Saturday, February 08, 2003
ALL OVER AGAIN
It is seldom that a person gets to live a life a second time, and yet I feel, at times, as if I am doing something like that, And, to what purpose, I wonder.
I have, on two occasions during my almost eigthy-seven years, been close enough to the actual point of death that others were concerned about the obvious fact that I might not be around much longer. I also partipated in a major war in which I did what I was told to do and went where I was told to go. Some guardian angel in charge of military involvment took care of me even there in situations far beynd my control. I "lucked out" while others I knew did not. That, in a real sense, is a great mystery I'll never be able to understand - why I should live and one of my childhood friends shoud be killed in the salt water wilderness of the wide beaches at Tarawa; why another should be killed by a fragment of an anti-aircraft shell while seated in a B-24 bomber over central Europe; and there have been others, too...why they should die and I be allowed to live.
My other close call was two years ago, in April, when X-rays taken for a relatively minor exploratory purpose, revealed that I was - unknowingly - walking around and living and active life style with an abdomonal aorta which was ready to burst at any moment. No need to dwell on my "operation". Suffice to say I know I am very lucky to be here today and I have wondered many times how it was that the deft hands and skill of a young doctor by the name of of Nancy Harthun were awaiting the arrival of the helicopter in which they flew me to a larger hospital where a team would be available to meet my unusual need.
Why?
That' s what continues to puzzle me almost daily. Why me? Why, and to what end... for what purpose? The common termonology might be that "They were taken, but I was spared." I have even thought that it may be the other way aound, depending on what the future might entail. It could read: "They were chosen or selected while I was rejected... thrown back as being not quite ready for whatever!"
I am not unacquainted with death. I have worked as an assistant in the procedures of embalming. I have helped prepare and witnessed the cremation process and I have lost loved ones suddenly to Death. I am not afraid of dying. I often wish I could leave my family with more holdings than we have, but I know my time will come and my religious faith is strong and I have his constant feeling that someone else has a final say as on when my time may be ended and then, maybe, I'll learn why it is all happening this way.
A.L.M. February 7, 2003 [c481wds]
Friday, February 07, 2003
ABOUT JAPAN
I have suddenly discovered I know very little about Japan and I wonder if such a lack of common, every day facts is a common shortcoming with others.
About Japanese housing, for instance.
I am told that a typical home in Tokyo offers the resident about 630 square feet of living space. Is that enough space for the average family? I rather doubt it, since I find that American "trailer" homes - an item no longer being produced, but still used as a yardstick - offers more space than in a 32ft.x 10ft. model. That' s "togetherness" in a family sense, I'd say. Here, it would be considered to be inadequate for a family of modest circustances and I'm told that, in Japan, two familes might well occupy such an area.
Of course, we realize that the population of Japan is said the be "dense". It has been that way for centuries and, oddly enough, seems to show little tendency to change.
One reason set forth to explain this static growth stand is that Japan is subject to earthquakes, and high rise constuction has, therefore, been avoided for decades. The cities have growth has not been "up" and "out" is limited. Growth has been "inward" to make strill more intense use of the space the do have. It simply does not make good economic sense to build structures which a quake can eliminate. Another fact has been stated which is distrubing one to me, as well. That argument cites the relative poverty of the people. Tokyo is known as one of the most expensive cities in all the world in which to live and when it comes to many standards of present living elsewhere plainly indicates that the people of Japan - a least of Tokyo - enjoy the best life they have had for generations. In a relative sense, they can't be all that "poor".
Tokyo and Osaka are not "all" of Japan, of course. I think we realize that well enough, but we tend to equte the rest of Japan with our own vast westward lands of expansion. Much of Japan, I find, is virtually uninhabited. The truth, I'm told, is that "most" of Japan is, indeed, "uninhabited". I find that difficult to believe. It just doesn't fit in with my concept of Gilbert and Sullivan's pictures of it all. I would have thought we had learned about what modern Japan is because of World War II associations and the occupation years. I ,obviously, did not do so and I find the same level of ignorance to be common among many I know.
Just about half of the 130 million or so citizens of Japan live in several large, urban swatchs around major cities such as Tokyo and Osaka. The same clamoous jumble of always moving people, steadfast concrete on every side, and glistening asphalt surfaces can been seen ahead and otherwise noted for seemingly endless miles. Take the three hundred and forty mile trip from Toyko to Osaka on one of the celebrated but highly subsidizd "bullet" trains and you will see nothing but wilderness beyond the track area. There are, it seems, no "small towns" dotting the landscape here and there.There are no end-to end flowery bowers of the music hall versions of rural Japan. There are no bucolic byways, either.
