Another Christmas Message

It is Christmas time, friends and neighbors, and that means you get a real treat. Not here of course. No, the treat will come from your family or friends or Santa Claus or the government. I’m just going to tell you some of the junk that’s on my mind.

First of all, I want you to know that I don’t really care if Whoopi and Rosie had a big argument about whatever it was they argued about. Those people are only as real as you care to make them and I choose to pretend that they are just as real as the Geico lizard. Maybe even less real. I also don’t care about anyone named Kardashian, Duggar, Robertson or whatever last name those “royal” folks are going by these days. Windsor, Hanover? Don’t know, don’t care. I am very disappointed in Mr. Cosby, if indeed he did all those evil things we've been hearing about incessantly. But those feelings of disappointment are somewhat abstract since I never really knew him or any of his victims.

Wow, that was a hard-nosed paragraph. You all must think I’m a real Grinch. But I’m not. I still care about lots of stuff. I don’t care about any TV shows because I don’t watch them, unless I’m stuck in a motel room during a long trip. Even then I’m more inclined to read the Gideon book, or the Mormon one if the motel is a multi-holy book kind of place. And I don’t care much about new movies because I can’t see spending more than twenty bucks for the generally unpleasant experience we get in modern multiplexes. And pop music loses me pretty quickly. The appeal of Broadway shows are a mystery to me. I’m culturally bereft, I guess. Another paragraph is done and I still haven’t found something positive to say. This is turning into a depressing Christmas message.

How about the advances in our government? Haven’t all the folks we've put in office set aside their greed and quests for personal gain to truly do what’s right for the country? Haven’t they quit their lying, cheating ways and turned to openness and honesty? Rats. This paragraph has less hope than the last two. I’m getting out of this one.

Well maybe this will work. I care about family, about my daughters and their husbands, about my grandchildren now numbering four, about my brothers and sister and mother, nieces, nephews, cousins and aunts, and in-laws. I care about my friends and poetry colleagues all around the world. They’re all real people with real lives and problems and joys. I care about their problems and joys. I care about you, the real person reading this thing. I care about the sadness that afflicts our World every damn day; the horrible things happening to children, the constant wars and the constant tension that leads to those wars, the sad decisions that people make to hate other people for so many foolish reasons. It’s true that I can’t do too much about all that sadness. I hope that by being kind to people, by being a decent family man, by showing as much love as I can, the world might be a bit brighter. But that’s a long shot.

Trying to help by being a good citizen is something most of the people I know work at on a regular basis. I try to follow their good example. Maybe someday that will bring positive results.

That’s probably another long shot. We can hope.

I care about the Christmas season. And I’m happy to acknowledge all the other ways folks from different cultures celebrate their holy days, even the one made up back in the late sixties. I actually met one of the people responsible for creating that holiday this past year. His intentions were honorable and he was a nice man. Another peaceful holiday can’t be a bad thing in these times. So in spite of my grouchy old man ranting I do have a little hope left. And Christmas time is all about the possibilities of fresh hope. The Christian tradition of Christmas is honorable. The Jewish tradition of Hanukkah is honorable. The Muslim tradition of Ramadan is honorable. Even Kwanzaa is honorable. All of these traditions offer a positive and hopeful message which can be understood and assimilated into our real lives. Even those non-believing humanist folks who want to do good for the sake of all people can be appreciated in this season of hope. So join me in latching on to one or two of these traditions. It could do us all some good.

Crap. I wrote a sermon and a pretty poor and generic one at that. Oh well. If you don’t like it just hit the delete button and pretend you didn't read all the way down to this paragraph where I say -

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to all of you good people. Now go have a fine day.

Say What?

I know I just posted an article a couple days ago. And we all know that too much of a good thing can be bad for us. In fact too much of a bad thing is bad for us as well. Can’t win. But friends, I saw an article on the front page of the Delaware State News that has me baffled. Maybe you all can help me figure this one out.

First a couple of mighty important disclaimers are in order. My first disclaimer is this; I am not against food stamps or other programs that help to feed needy folks. Do you have that? People that need help with putting food on the table should be helped. Okay. I am not, in principle, against other kinds of financial aid, be it welfare or unemployment insurance or other worthy programs. It would be better, in my opinion, if folks could work and earn their own money but it doesn’t always work out that way and we need to help those that truly need help. There you have it. I had to put those disclaimers in because you need to know that I’m not some programmed right wing robot person spouting off about every liberal program that comes down from Washington or our state capitals.

