“When the mule dies bury it! Quit yellin’ giddy-up, it ain’t gonna pull that plow no more” – Don Miller
I’m not in an arguin’ mood so let me clarify. “Beating a dead horse” is probably used more but where I came from, mules were used more than horses. In fact, my first riding partner was a domestic equine hybrid animal named “Joe.” So there. That should avoid an argument…but won’t.
Beating a dead mule, or horse, is a sweaty, stinky endeavor that serves no purpose except to stir up copious amounts of blue bottle flies trying to lay their eggs in rotting meat, and yet, metaphorically, I find myself doing it again, and again. Convincing someone of the facts on social media is just as stinky in its own way and as I have found, serves no purpose other than to infuriate me.
Just to be clear, I’ve never beaten a dead or live mule in any way other than metaphorically. My image is also not a dead mule but a very live burro.
I am three days into an argument on my preferred social media site. A comment about a reaction to gun violence has turned into a religious argument and then back to the sacred Second Amendment argument again. Saying preferred social media site is like saying my preferred laxative and to some folk, Second Amendment arguments are religious arguments.
Along the same lines is, “I’m plowin’ over ground that has already been plowed” …over and over again. Like the “Dust Bowl” during the Great Depression, I have reploughed my drought ravished field into a fine powder. Fine particles fly around me with no substance.
How many times have you involved yourself in verbal joisting on social media and had your opponent stop you and exclaim, “Sir, you have bested me, I yield.” That would be never. It is time for me to unsaddle and get off my dead mule.
If I were the least bit knightly, I would compare myself to Don Quixote “tilting at windmills.” But alas, I am not knightly. I more resemble Sancho Panza riding an ass…or being one. I am unsure of which.
I believe people read the title of an article or blog and immediately make their minds up before reading any farther. No matter how much research is provided and cited, facts don’t matter. Facts or statistics are viewed by many as little tidbits that are meant to confuse rather than educate. Facts interfere with our deep-seated cognitive dissonance.
On my blog site I find that hash tagging the words politics, religion, gun control, LGBTQ+ rights, immigration, education, and parental rights provide me with the most views…and arguments. I find myself weighing my narcissistic need for views versus the pain some of the comments bring.
What is infuriating is that most of these “discussions” are over before they begin. I get a comment “That’s bullshit” or “You ain’t nothin; but a woke, liberal, commie!” My favorite? “If you don’t like it here, move.” I never hear from them again. Really? That is all that you have to say? No citations as to why you believe my comment to be a big cow patty. Come on, give me something to work with. You might even change my mind…now you’re beating the dead mule.
No! No matter how much we beat dead mules, we are not going to change anyone’s mind. That may be the only truth I am sure of.
I live in South Carolina, a state that, according to US News ranks 42nd when comparing seventy-one metrics. What drags us down? Education (44), Public Safety (46), Equality (46), and rate of Domestic Violence (43). We rank eighth highest in gun deaths per capita.
In all honesty few of our metrics rank in the top half of states except our economy which ranks 19th. I wonder who is getting rich? We rank eighth in the highest poverty rates. Something does not compute.
Oh, it’s not who is getting rich…it is who is getting fat. We have the third highest obesity rate for children between 10 and 17 and has an obesity rate of 22 percent, which is well above the national average of about 15 percent
Why do I point this out? Because no matter how much I and like-minded South Carolinians beat our dead mules, we ain’t changin’ nothin’. We continue to vote against our own best interests ‘cause “them ‘gubment’ people ain’t gonna tell us what to do.” We have been doing that since April 12, 1861.
Do I climb out of the saddle and drag my stead’s dead carcass into the ditch, or do I keep beating it? I’m climbing out of the saddle…for now…until the next mule dies.
“At Easter let your clothes be new; Or else for sure you will it rue.” A 15th-century proverb
There was a time. I remember. Little Donnie, a flat topped, big eared and nosed, slender boy of eight or nine, dressed in his Easter duds. His little brother isn’t smiling but frowning in the bright, pre-Sunday School light. A clip-on bowtie fastened to a short-sleeved button-down Oxford cloth shirt over pants held up by suspenders. I’m sure my mother dressed us, and I blame her for our lack of fashion sense. He looks like he just uttered a profanity for being dressed this way. “This is bull…!”
Another picture from the scrapbook of life shows us a year or two older, better dressed in front of our ’58 Ford. New clothes in front of what might be a new car and my neck is too skinny to hold up my head it appears.
I’m listening to the song Easter Parade in my head with Bing Crosby singing it. “In your Easter bonnet with all the frills upon it, you’ll be the grandest lady, in the Easter parade.” I don’t remember my mother, despite being the grandest lady, wearing anything other than a pillbox hat but my wife…she loves wide brimmed hats with “all the frills upon it.”
New clothes at Easter were once a tradition, they may still be, but I am unsure. With all the Targets or Old Navies, we tend to buy clothes quite often instead of once or twice a year…if we can afford to buy and in the greatest country in the world many can’t. My fashion choices tend to be tee shirts and blue jeans anyway, the older the better. I still remember being told we were headed to Belks to pick out our new Easter Sunday clothes and the excitement that insued.
The tradition of wearing new clothes pre-dates the Christian celebration of Easter and crosses religions and ethnic groups. Like Easter bunnies and eggs, the tradition dates to the Pagans and their festival honoring Ostera, the Germanic Goddess of Spring. The German Pagans believed wearing new clothes brought good luck.
The Iranian new year, celebrated on the first day of Spring, has traditions rooted in the ancient pre-Islamic past. These traditions include spring cleaning and wearing new clothes to signify renewal and optimism.
Similarly, the Chinese celebrate their Lunar New Year wearing new clothes. It symbolized not only new beginnings, but the idea that people have more than they need.
So why did Christians make the wearing of new clothes a tradition? During the early Roman days of the Church, newly baptized Christians wore new, white linen robes at Easter to symbolize spiritual rebirth and new life.
New clothes became the law around 300 A.D., at least for Patricians, the Roman upper class. Roman Emperor Constantine made it mandatory to wear them in his court on Easter. Eventually, the tradition came to mark the end of Lent, when after wearing weeks of the same clothes, worshipers discarded the old clothes for new ones.
It took a while for the Easter traditions to take hold in the United States. You can thank the Puritans and their Protestant offshoots who didn’t believe such celebrations were necessary or called for. Many Puritans saw traditional feasts of the established Anglican Church, such as All Saints’ Day and Easter, as abominations because the Bible does not mention them. Others claimed that it was derivative of pagan practices that were incompatible with Christianity. It would take a terrible event to make Easter celebrations a part of Americana…The Civil War.
After the death and devastation of the war, churches saw Easter as a source of hope for Americans…a true rebirth. Easter became “The Sunday of Joy,” and women traded the dark colors of mourning for the happier colors of spring.
