Friday, July 09, 2004
TWO WORDS OR LESS
Take time to say "Thank you."
Isn't it odd that such an easy, pleasant thing to do has been allowed to become distasteful chore with so many of us? Notice how infrequently some people actually express their appreciation for what others do for them. They seem to have an idea that you are, in some strange way, privileged to wait upon their needs. And, by not failing to express any gratitude or favors done, that "I'm special!" attitude seems to take deep roots and grows to a point where such attentions cease and they wonder why. Check it out. Are you keeping your membership card in society valid and up to date by saying "Thank you" for the good things other add to your enjoyment of daily living?
Your greatest wealth is to be found, I think, in all those little things people do for you. Often it can be a trade-off.
Just this past week I was entering a doctor's office and ahead of me another tottering old man with a cane in hand, held the outside door open for me to enter. I did so while he held the door and then I held the inner door open for him. We smiled at each other ; each said "Thank you, sir." and both experienced a good feeling about a passer-by whom we will never see or hear about in all that remains of our lives. We had shared a tiny moment of living.
On the morning of July 4th, just past, I read a humor column in the pages of the Hampton Roads,Virginia DAILY PRESS, in which writer Tony Gabriele granted unto the founding fathers of our nation and "F" grade on Spelling. It was a imagined conversation with Tom Jefferson, John Adams and Ben Franklin discussing the fact that the lower case printed letter "s" looked like our lower case letter "f". John Adams was having trouble with Tom's line concerning ?the purfuit of happineff? and even worried about Abe Lincoln facing trouble a few hundred years from their time writing his "Gettysburg Adreff."
When I read a choice morsel such as that, I have an urge to thank the writer. I did so with an e-mail note to Tony Gabriele awarding him an "S+" for a satisfactory-and-more treatment of the 4th of July.
Two other "thank you" incidents while I am on the subject: Several years ago I chanced to meet my old High School principal, and we ,naturally, spoke of teachers I had known. I inquired about one particular teacher has meant so much to me over the years. It was because she once took time to read and talk to me about a poem I h ad written. She particularly liked the part where told of standing on a high hill and watching " a plowman weaving patterns on the rich, dark river bottom land below. The unusual thing was that the principal asked if I would permit him to call her that night, retired now and living alone, he knew. He would tell her I said ?Thank you? for a comment made many years before. He wanted to do so because I was the first student he could remember who had ever asked about her in all the years we had been out of school.
I have, in my files, a prized letter from the Russian historian Maurice Hindus who, many years ago during the short post Stalin defreeze era, returned briefly to his native Russia from his home here in America. He wrote a book about the visit. Most people do not realize it is about Soviet Russia because of it's title. It's is called "House Without A Roof" alluding to the fact that the Soviets built many walls but never quite completed any of them to a point where a protective roof could be applied. I liked his book and wrote a short note to him in care of the publishers. Months later I was pleased to have a long, chatty letter from Maurice Hindus, thanking me for my thank you note.
Treasures are made of such trivia. Say "Thank you" more often and watch your wealth grow.
A.L.M. June 8, 2004 [ c710wds]
Thursday, July 08, 2004
TIGHT ROPE WALK
The current sweep of criticism which is giving the new media a rather close look is, not doubt, a good thing in that it seeks to protect the validity of the news we are reading, hearing and seeing.
New charges of intentional malpractice are being launched every day, it seems, and our rights and our responsibilities concerning this vital part of our cultural situation is being examined. The examination comes close to being inquisitional in nature far too often and that is a point we must watch with special care and apply common sense elements and sound reasoning to such tests concerning validity lest we lead the parade to our own ruin.
We are walking a tight rope over a chasm of unknown depth and content. If we, in checking out the overall rig, loosen the right bindings too much or those pinning it to the left phylum are tweaked too avidly, it may become increasingly more and more and more difficult to balance upon it. The rope must be rigid but, at the same time, have a degree of flexibility which can absorb tensions exerted against it's firmness.
