NaBloPoMo ... No Mo!

Seedless grapes were my favorite. I not only enjoyed the refreshing burst of flavor released when I chomped down, but being able to crush the little orbs with abandon – never risking an encounter with a bitter-tasting seed added greatly to the experience.

In those days, I knew only about purple and green grapes – the purple all had seeds and the green were seedless. The purple also had a tougher skin.

I remember watching my mother laboriously peel the skin off of grapes before cutting them in half and removing the seeds. Green grapes had a more tender skin and there was no need to search for those pesky seeds.

Once, in celebration of the fact that I could, I jammed as many green grapes into my mouth as I could fit and then crunched down. I nearly gagged on the effluent of cool, sweet grape juice. It was wonderful excess.

I suppose our tendency toward excess can be traced to the caveman days…

Grabbing as much as we can hold may be instinctive – a survival skill that came in handy back in the day when only the strong survived. Eating all we can hold would pay off when the next meal wasn’t for a few days, and stockpiling anything with a shelf life is no more than prudent.

As I contemplated this, my 30th consecutive November blog entry it occurred to me that our fascination with setting records may actually be counter productive. I’ve needed to settle for topics that haven’t seemed particularly topical and, on deadline, have created a quality of product that hasn’t been up to even my standards.

No, more definitely isn’t better when it comes to blogs – and I’m not sure even the “enforces discipline” benefit outweighs the negatives.

After a dozen or so in a row, I felt rather trapped by circumstances. Achieving the one goal didn’t seem to be helpful in achieving others.

Well, it’s water under the bridge. This final, unillustrated, blog is the last in the series of 30 – and I think I’ll take the weekend off (unless I feel truly compelled to share something unexpected…

I recall another example of excess, also from my youth. I wanted to be a mountain-climber or backpacker and had only access to a rather unwieldy rucksack. I nonetheless filled that container with rocks – perhaps 30 pounds or more – and took off up a mountain with my family.

I made a few discoveries that day, but the most mysterious and still unexplainable one is that rocks from a lower altitude gain weight as they are transported up a mountain. Strange, but absolutely true – based on my experience. Anyway, somewhere in the mountains of the West there are a dozen stones that reside a couple of thousand feet higher up the slope than they should – my contribution to the fight against erosion.

I can think of several more examples of excess – or compulsion or some force that made me repeat an action beyond reason. I get involved in making Christmas tree decorations – origami stars – and several years during my youth I must have made hundreds of the things – I did earn some cash for Christmas presents, so it wasn’t as unexplainable as other examples.

I braided thin strips of plastic (commercially known as Pyrolace™) into key chains, whistle lanyards and dozens of doo-dads. Though there was no market for these, I stretched and looped those strips until my hands were raw.

Another time it was macramé. Who knew that knotting a few miles of jute could be so hard on the fingers?

Technology has driven several new obsessions in my later life. Video games got the best of me for a while and I’ve been entranced – for hour after hour – by new Internet channels and tools such as Google™, and YouTube™.

I’m actually trying to reactivate one early obsession: reading. I still love to read, but information in print hasn’t been able to capture my undivided attention like it used to – not with instant access to in-depth material online. I find myself putting down a book to check something related out online and getting lost in cyberspace.

But I intend to continue having at least on book in the category of “I am currently reading…” and to try to default to books more often and to television less.

I do not intend to get back into the blog-on-demand mode. I’m also fairly convinced that I wouldn’t like writing a daily column for newspapers (though being paid could well change my level of commitment – shame on me!).

And as for the NaBloPoMo movement – move on without me. I’d rather drag another bag of rocks up a mountain than write when I’m not ready just because it’s been 24 hours since the last time.

TGI December.

Speech for yourself

It seemed as if this Blog-a-day month might last forever – or even longer. My head literally exploded trying to come up with topics each day. Needless to say, it was a very unique month.

After ranting about the poor writing in Newsweek magazine yesterday, I find myself feeling rather red-faced. My own writing – and even some of the lessons I’ve used to teach others to write news – doesn’t often reach the standards to which I wish all journalists would adhere.

My first paragraph offers a few examples of the kind of sloppy writing I would like to see disappear from the face of the earth forever.

Nothing can last longer than forever. When something happens “literally” it means exactly as written. And there are no degrees of uniqueness – it is an absolute.

I’ve come a long way since I took George Washington at his word and believed that presidents cannot tell lies. Now, I take just about everything they – and senators, mayors, even evangelical ministers – say with a healthy dose of cynicism.

To paraphrase a recent commander in chief, it all depends on what your definition of “truth” is.

I had lunch with a retired social studies teacher today. I suggested that the lessons taught in history and civics classes have been lost, for the most part, on most Americans.

Seeing that I had her attention, I decided to introduce a topic of discussion that I think few people have really analyzed.

“It’s interesting to me that so many people advocate an ‘English-only’ policy,” I began. “Doesn’t the First Amendment guarantee our right to use any words or phrases we like? Why wouldn’t that include choices of languages?”

It’s not likely that I am the first person to come up with this notion. But I haven’t heard it put forth. If I choose to use gibberish rather than words – or if I choose to sing every word I utter, or if I choose not to speak at all – am I not simply exercising my Constitutional rights?

I wish more Americans would spend time learning how to read and listen critically and would demand that our leaders be more clear, precise and (I know I’m dreaming) truthful.

Those who have not learned English are at a disadvantage; but they are not violating anyone’s rights – they’re just exercising their own. There are many behaviors that could be made illegal, but that should not because they limit people’s freedom.

Tomorrow is the last day of November, and the last day of NaBloPoMo.

Then we’ll have the weekend off.

News weak

Said the night wind to the little lamb,
"Do you see what I see?
Way up in the sky, little lamb,
Do you see what I see?

Said the little lamb to the shepherd boy,
"Do you hear what I hear?
Ringing through the sky, shepherd boy,
Do you hear what I hear?"

Said the shepherd boy to the mighty king,
"Do you know what I know?
In your palace warm, mighty king,
Do you know what I know?"

Said the king to the people everywhere,
"Listen to what I say!
Pray for peace, people, everywhere,
Listen to what I say!"

The assignment was to look over an issue of “Newsweek” and be prepared to discuss its contents.

Perhaps predictably, only three residents made an appearance and, from my point of view, they were eager to discuss the fluff and not particularly interested in analyzing either the content or quality of the “news” part of Newsweek, such as it is.

The lead news story about the war in Iraq seemed to me to be the “impact” article in this issue. It’s available here.

Not really familiar with Newsweek, I decided to take my time and give the magazine a pretty hard look. As one trained in journalism, I should be qualified to offer a somewhat professional analysis; but I ended up feeling a bit reluctant to try.

One of the first things I noticed was Katherine Graham’s name in the masthead. I respect what she did and stood for and feel loathe to voice my true reaction to a publication with which her name is associated.

But the more I read the piece, the more disgusted I became. This is not journalism, it’s just more of the same “I went there and here’s what I think” garbage that seems to be dominant in 21st century “reporting.”

Putting cute Katie Couric in a trench coat in front of a bombed-out building can’t turn her into anything remotely akin to Edward R. Morrow. Today, so-called news reports are filled with unsupported statements masquerading as facts but which are truly opinion and conjecture.

And so, I will set my better judgment aside and engage in a tirade directed at Newsweek magazine and its ilk.

I won’t go through the entire piece line by line, but I will offer a few examples of stomach-churning prose that masquerade as news or analysis.

For example, the first sentence offers a categorical conclusion: there has been one constant [in Baghdad]: it only gets worse.”

The assertion is repeated twice and summed up: “[Al Quaeda] steadily replenishes its ranks of suicide bombers, and morphs from a largely foreign force into a far more dangerous indigenous one. And so on.”

A strange first paragraph for a story (news or otherwise) titled “Baghdad comes alive” and which seems intent on convincing readers of the exact opposite.

The “reporter” introduces his first source in the second paragraph – an excellent place for solid facts or examples. But this source is “a friend named Fareed who has gone and come back over the years…”

A guy named Fareed would certainly know, would he not? No need to identify him further (his age, occupation, education, connection with anybody who might have given him meaningful information – or even a sense of how long you’ve known him or much of the time he was “gone” as opposed to “come back” over the years). Yes, start making your case by quoting a guy named Fareed.