I must learn more about Japan. Have they every had a full-fledged agricultural plan, I wonder, wherein unused lands might be adaped to growing the foods they must now import in large amounts. This sort of action, it would seem to me, is Japan's key to future security and prosperity. Yet we, as a nation, are certainly in no position to point the finger of criticism at Japan. Witness, if you will, the vast stretches of woodland and pasture which is unwisely used, misued or not used at all along our own Interstate highways and other roads in every secionoif our own country.
I would imagine old concepts of land ownership might have something to do with land use in Japan, and, perhaps,too, their changing ideas of what constitutes a family.
We need to learn more about people with whom we share this Earth, if only to come to realize how we have been blest and continue to be cared for by what President George W. Bush made reference to in a speech this week as "the wonder working power."
A.L.M. Feburary 7, 2003 [c780wds]
Thursday, February 06, 2003
SENSE OF...
I find myself wondering, at times, about men and women who were noted for having possessed and who made use of a superior sense of humor - let's say Will Rogers, Mark Twain and others of that ilk, and what they would think of events of our New Century.
I have great respect for those who can saw the simple, underlying reasons for seemingly complex happenings. I think we actually felt better about many things when Will Rogers, for example, translated the unpleasenmt events of the news into terms we could understand. He had a sense of ridicule which could puncture puffy politicians or the overly pious perfectionists with equal candor and common sense and he could do it without rancor.
Such a person, set free to comment on our world today, would be faced with new problems.
They would be overwhelmed, I'm sure, by the tremendous funds of information available to every ctizien today. Will Rogers would have to modify his slogan "all I know is what I read in the papers" to include media channels he never dreamed man would have available. When those humorists thought of the world's knowledge it was still something individuls had to seek out and find, and develop is now available to us at our fingertips - literally
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Most of them would, no doubt, be taken aback concerning the unseemly haste with which we must live today. They enjoyed a more leisurely passage thruough the events which made up daily routines. How they could adapt to such a changes of pace is questionable, and I doubt if they could function in the present world with anything like their success they enjoyed decades ago. Life is too fast today. It tumbles over itself in an at-times erratic, panic-fired eagerness to force its way on stage. No one medium seems to be fast enough to keep pace with the lava-flow steadiness of all types of news... good ...bad, or - worse yet!. Newspapers have changed radically in the past fifty years and more of them will be failing in the next few years. The pace of happenings has far outrun their capacity to be current.
In like manner, I think the humorists of the past are gone and that the current crop is meeting a special transitional need. Their comedy is more open and admittedly contrived for the moment. Cosby led to it, Seinfeld and others have it in their hands, for the moment, and the writers on the talk shows play an enormous role, as well. The late night TV stars relate to humor chiefly in relation to it all through their writing staff and few, if any, are humorists in their own right. The constant need for new material puts such a career beyond any one person. Those who star as funny men and women are often mere fronts for several writers feeding them material which, once used, is heard by mllions in the one performance and many repeats and re--runs and, therfore, virtually useless until revised by writers with a newsy slant in mind
I don't think the old-timers could hack it today,
Our sense of humor today is heavily burdened with an overwhelming reality pressure.
What appears to be comical today is , all too often, is accepted in a "funny-odd" sense rather than in a "funny-ha-ha" way. That is not a healthy sign at all.
A.L.M. February 5, 2003 [c640wds]
Wednesday, February 05, 2003
THE PLACE CALLED POPHAM
The year was 1606.
Men in Europe, people we now call "adventurers", began to have some serious ideas about forming a settlement along the Eastern coast Amerca.
A group of like-minded men in England petitioned King James I that same year were granted a royal charter authorizing them to form a settlement project as part of the London and Plymouth Companies already in existence in London.
These were not religious refugees seeking a new homeland of freedom for their faith.These were men of commerce and it was their intent to found a colony from which trading posts which would delve into the riches of the New World to their business advantage. The French tried a company in the same year, setting up a small colony on island in the St. Croix River between what is now Maine and New Brunswick. It lasted less than a year.
The English expedition traveled across the Atlantic in two vessels: the "Gift of God" and the "Mary & John". and set up a small settlement called " Fort St. George" at the mouth of what was then called Sagadahoc River - now charted as the Kennebec. They selected the location carefully in line with their plan to infilter the area, upriver, with trading post establishmen as a key to the wealth of the new land.