One of the more famous displays of “wearing of new clothes”, including Easter bonnets, began in 1870s with the New York Easter Parade. It has evolved into the ultimate “dress up day.” Men and women don their finest, even dressing their pets, and stroll down Fifth Avenue. New Yorkers celebrate the Easter parade and bonnet festival with great enthusiasm and of course, it is a boom the for retailers who sell the clothes and bonnets.
During the mid-Twentieth Century the wearing of new clothes became more secular than religious. even patriotic. It was about American prosperity and, in some ways, became a part of the Cold War’s battle of words between Capitalism and Communism.
During the Sixties I had given up my bowties for a necktie and blue oxford cloth shirts and starched khakis became mainstays. The flat top was traded for longer, but not long, hair featuring longer sideburns. A light blue sports coat covered it all. It was another family Easter picture in front of my grandmother’s birdbath and flower garden. Iris, roses, and lilies had yet to show their Spring colors.
The picture is poignant to me. My mother is not showing the ravages of ALS that would cause her to trade the lawn chair for a wheelchair within two years. Except for my brother, have you seen an unhappier looking group?
I remember my mother being child-like celebrating Easter. Big smiles and laughter as she helped us dye Easter eggs. The expected Easter ham and deviled eggs for Easter lunch. Delighting in hiding the eggs and helping us find them. Chocolate bunnies and malted milk eggs. For some reason, a chocolate cake for dessert.
After lunch and the Easter Egg hunt there might have been a rerun of The Robe or Easter Parade on one of our two local TV channels. Either would have been acceptable to watch and napping might have warranted.
I’ve become more spiritual and less religious over the years but will still celebrate the day. In addition to the Christian and Pagan celebrations of resurrection and rebirth, I was born on an Easter Sunday and will celebrate my birthday this Easter Sunday. I expect both my celebrations will be spent quietly. No Easter parade, just family.
Happy Easter to all who read this, may you all experience your own form of rebirth.
“I am saddened and horrified. What I am not is surprised.” –Don Miller
Let the war of words begin. It is sad, but by the time I share this the furor over violence will have moved on until the next act of violence against our children. It has been six whole days.
Most of the reactions will follow a familiar path, “thoughts and prayers”, media outcries for change, pro-gun rights folks debate limited-gun rights folks and anti-gun rights folks. Time passes with nothing changing except more guns are bought until the furor dies and we are again shocked with the next school shooting. The debate begins again and honestly…we don’t seem to be as shocked as we once were. It has become another day in America.
This battle of words will be different this time. While most school shooters are male, this time the LGBTQ+ community will be the center of political arguments…and conspiracy theories and “false flag” conspiracies. If you follow the “there are only two genders” logic the shooter was male, if not she was a female. Does it matter to the dead?
I’ve seen suggestions resurfacing to arm teachers, my least favorite out of myriads of least favorites, to we must “harden the targets.” That sounds like something from a war zone or a “sh!th@le” country once described by a naval orange dressed in a blue suit. All ignore the underlying issue. A culture that embraces violence over diplomacy with access to vast amounts of weapons to execute that violence.
The arming of teachers I find reprehensible. Blaming teachers for every educational ill, accusing them of “grooming” or “indoctrination”, questioning their ability to choose books and now your wish is to put them armed in a class with your juvenile delinquents? I don’t really believe they are juvenile delinquents but wanted you to know that words hurt…so does a round from a rifle or pistol.
Another suggests “evil exists, and laws will not change that.” Why do we have laws at all then? Are laws for honest people? Evil does exist but why are we not keeping weapons out of the hands of evil?
Do I believe this latest killer is evil? No. I believe she was a troubled person who committed an evil act. An evil act that she is responsible for. I also believe there were contributing factors. I blame her for pulling the trigger, but I also blame those who helped put the trigger in her hand.
Let me be fair. It is not just about school, church, or supermarket shootings. It is the drive by in LA, or gang violence in Chicago or Baltimore, or the drunken good ole boy who decides to William Tell a PBR can off his friend’s head and misses a bit low with his hunting rifle. It is about domestic murder in the South and the death of college students in the Midwest.
It’s about students wounded while walking to their prom. It is about gunfire due to road rage and looking cross eyed at the wrong person. It’s about good old boys strapping AR-15s to their back when they get a coffee at the local coffee shop. It is about a lack of empathy and ignoring the sanctity of life in favor of an amendment to the Constitution.
I’ve shared this before but in case you missed it, in 2020, the last year for complete data, gun violence became the leading cause of youth deaths surpassing automobile accidents. Most were suicides. According to the Pew Research Center, in 2020, 54% of all gun-related deaths in the U.S. were suicides (24,292), while 43% were murders (19,384). The numbers came from the CDC and were backed by other sources.
According to CNN, personal safety tops the list of reasons why American gun owners say they own a firearm, yet 63% of US gun-related deaths are self-inflicted from a gun in their home. Please check my research. You might learn something.
It is a fact that it took a finger to pull the trigger, the gun didn’t do it on its own, and these Pew and CDC statistics do not reflect accidental gun deaths or where guns were a contributing factor but not the cause of death.
An undeniable truth is that we live in a gun rich environment. Five percent of the world’s population owns 44-46% of the world’s civilian firearms depending on the study you might be reading. According to a recent CNN study, we own more guns than we have people, one hundred-twenty guns per one hundred people. In 2022, 1.65 million guns were purchased by Americans, which is a slight decline from 2020. One Point Six Five Million.
According to a Scientific American study in 2015, and from what I’ve pieced together it hasn’t changed, assaults with a firearm were 6.8 times more common in states that had the most guns, compared to the least and the data is limited since until recently the federal government was effectively barred from gathering it. Thank the NRA and the “Dicky Amendment.” More than a dozen studies have revealed that if you had a gun at home, you were twice as likely to be killed as someone who didn’t.
Research from the Harvard School of Public Health determined that states with higher gun ownership levels have higher rates of homicide. Data even tells us that where gun shops or gun dealers open for business, killings go up. There are always exceptions to the rule, but some politicians would have you ignore the overall data and quote the exceptions rather than the rule.
Guns are big money. In an article by Fortune Magazine published by Yahoo, Gun rights groups spent $15.8 million on lobbying in 2020, compared to just $2.9 million in lobbying from gun control groups. Beyond lobbying, gun groups have contributed $50.5 million to federal candidates and party committees between 1989 and 2022, with most of those contributions going to Republicans. They spent especially heavily in the 2020 election, with $16.6 million in outside spending.
Oh, but the Second Amendment…. I’m not going to debate it except to say that one side always ignores two words, “well regulated.”
Will there be a change? If history repeats, I expect not. I don’t believe I am an overly cynical person but why would I expect change? Guns are as much a part of our culture as mom, apple pie, and Chevrolet. Other than exchanging duck and cover drills for active shooter drills little has changed.
