“If you want to make enemies, try to change things.” President Woodrow Wilson
We were dead asleep. The early morning silence exploded by the piercing bark of our dog, Mac. A limp arm fell with a thud on my chest, and a sleepy voice said, “Your time.” Mac barked again. The clock read 5:44. We lay there, pretending to sleep, each waiting for the other to capitulate. More barking. My time. I rolled out and dealt with it.
It’s another “new normal” day for a dog unaccustomed to daylight savings time. But since he’s always hungry, I do the easy thing … feed him. He shuts up. “Old normal” returns.
Words and phrases, like voguish food, appear on the scene and generate a great deal of attention. Like supernovas, they streak through the celestial heavens of TV, movies or publications. Some burn out from overuse and fade into the dark oblivion of history. Much like celebrities, politicians and women’s clothes. They provide considerable interest as they make the circuit but lose their potency when they become haggard idioms. Remember “cool, groovy, ubiquitous, far-out, what-would-Jesus-do and right-on?” Check the dust bin of history.
Besides “New Normal,” other words, whose shelf-lives are close to expiring, are “toxic, snarky, bailout, derivatives, too big to fail, credit-default swaps and cougars,” to name a few. Reg recently lobbed a rigid up-and-comer: “sclerotic.” And the word “transparency”… a nasty little lie.
“New normal” gets traction by describing the adjustments Americans are making to cope in the recent Great Recession. Seismic events always shake the status quo. Something new emerges. The “old” is replaced by a new set of realities. Maybe the falling axe is a kinder way of forcing change than attrition’s steady drip, drip, drip. Whichever. Still we cling to the old, the tried, and the predictable, leaning on weak reeds.
Mac now lies at my feet…a full belly, soft carpet, life is normal again for him. The old continues to clutter our lives like dead leaves from the orange trees, slain by the recent brutal artic chill. We wait for another shoe to drop, even as we move on like zombies into another day of the “new normal.” We have no choice.
Hunger energizes me also. I wandered into Larry’s Subs, sat down with Dennis, my chief mechanic. He’s reading an automotive magazine and proceeds to tell me about how car computers have revolutionized the business. “Did you know,” he exclaimed,” that all of a BMW’s functions are computerized and can be downloaded into its key?” I answer, “Far out, dude, what does this mean?” He replies, “The shade-tree mechanics are toast, it’s the new normal.”
Afterwards, I visit the bank. Ann, my friend and peer, sits at a desk, surrounded by volumes of files and paper. “What’s all this?” I ask. “Dead dreams, pal, foreclosed properties, the end of an era for many.” We lament for these, the Lost. At our ages we’re also on the trailing edge an era. We’d both rather be somewhere else, doing something other. She tells me I’ve encouraged her to write memoirs. I ask to see some. “Later,” she says, “when my secrets won’t destroy me.”
She passes me off to Jeff, 41 years old, the bank’s “tough guy.” We dance around the issue of pricing for these “failed assets.” I lose, change the subject, ask him what he does daily. “We don’t lend, we’re debt collectors. It’s the new normal,” he says.
I headed across the causeway, stunned by the news of the devastation caused by the earthquake in Haiti. Whatever “old normal” that country once had has disappeared in a few short minutes. I wonder what the “new normal” will be for the people of that ravaged island. The sun sinks orange into the western marshes of Glynn. I’m thankful that some of the “old normal” abides.
After dinner we watch the bombshell drop in Massachusetts as Scott Brown ends the Kennedy dynasty in the U.S. Senate. He accepts the victory with a promise of a new change, one dictated by fiscal restraint and common sense. Wow! A politician promising the possibility of a “new normal.” We’re encouraged.
It’s bed time. I pick Mac up, place him in his bed. He sleeps, everything’s normal. I want to make sense of this “new normal,” so I exhume a Latin phrase, “solvitur ambulando,” the walking solution…the thing will work itself out as we move on. I sleep with it.
Humans can adjust to anything, in time. Our household’s returning to the basics, and it feels good! I just might get used to this “new normal”... until Mac barks again! What’s new around your place?
Bud Hearn
January 28, 2010
Thursday, January 28, 2010
Thursday, January 21, 2010
A Perfect Pound Cake
“…and she felt in her body that she was healed of that plague.” Mark 5: 29
One morning just before Christmas, with food on our minds, I was reading my recipe book, the Bible, looking for mixtures that work. To my encouragement, Carolyn, my wife, was studying up on one of her cook books, looking for the right mixture for a perfect pound cake.
