The other day someone indicated that I was a “glass is half empty” kind of person - as if it was a BAD thing! Of course my glass is half empty! After decades of consumerism and self indulgence, I’m surprised to find that the level is only half way down!
A glass that is half full is suspicious. Maybe it was never filled all the way to the top. But a half empty glass? That most certainly started out full at one time. Between the full state and the half empty state, someone got to slurp down the delicious contents. When the glass gets to be half empty, it’s because the contents were good. So, despite misconceptions to the contrary, a half empty glass indicates a life well lived. A half full glass? That’s likely as good as it ever got!
I must admit that half of anything always sends up a red flag. Recently they began marketing half Christmas trees. These are neatly bisected from top to bottom, so you can mount them on the wall, in the Christmas version of the wallflower. That way the tree doesn’t intrude by taking up too much space. This smacks of rampant practicality. Christmas tree are supposed to be large and showy and in the way. They are supposed to drop needles in your coffee cup as you walk by and tempt even the most docile cat into an ornament-busting climbing expedition. And there should be plenty of room underneath for a small child to get lost in the wonder of the packages.
Before Christmas trees became mere facsimiles, they were actually organic and came out of the forest. You would go out swaggering like Paul Bunyan, scout around, and chop one down. Ultimately, every Christmas tree was pretty much just half a tree. Of course, the tree looked great – until you chopped it down. Then it looked… not so great. By the time a tree was hauled over hill and dale and arrived in the living room, you felt blessed to have a quarter of a tree left! There was always a less than perfect side, one with only a few thoughtlessly placed anemic branches. It wasn’t exactly a perfect half of a tree like the current renderings in plastic, but it definitely wasn’t a full tree either. A little bit of Martha Stewart style carpentry with a saw and a drill would be needed to correct the problem. It required only a little skill, plus a tolerance for sap on your floor, your pants, and your cat.
Now life is so much more complicated that it’s turned the corner back into simplicity. You can just buy a mere half of a tree. If you change your mind in the future, you can go back to the store and buy the other half and strap them together. Voila – you now have a whole tree. You have just bought a Christmas tree on the installment plant er, uh, plan.
The advantage of half a tree is that it requires only half the lights and half the decorations. The downside is that it yields only half the presents, all of which must conform to the theme of one half. For example, you may receive one sock out of a pair, a container of Half and Half, or half a loaf of bread (better than no loaf). If will only take you half the time to unwrap your gifts, and blissfully, you will have paid only half as much as you would have with a whole tree looming over your wallet. But, worryingly, half way through Christmas Day the lights will go out, since you never should have cut those strings in half. Hopefully you bought a bunch of them – at least six of one, half a dozen of another. But things will work out okay. I suspect that in the long run, it actually won’t even be half bad.
Saturday, December 20, 2008
Saturday, December 13, 2008
Marshmallow Men: The Memoir
Have you noticed that Christmas traditions come and go just like everything else? Even something as venerable as Christmas has trends. Our family once enjoyed a decade-long love affair with Marshmallow Men, the spawn of Kraft Mystery Theatre. This was one of our favorite TV programs back when we had a single TV channel. The low-tech advertising on this show was just as engaging as the episodes were. At times it was even better. Kraft furnished all of the advertising during that hour. Each commercial break was leisurely and homey, unlike today’s ads that slingshot you from product to product like a dizzy marble in a flaming pinball machine.
Kraft commercial breaks featured an attractive beehived and aproned homemaker. Without stooping to the soul destroying style of Martha Stewart, this motherly figure demonstrated recipes made with Kraft products. They always included our favorites - Cheez Whiz, or Miracle Whip, or Jell-O, or, best of all, Velveeta Cheese. After all, what would be the point of Kraft lovingly producing all those family fortifying food products if families didn’t know what to do with them? At least once during every episode of Kraft Mystery Theatre my mother would leap out of her chair claiming “Oooooohh!” and run for a notepad and a pencil. That is how we were introduced to the Marshmallow Men.
