Digressions of a Dilettante

Digressions of a Dilettante
Vignettes of Inanity by Bud Hearn

Friday, April 24, 2015

A Simple Oil Leak


A lot of things start small. They almost never end that way. My dilemma didn’t.

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It was just a small oil leak on the pristine (haha) garage floor. I spotted it but kept quiet. Being small, I figured it would soon self-correct. Many things will, you know. Procrastinators are lazy and have flawed thinking processes.

No secrets remain hidden for long. Mine was exposed when my daughter spotted what had become a massive oil slick beneath her car. It was a ghastly scene, I must admit. Something must now be done. And doing things for cars always costs.

The patient is a 2005 Mercedes convertible. Since Mercedes is now made in Alabama, not Germany, the shelf life has changed from thirty years to three. Planned obsolesce, of course, and cotton farmers make for a poor labor pool.

The dealer in Jacksonville has a slick operation of its own. It’s based on the Mayo Clinic model, only a hospital for sick and dying cars. All hospitals are proficient in extracting one’s last farthing in fees.

Oil is the life blood of cars. Repairs require the expertise of vascular mechanics. They’re trained at Mechanics Med School of America and have huge student loans to pay. Can you guess their hourly rates?

I arrive and am ushered under a gigantic canopy. White-starched shirted young men swarm my vehicle. They’re solicitous and work night jobs as valets at the local beach resorts. They’ve perfected of the art of the ‘open-palms’ handshake. Solicitations take many forms. After spreading around a few fives, out of nowhere my service manager arrives.

Frank, his nametag reads. Forget last names. No one cares. No one remembers. Might as well be a programmed robot. He escorts me to a desk, sort of a triage table where he chronicles the car’s healthcare history. Lengthy forms list the vehicle’s symptoms, and my financial resources.

He explains the diagnostic procedures. Having had such treatments, I fear for the car’s remaining health. I’m sent to the waiting room. It’s populated with other grim-faced gentlemen. Apparently they’ve opted to keep their old cars. New ones are expensive.

An attractive young lady works the room, offers us snacks. Concierge treatment is the industry’s buzz-word now. Make ‘em comfortable, fill ‘em with sugar, they’ll sleep. Dealerships employ on-call psychiatrists. They counsel concerned clients suffering the trauma of auto repairs.

My service manager returns before I finish my donut. His facial expression reminds me of a man with five wives, all living in the same house. He conveys a certain pained look. Another man is with him. He says, “Meet Don, he’ll be your car’s surgeon.”

Don explains ad nauseam the details about oil. It’s a thinly-veiled trick to justify the excessive cost of repairing the poor family heirloom. For emphasis, he compares oil to blood. Over-heated blood, like oil, is dangerous, he warns. He continues with comparing oil filters with kidneys and livers. I didn’t realize such parallels existed.

He concludes his diagnostic oration on oil with a recital from Shakespeare, “When the blood burns, how prodigal the soul lends the tongue vows.” I wonder if he’s recovering from some trauma of his own or just a frustrated bard.

Frank hands me an iPad. The screen is filled with tiny letters, the kind that give auto salesmen a bad reputation. “Now Bud, sign here,” he says. I ask what it means. He says that you agree to pay whatever it costs for repairs. I ask to substitute ‘whatever’ with ‘reasonable.’ He’s amused.

Kissing my ailing Mercedes goodbye, I hand Don the keys. It feels like when I gave my daughter away in marriage. He puts his arm around me, “I’ll take good care of your precious baby.” Somehow I feel like I’ve heard this line before.

Frank loans me a new, shiny black Mercedes to drive to assuage my pain. It’s a cheap psychological ploy designed to sell cars. But like old men taking up with young women, it’s a bad trade. It looks good, but loses its luster after a few days of showing it off. Besides, maintenance is costly. There are better ways to spend retirement money.

**********

I’m waiting for a call from Frank for the cost to redeem my car.

