Saturday, December 04, 2004
CIVIC CENTERS
There was a time, not too many years ago, when the local barber shop filled the communities need for, well ...a civic center even though limited largely to talk rather than do. Civic improvements were usually well discussed in the barber shops before being taken before the town council. The hair-cuttery was a good source of news of the day factual or otherwise, true blended with wishful thinking and a bit of down right lying. It could be a place of entertainment. Some barbers had a special knack for remembering the jokes and stories they heard and of repeating them often for days on end.
There were few natural comedians among them, but barbers often developed set routines re-telling the jokes, stories, gossip, rumors, and - no doubt a few downright fabrications they had picked up along their scissoring way. It was a good thing for the hair-cut business, too. It made for extra visits even if a man didn't need a haircut or a shave. Barbers, as a rule, learned to talk almost endlessly about things that filled a primary need within the customer's own little world. Barbers, by and large, were a serious lot, now that I think of it, am while they did a great deal of talking but said very little which was their very own. Now and then, however one came up with a gem of an idea. One, whom I recall, that our town could, if it wished to do so, revive the old community band it had, at one time, sported. He, after all, talked regularly with many of the band's former members. It was not too difficult for him to get them excited about restarting the town band. His name was Byron and he played clarinet. It was not uncommon to find him seated in the shop's sole barbering chair; head against the padded rest; eyes closed as if he were watching the flawless panorama which, illogically, always seemed to go with the re-playing of a memorized tune from long ago. Single handedly, Byron, the barber, got the old town band going again by shaming the oldsters and by teasing and urging youngsters such as my brother and I to join on trombone and cornet.
The local barber shop was often a source of strength and inspiration to men. It was a “Men Only” domain as a rule. The only time you saw women in the town barber show was Saturday morning when they herded reluctant children forward to mount the high barbering chair with about as much enthusiasm as they might show at the dentist's office.. Some children had to be held down for their first hair-cut while others accepted it as one of the fearful moments a child must face as they advanced in years. Saturday morning was deemed to be the proper proper time for children's hair-cutting expeditions and barbers feared them as one of the occupational hazards they had to learn to face. Saturday afternoon barber shop activities turned to sports such as hunting and fishing and Saturday night until a vague “closing time” - the subject was politics – all male.
It was quite an asset to the community, at least, from a male perspective, and the traditional barber shop ceased to exist when the first radio was taken into such a shop. That fantastic, high-tech, electronic, blue-toothed gizmo of our time sealed the fate of the barber shop as we once knew it to be.
I can't say that I miss it, but it is good for us to remember – at times – how it used to be.
A.L.M. December 4, 2004 [c616wds]
Friday, December 03, 2004
2092 AD
Are we about to rediscover America?
We may not be aware of the entirely possible change of time in which we are currently living.
These early years of the 21st Century A.D. are extremely variable and it may well prove to be that the distant future will be called, perhaps : “The Age of Re-determination”, or some newly tricked-out term which will delineate the close-cut details in each fabulous facet of our civilization at that time and place.
Right now, during these early years of our time span we label as “The 21st Century”, and we are marking the very time the first English settlements were made in the “New World”. About four hundred years ago, a new era came to be reality for thousands of people who undertook to move westward for several thousand miles. They covered sea and soil. We, in our time, are now “covering” space and infinites of unknown dimensions and potentials - both good and perhaps evil, who knows?
Yet, looking into that which is beyond the beyond of our conscious awareness, we realize again-and-again, through an endless series of wars and on conflicts of ideas and ideals we are aware of the accusative fact that we live in a warped world. For our new era to come alive, active and aggressive we need to find a new, firmer, more reasonable sense of international unity.
We agree we need such a time. After a major war at the start of the 20th Century a “League of Nations” was founded seeking world-wide peace and cooperation. We did not, as a nation, take an official role in that dream concept, wisely so considering the sands on which it was fabricated. In the middle years of the same century the same nations formed the same sort of wishful arrangement by starting a group which they was named United Nations. It was semantically imperiled from the start because it was far too easy for handlers to reverse the letters “i” and “t” to their selfish advantage.
The key word for our future is consolidation ...union ...oneness.