That particular Kraft commercial detailed how to build your own army of white puffy pseudo snowmen. Two large marshmallows were used for the head and body, and four miniature marshmallows were drafted into play for arms and legs. The whole Man was assembled with toothpicks carefully broken in half so as to not stick out and reveal the secret of their assembly. Additional toothpicks were dipped into food coloring and used to paint on the eyes, noses and grinning mouths. I had a particular fondness for using yellow food coloring to draw in blond curls, revealing my secret desire to be blond and curly. We never made any Marshmallow Women – the recipe simply hadn’t given any instructions for that! The Men remained alone in their sugary celibacy.
Then there was the question of just what to do with the Marshmallow Men. You certainly couldn’t eat them – they were too handsome, and there were those sharp toothpicks to consider. The only option left was to display them. Sometimes the Men took up residence in the Christmas tree, and at other times they graced the coveted top of the TV set, deposing the ceramic Santa. Once, in a bizarre but somehow satisfying exhibit, they were featured in a Nativity scene. After a few days, they were mostly forgotten as they silently morphed into dusty white cement.
TV commercials aren’t nearly as benevolent these days. They don’t generate Christmas traditions. They only want us to buy stuff - mostly stuff we can’t afford, or don’t truly want, or stuff that we will tire of before we get the wrappings out to the trash. There are no elegant instructions on how to craft Marshmallow Men or make a casserole laced with Velveeta Cheese. For that, you would probably have to turn to the internet. And there you would probably just get distracted by instructions on how to build weapons of mass consumption. I don’t recommend it.
Kraft commercial breaks featured an attractive beehived and aproned homemaker. Without stooping to the soul destroying style of Martha Stewart, this motherly figure demonstrated recipes made with Kraft products. They always included our favorites - Cheez Whiz, or Miracle Whip, or Jell-O, or, best of all, Velveeta Cheese. After all, what would be the point of Kraft lovingly producing all those family fortifying food products if families didn’t know what to do with them? At least once during every episode of Kraft Mystery Theatre my mother would leap out of her chair claiming “Oooooohh!” and run for a notepad and a pencil. That is how we were introduced to the Marshmallow Men.
That particular Kraft commercial detailed how to build your own army of white puffy pseudo snowmen. Two large marshmallows were used for the head and body, and four miniature marshmallows were drafted into play for arms and legs. The whole Man was assembled with toothpicks carefully broken in half so as to not stick out and reveal the secret of their assembly. Additional toothpicks were dipped into food coloring and used to paint on the eyes, noses and grinning mouths. I had a particular fondness for using yellow food coloring to draw in blond curls, revealing my secret desire to be blond and curly. We never made any Marshmallow Women – the recipe simply hadn’t given any instructions for that! The Men remained alone in their sugary celibacy.
Then there was the question of just what to do with the Marshmallow Men. You certainly couldn’t eat them – they were too handsome, and there were those sharp toothpicks to consider. The only option left was to display them. Sometimes the Men took up residence in the Christmas tree, and at other times they graced the coveted top of the TV set, deposing the ceramic Santa. Once, in a bizarre but somehow satisfying exhibit, they were featured in a Nativity scene. After a few days, they were mostly forgotten as they silently morphed into dusty white cement.
TV commercials aren’t nearly as benevolent these days. They don’t generate Christmas traditions. They only want us to buy stuff - mostly stuff we can’t afford, or don’t truly want, or stuff that we will tire of before we get the wrappings out to the trash. There are no elegant instructions on how to craft Marshmallow Men or make a casserole laced with Velveeta Cheese. For that, you would probably have to turn to the internet. And there you would probably just get distracted by instructions on how to build weapons of mass consumption. I don’t recommend it.
Monday, December 8, 2008
Sign Here, Please
I can’t believe it. Ringo no longer signing autographs? After October 20, 2008, Ringo Starr will no longer sign autographs. His stated reason: he simply can’t keep up with all the demand. But… I can’t help but wonder… could it possibly be just the opposite? Maybe as the bags of fan mail have dwindled to a trickle, and girls both teen and middle-aged have finally moved on to other idols, maybe this is just sour grapes. Is there anyone left on the planet without a Ringo Starr autograph? It seems like I can’t open a sock drawer or fish through an old coat pocket without a Ringo autograph surfacing. I’ve used them to write grocery lists on, to start camp fires with, and to line the bird cage with, and still they keep showing up.
