Licking an Envelope

 

When things get too easy, then even the easy things get difficult. 

* * *

 

It’s that time again, time to pay bills. No need to look at the calendar, just at the height of the stack of bills accumulated on the corner of my desk.  When it’s six inches high, it’s time to pay up. I pull out the checkbook and begin writing,

 

Writing checks, you say? That went out of style years ago. There’s a better way, I hear you say. Your silent judgment of my ancient methodology speaks louder than words. But old habits have deep roots for the aged.   

 

So today I sacrifice valuable time writing checks, stuffing them into envelopes, licking the envelopes, pasting a stamp on them and pitching them on the floor next to the door. I do this so as not to forget to mail them.

 

I think about the process, all the time wasted paying bills. Age brings on these thoughts. When time is seriously limited for the long run, one thinks about not wasting it.

 

I count eight different steps required to pay just one bill, assuming you don’t disagree with the bill. That would add hours for the ‘dispute call’ to get adjudicated. Total time about five minutes, give or take a minute or two.

 

Here’s how I figure it: Open the envelope, take out the bill, look over it.  Can’t be too careful about fraudulent charges these days. Three steps. Satisfied I’m not being ripped off, I take the checkbook, rip out a check.  Step four. I write the check. Step five. Then enclose it in the envelope. Step six. Finally, lick the envelope and affix a stamp.  Steps seven and eight, not counting depositing it in the mailbox.

 

I’m about halfway through with the stack when the young tech-savvy neighbor sticks his head in the open office door.  

 

“Paying bills, huh?” he says.

 

“Yep. Like running with a rock in your shoe.  Let’s you know you’re alive.”

 

“You still writing checks?”

 

“Is there another way?” I ask.

 

“Man, where you been? Online banking, that’s what’s happening. Wake up, Rip Van Winkle. Things have changed, the digital world solves everything, cuts out all the work. Why are you stuck in the past? Online banking, do it digitally. Fast, convenient, efficient. Saves time. And it looks like you don’t have that much time remaining, brother.”

 

“Hey, I don’t trust my bank account being exposed to online banking. I like to get copies of my checks. Besides, I get float time with checks.”

 

“Float? That’s funny. Dodd-Frank sunk float years ago. Listen, grandpa, they take your check, zap it with a device and your money is debited instantly from your account. Checks can also be deposited instantly with an iPhone app these days. Float is a thing of the past. I’ll bet you don’t even have an ATM debit card either, right?”

 

“Right. I like the feel of a wad of cash in my pocket.”

 

“Man, this is serious. Wake up. Everything’s going digital. You can even get your bills online. No paper. And cash, forget it. It won’t even get you a ride with Uber. Soon it’ll be obsolete. Bitcoin, crypto currency, that’s the future. Get a life, you dinosaur.”

 

You can’t win arguments with the youth of today. I don’t even offer a rebuttal. Besides, I see it’s useless when he asks about my rolodex and the IBM Selectric typewriter on the table next to my Blackberry.  

 

“Have fun with your relics, old buddy.” He laughs and leaves. I resume wasting time writing checks.    

 

But his question of, “why are you stuck in the past” troubles me. Technology is making me feel like a voyeur in a Willie Wonka world of digital toys or lost in the wilderness of a Jurassic Park jungle filled with gender-neutral robots. ‘Why?’ is that primordial curse inflicted upon humanity that always demands an answer.

 

Some of us are of the old school where only fools test the depth of the water with both feet. About all I can come up with is that writing checks connects me with the old days where some measure of control still exists.

 

With all this efficiency in the system, something’s got to give. I suspect it’ll be me.  With personal liberties at risk everywhere, who’s to say that checks and cash won’t soon to be things of the past?

 

But until then, here we are, the old die-hards, sitting at our desks, writing checks, paying bills and licking envelopes. Efficiency be damned.

 

* * *

 

Say, do you think it’s time to upgrade our home telephone system? What’s your advice?

 

 
 
Bud Hearn

March 26, 2021      

Atavism...Alive and Well

 

“The fruit falls not far from the tree.”  That’s atavism.