Meanwhile, I’m showing off my hot new loaner. Old men can’t resist being fools.


Bud Hearn
April 24, 2015

Friday, April 10, 2015

Ruminations from a Rocking Chair


The South is changing. Front porch rocking chairs are obsolete. Smart phones for interactive social media are the current drugs of choice. Irrelevancy lurks everywhere.

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Our culture spends a lot of time chasing the wind. We’ve lost the innate ability to relax and enjoy just passing the time. Hyper-activity reigns.

Recently, and without remorse, I left my office early. The desk-top details were attacking each other, locked in a brutal civil war for supremacy. I left them to sort it out on their own.

I stopped by to visit my friend, Ace Blackbanks. He’s retired, does what most retired men do—re-visiting the ‘old days.’ I worried he was spending too much time rearranging his sock drawer.

In another life Ace was a covert operative in the arcane world of spying. Rumor is he’s responsible for blasting down the Berlin Wall. He gave me some graffiti from it. He remains silent on the issue.

I find him in a rocking chair on his front porch. He nurses a glass of sweet tea. He and his dog seem about to succumb to the sweltering humidity the ceiling fan stirs up.

Whatcha doin’, Ace?” I ask. “Plotting a regime over-throw, exposing the mystery of HRC’s secret emails or contemplating drone surveillance of the bikini-clad crowd on East Beach?”

Ah, the old days. No, just passing the time, rocking and thinking about remaining relevant.”

Look, wasting time in that rocker will make you irrelevant. It’s like lockjaw, deadly when it sets in. You want to be relevant? Read Rolling Stone.”

That rag? Nah, that’s really wasting time. I’m reading a frightening book.”

“I guess there’s a fine line between wasting time and passing the time. But listen, you have to redeem the time if you want to stay relevant. That Zen yoga class won’t do it. That’s for women.”

He sips his tea. “Want some?”

“No thanks,” I say. “Gave it up. Stains my teeth.”

You have any real ones left?” He grins.

I ignore the comment, remembering how young boys would bang on one another as a fraternal sign of friendship. Now being men, they utter insults. Same motive, just a different delivery. Relationships find ways to remain relevant.

What’s this book you’re reading, ‘Women are Everything.’ Does it have pictures like the books you hide under the bed?” I ask.

“It’s about the superiority of women. About how a single mutated chunk of DNA, known as SRY, has doomed men to obsolescence. Deep stuff. You wouldn’t get it. Besides, you’re already there. Ask anybody.”

That’s dangerous heresy. Your wife making you read such rubbish? Bet some Vanity Fair editor wrote it.”

Nope, some fellow at Emory wrote it, an anthropologist. Says men are the cause of every bad thing that’s ever happened, and that one day women won’t even need men to have children. Says women are the answer to everything and calls for the end of the male species.” He rocks, but shows concern.

“A man wrote this nonsense? Who’s gonna be President, run business, raise a family, pay the bills, fight wars, play sports, grill burgers or deliver beer? Will someone soon say that God is a woman?” I begin to rock, feeling myself somewhat on the edge of angst.

Ace continues. “Look, says here women have superior judgment, have lower levels of bigotry, they live longer, more moral and resistant to various diseases. What’s worse, it says they can even restrain sexual impulses.” We both laugh, knowing that it didn’t take an anthropologist to know that.

The kook opines that technology is making the ancient male advantage in physical strength irrelevant. Robots roam the earth now. Do everything. It’s frightening.” He rocks faster.

Do you think this nutcase is drunk on the liberal Kool-Aid they serve up at Emory? Is he suggesting that as women gain influence, the world will become more democratic, more compassionate, and all men’s locker rooms become co-ed?” It’s a dark thought.

Looks that way,” he says.

We contemplate the horror of a world without men and change the subject to politics, the last stronghold for men.

**********

Time is indeed short. There’s no better way to redeem it than with a friend and a rocking chair.