Our history is rife with violence, mostly involving a gun. Our country was born from violence and expanded using violence, facts we don’t want our school children to hear. Do we have a greater propensity for violence than other countries? I believe so but if not, other countries have done a better job of curbing theirs.
We have violent games, violent movies glorifying the gun and the heroic figure welding it. I’m just as guilty. Several of my novels include violence…gun violence but the good guy with the gun always saved the day…unlike real life.
When I read my comic books, Zane Grey, or Louis Lamoure, I knew it was fiction. James Arness or John Wayne wasn’t really gunning them down in the streets. After I became a history student, I found out their fiction was…based on fiction. There were few gunfights in the streets and the Gunfight at the OK Corral lasted about thirty seconds. My novels are no different. They are fictional…but…real violence is real.
Other cultures have violent games, movies, and literature, but they don’t have real-life violence like we do here. Should we work to keep guns out of the hands of the violent? Should we look at the underlying issues that lead to violence and attempt to correct them?
It is mental illness. I believe someone who goes out and kills multiple children and adults is mentally ill…but that doesn’t give that person a free pass. As I said before, she pulled the trigger but if you are going to blame it on mental illness, other countries with much lower murder rates have mental illnesses too. Could it have something to do with our health system? Should we work to keep guns out of the hands of the mentally ill?
It is parenting, but why? Single parent homes? Parents having to work multiple jobs leaving their children to their own devices? Cycles of poverty? Again, among the states and cities in those states, statistics show that the higher the poverty rate, the higher the homicide rate…the higher the overall crime rate. This is true across all races and ethnicities and in blue, red, or purple states. Should we work to end poverty?
Criminals will always find a way…yes probably. Should we cut off access at the source? Gunmakers and smugglers? Everything is done after the murder instead of trying to prevent it. Could it be gunmakers and politicians are making too much money off the sale of legal and illegal firearms? Should we limit contributions from the gun lobby and NRA?
Maryland was one of the outliers in the Pew study. Strict gun laws but a higher number of gun deaths. Sixty-five percent of the guns used in violence in Maryland that could be traced came from other states with laxer gun laws. I don’t know the numbers but the same can be said about Chicago, I’m sure. Just something to ponder. Should we strengthen our gun laws?
Cain killed Abel with a rock. Yep, if the Bible is to be believed. I would rather confront a killer walking around with a bag of rocks than a bag of thirty round magazines and a rifle or pistol to put them in.
Along the same lines, “We’ve taken God out of … fill in the blank.” There are many countries who aren’t considered “Christian Countries” who have much lower gun homicide rates. Research Shinto Japan and while you are at it research their gun laws. Japan has a very violent history at times. How did these less Christian countries overcome the problem?
It does seem we have lost our appreciation for the sanctity of life…all life. Our hatred for others leads us to violence. Rhetoric against the Trans Community will increase due to this act, so will acts of violence toward them. Disagreement has become life threatening. We pick some “other” to spew our hateful rhetoric on.
Some Christians will say it is because we have become Godless, I will say that some Christians have driven me from organized religion because they are Jesus-less as they have replaced him with an idol in the shape of an assault-style rifle. If you can’t appreciate the Earth and the people who live on it, I want no part of you or your religion.
I don’t expect any of this will change anyone’s mind about guns…or violence…or mental illness and I don’t believe any effective change will occur. Gun violence is too engrained in our culture, and we pass it on to our children. I fear it is who we are.
“True terror is to wake up one morning and discover that your high school class is running the country.” ― Kurt Vonnegut
For some reason, a memory of a manure spreader hooked to the back of a pickup truck as they waited in the school’s carpool line wandered through my mind. A smelly, just used manure spreader at that. It is just a normal day in the rural South. A manure spreader one day, a hay bailer the next…just another day in the sunny South. Why am I thinking about manure spreaders? I don’t know but I’m sure the thought was triggered by something one of our politicians said.
This is the tenth-year anniversary of my last year teaching full time. Time flies and I’m amazed at the changes that have occurred in public education in the decade since I retired. Changes that I saw on the horizon ten years ago. I was fortunate to escape the ‘looney bin’ that has become public education. I was lucky they didn’t lock the doors until after I escaped.
As I look back on my career, memories allow me to smile. As I look to the future I realize, if faced with the same two choices of careers when I graduated from college, I would pick the other. There doesn’t seem to be much joy in teaching these days and that is a shame. It is better to focus on warm memories than the cold future of education. Hopefully, you will smile too.
Just like politics, there are differences between schoolin’ in an urban setting and a rural setting…and even more so, in a Southern rural setting. I received my “schoolin’” in a Southern rural school and was lucky to teach in a couple of small rural middle and high schools over my forty plus years.
In a Southern rural school, one sees and hears things you do not see anywhere else. I am somewhat of an authority having taught both in urban, inner-city schools, affluent suburban schools, and Southern rural schools, one tucked so far back into the sticks the only air pollution was the tart smell of a nearby moonshine still or the woodsmoke from the fire cookin’ the corn liquor.
During my high school days, I took agriculture classes as electives and was an active participant in the FFA. I was a member of the cattle judging and soil judging teams…soil judging? I judge you to be dirty. I can honestly say, “I’ve never used what I learned about cows or soil in my everyday life.” I do try to grow tomatoes, so I guess soil judging paid off.
Frequently the agriculture class would travel to local farms in the springtime to assist in the castration of bull calves. Always a fun time to be had by all except the calves we wrestled to the ground. Holding on to a rear leg for dear life, the scared animal decided to spray us with solid waste. I doubt an urban school would have an entire class dismissed because they were covered in cow poop.
Later, during my teaching career, I found myself tardy for an interview because of a small wagon being pulled by a team of burros on a narrow and curvy country road. Passing was impossible and the gentleman handling the rig was in no mood to pull over. I found out it was just the local drunk who had lost his driver’s license and was on his way to pick up his daily allotment of MD 2020 or Boones Farm. I guess if you are sober enough to hitch up a team of burros, you are sober enough to drive them.
One of my teaching stops celebrated “ride your horse to school day” in the early Fall and another “drive your tractor to school day” in the late Spring. They weren’t school sanctioned, just something that happened. In between there were rodeos and turkey shoots that many of the students from both schools participated in.
One Spring Fling, held on the baseball field, required an outfield cleanup before we could play again after the “cow patty drop” fund raiser. The outfield was gridded and numbered; each grid sold for five dollars. Ole Betty the cow was led out and turned loose. Whichever grid Betty first pooped in won some lucky soul half the pot, the other half was donated to the athletic department. Anything to make a dollar and it could have been worse, “cow patty toss?”
One school might as well have called off school on the first day of deer hunting season as our attendance went down by at least a third. Most days there was someone dressed in camo with an orange or yellow vest sitting in class who had been in the woods very, very early. I’m sure there were shotguns hidden behind the seats of many pickups in the student parking lot so their owners could get a jump on an evening spent in a deer stand.