Then there is this mysterious statement (unsupported by facts or attribution): “There hasn't been a successful suicide car bombing in Baghdad in five weeks, and the few ones in recent months have been small and ineffective.”

If anyone knows what constitutes a “successful suicide car bombing is, I hope they’ll contact me. Is success measured by the loudness of the bomb? If terror is the goal, I would think that just about any time a car blows up in one’s vicinity, they’d be successfully terrorized – I’m pretty sure I would.

And then (finally) the writer offers a clearly attributed quote from a credible source (at least credible to those of us who believe the words of an Admiral should be given weight).

But even this quote ends up as more sound and fury, signifying … well, you know:

"Very sustained trends," the official military spokesman, Rear Adm. Gregory Smith, says cautiously. "But it's far too early to call this a statistically significant trend."

Just a few questions come to mind. First: if they were “very” sustained, wouldn’t the trends be significant by definition? Second: How can a reporter tell when an Admiral is speaking “cautiously?” Third, if the trends are “sustained,” doesn’t this sort of rule out it being far too early to make something of them. And fourth: why make a statement at all if there’s nothing significant to report?

Enough! I can’t stand any more. Go to the original and get your fill of drivel, if you like. If you read this account with the same kind of skepticism that a good reporter applies when writing one, you’ll discover that there’s really no story there at all – just wishful thinking and guesswork.

And wishing and guessing are no way to run a war – or whatever it is we have going on in Iraq these days.

Somebody ought to go over there, find out what’s going on and send us a report.

We can put it in a magazine called News, NOT weak.

What did you learn in school today,
dear little boy of mine?

I learned that Washington never told a lie

I learned that soldiers seldom die

I learned that everybody's free

That's what the teacher said to me

And that's what I learned in school today

That's what I learned in school

What did you learn in school today,
dear little boy of mine?

I learned that war is not so bad

I learned about the great ones we have had

We fought in Germany and in France

And someday I might get my chance

And that's what I learned in school today

That's what I learned in school

What did you learn in school today,
dear little boy of mine?

I learned that our government must be strong

It's always right and never wrong

Our leaders are the finest men

So we elect them again and again

And that's what I learned in school today

That's what I learned in school
        -- Tom Paxton, 1964

Who came to dinner

While I was still in Texas, late in 1960, the incident most reported and pictured in the newspapers was the matriculation of a couple of tiny Negro children in a New Orleans school.

Behind these small dark mites were the law’s majesty and the law’s power to enforce – both the scales and the sword were allied with the infants – while against them were three hundred years of fear and anger and terror of change in a changing world.
        -- John Steinbeck, “Travels with Charley”

When Steinbeck arrived in New Orleans nearly 50 years ago, it was with a deep sense of foreboding. He nearly wanted NOT to see what he was certain to see as much as he felt he NEEDED to see it.

“It,” of course, was the ugly face of hatred. The great novelist was on his final cross-country trek: in search of America. He was three-quarters done with his travels and was about to conclude that the America he had found fell short of the one he had dreamed of and had promoted in some of his best writing.

In 1954, the Supreme Court declared that sometimes the word “equal” really means “same.” Segregation, according to the justices, is inherently unequal and creates a condition that discriminates against some people – denying them their rights.

For many years after that historic decision, the face of hatred was easy to see – it was reflected on the faces of overt bigots from coast to coast – both north and south of the Mason-Dixon line. Hordes of haters showed up everywhere people tried to apply the Court decision: theaters, workplaces, restaurants and even schools.

For a while, New Orleans was the center ring in this three-ring circus. And the most outrageous clowns were a chorus of women who put their hate on display each morning at a local school.

The target of their venom was one innocent little black girl who wanted what the United States Constitution said she had a right to have: the same quality of education other kids her age were getting in all-white New Orleans schools.

After New Orleans, Steinbeck seemed interested only in getting home. He began his book (Travels with Charley) by noting that he’d lost touch with the American people; and he seemed to be ending by admitting that such ignorance had been bliss and that he wanted most to return to the comfortable isolation that had caused him to get out of touch in the first place.


Today, 20 or 30 elementary school students showed up at the facility I’m in. They were invited to dinner by their pen pals – seniors who live here – to culminate the school project.

Nearly all of the kids were black; all of the seniors in this building are white. The kids were obviously in their best clothes and on their best behavior. The somewhat formal atmosphere (big dining room, place settings, food served in courses by uniformed wait people) and the large number of strangers no doubt made this a very special day.

I watched as the residents and students interacted – the seniors were clearly into the moment and were providing what I’d have to call a rather quaint, perhaps old-fashioned but definitely well-intentioned experience.

Well-intentioned.

I’ve confessed before in this venue to often being a bit slow in the uptake. As I watched the seniors, sitting more straight, perhaps, than usual and taking care to keep pleasant conversation flowing, I felt happy. This, I knew, would be a day the kids would remember – a visit, almost, to another time, a glimpse into a world that may disappear completely with this generation.

Then dinner was served. The kitchen staff is nearly all black and only then did I recognize that this adventure – this cross-cultural experience – was a metaphor for a world that has changed much less than I realized since Steinbeck visited in New Orleans.

The faces of hatred are missing, but the barriers and the segregation and the prejudice remain.

I’m certain that the children I saw today are receiving a better education than those in the defacto segregation era. And I’m certain that the picture they saw today overshadowed the kind, and well-intentioned, words they heard.

They realize that unless things change – more than they have changed in the past half-century – the next and only other time these young black Americans will be welcome at this well-intentioned retirement facility is if they come here to work in the kitchen or cleaning rooms.

I used to get mad at my school
(No I can't complain)
The teachers who taught me weren't cool
(No I can't complain)
You're holding me down (Oh),
turning me round (Oh)
Filling me up with your rules
(Foolish rules)

I've got to admit it's getting better
A little better all the time
(It can't get more worse)
I have to admit it's getting better)
It's getting better
since you've been mine

Me used to be angry young man
Me hiding me head in the sand
You gave me the word,
I finally heard
I'm doing the best that I can

I've got to admit it's getting better
A little better all the time
(It can't get more worse)

I have to admit it's getting better
It's getting better
since you've been mine
Getting so much better all the time
It's getting better all the time
        -- Lennon/McCartney, 1967

Homeward Bound

The interchange is a few miles north of Lake city on Interstate 75. I reached there at about 11 this morning.

Passing the first exit – a simple curve to the right, I made a 270-degree right turn and found myself on . . . Interstate 10 West!

This will be my trail for the next couple of thousand miles. My Oregon, Lewis and Clark, Chisolm, Appalachian, John Muir – you get the idea.

Being on a named route adds something to a trip – particularly when hundreds and hundreds of mile are involved. I’ve followed my dreams along quite a few of these arteries since I first left home on my own back in 1967,

Route 66 resonates most with many westerners. Now renamed Interstate 40, this historic path has brought millions west from one life to another that the travelers hoped would be better.

I’m very fond of Routes 160 and 50 in Colorado. Both cross the continental divide, one crossing the bottom of the state, including the infamous Wolf Creek Pass, the other cuts through the state near the center and reaches a summit at Monarch Pass. I’ve lived on both of these highways and hold them in esteem – I could care less about Interstate 70 which carries most of the interstate traffic through trendy Vail into Denver.

In my younger days, I seemed to move back and forth between Colorado and California and dozens of commutes began or ended on stretches of those byways. Landmarks remain familiar to me and the songs of those times still echo in my head.

Though I loved living in Colorado – and wouldn’t be averse to returning there one day, there’s something about heading west that appeals to me. Maybe it goes back to old Horace Greeley, or the fact that my family moved from the east to west at a critical point in my childhood.

Passing through more meadows and other open spaces than usual today reminded me of the big sky country I’ve not seen for many months. Monument Valley, where John Ford and John Wayne made so many westerns, is on Highway 160 in Arizona. I’m looking forward to desert landscapes in sourthern Arizona along I-10.

