Mark Twain and Rightous Indignation: Getting Serious About Blogging

Just read the recent Time Magazine article about Mr. Clemens and began wondering what he would have done with the Internet and would he have been a blogger? Well, sure he would have, in spades, would be my guess. A man who made a fortune on writing and then lost it all trying to develop a writing "machine" would have gone nuts over the machine I'm now using to write this. Sometimes I pity those poor writers who were born and who died too early to witness the mind-boggling, culture-warping technological advances of the past 20 years.

But never mind technology. Reading the article was a reminder of the great old adage that the more things change, the more they remain the same. Twain was aghast at the same things we need to be aghast at: racism, greed, imperialism, and arrogant, murderous religiosity. The technology changes but the dark workings of human nature continue unabated. The world was as much of a mess in 1900 as it is today.

So, here's a suggestion that Twain might support. He was, like myself, a great traveler who spent much time abroad. He said that nothing inoculates against racism like traveling and as racism is caused by small-mindedness and small-mindedness is caused by lack of exposure to the wider world of possibilities, the government should stop the wars it has going and spend equal amounts of money on sending each an every American overseas for a while. How long? Well, each of us would be required to live with a foreign family, eat their food, and learn to speak their language more or less fluently before would be allowed to return home.

And you don't get to pick where you go. The Committee on the Foreign Placement of U.S. Citizens for Purposes of Expanding Their Minds To Wipe Out Ignorance and Narrow Mindedness would decide that. We might send someone like Rush Limbaugh to Nepal say, to live in a yurt and learn to love Yak milk. I'd like to see that. And he'd be allowed to speak only Nepalese. That would shut him up for a while. And Ann Coulter? Where would we send dear gentle Ann? I'll have to think about that and make a recommendation to the Committee.

State-of-the-Art TV? Waiting for Godot or Proper Installment

You order stuff on line, from the other side of the world, and this is what can happen: You end up watching the Red Sox though your feet on and old stone-age set while the 47" HD set sits in its box. Short version of a long story? When the boys came to set it up, they didn't have a wall bracket to mount it on. Thought we already had one. Why would we already have one? I don't know. Meanwhile, the guy who installed the satellite dish put in the wrong one--not the HD version. Maybe we should have had one of those, too. Don't ask me. So, we need to get back on the phone to set up re-installation appointments. Easy? Nope. Yesterday we were put on hold for at least half an hour trying to get it done.

Am I whining about my perfect life? Shame on me. Today, July 4th, is the actual first day of my retirement, the day I'm actually legally separated from the Dept. of Defense Dependents School system after 28 years of Federal service. Below is a picture I took today of our perfect, 4th of July little town, Onancock, VA, a place where Walt Disney wouldn't have to change a thing to begin filming a movie starring Opie and Lassie and Huckleberry Finn.

A Capitol Under Siege: What a Difference 20 Years Makes

One summer day, I'd say it was twenty years ago, I was alone in D.C. with no place to go and no promises to keep, as the song goes. After wandering around the Mall, I found myself walking up the broad and lovely steps of the Capitol building. Instead of going straight on up and into the rotunda itself, I went around the side, to the wings, where I found an open door--a side entrance. In I went. Unchallenged, I went up a staircase and began wandering down the corridors of power. It was, I admit, a bit of a heady feeling. Here I was, Joe Average America, freely exploring the haunts of folks who are on the nightly news, the arbiters of the American Dream. I felt as though I, too, was one of the Great Elected Upper Crust.

Incredibly, I continued to rubberneck my way through the building, going in and out of doors, up and down stairways as though I owned the place, as though, as an American taxpayer, I belonged here as much as the suited pols or their assistants I occasionally ran into. After an hour or so, I exited through another side door feeling as though I had, more than any other common tourist that day, experienced the business end of the Republic.