I once told my classes that I didn’t care if they ate snacks if they did it quietly and shared with the rest of the class…and their teacher. I’ve never understood keeping growing teenagers from eating despite school rules to the contrary. One student brought a large tub of boiled peanuts and a fresh roll of paper towels for us all to eat on. Another provided me with homemade deer jerky on a weekly basis during deer season. Boiled peanuts and homemade deer jerky were acceptable as classroom snacks or party appetizers and were some of the best Christmas presents, I ever received. You can keep your shiny red apple or fruit cake.
At the urban schools where I taught, I never paused baseball practice to watch a deer sprint across the outfield before escaping by jumping the left centerfield fence or stopped practice when a parent brought by the five-hundred-pound boar hog he had killed. We were the only folks around to show off for I guess, and we stood around the truck bed and expressed our awe to the proud hunter. We ate slow cooked Boar BBQ two days later. Being nice does pay off.
While I’m on pigs, being late to school because “the pigs got out” was an acceptable reason to be tardy…or goats, cows, chickens, and horses.
A teaching peer once asked me, “What was the difference between teaching at the affluent, suburban (so and so) High School and the poorer, rural (the other) High School?”
I smiled, “At (so and so) High School if the conversation included ‘I shot’ it was about golf. At (the other) High School, it was about hunting.”
“A ‘normal person’ is what is left after society has squeezed out all unconventional opinions and aspirations out of a human being.” ― Mokokoma Mokhonoana
I just read a plea for normalcy. The plea had to do with the way a certain youth had chosen to dress. Was it her purple hair or her nose stud that set you off? “Why can’t they be like we were?” Because they live in a different world, and we aren’t the way we were.
This came from a person of a generation who might have worn a Poodle skirt while sucking on a Chesterfield unfiltered, or a coonskin cap and taken their shoes off to dance. Youth have always stretched the rules for normalcy according to the previous generation. Have you ever watched “Rebel Without a Cause” or “The Wild Ones?”
Charles Addams’ quote comes to my mind, “Normal is an illusion. What is normal for the spider is chaos for the fly.” I wonder who I am, the spider or the fly?
Merriam-Webster defines normal as: “conforming to a type, standard, or regular pattern” and “according with, constituting, or not deviating from a norm, rule, or principle.” But who determines the standard, regular pattern, or rule? Society, culture, our previous learnings, all contribute to our view of normalcy but what happens when we begin to question it or worse, ignore convention?
As I questioned myself, I thought about the spider weaving a web. The web is how the spider survives but when the fly gets stuck in the web his chance of survival becomes nil. Their concepts of normalcy are skewed in different directions. Both experience the web, yet their experiences are radically different…much like individuals from different generations.
Normal is an illusion dependent upon our point of view and few of us are willing to break out of the box society and our culture put us in. This is what you should wear, how you should act, and what you should believe. It is hard to throw off childhood programming instituted by our parents, their parents, teachers, and clergymen and as we get older the box becomes like hardened concrete. “Don’t confuse me with the facts….”
According to a blogger only known as Heather, “Normal is a box that our society created that reflects someone’s or some group’s definition of how things should be. Having these labels makes these people feel more comfortable about their own choices and ideologies. But everyone is different and that is what makes us who we are.”
She continued, “At the end of the day, normal is the biggest illusion you will ever buy into. Plus, why would you want to be normal and fit in with everyone else, when you were born to stand out?”
It is also boring to think that we are all cookie-cutter versions of someone else, yet society would have you do just that. I loved my parents, but I do not want to be them although I say things that came right out of my father’s mouth.
Most views of normal are forced upon us by our previous generations. My parents were just as critical of my fashion and music choices, choices of friends and girlfriends as we are critical of the next generation. Normal changes generationally.
These are the people telling others how to dress today.
When I taught, I tended to view students in terms of square and round pegs. Except for those few who felt the need to set their pegs on fire and went around humming Pink Floyd’s “Another Brick in the Wall”.
Most students aspired to be round pegs that fitted nicely into their round holes…what we would, as teachers and as society, consider “normal.” They “fit” the norm. Studious, well behaved, driven to please, you get the idea…likely to bring the teacher an apple normal.
There were others. Square pegs who didn’t want to conform to the round holes. We teachers were expected to knock the edges off until we could force them into a hole no matter how constricting the hole was.
They were the ones who thought outside of their box and colored outside of the lines if they hadn’t turned their box into some type of art form. They wanted to express themselves in ways that didn’t reflect accepted cultural norms for teenagers. They were the ones who wanted to push the envelope whether it was the way they dressed, wore their hair, or participated in activities frowned upon by society. They were the rebellious youth of Ferris Bueller’s Day Off or Dazed and Confused. Creative, and wishing to erase all boundaries.
Early in my career, I found the “little Buellers” to be as much a challenge as his movie teachers did. A teaching peer of mine pointed me in a different direction when she said, “These are the most creative students you will teach. If we can just get them out of high school, they will be okay.” I found this to be true.
Late in my career, when they weren’t driving me crazy, I found them the most interesting and I seemed to attract them. The kids who looked at the world with a tilted head, a quizzical look, and a sly smile. They weren’t bad kids, anything but. They questioned, they asked why or why not and weren’t willing to accept the “normal” answer, sometimes to the chagrin of their parents and teachers. (I don’t believe there are “bad” kids, only the ones we were unable to reach)
Unfortunately, our youth have become, in today’s climate, a part of a political battleground not of their own creation. Republicans versus Democrats, “woke” versus “anti-woke”, history versus CRT, straight versus LGQBT, parents versus teachers, parents versus parents, and Ron DeSantis versus history. I would not be able to teach in today’s climate…I would not want to. I hope our youth rebel against this “new” normal and create a “newer” normal of their own that reflects the true definition of “woke” and not the propaganda point.
I find it humorous that I have grown more liberal and “hippie-like” in my old age. I was one of the “normal” ones who came of age during the late Sixties. Normal as in haircuts every two weeks, starched button downs, khaki pants, and penny loafer normal. Anything to please your parents normal. I was patriotic as in “my country right or wrong.” I grew a beard and wore my loafers without socks as my protest against convention. In my Autumn years I have added blue jeans and Jimi Hendrix tee-shirts to my wardrobe.
The Sixties were a decade of extremes, of transformational change and bizarre contrasts: flower children and assassins, idealism and alienation, rebellion, and backlash. Somehow, I avoided the issues by wandering through the decade in a non-drug induced lack of consciousness.
By the end of the decade Americans had lost much of their innocence and optimism and parallels much of what I see today. I only began to embrace the lessons learned in the Sixties in my Autumn years. We are once again battling ourselves with our youth at the spear tip of some of our battles. Normal change is characterized as abnormal and both sides of an argument state the same points against each other.