The directions were quite specific: combine eggs, butter, flour and sugar…with a special emphasis on butter and sugar. Put them in a pan, bake at 350 degrees for 60 minutes, and viola, a pound cake. Later, after a trip to Target for a new cake pan, and a couple of trial runs, the mixture worked. Screams of delight echoed in the kitchen as a perfect pound cake emerged from the oven. Of course, perfect pound cakes are not for display, but baked to be eaten.
With tall glasses of cold milk, a frenzied brood attacked like piranhas the perfect product. Perfect pound cakes don’t last very long…but their results do! More gym time. There’s a cost to all things, don’tcha know? Such is the fate of all partakers of perfect pound cakes, and maybe other things as well.
The basic pound cake ingredients are quite simple, really. The real secret is always in the perfect mixture, time and oven heat. It is less a science than an art…and on that day Carolyn perfected the art!
Pound cakes are a tradition in our family. My grandmother, Jewel (she was not so-named for no good reason!), set the standard—no recipe book necessary. She had in her memory the perfect admixture of the ingredients. Not that the family didn’t beg her to reveal the secret. As a lover of crossword puzzles, Carolyn has come dangerously close to figuring it out.
Jewel was a Mystic...they see what we don’t. My mother once asked her to shed a little light on how she’d perfected this recipe. According to my mother, she replied that she actually “saw” the perfect pattern for a pound cake in heaven, and all she did was to follow the directions. She said it was from her study of Plato, who allowed that in heaven there’s a perfect pattern for everything on earth…but that the finished product was never quite perfect because it was made with human hands. Imagine Julia Childs trying to make sense of this notion!
Plato died, and Jewel joined him. Neither revealed their secret of the heavenly pattern or the earthly product. Life has not been the same for our family since! Fortunes have been squandered attempting to replicate the heavenly pound cake template to no avail. Hence the family remains bereft in cash and lacking in consistently perfect pound cakes. We once tried séances held by a carnival grifter from Chicago who passed through town. Chants and invocations fell on deaf ears from this departed duo, and we remain clueless as to their secret.
I had an aunt, RIP, who had done quite a bit of genealogy on our family tree. Apparently she had discovered some of the “missing links” that would connect us more perfectly. She would never pass these secrets on, either. Must run in the family. We all suspected there was some atavistic gene that “her side” passed down to the rest of us that in some way made “our side” less than perfect. But we could never prove it, and she wasn’t giving it up. It caused a mild consternation in the family. Forgiveness is hard in the land of little towns.
I say all this to say this: our recipe for repairing the republic is not working. We’re cookin’ up something that is inedible and the body politic is violently ill from eatin’ it. Not that we’ve ever had a perfect republic, which is impossible, for it’s made by humans. It will never be perfect. Yet the ingredients for something more perfect remain basic and are not secrets. Remember, “We the people of the United States, in order to form a more perfect union…”?
There are too many cooks in the kitchen. The cooks, crooks, carnival grifters and recipe charlatans are concocting a vile and toxic mixture for our consumption. The label should read, “Prepare to meet thy Maker if you eat this!”
The Bible story of the woman healed of her plague had a simple recipe: there must be Faith in the Petitioner and Virtue in the Healer. I wonder what our citizenry might cook up with this admixture?
A perfect pound cake, or a perfect republic…maybe Jewel and Plato have left us their secret after all. What will we do with it before it’s too late?
Bud Hearn
January 21, 2010
One morning just before Christmas, with food on our minds, I was reading my recipe book, the Bible, looking for mixtures that work. To my encouragement, Carolyn, my wife, was studying up on one of her cook books, looking for the right mixture for a perfect pound cake.
The directions were quite specific: combine eggs, butter, flour and sugar…with a special emphasis on butter and sugar. Put them in a pan, bake at 350 degrees for 60 minutes, and viola, a pound cake. Later, after a trip to Target for a new cake pan, and a couple of trial runs, the mixture worked. Screams of delight echoed in the kitchen as a perfect pound cake emerged from the oven. Of course, perfect pound cakes are not for display, but baked to be eaten.