Are you disturbed by the current actions of what we loosely call ?the media? Obviously, some people are very much much aroused because criticism continues and mounts in intensity with almost any news event of consequence. Are you confident concerning the truth of the?news? reports which come into your life? Do you feel the facts are honestly sought, arrived at and presented? Do you agree with those who insist the much of the news is being consistently ?slanted? by large sections of the communications elements of the media to suit their political or social preferences? Doubters are in a growth phase.
Few American, however, can define what they mean by ?news?. How does legitimate news differ from purposely patterned propaganda? How accurate are the news reports that come to you in your particular location? Have you every felt you have been duped, fooled, ignored or wrongly informed? Just last week a leading daily newspaper in New York City headlined the supposed fact that Richard Gephardt, of Missouri, had been chosen as John Kerry's running. It was explained away that the story was based on an overhead phone call to Gephart from Kerry at one-thirty or so in the morning -just before press time. How much of the news we are fed is based on such in-depth effort?
This, too, shall pass. The best thing to try to do is to keep your own nose and noggin clean. Read carefully and be careful what you choose to read. All that is printed is not true; all that is said is not true,nor is all that you see faultlessly factual at all times. And, don't get all up-tight and bent out of your obese shape when others disagree with you.
Lighten up a bit, too. Think of it this way: When Old Noah was building his gigantic ark he hired thousands of workers who had not the slightest idea that an all-consuming flood was imminent. They did good work anyway.
A.L.M. July 7, 2004 [c525wds]
Wednesday, July 07, 2004
HIGHER! HIGHER!
We appear to be slow learners.
The official ceremony marking the laying of the cornerstone for the new structure which is to rise on the Â?Ground ZeroÂ? site in New York was held this past week. It was revealed, once again, that what we are to see in place of the tragically destroyed World Trade Center Towers, will be our latest entry in the international competition to see who can erect the world's tallest building.
I had hoped it might be a true memorial; a monument done in remembrance of the thousands of victims of that fated day in September of 2001. I think survivors and families of the victims of that cowardly attack might think,too, of such a building primarily as a token rising as a tribute to honor those who died or were injured in the attack. Many families hold that day as a special moment of deep loss and to see the memorial structure designed to mark that loss be first and foremost known as Â?the tallest building in the world.Â? leave their hopes as a secondary meaning. The world-wide contest to see who can build the tallest building has haunted Mankind since the Â?Tower of BabelÂ? days. It a few years, whatever is erected, will be excelled before too long and its distinction lost. Then, possible a decade later, I suppose, it will be considered to became a tribute to those who died September 11, 2001.
This fascination we have with building the world's tallest seems to have no end. We lost the Â?titleÂ? years ago to Indonesia. We have refrained from mentioning the subject during the interim years. Taiwan will take over soon and other nations are competing, as well. I hear mentions quite often which insist we are Â?tempting the terroristsÂ? to do it all over again when we construct new skyscrapers of increasingly higher skyscrapers, provide targets for more disaster.
There are, of course , other sides to such a discussion.
Some would contend and with reasonable logic, that it is far better to build enduring memorials which have some practical use and utilitarian purpose. That, they insist, is far better than to rear chunks of stone or metal for pigeons to decorate and other men to desecrate. Some even see humor in the present construction. Upper upper floors of the new building will support the content-winning communications towers which add whatever extension needed to be a contest winner. Those upper floors are open-sided and do not house offices, but, rather, large rotors, wind driven to create electrical power. Scoffers say that if an erratic wind comes up and all the rotors spin at one time they will shake the stuck-up structure to pieces and save the terrorists time, money and effort. Or, who knows? With a steady, prevailing wind we might have a new and higher Â?Leaning TowerÂ? to show to tourists from all over the world.
A.L.M. July 6, 2004 [c496wds]
Monday, July 05, 2004
THIS OLD PLACE
I live on land which, at one time, served as a working plantation which was used a rather unusual way from others we read of in the Old South.
The house large brick house was bulldozed a few years ago to make room for the housing development in which we now live. The original, red brick, L-shaped house, was twenty to fourteen rooms, depending on how you chose to count them. I knew the house well because my first wife lived there ? was born there, in fact, as was her father. The back portion of the L-shaped house was built in 1844. The larger front section was finished the next year. It so happens that our present house is located down the slop of a gentle hill the old brick house named by the original owners - the Weller Family as ?Lofton?,on the edge of the area where out-sized bricks where sun-dried for the building of the big house.