Now here’s the information that was in the article I mentioned in the first paragraph. In Delaware the public assistance folks sent out checks for $20.01 to about 11,000 as a supplement for heating costs aid. They sent these checks out, not because they wanted to help with heating costs, but because they wanted to circumvent some rules and reinstate some potential cuts in food stamps for those folks that got the checks. By putting these 11,000 people into a higher heating aid program they qualified them for more food stamp money. The article goes on to say that by spending some $300,000 dollars the state is able to pick up something like $6,000,000 in federal food stamp aid. The money for the heating aid checks came out of a three quarters of million dollar surplus in that particular account. And how did that surplus happen, by the way?

If all the information in that last paragraph makes sense to you then maybe you can explain it to me. The cuts in food stamp money were an Obama administration initiative not something the other guys cooked up. But, and here’s another little known bit of information, the School Nutrition Program was jacked up so that qualifying underprivileged districts can now provide breakfast and lunch to all the kids in their schools, five days a week. The families of those kids don’t need to be on food stamps or other government assistance. They just need to show up at school. It would seem that if the kids are getting ten meals a week at school then the grocery bills of families on assistance would go down by a considerable percentage, thus negating the small cut in food stamps that has been enacted. Or am I wrong on that bit of logical thinking?

Now I could go into a big old rant about the empirical evidence I’ve gathered in various grocery stores, regale you with many stories of folks who were using food stamps and yet were buying hundreds of dollars’ worth of cigarettes, beer, pet foods, and soft drinks, cakes from the bakery and on and on. But I won’t. That would seem like knee jerk right wing ranting and I’m trying to avoid that. I just can’t understand how the people in government can arbitrarily use loopholes (they call this one the “heat and eat” tactic) to get around properly enacted legislation.

That front page article said that as many as twelve other states were using this loophole to avoid some cutting of food stamp monies. It didn’t say if the lawmakers in Washington were aware of this glitch in the law. My guess is that they were aware and that just solidifies my opinion of those folks as lying, cheating, and duplicitous thieves. But that’s just an opinion and once again it borders on knee jerk right wing conservatism.

So friends if you can help me to understand this one little government thing I’ll be mighty grateful. And then both you and I can have a fine day.

Gender Neutrality

It finally happened. I was at the library a few days ago and I finally saw a parent who is raising a “gender non-specific” child. Sure, I had read about people following that course but I thought that it would only happen in big cities or places like Berkeley where lots of PhD’s hang out. I never thought I’d see the phenomenon right here in conservative little Dover, Delaware.

The mother of the child I saw was about forty years old, dressed in what seemed like expensive clothes (I’m not a fashion expert) and soft spoken. She had an armful of books, mostly historical romance novels (which seemed odd) although I did spot a vegetarian cookbook in her stack. The kid, who was about four years old, had books about animals – no Dr. Seuss or other “story” books at all.

I’m not sure if the child was a girl or a boy. It was non-specific after all. But if I had to guess I’d say it was a boy. The mother addressed the kid as “Aspen” which is about as gender free as you can get. I’ve always had trouble figuring out the sex of trees. There was no clue in the child’s clothing. Brown sandals, khaki shorts and a white t-shirt with a picture of a pony could have been worn by either gender. And of course, at that tender age, a high pitched squeaky voice is pretty much required for boys or girls.

The reason I know that the woman was going for complete gender equality with her child was the fact that she pretty much announced it to the library lady, the security guard, a couple of other library patrons and the homeless guy who had just awakened from his afternoon siesta. I guess if you’re interested in a “Cause” you need to do a little proselytizing. So as we stood at the self-checkout computers I ventured a little further into the hell of modern social trends and asked her what “gender non-specific” or “gender neutral” meant and what would be the benefits of raising a child according to whatever dictums those terms might entail. She looked at me as if I was Chewbacca suddenly shaved of all my hair. But she tried to calm the haughtiness in her voice as she told me about the terrible damage the world has suffered due to the dominance of males and the evils of gender inequality. I nodded a lot as she gave a quick overview of the history of the world, pointing out who started wars and why, who brings the most violence to our cities and who dominates weekend television time with violent sports activities.

Then she said that the solution to this terrible mess was to erase male dominance and the way to do that was to foster a few generations of kids who are not aware of gender roles. Once the dominant male was culled out of the world’s population we’d see no more war, a major reduction in violent crime and a much more harmonious society. I pointed out that another benefit would be the elimination of gender-specific toys like Barbie and Ken and, sadly, GI Joe. She said yes, that would be another wonderful result of the movement.