With tall glasses of cold milk, a frenzied brood attacked like piranhas the perfect product. Perfect pound cakes don’t last very long…but their results do! More gym time. There’s a cost to all things, don’tcha know? Such is the fate of all partakers of perfect pound cakes, and maybe other things as well.
The basic pound cake ingredients are quite simple, really. The real secret is always in the perfect mixture, time and oven heat. It is less a science than an art…and on that day Carolyn perfected the art!
Pound cakes are a tradition in our family. My grandmother, Jewel (she was not so-named for no good reason!), set the standard—no recipe book necessary. She had in her memory the perfect admixture of the ingredients. Not that the family didn’t beg her to reveal the secret. As a lover of crossword puzzles, Carolyn has come dangerously close to figuring it out.
Jewel was a Mystic...they see what we don’t. My mother once asked her to shed a little light on how she’d perfected this recipe. According to my mother, she replied that she actually “saw” the perfect pattern for a pound cake in heaven, and all she did was to follow the directions. She said it was from her study of Plato, who allowed that in heaven there’s a perfect pattern for everything on earth…but that the finished product was never quite perfect because it was made with human hands. Imagine Julia Childs trying to make sense of this notion!
Plato died, and Jewel joined him. Neither revealed their secret of the heavenly pattern or the earthly product. Life has not been the same for our family since! Fortunes have been squandered attempting to replicate the heavenly pound cake template to no avail. Hence the family remains bereft in cash and lacking in consistently perfect pound cakes. We once tried séances held by a carnival grifter from Chicago who passed through town. Chants and invocations fell on deaf ears from this departed duo, and we remain clueless as to their secret.
I had an aunt, RIP, who had done quite a bit of genealogy on our family tree. Apparently she had discovered some of the “missing links” that would connect us more perfectly. She would never pass these secrets on, either. Must run in the family. We all suspected there was some atavistic gene that “her side” passed down to the rest of us that in some way made “our side” less than perfect. But we could never prove it, and she wasn’t giving it up. It caused a mild consternation in the family. Forgiveness is hard in the land of little towns.
I say all this to say this: our recipe for repairing the republic is not working. We’re cookin’ up something that is inedible and the body politic is violently ill from eatin’ it. Not that we’ve ever had a perfect republic, which is impossible, for it’s made by humans. It will never be perfect. Yet the ingredients for something more perfect remain basic and are not secrets. Remember, “We the people of the United States, in order to form a more perfect union…”?
There are too many cooks in the kitchen. The cooks, crooks, carnival grifters and recipe charlatans are concocting a vile and toxic mixture for our consumption. The label should read, “Prepare to meet thy Maker if you eat this!”
The Bible story of the woman healed of her plague had a simple recipe: there must be Faith in the Petitioner and Virtue in the Healer. I wonder what our citizenry might cook up with this admixture?
A perfect pound cake, or a perfect republic…maybe Jewel and Plato have left us their secret after all. What will we do with it before it’s too late?
Bud Hearn
January 21, 2010
Thursday, January 14, 2010
Dear Barry:
Brilliant! Airport scans…YES! At last, the era of full disclosure and revelation.
Finally, no more of those smelly, crotch-sniffing dogs or the noisy TSA goons hanging around the men’s room inspecting people with suspicious bulges in underwear. And this idea of personal “vigilance?” Well, frankly, Barry, that got to be little too much to ask us to do. Isn’t that Homeland’s job?
Only The Cool One could have conceived a plan so universal as to unveil the façade of conceit and pretense. As quick as a shutter lens, scans will reveal full transparency and lay bare all false imagination. You’re The Man! After all, in America, all we have to fear is what we can’t see. Man, you’ve laid this fear to rest. Unbelievable.
Those 450 new full-body scans will unclothe strutting dissemblers who wear the thin veneer of pretense. I can see it now—TSA voyeurs flashing 1-10 cards as we pass through. You stripped us, dude. Slick! Congratulations. Pure genius. It’ll expose those scoffers who say you don’t deserve the Nobel Peace Prize, and the Copenhagen fiasco will fade into oblivion. Virtuoso!
There are more benefits to these full-body scans. Foremost, overly-modest terrorists will think twice before risking exposure on future internet porn sites. Oh, I know what the ACLU is saying…harping on civil liberties and all that crap. We know you’ve created this ruse to confuse the public and provide cover. Terrific.