Yes Charles Addams, “Normal is an illusion” and I have misplaced my rose-colored glasses.
***
The title of my post is a play on Patsy Clairmont’s book, “Normal is Just a Setting on Your Dryer”. It is available through Amazon.
Don Miller’s writings and novels may be found at https://tinyurl.com/2ef2a429 Don’s latest is a historical novel, “Thunder Along the Copperhead.”
“I don’t mind going back to daylight saving time. With inflation, the hour will be the only thing I’ve saved all year.” — Victor Borge
There are many perks to retiring. A huge one being, I am not held captive by the clock…except when I have a doctor’s appointment. Doctor’s appointments are one of the non-rewards of retirement because to retire, one must get old. I don’t wear a watch anymore. If I could figure out how to get rid of a calendar, I would. But then when would I know we were getting ready to change to Daylight Saving Time and back again? Note: I have trouble knowing which day of the week it is since I retired…don’t care, either.
When I was a child, I didn’t remember much about Daylight Saving Time except when Mr. Gordon walked into our church service with a bewildered look on his face as we stood and began to sing the benediction. Mr. Gordon, like my family, tended to get up with the crowing of a rooster and went to bed when the chickens came home to roost. Unlike us he had missed the news flash about the then April change in time.
I remember asking my parents why we were changing the time. They stared off into space and no explanation was forthcoming. There still is no explanation but the difference is, I just don’t care.
My lack of care today was not the case when I toiled in the then hallowed halls of education. Working people and students will wake up on Monday morning and spend the day yawning because in springing forward, they will lose an hour of sleep. Nowhere is this more evident than in a high school teaching environment. Teens are notorious for finding ways to stay awake well past their bedtimes and Sunday night, March 12th will be no different, except it will be worse. On March 13, Little Johnny and Juanita will sleepwalk through the halls of learning even more stupefied than normal. So will their teachers.
No one has been able to give me a good reason as to why we need Daylight Saving Time and Dave Berry agrees, “You will never find anybody who can give you a clear and compelling reason why we observe daylight saving time.” Another quote attributed to “a wise old Indian” states, “Only the government would believe that you could cut a foot off the top of a blanket, sew it to the bottom, and have a longer blanket.” I see nothing faulty about his logic.
So, why do we have it?
According to a CBS Boston article, “Daylight Saving Time has its roots in train schedules, but it was put into practice in Europe and the United States to save fuel and power during World War I, according to the US Department of Transportation’s Bureau of Transportation Statistics.” Train schedules? Must be of German origin. Don’t their trains always run on time?
While in Paris, Ben Franklin proposed the time shift change in 1784. In a satirical letter to a Parisian newspaper, Franklin suggested that waking up earlier in the summer would economize on candle usage; and calculated considerable savings. This makes no more sense than train schedules. I’m trying to decide if this is contrary to his Poor Richard’s quote, “Early to bed, early to rise….”
To continue, “The US kept Daylight Saving Time permanent during most of World War II. The idea was put in place to conserve fuel and keep things standard. As the war came to a close in 1945, Gallup asked respondents how we should tell time. Only 17% wanted to keep what was then called “war time” all year.”
“During the energy crisis of the 1970s, we tried permanent Daylight Saving Time again in the winter of 1973-1974. The idea was to conserve fuel. It was a popular move at the time when President Richard Nixon signed the law in January 1974. But by the end of the month, Florida’s governor had called for the law’s repeal after eight schoolchildren were hit by cars in the dark. Schools across the country delayed start times until the sun came up.”
I remember 73-74 well. Waiting in gas lines only to have them run out as you finally got to the pumps. It was my first-year teaching and I remember gym duty before school. We corralled our little charges in one place, so they didn’t get lost in the darkness outside. Seven hundred of the devil’s minions in a gym.
“By summer, public approval had plummeted, and in early October Congress voted to switch back to standard time.”
So why do we need Daylight Saving Time? In two words, we don’t…unless you are going to utilize that extra hour of daylight after work or school. It is geared toward industry or those with typical “9 to 5” jobs. An extra hour of sunlight to drink another martini on the veranda in the glow of the sun.
My biggest argument against it? Daylight Saving will kill you. It seems to do damage to the human psyche and our health. Studies over the last 25 years have shown the one-hour change disrupts body rhythms tuned to Earth’s rotation. We have more car accidents when people lose an extra hour of sleep. We also know that people suffer more heart attacks at the start of Daylight Saving Time.
But for every argument there may be a counter argument. People seem happier with the extra hour of afternoon daylight, heart attacks be damned, and robberies decrease. Robberies decrease? Candles aside, the biggest argument for it is for saving energy but studies have shown there is little energy saved. And yet we continue to spring forward and fall back.
Arguments to keep it come from the recreational sport world, think driving ranges that want golfers to stop by after work, an extra hour for fisherman to go out and hook a monster, or the Little League world. Arguments against come from farmers who have a harder time getting their dairy products and vegetables to market, usually done in the early morning. Farmers and ranchers are governed by the sun and not a time piece.
So, your feelings about Daylight Saving depends on who you are and what you do. I’m retired. I go to sleep when I’m sleepy and get up when I’m not…well, my puppies have replaced my childhood roosters. I’m sure my puppy dogs wild dictate when I get up. They may not be able to tell the time, but they know when it is mealtime.
Note: 2022 poll by Monmouth University found 61 percent of respondents want to stop switching, while only 35 percent want to keep things the way they are. But those who want to end the madness are divided: 44 percent said they want permanent Daylight Saving Time and 13 percent want permanent Standard Time. With the political madness on display every day why would I guess otherwise?
“The job of feets is walking, but their hobby is dancing.” ― Amit Kalantri
She glided into my arms with invisible angel wings. It was a fraternity formal and The O’Jays were singing a slow song. We were “slow dancing, swaying to the music”, my arms around her waist, hers around my neck. She was a vision of loveliness in an emerald, green empire-waisted gown that complimented the deep red hair piled high on her head and the emerald, green choker around her neck. I inhaled her pheromones…perfume and stood no chance. I was smitten.
As I gazed into her blue-green eyes I noticed the freckles splashed across her nose and felt my heart squeeze. I was smitten again. I leaned in to steal a kiss, but my “second” left foot failed me, making solid contact with the instep of her high heel encased foot. I was left with duck lips kissing air as she bent over in pain.
My “feets” had failed at their hobby as badly as the relationship failed five years later. At least she left me still on my feet, staggered but standing.
Someone shared a video on social media, and I made the mistake of clicking on the “twist contest” from the movie Pulp Fiction. It wasn’t so much the dancing of John Travolta and Uma Thurmond but Chuck Berry’s “C’est La Vie” that got me “chair dancing” in my recliner. I am now one of the old folks who say, “it goes to show you never can tell.” I also dance better sitting than I do standing but that has always been the case.
