The Oklahoma Party Bus

One day as me Grandpa Joe was hobo-ing across the State of Oklahoma, he either thumbed for or was offered a ride. Either way, he took it. And he quickly regretted the decision.

As I heard the story, the six or eight people shoe horned into this old jalopy (I want to say a Model T Ford but I'm simply uncertain) happily shoe horned him in with them. It turns out it was something of a party car though. Joe talked about careening down rough dirt roads, the car hopping and jumping like a bucking bronco while the driver pushed it to whatever speed limit it could hold. He feared at every turn that the entire lot of them would fly off into a ditch, or worse. I'm just surprised me Grandpa would be feared of any kind of driving, what with what he drove and the way he drove them. Perhaps it's different if you're in control.

But as I said, it was also a party car. A whiskey bottle made its way around the vehicle freely, each soul drinking deeply of it, and all being vaguely offended that he would have none of the hootch. And with each empty bottle another one produced itself as though by magic, keeping the revelry on a high.

For Joe's part, he soon wanted the ride behind him. Bouncing all over the road and subsequently being bounced into one another didn't bother the partiers at all. But he tired of it quickly, especially as the largest person in the car always seemed to land right on him with each rut in the road. 

Evening came upon the group, and Joe saw the light of a farmhouse ahead and yelled, pointing, "That's my stop!" even though it was not. Far from it. Anything to get out of that rattletrap Ford and her hard partiers. 

The driver pulled over and let him out at the driveway to the farm. Me Grandpa made sure to start along it until the car was on its way. Well on its way. Then he doubled back to the road, hoping for better luck yet more than happy to hoof it for a spell.

Why Turn the Other Cheek

A brief and easy read is the book Catholicism, by Bishop Robert Barron. It is a wonderfully instructive and concise view of the Catholic faith. 

Among the many things he addressed one which came across powerfully dealt with Christ's famous order to turn the other cheek. What is often mistaken with that passage is that Our Lord is instructing us to meekness.

He's not. The instruction to turn the other cheek is in fact revolutionary and defiant.

Jesus tells us that if we are struck on the right cheek, offer our left. It's important to know that in ancient Israel you did nothing with your left hand; it violated cultural norms. To strike someone on the right cheek meant the attacker backhanded you. He had to hit your right cheek with the back of his right hand. He would not slap with his left because he could not, by rule, so to speak, use his left hand for anything.

In that light, offering your left cheek was a challenge, a dare. The person attacked would effectively be saying, what are you going to do now? It was you telling the striker he had no real power over you, that he had done all he could and there were no options left. His power was limited, even belittled.

Ideally, such a bold action would cause the attacker to realize his evil and repent. But the key aspect isn't nonviolence (although that is the best possible result) but putting the other guy in his place, showing the world that you, not he, occupies the high moral ground. We are not going to let others trample us. We are in fact calling them out when we turn the other cheek.

Good Thinking

One of my easier sales occurred just yesterday. 

A woman came by to pick up 4 drain cables for her husband. "How much are they again?" she asked as I was taking them from a barrel.

"$60 each."

"Make it five, so we have an even $300," she responded.

Lady, I like how you think. Now whether your plumber husband does...

Free Life Lesson

Do you want to know why my fuse is becoming shorter and shorter? Of course you don't. But I'm going to tell you anyway.

One of the things which makes me want to go full Joe Cosgriff (my grandfather had a hair trigger temper) on people are when they want their drain snake repaired and assure me it's an easy task. To begin with (as I've said before) there ain't, and I emphatically mean there ain't, no easy repair in the present tense. They're only easy in the past tense, after you're finished, and then they were easy. Until then anything, and I mean anything, might go wrong.

So that brings me to yesterday. A guy begged me to fix his machine as he waited. "It's easy! It just needs a fitting!" he swore. I agreed to take a look at it.

He proceeds to bring me a style of drain cleaner which I have never seen before. I've been working on drain snakes for over 50 years now (I'm an old man, I can use old man talk) and ain't never seen nothing like his. Clearly it was a knock off of some sort, below professional grade. It was brand new though, with a terrible kink right where the cable came out of the drum. "How much?" he asks. "Can you do it now?"

"$40. Yes, I can do that now (by initial indications it promised to be an easy job - an inexcusably hypocritical error on my part admittedly - and the old barn is so full I had nowhere to put it if he were to leave the thing). Let's pull out enough cable for me to work with and go from there."