You’ve been accused of being partisan and lacking transparency. Ok, Ok, so you’ve had to take a bullet on that for Nan and that weasel Harry. Understandable. Just imagine a scan of those two…gives au natural a very ugly undressing. But these scans will silence critics of your total commitment to the end of the American masquerade. May I suggest a new mantra? “Transparent to the Core.” Catchy, huh?
Barry, we do have a big problem…unemployment. The Blue party will be stripped bare of its piety come election day and risk exposure. Start with promoting R & D on disposal lingerie…or perhaps auction rights to the marketing of used scanned images. Americans spend wildly on all things sexy. Also, more jobs for TSA. Hire Muslims, get ‘em off the streets. They vote, too. Nobody can accuse them of racial profiling. Dazzling!
Some will ask how you intend to fund this. No problem. Tax and Sell. Sell franchise of video rights for the most ghastly or exceptional scans to Hollywood…reality shows pay big money for smut, and there’ll be a lot of that being scanned. Besides, who doesn’t want their own 15 minutes? You’ll show ‘em there’s more to you than meets the eye!
Some say Janet orchestrated the Christmas Bomber to deflect the disrobing and criticism of Cap and Trade, Health Care and bank bonuses. We don’t buy that, Barry, since the Open Records Act is translucent. Eric at Justice has it covered, right?
There will be detractors. The Union of Concerned Scientists claims that these scanners cause cancer. But since you’ve crammed down universal health care, what are a few more cancers among so many? More jobs, fewer people. A bonus. The Mortician’s Union will be the last to let you down. Keep your union base or your own hypocrisy will be laid bare. Simply launder more Stimulus II funds. Concoct your own scientific study. No two scientists can agree on anything. Besides, lies cannot be scanned.
Barry, there is one serious negative to these scan machines…the exploitation of small children under the pretense of national security. This is a thin veil. You can’t possibly hire more Homeland Security degenerates and perverts to operate the screening cameras. You know where I’m heading, don’t you, Barry? Better get back to the think tank on this one, pronto.
Your plan is going to be “historic.” Your favorite word, Barry…it’s self-fulfilling. The truth about history is that you get the credit for the achievement now, which, politically-speaking, is everything. History will later obfuscate it, dressing it up with silly nuance. Even you won’t be able to recognize it.
Satis verborum…enough words. Barry, a great legacy lies open to you. Forget the penny-ante revelations of yourself with that stupid bow in China, or handshake with that Venezuelan buffoon Chavez. Public nudity will be your historic legacy.
Down here in Georgia we have billboards along I-75 (kinda like the one in Times Square of you on the Great Wall, remember?). Truckstops advertise, “We Bare All.” Get rid of that “change we can believe in” nonsense. End the charade…go for billboards, flash a shiny moon and grin, “Barry Bares All.” Imagine the possibilities.
Tell Rahmbo to give me a shout…I got the real estate covered.
Spuriously insincere, I remain,
Bud Hearn
January 14, 2010
Brilliant! Airport scans…YES! At last, the era of full disclosure and revelation.
Finally, no more of those smelly, crotch-sniffing dogs or the noisy TSA goons hanging around the men’s room inspecting people with suspicious bulges in underwear. And this idea of personal “vigilance?” Well, frankly, Barry, that got to be little too much to ask us to do. Isn’t that Homeland’s job?
Only The Cool One could have conceived a plan so universal as to unveil the façade of conceit and pretense. As quick as a shutter lens, scans will reveal full transparency and lay bare all false imagination. You’re The Man! After all, in America, all we have to fear is what we can’t see. Man, you’ve laid this fear to rest. Unbelievable.
Those 450 new full-body scans will unclothe strutting dissemblers who wear the thin veneer of pretense. I can see it now—TSA voyeurs flashing 1-10 cards as we pass through. You stripped us, dude. Slick! Congratulations. Pure genius. It’ll expose those scoffers who say you don’t deserve the Nobel Peace Prize, and the Copenhagen fiasco will fade into oblivion. Virtuoso!
There are more benefits to these full-body scans. Foremost, overly-modest terrorists will think twice before risking exposure on future internet porn sites. Oh, I know what the ACLU is saying…harping on civil liberties and all that crap. We know you’ve created this ruse to confuse the public and provide cover. Terrific.
