Herman Wouk wrote in The Caine Mutiny about how extreme fear can lead to “moral castration” in human beings and cause them to fail in their duties or act in ways that are contrary to humanity.

Moral castration. It was an explosive phrase. I’d never heard or read it before. It felt totally original.

I underlined the passage and set the book down. I started thinking about it while lounging on the back deck in 90-degree heat.

Wouk’s use of the phrase was in reference to what happens to sailors on a ship ready to founder in a typhoon. These sailors and their officers suffered a moral castration during the panic and did something wholly immoral in a split second because fear severed their morality.

He also meant it, I think, to describe what happened to German’s citizenry during Hitler’s Third Reich. Hitler injected so much fear (and resentment) into these people that all their morality was sliced away and they had no idea it had happened, let alone the type of procedure. Absent that collective morality, dictatorship, murder, world war and genocide resulted. It didn’t take very long, either.

Moral castration. It pretty much sums up Trump’s effect on millions of Americans. He and his media minions sowed more fear and resentment than Hitler, some of it truly bizarre (Hillary, gay M & M’s and pedophiles operating out of a basement in a pizza Parlor.)

Many Americans are now following him and acting out without any morality whatsoever. It’s gone. And these people will never reclaim it.

I also considered moral castration in relationship to alleviating the homeless crisis. Is there such a castration? What are the extreme fears that have rendered people incapable of acting rapidly or not at all, to address a catastrophic humanitarian crisis? I don’t know where I am going with all of this. But I am thinking about it.

I walked out of a Fred Meyer carrying a bag of groceries on a weekday morning.

To my left, hundreds and hundreds of potted herbs, flowers and vegetables were shelved against a concrete wall.

I saw a homeless woman with a backpack and two suitcase strollers standing in front of the herbs, looking at them.

This made me stop and watch the woman.

She handled various herbs with silky motion. She brought them to her nose. This continued for several minutes.

I wondered what was going through her mind:

Had she once tended an herb garden and derived as much satisfaction as I do tending mine? Was there a special herb from childhood? Many people have one, although I don’t. Was there a special herb for cooking she once plucked in the summer evenings? Mine are dill and chives.

The woman began to move along so I began to move along.

She didn’t steal any of the herbs although she easily could have done so, unnoticed, except by me.

I wouldn’t have done anything. If you are somebody who would have, you should start an herb garden and get your head and heart straight.

It is true that I have seen various herbs grown in fine ceramic pots in various homeless encampments. I believe some were used when one chef used a blow torch to cook up some crawdads. What herbs best season crawdads?

I’ve seen hanging flower baskets on derelict RVs. I’ve seen live Christmas trees decorated with neighborhood discards. I’ve seen homemade wreaths of sage and cedar on the sides of pallet and plywood shanties.

I drove home and watered my herbs and lamented I still couldn’t find tarragon anywhere. They are very elusive this year.

I was walking to my local Oregon Homeless Age (OHA) joint on a sunny weekday afternoon. I like observing a certain female bartender there when she interacts with the various homeless men and women who enter the joint and utilize it as a kind of service center. This happens almost every five to ten minutes of her shift. She is very kind yet strict with them.

Nothing much was on my mind. I carried a notebook to jot down some musings but not my phone. I never carry a phone while I am walking or riding my bicycle anymore. I want no distractions. I don’t want to enrich a tech colossus while walking or bicycling or doing anything for recreation.

As I walked the last two blocks to the joint, I observed:

A young woman sitting at a bus stop. On her phone.

A mother pushing a baby stroller with two kids behind, talking to her. The mom was on her phone.

An employee of a hippie sock factory taking a break from work. On her phone.

A high school kid walked past me. On his phone.

Three high school girls bicycled by. Two were on their phones.

A construction worker was on a break. On his phone.

An employee of Mexican restaurant stood behind the counter. On her phone.

I approached the entrance to the joint. I saw an opened and empty box of Narcan Spray resting on a picnic table. I bet the joint stocks up on the product and doles it out when necessary.

It was dark inside. Two people sat at the bar. Both on their phones.

As I said, all of this in two blocks.

I ordered a beer and took it to my usual table. I started writing about someone who had recently disappeared on me. It’s a strange feeling to write about someone disappearing on you when you didn’t do anything to provoke the disappearance.

All these tools of immediate communication and we communicate so poorly with them, or, not at all.

I ventured to Salem to meet a friend for lunch and distribute copies of The Old Crow Book Club to street libraries around the city.

It was a Saturday morning and I found myself standing alone across the street from the Capitol building. Nothing much of it could be seen because of construction fencing and barricades except for the gold and gleaming pioneer standing atop the dome. He seemed about as out of time in Oregon as the idea of a Warren-like Supreme Court changing America for the better.

Looking at the construction mess, it was hard to believe the Oregon Legislature was in session. Well, at least one chamber. The Republican minority (in politics and morality) of the Senate was still refusing to govern and one wonders why its members even went into governing. I bet most of them had never heard of Tom McCall or Mark Hatfield or Norma Paulus. To paraphrase Captain Ahab, I spit on your graves! (If Oregon soil would even deign to host them!)

My lunch date was an hour away so I meandered around the mall admiring the rose bushes and cherry trees and reading all tidbits of Oregon history written on star-shaped plaques. Of course nothing about socialist ocean beaches, drowning Celilo Falls and staging a state-sponsored naked rock festival for peace. And of course, a lot on Lewis and Clark and the Oregon Trail.

In the near distance, I spotted two men yukking it up near a sculpture. I knew instantly from their demeanor they were homeless.

I headed toward them because that’s what I do these days. They were hanging out on the mall in front of the Capitol! How could I not engage with them?

Besides, I needed directions to the joint where I was meeting my friend.

Yes, I still ask strangers for directions. The ones I receive from people are always more intuitive than ones derived from a phone and they don’t enrich a tech titan ruining the planet.

The men both said hello to me before I said hello. They were both in their 60s or 70s. One was standing, the other lying on a bench with his head and feet propped up on a railing.

I remarked it was a beautiful morning.

The standing man, who had his dress shirt completely unbuttoned, said, “I’m just working on my tan in this wonderful sunshine.” He then spread his shirt wider for better exposure.

A homeless man working on his tan! I laughed at that. You know, I have come to realize that the homeless people I encounter typically make me laugh a whole lot more than people who live in homes and hold down jobs.

I asked directions to the joint. They both knew where it was and provided them. The man on the bench even stood up to point the way! Then he he launched into a history of the mall and how Governor Roberts in the early 90s buried the god awful parking structure and created a wonderful public space where Republicans who don’t want to govern can at least stop and smell the roses.

I thanked the men and skipped away.