Digressions of a Dilettante

Digressions of a Dilettante
Vignettes of Inanity by Bud Hearn

Thursday, December 29, 2011

Defining Moments


One can resist the invasion of an army but not the invasion of ideas.” Victor Hugo

This year, 2011, is long in the tooth. It’s on life support. The ring-in-the-new-year crowd is queuing up its cortege. Fireworks and debauchery will accompany its demise. The wizened Father Time will deliver the eulogy. Inebriated chorales will sing incoherently the traditional requiem of Auld Lang Syne.

How will 2011 be boxed-up and laid to rest in the Elysian Fields of History?

The Sunday NY Times did a credible job of embalming with a variety of photographs. Everywhere disaster and discontent seem to rule…wildfires, floods, blizzards, bombs, earthquakes, tsunamis, Ponzi schemes, revolutions, unrest, foreclosures and general malaise worldwide. Muslim prayer rugs are hot sales items. Religious nutcases predict The End. We wring our hands and gnash our teeth in anguish. And worst, there have been no sightings of Elvis!

What causes dreadful events? Answers are elusive, except to those living on the Georgia coast. Change happens. Every day the tide of change washes worthless flotsam ashore. Winds blow, dunes appear, soon vanish. Sandbars accrete, then attrite. Nature marches relentlessly forward, flying its flag of change.

Some blame the recurring chaos on a reclusive crackpot, a self-anointed Prophet of Global Warming and Inventor of the Internet. The algorithms of the Apostles of Gore have attraction, but hey, the repeal of Prohibition and the implosion of the Republican Party could as easily contribute.


Today I’m tired of playing with my Christmas toys and have already worn the pair of socks Santa stuffed in my stocking. In a chocolate-induced stupor, my mind forms a plan on how to identify a personal ‘defining moment.’ I find it best represented by a picture of my red walking cane leaning against the white Chevy pickup. It speaks volumes.

In the ‘old days’ country boys leaned on pickups, chewed Redman tobacco and swapped lies about fishin’, football, women and male bravado. Today only my cane leans there. Social gatherings with finger food and sips of wine are the new pickup trucks where emasculated men now swap boring minutiae about joint replacements, age, aches and angst. No one listens, or cares!

Last week a friend made front page news. I think it was her defining moment. The subtitle was “Hovering as a Tradition.” It read, “Every year she hovers in self-denial over a hot stove and oven in a grease-spattered red apron, sweating profusely, while preparing a feast for her family.” It even included the squash casserole recipe. A martyr among us! Defining moments often lurk between the lines of newsprint and in casseroles.

When I walk the dogs on the beach I sometimes take the cane. Only for effect, mind you. The doctors say it makes me look “dapper.” I rebel, thinking of Fred Astaire. But it does seem to have appeal. Unfortunately, the impression the cane casts is not macho. Time changes everything!


A couple of summers ago an insidious shrub invaded the beaches. It dies each fall and sheds its hideous barbs. Millions of sandspurs lie scattered like tiny landmines. We wring our hands and lament. Some say, “An Enemy hath sown these tares.”


Finally, The Author of all change hears our pleas and sends two tiny tsunamis to rid the menace. The shrubs succumb to the salt and die. But look..…in their place yellow flowers blossom in profusion. The tides of change sweep away the Malevolent and replace it with Beauty. Isn’t that marvelous?

We fear change. It causes angst. The ‘what-if’s’ crawl out of their holes and creep in to our psyche. We’re baffled. We throw up our hands, overwhelmed. We forget that change is inherent in Nature. New fruit always grows on new branches.

Look closely at the pictures of the desiccated thorn bush and its replacement, the flowering shrub. See the shadow? It’s the outline of the dread Omniscience that hovers over all events.

Maybe these pictures present another perspective in summarizing the events of 2011, even as we look forward with hope to 2012.

Happy New Year.

Bud Hearn
December 29, 2011



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