There were slave quarters buildings along the edge of the ridge just behind and to the south of the big house. Foundation stones remaining to my time indicate there were at least three such cabin-like structures of ?shotgunned? style with doors at each end and a limestone, cook-in size fireplace mid-way on the south side of east side of each of them.
Activities continued year-round at ?Lofton?. As did, most farms in the area they raised grain crops for feed and fodder, pasturing by processing leather. They raised hogs and took in hides and pelt from wilderness hunters and trappers which they put on barges from a primitive warehouse on the banks of North River just below the sand pit area which exists to this day. I have heard several versions of the business transactions which followed. Some say the Weller family barged the materials downriver to Port Republic where they sold them to ?gondalow? brokers. Other accounts suggest the Weller family might have been, at least for a time, associated with the building of the those huge produce barges which were built to ship produce and products - including pig iron from local furnaces - to the Chesapeake Bay market.
There are many other stories concerning the old house and acreage. We will get to the telling of some of those stories, in time, but for now, let's take a moment to think of ?Lofton? plantation as having been a novel economic factor which was important to residents of the Shenandoah Valley of Virginia.
A.L.M. July 4, 2004 [c442wds]
Sunday, July 04, 2004
THE BIGGER BANG
Each year, as we celebrate this nationally important date of July 4th, there seems to be a continuing growth in a civic competition in which localities try to outdo each other by setting forth bigger, brighter and louder fireworks displays than anyone else.
It is a costly event and many civic budgets are badly bent each year b y the rising costs of such displays to brighten the skies, and bedazzle the ear drums of citizens within within many miles. Dogs, cats, other pets and rats all take to cover and cringe until the human fun is played out. Many badly bent civic budgets for such needs as education public health, highways, social services quake - or whatever equivalent term might be thought to apply, when displays of such a nature take place even while their needs are being denied or cut for economic reasons.
One Virginia town, which will go unmentioned here by name because some people will call the city government tightwads, unpatriotic troublemakers, and worse for refusing to anti up money for a fireworks display this year. The money, they felt was far more useful elsewhere in meeting the towns budgeted needs. They are to be praised, I would say. For having the courage to declare their independence of the mania for more massive and costly 4t of July fireworks displays. Their action took political courage and there has been criticism and “get even” threats at the ballot boxes.
Some citizens are ashamed that their small town cannot compete with the larger cities and commercial units nearby who will be filling their portion of the sky aglow and banging a billion baffled birds into flight nation wide. One city has proudly promised it will fire a thousand units in the last thirty seconds of their display .
It is time we consider the serious meanings of July 4th for our nation and for citizens of the world at large. The trappings of self-celebration are a enjoyable thing as far as they go, but they are feeble compared to the true meanings of independence such as that we have known for a few hundred years in this nation. We should be illustrating and teaching the fundamentals of freedom rather than competing to see who can put the most fire and noise into our little portion of the sky which covers all of us.
Each year people lose their lives or suffer injury because of amateur handling of at- home on a me-too basis. Others, in far greater numbers, are injured in such mishaps, oddly enough mostly in states which prohibit the sale of fireworks entirely.
Other small cities and towns may do well to think about emulating the example set by that small governing body in Virginia. The vast majority of towns setting off such cloud busting displays do “poorly” at it, too. Fireworks displaying is not a professional fields of specialized work; best set up and shot off by experts who do nothing else. They perform that civic function far better than local talent and they are fully equipped and experienced in doing their work well ... far better than any random, sandlot shooters.
And, strangely enough, the people who used to make it a point to go to see the fireworks display now watch on TV at home where they can compare what other cities are doing -or did – at about at the same time to provide their version of a few frantic, ear splitting moments. In our family usually have a family meal that night and from a hill top homestead we watch a score or more public and private displays in the horizon about us.
We enjoy 4th of July fireworks from afar. It is good that we can have them, but they have “priced themselves out of the market” in several ways – money which is more urgently needed elsewhere in most towns and because of loss of life and limb, as well.
A.L.M. July 3, 2004 [c669wds]
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