I’m heading west at last. I’m glad there is so much left to see; but I’m also glad that every new drive will take me closer to home.

Happy Holidays! Cash or charge?

Business? Business? Ahhh! My business. Mercy was my business! Charity, benevolence, kindness…love. Have mercy, the beauty of all life were all my business! The dealings of my trade were but a drop of water in the comprehensive ocean of my business!
        -- Marley’s Ghost
        “A Christmas Carol”

I awakened at about 1 a.m. on Thanksgiving Day. I’m not a go-for-broke celebrator of holidays, but I took note of the fact that, being in the eastern time zone, I was probably one of the first of my circle of family and friends to take note that the holiday had begun.

When I reached over to the clock-radio and punched “snooze,” the first sound I heard on Thanksgiving Day was a Christmas song.

After two or three more samples from among what must be thousands of similar seasonal offerings, the announcer explained that the station had just begun a non-stop presentation of Christmas music – to continue 24 hours each day for the succeeding 33 days.

Excess. It’s part of the American experience. But during this interval between two days that celebrate consumption there seems to be no limits.

Americans are expected to spend nearly half a trillion dollars this holiday season, doing their part to boost the economy by splurging on presents for loved ones and themselves, according to ABC News.

Popular sayings from the past that call for joy, peace and good will have been drowned out by the ringing (or beeping, in the modern era) of cash registers – beginning on a day now referred to popularly as “Black Friday.” How festive!

There’s little to be said for poverty. But it does give one a pretty clear sense of the difference between what we need and what we want. The term “marginal propensity to consume” has little meaning for poor folks who live – if only barely staying alive – below the margins.

The barrage of persuasive messages is for the rest of us, the American majority with discretionary income in excess of necessity. Thousands of vendors are seeking a slice of that half trillion. WalMart wants a big slice and the furniture store downtown will be happy with a tiny one; but the all fill the season with a single message: Spend!

I enjoy the music and other entertainments. And I appreciate the messages of love and hope that are much in evidence, but too often as part of a sales pitch for my taste.

Traditions and pageantry create joyful resonations within my being. I am moved by the powerful ideas.

But I’m also just cynical enough to attach crass motives to much of what’s said and done. I am troubled – O.K., angered – by sales pitches that make it clear to consumers that if they really want to demonstrate their love, they’ll buy more.

There’s an off-the-wall fellow out there making his point in a fashion that many might find irreverent or worse. Asking “What would Jesus buy?” this guy is challenging consumers to put less emphasis on material aspects of the holidays and to get more in touch with the underlying ideas.

Others echo this sentiment – perhaps less flamboyantly. But how much impact can low-budget messengers hope to generate using the internet and other inexpensive means. Can they compete with commercial interests, including the “mainstream media”?

This just in…

Early results indicate that Black Friday sales are up this year. Retailers are far from complacent, though as other economic signals seem less favorable. Shall we all do our part and make this year’s Christmas the best ever?

Ka-CHING.

Lifespan

We've got some difficult days ahead, but it really doesn't matter with me now. Because I've been to the mountain top and I don't mind. Like anybody I'd like to live a long life, longevity has its place, but I'm not concerned about that now. I just want to do God's will and he's allowed me to go up to the mountain, and I've looked over and I've seen the promised land. I may not get there with you, but I want you to know tonight that we as a people will get to the promised land. So I'm happy tonight, I'm not worried about anything; I'm not fearing any man. Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord.
        -- Martin Luther King, Jr, 1968

There are trees in California that are nearly 5,000 years old. Tortoises and whales live past 200. And they dug up a clam in Iceland this year that is believed to have been more than 400 years old.

A few humans lived past 115 in the 20th century. Absent the end of the world or some other catastrophic changes, many more will reach those levels this century. The average American can now expect to reach 77 or so – meaning half of us will pass that mark.

I had supper with a 101½ -year-old today. I’ve met a half-dozen or more centenarians this year and, of course, wouldn’t have guessed they were that old.

While spending time with one who has had such a long run, it’s probably hard not to consider the contrast between them and those who die so young.

When I’ve discussed longevity with seniors, many seem quite philosophical – claiming that they are pretty much ready for the end. Naturally, one can find few, if any, healthy 20- or 30-year-olds with a similar attitude.

Death, notes the Bard, is a necessary end that will come when it will come. But those of us who have observed both timely and untimely death can hardly help wonder why something as important as life itself should come and go in such a disorganized and apparently arbitrary fashion.

I haven’t observed any indication that those who have had more than a “fair share” in terms of lifespan have benefited in any clear way; nor have they seemed, based on the little I’ve learned about their lives, created any significant additional benefits during the bonus years.

Forgive me for closing with a poem that has been a bit overexposed over the past few years. I have made less out of this topic than I hoped and these lines don’t really wrap things up – but midnight approaches (a deadline that must be met if I’m to keep my November blog-a-day record intact) and I’m at a loss for a better close written in my own words:

I read of one who stood to speak

At the funeral of a friend. 

He referred to the dates on the tombstone

From beginning….to the end.

He noted that first came the date of birth

And spoke the following date with tears,

But he said what mattered most of all

Was the little dash between those years.

For that dash represents all the time

That she spent alive on this earth

And now all those who loved her

Know what that little line is worth.

For it matters not, how much we own;

The cars, the house….the cash, 

What matters is how we live and love

And how we spend our dash.

So think about this long and hard…

Are there things that you’d like changed?
For you never know how much time is left, 

That can still be rearranged.

If we could just slow down enough

To consider what’s true and real, 

And always try to understand

How other people feel.

And be less quick to anger, 

And show appreciation more

And love the people in our lives

Like we’ve never loved before.

If we treat each other with respect, 

And more often wear a smile. 

Remember that this special dash

Only lasts a little while.

        ~ Author Unknown ~

A good blogging

National Blog Posting Month (NaBloPoMo) is a lot like a prisoner’s tour of a medieval torture chamber. After surviving “the rack,” our hapless hero is immediately transferred to a bed of nails and before recovering from that ordeal, he’s subjected to the thumb-screws, then it’s on to the bed of coals, hot tar bath … and beyond.

I decided to enroll in this diabolical program this year. The idea is to promote interest in blogging (posting information regularly online for the general benefit of just about anyone) and to help current bloggers develop the discipline necessary to post more often.

Though I’ve been averaging about a blog every OTHER day during my trip, I thought I’d be able to step up the pace while in Florida and elevate my output. I accepted the challenge.

Yesterday’s posting broke the record for monthly output and today I’ll come within a week of achieving victory. A week of prose. Perhaps prose performed weakly, but an examination of these offerings reveals that I don’t allow quality to impede productivity.

I guess it’s a newspaper thing. Daily deadlines make it difficult to rise to a level that could be called “great.” A great newswriter is likely to produce copy that falls far short of most other scribes. Even with a team of support personnel (editors and proofreaders), news writers just can’t create perfection and light in the quick and dirty world of journalism.

I admit that a percentage of pieces appearing in this blog have received short shrift in the editing and proofreading phases. I hope most readers understand that this style of writing is often little more than free writing – an enterprise often considered to be a lead-up activity for real writing.

Now, I’m not ashamed of adhering to lower standards, I’m rather proud of having written nearly 150 episodes – on a rather random set of topics, but hopefully providing a sense of what’s been on my mind as I roam the land. If I had decided to maintain higher standards, I suspect that my output volume would have been a lot less.

Some reader who feels compelled to keep up to date on my adventures might celebrate a smaller stream of data; but others may sympathize with my desire to explore my thinking while exploring North America.

Whether it’s a shortcoming or a saving grace, I have tried to avoid simply chronicling what I’ve seen and offering personal descriptions of scenery and other things encountered along the road. I’ve hoped to make the blog as much an exploration of myself as of the countryside.

Whatever readers may think, the NaBloPoMo challenge is nearing its end – as is my long journey. Seeing the light at the end of those tunnels makes it seem easier – and nearly imperative – to see things through.

I won’t promise to continue writing every day, but I suspect that I’ll do at least as well as before November 1. And I don’t expect that I’ll be winning any awards for the quality of writing I’ve created – or that much, if any, of these paragraphs ever appear in print.

