An Old Poem

Stumbled across this just a few minutes ago. It's a Mister Fweem Original.

I Call This Poem February

The wind is tired of biting

its toothless, slurping broth.

The trees are tired of being bare

and naked because of sloth.

The sun is bored with sugared snow,

and casting a pale cold light.

I’m not saying this to help you out,

but only for doleful spite.

I, Moron

Just a few minutes ago I was back at the scanner, preparing a case file for work. As the scanner did its thing, I looked out the window, hoping to see one of the small rabbits that live underneath our trailer. Haven't seen much of them this year, so it's always fun to see one squatting on one of the bare patches in the gravel that they've smoothed out over years of squatting in the gravel, black eyes staring at the dinks staring at them out the window.

Today, no bunny. So, in a quiet but high squeaky voice, I said "Oh, no bonny wee bunnies."

I think I said it too loudly -- because one of my co-workers in a neighboring cubicle gave me a funny look as I walked past.

Oh well.

No bonny wee bunnies.

Update, 2:17 pm: I'm not the only one on the lookout for the bunnies. Someone has been tossing out bits of apple into the patch of grass where the bunnies eat. Not that the bunnies are eating the apples, mind you; a rather large crow is out there right now, feasting away.

A crow-related note: These birds here know no fear. I walked within two yards of one today and all it did was look at me. Not worried in the least. And with good reason. I walked past a pair of them a few weeks ago and discovered they were pecking away at a pair of bunny feet, hind variety. So they, too, are on the lookout for the bunnies.

Experimental Tolerance

Here's a fine experiment on political tolerance which ought to be read by parents who chuckle about their kids chanting "Assasinate Obama" on the school bus or insist that it's only the Republicans who are intolerant of the views of others.

As for the Asssasinate Obama thing, I'm saddened to say that happened in my own back yard. The episode bespeaks of local intolerance and animosity towards the Democrats -- behavior I find absolutely shameful.

I'm glad to say I have not heard such things come from my children (we have a third-grader and first-grader, plus a pre-schooler). They have talked about the election at school in some capacity or other, likely under the guise of the Newspapers in Education program, which sees our local paper bringing copies of the paper into the schoolroom to goose its circulation numbers (every paper in Americ does this to some extent). Our third-grader insisted he would vote for John McCain, but he's had a hard time articulating why, which puts him on par with many voters. I haven't heard any trash talk about Barack Obama come from him, so I can assume it's either not occurring in school or he's ambivalent to it. Not a peep out of our first-grader. Probably because neither the Republicans nor Democrats feature pink as an election platform.

We have discussed the election at home. I told them I voted for Barack Obama, because I thought he'd do a good job. We've also talked about President Bush, saying that he's made some bad decisions, but overall has had to make some terribly important decisions under tremendous stress in situations neither I nor my wife would want to be in. We teach them respect of the individual, respect of the office, so don't go on saying that because I live in a red county in a red state that I must be a Republican. Because I'm not.

We live in a household very much like the one described inthe Chicago Tribune article linked to at the beginning of this post, with the exception that my wife voted independently this year for Ralph Nader.

So read the Chicago Trib article -- especially you who believe the Democrats are above such intolerant shenanigans. You'll have your eyes opened, if not your mind.

Secret Fear

I harbor a secret fear: That I’m dumb as a rock.

To some, I’m sure, the first thought is “That’s no secret, bub, we’ve known you’re dumb as a rock for a long time.” That’s not just the rhetoric talking. I could probably name at least a half-dozen people who would whole-heartedly agree with that statement. Because, at some time, my life and the lives of those individuals intersected at a point where I did indeed exhibit extraordinary stupidity, I know my stupidity is all they know of me. And because we’re all human beings, my stupidity is the only memory they retain of me.

Then there are others with whom my life has intersected at multiple times, both at times when I exhibited stupidity and at times when I was, at minimum, nonoffensive, or, at best, competent. How these people remember me depends entirely on their perception. If my competence outweighed my stupidity, so much the better for me. If, on the other hand, the situation is reversed, they place me firmly in the dumb as a rock camp.