I suspect that the truth may no longer be skulking under heaving bags of fan mail. A day-in-the-life of the great man probably goes something like this. Ringo wakes up in his country mansion, and dons his Gucci smoking jacket. He slips past all the dusty Beatles memorabilia frowning out from the walls, passes through his TV room where someone has left A Hard Day’s Night playing in an endless loop on the DVD player. He picks up a pack of smokes from the hallway table so that his wife will think he’s just nipping out for a puff. All the dogs are still sleeping, so he goes down to the mail box at the end of his private laneway, alone. Even though he had the groundskeeper oil the hinges yesterday, they still squeak a little as he slowly pulls the door open, the door with his own face painted on it.
The mail box is empty. He sucks in his breath and quickly looks around to see if anyone has noticed. It’s only six a.m., but you never know if Eric Clapton might be looking out the window of his study. This time of the morning he’s nearly always sitting there, downing his third cup of Earl Grey, and grimly working his way through the mountain of fan mail. It just wouldn’t do for him to notice that this is the third day in a row that Ringo’s mail box has been empty. Clappie would never understand how it is with drummers, and how they tend to fade into obscurity more quickly than show-off guitarists. At least Ringo doesn’t need to worry about stares from the neighbors on the other side. Ozzy is back in California at this time of the year, and the trucks usually just dump his fan mail right into the empty swimming pool anyway.
It’s so much better to pull the plug yourself than to have your plug yanked by lack of interest. Ringo knows that the public wants what they can’t have more than what they can have. All those days of signing slobbered-on cocktail napkins, and plates, and toilet seats, and baby bottles, and questionable underpants are best forgotten. Better to be proactive, pick a date, and just stop autographing. That way, whenever Ringo gets short of cash, he can release a signature or two on eBay, since all his John Lennon memorabilia is pretty much gone now. And the best part? He won’t have to face the mailbox every day, and stupid Clapton and Ozzy will have nothing to sneer about!
I suspect that the truth may no longer be skulking under heaving bags of fan mail. A day-in-the-life of the great man probably goes something like this. Ringo wakes up in his country mansion, and dons his Gucci smoking jacket. He slips past all the dusty Beatles memorabilia frowning out from the walls, passes through his TV room where someone has left A Hard Day’s Night playing in an endless loop on the DVD player. He picks up a pack of smokes from the hallway table so that his wife will think he’s just nipping out for a puff. All the dogs are still sleeping, so he goes down to the mail box at the end of his private laneway, alone. Even though he had the groundskeeper oil the hinges yesterday, they still squeak a little as he slowly pulls the door open, the door with his own face painted on it.
The mail box is empty. He sucks in his breath and quickly looks around to see if anyone has noticed. It’s only six a.m., but you never know if Eric Clapton might be looking out the window of his study. This time of the morning he’s nearly always sitting there, downing his third cup of Earl Grey, and grimly working his way through the mountain of fan mail. It just wouldn’t do for him to notice that this is the third day in a row that Ringo’s mail box has been empty. Clappie would never understand how it is with drummers, and how they tend to fade into obscurity more quickly than show-off guitarists. At least Ringo doesn’t need to worry about stares from the neighbors on the other side. Ozzy is back in California at this time of the year, and the trucks usually just dump his fan mail right into the empty swimming pool anyway.
It’s so much better to pull the plug yourself than to have your plug yanked by lack of interest. Ringo knows that the public wants what they can’t have more than what they can have. All those days of signing slobbered-on cocktail napkins, and plates, and toilet seats, and baby bottles, and questionable underpants are best forgotten. Better to be proactive, pick a date, and just stop autographing. That way, whenever Ringo gets short of cash, he can release a signature or two on eBay, since all his John Lennon memorabilia is pretty much gone now. And the best part? He won’t have to face the mailbox every day, and stupid Clapton and Ozzy will have nothing to sneer about!
Profile This!
About me. I’m not fooled by this demanding little phrase that lurks around on blogs and other websites. This is really just a profile – and “profile” is simply a euphemism for “autobiography.” Such a thoroughly abhorrent realm.