But I recommend taking on challenges. They require commitment and daily action – two qualities I tend to admire in others. That makes me feel proud of my accomplishments. And I can’t come up with a reason not to conclude that being proud of myself is enough.

Onward.

By the Way: I found a year-old posting on You Tube. This apparently Canadian fellow describes his trials and tribulations with NaBloPoMo. He seems like a likeable fellow and “meeting” through blogs and You Tube postings is all about finding people (and more) you never could in the pre-web world.

Thanksgiving

These “eyes” from 114 million light years away are the swirling cores of two merging galaxies called NGC 2207 and IC 2163 in the distant Canis Major constellation
        -- image collected by the Hubble Telescope)

I never asked to be born. And the odds against it ever happening were astounding. Not only did my parents (and set of parents in all the generations before mine) have to find each other, they had to become mates and get together during one of the few days the egg and sperm that were to become me were operative.

Then that one particular sperm – literally one in hundreds of millions – had to win marathon race (up to 7 hours) to that egg. If any one of the other little fellows had arrived ahead of “me,” a completely different version would have emerged 9 months later…



Pretty lucky, huh? But I’m grateful for a lot more than just existing. I’m thrilled to be a sentient being – a creature with the capacity to think. My chief joy and frustration in life is the process of exploring the mysteries of the universe and reaping as much as possible.

Considering all of the math going back to the beginning (and regardless of whether that’s taken to be the time of Creation or the Big Bang), chances were one in billions and billions that I’d ever be here – so I guess that makes me qualified to ponder a universe with billions of stars and uncountable ultra-maxi-multi-infinite-gazillions of combinations and permutations of creatures, places and events.

I feel lucky to have been able to spend my short span at this time in history. I love nearly all of the differences between the 19th century and the 21st. I’m glad I experienced much of a technology revolution that began 100 or so years before I arrived and accelerated so quickly during my lifetime.

I have no idea why the world and the universe are so majestic and beautiful, but I’m grateful. And I know I’m lucky to be able to see much more of that glory than my ancestors – it’s a shame that it remained invisible and unknown to so many of them and I don’t know why I get to see it and bask in that glory.

And, most of all, I am grateful for the love and friendship of fellow travelers. Each person I meet was just as lucky as I am to have been born; each is unique and I believe that each is wonderful – at least potentially.

I don’t understand why everyone isn’t given the same abilities and I’m saddened by the fact that we’re not all given the opportunity to live long lives.

I struggle to be grateful for the time I’ve had with those whose lives have been cut short.

When someone I care about is robbed of the chance to enjoy a full measure of life, I’m angry, frustrated, confused, saddened – but in the end, I have to be grateful for having known them even briefly.

Sixty years ago I went for a swim with about 399 million other little guys. Any of them might have been my best friend – my brother. But, at the end of the swim there was room for only one of us to travel on.

It certainly doesn’t seem fair; but I am thankful that I was the one.

On October 3, 1863, President Abraham Lincoln issued a proclamation calling for the observance of the fourth Tuesday of November as a national holiday.
In 1939, President Franklin D. Roosevelt moved the holiday to the third Thursday of November (to extend the Christmas shopping season and boost the economy). After a storm of protest, Roosevelt changed the holiday again in 1941 to the fourth Thursday in November, where it stands today.

Please pass the gravy

From a child’s perspective (see yesterday’s post), Thanksgiving – and family, for that matter – can be seen as a very straightforward event. There’s family, food, football, more food and then Hallmark-like memories that can “last a lifetime.”

For many, of course, there is also a “faith” component – often a big one. Thanksgiving was the only meal of the year when my own family was likely to begin with a prayer – and I never got beyond “God is great and God is good; and we thank him for this food…” I sort of mumbled through the rest of the short prayer, not paying enough attention to learn it for future reference.

It seemed completely possible, just yesterday, to write a few hundred – certainly fewer than a thousand – words about Thanksgiving as celebrated during my formative years.

Oh! Was I ever mistaken. I quickly discovered that Turkey Day is a veritable smorgasbord – including some very complex dishes that might require volumes to explore.

Before attempting to scratch that surface with one example, let me repeat my previous assertion that this is about the best of days – an event that most families seem capable of carrying off with great success, an important day for that elusive institution (families).

No analysis, no matter how cynical, will change my mind on the matter: Thanksgiving was, in my childhood, a very good thing. It provided me with a model for having some great days later, when I was in the role of spouse and father – and, now that I think of it, it may also help me find new ways to enjoy family (even when not involving my own biological relatives) in the new stages of life I’m now beginning to explore.

Because Thanksgiving is sometimes the only time relatives get together – and sometimes more than a year may have passed, it’s a time of catching up on everyone’s news. That means it’s a time when those who may not have done so well may feel they need to defend their lives – and those who have success may feel compelled to boast.

I’ve never been more alone or isolated at Thanksgiving than this year. I expect to have a great day in this building filled with strangers, but a look at the weather forecast (see graphic) suggests that lightening may strike before the day is over.

The following account is of a Thanksgiving about 40 years ago when lightening struck in the middle of the meal and changed my view of Thanksgiving and family forever…

As during any social gathering, there are plenty of opportunities for what Eric Berne called, “the games people play.”

Berne is remembered as the father of transactional analysis. One of the most startling revelations of the complexity of family relations in the context of Thanksgiving came during a transaction rather along the lines of, “will you please pass the salt…”

One year (and this year may well have been later than the “prime time Thanksgiving era between 1958 and 1967 – I probably wasn’t astute enough to pick up the nuances that early in my life), my mother decided to use crystal salt containers with tiny silver spoons in lieu of the standard saltshakers.

Whether it was 1967 or a few years later, the “incident” was an exchange (or transaction) between my mother and my aunt regarding those little salt containers and spoons.

To me, the pairing of “Uncle Bob and Aunt Mary” was perfect. I also had Uncle Roy and Aunt Alma; and both of those sets of names still sound just right to me – everyone should be lucky enough to have relatives so aptly named…

But, to my mother, I’m sure Mary was not perfect. She’s the woman who charmed Mom’s little brother and lured him into a marriage that – for a number of reasons I won’t discuss here – seemed far from ideal from the big sister’s perspective.

I have no doubt that these two women had sparred with each other at every Thanksgiving since our families were formed. But I had never noticed – or at least never gave any significance to it. It was all couched in the language of backhanded compliments and other tactics Berne became famous for documenting in his books.

On this particular occasion, Mom was no doubt quite proud of being able to add an unconventional element of dinnerware to the Thanksgiving mix. I know I was impressed – the idea of sprinkling salt as if it were sugar appealed to me for some reason.

Others took note of the place settings and Mom was basking in the glow of positive attention as we all settled into our spaces around the Thanksgiving Dinner table.

“We’re not using salt much anymore.”

Aunt Mary’s announcement, though clearly on-topic, caught my attention.

Really, Mary?” There was something in my mother’s tone that started the wheels turning. I realized that this was more than just polite dinner conversation. “Not even on potatoes?”

This, of course, was a good comeback. Who could imagine eating potatoes without all kinds of added flavors? – And salt did seem like an essential additive no matter what the recipe.

I glanced at my aunt, interested to see how she might try to counter Mom’s point.

She capitulated! I believe I saw a flash of defeat in her face as she admitted that salt was an imperative when it came to spuds.

I still remember where they were sitting (my aunt opposite me; Mom to the right at the end of the table where she’d be able to move easily back and forth from the kitchen to refill bowls and platters.

I wondered, what just happened here? And I suddenly realized that whatever it was, it wasn’t the first time. This was just a battle in a war that had probably been ongoing since Uncle Bob announced, “I met a girl” some 15 or 20 years earlier.

The truth of the matter hit me like a bolt of lightening. These two women don’t like each other!

This was a real bombshell for me. It changed my thinking about family in fundamental ways.



Whoa--the games people play now.
Every night and every day now.
Never meanin' what they say now.
Never sayin' what they mean.