You’ve been accused of being partisan and lacking transparency. Ok, Ok, so you’ve had to take a bullet on that for Nan and that weasel Harry. Understandable. Just imagine a scan of those two…gives au natural a very ugly undressing. But these scans will silence critics of your total commitment to the end of the American masquerade. May I suggest a new mantra? “Transparent to the Core.” Catchy, huh?
Barry, we do have a big problem…unemployment. The Blue party will be stripped bare of its piety come election day and risk exposure. Start with promoting R & D on disposal lingerie…or perhaps auction rights to the marketing of used scanned images. Americans spend wildly on all things sexy. Also, more jobs for TSA. Hire Muslims, get ‘em off the streets. They vote, too. Nobody can accuse them of racial profiling. Dazzling!
Some will ask how you intend to fund this. No problem. Tax and Sell. Sell franchise of video rights for the most ghastly or exceptional scans to Hollywood…reality shows pay big money for smut, and there’ll be a lot of that being scanned. Besides, who doesn’t want their own 15 minutes? You’ll show ‘em there’s more to you than meets the eye!
Some say Janet orchestrated the Christmas Bomber to deflect the disrobing and criticism of Cap and Trade, Health Care and bank bonuses. We don’t buy that, Barry, since the Open Records Act is translucent. Eric at Justice has it covered, right?
There will be detractors. The Union of Concerned Scientists claims that these scanners cause cancer. But since you’ve crammed down universal health care, what are a few more cancers among so many? More jobs, fewer people. A bonus. The Mortician’s Union will be the last to let you down. Keep your union base or your own hypocrisy will be laid bare. Simply launder more Stimulus II funds. Concoct your own scientific study. No two scientists can agree on anything. Besides, lies cannot be scanned.
Barry, there is one serious negative to these scan machines…the exploitation of small children under the pretense of national security. This is a thin veil. You can’t possibly hire more Homeland Security degenerates and perverts to operate the screening cameras. You know where I’m heading, don’t you, Barry? Better get back to the think tank on this one, pronto.
Your plan is going to be “historic.” Your favorite word, Barry…it’s self-fulfilling. The truth about history is that you get the credit for the achievement now, which, politically-speaking, is everything. History will later obfuscate it, dressing it up with silly nuance. Even you won’t be able to recognize it.
Satis verborum…enough words. Barry, a great legacy lies open to you. Forget the penny-ante revelations of yourself with that stupid bow in China, or handshake with that Venezuelan buffoon Chavez. Public nudity will be your historic legacy.
Down here in Georgia we have billboards along I-75 (kinda like the one in Times Square of you on the Great Wall, remember?). Truckstops advertise, “We Bare All.” Get rid of that “change we can believe in” nonsense. End the charade…go for billboards, flash a shiny moon and grin, “Barry Bares All.” Imagine the possibilities.
Tell Rahmbo to give me a shout…I got the real estate covered.
Spuriously insincere, I remain,
Bud Hearn
January 14, 2010
Thursday, January 7, 2010
The Dip…An End of Ennui
“… (Cortes) stared at the Pacific—and all his men looked at each other with a wild surmise—silent, upon a peak in Darien.” Keats
"Why?” she said aloud as she stood upon the beach with a camera, fully clothed and in her right mind. Others had sought the outdoor heater, all staring at the crowd of about 200 that had assembled upon the crest of the beach’s edge. “Why would they gather, half naked, like an assembly of the insane upon this sandy escarpment?” She was only there because her husband was among the congregants. But she wondered.
A gray cloud cover hung low over the ocean, obscuring the sun. The wind was light, variable. The water temperature was 57 degrees, the wave action negligible, the tide high. It was January 1, 2010.
Like a flock of pelicans, the assembly stood expectant, anticipatory, shivering in swim suits in the raw, frigid air. They waited for the 9:00 hour when “it” would happen. After all, it had become a tradition to fling oneself into the swirling ocean waters every New Year’s Day, irrespective of nature’s caprice. “But why?”
Another crowd had gathered within the tent, shaking off the chill, drinking hot chocolate and coffee and collectively asking, “Why?” There were no answers to such questions for those fully clothed, warm and out of the elements. The answer was found only with the Extremists, those enduring whatever nature had to offer at the time. Today they again stood on the shore, waiting—wondering what it’d be like this year—knowing already.