` Just this past week our President spent several days in Canada, Anglo-French nation to the north across the ”longest unfortified national boundary on Earth.” He wisely chose to speak in Nova Scotia where anti-war demonstrators were less numerous. FDR paid a tea-time drop-in years ago, but we have been noticeably absent from Maple Leaf land for decades of decaying diplomacy. President Fox in Mexico used to sell Coca-Cola which marks him as pro-American. At this moment few of us can comfortably conceive of a time when those nations and the Central American states will be part of a larger, unified body as well. Vancouver, B. C. will be the Hong Kong and financial of the Pacific Rim. The unification will start with the grain farmers on western Canada who are, in an economic sense, already a part of the American markets. Bi-lingual Quebec will continue to be a problem.
World-wide, South America will become more of a united living area by adapting some of the positive elements of Pan American projects of the past. The Euro nations will go along with more than just their money. Africa can become such a unit. Even wildly diversified Asia can, in time, find greater unity. Don't overlook Down Under either incorporating Pacific Islands not a part of the main land or coastal islands.
Like it or not, we are blending. Our nearby town has thirty-eight-eight per of its school children learning English as a second language. Church services are held in Spanish, Korean and Russian - and others I dare say. Stores and TV display bi-lingual signs.
Chris Colombo sailed in 1492. Who will be sailing what when 2092 A.D comes barrelling in? Think about it! You will want your grandchildren to be ready for whatever it might prove to be.
A.L.M. December 3, 2004 [c659wds]
Thursday, December 02, 2004
FUNNY STUFF?
I've seen a good many pratfalls in my time; taken a few myself, and I can't seem to get myself into a mood which automatically thinks of all of them as being funny. Dumb? Yes. Embarrassing? Yes. Painful? Sometimes, and they can also be dangerous. I fail to see any of them as being “funny”and yet producers of TV family-type fun shows see to think everyone sees a bad tumbles as the main in ingredient of funny bone stuff.
So many of these potential side-splitter gags are supposed to be videotapes which the sender – en en entirely by chance - “happened to catch on film”. The featured falls are made to appear to have been accidental but you don't have to be a film critic or an award winning cinematographer to realize they are produced, premeditated and some faked.
I suppose some viewer think anything that seems to happening to someone else might think of it as being funny. These sudden falls are crude and violate the usual purist rules about mistreating men,women, children and animals. I am supposed to think it is funny when a little girl falls a throne, six-foot bush. A kitten falling all over itself in an automatic driver is not high on my fun card. You can see why pratfalls by old people -long, slithering slides before they hit the icy pavement, would not inspire laughter in me and other older viewers.
The viewer contributed video shows are, perhaps, the main offenders. I hate to see some really decent emcee talent being cheapened and killed by such mundane burlesque humor. On such host called his routine a “crotch and cleavage ” series. Every time you see him usher his kids into the back yard with baseball bats in hand you know what is going to be featured for the next five minutes. It will all fade away when either a well-aimed ball or a flying bat hits pop – and we take impromptu and painful leave of the sports milieu as Dad bends over in agony and a commercial begins to brings us temporary relief.
There is a positive side at times, when something really funny creeps into the shows format and those, as a rule, strike me as being more genuine. It is difficult to set up enough cameras to catch all possible angles, and then to sit there and try to think of something funny to film. Humor seldom works that way.
Fortunately, some genuine humor creeps into the format now and then, which, perhaps, saves the shows when renewal time comes due. They make profitable re-run and cable packages, and the payment for such material high which that the commercial success of the original series must have been substantial They can be useful, too, in the sense that if you can look at them and you find yourself laughing at situations which are not at all funny - then you might consider ...well, think about some changes.
You don't want your entire life to be one of “tune in next week for more of the same.”
A.L.M. December 2, 2004 [c527wds]
Wednesday, December 01, 2004
TRUST
One thing keeps coming up these days which causes me to have moments of worry. I find more and more people who are expressing doubts about our political future.
The one key word which is to be found at the root of much of the trouble we know today around the world, I think, is the term “apathy”. We no longer seem to believe firmly in basic principles by which we must live in order to get along with others for mutual survival.