We were having a fine old philosophical discussion when I slipped up and asked “But what about biology?” It seemed to me that at some point in their lives these little androgynous kiddies would look into each other’s underpants and realize that their parts don’t all match. She told me that by the time the kids got to that point they would have been thoroughly indoctrinated into the whole gentling concept of de-gendering (she actually used that term) and that they would accept the minor genitalia differences and parents could instruct the youngsters in the purely scientific use of those differences.

Well friends, I don’t know about you but I was pretty darn young when I became aware of the differences between boys and girls. It wasn't all social conditioning. Or if it was social conditioning then I’m kind of glad it was set up that way. Of course that might be my happiness at being part of the dominant male section of the population speaking, but I think biology had more to do with becoming aware. So very early in my life girls were girls, and I wasn't. And I wasn't neutral either.

Now I realize that there are lots of folks in the world born into genders they’re not right with. And I can understand that they choose to either switch over or else operate within the realm of same sex relationships. Those folks are sincerely being true to their own nature. But my new friend, the gender nullifying mom, is heading into darker territory with her quest to deny children the right to their own specific sexual identity. In fact it seems somewhat like a dangerous social experiment that could have bad results somewhere down the road. But that’s just my opinion and I’m sure there are many experts who have written books spelling out why I’m wrong.

I’m not sure how many folks are involved in the gender-non-specific movement. I suspect the numbers are low and the long term impact on society will also be low. But I thought the same thing about atheists and their crusade to dominate religious folks of every denomination and look at the inroads they've made in our nation. Of course the atheists aren’t fighting biology like the gender neutralizers. So if you run into a gender neutralizer parent try to talk some sense into him or her. It’s not easy, especially if you’re a man talking to a woman or vice-versa. When that happens you might want to enlist the help of your husband or wife or someone else who appreciates the differences between men and women.

Now have a fine day.

Class of '64: Part 2

It wasn't too painful after all. In fact I’d have to say that my 50^th Class Reunion was an enjoyable experience only mildly laden with angst and just lightly sprinkled with trauma. There were some changes in the dynamics of the class and there were some things that hadn't changed at all. Nostalgia was rampant, of course, and there were some differences of opinion as to the “facts” of our high school history.

First the good stuff. Our graduating class consisted of one-hundred-forty seven students, as I recall. We had forty seven in attendance at the reunion. About seventy didn't respond or were not located when the committee started their search. And about thirty have died. I guess that last statement wouldn't qualify as “good stuff.” Of course since I’m not part of the “departed” group it might still count.

Friday night we had a meet and greet session at a local bar and grill. When I saw all the unfamiliar faces I thought I’d arrived at the wrong party. But then I recognized a couple of folks and I had the realization that those unfamiliar faces were just the result of time and its effects on some people. In time the shock of that realization wore off and we visited a little bit with many old friends. But we had a nice time and were fortunate to meet up with a classmate and his wife who, when I was in school, I had no contact with at all. They are lovely people and were kind enough to socialize with us as I adjusted to the fact that all the old folks in the room were pretty close to my age.

Saturday we were also fortunate to join three other old friends for lunch. Two of these friends had started school in my class but for various reasons they ended up a year back. The other friend left our school to go to a nearby parochial high school. Did I mention that one of these friends was my very first girlfriend? Yep. We “dated” back in fourth or fifth grade. My wife was very nice to my old flame but I could tell she was nervous about a rekindling of that fire. Either that or she was disappointed that her lunch order came out of the kitchen cold. In spite of that we had a great visit and caught up on many, many years of lost time.

The main event of the weekend happened Saturday evening at a very old and moderately posh country club. Seeing all of my classmates wasn't quite as shocking this time. Even when I noticed that several who had missed the Friday “meet and greet” came in with canes and walkers I wasn't too surprised. During the pre-dinner cocktail hour I had the opportunity to chat with many nice folks. We sampled the appetizers and had an adult beverage or two. Pictures were taken and finally the buffet dinner was served. It was a fairly typical buffet I suppose, but we were a fairly typical bunch of folks. After the meal a little program was presented by some of the organizers. Our senior class president also gave a little talk and made a few jokes that were received in a rather lukewarm way. After all the formalities a pretty good three piece band played.

Early in the evening everyone was mixing nicely. But as the night wore on the old cliques started to re-form and the crowd truly did look like a bunch of (very old) high school kids, each clique in tight circles, doing their best to be the coolest group in the room. So that left some of us where we were during those long ago years – standing or sitting on the edge of the room making funny, but sarcastic, remarks about the people in their cliques. It was just like old times only with much better jokes.