The crowd soon became restless in its desire to “get it over with,” this ritual they signed on for in the comfort of their homes some days earlier. A lot of things are easy in such comfort, often after some bet or surfeit of alcohol…but pulling oneself from the down comforter on an artic morning, in a sound mind, enduring ridicule, took guts. Such endeavors are not for sissies! So now they had come, psyched and prepared for the icy waters.
The line formed behind the yellow tape, and the crier shouted, “5-4-3-2-1…Go!” Like the violent rush of a herd of demon-possessed Gadarene swine, the horde hurled headlong into the swirling brine, the icy and angry waters of the Atlantic Ocean swallowing them up. The tent spectators stood amazed, speechless, shaking their heads in disbelief, but inwardly relieved as the waters soon released the convocation of fools, those they had married or birthed. “Where did they get that aberrant gene,” they all thought to themselves, hoping they’d not passed it on to their offspring.
As quickly as they had committed themselves to the sea, they retreated to the waiting towels, their breath rising in a vaporous gas into the chilled air. They’d done it, again, survived what nature had dictated that day without harm. “Why?” The question lingered, floating in the morning air.
She made pictures of her husband’s group, “The Intrepids” (so-called and boastful perhaps, she thought, but age is allowed some perks, if only in words). They mingled with the departing crowd, collecting a commemorative cup emblazoned with the event and date. Cheesy, some said, expecting a towel like last year. But hey, the times require frugality.
“Why,” she asked her husband, and others. Another asked, “What did that prove?”
The answer had not been rehearsed, of course, but everyone who took “The Plunge” knew. It was not about accolades, machismo, feats of bravery, or sheer absurdity. It was more abstract than that. It was about being alive again, if only for a short while, in a world of chaos and change.
She asked him, “Why do you do this?” He thought for a long moment and responded.
“Why? Why anything? It’s about life, abundant life now. There is no distance on this earth as far away as yesterday. And living is not about achieving some end result, which is but some scattered memories, an engraved marble slab or a decorative urn filled with ashes. Life is about the process of living each day, independent of all the others. That’s why I do this, to experience life again today in a world that has no yesterday.”
Then he added, “Speaking of life, let’s get a cup of chocolate, go home, stoke the fire and cook up some eggs, grits and smoked bacon…now that’s really living on the first day of 2010.”
Bud Hearn
January 7, 2009
"Why?” she said aloud as she stood upon the beach with a camera, fully clothed and in her right mind. Others had sought the outdoor heater, all staring at the crowd of about 200 that had assembled upon the crest of the beach’s edge. “Why would they gather, half naked, like an assembly of the insane upon this sandy escarpment?” She was only there because her husband was among the congregants. But she wondered.
A gray cloud cover hung low over the ocean, obscuring the sun. The wind was light, variable. The water temperature was 57 degrees, the wave action negligible, the tide high. It was January 1, 2010.
Like a flock of pelicans, the assembly stood expectant, anticipatory, shivering in swim suits in the raw, frigid air. They waited for the 9:00 hour when “it” would happen. After all, it had become a tradition to fling oneself into the swirling ocean waters every New Year’s Day, irrespective of nature’s caprice. “But why?”
Another crowd had gathered within the tent, shaking off the chill, drinking hot chocolate and coffee and collectively asking, “Why?” There were no answers to such questions for those fully clothed, warm and out of the elements. The answer was found only with the Extremists, those enduring whatever nature had to offer at the time. Today they again stood on the shore, waiting—wondering what it’d be like this year—knowing already.
The crowd soon became restless in its desire to “get it over with,” this ritual they signed on for in the comfort of their homes some days earlier. A lot of things are easy in such comfort, often after some bet or surfeit of alcohol…but pulling oneself from the down comforter on an artic morning, in a sound mind, enduring ridicule, took guts. Such endeavors are not for sissies! So now they had come, psyched and prepared for the icy waters.
The line formed behind the yellow tape, and the crier shouted, “5-4-3-2-1…Go!” Like the violent rush of a herd of demon-possessed Gadarene swine, the horde hurled headlong into the swirling brine, the icy and angry waters of the Atlantic Ocean swallowing them up. The tent spectators stood amazed, speechless, shaking their heads in disbelief, but inwardly relieved as the waters soon released the convocation of fools, those they had married or birthed. “Where did they get that aberrant gene,” they all thought to themselves, hoping they’d not passed it on to their offspring.