Why such a reluctance to chronicle my life? Like everything else, it has its little black roots back in the tedium of my childhood. There was always one thing you could count on during the first week of school each September. The teacher placed the Gun of Obedience to your head and compelled you to write “What I Did on My Summer Vacation”. Unless you had spent the summer trekking in the Himalayas, or had been lucky enough to have wrestled with a rabid bear and two cubs underneath your back porch, this assignment was fraught with peril. You could come up looking duller than dust and I routinely propelled myself right to the top of the dust heap.
My composition invariably read something like, “We went to our cottage. My Dad caught a fish.” After that I was pretty much stumped. Even then I could recognize this autobiographical gusher was a bit of a literary embarrassment. The real meat of the summer wasn’t suitable material for school compositions: my uncle had discovered that he could keep beer cold in the well and stayed drunk for fourteen days proving it; my mother had murdered a snake with an with an axe so dull that the snake committed suicide to ends its own suffering; a sibling drank too much Purple Jesus and passed it off as food poisoning; the boy next door kissed me; I began to suspect that boys were not nearly half so disgusting as I had thought… You can see how things could get totally out of control if you ever started indulging yourself biographically.
More than a few years have intervened since anyone has had enough power over me to make me crank out a weary memoir. I haven’t been inclined to explore the profile-driven social networking services like Facebook. But now, after years of autobiography-free bliss, I have succumbed to the lure of blogging. And with that comes the wanton cries of the “about me” section. Suddenly, I am propelled all the way back to my seat at school, chewing on a tasty sodden pencil, mired in a blank haze. And when I think about it, things haven’t really changed all that much. I still go to the cottage in the summer. My Dad is no longer there to catch a fish. Me? I’m quite happy to leave the fish right where they are. And, for the most part, this seems to make the fish happy too. And it still happens – I still get sweaty palms and a film of fur on my tongue every time I start trolling for that ever elusive fodder - something, anything, to put in the “about me” section!
Why such a reluctance to chronicle my life? Like everything else, it has its little black roots back in the tedium of my childhood. There was always one thing you could count on during the first week of school each September. The teacher placed the Gun of Obedience to your head and compelled you to write “What I Did on My Summer Vacation”. Unless you had spent the summer trekking in the Himalayas, or had been lucky enough to have wrestled with a rabid bear and two cubs underneath your back porch, this assignment was fraught with peril. You could come up looking duller than dust and I routinely propelled myself right to the top of the dust heap.
My composition invariably read something like, “We went to our cottage. My Dad caught a fish.” After that I was pretty much stumped. Even then I could recognize this autobiographical gusher was a bit of a literary embarrassment. The real meat of the summer wasn’t suitable material for school compositions: my uncle had discovered that he could keep beer cold in the well and stayed drunk for fourteen days proving it; my mother had murdered a snake with an with an axe so dull that the snake committed suicide to ends its own suffering; a sibling drank too much Purple Jesus and passed it off as food poisoning; the boy next door kissed me; I began to suspect that boys were not nearly half so disgusting as I had thought… You can see how things could get totally out of control if you ever started indulging yourself biographically.
More than a few years have intervened since anyone has had enough power over me to make me crank out a weary memoir. I haven’t been inclined to explore the profile-driven social networking services like Facebook. But now, after years of autobiography-free bliss, I have succumbed to the lure of blogging. And with that comes the wanton cries of the “about me” section. Suddenly, I am propelled all the way back to my seat at school, chewing on a tasty sodden pencil, mired in a blank haze. And when I think about it, things haven’t really changed all that much. I still go to the cottage in the summer. My Dad is no longer there to catch a fish. Me? I’m quite happy to leave the fish right where they are. And, for the most part, this seems to make the fish happy too. And it still happens – I still get sweaty palms and a film of fur on my tongue every time I start trolling for that ever elusive fodder - something, anything, to put in the “about me” section!
Sunday, November 30, 2008
Backing In
Everywhere I go I’ve started to see it. It’s happening at work, it’s happening out at Wal-Mart, it’s happening in the streets. People have suddenly been seized by the insatiable urge to drive backwards into parking spots. And I would have to say, that if I were grading them, they would all be attending remedial classes!