Do I truly believe I’m dumb as a rock? Not so much. At times I have exhibited a level of intellectualism and curiosity that cannot rival that of granite, but at other times I’ve said and done competent things. I will not say brilliant things, because brilliance, all evidence to the contrary, is not as common as people like to believe – because with those we regard as brilliant, our lives intersect theirs only at the peak of their competence, not at the nadir or at the even strokes that lie between brilliance and mediocrity.

I don’t lose sleep over the thought that I might be dumb, not when there are so many other interesting things to do, like futz with the computer, read books, or stare at the wall blankly while I think of nothing in particular. I feel overwhelmed at times by the things I don’t understand, but those feelings are fleeting, since there are so many things I don’t understand dwelling on my ignorance would not serve any purpose whatsoever.

Why, you may ask, do I harbor this secret fear?

I’m two classes away from completing a masters degree in technical communication, and feel neither more technical nor more communicative.

My fellows at Uncharted spend their evenings chatting about web development with our developers in India, while I spend my evenings scanning clippings of newspaper stories I wrote three to four years ago into the computer.

I suffer from Homer Simpson Syndrome: I’m lazy, I’m kind of a goof-off . . .

My level of motivation sometimes makes that Hogwallop guy (the one who turned the three wanderers in, complaining about ‘this Depression thing they got going’) in “O Brother, Where Art Thou,” look like a real go-getter.

That brilliant novel idea I’ve “been working on?” Not worked on it over a year.

I don’t worry over much about my lack of brilliance. We are not all destined to shine like a star. Some of us, I suppose, have to be fossil fuel. Today, I feel like coal. The heavy-sulphur kind; the kind that pollutes more.

It's Beginning to Look A Lot Like . . .

I apologize for the quality of these pictures; a new digital camera is on the list for Christmas. But, here you see in almost its full glory, the Davidson Christmas Extravaganza. More lights are in the offing; I have to replace some I had to throw away last year. Also, we have not put out the deer yet, because there are teenagers about. Can't put them out for obvious reasons.

Randomness, Take 1

Michelle calls this photo "A Man and His Dog." I rather like it. The picture, that is. And the dog.

Memmmmmorieeeeeees

I am convinced I will never be done with this project of scanning all of my newspaper clippings into the computer. If only the paper had gone to the option of letting people download PDFs of the entire paper from the company website. My problems would be over. I'd have everything I wanted to keep in digital format already. As it is I'm back to the old paradigm of getting ink on my fingers. Trouble is, most of this stuff isn't all that good -- and I threw out the boring stuff years ago. Who will want to read this drivel after I'm gone? Don't know. But part of me really feels sorry for him. Or her.

An Enlightened Moment

Occasionally, while watching a movie, I gain additional insight into the world around me -- especially if it's part of the world I've experienced.

Tonight, for example, I was watching Close Encounters of the Third Kind on the way home from work. Got to the part where the U.S. Air Force is holding the press conference just after Gillian announces Barry has been kidnapped by aliens. (In case you're going bug-eyed, thinking I'm going to regale you with a close encounter of my very own, relax.) Roy Neary starts to make the point -- a valid one -- that the Air Force officials can't blow them group off "by agreeing with them" that they'd like to see the lights in the sky too, the whacko stands up and says "I've seen Bigfoot before." All eyes -- and the cameras, journalists with pencils, et cetera -- immeidately swing to him, and Roy Neary gets this very disgusted look on his face while his wife nods and smiles smugly. She knows what's going to happen next.

The insight is this: Journalists are attracted to the whackos. I know I was when I was a journalist. And nine times out of ten, in group settings like this, it's the person who says the nuttiest thing who is introduced into the story as balance to what the officials are saying, rather than the fellow --in this case, Roy -- who is starting to make a logical argument that, unfortunately for the news, won't make a good sound bite. Although his intro is good, the reporters would have to go into a lot of exposition and explanation, taking up inches of copy space and seconds of time to explain it all. Better to go with the weirdo.

