Looking up! Better days ahead.
On our drive to a favourite walking path, Jack and I passed a 70’s-something camperized VW van. Like a lot of folks, I had one once; it was even the same colour. Not a Westphalia conversion it was a rare automatic with a whopping 2200cc engine. Compared to what we consider a camping rig fifty years later they were crude to say the least. What drew my attention to this old VW was the “Just Married” sign in its rear window. Wow! Remember those days? Right into the 70’s folks still held wedding parades between the church and the reception location. They would decorate their cars, complete with tin cans tied to the back bumper and hold a slow procession around town honking the horns. It was a tradition that had folks along their route rushing out to wave and see if it was anyone they knew. And of course they did if the town was small enough. Today, if anyone carried on like that, they’d probably be ticketed by the police for several infractions. The only person rushing out for a look would be a divorce lawyer to hand out business cards.
After an encounter with yet another Covid-masked bully I found myself writing like a hairball rolling before the wind; just discarded bits of DNA getting bigger and bigger and of absolutely no value. Eeech! I left it to sit and ferment but finally I scrubbed my acid words after I dug into some current news stories and ended up even more confused. The numbers I researched on police violence and racial percentages did not add up. They could be used to prove anything in any way as they so often do. There’s rhetoric aplenty about all issues. All I can offer is that all of us, yes me too, should consider consequences a little more. In fact consideration of cause and effect is perhaps a cornerstone of stable civilization. Psychopathic ping-pong; That’s how we talk and act, with no regard for the effects of what we do and say, who we hurt or how we damage ourselves or our future.
Think of the current pandemic and the racism monster. Both are a direct result of folks who did not think ahead about the results of inaction and poor choices. And instead of thinking it all through, folks are working on new apps. Perhaps someone will come up with one that calculates consequences of a given action. The “impeachment” word was conveniently wrapped inside with the Covid crisis and now racism is binding all the mess together. In the knee-jerk reactions to it all folks are tearing down statutes of clearly once-revered leaders. Now Theodore Roosevelt is being pulled down. He was, I thought, regarded as a progressive and esteemed leader, a cornerstone example of what a US president should be. Now he is being dubbed “A colonialist.” Guess I’ve read the wrong history books. I thought the US had long been a sovereign state when Teddy hit the saddle. In the meantime the tsunami of the second Covid wave may well be building and racing toward our shores…as I write. Someone has decided it will not arrive until next winter and we’ll be ready. Yeah OK! But the numbers are rising now. So?
I stand by my mantra that “All Lives Matter.” I am concerned that the media’s careless determination to create an impression police violence is somehow targeted only at blacks will undermine the whole new movement against racism. But the movement needs to be to promote equality between all people. I am not denigrating any person or all the serious issues but the media has an obligation to be objective and honest. It is clearly not. While subjectivity may sell better, credibility will sell longer. Do your own homework and raise your own questions. Be prepared to find that the real story may be barely recognizable.
I can add nothing to the solution so let me share some humour.
Here’s a hand-painted sign I saw recently, “Clean fill wanted…but I’ll settle for a dirty woman!”
Or a bumper sticker, “Sasquatch doesn’t believe in you either.”
I have a T-shirt with a silhouette of a Bigfoot and the inscription, “Introvert.”
The princess of cute. She’s the newest family member, but not in Jack’s house.
Yesterday afternoon while walking with Jack around the perimeter of a very large hay field, a tiny homemade aeroplane high overhead practised some “Happy Flying.” Long ago I used to do that and yes, there was an ache for those magic days now passed. Although long suppressed, aviation is as much a part of my fibre as messing with boats. Easily recognizable as a home-built aircraft, it was one of several mid-wing designs which fly very well with low horsepower. This one had the unmistakable clatter of a Continental 85. The pilot flew basic aerobatics: stalls, spins, loops, chandelles, Immelmans and Cuban eights, all flawlessly. He was going nowhere and was just up there for the simple joy of it. He or she didn’t know it, but I was in that tiny cockpit too, twisting and turning, pulling the G’s and looking down on the spectacular aqua mosaic of the Gulf Islands. The joy of the moment! For a few minutes I partook vicariously. It was grand. Thank you for that, whomever you are. You made my day.
“If you try to fail, and succeed, which have you done?”
― George Carlin