I can’t quite grasp what is inspiring drivers to engage in all this reversing every time they approach a parking spot. You don’t back into a spot to save time, because it definitely takes longer to jockey a few tons of metal into a space that it does to back it out of a space. Even if you do it badly, it takes longer. So, if you are backing in because you think that when you drag your weary body back to your car at five o’clock, you will make a substantially faster getaway, you are only fooling yourself. You already used up that time in the morning, cranking the wheel this way and that, trying to back in.
Maybe backing in is a backlash against perfectionism. I think this is a very real possibility because none of these drivers feel any obligation to back their vehicles into an actual space. Mostly they are skewed way over to one side, helping themselves to a generous slice of the space next door. A few clever drivers are actually capable of lining up the middle of their backed in vehicles with the line that designates the edge of the parking space, ensuring that two full parking spots are nicely occupied. Maybe this is done deliberately so that there is plenty of room to open the doors, as this seems to be a favored by short women who can barely see over the dash of their giant SUVs. They need plenty of room to get a run in order to gain enough height to get back into their vehicles later on. That, and it costs so much to fill the tank with gas that they now feel entitled to spread their vehicle over two parking spaces.
So just what are the reasons for wasting your time by backing into a parking space? Is it so that you can scan the beautiful vista of the parking lot and see the building that is your destination while you are pulling the keys out of your ignition? Is it so that your car can see you coming when you return? Is it because, at the end of the day when you return, your car door is now three feet closer to the building? Or maybe you can’t recognize your car from the back, but the front is easier? It is because you like the thrill of using your rear bumper to scare the paint off the car parked in the next spot? Is it because you like the way it looks when a vehicle is parked at an odd angle, breaking up all that boring symmetry in the parking lot? So many drones following so many rules! Maybe it’s because some other driver who was none too anxious to get in to work backed in, and now you feel pressured to prove that you too are a master of the reverse gear? Is it that you secretly like taking up two spots every day, knowing in your black heart that your participation in this collective madness has now ensured there are 20% fewer places for the vehicles of your co-workers? Are you looking out of the building and cackling neurotically while I endlessly circle the lot where there are no spaces left because everyone backed in and did it badly?
So do me a favour. Line it up in the middle of the space or forget the whole venture. Your vehicle should be between the lines, not over the lines. If it takes more time, that’s okay – everything has a price, even the delicious activity of driving around backwards. Or…drive forward into the space and back out when you leave. It takes less time because there is no need to align your vehicle with anything. You will probably arrive home two seconds ahead of your backed-in co-worker. Now there's satisfaction that money can never buy.
I can’t quite grasp what is inspiring drivers to engage in all this reversing every time they approach a parking spot. You don’t back into a spot to save time, because it definitely takes longer to jockey a few tons of metal into a space that it does to back it out of a space. Even if you do it badly, it takes longer. So, if you are backing in because you think that when you drag your weary body back to your car at five o’clock, you will make a substantially faster getaway, you are only fooling yourself. You already used up that time in the morning, cranking the wheel this way and that, trying to back in.
Maybe backing in is a backlash against perfectionism. I think this is a very real possibility because none of these drivers feel any obligation to back their vehicles into an actual space. Mostly they are skewed way over to one side, helping themselves to a generous slice of the space next door. A few clever drivers are actually capable of lining up the middle of their backed in vehicles with the line that designates the edge of the parking space, ensuring that two full parking spots are nicely occupied. Maybe this is done deliberately so that there is plenty of room to open the doors, as this seems to be a favored by short women who can barely see over the dash of their giant SUVs. They need plenty of room to get a run in order to gain enough height to get back into their vehicles later on. That, and it costs so much to fill the tank with gas that they now feel entitled to spread their vehicle over two parking spaces.