Oh we make one another cry
Break a heart then we say goodbye
Cross our hearts and we hope to die
That the other was to blame

Neither one will give in
So we gaze at our eight by ten
Thinking 'bout the things that might have been
It's a dirty rotten shame
        -- Joe South, 1968

All the trimmings

Most baby boomers, I suppose, must have thought – at least from time to time – that their family fell short of the mark back in the ‘50s and ‘60s.

With perfect icons like Robert Young (“Father Knows Best”), Donna Reed (“The Donna Reed Show), Opie Taylor (“The Andy Griffith Show”) and Gloria Winters (Penny of “Sky King) it was easy to wish one’s family had a father, mother, son and daughter that lived up to the television legends.

Even our pets couldn’t compete with Lassie, Cheetah and my friend Flicka – not to mention Ed, the talking horse or Cleo, the talking dog of “The People’s Choice.”

We certainly couldn’t solve major problems in a half hour (with three commercial breaks) and we most definitely weren’t always so … well … so darned NICE as the television families.

But, when it came to Thanksgiving, I think my own family did a bang-up job. I have very fond memories of that holiday. The sense of tradition was very strong – I suspect that ancestors going back generations also had very positive Turkey Day memories.

Looking back, the string of near-perfect Thanksgiving celebrations lasted only a decade. Of course, a decade in the life of a 10-year-old is a long, long time.

Attempting to analyze the experience, I can come up with several elements that contributed to the perfect-ness. Of course there are more, but each of these made the celebration more memorable for me. I’ll discuss just two here.

First, of course, was the food. We were not an all-you-can-eat kind of family. Portions of just about everything we ate were issued to us – there wasn’t usually any passing bowls around and serving oneself. We never went hungry, but we also seldom got all we wanted.

At Thanksgiving, food was plentiful – and nobody seemed to care or even notice how much we heaped on our plates. Best of all, the food was wonderful. Turkey, stuffing mashed potatoes, succotash, cranberry sauce, sweet potatoes and salad were all available in mass quantities.

We also had crudités in the form of celery and carrot sticks and even little sweet pickles and olives – treats not seen at other times of the year.

Ah, yes! The food was a big part of the mix – especially as I entered adolescence and my appetite grew.

The second most memorable and essential element for a great family Thanksgiving was the people. I suppose most families sort of go one way or the other when it comes to grandparents. In our case, the grandparents on hand were maternal. My other grandfather died when we kids were quite young and Grandma Burke lived in Kansas.

So, it was the Whitacre branch of the family tree that gathered at Thanksgiving (and again at Christmas) each year. Mom had just one brother and, like her parents, he and his family followed us to San Diego in the late ‘50s. Rounding out the guest list were two women who would have been great supporting characters in any play.

They were also on the Whitacre side of the family – perhaps cousins removed a time or two. They were retired sisters who lived together in a retirement community near Los Angeles. They were Marguerite and Glenva.

Marguerite and Glenva! The fit together so perfectly in my mind. Two women who, from a boy’s perspective, couldn’t have been more different.

Marguerite was a talker. And she was an expert on the third degree. Sitting beside her at Thanksgiving meant having to respond to barrage after barrage of questions and comments about one’s answers.

Glenva, on the other hand, never seemed to speak unless spoken to. To me, she seemed to be entirely in Marguerite’s shadow – one of the few humans on earth capable of listening to as much as her sister had to say…

I wish I could spend some time with these two ladies today – with my new understanding of people of a certain age. I’m certain they had a lot to say – both of them; and I’m now interested. But then, I was not.


Then there were the more immediate relatives. We saw little of our cousins other than during the holidays. They were our opposite – two boys and a girl to our boy and two girls. The youngest was a brat, of course. These were always last to arrive and were considered chronically tardy.

Politics was briefly discussed each year – just enough to verify that the family was split. The grandparents were more Republican and conservative, the Burkes were more Democrat and liberal and the younger Whitacres weren’t very interested but seemed to side with the oldsters.

The decade in question happened to be filled with Richard Nixon news. He was vice-president at the start, lost a bid to become president and governor of California and then was resurrected and became president at the end. Through it all – and even beyond, after RMN resigned the presidency in disgrace – my grandfather remained a fervid Nixonian.

OOOOPS!!!

(NOTE: When I began this piece, I thought I had a fairly clear idea of what I’d be saying – a not-particularly complex and not-particularly profound essay about an annual event that was essentially pretty straightforward.

Upon reflection …. I’m becoming convinced [even as I’ve been writing this] that Thanksgiving, like families themselves, are actually quite complex. In fact, I wonder whether a study of a family’s behavior during this holiday might be the best way to gain understanding of that family as an organism.)

Not promising to wrap things up, I’m nonetheless going to end this piece with the intention of providing more thoughts on Thanksgiving in tomorrow’s blog entry.


We don't have to like each other. We're family. (Claudia)
Well, that was absurd, let's eat dead bird! (Tommy)
Nobody means what they say on Thanksgiving, Mom. You know that. That's what the day's supposed to be all about, right? Torture. (Claudia)
Where ya been? We ate already. (Tommy)
        -- “Home for the Holidays,” 1995

Back to school

When some loud braggart tries to put me down

And says his school is great
I tell him right away
"Now what's the matter buddy
Ain't you heard of my school
It's number one in the state"

So be true to your school now
Just like you would to your girl or guy
Be true to your school now
And let your colors fly
Be true to your school
        -- Beach Boys, 1963

Top-ten-list: major differences between life in a retirement facility and life in high school.

1. In the retirement facility, everyone is a senior

As I’ve traveled these 13,000 miles and had a chance to observe thousands of senior citizens in dozens of retirement facilities, I’ve been surprised by several similarities between the culture in such buildings and what I recall from high school.

Now, I’m not saying that moving into senior housing is just like enrolling at Rydell High – far from it. But there are some very interesting comparisons…

For example, there are lots of cliques in both settings.

I remember high school cliques included the “soshes” (socially advanced – at least from their own viewpoint), the “surfers” (it was Southern California, need I say more?) and the “brains” (not exactly the most highly regarded; but perhaps with the greatest potential).

Plenty of sub-cliques existed: politicians, musicians, Rot-See (Reserve Officers Training Corps), athletes, and a host of official and unofficial clubs and organizations.

Cliques in retirement facilities may include pet owners, card players, newspaper readers, puzzle-solvers, walkers (one distinct group that literally “walks” – usually counterclockwise around the building; and another that actually uses devices called “walkers” to aid mobility), shoppers, medical experts (these folks discuss various maladies endlessly) and more.

It’s really just human nature, I guess. People are motivated by a lot of different things and tend to gather in groups with similar motivations (or interests).

Student life in high school is structured around curricular and extra-curricular activities. Many clubs and organizations – some which offer credit toward graduation – are available. Nonetheless, many students just stick with going to class and spend little extra time on campus. This may actually be the majority of students – a silent, nearly invisible group of young people who aren’t caught up in school activities.

Life in a retirement facility tends to rotate around the meals. Though some residents eat in their rooms, most congregate in the dining room two or three times daily. The rhythm of each day is set by mealtimes.

Though no bells are rung, residents filing down hallways for meals are a bit like students moving from class to class. Meals are the only time to observe a majority of the residents in the same place.

When I enter a dining room for the first time, many pairs of eyes are cast upon me. At first, I found this to be rather disconcerting; now, I realize that it’s just part of human nature. I’m intruding on their territory and any newcomer must be examined and categorized.

By the end of that first meal, about half of the residents have learned something about me – often something that’s untrue. I’m often mistaken for a representative of the corporation – visiting from headquarters for some reason or another. And many folks conclude that I must be the son of someone sitting with me at that first meal.

Because many seniors have trouble hearing, others have learned to speak rather loudly during meals. So, it’s not unusual for me to overhear conversations two or three tables away from where I’m sitting. Occasionally, I’ll walk over, introduce myself and disabuse folks of false information I’ve overheard.

I believe I can make fairly accurate judgments about some folks simply based on where they are sitting and how they react to the rest of the room.

There are always a few residents whose eyes are constantly in motion. When they spot a particular neighbor, they’ll note to their tablemates that, “so-and-so is back from the hospital” or “I thought such-and-such was taking the bus ride today.”

I well remember these characters from high school. They always knew who was dating whom and definitely wanted to be the one to tell others when the couple broke up – or didn’t break up.