Try as we might, the cable would not budge. "It's tied up inside the drum," I said with the experience of a man who has seen many cables tied up inside many drums. 

"It can't be!" the customer exclaimed. "We just had it all the way out of the barrel!"

I wanted to yell, liar! I wanted to ask, how stupid do you think I am? (Quiet, Ron). I wanted to scream, You brought this monstrosity, this offense against God and man, here because you can't fix it, and now you're questioning my judgment? Instead I offered, "We can take it apart and see what we find." I wanted to get that thing outta there, but I also wanted to show him what he was up against.

Fortunately, there are basic design styles across the world of drain snakes. I was able to determine how to get the drum apart. To my surprise (that's sarcasm) there was a Gordian knot of steel cable within it. "You just had this all the way out?" I asked the man. His small smile was sheepish.

To cut to the chase, we eventually untangled and repaired the cable, reassembling the machine along the way. It took two and a half hours in all. "What do I owe you, Cosgriff?"

"$200."

"Two hundred dollars!" he responded in shock. I know he was thinking of that forty dollar initial quote.

"Yep. That cheap because I'm giving the lesson on easy fixes free."

To his credit, he grinned and paid me $200. I hope, but doubt, he learned the lesson.

Politics Not Aside

I have never unfriended anyone on Facebook because of political or philosophic differences. Not once. But as of a few minutes ago I have been unfriended by a least three people in the past few months for just that. I suspect there have been more. That's just sad, especially as they're all folks whom I had always respected. I still do. It's bewildering.

I know myself well enough to know that I can come on strong, and that at times have been simply bull headed if not patently unfair. When I realize my sin or am properly called out, I do my best to apologize, and try to act better. I don't know what else there is to do.

It can be a struggle, especially with things near and dear to ourselves. But if we can't stay friends even after pointed exchanges on important subjects, well, I'm at a loss for explanation. Don't we want to talk? Don't we want to understand one another, and help each other to alter attitudes as need be? And if we don't want to talk, can we at least have the grace to stay civil and avoid prickly questions, if that is indeed the best which can be had?

But if we can't talk, what can we do? If we can't talk, where will our lack of communication take us? That fear alone should cause us to talk rather than shut others out.

 

 

Patron Saint of What?

The phone rang yesterday morning; it was a customer in distress. "Oh, man, Marty, I'm glad you're there! I need help, and you're the Patron Saint of Drain Cleaners!"

Well, how about that? I'm a saint while I'm still here on Earth. But what would my stained glass window look like?

It would be in a large cathedral, of course, with me operating a genuine Electric Eel Model C, hands firmly on the handle, cable held straight, my eyes turned piously towards Heaven as the water begins to drain down the pipe. An aura, a subdued halo would be around my head as I gaze, perhaps. I might be wearing the brown robe of a monk. Bright, shining yellow glass from above my head would appear to  bless my task. Just imagine the actual Sun coming through all that. Saint Marty of Detroit, Patron of Drain Cleaners, would be on a small plaque at the bottom of the window. An Angelic Choir can be heard in the background.

I like it.

It'll Wait

I wrote this review on Amazon about a book on how to avoid procrastination:

This is an excellent book to help you get moving at your job, your home, or your hobbies. It's well thought out with easy to follow step by step guides in the process. These are real world solutions which will help you understand and overcome your procrastination. It really worked for me. Read it first thing tomorrow!

Ain't I a stinker?

Capturing the Past

I actually did it. As mentioned in this here blog recently, I sought out a book which I read as a preteen and enjoyed then, but hadn't read since. Against the Fall of Night by Arthur C. Clarke, if it's that much trouble to click on the embedded link. I had read it while eating Pringles and drinking Faygo Root Beer. As such, I bought a small supply of each along with a copy of the book off our dear friends at Amazon, taking all three items with me to Hessel in da U.P. a couple of weeks ago.

You what what? You can relive the past just a bit, even only a whiff, a mere hint of enjoyment. Sitting on the sofa up north while noshing Pringles and washing it down with Detroit's finest root beer, I did feel something like a young boy experiencing the book for the first time. 

To be honest, the story isn't exactly the greatest science fiction. I discovered that Clarke, something I did think about all those years ago, tended to drop names and facts into the narrative without explanation, as though I should have known them, and then never offered later background. The tale was also a bit too rushed. That was annoying. Yet it was adventurous and intriguing enough that I understand why a relative youngster just getting a taste for novels would like it.