What the Heck, Beck?

So, St. Anthony Mayor Bill Beck has resigned, offering little to the public or news media at Wednesday night's city council meeting other than a statement -- or so the news says -- that his constituents are "stupid" and that the whole town "can go to hell."

He seems a bit testy. He offered no explanation, at least that I've heard, for his departure.

Not without reason. He and a few city council members are the subject of a recall petition -- apparently moot (or as they say in St. Anthony, "mute") on his point now -- because the city dared ask a local family to remove a bunch of junk cars from their property. (Something I agree with Beck on, because whenever I drive through the town and surrounding area, I always have to wonder if I've stumbled into a populated junk car lot.)

I knew Bill Beck back in the day when I was a journalist, and actually liked the guy. I don't know why he's being villified by commenters in the local paper, because he seemed to be a rather progressive individual for the city. Of course, politics and personality being what they are in St. Anthony, a small town that reveres the independent spirit of the old west but seems to cling (If I may use Obama's phraseology) to the disruptive, small-town narrow-mindedness that scared newcomers out fo towns like Amity and Friendship in the west of old. Back then, if a guy weren't fer ya, he was again' ya. That ethos has survived to this day, but surfaces in petty name-calling (on both the side of the mayor and his constituents) and the Instant Distrust (TM) that seems to pervade small-town politics. You like the guy until he's elected. Then don't trust him at all. Seems very Jeffersonian, but as if Jefferson and the rest of the city were still in high school.

We'll Miss You, Aunt Jell-o

As we stood in the cold wind beneath the grey scudding clouds galloping in the sky above the Ammon Cemetery, I thought a lot about Jell-o.

Aunt Yvonne brought Jell-o to practically every family dinner, so we called her Aunt Jell-o. She took the teasing well. She took a lot of teasing well. From being reminded of saying things like "Boy, there sure are a lot of dead people in the world," as we drove past the cemetery in Laketown, Utah, where Grandma and Grandpa Speirs are buried. She endured the telling and re-telling of the time she wore a pair of underwear stuck by static cling to the back of her coat on a day of shopping in Idaho Falls, ignorant of the fact until an embarrassed shopper showed it to her. She never seemed to tire of being the butt of family jokes, and even told a few on herself. Every day, a new story. Today, I heard how she complained, in her trademark mangled English, about a driver who had been driving "erotically" down 17th Street.

Parties at her house, the best Christmas parties. In the basement, all of us fighting for turns at the pool table, then exchanging gag gifts, laughing, laughing, laughing. Telling stories on each other, with the dog, Teko, sitting in the window well, banished from the house for the evening, but not wanting to miss out on the fun. Nobody wanted to miss out on the fun at Aunt Jell-o's house.

I rarely at the Jell-o. Being half-Dutch, I suppose, made me wonder why it was such an interesting dish. But Aunt Jell-o's dishes at family parties were as expected as my own mother forgetting the yams until the feast was over.

On the hillside today, under the clouds, with cattle bellowing in the distance, the cities of Idaho Falls and Ammon spread out at the base of the hills, we told Aunt Jell-o goodbye. She battled cancer for nearly three years, asking that her "go-go juice" at the chemotherapy sessions be good. I knew she was ill. I did not know the cancer, diagnosed so long ago, was terminal.

Families drift apart. The fuzzy childhood memories are about all I have. And that's a shame. We drift apart, because it's easy, I suppose. But not recommended.

Uncle Doug said he spoke with her a few days before she died, about the family gatherings. He urged me, standing on that hill, holding back the tears, to stay close. "Those were the fun times," he said. "And that's what we remember. Make sure you do that with your siblings."

Okay.

Thanks, Aunt Jell-o. We'll miss you.