                                                                             * * * 

Atavism…I loved the word when I first met it. It explains the inexplicable in people’s brains before their mouths speak. 

Several years ago I bought a DNA testing kit. Who’s not curious about their lineage and the atavisms that linger there? Here’s what I discovered. 

Don’t let anybody fool you…there are some traits and family traditions you’re not responsible for. They were dumped on you by some twisted act of fate. Like chips off the old block, you might say, the luck of the draw. 

These aberrant idiosyncrasies are peculiar to birth and genetic malfunctions.  They’re passed down through some wild gene, pulsating through our ancestral blood.  Watch your actions, your vocal inflections. Your proclivities are like ancient arrowheads, fragments of the past that keep popping up. 

That settled, we can relax in absolute assurance of self-acquittal, right? Wrong. There’s one small detail: the atavistic volcano can erupt at any time. The iniquities of the fathers continue to visit the children well past the 3^rd and 4^th generations. The mirror is a liar…there’s more to us than we see. 

Martin Amis wrote Koba the Dread. When you sit around feeling sorry for yourself, enjoying a pity party and lamenting on how life has let you down, read a few chapters.  It details the atrocities of Josef Stalin, a man who displayed a certain sadistic enthusiasm for violence in the maniacal extermination of 20 million countrymen. It offers an interesting perspective on Russian morals. 

And if that’s not enough to jolt you back to reality, pick up your Bible and read about the apocalyptic consummation of history in John’s book, The Revelation.  Volcanic flare-ups, bimbo eruptions and mea culpas extracted by #Me Too are entertaining, but they’re no comparison to the bowls of wrath and the lake of fire. 

Who knows where atavism starts, or where it ends? It’s systemic to the species. I speculate it originated with Cain, Adam’s first son, who murdered his brother, Abel. He was, you know, the de facto progenitor of the human race; and he was a murderer. We live in savage times. 

I witnessed firsthand an atavistic sideshow on an excursion to the Louisiana Angola State Prison rodeo. Yes, the prisoners were the cowboys in a real live rodeo. Obviously the warden utilized his own gulag goading to encourage volunteerism.

We sat packed in a tight phalanx among several thousand spectators, many of whom reflected familial resemblances to the inmate cowboys. Their lifeless smiles and wild, glittering eyes gave them away. Maybe there were too many mug-shot cameras that exposed their atavistic throwbacks. Not their fault…who asks to be born? 

Societies swim in their own atavistic current. They drift along with the memes prevailing at the time.  Look around.  The jungle drumbeat of tribal affinities activates the latent atavistic juices. Meanwhile, unawares the herd is being culled and the crowds separated into the appropriate camp of red, blue or rainbow. 

Today’s tabloids are bloated with deeds of bigshot moguls, control freaks and political hacks.  They’re crazed with hubris and stand at the front of the line on full narcissistic display.  They sow whirlwinds by mixing money, power and perversion without restraint. It’s a visual of atavism at its low-rent apotheosis.   

But they’re not alone. Daily doses of decadence assail our sensitivities. The genes of lust and greed are raging fires, shut up in our very bones and flowing hot in the circuits of our blood.  Men everywhere are running for cover, hiring ‘fixers’ for their follies and proving that atavism is rampart among us.     

Now back to my DNA test. It pays to be cautious about these tests.  A friend discovered he had two children in California he didn’t know about. His wife was more than curious. I was hoping for no such surprise. 

The results of the test were unremarkable: 65% English-Irish, 15% French-German, 15% Northern Europe, a tiny bit Eastern European and some Iberian tossed in.  Harmless enough, except for one small detail. 

At the bottom of the report, almost like a postscript, these words appear: “Of special note, your DNA indicated 79% more of the Neanderthal variant than all of the other tests we have ever performed.”

* * * 

Like today’s Royal Family dilemma, when the shock wore off, my family accepted the news. They weren’t all that surprised. It answered a lot of heretofore unanswered questions. 

But thankfully I have no children in California and I no longer drag my knuckles.  All of which goes to prove that Neanderthals are atavistically monogamous and it’s probably the reason the species in now extinct.