And I did like it, despite the abruptness. You can go back, I will argue, even if only slightly. That's satisfying on its own level.

Poor reading skills (but I was eating breakfast)

One time at the start of a business trip to Indianapolis I spent a Tuesday night in Springfield, Ohio. Springfield got about five inches of snow between about 1 and 5 AM Wednesday. So it goes.

As I sat in the breakfast area of my hotel Wednesday morning absolutely destroying the complimentary hot breakfast, I watched the TV in the corner. The scroll across the bottom of the screen was listing, one by one, the school closings and other school issues for the area: Urbana Schools were running two hours late, St. Peter's Catholic School was closed, and so on. Then up popped 'Dayton Low Skills Academy closed'. I thought, wow, that's kind of harsh.

I happened to sit through as the scroll repeated itself. This time, when it came to Dayton I saw that it said Dayton Life Skills Academy closed. I'd read it wrong the first time.

But in my defense, I was highly engaged in destroying the complimentary hot breakfast. To that end, mission accomplished.

Cloyce Construction

I have an old friend, I'll call him Cloyce just to give him a name, who told me something of an embarrassing tale from his school days. Oh, it wasn't all that embarrassing. But you need to remember the times, and his age when it happened.

Cloyce was in fourth grade and the teacher decided that he and his peers were old enough to write a short paper on what they wanted to do with their lives, what careers they might like to explore. So she arranged some time at the school library for the kids to check out books on whatever future her charges may have cared to look into.

Cloyce thought that he might like to build houses. That does seem to be precisely the sort of job a ten year old boy would think cool. When he was off to himself in the library, he found a book on a shelf called How to be a Homemaker. In his mind, he wanted to build houses, so home maker in the title made sense.

Remember this was fifty or sixty years ago, when career paths were very much based on Leave it to Beaver Americana. The homemaker Cloyce's book spoke of was housewife and mother. It was not what young Cloyce expected.

"I opened the book and commenced to reading, and I saw it was nothing like I thought," Cloyce explained. "So I looked around to see that no one else saw what I had, took the book to a drop box, and told the librarian what sort of books I actually wanted."

"I wasn't caught. Can you imagine if my buddies had seen me with that?" he asked me. 

It would have been bad for a fourth grader in 1970, no doubt.

Life is Like

I dropped off an order of drain cables yesterday. To my surprise, the customer gave me something in return: a package of chocolates. Plumber's chocolates, you might say.

Before you run too far with that football, they were chocolates shaped like plumbing fixtures and tools. There was a manhole cover, a spigot, a plunger and, yes, a commode. All were individually packaged with the company logo upon the wrapper. 

In America, advertising is everything.

Human Nature

Yesterday my energy bills - for electricity and gas respectively - came in. They were higher than I expected, although I expected that. There's a Yogi-ism for you to contemplate.

To be fair though, don't we always complain about what things cost or how well they work? It's certainly been a mantra for me and among family and friends for as long as I can recall.

Has it always been this way? Did the hunter-gatherers of prehistory say things like, "The sticks we use for kindling sure aren't like the sticks we used to gather." 

"When I was a boy, fires lasted a lot longer than they do now," Grandpa might have complained from his rock recliner as the family lounged around the cave. 

Just wondering.

Slicing and Hacking

Last night's golf league was brutal. Not only did I play poorly but the weather was rough: hot and humid. I drank two Gatorades and still felt like I had a mild case of heat stroke when I got home. My head felt like I was running a fever.

Next week's Tuesday forecast is calling for a high of 99. I do like golf more than I once did, and generally do better than I once did, but playing in virtually triple digits? I'm already trying to think of an excuse to miss. The golf as a whole that is, not just the ball. I've already become quite proficient at that.

To tell you the truth, and I realize we're talking about extremes and not norms with crazy summer temps like that, but I'd rather be on a curling rink in February than a golf course in June. It's easier to warm up than cool down. 

Not So Sleazy

There's this friend of mine who's Canadian - I'll call him Cloyce just to give him a name - who comes around the old barn when he's in the States. Several years ago he was visiting during a Canadian election season. "There's this one guy running, he's a piece of work, eh?"

"That so, Cloyce?"