I must have been in a good mood. An old song making me want to dance, even if it was in a chair. It triggered memories from a half century ago. I quickly put the redhead out of my mind and fell down a rabbit hole. Further YouTube “research” led me from thoughts of bobby socks and poodle skirts to mini-skirts and Go-Go boots and from Weejuns, starched button downs, and khaki duck trousers to lime green leisure suits and “catch me, f*ck me” shirts accessorized with gold chains.
Having two left feet didn’t bother me in my teen years that began in the early Sixties. The novel dance crazes of the day were less scripted than those practiced by the previous “Swing” generation. The “Disco” craze was still most of a decade away. We had dances with descriptive names like “The Jerk”, “The Watuzi”, “The Mashed Potato”, and the dance everyone could do, “The Twist.” I could stand in the middle of the dance floor and mimic Joe Cocker stepping on a live wire, and no one would notice.
Teen’s dancing novel dances badly
My two left “feets” would not become an issue until the late Sixties when I thought I needed to learn how to “Shag.” The cute little blond took my hand and pulled me onto the dance floor at The Cellar as “Carolina Girls” began to play. “Come on, I’ll teach you,” she said. She got over her injuries quickly and we remained friends. There were too many nights spent at The Celler chasing the elusive female beast to the tunes of The Catalinas not to learn to shag. Ample nickel drafts didn’t help the dancing but reduced the inhibitions that tended to cripple me.
Known as “The Carolina Shag”, it is a partner dance that requires dancing in concert with another human being to what is known as “Beach Music.” No, this beach music would not include The Beach Boys or Jan and Dean. Holding her right hand with my left, we stepped in and back, did a bit of a slide with one foot and then I got lost. Twirls are involved at some point giving me the opportunity to embarrass myself further.
I got lost a lot at The Cellar in Charlotte, The Barn in Rock Hill, and during coastal retreats to The Beach Club in Myrtle Beach, just to name a few. There were frat parties and, in the Seventies, discos to also display my two left feet. In the late Seventies, the movie “Urban Cowboy” and John Travolta turned us all into cowboy hat wearing line dancers and mechanical bull riders. Riding a mechanical bull was safer.
“Dancin’, Shaggin’ on the Boulevard” refers to Ocean Boulevard at Myrtle Beach. Alabama got their start playing at The Bowery on the Boulevard. I don’t remember the girls in 1968 or 69 dressing the way they dressed in the video.
I practiced long and hard to master the most rudimentary dance steps, sometimes with live partners, other times in the solitude of my room holding on to the doorknob to a closet door as a partner. At least a closet door has no feet to step on, but I did step in too close and received a black eye from the edge of the door for my efforts.
Disco? You are kidding, that was a death wish. I was hustled a few times but never did The Hustle. Thankfully, there was The Bump, the most fun I had had with my hips since The Twist.
It took my graduation into a new century to realize it didn’t matter. It would be 2001 before William Purkey would say, “You’ve gotta dance like there’s nobody watching, love like you’ll never be hurt, sing like there’s nobody listening, and live like it’s heaven on earth.” It would take me a while longer to realize he was right.
Unless you are an exotic dancer it really doesn’t matter if you dance like someone electrocuted. No one really cares unless you step on their foot. Dancing doesn’t come from your feet; it comes from the heart and the music contained there. Just don’t ask me to waltz.
Side note: I once found myself on the dance floor with an exotic dancer. A very…flexible and demonstrative dancer, she danced as if she was in search of a stripper pole. She did manage to keep her clothes on and still get the attention of everyone in the venue.
“Good food should be joyful. There should be laughter and chatter, not people sitting there like they’re in a funeral-parlor waiting room.”- Jim Harrison
I’m having a moment. My wife brought me a meal from a local meat and three. Bless her heart. I applaud her efforts but the BBQed chicken gave its life for naught it would seem. The cabbage slaw, way too sweet. The hush puppies were awful, hard on the inside and even harder on the outside, but they triggered a memory which led to a pig trail. I’m sure there is a rabbit hole to fall into at the end.
Hush puppies are fried balls of seasoned cornbread batter. I like mine sans sugar with finely chopped onion and garlic mixed into the batter. A Southern staple served alongside anything fried or BBQ, they should be a golden, crispy brown on the outside and a creamy, moist yellow or white on the inside.
Supposedly hush puppies were fried up and fed to dogs to keep them quiet while fish were fried on the riverbanks where they had been caught as friends and family fellowshipped with each other. Thus, the name, “Hush puppies.” (According to Wikipedia, the name “hush puppy” or “hushpuppy” first appeared in print in 1899)
An alternative theory, a theory that is just as likely to be true, is that escaping slaves used fried cornbread to silence pursuing hounds and to throw them off their scent. Both work for me but the first theory follows better with my pig trail.
At some point hush puppies became a fish camp side dish, and my rabbit hole led me to a seafood platter featuring deep fried flounder or catfish fillets and Calabash shrimp along with mayonnaise slaw and hush puppies.
Fish camps gained popularity before World War Two and owe their beginnings to gatherings on the side of rivers or coastal shores, “creek camps” if you will. Everyone chipping in with fish caught that day, deep fried in seasoned batter, or pan fried after dredging in a seasoned cornbread and flour mix. The main course was served alongside cabbage slaw and hushpuppies. Simple food prepared cheaply, and might I say majestically, with a good dose of fellowship to go with it.
Enterprising souls saw a business opportunity, threw up rough structures, and served up deep fried fish on Friday and Saturday nights. As roads and transportation improved local catfish, carp, and crappy were replaced by flounder, shrimp, and oysters. The ocean’s bounty was transported to the upstate and served on Fridays and Saturdays.
Fish camps once were numerous on both banks of the Catawba River where I grew up. Cute names like “Catfish Cove” or simple ones like the Riverview Inn were prolific. The Riverview Inn featured its own pirate, Captain Windy, complete with a real peg leg but missing the eyepatch and parrot on his shoulder. I really don’t remember it as an Inn and my family was not there for the view. They once served a ton of flounder over one weekend.
In the Carolinas, upstate fish camps were tied to textiles and families. Many were family-run businesses that opened on weekends after the shiftwork of the week was completed. Textile workers flocked to the fish camps and visits to the fish camp became as routine as church on Sunday.
Unfortunately, fish camps are as scarce as hen’s teeth in my part of the world in the foothills of the Blue Ridge. Coastal Carolinas and Georgia have the fish camps, I’m sure Florida does too, but inland fish camps have dwindled into obscurity or become the pricier seafood restaurants.
I’ve been to some of the local ones claiming to be fish camps and if there are good ones, they remain hidden to me…nothing cheap or majestic about their offerings. My taste has changed or I’m still looking for the one perfect fish camp that existed in the late Sixties or early Seventies.