I’d like to say that we stayed until the wee hours, dancing and cavorting with the old crowd. But that would be a lie. No, we left the party at about 9:30. It had been a fun evening and we were very glad that we made the trip. In fact I’m looking forward to the next reunion, maybe the sixtieth. I have a theory that through attrition I might even eventually be considered one of cool kids in the class.

Have a fine day.

Class of '64

This has been a year for reunions. A couple months ago I attended a big affair, a gathering of relatives on my mother’s side of the family. It was a fine event with the requisite tears, laughter and catching-up that good family reunions need.  Another reunion is coming up in just a few days and we’re getting ready to travel again. This one marks the fiftieth year since I graduated from high school. That was in 1964 for folks who have trouble with arithmetic. Hard to believe, I know, since I’m still so warmly wrapped in the glow of youth.

But it’s true. Back in late June of 1964, having turned seventeen only a few months earlier, I completed, what came to be called on various applications and government forms, my formal education. Believe me, I was glad to be done with it all.

Some folks hold high school fondly in their memories. They can recall nearly every event, classmate – friend or foe, teacher and class, and even the lunch ladies and janitorial staff. Athletic events, school dances and plays are all firmly imprinted on the pages of their mental diaries. Proms are on pages trimmed in gold. I suppose that’s as it should be. We should have good memories of those days when hopes were high and serious troubles seemed to be something that happened to other people. But school, for me, was something to be tolerated. It was only a place I attended and not a place where I fully participated, especially in the last two years. In ninth and tenth grade I was more involved, excited about learning and having a social life. In eleventh and twelfth grades I learned that rebellion was more interesting than conformity. In fact, in my senior year I probably spent more time cutting classes, hitchhiking around the back roads of our county, and reading forbidden books than I spent in the halls of academia.

My friends in school were of a casual sort, not the “best friend forever” type. I got along, especially with my female classmates.  The two years I spent at an all-male religious school were tougher because they were not softened by the gentility of young women. Returning to my hometown public school for my senior year was a good thing even if I wasn't participating to the fullest. Girlfriends were far more important than classes. Ditching the last three periods of the day so I could hitch rides to a nearby town to meet my true love at her bus stop seemed more enjoyable than being confined to a school building. Somehow I managed to keep up with the schoolwork and brought home passing grades. My absences weren’t missed as long as the report cards were okay.

There were some good times at school. The advanced English class kept my attention and fortunately it was a morning session. Working on the school literary magazine was also a fine activity and I was proud to be a part of that effort. The literati were not as highly esteemed as the athletic people. That held doubly true for boys. Our school had a mixture of farmer’s kids and kids who came from the working class. That working class, more often than not, meant that the dads (and sometimes the moms) were employed by Eastman Kodak or the General Motors affiliate that built carburetors. Some of the families might be considered upper middle-class but there were very few rich kids in our school. Athletics were valued. The FFA was trendy. Driving a souped-up car was a real status symbol, especially if you did your own work. But reading Dostoevsky, Kerouac, Keats or Milton wouldn't get a guy an invitation to a party.

So this weekend my dear wife and I will go back to the old hometown and take part in the reunion activities. I've asked myself why I want to celebrate this fifty year milestone with so many folks who were mostly just faces in the halls of our school. Only a few could be considered friends. However, since the advent of Facebook quite a number of my classmates have signed on as my “friends”. Some have even started corresponding with me on a fairly frequent basis. Perhaps time has erased some of the cliquishness that existed all those years ago. Perhaps there is more nostalgia in my mind than I admit to in conversation. And maybe I just want to see how the years have treated our generation. Who has aged well? Who has not been so kindly handled by time’s passing? And who has passed on to that “Senior Prom in the Sky”. It should be fun.

Now have a fine day.

Education 101

Summer is almost over, not the actual equinox version of summer but the mental version that we carry around from our childhood days. The kids are back in school in most places. In more northern areas school won’t start until after Labor Day. That’s the way it was when I was grinding through grades K through 12. Teachers, administrators and other academic types are back at their jobs full time. School buses are rolling, morning and evening. Before you know it it’ll be time for Thanksgiving break.