As quickly as they had committed themselves to the sea, they retreated to the waiting towels, their breath rising in a vaporous gas into the chilled air. They’d done it, again, survived what nature had dictated that day without harm. “Why?” The question lingered, floating in the morning air.
She made pictures of her husband’s group, “The Intrepids” (so-called and boastful perhaps, she thought, but age is allowed some perks, if only in words). They mingled with the departing crowd, collecting a commemorative cup emblazoned with the event and date. Cheesy, some said, expecting a towel like last year. But hey, the times require frugality.
“Why,” she asked her husband, and others. Another asked, “What did that prove?”
The answer had not been rehearsed, of course, but everyone who took “The Plunge” knew. It was not about accolades, machismo, feats of bravery, or sheer absurdity. It was more abstract than that. It was about being alive again, if only for a short while, in a world of chaos and change.
She asked him, “Why do you do this?” He thought for a long moment and responded.
“Why? Why anything? It’s about life, abundant life now. There is no distance on this earth as far away as yesterday. And living is not about achieving some end result, which is but some scattered memories, an engraved marble slab or a decorative urn filled with ashes. Life is about the process of living each day, independent of all the others. That’s why I do this, to experience life again today in a world that has no yesterday.”
Then he added, “Speaking of life, let’s get a cup of chocolate, go home, stoke the fire and cook up some eggs, grits and smoked bacon…now that’s really living on the first day of 2010.”
Bud Hearn
January 7, 2009
Saturday, January 2, 2010
Lighten Up While You Can
“For we brought nothing into this world, and it’s certain we can carry nothing out… St. Paul
He stood naked on the edge of the summit and looked across a black abyss into the bleak countryside of 2010. In the distance a glimmer of light shown through a tunnel carved into a mountain. The landscape was otherwise desolate, uninhabited, a waste land.
He stared into an unfamiliar future, an enigma so incomprehensible that his over-inflated ego could not grasp it. For in reality, the future is a phantom. He shivered in the chill of the vast immensity that lay before him, and into which he must travel. He had no choice but to move on.
About his feet lay baggage that for years he’d hauled around on his journey---scarred, shattered and scattered at the trail’s end. He’d become enslaved by the weight of a burden too heave to tote. So he abandoned it. Backwards he glanced down the long road of 2009, and what he saw made him shudder. Lying strewn in the dust of that dying year was the baggage of fellow sojourners who were also passing in this way, cargo of all sorts and colors, expensive and cheap. Like himself, they’d groaned under the loads of the useless superfluity of The American Dream.
It doesn’t take much of an imagination to realize that 2009 had been a year of ugly realities for most Americans. Just look behind at the rotting detritus that we’ve collectively scattered in the wake of what some have called “progress.” And the carnage is not over yet. There are not enough bags to go around, and the factories work overtime in replenishing these means of toting loads that outstrip needs.
Look over your shoulder…can you see it? The road is littered, layer upon layer, with baggage from our past, suitcases and duffels bulging with the superfluity of merchandise made everywhere but in America. Pasted on them, like miniature Lautrec multi-colored posters from places previously visited, are symbols of Orwellian doublespeak---TARP, Bailout, Too Big to Fail, New Normal, Health Care Reform, Transparency, Bi-partisan Support and the like. They boastfully advertise the promises of change…the kind we can really believe in.
Barely into a new year, maybe it’s a good time to examine the contents of our luggage. Perhaps we can do without some of it. Aphoristically speaking, all new beginnings begin at the end of something. And on every summit we stare into a dark abyss. How can we lighten our load?
Remember youth? We could tote a lot then. In those days my friend Dewey and I would load his jeep, heading for the mountains. Like the Joads from Oklahoma, the jeep bulged with every known convenience for a comfortable camp in the woods. Later, we got into backpacking. We squeezed into a 40 pound backpack enough of life’s necessities for a week on the Appalachian Trail. We never missed the surplus.
When people were cracked out on the running craze, we discovered it was possible to run 20-mile trail segments all but naked, in shorts and a tee, lugging only a 12 once bottle of water. We could then spend the night in a comfortable motel with cold beer at day’s end. Twenty miles proved too easy…it moved to 35, then to 50. It’s amazing how little we really need….or how obsessive we can become!