"Oh yeah," my friend continued. "Real scummy, sleazy, a real sleaze bag."

"No kidding?"

"Yah. You know he wants to legalize prostitution?"

"Really?

"Really," Cloyce seconded. "So I voted for him, eh?"

That isn't where I thought he was going with that. That's the joke, though, eh?

Not Just a Curler

This past Saturday I went to Canada for the memorial service of my curling friend Brian Woodcock. He was literally one day older than me, but promised to never pull rank.

We tend to put people into compartments, little spots in our own minds which categorize them. Brian curled, so in my mind he was a curler.

I met his wife and mother and a few extended family members. So, he had a family. He had friends too beyond curling with whom I spoke. Then I find out he was active in his Church through the St. Vincent DePaul Society. And he worked as an outreach volunteer for the Windsor, Ontario homeless. And he played euchre at a senior center most Saturdays as a type of fellowship with the aging. Pretty soon he was no longer locked in that compartment where I had put him. He was a man who led a full life, who was much more than just a curler. He was a unique and good human being.

Be at peace, Brian, my friend. Be at peace.

A Dad Story on Father's Day

I know I've told this before, but I like it, so I'm telling it again. Happy Father's day to all you dads out there.

Tahquamenon Falls are a natural beauty found in Michigan's eastern Upper Peninsula. There are two falls a few miles apart. The walking trail between the two is around four miles long. I've walked it once, in 1994, with me two sons and me Pops.

We were vacationing in da U.P. as usual that summer and decided to see the Falls. Mom and Dad had come up for a few days and so went with us. While there I thought it would be cool to hike the trail. It was immediately after the words expressing that wish came out of my mouth that I felt a pang of regret and concern. You see, Pops was between cancer treatments at the time and about six weeks ahead of scheduled surgery to remove a tumor enveloping his kidney. After I had opened my yap, he decided that walking the trail would be cool too. I surely would not have said anything had I thought he'd like the idea.

It was probably the first time I came close to confronting him seriously on anything. I was really worried about his health. I told myself that maybe I ought to discourage him, with his cancer and all. The tumor was by that point diagnosed as inactive and the MDs were certain that all other cancerous spots (he had them on his liver and lungs when the disease was initially found) had been eradicated. Yet I wasn't sure a 58 year old man who still had a large tumor ought to be hiking a rough trail through the woods. And what would we do if something happened while we were out there? But as a son taught to respect his father's wishes, well, I said nothing and figured I'd just watch him closely. He likely wouldn't be denied anyway.

Damn but if that old man didn't hammer that trail. He more than kept up; he led the way more often than not. He always walked fast anyway, but I wonder if he took the hike to prove he could do it and was further determined to show us he could despite his (then) recent health issues. I had feared after his tribulations that his stamina would not allow the full journey. His stamina then proceeded to embarrass mine.

So I'm glad I suggested the hike and I'm glad he walked it with us. It's become a happy and proud memory. One of these days I'll walk the trail again in his honor.

The Mulberries are in

Funny, isn’t it, how we sometimes identify people with certain times, places, or things.

In the alley behind our old family repair shop there is a row of mulberry bushes which have been there for years. My grandfather would, in the late spring or early summer when they were in season, always stop and treat himself to a few of the little fruits as he went to and from work.

Little? Well, mulberries are small compared to most fruits. In context, they’re like raspberries who have spent a lot of time in the gym; a scant few are a handful. They’re juicy and sweet, and Grandpa Joe liked them. I remember vividly his picking and popping them into his mouth as he made his way down the alley, as though he were a kid again.

Time passes, and so, sadly, did Grandpa Joe. Yet the mulberries still grew, and I couldn’t help over the years but develop a liking to them myself. As I hike to and from work nowadays I’ll stop and have a few. As it were, my daughter also came to know and like the mulberries too. Often we’ll take bowls and go fill them with the little purple black fruits, snacking as we pick, and my wife will make pies out of those which make it back home. I like the idea that three generations of a family have been able to enjoy those berries ripening on the same bushes.

Now, I’m not all that naive; I know that Joe Cosgriff was ornery and arbitrary, with a hair trigger temper. I know it from the tales my Dad and his siblings have told, and from the personal experience of having worked with him for a good 15 or 18 years. I know too that there was a part of him which was somehow kind and appreciative, and that there were moments when that came out despite, perhaps, himself. There were good times and trying ones, and lasting impressions. I find as I grow older that, in the end, it's the good times which matter more than the difficult, even if it seems there were more tough days than easy. I believe too that the smallest, almost innocuous actions can also be the greatest insights into the honest character of someone.