We keep finding areas in which we seem to have deliberately disconnected our living from our heritage. We have worked hard in recent decades to rid ourselves of concern for basic principles.
Much of our distrust of governmental bodies and processes stems from such aberrations as Watergate, Huey Long, Joe McCarthy, Protestant TV evangelist's romance revelations, Catholic priesthood's erratic interest in youthful males, and even older organizations such as the Society of the White Camellia and the Silver Shirt troops we have all but forgotten from World War II days. We lost our trust in organizations along the way and government it was a logical victim sooner or later.
What are we doing about it all? We are still enacting advanced postage rates to slow down the distribution of information. We are making a money game by steadily increasing the cost of Internet connections for our computers.
Our common way to meet such problems ,it seems, is to concentrate all of the many information dissemination methods we have mastered and talk ...talk ...talk them to death. We drive them away by overkill. We talk about them until we are sick and tired of hearing anything more about them. We, for a time, accept such freedom as if it was a solution, and then we wonder why the problem returns worse than it was before.
Our information age living has become more tedious as it has grow more and more varied. “Google” has come to be the poor man's accepted University, Library of Congress, Smithsonian Institution, EB, Farmer's Almanac, news stand and novelty shoppe.
We are deceiving ourselves. There are people who delight in saying Thomas Jefferson did not go back far enough when urging the public having information abundantly available.
He was speaking of acquiring “knowledge.”
We need to tap our ancient heritage of “wisdom”, the deeper facets of edification, so we can learn to handle that which we have been allowed to learn.
A.L.M. December 1, 2004 [c418wds]
Tuesday, November 30, 2004
ANOTHER WAY
Why change?
We often ask ourselves such a question, especially when a new version of something seems to be taking over - be it a choice of clothing, fashionable do-dads of the moment, political, automotive or in business ventures. We ask ourselves: “Why change?” often because we are searching for sensible reasons which will support the argument that, in making such a shift, we can improve our lot in life. Common sense demands that we examine such a whim carefully. If we are reasonably happy, secure and safe – why should we shift to conditions which do not have those values?
We desire change because of innovative elements it may contain. By revising the situation in which we find ourselves we may create some excitement and movement but the creative urge within each of us demands bright, new elements which we might fit into a pattern which will please us – and others who depend upon us in a very real sense if only to be there, if needed.
At this time of the year marking the start of President George W. Bush's second term in office, many people seem to be wondering why members of his cabinet are leaving. Democrats and media elements which supported his opponent, headline the change using the words :”quit”, “leave”, “get out” bringing up a scene of rats escaping from a sinking ship. Bush supporter papers, radio, TV and other such PR formers speak and write of the members “resigning”, “handing in their ritual offers to withdraw”, and other softer, less combative terms. Both see changes being made and they wonder why. As citizens, we follow the same course.
Few of us really understand what an individual must give up when he or she accepts a job of this nature within the existing government of a nation as large and complex as ours has become. If we, personally, called upon to undertake such a task, we would run liked scared cats. Yet, these people – vast numbers of men and women who have served – and many extremely well - as members of the president's innermost council are seldom given the praise and recognition they deserve for those elements in the administrative “era” seen in retrospect when the phase is evaluated.
It is the job of such person to b e as aware of history as they can possibly be relation to their departmental section of our government. These are the men and women who make the decisions which are formed into legislation, rules and guidelines to control the vast structure of our government in all its on infinite parts and tiny pieces. I will not even begin to cited names of the present cabinet or of any others in the past. Think back over the work any one of them accomplished and you will be amazed at their efficiency and overall ability. They set forth .or activated, innovative concepts and actions which American citizens love and admire ...and rightly presented, will support.
Yes, there have been some “bad apples”, one must admit. Some it seems to have made poor selections; to have misjudged some individuals in whom they confided. We must expect some of that which occurs in all households to a degree.
Let's see these Bush cabinet changes as positive actions and hope they help solve problems we've faced for many years. We should be especially thankful to the individuals who have served and are now taking leave of the responsibilities of their jobs gracefully and in a traditional manner.
The incoming members will need our firm support as well. When they do something right in your view, consider it your civic duty to say so to those about you.
a.l.m. November 30, 2004 [c623wds]
Monday, November 29, 2004
WATER - WHITE AND OTHERWISE
I don't particularly care for “white“ water.