My fondest memory was a wreck of a building at the end of a hard-packed dirt road. A graying whitewash lapboard building covered by a rusty metal roof. Picnic tables with holes in the middle over a trash can to throw shrimp tails or oyster shells. The choices were simple; shrimp, fried or boiled, oysters fried or roasted, and the catch of the day which this day was deep fried flounder fillets. Sides were cabbage slaw, fries, and hush puppies with a hint of onion fried into them.
Squeeze bottles of tartar sauce and spicy cocktail were spaced conveniently around the table along with cheap paper towels to wipe your hands. Sweet tea or iced down PBRs washed it all down. Boiled shrimp and roasted oysters were served on newspaper, the rest in paper “boats.”
I remember a couple of “church” fish fries as a child. My humble Methodist church was a bit more “hellfire and brimstone” and had taken a page from our Baptist brothers. The best way to gather new members was through their stomachs. We just drew the line at requiring a casserole dish to enter Heaven’s Pearly Gates.
From down the road from my home, if the winds were right, late summer would bring the smell of fish frying during the annual camp meeting at the African Methodist Episcopal Zion Church that sat just off the Catawba on one of the creeks that fed it. Later, snatches of them making a joyful noise unto the Lord would be carried by the same breeze. Judging from the smell and the sound, they knew the way to heaven, even if it might have been heaven on earth, deep fried and seasoned by angels from generations past.
Fish camps and their predecessor, “creek camps” bode to a simpler time. Life revolved around work, family, and friends. Fishing was a form of recreation in addition to adding protein to the table. It was also a form of creation as many stories were told on the riverbank about the one that got away.
Combining necessity, recreation, and fellowship can’t be bad. Throw in a “jug band” and a bit of amber liquid and you might have hit on something.
“Why Should the Devil Have All of the Good Music?”- Variously attributed to Martin Luther, John Wesley, and Salvation Army founder William Booth
First let’s put that myth to bed. There is no evidence Martin Luther, John Wesley, or William Booth said such but according to my parent’s generation we were all going to hell listening to the Devil’s own rock-n-roll.
It would seem each previous generation thought the same thing all the way back to the Middle Ages. I wonder what my grandparents thought about the “torch singers” of the Forties or their parents thought of the Jazz and Blues in the Twenties? I wonder if my mother sat under an “apple tree” with anyone else but my father during WW 2 while listening to Glenn Miller or The Andrews Sisters.
Reading the reactions to Sam Smith and Kim Petra’s performance at the Grammy’s and Rihanna’s performance during the Super Bowl another older generation thinks the younger generation is on the slippery slope to hell and these performers are minions of Lucifer providing a helping hand to their downward haul. It also gives, in Sam’s and Kim’s case, a convenient “Satanic” target for those not happy with the “woke” support of the LGBTQIA+ community and who, in Rihanna’s case, might believe that “Negro” music and the “Devil’s” music are the same.
This is not an opinion piece on how good someone’s music is or is not. I was unimpressed by both performances, but Sam, Kim, and Rihanna were not singing to people in my age group demographics any more than Perry Como or Dean Martin were singing to mine during the Fifties. Many of the singers who sang to my demographic are molding in the grave…except for Keith Richards and Willie Nelson, of course. They will outlive my grandchildren it seems.
To quote Tom Taylor, a writer for Far Out, a site in the UK, “From utterly insane tales of Kiss front man Gene Simmons having a cow’s tongue to the satanic panic of Judas Priest sneaking hidden messages into their songs, the devil is often depicted as the despicable puppet master who makes the marionette of rock ‘n’ roll move. It was yelled at Elvis Presley when his hips were first thrusting pop culture into existence, and it continues to this day in the mutated form of musicians being accused of being in the Illuminati. We may have secularized the slander, but rock ‘n’ roll has always been tarred with the brush of Beelzebub.”
I would have to add Jerry Lee Lewis’ “great balls of fire,” Little Richard “banging your box”, Chuck Berry’s “little ding-a-ling”, and Lew Christie’s “rhapsody of teen-age love gone too far in the rain.” I would be remiss if I didn’t mention Tina Turner seeming to make oral love to her microphone while shaking it in the oh so short skirts and high heels.
Several of these performers were banned from mainstream radio play at various times and Elvis’ hips were not visible on the old Ed Sullivan Show as he was purposely filmed from the waist up. Somehow banning sounds familiar in the light of today. How many from my generation slowed down their forty-fives trying to figure out exactly what “Louie, Louie” was up to on that Kingsman record.
I’d say much of my generation’s devil’s music was more metaphor than ‘out there’, but it was there. And when the late Sixties hit with the dope smokin’, go, go girls dancin’ in cages, and the braless halter tops, it was obvious that Satan had us by the hand and was seductively drawing in another generation with his music instead of using a serpent to tempt with an apple.
Unfortunately, much of the devil’s music railed against by my parents’ generation had to do more with who was singing it rather than what was being sung. The “whitewashed” rhythm and blues and Rock-a-Billy of Elvis, Jerry Lee, and Carl Perkins was bad enough, and don-t get them talkin’ bout those longhaired British boys, but white kids crowded around a bandstand featuring African American singers and cheering while dancing “The Dirty Dog” was proof that Satan was moving among us.
That reminded me of a few “PJ” driven Frat and Sorority parties. PJ stood for Purple Jesus, a fruity concoction involving grape juice and grain alcohol or moonshine that would leave you uttering Jesus’ name in vain from the next morning’s hangover. Jesus’ name but it was Lucifer’s brew.
I never danced The Dirty Dog but my crew cut was present to hear James Brown and Fabulous Flames, Eddie Floyd, Billy Stewart, Otis Redding, and Archie Bell at venues where the performers themselves were not welcomed had they not been singing. Big haired white girls in Bobby Socks jumping around cheering for “The Godfather of Soul” as he pranced about singing “Try Me” was more than some of the previous generation could endure.
In my research I found the “Devil’s Music” moniker dates back much farther than just my lifetime. During the Medieval period music that was not church music nor followed the church’s rules was the Devil’s music. Gregorian chants or be damned!
Madrigals were considered the Devil’s music because they sang mostly about having sex. Ending a piece on a minor chord was also forbidden which gave us the Piccardi third (raising the third of the final chord of a piece in a minor so it cold ended on a major). The tritone was also banned. (I have no idea what a Piccardi third or tritone was or a cold end, but failing to use them must have been bad sending the performer straight to the bowels of hell.) Did you know that most of our concepts of Satan and Hell comes from Dante’s The Divine Comedy and not the Bible?
In modern and American terms, the Blues was considered the devil’s music by both the White and African American religious communities at the turn of the 20th century because of song content tied to drinking and dancing. The Baptist, especially, considered any dancing “dirty dancing” and only one step above the horizontal rumba.
The association of the Blues and Jazz with the Devil carried over to rock and roll and Elvis’ hips. Didn’t Blues great Robert Johnson sell his soul to the Devil? Well…that’s the legend at least.