What prompts me to write this? It’s June, and the mulberries are in. And I’m thinking about you, Joe.

Micromanaging

I am a big believer in the idea that if you ask someone to do something, you really should just stand back and let them do it. They're doing the work; it's their time and effort which is getting the job done. Leave them to handle it as they see fit. 

This doesn't apply, say, to raising your kids or training a new hire of course. You have to watch over them because they're still learning. I understand too that a large setting may require legitimate oversight, or perhaps well defined work protocols. So what I say applies best in one on one situations between competent adults. You ask a friend or family member for a favor, allow them to do the favor as they are able. 

I routinely ask me brother Phil to do things at the Shop. Yet I rarely back seat drive. I say, "Phil, do that," and he does it as he will. I try not to direct his moves, even when I disagree with his approach. I asked him to do it. I need to let him.

As a matter of course, if I want something done in a certain way, I do it. I firmly believe that's how you ought to approach any chore. Conversely, if I get asked to do something, I appreciate being let alone to do it (outside of basic necessary information, of course). I try to observe the same courtesy for anyone who's shoulder I tap. So far as I'm concerned, it shows courtesy and respect. And if you don't like how they do things, there's an easy solution. Do it yourself.

30 10

A customer yesterday came into the old barn and purchased a $30 part. "Here's twenty," he said, handing me a Jackson. "And here's thirty," he finished, giving me a ten.

"No, that's only ten," I replied.

He stopped, confused, then sighed. "Don't be messing with me, Marty," he responded. Yet he was smiling as he said it.

Life is short. Have some fun with it. Even he did, judging by the evidence.

Bioengineered Granola

One day as I sat with me Mom at her kitchen table, me brother Ed came in with a box of granola bars. They kept granola bars on hand because Mom had taken a liking to them, and the doctor said to let her eat want she wants so long as she's eating. Granola bars aren't bad for you anyway, right?

Me brother said this new brand he found was very, very good. "Here: try one," Ed tells me, and I do. They were very good, excellent really, especially the apple spice for what that's worth. But as I was too lazy to get my cell phone out of my pocket to do something, uh, substantial while I ate, I began reading the wrapper which the granola bar came in.

That one granola bar, all one inch by three inches by 3/8 of an inch thick, had forty-four, count 'em, 44 ingredients. They ran the gamut from the unpronounceable super long, vaguely Latin word to the simple and almost expected 'salt'. But at the end of the line, set off to itself in its own paragraph, I was informed that the bar 'contains a bioengineered food ingredient'.

I don't really care about that as such. Bioengineering doesn't bother me per se; we've been modifying our foodstuffs in many ways, shapes, and forms for all of human history. What perplexed and upset me was that in all the rambling quasi-nonsense about the forty-four ingredients, they couldn't take a minute to tell me which one was in fact bioengineered.

I mean, come on, now. If it's important enough to put on a package that something has been altered in a presumably questionable manner, how is it not importan to tell me exactly which item was such an offense against God and man? There's a veritable litany of ingredients, foreign and domestic, all crammed onto the back of the wrapper like an eleventh grader trying to cheat on a history test, yet you won't say which one was genetically modified? I don't get that at all.

Time to Move

I love Hessel. The quiet, the isolation; it offers a chance to charge your batteries outside the pressure of the real world. You're simply away from it all and can catch your breath.

But maybe the world is creeping up upon Hessel. Maybe it's time to move on, deeper into the interior of Michigan's glorious Upper Peninsula. Civilization it seems is catching up to the Les Cheneaux Islands. I had to wait for two cars to pass on Cedar Street before I could pull out of my driveway yesterday. Two cars.

The hustle and bustle were suffocating.

A Moment of Inspiration

An old buddy of mine, I'll call him Cloyce just to give him a name, once took a few courses at the local university. He wanted to see if college might offer anything to him.

One night he was stuck in a political science class and the discussion became tedious. What would you expect when the subject is politics? 

The group was talking about capitalists and socialists and all kinds of ists. Somewhere along the line someone asked, "What is a socialist really?" A voice at the back of the room responded, "A socialist is someone who likes to spend someone else's money."