Oh, what a difference a couple of decades makes. Yesterday, as I repeated my walk around the Mall and again ended up at the steps of Capitol Hill, I was met by the scene pictured above: police were everywhere and streets cordoned off with big warning signs. Now, instead of being able to randomly visit the Congressperson of your choice, the voter must join a tightly controlled group of other voters/tourists and be led around by the nose by young, summer-job tour guides. Such a sad development. It left me with the feeling that our freedoms had been necessarily diminished, that the soul of the country had been blocked off, our access to ourselves and our freedoms painfully constricted.

For a Lesson in Evolution, I Visit the National Zoo

Ever in search of the truth about the great lie of evolution (the sick brainchild of a dead white man pushed by the Godless, left-wing, liberal, hippy, Communist, Pinko, etc., etc. agenda), I walked from my D.C. hotel to the National Zoo. There I met with my (new) friend Silvia, a six-year old low-land gorilla. I actually don't know if her name was Silvia, but I think that's what she said. It was difficult to understand her with mouth full of grass. Not that it mattered what she had in her mouth. Gorilla's are ill equipped, physiologically, to produce speech. So, I switched to signing, remembering that some apes have been taught this non-verbal way of communicating.

"Mind if I take your picture?" I asked.

"I don't have a choice, do I?" she asked, rhetorically.

I snapped a few photos and when I asked her what she thought about the idea that we, humans and apes, were all one be happy family, she laughed a sad, mouth-full-of-grass type of laugh and started wagging her fingers and moving her hands. She said, "Now there's a crazy idea, Dougiea. You'll never see a low-land gorilla hunting down and killing, say, mountain gorillas. Or anything else, for that matter. No one in my family would never do a thing like that."

"Well," I said, "as crazy as it seems, there are those misguided, atheistic types who believe it; that apes like you are related to humans like us."

Silvia sighed a patient sigh. "I'll tell you, when you find a bunch of humans who like to sit around and peacefully eat veggies all day, maybe I'll agree we're related."

"Actually," I said, "we do have groups of humans who behave that way."

Silvia shot me a look and asked, "They eat grass, too?"

"No, they smoke it. The grass. At least that's what they call it. It's not exactly grass, though."

"Do they look like me?" she asked.

"Sort of. More than the rest of us, at least. They prefer wearing minimal clothes and tend to be hairy."

"My type," she said. "Maybe there is something to this Evolution theory after all."

"You mean," I said, "that apes are descended from liberal, grass-smoking, vegetarians?"

"Sounds like we're getting somewhere now," she said.

"What about the right-wing types? What do think their lineage might be?"

Silvia wrapped a long arm around herself and scratched the middle of her back, something I wish I could do. In silent retaliation, I waggled my opposable thumbs. "'Don't try that old line," she said, "apes and opossums have opposable thumbs and even some dinosaurs had them. Now, tell me about these right-wing types."

"They believe that shooting animals is a deeply meaningful way to get in touch with nature. They believe in doing just about anything to anyone if there's a lot of money in it. And they pray a lot and they believe that anyone who doesn't believe in what they believe in is going to burn in Hell forever."

Silvia looked thoughtful, paused in her chewing for a moment, and signed, "Do right wingers have opposable thumbs"

"As far as I know," I said.

"Well," she signed back. "Evolution is a process. It takes a long, long, long time. Sounds like they're getting there. Just be patient."

The Accidental Tourists: Easy and His Pal in D.C.

There's Easy (short for Taking It Easy) on the right, leaning this way and that in front of the National Gallery of Art, and there's his pal in the left, in complete control of the situation, as is her habit. Terry, in her new role as Federal Education Association Director for Dept. of Defense Dependents Domestic Elementary and Secondary Schools had four days of meetings in the Omni Hotel in D.C. and, as I wasn't doing anything in particular, I tagged along.

On Saturday, we took the subway/underground (I prefer the latter term--a hint of mystery in it especially after observing some of the denizens of its tunnels) for the short ride into the city and did a little touring. The National Gallery of Art is always a great place to hang on a languid Washington summer day while throngs of overheated tourists with screaming kids and young people trying hard not to look like overheated tourists wandered about the Mall taking in a Folk Festival.