There are often volunteers among the residents. Sometimes these “helpers” are actually minor tyrants, wielding their unpaid duties like weapons. A woman put in charge of the remote control at a movie screening ran the room like a dictator, imposing rules and making decisions about lighting and seating as if she owned the place.

Volunteers who agree to change the menus that are posted each day on table-tops often come around and make those changes while folks are still eating – as if the job was so vital that it justified interrupting the very meals it was intended to facilitate.

There are actually any number of residents who take it upon themselves to enforce – even to enact – rules of conduct. I’ve been challenged several times when I plug my laptop into the facility’s Internet connection:

“Do you have permission to do that?”

“No, sir. But I don’t need permission.”

“Who told you that you don’t need permission?”

“Nobody needed to tell me. I know that all of the amenities in this building are here for the benefit of residents; and as a guest, I enjoy the same rights as any other resident.”

“Well, you should have asked permission.”

“I’m sure you’re right. Should I disconnect my computer?"

“No, I guess you might as well finish what you’re doing."

“Thanks.”

“You’re welcome.”

(Sorry. I got started with that dialogue and just had to see it through. It’s just so … so … well, so HIGH SCHOOL!)

Well, honky-tonk baby get on the floor
All the cats are yellin they're shoutin’ for more
My baby likes to rock, my baby likes to roll
My baby does the chicken and she does the stroll

Well sock-hop baby
Roll up her crazy jeans
Gonna rock to the music
gonna dig the scene
Shimmy to the left
Cha-cha to the right
We're gonna do the stomp till broad daylight

Well shake it
Yeah shake it
Yeah shake it
Everybody shake it
Shake it at the high school hop
        -- “Grease,” 1972

That’s a dumb thing to sing

They say our love won't pay the rent
Before it's earned, our money's all been spent

I guess that's so, we don't have a pot
But at least I'm sure of all the things we got
        -- Sonny and Cher, 1965

Mrs. Davis saved our poetry assignments all year long when I was in 6th grade; in the spring, she published the Room 6 book of poetry.

Though my stuff definitely didn’t stand the test of time, I considered myself to be a pretty good poet back in the day. I had more poems in the collection than most of my classmates and a couple were actually rather clever – if I do say so myself.

It was obvious that our teacher wanted to be sure that every student had at least one poem in the book – and just as obvious that she had a hard time finding a useable sample from one of my classmates, a kid named Frank.

She finally went with the Thanksgiving Prayer assignment. Though poor Frank usually couldn’t find a rhyme for anything, he became a rhymanian devil in this case.

The sample poem/prayer we were provided had a typical pattern to it – sort of one of those aabbccdd kind of deals that produced pretty standard fare along the lines of

Lord, we thank thee for thy bounty
Most of which was grown in our county
Thanks for veggies, fruit and meat
And for all the rest we eat
Thanks for family, friends and pets
We’re grateful all day, until the sun sets

Well, Frank went into some sort of frenzy and became trapped in an intra-line rhyming pattern that may have been an indicator of hidden genius.

I can’t recite the whole thing from memory, but the part that sticks with me goes a bit like this:

Lord we thank thee up above.
For thy good and all thy love.
For the plates and all the states
For those who could and those who would
For those who tried and those who died
For those who lied and those who cried
For the best and all the rest
And for the goats and all their oats.

Like Franks work, many commercial hit songs really don’t bear scrutiny. The lyrics often seem to be a sort of afterthought for songwriters. And I imagine the fact that there is probably little or no editing makes it less likely that the words to songs will really be profound.

If a song sounds good, the words are really a distant second in importance when it comes to popularity. And if the topic is timely and the “message” seems to be right on point – particularly for the target audience – the actual words become quite unimportant.

The Sonny and Cher example (above) seems to support this theory. The lyrics are without merit – but the simple message (if we stick together, we can conquer the world) had enormous appeal to teens back in the mid-sixties.

Another Bono-written hit, “The Beat Goes On” seems to me to be even less profound when read as a poem – sans the music and energy provided by the performers:

Charleston was once the rage, uh huh
History has turned the page, uh huh
The mini skirts the current thing, uh huh
Teenybopper is our newborn king, uh huh

The grocery store's the super mart, uh huh
Little girls still break their hearts, uh huh
And men still keep on marching off to war
Electrically they keep a baseball score

Grandmas sit in chairs and reminisce
Boys keep chasing girls to get a kiss
The cars keep going faster all the time
Bums still cry "hey buddy, have you got a dime"
        -- Sonny and Cher, 1967

There can be absolutely no doubt that the use of logic or even understandable language is not always essential for songs. Mel Torme, Ella Fitzgerald and others applied nonsense syllables to music – particularly Jazz – and obviously entertained millions of us.

This kind of singing – sometimes referred to as “scat singing” features nonsense words that follow lines of notes that are often improvised – in the fashion of jazz musicians.

Louis Armstrong was an early adopter of nonsense lyrics. He recorded “Heebie Jeebies” in 1926. In this cover by the Boswell Sisters in 1932 the singers are obviously not improvising even when the words lose all meaning in the second half of the song…


Make no mistake about it, I love music. And I've been "taken in" by songs that seem to be filled with meaning but, upon inspection, either deal with platitudes or have practically no meaning at all. Regardless of tendencies toward flight and fancy, I'll continue to appreciate many really dumb songs.

Thank goodness patriotic songs always make sense.

Our nation was founded by folks who put truth to power by declaring, in song: “… he put a feather in his cap and called it macaroni.”

Sampling

Just give me the filet mignon. I’ll take the center of the watermelon only. How about those lettuce leaves from the middle third of the head – not the floppy stuff near the outside nor the to-pulpy stuff in the middle.

I’ll take that one. No, not that one, the next one over – the biggest, juiciest, more perfect one.

Some readers have already moved on to something else. If this blog entry isn’t their cup of tea, I say, “more power to them.” It’s exactly what I would do – and what I actually do just about every time I go online. I pick and choose – and I can be pretty darned picky and choosey.

My favorite new find on the world wide web is You Tube. I’d heard about it before leaving California, but I didn’t get hooked until I’d been on the road for a while.

Founded in February of 2007, the online service allows users to find video clips on any topic imaginable. And it’s interactive; anyone can post material online that becomes almost instantly available world wide.

A year ago You Tube was taken over by Google. Like other web searches, You Tube queries almost always hit pay dirt now – a huge amount of data is indexed and can be found in a fraction of a second.

Political candidates haven’t missed the boat and videos are available regarding many politicians.

As was the case with the Internet in general and with every major advance in Mass Media channels, from books through movies, radio and television, there is substantial fear that online videos will go out of control and will destroy civilization as we know it.

Whether this proves to be the case or not (and a fairly strong argument can be made on both sides), there’s little chance that online videos are here to stay and ordinary computer owners with inexpensive equipment will be able to post just about any message they like.

I’m finding a wider and wider range of uses for this technology, but my favorite You Tube pastime is searching for favorite things.

Songs, performed by the greats from the past and present, scenes from movies, plays and television programs, speeches, news events and an amazing quantity of unexpected business caught – often by amateurs – in nature and in communities.

Before You Tube, one usually had to watch a whole movie to see a favorite scene or two – and it was potluck as to when a movie might appear on television. Alternatively, one could listen to the radio for days on end without hearing a particular song.

But in the space of an hour or so, it’s now possible to watch a score or more of favorites. The main problem for me has been stopping after just an hour or so.

It’s YouTube.com

Here are a few scenes I’ve enjoyed:

Working things out

Sitting on a sofa on a Sunday afternoon
Going to the candidates debate
Laugh about it, shout about it
When you've got to choose
Ev'ry way you look at it, you lose

Where have you gone, Joe DiMaggio?
A nation turns its lonely eyes to you
(Woo, woo, woo)
What's that you say, Mrs. Robinson?
Joltin' Joe has left and gone away
(Hey, hey, hey...hey, hey, hey)
        -- Simon & Garfunkle, 1969

It’s probably all Frank Halleck’s fault.