Drinking, dancing, and forbidden sex were the original reasons. Voodoo New Orleans musicians didn’t help the cause nor did the fears I addressed earlier by middle Americans about their white kids listening to “black” music. Then there was Led Zeppelin and Black Sabbath…and now Sam Smith, Kim Petra, and Rihanna. My guess is that protests will continue and someone else will take their place in future generations.
John Lennon of The Beatles didn’t endear himself to Christians in 1966 when he made his infamous comment that The Beatles were, “More popular than God.” Christians everywhere added to the air pollution as they burned their vinyl Beatles records. It was a comment taken out of context and judging from The Beatles’ lasting influence and the decline in the Christian church, he might have been correct.
My generation, the latter-day Boomers who are the standard bearers, along with the Gen Xers they produced, for the “our off springs are turning to Satanism” group. I find such comments humorous. I remember the heat we took for growing our hair long, platform shoes, miniskirts, hot pants, and go-go boots…the Devil’s weed, “Make love not war” and “the summer of love.” Yes, Satan was behind our every move, I guess. Now we do what our previous generations did, point and cry out, “You are going to hell and your music is taking you there.”
I do think we had cooler cars with better music blasting from our AM radios or eight tracks. We dressed cooler with our bell bottoms and flowery shirts with long, pointy collars or Nehru jackets. Grandma before she was Grandma looked great without a bra on under her sweater and in her miniskirt and boots, a Salem 100 held between lips or fingers featuring bright red lacquered fingernails and lipstick. Red, the color of the Devil, right Sam? Right Rihanna? The devil dressed us too, I know our parents believed it.
Those horrible dances we did…unscripted like Pagan fertility dances…some of which were successful, and I wonder how many Gen Xers were conceived in the back seats of cars listening to Chicago Transits’ “Memory of the Coming Good” or Percy Sledge’s “When a Man Loves a Woman?”
Remember the angel and devil scene from Animal House? I had a few of those conversations, the angelic voice on one shoulder was usually drowned out by the devil’s on the other. Some of my escapades didn’t hold up well in the light of day but at the time….
I don’t think my music and the performances of the day took me down the primrose path to destruction. They simply made me hard of hearing. I don’t think Satan had much to do with it. Satan is more about punishment and the evil and temptation he punishes comes from within us.
Generations of young people have wanted to explore the secular world and have run afoul of societal norms written by the previous generations. Is that a sin? Maybe but again, I believe Satan has little to do with it. It is too easy to blame our evils on the Devil and not on ourselves
There “would be hell to pay when he got home. But the devil was in the back seat, keeping time to the music, and hell was a long way up the road. — T.C. Boyle
“On Valentine’s Day, the Spirit Club plastered the school with red streamers and pink balloons and red and pink hearts. It looked like Clifford the Big Red Dog ate a flock of flamingoes and then barfed his guts up.” ― Carolyn Mackler, Vegan, Virgin, Valentine
“Cupid, draw back you bow”
Note to self if you drop a rose bush don’t try to catch it. I’m now oozing blood from five spots on my right hand. Roses have thorns even those purchased from Valentine’s Day.
It seems, every Valentine’s Day is my own version of The St. Valentine’s Day Massacre or a Valentine’s slasher movie. I am sure I will have shot myself in the foot by day’s end but at least my bride hasn’t beheaded me like the original St. Valentine. I’m also sure she has considered it.
When it comes to Valentine’s Day, like Midas, I have a special talent. Everything I touch turns into poop.
I haven’t had a successful Valentine’s Day since grammar school. We filled out cheap, little Valentines for everyone in class. Short little sayings like “Be Mine!” I remember looking at “Be My Valentine” from Big Lamar, the class bully that should have been two grade levels above us. We had yet to become creative with little poems like, “Roses are red, violets are blue. Your feet smell like cow poop and your breath does too.”
My first negative memory of many was a Valentine’s Day preteen party in the early 1960s. The Church sponsored event was supposed to be a dress up, Sunday best kind of gala. A Kool-Aid and cupcake affair. We were Methodist so dancing would be allowed, and I prayed my two left feet would somehow transform themselves. A cute little blonde girl had agreed to “hang out and talk.” My first date.
The day before, the world’s largest zit appeared in the middle of my forehead. It didn’t matter. I’m sure the dance was great, but I have no memories of it because I didn’t get to go. My anxiety over my “first date” was so great I threw up and was kept home, in bed, covered in Vick’s VapoRub, the cure-all of the day. It might have been a stomach virus, but Valentine’s Day has been its own virus since. VapoRub was not the cure.
The dance worked out well for my date. A friend took advantage of the situation, and they became a couple. This weird Cupid moment might have been the high point of my attempts at being a romantic Valentine.
Can you imagine? On average, fifty-eight billion pounds or two point two billion dollars’ worth of chocolate will be sold the week leading up to Valentine’s Day. Over two-hundred and fifty million roses are produced just for Valentine’s Day. That is two point three billion in flower sales. A whopping six point two billion dollars are spent on jewelry. I have contributed with little success.
Love-struck Americans dole out almost twenty-four billion dollars on Valentine’s Day with men spending twice the average. Men will spend on average, one-hundred and seventy dollars to prove their undying love. Women? Half of that.
I’ve all but given up on making Valentine’s Day a special event. Attempts at romantic dinners have ended with food poisoning. I’ve tried poetry, “Roses are red, violets are blue, pizza is hot, and so are you.” I’ve tried to create artistic and rustic birdhouses with tin hearts or a couple holding hands. Most fell apart as quickly as my attempts at romantic expression.
I’m waiting for a masked psychopath to show up to carve out my heart in a real-life Valentine’s slasher movie. Blood splatter replacing rose petals scattered on the bedroom floor.
Speaking of bloody, how did the violent death of a Catholic saint become a celebration of love anyway? There are three suggested stories about three different Saint Valentines. What do they have in common? Martyrdom. Violent death. Two of the accounts involve beheading. Somehow beheading seems apropos. How many of us have lost our heads over someone we shouldn’t have?
That still doesn’t explain cards, candy, flowers, and jewelry but a historical change in Nineteenth Century America does. Prior to this time most marriages were economic rather than romantic despite what romantic writers would have us believe. Even the poor founded their marriages more as economic alliances than romantic love. “Two can live as cheaply as one,” I was told once. Someone lied to me.
This changed in the mid-1800s from economics to romance, or at least combined the two. It also triggered an increase in the giving of tokens of love and it has snowballed from there.
I have taken to giving rose plants as a token of my undying affection. My bride and I plant them in a rose garden next to my vegetable garden in hopes they will bloom as our love has. I dig the holes and let my bride plant them and as soon as she does, they become her responsibility. If they die, it’s on her.
My Midas special Midas touch is still in effect. Damn rose plant has thorns and they have already bitten me. This Valentine’s Day is in fact a bloody one.
Ravings of a Mad Southerner 