Which would beg the question: Why carry all this unnecessary paraphernalia through life, straining year after year under the load? We’re tricked, that’s why. Invariably age and the “what-ifs” of life begin to creep under the door. Soon we begin to smell the rancid breath of Fear. Before long this tyrant has teamed up with the advertising community, promising to solve the problem which it itself has created. The problem? Say it with me, “Not Enough!” And we’ve bought into it.
What can we do to lighten the load? Get naked, that’s what. When we cross into a new year, leave some bags…shed everything unnecessary. Then, as William Least Heat-Moon said, we might become energized and “live the real jeopardy of circumstance.”
What can you do without? For those who are dismissive, saying, “Oh, No, enough is never enough” or “what if,” remember…the only way to paradise is in a hearse.
So, as you move on into the future, carry with you one simple bit of wisdom: There are no pockets in a shroud! Buy the ticket, take the ride!
Bud Hearn
January 2, 2010
He stood naked on the edge of the summit and looked across a black abyss into the bleak countryside of 2010. In the distance a glimmer of light shown through a tunnel carved into a mountain. The landscape was otherwise desolate, uninhabited, a waste land.
He stared into an unfamiliar future, an enigma so incomprehensible that his over-inflated ego could not grasp it. For in reality, the future is a phantom. He shivered in the chill of the vast immensity that lay before him, and into which he must travel. He had no choice but to move on.
About his feet lay baggage that for years he’d hauled around on his journey---scarred, shattered and scattered at the trail’s end. He’d become enslaved by the weight of a burden too heave to tote. So he abandoned it. Backwards he glanced down the long road of 2009, and what he saw made him shudder. Lying strewn in the dust of that dying year was the baggage of fellow sojourners who were also passing in this way, cargo of all sorts and colors, expensive and cheap. Like himself, they’d groaned under the loads of the useless superfluity of The American Dream.
It doesn’t take much of an imagination to realize that 2009 had been a year of ugly realities for most Americans. Just look behind at the rotting detritus that we’ve collectively scattered in the wake of what some have called “progress.” And the carnage is not over yet. There are not enough bags to go around, and the factories work overtime in replenishing these means of toting loads that outstrip needs.
Look over your shoulder…can you see it? The road is littered, layer upon layer, with baggage from our past, suitcases and duffels bulging with the superfluity of merchandise made everywhere but in America. Pasted on them, like miniature Lautrec multi-colored posters from places previously visited, are symbols of Orwellian doublespeak---TARP, Bailout, Too Big to Fail, New Normal, Health Care Reform, Transparency, Bi-partisan Support and the like. They boastfully advertise the promises of change…the kind we can really believe in.
Barely into a new year, maybe it’s a good time to examine the contents of our luggage. Perhaps we can do without some of it. Aphoristically speaking, all new beginnings begin at the end of something. And on every summit we stare into a dark abyss. How can we lighten our load?
Remember youth? We could tote a lot then. In those days my friend Dewey and I would load his jeep, heading for the mountains. Like the Joads from Oklahoma, the jeep bulged with every known convenience for a comfortable camp in the woods. Later, we got into backpacking. We squeezed into a 40 pound backpack enough of life’s necessities for a week on the Appalachian Trail. We never missed the surplus.
When people were cracked out on the running craze, we discovered it was possible to run 20-mile trail segments all but naked, in shorts and a tee, lugging only a 12 once bottle of water. We could then spend the night in a comfortable motel with cold beer at day’s end. Twenty miles proved too easy…it moved to 35, then to 50. It’s amazing how little we really need….or how obsessive we can become!
Which would beg the question: Why carry all this unnecessary paraphernalia through life, straining year after year under the load? We’re tricked, that’s why. Invariably age and the “what-ifs” of life begin to creep under the door. Soon we begin to smell the rancid breath of Fear. Before long this tyrant has teamed up with the advertising community, promising to solve the problem which it itself has created. The problem? Say it with me, “Not Enough!” And we’ve bought into it.
What can we do to lighten the load? Get naked, that’s what. When we cross into a new year, leave some bags…shed everything unnecessary. Then, as William Least Heat-Moon said, we might become energized and “live the real jeopardy of circumstance.”
What can you do without? For those who are dismissive, saying, “Oh, No, enough is never enough” or “what if,” remember…the only way to paradise is in a hearse.
So, as you move on into the future, carry with you one simple bit of wisdom: There are no pockets in a shroud! Buy the ticket, take the ride!
Bud Hearn
January 2, 2010
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