The town came to be called Popham after the name of the man they elected to be their President - one George Popham who happend to be a nephew of the Lord Chief Justice of England. It has been surmised many of the men who made up the group were of a social elite not too responsive to the demands of hard labor, but that seems unlikely when your find that this small company accomplished one thing never before done by any colonists. In their short stay in the area, they were the only ones who ever actually built a sea-going vessel and thus founded the shipbuilding industry or the eventual State of Maine.
That original ship, made as the New World's first non-profit organization product - was named the "Virginia" which was the official name of the entire eastern coastal area at the time. The new ship weighed thirty-tons and sowed a high degree of good workmanship.One does not just throw such a ship together and the canva, iron and other fittings needed would seem to be an insurmountable obstacle..Yet, they succeeded and the "Virginia" made, at least, two known crossings of the Atlantic.Exactly what its intent mady have been is in question but it is assumed the new vessel was built to make their coastal probes into bays and rivers easier had their trading post plan worked out.
So, while the Popham Colony did not endure English adveturers learned a great deal which must have helped in establishing the Pilgirm's company at Plymouth a bit to the south a bit, thirteen years later. The failure of Popham, of the French attempt on the St Croix River, must have helped the Pilgrim in formulating their plans some thirteen years later. The haunting presence of failures...Popham, St. Croix, Roanoke Island back in 1588 and others must have weighed heavily on their minds.
Those times demanded a great deal of human intent on improving their lot and that of Mankind..
Additional archeological digs are now in progress which may reveal more artifats of the period, but it has been largely ignored for 400 years.
I wonder what other groups of adventrous men, yes, and and women, as well, might have set forth at one time or another into such realms of betterment who have been recognized for having done so.
A.L.M. February 4, 2003 [c627wds]
Tuesday, February 04, 2003
BOXES
Nothing can entertain a small yougster - boy or girl - as does a simple cardboard box or two.
It need not be a fancy one. Just about any clean, cardboard or corrugated box will do quite well.
Gift buying at Christmas time is fine, or course, and on special days, such as a birthday, a special toy can be a fine thing for any child, but don't throw away the box it came in.
With conventional toys a child sees and holds the object it is supposed to be - an animal, a building, a fine car or truck, fish or whatever it is intended to resemble, but when he has just a carton or two before him he uses his imagination and makes it be whatever he wants it to become at any specific time. It is difficult for the grown up mind to realize how varied the child's creative sensibilites can be and often are.
Take care, of course, that all metal or plastic staples, wires or attachments have been removed before you consign them into the care and use of the young engineer potential who will convert the potential engineer you supply into whatever he feels they might become. There are no limits, either.
The box can become a house for his stuffed animals, it can be a space ship on which he rides off into a world of whirling stars, it can be a wagon bumping along a dusty, rutted road or a bobsled rushing down a snow-covered slope. Such a collection of boxes gives exercise to a childs creative urges and it is also amazing to see him or her "explain" what it is to other children of the same age. By means of some miracle means of communcation, it becomes quickly obvious that the second child soon knows, for a fact, that what they have is whatever the first child seems to think it is.. They both ride the sled, bike, car, wagon, cart or whatever the box has become in their world. And another unusual thing can take place when the second or a third child decides the box or boxes are really something entirely different.
A child can find security and very real emotional help with such simple toys. They are far more flexible in his view and better fit his or her emotional need. If they want protecion they hide inside behind or in the box. If he or she wants to feel the presence of love, admiration, ,joy, happeness ...even a grumpy mood now and then -the child has a ready co-conspiritor handy. in that plan. The box can be castle or cabana; palace or pauper's hut on demand. Fancier toys are limited by what they are made to be. Boxes....beautiful boxes ... can be anything they want them to be.
In England, and in some parts of the empire lands such as of Canada and Australia, chidlren are made aware of Boxing Day which occurs, I think, the day after Christmas Day, or some observe it on the first week-day after the 25th. At that time, as they grown older and more mature, children are encouraged to gather up posessions and place them in boxes which are, then, distributed to the dwelling places of the poor and needy. It has varied over the centuries,.of course, and hence there are various traditions as to what Boxing Day should entail.. They did decorate boxes and fill them with goods which were then given to the poor.
I wonder if they lf they left the boxes in the homes they visited. Poor children would know empty boxes to be a gift with which they had experence.
Don't wait until the trandiitonal boxing day. Find some cardboard boxes - often they can be yours without charge at local stores - and let your child play with them on the floor or on the front lawn.