So just what are the reasons for wasting your time by backing into a parking space? Is it so that you can scan the beautiful vista of the parking lot and see the building that is your destination while you are pulling the keys out of your ignition? Is it so that your car can see you coming when you return? Is it because, at the end of the day when you return, your car door is now three feet closer to the building? Or maybe you can’t recognize your car from the back, but the front is easier? It is because you like the thrill of using your rear bumper to scare the paint off the car parked in the next spot? Is it because you like the way it looks when a vehicle is parked at an odd angle, breaking up all that boring symmetry in the parking lot? So many drones following so many rules! Maybe it’s because some other driver who was none too anxious to get in to work backed in, and now you feel pressured to prove that you too are a master of the reverse gear? Is it that you secretly like taking up two spots every day, knowing in your black heart that your participation in this collective madness has now ensured there are 20% fewer places for the vehicles of your co-workers? Are you looking out of the building and cackling neurotically while I endlessly circle the lot where there are no spaces left because everyone backed in and did it badly?
So do me a favour. Line it up in the middle of the space or forget the whole venture. Your vehicle should be between the lines, not over the lines. If it takes more time, that’s okay – everything has a price, even the delicious activity of driving around backwards. Or…drive forward into the space and back out when you leave. It takes less time because there is no need to align your vehicle with anything. You will probably arrive home two seconds ahead of your backed-in co-worker. Now there's satisfaction that money can never buy.
Monday, November 17, 2008
Don't Be Chicken
I’m not very brave. I am pretty certain that someday shortly after I have passed on, a pathologist standing in a cold room reeking of antiseptic is going to make the nice tidy Y-incision that is the start of my autopsy. And the first thing he is going to pull out is a chicken. And it won’t be because I died of bird flu.
How is it that chickens came to be the poster animal for fear? Well, have you ever looked into the eyes of a chicken? They don’t exactly look scared. And why would they be? They always hang around in gangs – a lone chicken is a completely unknown entity. When was the last time you saw a chicken by itself? Never, that’s right. You are just never going to see a solitary chicken standing at a corner waiting for the traffic light to change. They simply do not go out alone in public. So what do they have to be afraid of? Nothing, absolutely nothing! The idea of the scared chicken is in our heads, not theirs.
Consider the life of the typical chicken. It’s pretty easy, since virtually all chickens are typical. There has never been an exceptional chicken, none has ever won the Nobel Peace Prize, but I think one or two might have been in the running for the Pulitzer. Each chicken revels in being the same as every other chicken; it is the modus operandi of all chickens. It is the finest example of peer pressure, encoded at the level of the DNA.
Chickens the world over do pretty much the same thing every day. There is a lot of hanging around in hen houses, lots of clucking about nothing, a bit of pecking on a neighbor, and of course, the ever-popular egg laying. Apart from the egg-laying thing, it’s not so different from the typical day of the average human being.
There is no sense in debating the lore over which came first – the chicken or the egg – it is the inseparable chicken-egg unit that counts. It is the mission of a chicken to lays eggs, and it is the mission of an egg to produce an egg-laying chicken. How perfect is that? Of course, roosters don’t lay eggs, but they do play some nebulous role that has to do with egg-laying. No one can seem to explain it in plain terms. One person will tell you that it is the mere presence of the rooster that keeps the egg production sailing along; another will tell you that he has a more personal role to play. I think it’s better not to pry into the details. The hens and the roosters have it all sorted out. It’s really none of our business.
I think we blundered when we started to equate being afraid with being chicken. Chickens all live in hen houses, or sunny barnyards, or nasty factories. Foxes and chicken hawks are rare, except in cartoons, and chickens lack the brain power to ponder their fate. If you don’t know you are delicious, you won’t worry about where that might lead. If someone takes your eggs, and you know there are plenty more where that came from, it’s not going to keep you awake at night in anguished worry. If someone sets your food at your feet, and bothers with the task of cleaning up after you, why worry? You are either a chicken or a teenager – either way you’ve got it made.
Since chickens have obviously quit quaking in their boots, we need to find a new symbol for fear. Maybe spiders would do. Have you noticed that they seem pretty fearful? The minute they spot you they run like mad. They are so fear-crazed they can’t even trot off in a straight line. They zigzag and bob in a spittled frenzy on their way to nowhere, adrenaline and legs pumping. Now if that’s not the definition of fear, what is?
