Against the Wind…See Dick Run

 

“I’m older now but still runnin’ against the wind, against the wind.”   Bob Seger lyrics

 

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 It’s mid-January already. We’re running full throttle ahead, merging into the fast lane of 2023 where we got off a few days ago.

Today I’m busy purging the over-stuffed library in our home. Books everywhere, too many books, books never read, never to be read. Wisdom wasted, so little time. New rule: buy a book, shed a book.

Stuffed third-tier back in the shelves are my ancient high school yearbooks. Inside the 1958 one are some crinkled pages of Fun With Dick and Jane. Remember it? It was written in the 1930’s by Dr. Bill Gray, a man who apparently had some psychic foresight..

See Dick Run may be some of the first words many of us read in the first grade. Dick was joined in life by Jane, Spot, Tim, Puff, Mom and Dad. Flipping back through the pages, I believe Dr. Gray used ‘Dick’ in a metaphorical sense for ‘men.’ Looking at it in this way, it’s a relevant reader today.

I wonder why he chose ‘run’ as the active verb? Why not see Dick sit, work, hide, seek, eat, talk, walk, shop, etc. I think he was preparing Dick for his life’s journey: running. And if Dick were symbolic of our culture today, he’d be a running fool.

Take a look at Dick’s journey:

See Dick Run: helter-skelter for fun.

See Dick Compete: college, job market.

See Dick Balance: a check book, a career, a family…run faster, Dick.

See Dick Exercise: more running, faster, keep the heart fit.

See Dick Borrow: chasing success.

See Dick Buy: cars, houses, vacations, stuff…buy, buy, buy.

See Dick Panic: not enough, not enough…run, run, run.

See Dick Age: the ‘also-ran’ generation.    

See Dick Retire: but how, where? He looks, he looks.   

Dick’s dog, Spot, ran also, chasing his tail but never catching it. Likewise, so did the Prideful Tigers in Helen Bannerman’s tale of Little Black Sambo, written in 1899. We don’t know what became of Spot. But the Tigers ran so fast in a circle they became a pool of butter and spread on the pancakes Sambo ate. Some stories have happy endings. But somewhere Spot is still running.

Poor Dick. He finds that Time is running, too, and he’s about to run out of it. The world of ‘what-if, not-enough, if-only’ gets in the way of retirement. Everything’s expensive, college for kids vaporized his home equity, Visa maxed out and his 401K has that lean and hungry look.

Dick has been running so long he doesn’t know another lifestyle. In desperation he changes Parties and votes Democrat, where the perennial promise of Redistribution is his last hope. In utter frustration he sighs, “Let our children run for a while; I’m out of gas.”

In the background Jackson Brown is singing on YouTube, “Running on empty, running blind; running into the sun but I’m running behind.” Dick replays the video, glad he’s not alone.

Now, See Dick Quit. He sits with a Bud Lite in the declining rays of a Florida sunset in Garden Hills Retirement Village, reading the obits. The whole miserable episode of running becomes clear in his mind. But it’s too late to do much about it.  Remorse sets in.

He commiserates with the other Shuffleboard Unfortunates how the deck was stacked against them. The Biblical Job comes to mind and he sighs, “I should have run faster when I could.” His lamentations blend with the collective laments of his companions.

Now, See Dick Think. In a life’s retrospective he wonders, “What kind of ending is this for a man who has run all his life?” He wants his epitaph to be the famous words of Joe Louis: “He can run, but he can’t hide.” Like Dick, Billy Conn lost that heavyweight fight, remember?

Some questions remain unanswered in the Dick and Jane primer, like, “What became of Jane?” We can only speculate. But my guess is that she got married, pregnant, had a lot of little Dicks and Janes and suffered right along with her husband (or husbands) …cooking, cleaning, washing, nursing, enduring and finally getting a night job at Waffle House. Speculation leads down dark alleys.

We like closure with fairy-tale endings like, “And they all lived happily ever after.” Dr. Gray allows us the opportunity to complete the sequels. How would we write our generation’s final version? Somehow, I suspect it might not be a book for first graders.

* * *

Keep on running while you can. You may not get there before the rest of us, but it will do wonders for orthopedic surgeons. “Hey Jane, another Bud, please. Thanks.”

 

Bud Hearn

January 16, 2023   

 

 

A New Mosaic

 

“To every thing there is a season, and a time for every purpose under the heaven.”

Ecclesiastes 3:1 

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 The words above were written sometime in the 10^th Century BC by King Solomon, supposedly the wisest man who ever lived, a claim that might be disputed by certain latter-day politicians. But it’s a good theme to consider as we enter a new year.

We’re now nine days into it, wondering how to bring closure to the old one and figure out where we go in this new one. We’ll all be looking for another bite at the apple, that second chance at the trough, to maybe try to ‘get it right,’ lay the past behind and begin with a new slate of opportunities.

But we have to get to work quickly because euphoria and good intentions have a short shelf life. They tend to fade into inertia after crossing the threshold of another year. Reality and routine replace our best intentions.

Ah, yes, routine, that beaten path of habit, the tyranny of the urgent. We sometimes curse having to plow the same old row of daily duty. But routine is not a curse inflicted upon us. It often saves us from ourselves and our natural tendencies to go off the reservation fully loaded but half-cocked.

It also stifles instant gratification. It replaces it with delayed gratification, our today’s déjà vu, as we look at unwashed dishes, unpaid bills or the multiple other ‘must-do’s’ left hanging.  

This morning I decide to take Scripture to heart and have coffee with the jigsaw puzzle while contemplating the season and time, perhaps get a glimpse of the future. I might have had better luck at tarot cards or reading tea leaves as to glean any direction or wisdom from this puzzle.

I remember when we poured it out of the box. Hundreds of small, odd-shaped pieces tumble on the table. We’re excited to get to work, searching first for the corners, then the margins and building from there. You might say we were trying to form some structure to the mess lying in front of us.

Maybe it’s the caffeine or my natural tendency to metaphorize such a jumbled hodge-podge of incongruent parts, but it sets my mind in motion. It seems to resemble the loose, disconnected hanging chads and details of last year that beg reconciliation or put out to pasture.

Now looking back won’t solve anything, but maybe it might make some things clear when we consider the random bits and pieces of last year. I know that’s a reach for lesser IQ’s, but there were some things that just didn’t turn out right, things that maybe could have been done better or smarter, like the wisdom my octogenarian friend gained from falling off a ladder.

Maybe some of you did some deep retrospective thinking, you know the kind that ends up writing resolutions and makes promises, promises that this is finally the year you’ll get it right. But after sufficient mental flagellation, you know perfection is not possible with humans. You soon rip up the list and move on.

So here we are, beginning a pristine new year still blended with the details of the last one.  Let’s be hopeful. And like the puzzle, we must begin somewhere, one piece at a time. The puzzle’s mosaic always begins like a chaotic mess, but with patience and time the structure builds and a new mosaic emerges.

* * *

“To every thing there is a season, and a time to every purpose under heaven.”  Take it to heart, lighten up, we’ll get another bite at the apple. God remembers Eden and will see to it.

Happy New Year from us at The Weakly Post. Stay in touch.

 

Bud Hearn

January 9, 2023