January 5, 2022

COMMUNITY CONNECTIONS

ITHACA NOTES

Gordon Bonnet: “I’ve had a Good Run all the way”

Solving Resolve

By St e ph e n Bu r k e

By M a rjor i e Z . O l d s

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hose of us who are longtime Gordon Bonnet fans were pleased to hear how life has gone for Gordon since his retirement. After 27 years teaching all things scientific at the Trumansburg High School — physics, biology, earth science — plus designing and teaching courses of his own making, Gordon began a new chapter. A 30year Trumansburg devotee, he has made his home these many years a long way from his hometown of Lafayette, Louisiana.

Growing up an only child, Gordon Bonnet moseyed on to the University of Louisiana after high school. Graduating with his degree in physics, Gordon moved to the north Pacific, where for five years he taught in the inner-city Seattle school system. He loved this city with its temperate weather, the vast waterways nearby, the endless outdoor areas to hike.

But the cost of living and the challenges of bustling city life prompted Gordon to consider something else.

Trumasnburg! Arriving in September of 1992, Gordon knew no one. And now Gordon sums up his 30 years in Trumansburg: “I’ve had a good run all the way.”

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When friends of Gordon gather, some of us know him as an author of madly creative fiction: speculative fiction, murder mysteries and historical fiction. But, more on this in an upcoming column.

How would one manage to write novels and also blog? Some Gordon fans and followers have never even met him, but wake up eager to read Gordon’s blog six days a week. Skeptophilia.com turns up 3.5 million page views with daily columns on science and critical thinking.

Perhaps this blog is the glue that holds the folks who know Gordon from different vantage points together? (And those who reunite after a decade or two, say “Gordon is still Gordon — loving, enthusiastic, boundlessly energetic, engaged.”)

What about others who have not been Gordon’s students, nor read his blog, nor read his books?

Some think of him as a mentor, a coach for aspiring writers, a fellow runner (with beloved pup Guinness tagging along at his side), a musician playing the flute in

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his column on New Year’s resolutions is dedicated to my friend Mal (as he will be known here), who believes in self-betterment through bile.

At year’s end Mal and I were in our neighborhood sports bar in downtown Ithaca watching football. We get together this way most Sunday nights in the colder months when we see each other less in other walks of life, such as on long walks on the Waterfront Trail, which we take together frequently in good weather.

He asked me about my upcoming column and I told him I was considering writing about New Year’s resolutions, although I wondered if this might be kind of a hoary subject. He asked why.

“You know,” I said, “everyone writes about them, and it’s always the same, they tell you to take it easy, don’t set yourself up to fail. More than one place I read this acronym, ‘SMART,’ which stands for ‘Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Realistic, Time-bound.’ The experts say you should temper your goals by these characteristics. Don’t make some wholesale attempt to change your whole being, or a big part of it, in a way you’ll never accomplish, then just end up feeling worse about yourself.”

“Yeah, be kind to yourself,” he said.

“I guess,” I said.

“Yeah, well, I definitely don’t believe in that,” he said.

“Do tell,” I said.

“Well, look at us here. We come out once a week to watch football at the sports bar. But we meet up at halftime because three hours is too long to hang out at a bar. Half that is good, so that’s what we do. But if we were being kind to ourselves we’d hang out the whole time, because that’s attainable.”

“Well,” I said, “90 minutes is obviously attainable too, but I get your point.”

“Being ‘SMART’ is one thing. By the way,” he said, “I’m surprised you could remember all that.”

“I’m a professional,” I said.

“Anyway,” he said, “sometimes you have to be mad. That doesn’t stand for anything, just mad.”

“Enlighten me,” I said.

“In November I had my annual physical. Six weeks ago. With a new doctor.

My last one died, how’s that for ironic. I mean, God bless the guy. I didn’t know he was sick. He was younger than me.

“Anyway, the visit was all good, no problems, the usual. But at the end the guy is typing up his notes, and he looks over at me and says, ‘You’re overweight, but you’re not obese.’ Just out of the blue like that. We hadn’t even discussed my weight.

“That killed me. I’m like, what?

“I’m six foot. For the past 20 years I’ve always been 185 pounds, 190. And okay, I’ll admit this. I’ve never been 200 pounds before, but this time I was. Although I was wearing a sweater and boots. When I saw it, I said to the nurse, hey, can we do this again with my sweater and boots off? I don’t want to be 200 pounds. She just looked at me, so I said never mind, I’m just kidding.

“But who says that to someone, ‘You’re overweight’? You don’t say it like that. You say ‘You’re maybe a few pounds more than you should be.’ I could agree with that.”

“Maybe he’s not thinking about being polite, like some stranger or a friend.

He’s being professional. He figures you can take it, you’re a big boy. No pun intended.”

“I guess it’s my own fault for going to a skinny doctor. He obviously runs and bikes or something. But so do I, I do marathons, you know that.

“I took it, all right. I took it bad. I figured forget this guy.” (That was not Mal’s exact phrase.) “I figured I’ll show him.

“I stepped up my exercise. I do 45 minutes now, 5 or 6 days a week, road work and weights. I knocked off sugar and alcohol, most of it. I’m here tonight, but it’s just one beer. No other drinking.

I cut back on meals and careless eating.

“Since then, six weeks? I lost six pounds. And I’ll keep going, a pound a week.

“Not because I’m taking it easy on myself. I’m taking it hard. I’m not setting myself up to fail, because I only fail if I fail, and I’m not going to fail. It’s not because I’m smart, it’s because I’m mad.”

“Well, let’s see,” I said. “Maybe you are smart. If it stands for Spiteful, Malicious, Angry, Resentful, and Testy.”

“You thought all that up while I was talking?” Mal asked.

“I’m a professional,” I said. “Don’t get mad.”

Correction In Last week’s Readers Write issue, an article titled, “Response to an E-mail selling Midfulness Training” was written

by Michael Z. Faber, not Michael Zaber