It’s always interesting to me how every new school year is so, well, new.  You would think that a school year was never started in the past. From top administrators down to the dear lunch room staff there is a completely addled attitude. Bus routes need to be re-learned. Schedules and room assignments are jumbled and kids are standing around bewildered. Of course the students seem no more bewildered than the principals and teachers who run helter-skelter trying to fix computer foul-ups and other conflicts. With all the pre-school-year orientations and in-service workshops don’t you think there could have been a little more attention given to basic things? But no, those sessions are spent talking about the psychology of success, or inspiring students and peers, or eliminating bullying, or the proper method of completing federally mandated paperwork. A simple run through of bus routes and daily schedules might alleviate most of the opening day problems.

We throw a ton of money at our schools. We want them to be the best. We want our children to get a good start in life and we want them to learn enough to move on to higher education or to a decent job in the work force. There are thousands of good, dedicated teachers who are committed to the task of passing knowledge on to the little empty-heads sitting in the classrooms. There are layers upon layers of administrators above those beleaguered teachers, equally committed to making the task of teaching a bureaucratic nightmare. And of course above those administrators are the members of school boards, various departments of state governments, and the far reaching arms of the federal educational bureaucracy, not to mention well-meaning but foolish politicians. It’s not hard to figure out that a very big piece of the taxpayers’ contribution to the system goes to maintaining the system, and a relatively small piece gets doled out at the proper end of the chain of command.

So the money for the kids and teachers is hijacked. Then the states and “feds” pile bureaucratic baloney on to the teachers, local school officials, school nurses, and even the lunch room staff.  All kinds of “mandates” must be met if some federal or state funding is to reach the individual schools. And then there are the requirements for the “Common Core” initiative which is an unholy alliance between the federal educational bureaucracy and certain corporate entities. In the end we’re lucky if a kid can read, write and do simple math after thirteen years in the system. Actually many of them can’t. So off they go to a two year college to take remedial reading, writing and arithmetic so that they can then take some dumbed down college courses. What a cycle of delusion and despair.

Of course there are some children who will learn stuff in spite of the system.  Lots of kids are curious and if given a little direction and a little more attention they’ll find a way to suck up some education. But many youngsters, after running up against the limitations brought about by the stifling system, give up. They coast along, getting bumped up year after year, and eventually graduate totally unprepared for work or life outside their childhood homes.

What a pessimist I am.  I started out thinking about the pleasures of a new school year and I ended up depressing myself by thinking about the thousands and thousands of kids who won’t have the chance to truly succeed in our current educational system. If you've read all this way you may be depressed as well. So maybe I can come up with a little encouragement. Okay. If you’re a parent pay attention to your kids’ schools, be a watchdog, make sure your kid gets some teachers who still have the heart for teaching, and be an advocate for less bureaucracy and more real education.  If you don’t have kids in school don’t ignore the problems that I've mentioned. You are probably a taxpayer so it’s your money that is feeding the system. Pay attention. Don’t put dummies on the school boards. Don’t expect money to solve all of the problems. Resist elected officials and bureaucrats who encourage wasteful spending. Remember that a new school building does not guarantee any improvement in education. I’d rather see some way of raising the compensation of good teachers than building a new monument to some overpaid superintendent of schools.

Okay. I’m done now. Think about this stuff. It’s important. Now have a fine day.

"Leave the Driving to Us": An Epilogue

A few weeks ago I posted three blogs detailing my adventures in getting from Malone, NY to Dover, DE via Adirondack Trailways and Greyhound buses.  About the time that I posted that episodic horror story I also sent a rather nasty email to the company most responsible for my troubles, which was Trailways.  In truth I expected little or no response to the email, perhaps a form letter “apology” or something.  But I was to be surprised.

One afternoon, shortly after the email, I had a call from a very pleasant young lady named Brandi who is a customer service representative at the company.  She patiently listened to a heated outline of my displeasure with the whole trip.  She was kind and sympathetic (no doubt concerned about how mentally unstable an old codger I am) and she assured me that she would see that something would be done to make things right.  She also never chastised me for my salty language.  I was instructed to send along copies of my unused New York City to Dover ticket and my receipt for the New York to Philadelphia substitute ticket.  I followed the instructions and honestly thought that if I heard any more about this thing it would be a form letter and maybe a free bus ticket to Paducah or someplace equally attractive.

But today in the mail I received a check for the cost of the NYC to Dover leg of the trip and another check for the cost of the NYC to Philadelphia ticket.  In the letter that came with the checks I was assured that some re-training would take place at the ticket agent level so that this problem would not happen to someone else.  So I’m publicly thanking Adirondack Trailways for being responsive to an angry customer.  I also want to commend Brandi for doing exactly what she said she would do.  It is very refreshing to know that there are good people doing a good job in corporate America.

Thanks to Brandi and Adirondack Trailways for making this a very fine day.