Talk about plain old “wet” water and I'll agree there's nothing finer than a tall glass of nature's brew - especially on a hot summer's day with a few chips of thin ice floating on the surface of the satisfying brew.
The sport of “white water” rafting is all down hill to me. I suppose you can say the same about skiing but there the trees, stumps of former trees of former trees, rocks, fences, bushes and other such hazards are all planted off to each side of your prescribed path well to each side of your prescribed path. Not so when you are sitting on a thin sheet of plastic just inches above hard, sharp rocks and who knows what else, with several centimeters of a hydrogen-oxygen mixture slithering along between hinderer and disaster.
I grew up in a household with a maternal Grandmother who had, as the centerfold of her exciting teen ager life the celebrated Johnstown Flood, 1889 in Pennsylvania. We lived not too far from the eroding banks of a wide, riotous river which could change overnight from a rather placid flow to furious, Lasix-charged waves, swirls and tall-tale ingredients of other tempting aspects.
On TV, watch a load rafters lumbering clumsily down their most daring sluice. Look at them carefully to see if any one is really having a good time. Most are perched there wide-eyed and wary - wondering why they wanted to be there at all. They remember that they seldom see a raft of river rats make it all the way down on TV versions – some clown has to fall off, usually at the very edge of a twenty-foot dam-fall. No seat is the best seat on a river raft it seems. The bounder at the rear end seems to get the roughest ride and those near the front get spray in the face. All seem to be giggling nervously which passes for a sign of enjoyment on film, but I always get the feeling they are glad when the last rapids are behind them and the “crew” is paddling them along in relatively smooth water.
At the landing, they are a fraternity fellow afters. The sacrosanct shibboleths of the white water rafters are now theirs to share with others who are also no longer tyros.
Stand tall. Walk away from the dock with confidence. After all you are not the only one with wet pants.
A.L.M. November 29, 2004 [c426wds]
Sunday, November 28, 2004
TODAY'S CHOICE
If you were a teen-ager today, what occupation would you choose to be your life's work?
We make such a choice whether we do so actually and technically with formal announcements or not. We make such a commitment – with variations – even if we simply just allow things to happen.
I feel the usual path is something of a combination of both methods. We see other people who have become successful workers in such-and- such-a line of business and we tend to concentrate on the good things which result and overlook the less fortunate circumstances. That can take person into a deceptive tangent. That’s where the elements of chance and of circumstances enter in the equation.
The factors of “income, money, moola” can cause dramatic changes. The circumstances which evolve from “romance” in ourselves also has major control over what happens. With sufficient fund readily available we can consider all sorts of attractive possibilities; without such funding we are much limited. It has long been that way, I think, save for a very few “rich kids”. In those cases the family traditions or the sometimes rather fickle moods of the “holder of the family purse” which so often decides - -even dictates – what young members of the family must “do.”
It may appear that young people today have an advantage over our generation, but the entire field of what we call “the market place” has changed so dramatically that it is difficult for older people to comprehend what the young person wished to do ... become ... or be. In so many cases the very nature of work to be done has mutated into forms we do even recognize, much less understand.
And, this is as it should be, I feel. I dare say it has always been that way, but the changes have not been as frequent, so volatile, so dramatic as they have commonly become in recent decades. It seems only yesterday that the young boy or girl in our community finished high school with an ingrained idea of getting a job with one of several major manufacturing plants in our area and to - as the almost general maxim was - to “work his way up”. At then, there would be a generous retirement, plan in the future, as well.
Once this plan was in place, the element of romance became difficult for young people to turn aside and this ideal often led to an early decision to take this route. It made sense in it's day. So often those who were happy with that sort of life work had a second job they enjoyed doing ...farming, a real estate interest, crafts, hobbies, antiques and that sort of endless potential of serendipity.
I am glad I do not have to face the problem of “what shall I do with my life?” We should realize it is one of the major problem's facing youth today. We should be aware of it, and help when possible, mainly by butting out when we don't understand exactly what they are trying to do.
A.L.M. November 27, 2004 [c519wds]
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