How is it that chickens came to be the poster animal for fear? Well, have you ever looked into the eyes of a chicken? They don’t exactly look scared. And why would they be? They always hang around in gangs – a lone chicken is a completely unknown entity. When was the last time you saw a chicken by itself? Never, that’s right. You are just never going to see a solitary chicken standing at a corner waiting for the traffic light to change. They simply do not go out alone in public. So what do they have to be afraid of? Nothing, absolutely nothing! The idea of the scared chicken is in our heads, not theirs.
Consider the life of the typical chicken. It’s pretty easy, since virtually all chickens are typical. There has never been an exceptional chicken, none has ever won the Nobel Peace Prize, but I think one or two might have been in the running for the Pulitzer. Each chicken revels in being the same as every other chicken; it is the modus operandi of all chickens. It is the finest example of peer pressure, encoded at the level of the DNA.
Chickens the world over do pretty much the same thing every day. There is a lot of hanging around in hen houses, lots of clucking about nothing, a bit of pecking on a neighbor, and of course, the ever-popular egg laying. Apart from the egg-laying thing, it’s not so different from the typical day of the average human being.
There is no sense in debating the lore over which came first – the chicken or the egg – it is the inseparable chicken-egg unit that counts. It is the mission of a chicken to lays eggs, and it is the mission of an egg to produce an egg-laying chicken. How perfect is that? Of course, roosters don’t lay eggs, but they do play some nebulous role that has to do with egg-laying. No one can seem to explain it in plain terms. One person will tell you that it is the mere presence of the rooster that keeps the egg production sailing along; another will tell you that he has a more personal role to play. I think it’s better not to pry into the details. The hens and the roosters have it all sorted out. It’s really none of our business.
I think we blundered when we started to equate being afraid with being chicken. Chickens all live in hen houses, or sunny barnyards, or nasty factories. Foxes and chicken hawks are rare, except in cartoons, and chickens lack the brain power to ponder their fate. If you don’t know you are delicious, you won’t worry about where that might lead. If someone takes your eggs, and you know there are plenty more where that came from, it’s not going to keep you awake at night in anguished worry. If someone sets your food at your feet, and bothers with the task of cleaning up after you, why worry? You are either a chicken or a teenager – either way you’ve got it made.
Since chickens have obviously quit quaking in their boots, we need to find a new symbol for fear. Maybe spiders would do. Have you noticed that they seem pretty fearful? The minute they spot you they run like mad. They are so fear-crazed they can’t even trot off in a straight line. They zigzag and bob in a spittled frenzy on their way to nowhere, adrenaline and legs pumping. Now if that’s not the definition of fear, what is?
Tuesday, November 11, 2008
Where Have all the Poppies Gone?
Where have all the poppies gone? I’ve calculated that I’ve personally lost over a hundred Remembrance Day poppies during my lifetime. It’s a ritual with me. I buy it, I pin it on, and I lose it. This generally takes less than twenty minutes. It doesn’t matter how carefully I pin it on, or how many times I weave the pin back and forth through my lapel – I still lose it. I don’t think that I’m particularly unique. My husband loses several each year, as do the kids, and pretty much everyone else who’s ever proudly pinned on a poppy. I’m happy to buy a second poppy, but it makes me feel careless to lose them. So here is my question. Where are those lost poppies? In all my years of poppy wearing, I have never once seen one lying on the floor or the ground - so just where is it that they go?
Remembrance Day poppies are hugely important to me. I’ve bought at least one every year since kindergarten, when I was sent to school clutching my dime in my sweaty little fist. Lest you think my mother was a Scrooge, that was back in 1960. Ten cents was a big enough sum to entrust to a five-year-old. By grade four it became a quarter, and I knew enough not to squander it in any of the four candy-laden “corner stores” that I had to pass on my way to school. It was such a temptation! Twenty-five cents would have bought enough gum to unhinge my jaw like a python swallowing a turkey.
There was always a solemn hush at school on Remembrance Day back then. Our artwork featuring red poppies and stark white crosses filled the bulletin boards. Hymns such as Abide With Me had been committed to memory. It still wasn’t that long after WWII had ended, and many of our dads and even a few of our moms were veterans. People still remembered the turmoil and upheaval and sacrifice in a very real way. Those of us who didn't live through WWII could only experience it in a secondary way, through the memories of others. And even though I was born years after the war ended, the ripples of what had taken place still reached out to touch me. The war didn’t play out on TV back then. It had taken place in real time, and all families had been affected by the limitations of living in a wartime country, with its shortages of goods, its worries, and its heart-wrenching losses.
