core emotion associated with curiosity and novelty. It’s the aspect of Bear’s Australian shepherd heritage that drives him to explore the world.

 

An animal’s SEEKING impulse may be in tension with FEAR, another primal emotion that is necessary for survival in a dangerous and mysterious world. According to Grandin, “at least a portion of the healthy amygdala acts as if it has an anxiety disorder – searching for threat in response to uncertainty…. The single most important factor determining whether a new thing is more interesting than scary is whether the animal has control over whether to approach the subject.”

Grandin suggests FEAR and SEEKING “may operate like different-sized weights put on the opposite ends of a balance scale.” I agree that personality statistics for human or animal populations would probably show an inverse correlation between curiosity and dread. Nevertheless, FEAR and SEEKING represent separate emotional drives. For example, Buster is much too dim-witted for sophisticated FEAR or SEEKING behavior. (Instead, Buster is a bundle of the tics and awkwardness associated with PANIC disorders.) Buster invariably leaps out of the car into traffic, yet seldom strays far from his human monitor.

In contrast, Bear is smart enough to balance both caution and curiosity.

Last year I read several excellent books about how our brains process probabilities, choices, disappointment, and uncertainty. My upcoming blog essay “How Lucky Can You Get?” dives into these topics, including some of the insights from my favourite book of 2021, What are the Chances? Why We Believe in Luck, by neuroscientist and statistician Barbara Blatchley. According to Blatchley,

 

Luck is the way you face the randomness in the world. If we are open to it, accepting, not anxious or afraid, willing to learn from mistakes and to change a losing game, we can benefit from randomness. We can gain a modicum of control over this aspect of life, even if we can't control the universe on a large scale. Randomness will happen no matter what we do—chaos theory rules in our universe. Knowing how to roll with the punches; now that's lucky.

 

Blatchley analyzes four kinds of luck originally identified by Zen Buddhist neurologist James Austin in his 1978 book Chase, Chance, and Creativity: The Lucky Art of Novelty. Dr. Austin’s first type of luck occurs by pure chance. Type I or blind luck is “random and accidental; it occurs through no effort of our own and against all odds.”  

 

In contrast with Type I luck, Dr. Austin’s second type of chance, “luck in motion,” is exemplified by Bear’s SEEKING attitude. According to Dr. Austin, Type II luck “favors those who have a persistent curiosity about many things coupled with an energetic willingness to experiment and explore.”

Last month Sehome High School put on its annual “24-Hour Play Festival.” On Friday night at 7 pm, four teams of writers arrived at the school to create new one-act plays overnight. The playwrights were assigned the same theme – “Keeping a secret” – and the same location – “The Wilds.” At midnight the producers added a random twist:  “All plays must include the word serendipity and a trophy.”

 

The tech crew, directors, and actors arrived Saturday morning and spent all day putting the four plays together before performing them Saturday evening. Eleanor was both a writer and an actor, which meant she stayed up for 46 hours straight. Their play “Crash Landing” presented a Lost-style jungle island mystery.

 

“Serendip” is the ancient Sanskrit name of the island of Sri Lanka. The English word “serendipity” first appeared in a 1754 letter by novelist Horace Walpole, and referred to a Persian fairy tale, The Three Princes of Serendip. According to Walpole, the three princes were “always making discoveries, by accidents and sagacity, of things which they were not in quest of.” They deserved trophies for their discoveries. 

That’s the difference between serendipity and mere fortuity: it is precisely because the Princes of Serendip were on a quest for something that they found something else.

“Bear, you are just like my father. And me.”

 

My Apple Watch transcribes my dialogues with Bear as we walk. That recent quotation came as Bear sniffed his way along the trail from the off-leash park to the beach. Bear enjoys playing catch and frolicking at the park. But soon it’s time to move on.

 

My father turned 82 last month. He regularly golfs, bowls on multiple teams, and plays bridge several times a week. Dad is endlessly curious, and always busy with something. I’ve never understood the attraction of golf, the alleged sport that is often described as “a good walk spoiled.” I don’t need a pretext to be outdoors. I can just go for an unspoiled walk. But like my father and Bear, I have to keep going.

In the Mormon church, the children’s program is called “Primary.” When I was growing up, “Blazers” was the class for the oldest boys, just before turning twelve and graduating to Boy Scouts. You earned a glass medallion for your personal Blazer banner by memorizing and reciting each of the thirteen Articles of Faith, which are like a catechism of Mormons’ most basic beliefs. Obviously I had to earn every one. The most coveted medallion was for memorizing the Thirteenth Article of Faith, which was much longer than the other twelve. 

 

In 1976, I was the only boy in our class who could make it by memory all the way to the end of the Thirteen Article of Faith. I still can. It happens to be what I believe:

 

We believe in being honest, true,
chaste, benevolent, virtuous,
and in doing good to all men;
indeed, we may say that we follow
the admonition of Paul—
We believe all things,
we hope all things,
we have endured many things,
and hope to be able to endure all things.
If there is anything virtuous,
lovely, or of good report or praiseworthy,
we seek after these things.

 

Serendipity is the process of looking for something and finding something else. Nevertheless, what you’re seeking matters.

Calligraphy by 1980s Roger for the family room at his parents' house