Cloyce leaped up and yelled, "My wife is a socialist!"

Cloyce drives a truck because he flunked out of college.

Going Bananas

A couple of years ago I bought, on a whim, bananas foster ice cream; who says Marty won't try new things? It was excellent; the flavor is now a regular guest at my dessert table.

As it happens, this past week I stumbled upon bananas foster coffee. The aroma is better than the taste, and the taste is magnificent. 

So that's my history with the flavor. One day I should try actual Bananas Foster, just to see how it compares.

Uke-elar Power

I love the Beatles. They are the greatest pop-rock group. The consistency they displayed in the short time the band was complete is incredible. 

It isn't a surprise then that musicians want to emulate them. Such desire can lead to things which I wouldn't have expected.

Take the ad which came up on my Facebook feed (oh, algorithms, you know me so well) which offered a transcription of 20 Beatles songs adapted for baritone ukelele. 

Really. It's right here on Amazon. I never even knew, the thought had never crossed my mind that you can play greats such as Hey Jude and Twist and Shout on your baritone ukelele. Not to trip the triggers of my fellow baritone uke players, but try in your own head right now hearing Hey Jude on a uke. Okay, a deep sounding uke. I didn't even know such musical beasts existed. But then, I wouldn't have known about piccolo trumpets either without Penny Lane.

I don't honestly mean to make a joke about this. Well, all right, I do. No offense to aficionados of the instrument, but baritone ukelele? It sounds like something you'd hear in a comedy sketch. "All right, we're forming a band. Ron, you got your guitar. Great to have you on drums, Nick. Marty, what have you got?"

"Baritone ukelele."

"Get out! Now! Mocking our dreams like that. Someone get Phil and his cowbell."

I mean, can you see The Who smashing their baritone ukes on stage? Some things rock just isn't ready for.

Red and Blue

Dad liked to play poker. Just penny ante stuff at the kitchen table; no big stakes. Well, once years ago when he and his brothers and friends played regularly on Saturday nights he found himself on a hot streak which lasted several weeks. As most games were played at his house, Pops was teased a lot about marking the cards before the guys arrived for a game. So he decided one day to, I guess you'd say, call their bluff.

He bought a brand new deck of cards to use for the next Saturday's game. He left it in the plastic wrapping until time for the first deal, which would be his. Dad was going to make a show of how that game would be fair by opening the cards in front of the guys. It was meant to be all in good fun, going along with his being ragged about card marking.

So Saturday night came, everyone sat down, and Pops pulls out the new deck. You can all see for yourselves, fellahs, that this is a new set of playing cards which are obviously untouched, he says, or something similar. He gets a knife and cuts the clear plastic wrap, opens one end of the box, and triumphantly fans out the red-backed poker cards for all to see. Well, they were red, except the one blue-backed card (which happened to be an ace of spades!) amidst all the others. Sure, Bill, you don't mark deck.

Even Dad got a belly laugh out of that. As poker players might say about such things, 'What are the odds?'

Cleese, Rotely

My current read is an autobiography, So, Anyway...by John Cleese of Monty Python fame. The cover is the top half of his face, eyes wide open as though shocked, with blue feathers floating around him. If you get the joke you're a true Python fan. If not, you're missing on a bit of inspired humor.

The book is quite good in a very English way, and I'm sure I'll talk more about it as time goes on. But interestingly what has surprised and intrigued me most so far has nothing to do with comedy.

I had not known that Cleese taught school for two years before heading to Cambridge and what became a renowned career in a much more zany world than education, although education has become zany in a decidedly unfunny way. That however is a question for another time. 

What I was pleased to discover was that this man who I admire for his comic genius believes in a kind of education which I do too, an approach to education which is well out of favor these days yet I firmly believe ought to be widely employed in the schools. Cleese is a believer in rote learning, of drill and simply committing things to memory.

Make the kids at a young age learn the States and their Capitols. Make them learn the planets and their moons. Drill them on the multiplication tables. Have a large part of history classes a memorization of dates and events. Fill their heads with rote fact and detail. Why? Because it makes them learn to concentrate. It thus helps them think more clearly because they learn to consider and appreciate detail.

It does not surprise me that too many adults today can't think in nuance. They weren't ever taught to see detail. Knowledge has become about what we feel is true (I think we can safely interpret that as what we want to be true) rather than a consideration of what is actually true. Drill and repetition, rote learning early on, is what makes us focus on the details which we need to understand if we are to ever comprehend complex situations.