Mr. Halleck was my fifth grade teacher. Every week, he scrawled a “Brain Teaser” on the chalkboard. Students who completed their other work could tackle the teaser for extra credit.

Some of these were pretty straightforward: I got a kick out of figuring out how to split exactly 10 gallons of water into 7- and a 3-gallon portions even though I had only a 5, 8 and 10 gallon containers for measuring.

But other teasers were hard. I typically finished my work early (not always correctly, but usually early), so wrestling with the teasers was a part of my life for the 180 or so days I spent with Mr. Halleck.

Knowing there was a solution but not being able to wrap my mind around it, so to speak, was frustrating. I got headaches. It made me mad.

For much of my adult life, I rather proudly defined myself as a “problem-solver.” I guess I viewed this as one of the higher callings.

I learned that it is often not necessary to solve a problem – there are work-arounds.

I learned that the solution to many problems can be found outside the apparent boundaries used to define them – it helps to think outside the box.

I learned that more than one solution often exists – there’s more than one way to skin a cat.

I learned that some problems really aren’t worth the cost of solving – don’t sweat the small stuff.

I learned that many apparent problems really aren’t problems at all – if it ain’t broke, you don’t need to fix it.

And I learned that other people can often do a better job solving a given problem than I can – two heads are better than one.

Whatever his motives, Mr. Halleck managed to get my nose out of the books and into applying my talents, such as they were, to figuring stuff out.

I wanted to solve the problems; I wanted to be first to do so.

Mr. Halleck made a difference in my life, I suppose. I remember him as a fairly detached person – not seeming to take a personal interest in his students. But he was very good-natured and obviously enjoyed having a good time.

Many nights, I move from sleep to awareness and find myself trying to solve some kind of problem. It’s usually an ill-defined problem and potential solutions make no more sense to my waking mind than the problem itself.

My earliest recollection of sleepless nights featuring endless attempts to solve insoluble problems is of nights when I was sick. No doubt the underlying problem was my illness, but it manifested itself as something less tangible.

I suppose those first sleepless nights could have begun when I was in Fifth Grade – and that this really is Mr. Halleck’s fault.

I don’t suppose I’ll ever know; but that doesn’t mean I won’t spend endless hours in the darkness trying to figure it out

Begin, Reagan, Palestine, Terror on the airline
Ayatollah's in Iran, Russians in Afghanistan

Wheel of Fortune, Sally Ride, heavy metal, suicide
Foreign debts, homeless Vets, AIDS, Crack, Bernie Goetz

Hypodermics on the shores, China's under martial law
Rock and Roller cola wars, I can't take it anymore

We didn't start the fire
It was always burning
Since the world's been turning
We didn't start the fire
Well, we didn't light it
But we tried to fight it
        -- Billy Joel, 1989

Step right up

If you want it, here it is, come and get it
Mmmm, make your mind up fast
If you want it, anytime, I can give it
But you better hurry ’cause it may not last

Did I hear you say that there must be a catch?
Will you walk away from a fool and his money?
If you want it, here it is; come and get it
But you better hurry cause it's going fast
        -- Badfinger, 1970


Has anyone been riding along with me since Washington State? Do you remember that gas station shaped like a teapot on the road?

I’ve seen a lot more of this kind of outlandish effort to convince tourists to hit the brakes and find out what’s up with that … whatever. Gigantic sharks, lobsters, oranges, pirates – you name it – are erected along highways as lures.

Tonight I sleep in Sarasota – the former winter headquarters of the Ringling Bros, Barnum and Bailey circus. The circus no longer winters here, but circus history and artifacts abound. The Ringling Circus Museum is a major attraction, but Sarasota offers a 3-ring-circus as the town also features the Ringling Art Museum and the Ringling Castle – which was the winter residence of the Ringling family.

I have a feeling that once tourists start arriving in a Florida city – for any reason – a host of cottage industries follow, notably the aforementioned gift shops housed in grandiose structures designed to attract attention.

I’ve lived in tourist towns – and have noted efforts to separate visitors from their cash by nearly all means necessary. But I get the feeling that Florida (and points north along the east coast) have the art of trolling for tourists down to a science. And I must admit that I’m beginning to find it off-putting.

Figures from 5 years ago indicate that Florida is second only to California in attracting tourist dollars – well over $50 billion annually. These two states are way ahead of New York and Texas; others that fall far behind.

I suspect that Florida has to try harder – and must resort to more artificial (and less artful) means – in order to stay close to California. The Golden State (CA) has many more natural attractions and a wider range of offerings.

In future years, as growing numbers of Baby Boomers take to the roads, tens of millions of middle-class vagabonds will soon descend upon interesting regions, cycling in and out with the seasons.

It will be interesting to see how different “tourist destinations” evolve in the coming years. Those that stick with overpriced food, souvenirs, thrill rides and flashy, but vacuous shows, they may lose out in the long run.


Even if one is born every minute, there are only so many suckers to go around…

What do you mean by that?

'Twas brillig, and the slithy toves
Did gyre and gimble in the wabe;
All mimsy were the borogoves,
And the mome raths outgrabe.
        -- Lewis Carroll, 1872

This was done by creating quasi-natural sentence material with decreasing semantic, syntactic, and phonemic information (i.e., jabberwocky sentences, in which all content words were replaced by meaningless words; pseudoword sentences, in which all function and all content words are replaced by meaningless words; and delexicalized sentences, hummed intonation contour of a sentence removing all segmental content).
        -- Ann Pannekamp, others
        Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience , 2005

“This is America,” he said. “They must learn to speak English!”

How many hundreds of times have I heard that battle cry? It has logic to it – an undeniable appeal to those who are uncomfortable when they can’t understand what others are saying.

Finally (I never cease to amaze myself at how long it takes me to put two and two together), the most appropriate retort to this logic occurred to me.

“Because this is America,” I suggest, “we are free to speak any language we choose – including pure gibberish, if it suits us.”

It’s true. The First Amendment declares that we all have the right to free speech. We can utter what ever words we like, in almost any context and using whatever vocabulary we wish – including words that originated outside our borders … er … the borders of England, where some of our ancestors used to live?

In fact, the logic – if there is any – behind “this is America, speak English” is far weaker than, “this is northern Colorado, speak Arapahoe,” or “this is southwestern Colorado, speak Ute,” or “this is South Dakota, speak Sioux.”

Today’s lecture (forgive me, I’m on my soapbox again), however, isn’t about languages – though it is about communication.

I have enjoyed meeting and speaking with hundreds of senior citizens I’ve encountered on this trip, but I have to admit that I can count the number of conversations that were “deep” on my fingers and toes.

There just doesn’t seem to be a whole lot of interest in trying to get to the root of a matter or to reach an understanding – even to define terms so we know for sure what we’re talking about.

I hate when someone uses a big word or complex sentence to impress others; but I love it when words are used properly to make a clear and precise point.

Consider the quotes provided above.

The first, penned by Lewis Carrol, is a perfect example of how one can appear to be making sense while uttering absolute nonsense.

And the second, written by scholars, is a great example of how a point can be made clearly.

I respect people able to communicate so clearly and accurately – in fact, I envy them. Those who dedicate themselves to the systematic study of something must surely have a far deeper appreciation of them than the rest of us who have only explored the surface. How strange that we don’t depend on such people more when we must make decisions regarding matters within their spheres of knowledge.

The ability to grasp both fundamentals and nuances, to analyze one situation and then apply what’s learned to another, is a good thing. Most Americans – including our leaders, I fear – tend to shoot from the hip, taking issues out of context and often making choices without applying much history, science, psychology or scholarship of any kind.

Author Norman Mailer died this week. As I watched some clips from interviews he gave over the years I recognized that we’ve lost someone who took few serious matters lightly. He was an egomaniac, a college dropout** and a man with strong opinions that sometimes got him into trouble.

But Norman Mailer brought something to the table. He added to the discussion, challenging others to think.

Though a bit uffish, he was brillig and lived life frabjously.

(** NOTE: Mailer never dropped out of college; see comments)

Blog rolling

When I get to the bottom
I go back to the top of the slide
Where I stop and turn
and I go for a ride
Till I get to the bottom and I see you again
Yeah, yeah, yeah
        -- The Beatles, 1968

Day 13 in the NABLOMO world event. The idea is to make a blog entry every day during the month of November. Depending on one’s standards, it’s not as easy as it sounds.