Remembrance Day was, and still is, a time to remember that a shocking number of men and women have died or were wounded fighting for something that was greater than their individual selves. The principles of a country were at stake; the right to live our lives as we choose was threatened. I felt the undeniable importance of what had taken place during those years before I was born, and I felt it in a personal way. Buying a poppy was a small way that I could contribute.
As I sat there at school in my little wooden desk with its scratched and re-varnished surface and its nifty but useless inkwell, I felt that somehow I was contributing to something far beyond any borders I could imagine. The weight of history pressed down on me as I dropped my quarter into the snow white box and received my poppy. I could see that it was not only a beautiful flower, but that is was also a symbol of shed blood, with a black centre where those had made “the ultimate sacrifice” forever lived.
So where do those poppies that leap off our lapels go? Are they simply falling on the ground, or have they gone to join those they represent? Perhaps it is their destiny to leave us as abruptly as the soldiers they signify. But it is also their destiny to help us remember that what we enjoy today came at the expense of others. I feel a duty to my dad to preserve those secondary memories I have of the War, and to observe the solemnity of the occasion, and to think of all those young lives that were ended too soon. Today, there are once again fallen or injured soldiers in the conflicts in Afghanistan and Iraq and in many places through-out the world. Remembrance Day is more important than ever. And I wonder, are we re-learning the bitter lessons of our fathers?
Remembrance Day poppies are hugely important to me. I’ve bought at least one every year since kindergarten, when I was sent to school clutching my dime in my sweaty little fist. Lest you think my mother was a Scrooge, that was back in 1960. Ten cents was a big enough sum to entrust to a five-year-old. By grade four it became a quarter, and I knew enough not to squander it in any of the four candy-laden “corner stores” that I had to pass on my way to school. It was such a temptation! Twenty-five cents would have bought enough gum to unhinge my jaw like a python swallowing a turkey.
There was always a solemn hush at school on Remembrance Day back then. Our artwork featuring red poppies and stark white crosses filled the bulletin boards. Hymns such as Abide With Me had been committed to memory. It still wasn’t that long after WWII had ended, and many of our dads and even a few of our moms were veterans. People still remembered the turmoil and upheaval and sacrifice in a very real way. Those of us who didn't live through WWII could only experience it in a secondary way, through the memories of others. And even though I was born years after the war ended, the ripples of what had taken place still reached out to touch me. The war didn’t play out on TV back then. It had taken place in real time, and all families had been affected by the limitations of living in a wartime country, with its shortages of goods, its worries, and its heart-wrenching losses.
Remembrance Day was, and still is, a time to remember that a shocking number of men and women have died or were wounded fighting for something that was greater than their individual selves. The principles of a country were at stake; the right to live our lives as we choose was threatened. I felt the undeniable importance of what had taken place during those years before I was born, and I felt it in a personal way. Buying a poppy was a small way that I could contribute.
As I sat there at school in my little wooden desk with its scratched and re-varnished surface and its nifty but useless inkwell, I felt that somehow I was contributing to something far beyond any borders I could imagine. The weight of history pressed down on me as I dropped my quarter into the snow white box and received my poppy. I could see that it was not only a beautiful flower, but that is was also a symbol of shed blood, with a black centre where those had made “the ultimate sacrifice” forever lived.
So where do those poppies that leap off our lapels go? Are they simply falling on the ground, or have they gone to join those they represent? Perhaps it is their destiny to leave us as abruptly as the soldiers they signify. But it is also their destiny to help us remember that what we enjoy today came at the expense of others. I feel a duty to my dad to preserve those secondary memories I have of the War, and to observe the solemnity of the occasion, and to think of all those young lives that were ended too soon. Today, there are once again fallen or injured soldiers in the conflicts in Afghanistan and Iraq and in many places through-out the world. Remembrance Day is more important than ever. And I wonder, are we re-learning the bitter lessons of our fathers?
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