Sit down nearby and watch.You can witness their eager ingenuiy at work as they play.
A.L.M. February 3, 2003 [c 576wds]
Monday, February 03, 2003
SECOND THOUGHTS
Memory is that portion of the human body, it has been said, which enables us to forget. We use it and we mis-use it ,as well.
And, isn't it odd what things you choose to forget?. I have no idea, for instance, who said that about the nature of human memory, so I can give due credit, but it is not original with me.
We forget some very important things, too. Some of them can be critical to our very being as a nation.
Right now we are in a quandary about something which faces nations far too often. Many citizens have forgotten what horrors a world war can bring to us, and another group seems to have forgotten what happens to a nation which fails to stand firm concerning its basic beliefs. We find ourselves to be facing each other as factions and much of the division is caused by the fact that we have neglected to study our historical heritage.
Memories can play subtle tricks on the unwary,too and it is this aspect which demands our attention most urgently.
Unless one refreshes memories from time to time by re-living the incidents which brought them into being, details are easily at hazard. You may know the name of the play or book mentioned even identify some individuals within it, but the name of the author seems to be hopelessly lost.
It is important that the citizens of any nation be instructed systematically concerning their national history. How well have we been doing that since our last conflict? Estimates may vary, but the importance of doing so is no longer up for questioning among thinking persons. Self-preservation may depend upon doing so.
For the better part of half a century century we have been content to to be subjected to a re-telling mania to the advantage of the entertainment enclaves of our society. Cartoon versions of the national classics of both literature and history are not adequate. We are just beginning to become aware that such a system has been primary in educating the average American citizen concerning his or her civic and patriotic obligations and duties.
We have enjoyed and profited from such an entertainment and pleasure focus, but the memory of what war can actually be – judged by what it has been in the past, is not there. We are, even now, beginning to re-learn what we have missed. We are meeting with second thoughts concerning the basic elements of our situation, and for many individuals it means starting “from scratch” concerning the real story of our national being.
It is especially interesting to see people refurbishing old ideas, used concepts and tired theories and thinking them to be their own, personal discovery. Memory can do that.
We, as individuals, can help to meet this very real informational deficiency. Try re-reading our nation's history and become aware of our true place among the changed nation's of this changed and changing world.
A.L.M January 31, 2103 [c507wds]
Sunday, February 02, 2003
HORSE SENSE
Most of us, I think, would do well to remember the Greek story about The Trojan Horse at this time in our national life.
The very nature of our open society makes it possible, even temptingly so, for those who would do us harm to harbor themselves among us, with a well conceived plan to bring about the destruction f our homeland.
The image within which our possible doom may be hidden in our very midst will, of course, not be any form of a horse, necessarily, but it will be something which we admire, something we respect and covet.
There are voice speaking out, even now you can her them if you listen, warning us to beware of being so liberal and easy-going in allowing foreign-born persons to either visit our shores for extended unsupervised times or to seek permanent residence here because of unlivable conditions in their part of the world. Later on,these critic of our immigration policies, say such groups may well rush forth as did the soldiers from the ancient wooden horse in Troy, to open the gates of our nation to spoilers.
While possible, isn't that bit too obvious and easily detected?
Most certainly, the tactic employed by our enemies will not be that simplistic and direct. We have sad and ample evidence in the soul-searing events of “September 11th” to know the attacks upon us will not be conventional. in all likelihood, save in any moments of desperation they may encounter which would cause them to make us of simple raw force and the power of sheer numbers of men and munitions instead of elaborately conceived schemes.
I hear disquieting talk, too, of the need of our own authorities to take better care what we have and hold dear. That would seem to be one stated purpose of the new Homeland Security office which has take more than a year to become as meaningful method of protection. I hear people saying it is too large; that it brought in far too many unqualified people to be guardians of our well-being; that it should not be physically headquartered in the District of Columbia as a prime target for attack; many criticisms are heard and this is not unusual for such a massive undertaking, I would say. It has come about very quickly in one sense. Imagine how long it would have taken to get where we are had pork-minded Congress persons been allowed to drag it into their particular state.
It probably doesn't matter a great deal where it might be, physically, for that matter, but it is a vital tool in our preparations.
But for exactly what are we searching? What do we expect to find? What are we to suspect, question or fear?
We had best be thinking of all this and more during these uncertain days of serious confrontation with forces with whom we have never had to deal so directly. Our enemies see our weakest points.
Do we?
A. L. M. January 30, 2003 [c511wds]
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