It’s a writers’ thing. Many of us who believe – or want to believe – that we have a novel inside us that would come out of us, if we just apply ourselves, are attracted by otherwise rather silly challenges like this.

The bloggers’ promotion is actually a spin-off of something called NaNoWriMo – “National Novel Writers’ Month.” That event makes a nearly impossible challenge: novelists are required to complete at least 50,000 words in 30 days, pounding out an entire, full-blown novel in a single month.

The blog project was invented last year by a gal who failed to complete her novel-in-November challenge and it being repeated this month. Thousands of bloggers are participating.

Since a blog can be quite short – and can even include mostly information borrowed from other sources – the blog-a-day challenge is far less demanding for most folks than novel-writing.

But the underlying theory is pretty much the same. Most writing teachers and coaches agree that the key to becoming a better writer is to write, write and write. To a certain extent, most argue, improving the quality of one’s writing is less important than developing the discipline necessary to make daily progress and meet deadlines.

Published writers know that writing begins as a solitary effort but usually ends up as a collaboration between the originator and several editors who help make the product better.

Well, no such luck in the blogosphere. Blog entries are typically little more than first drafts. Blogging is a great way to adhere to the “write, write, write” imperative, but the end product seldom rises to professional levels – even when the writer is a professional.

Though I am seeking an audience of critical readers and hope to be presenting fairly clear, concise and if not significant at least somewhat interesting prose, some of my entries are what I once labeled “F.R.O.T.H.” when criticizing students’ work.

The effluent that results from so-called stream-of-consciousness writing – or the product of just sitting down and “pounding out” a story – isn’t really professional writing, as I see it.

Writers should probably really be called RE-writers because the process of editing begins with the writer and, in most cases, takes more time than creating the first draft.

FROTH – writing that flows onto paper “From Right Off The Head” – can be full of energy and promise. Much of a first draft may find its way into the final version unchanged – but much more usually doesn’t bear scrutiny.

There is no shortage of FROTH in these entries of mine. When I revisit some work from past months, I often cringe – realizing that the whole world has had access to unpolished, unedited and often incompletely developed work.

I’ve been asked many times whether I intend to write a book about my adventures. My answer is becoming a more and more emphatic “probably not!” One thing is certain, though, none of these blog entries will make it into such a document without a lot of editing.

This one included.

Homeward bound

How far we all come. How far we all come away from ourselves. So far, so much between, you can never go home again. You can go home, it's good to go home, but you never really get all the way home again in your life. And what's it all for? All I tried to be, all I ever wanted and went away for, what's it all for?

Just one way, you do get back home. You have a boy or a girl of your own and now and then you remember, and you know how they feel, and it's almost the same as if you were your own self again, as young as you could remember.
        -- James Agee
        -- A Death in the Family, 1957

Take it from a rolling stone: there really is no place like home.

I’ve felt “at home” quite a few times along my route, usually when invited into the private apartment of one of the folks I’ve met, but also during meals and other activities.

It’s a great feeling – sort of a combination of feeling warm and cozy and well fed and comfortable and entertained and relaxed and satisfied and cared-for.

Sometimes I feel that way just because of a chair or couch. When I’m sore or tired, or sore and tired, just nestling into a soft, supportive and otherwise just-right seat makes everything else seem unimportant.

Another kind of “at-home” experience is the product of proximity to people. Put me in the company of some copasetic fellow humans and I go right into a comfort zone. Barriers that I usually have in place; I feel free to expose my feelings and risk being found lacking.

It’s the combination of people and place, I guess, that puts folks in a condition most conducive to happiness. And the ideal, it seems to me, is when one is part of a family that lives together in a comfortable home.

On an equal playing field, all things being equal, with average luck and by applying good common sense, it should be possible for most people to enjoy four score and seven years, more or less, of the good life.

Many of the hundreds I’ve met over the past nine months have done just that.

As a representative of those who’ve been less fortunate, I’d just like to say to all of those whose lives have gone pretty much according to plan: “lucky you.”

Most of us make mistakes and/or are affected by events outside our control that scotch the deal. Hooray for those whose errors didn’t prove fatal to family and for whom unavoidable intrusions weren’t destructive.

As I turn west Thursday, and begin my long journey from the Atlantic back to the Pacific, I’m determined to explore paths toward home – not in the sense of it being a physical place, but home as sort of a lifestyle that facilitates happiness.

Younger readers may simply refer to the manual (as presented on television and elsewhere). But for those of us who must begin a new search later in life, the options are fewer (biological clock-wise).

That said, I do believe I’ll find examples of folks in the over-fifty crowd who have encountered problems but managed to get those home fires burning again despite chronological limitations.

If I stay on pace, I’ll have a chance to survey several hundred more seniors before trail’s end. As I continue these interviews, I’m going to focus more attention on ideas like “family,” “joy,” “meaning in life” and “home.”

'Mid pleasures and palaces

Though we may roam,

Be it ever so humble,

There's no place like home.


A charm from the skies

Seems to hallow us there,

Which seek thro' the world,

Is ne'er met with elsewhere.


Home, home, sweet sweet home,

There's no place like home.
        -- John Howard Payne, 1823

The Magic Kingdom is for the birds

"Feed the birds," that's what she cries,
While overhead, her birds fill the skies.
All around the cathedral the saints and apostles
Look down as she sells her wares.
Although you can't see it, you know they are smiling
Each time someone shows that he cares.
Though her words are simple and few,
Listen, listen, she's calling to you:
"Feed the birds, tuppence a bag,
Tuppence, tuppence, tuppence a bag."

        -- Mary Poppins, 1964

Walt Disney sought to control every aspect of visitors’ experiences at his amusement parks. Few of the millions of people who visit Disneyland and Disney World notice that the buildings along Main Street are actually scaled-down versions of edifices one might have found in turn-of-the-century American towns.

That’s not actually an accurate statement. Replicas that are “built to scale” use a ratio that’s applied equally to each dimension. Buildings that are 2/3 as wide as the original are also 2/3 as tall.

But Disney used an artist’s technique to create an optical illusion that makes Main Street appear more realistic. “Forced perspective” fools the eye and makes fantasy seem like reality. The second stories of Main Street buildings are not as high as the first; and third stories are shorter still.

The same effect is applied to the Sleeping Beauty Castle where grown-ups stroll through spacious ground-floor gates but you’d have to be one of the seven dwarves to crawl through an upper-floor window. Even the Matterhorn was designed to appear far taller than it is by using forced perspective.

Disney managed to manipulate the environment so effectively that it’s easy to forget you’re still in the real world. A different set of rules – even rules of physics – applies in the Magic Kingdom.

Disney World was built in a Florida wilderness that almost provided a blank slate – a pristine lump of clay from which Disney could mold whatever creation he pleased.

He had complete control over the width, depth and height. No residential, commercial, industrial or other influences threatened his borders. He was god-like in his ability to create a kingdom in the Florida forest primeval…

But, as we learned in “Jurassic Park,” the 1993 film blockbuster, “Life will find a way.” Even the great and powerful Walt Disney couldn’t control flight patterns of migrating birds or the nesting habits of other fowl native to Florida.

Thousands of birds occupy Disney World. These are not official “cast members” and they do occasionally break the spell a bit. After a while, I stopped noticing their ubiquitous presence – except when they literally got in my way, which happened more often than one might think.

It’s possible that Disney has employed strategies for controlling the creatures. If so, the effort has not been completely successful. It seems just as likely that park officials have refused to engage in battle with the birds – but rather have learned to love them … and to live with them.


Disney Wildlife Conservation Fund has taken action to protect endangered species of birds, notably the Whooping Crane. Their efforts have spanned more than 10 years; the corporation has contributed more than $10 million to worldwide efforts to protect wildlife and the ecosystem.

It’s nice to know that Disney has not only built wonderful facilities for boys and girls of all ages, but that they’re also for the birds.

Now, if there was just a way to keep birds that perch on Main Street rooftops from appearing to be so much larger than they should…