Highlights of the visit to the Gallery included some Picassos, some Matisses, The Farm by Joan Miro that used to hang in Hemingway's house at the Vinca Vigia, and a splendid display of ancient treasures from the National Museum in Kabul. We had a very fine lunch in the Gallery cafeteria with other like-minded visitors (earthy-crunchy, artsy-fartsy people tending toward and beyond middle age), and then managed to beat a dandy thunderstorm back to the underground entrance. All in all, it was great fun spending the day together and doing something together rather than spending the day together doing separate things. Today is Sunday and I'm told we are going to walk up to the zoo that is four blocks from the hotel and observe some of Washington's other caged beasts. Watch this space for some interesting photos of cheetahs and gorillas and, with luck, a Congressperson or two (not that they could top the black cat featured in an earlier post).

Tourney du Chat Noir: The Cognitive Dissonance of Retirement

Zeke the Old Cat and I are apparently experiencing the same sort of cognitive dissonance brought on by the unexpected suddenness of retirement. You can't really be ready for it no matter how many retirement parties friends throw for you. While, as a teacher, I'm used to long summer vacations, I can't wrap my brain around the idea that this vacation is not going to end. Its very endlessness makes it impossible to grab a hold of, yet I'm anxious to do something with it. I'm finding our evening happy hours are too long and too much wine is being drunk. This results in poor sleep, hours lying awake worrying about things one should never worry about when one is retired. Then, in the morning, you get up and still feeling tired, you try to get a grip on what is was you were going to do once you didn't have to go to work and weren't tired and stressed any more. Of course, I should give myself a break here. I've only been retired (not working) for a week and an half and my official retirement date is July 4th, still a ways off.

As for Zeke the Old Cat, he is having his own difficulties adjusting to his new land-based life. He spends a great deal of energy wandering about the house mewling and howling. I assume he's frustrated at not being able to get out into the delicious out of doors he smells just beyond the window screens. So, last evening, figuring he's had enough time to know where home is, we let him out to do some exploring under our watchful eyes. He set about, in a pretty methodical way for a cat, to examine the back yard. After a good hour, he went back in the house and disappeared. We got the feeling that he'd seen enough and couldn't decide if he liked it or not.

I don't think I'll have any trouble liking what I'm finding in this new world I've jumped off into. I just need to give myself a chance to grasp the mechanics of the free time now dangling in front of me. Yard work is helpful and tomorrow we head off to D.C. for a week of Terry's FEA meetings. Yesterday we ordered a brand new Prius (touring version), and I'm trying to settle into some sort of morning writing routine to sort of ease my way into this unexplored country.

Welcome to Your Next World: Reinventing Oneself in Retirement

Oh, the indignities of old age; they are first visited upon us at retirement parties. Here I am bedecked with diapers and coke bottle glasses and a clock to measure out my last hours. It's a comic vision of an all-to-real possible future as anyone who has cared for elderly parents knows. Yet, we're not ready for that yet. Today we move off the boat and go to the Hilton for a night and tomorrow morning we're on the 6:30 flight to Honolulu. Then to Houston, then to Norfolk, then across the mouth of the Chesapeake on that great tunnel-bridge and on up to Onancock and our new lives. I'm planning on a self reinvention of sorts. We owe ourselves a reinvention when we retire; a re-birth as something new, use the small wisdoms we're accrued over 61 years and make the last decades another fine adventure worthy of the one we just finished.

17 June 2008: At the Houston airport

A few hours ago I finished the longest part of the journey home--Guam to Honolulu to Houston. I'm now, with burning tired eyes, ready to walk from the Presidents Club to the gate for the last leg, Houston to Norfolk. I'll be glad to get there and meet up with Terry and make the hour-and-a-half drive across the tunnel-bridge and up the Eastern Shore to Onancock and home. Draggy stuff, this long-distance travel. Terry just called on the cell--she's in Newark.