In rust we trust

It is the last day to file taxes before one is levied a late filing fee. It is said that there are two things in life that are certain, death and taxes. I add a third, rust. In the humidity of island weather, though our forests be dry, the incidence of rust is taken for granted.

At my current dwelling, the rust comes with the territory. A workman replaced a non-functioning bathroom shower with a brand new stainless steel one, only to show rust a couple of weeks later.

With China’s vaunted “stainless steel” from Shanghai and Shenzhen that are definitely less than stainless and admittedly not steel, many islanders depend on a hardware store famous for supposed low prices but more noted for what it promise than what it delivers.

A steel brush that does not stay “steel” long is a standard at my house. To avoid leaving the cutleries and the waterspouts from turning permanently brown, I steel brush the brown into oblivion as soon as it appears. Even my expensive German knife shows brown spots that get occasional scrubbing.

Which is to say that the care of the household takes some doing when dwellers decide that appearance is a serious ingredient to their dwelling, even if getting rusty is taken for granted, expected to blend with the terrain.

The physiology of rust is manageable, its sociology and psychology take some doing.

Take the sociology of rusty social strata left over from Hispanic influence of Torrens titles for the Chamorro, and ancient land usage of the Refaluwasch. Land ownership has become a sore point among relatives as the titling of the same pits siblings against sibling; invariably the jockeying position takes a mean toll. My clergy Dad was clear given the history of his sibling families’ discord. “The only land you will inherit from me is whatever soil sticks on the sole of my shoe,” he declared. We totally understood.

The Refaluwasch on Saipan has a deep appreciation of ancient traditions; the Rematau Band just recently reconstituted itself to encourage elders and the young to engage in ordinary island music, traditional, and contemporary. That has social implications on the pecking order of the communal decision-making process, matrilineal in the side of proprietary (land is handed down from the mother), but patrilineal when the men stand up to announce a decision.

Still, social elitism resides in the chamorii and the male among the Refaluwasch, the female undeniable presence on last month’s women’s month, notwithstanding. But that is mild compared to the entrenched sense of Aryan superiority, chronicled and fought for by Hitler and the Germans in WWII, still prevalent in today’s structures.

The psychology of rusty mindsets is everywhere. When Copernicus suggested that the Earth was not the center of the universe, he was ignored but when Galileo claimed that the Earth revolved around the Sun, he had to recant lest be excommunicated. Isaac Newton gave the whole thing a patina of mathematical respectability but it took Charles Darwin to suggest the developmental nature of organic evolution, picked up by Friedrich Nietzsche’s assault on the meaninglessness of theistic metaphors, and the celebration of secularity in my time with Harvey Cox.

Medieval Christendom insisted that the individual needed salvation on Augustinian grounds that all were born faulty (the Scriptures say so, the ecclesiastic claims), and though it remained on the tail end of priorities, the democratic ethos that leaked into the rustiness could not rid of the marks.

Part of rustiness comes in the telling that is centrally focused on the work of males, not that the female of the specie’s minds had not crossed the matter, but the telling is virtually patriarchal. We leave it to feminists to straighten out the deficiency of our telling and fill in gaps.

Male domination continues and that is why thinking America will push a woman to the White House. In my small circle of influence, I push for Hillary because it is time we had a woman, she wants the job, and she is qualified for the job!

An obvious rust is the idolatry of youth. Marketers zero in on millennials with their addiction to electronic gadgetry. Everyone else is in a supportive role. There is nothing more disconcerting than an elderly grandma trying to fit into a fashionably tight Levi while fidgeting with her cellphone.

Baggy pants way below the waistline and unbuttoned loose polo shirt over a faded beige shirt with a cap turned to the back was male attire for a while, a rappers’ look. The female went for the rugged tattered jeans showing “rips” in the knee and thigh. (My sister once bought a nice pair of jeans for her daughter only to find it sheared and stripped in the living room. Her gasp was classic!)

Yes, we can trust rust in our surroundings. It is easy to slide into the color of brown. Having them, like all of life, remains a choice. We can also wipe them though the telltale mark on my restroom floor is telling.

Now, about the termites…