But as for God being a woman, well, it’ll take a lot more rocking and something stronger than sweet tea to get me there.


Bud Hearn
April 10, 2015







Friday, April 3, 2015

Images of Easter


“…that men may rise on stepping stones of their dead selves to higher things.” Tennyson, In Memoriam

The Imagery of Easter…in what ways is the pageantry understood? How do we wrap our arms around it, understand its message, experience its power? Can we, with finite minds and feeble hands, grasp the reality of resurrection? We each have our own instincts, our sixth sense of spiritual esoterica. What’s yours?

Perhaps it’s a smiling child with a basket filled with Easter eggs, hidden by the Easter Bunny. Maybe it’s ladies in brightly-colored hats and pastel dresses in church. Perhaps it’s family gatherings, dinners with biscuits and ham and deviled eggs, or sunrise services, or choirs singing Christ the Lord is Risen Today. There’re plenty more.

My images of Easter changed with age. Easter eggs were replaced by other things. But they remain vivid in my mind. Tuesday, in the Baptist Church service, I sat beneath an Easter lily. It brought to remembrance a close friend, Paul Rogers, who died at 49, and he always expressed Easter with lilies. On the steps of our home one always showed up.

The Cross, draped with purple linen, is a powerful symbol of Easter. Our former Atlanta church, Peachtree Road United Methodist, erects a 14-foot cross of rough-hewn beams. On Easter Sunday, it’s transformed by thousands of multi-colored flowers, a stunning symbol of new birth that Easter epitomizes.

Jesus knew our limitations. He demonstrated in real-time life the fact of resurrection. The awaking of Lazarus is one such event. Lazarus had died and was entombed for four days. Martha, his sister, couldn’t grasp the meaning of Jesus’ words, “I am the resurrection and the life; he that believeth in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live. And whosoever liveth and believeth in me shall never die. Believest thou this?” She did, but like us, she needed something more solid than words.

At the tomb Jesus said, “Take the stone away.” He prayed and a hush fell upon the expectant crowd. Then he cried with a loud voice, “Lazarus, come forth, and he that was dead came forth…” If we were part of the crowd, what would have been our reactions? What images would we have taken away from that empty tomb?

Sometimes I walk among the oaks at Epworth, a Methodist retreat on St. Simons Island, dating to the days of James Oglethorpe and John and Charles Wesley. In the Joe Harvey Memorial Garden stands a white marble statue of the resurrected Christ with outstretched arms. The garden gives testimony to the faithfulness of this man, Joe Harvey.

Both Joe and Paul were infused with the spiritual power of an endless life. They realized resurrection was possible every day. God may not grant to us overcoming life, yet He does grant to us life as we overcome. Through their lives these men left images of the resurrection. In their several statements of faith, they joined Abel, of whom it was said “…and by it, he, being dead, yet speaketh.”

John Donne penned his image of Easter in the poem, “Death Be Not Proud.” He wrote, “Death be not proud, though some have called thee mighty and dreadful, for thou art not so, for those whom thou thinkest thou dost overthrow die not, poor death, nor yet canst thou kill me…” He believed that death was swallowed up in victory.

The scars of Christ are stark and visible images of death. Each of us bear some scars of life, yet through Christ we have the power to transcend their stigma. That is the reality of resurrection.

Death’s cold sneer, as hard as stone, makes a cruel mockery of the frailty of faith. We often stand beside the raw, red earth of a new grave, attempting to grasp the reality of faith, yet doubting. It’s the human condition.

We are Lazarus. The words, “Lazarus, come forth,” is a call to leave our dark worlds of doubt and allow the rebirth of life to raise us to higher things.

Let the outstretched arms of Christ revitalize our Image of Easter this week as we move from the gloom of Good Friday to the Sunrise of Easter Resurrection.

And may we all rise on stepping stones of our dead selves to higher things. And I don’t think our Lord would hold it against the Easter Bunny for its role in the miracle of new birth.


Bud Hearn
April 3, 2015