I don't care for everything Cleese says (he appears to use psychology as a crutch in the same manner he criticizes the religious using religion as a crutch) and some of his humor is far too crude. But it was fascinating and rather a delight to find that he and I agree on at least one very basic need for our schoolchildren.

Like Riding a Bike

This morning me brother Phil and I towed a car which deigned not to start (how dare that contraption!) using my newer older van and a yellow tow rope. Sure, illegal. Damn that nonsense.

We drug it to our mechanic, about a mile away from the old barn. Humm-boy, we did a good job of it too, just like in the old days when me Pops and me Grandpa Joe and the rest of us did such with regularity. And impunity, not unlike this morning. We're devil may care, we Cosgriffs. 

I drove the lead car, Phil guided the tow. We kept that rope taut the whole way too. The trick to towing with a rope is that you let the trail vehicle carry most of the braking, holding back on the lead van just enough that the rope never goes slack. What you're trying to avoid are any herky-jerky movements which may dislodge the hook where the rope attaches to the cars.

You watchin', Joe? You watchin', Pops? We still got it. Like riding a Bike.

The Truth Is

If we aren't seeking truth, then what are we doing? I can't think of a useful alternative.

Should we seek change? All that really means is doing something different today than yesterday. So why do it, unless we see that, ahem, in truth the change was worthwhile?

Perhaps we want diversity. Well, murder and carpentry are certainly diverse. It appears though that we can legitimately be a carpenter while we should not murder. How can we know this? By seeking truth.

Follow science? Science is a very raw and unfiltered discipline. It merely demonstrates low grade, rote truths: aspirin can cure headaches and the like. What we do with science is useful only through the guidance of higher truth. Science tells us poison will kill a life form and that is all. Whether we ought or ought not kill it comes from a consideration of the truth of such matters. 

Education? But don't we have to make judgments about what to teach and how to teach it? How do we determine that? By looking for truth.

I'm open to suggestion here. But you're going to need some incredibly convincing arguments to sway me. That is, if you want me to accept the truth.

Temper Temper

I know very well that me Grandpa Joe would lose his temper too quickly. But damn, some days I understand why he did.

A customer called me the other day asking about a part, which I had in stock. Upon telling him that the guy asked, "Will you be in your shop around three o'clock?" 

It was not an unfair question. As we do route sales as well as pickup and delivery, we don't really have set hours these days. "I plan on it, but if you're telling me you're coming at three I'll make sure to be here then."

"That's just it, Cosgriff. I'm busy, and I don't where I'll be at three."

Mentally, I hit the ceiling. I was instantly, though quietly, infuriated. "Why the hell are you asking me if I'll be available at three if you don't know you'll be able to come at three?" Instead I replied through gritted teeth, "Just call me when you're on your way."

I mean, really. You're asking me to commit to a time you can't commit too? Are you even thinking about what you're saying?

Sometimes Joe was right to lose his temper. I think sometimes we all are.

What's to Understand?

You know, you don't have the talk the same talk to come to an understanding. Really. 

A older Polish fella named Stanley was a drain cleaner who used to come by the old barn to get his snakes and machines repaired. I liked Stanley. He was cool guy.

He was from the mountains of western Pennsylvania, where his father worked in the coal mines. Stanley liked to tell the story of his father and his father's best friend, an Irishman who lived nearby. Both Stanley's dad and the Irishman were from their respective old countries. Stanley said that his father's heavily accented English and the friend's brogue made it hard enough to understand either of them in routine conversation. When they were drinking, they each lapsed into their native tongues.

Stanley explained that the two buddies would sit on the porch of Stanley's family home and drink on Saturday nights, recovering from the work week. As the drink took effect, they fell into Polish and Gaelic (quiet, Ron) respectively. The fascinating thing was, despite speaking different languages, they were always in total agreement. Stanley said his dad would rattle off something in Polish and the Irishman would nod approvingly. He'd then give his opinion on the matter, whatever the matter may be, in prosaic Irish. And Stanley's dad would reply in the Polish equivalent of, yeah, yeah, shaking his head in agreement. All this even though the one didn't know a peep of Gaelic and the other not a syllable of Polish.

It does make you wonder what might actually have been said. But it was a release valve for them any way you slice it.