  

Bud Hearn

March 12, 2021 

 

Out of Place

Everything has its own special place…or does it? Depends on perspective.

This is a picture of a common weed. It’s defined as a weed because Webster says it’s a plant that grows where it shouldn’t. Tell that to the plant. It will dispute it to your face. 

It’s actually a dandelion growing up from a crevice in the stone patio. It’s thriving, healthy and from empirical observation satisfied with where life has put it. After all, it had no choice. Is it out of place? It would seem so, but who’s to say? 

Our entire front yard is a magnificent eco-friendly garden. It’s a continuing work in progress, designed and maintained by our daughter, Leslie, an artist, who’s equally talented on canvas as well as in dirt. Creativity cannot be stifled. 

To an untrained eye, it appears to be a hodge-podge assembly of weeds during the winter. It’s actually what she terms a ‘self-sustainable garden.’ 

She created it to add support to the fragile ecosystem of the island’s birds, animals, bees, insects and butterflies by use of the perennial indigenous species of plants, some even labeled weeds. It would seem out of place if compared with the cultivated but sterile flowering gardens.  But is it? 

For most of the year the native grasses sway playfully with the wind. Bees and tiny insects ride upon the flowered tips of the grasses like miniature rodeo cowboys. The garden in its prime is in perfect harmony with nature, its dichotomous appearance notwithstanding. 

Soon the perennial flowers will emerge with the resurrected herbs. And shortly what’s left of the huge mustard greens and lettuces (ignored by the rabbits but not me!) will have to wait for another winter to roll around. 

It’s hard to deny the fact there is a perfect place for most things, natural or created. It’s mainly how we see it. Truth is, we can’t accurately define a ‘proper place’ for balanced equilibrium. We just intuit it or feel it when we see it. 

Unfortunately, there are those living among us with their own ideas of efficiency, utility and synchronicity. Their sanity teeters on the edge of madness unless everything fits together in a nice, neat package. These souls suffer from extreme cases of OCD. Many are politicians.

To keep their seams from ripping apart, they rely on Feng shui, an invisible energy force that supposedly adjusts all things into harmonious balance. It’s sort of a nirvana for the nerves. It works best with deep breathing and green tea. Or a stiff gin and tonic. 

But sadly, we have to leave this esoteric world behind and try to make some sense of the everyday details life doles out. Things like arranging the bookshelves where Hemmingway doesn’t complain being cheek to cheek with Faulkner, or Shakespeare condescending to share space with Tennessee Williams. It’s difficult to please the hard-core OCD crowd, especially the deceased. 

But I’ve found in spite of my best efforts it’s possible to be out of place in many places. Even in church.

Some years ago, I found myself in my hometown Methodist church, sitting alone in the vacant pew, first row, front left. Here’s what happened: 

After the preaching, two elderly, stern-faced ladies cornered me. One said with saintly authority, “You were out of place, young man.” 

A muffled “Huh?” was about all I could muster. 

“We recognized you. Your place was always in the back, last row right, not the front row left.” 

“Uh, is God keeping score these days?” I asked meekly. “I thought there is joy in heaven over even one sinner who repents, no matter where they sit.” 

The last words I heard as they walked away sounded something like ‘prodigal’ and ‘backsliding.’ I was left to ponder the mistaken placement. 

Now listen, when age creeps in, the thought of being out of place is no laughing matter. Repentance isn’t possible if we’re not breathing. It puts things into perspective. 

Maybe we’re just part of some enormous Jackson Pollack canvas, bit players in a Shakespearean tragedy, or part of a random montage symbolizing something that resembles a gigantic accident of nature. 

We might even conclude we’ve been intruders in the wrong world, out of place all along. Who’s the final Arbiter on this? A scary thought. 

* * *

I think of the dandelion. It’s a survivor, maybe out of place, but growing where it’s planted nonetheless. No nurture needed and no complaints.

Here’s to the weed in us all. Hang in there wherever you are planted. And keep blooming.

 

 Bud Hearn

March 1, 2021