A Review of All Things Shining or "Why is there air?"

'Every Time I go to town

Someone kicks my dog around...'

In their book, All Things Shining (ATS), by Hubert Dreyfus and Sean Dorrance Kelly, the authors portray the post modern era as a period where metaphysics engenders an existential nihilism.  The book (ATS) is their effort to provide a window or a small crack through which we might escape the nihilistic metaphysics that dominates our age.  For literature of this post modern phenomena they use David Foster Wallace's, Infinite Jest.  When I first read, Infinite Jest, I thought it was about a guy like Woody Allen i.e., full of angst about the world and almost totally unable to make a decision and I must admit I have known people like that.  In the true Nietschean view of nihilism, there is no one reason to prefer one answer to any other which frees us to live any life we choose.  The problem, as ATS presents it, is that we no longer even want to choose.  They think everyone is going around searching for the meaning of life, like Captain Kirk and Mr Spock on some cosmic apocryphal quest.  The freedom to choose hinders our relationship with the sacred.  Did you get all that? Me neither.  I tend to embrace the logic of Thomas Farrell in his review of ATS on Amazon, "Dreyfus and Kelly are secular humanists writing for secular humanists."

Now, does this mean the book is not a worthwhile read?  Of course not.  ATS simply ignores the fact that a rather large portion of the world ALREADY has the sacred in their lives.  However, its is their contention that many of us have difficulty getting in touch with what they refer to as 'the sacred.'  The sacred being able to live one's 'life guided by something experienced as beyond oneself.'  They credit the explosion of many different religions as a result of religious believers having different answers to the existential questions about how to live our lives.  Having questions is not a bad thing, they contend, as long as you have the resources to answer them.

Their narrative uses literature, interpreted expertly, as the mechanism to open the door to the sacred.  Sounds like the Dali Lama lighting your way to enlightenment, huh?  Or maybe Jesus?  Buddha?  Mohammed?  Most philosophers I have known would not know sic 'em from come here (like most English Professors), however, Dreyfus and Kelly express a love of literature and the ability to draw from it powerful examples of an approach to life that allows us to live more fully by recognizing the sacred in our lives.

"The purpose of life is to be the eyes and ears

and conscience of Creator of the Universe,

you fool."

Breakfast of Champions - Kurt Vonnegut

The book does not attempt to answer what our purpose is, but it provides another avenue for getting in touch with the sacred, for those who do not have one.  On a scale of 1 to 5, the book is a 5 on content and logic and a 3 on relevancy.  Overall, 4 stars is my gift to Dreyfus and Kelly.

Until next time,
I remain,
Just another Semi-secular humanistic Zororastafarian conscious that he is just fartin' around, grasshopper....

MATTERHORN: A Review

I am washed in the blood of my men;
Their lifeless bodies I have lifted from the ground
And carried in my arms...
I am dead with them.
I am washed with their lives.
- Josh Hoskins, KIA Republic of Vietnam 1968 (Long Grey Line by Rick Atkinson)

Karl Marlantes' 2010 best seller, Matterhorn, is one of the better books to have been written about the nightmare, that those of us who fought there, knew as Vietnam. It is not in the same league as Tim O'Brien's If I Die in a Combat Zone, Box Me Up and Ship Me Home or his Pulitzer Prize finalist, The Things They Carried. Marlantes' could have benefitted from reading the chapter in The Things They They Carried entitled "How to Tell a True War Story". A 'true war story' is one that moves you, "if truly told, makes the stomach believe." Matterhorn did not make me 'feel' it. Oh, it was realistic and Marlantes was able to conjure up many of the sounds, sights and smells of Vietnam and the moments of sheer terror but it just did not move me. No amount of 'realism' will ever be able to render a 'true' picture of what Vietnam was like for the American soldier, much less the Vietnamese soldier. While Marlantes' writing may have been therapeutic for him, it only serves the general public as another example of the axiom, 'war is hell.' But war is much more than hell. Books that glorify war, while decrying it, by surreptitiously glorifying the soldier, only serve to prolong the American love affair with war.

Only the Dead have seen an end to War.
- George Santayana

There have been more realistic war novels written: Harry Brown's A Walk in the Sun, James Jones' TheThin Red Line, and Erich Maria Remarque's All Quiet on the Western Front. All of which make the stomach believe but none of which glorify war. And there are a host of novels that deal with surreal aspects of war including: Joseph Heller's Catch 22, Kurt Vonnegut's Slaughter Five, where a conscientious objector is the protagonist, and Thomas Pynchon's Gravity's Rainbow, where the protagonist's erection can predict a missile launch. Admittedly, when a country loses a war they tend to be more self-reflective than when they win a war, but like someone once said, "Nobody wins a war." And trust me, there is a plethora of books out there explicating the Vietnam War, looking for Jimmy Buffett's 'lost shaker of salt.' But like Tim O'Brien says:

You can tell a true war story by the questions you ask. Somebody tells a story, let's say, and afterward you ask, "Is it true?" and if the answer matters, you've got your answer. For example, we've all heard this one. Four guys go down a trail. A grenade sails out. One guy jumps on it and takes the blast and saves his three buddies. Is it true? The answer matters. You'd feel cheated if it never happened. Without the grounding reality, it's just a trite bit of puffery, pure Hollywood, untrue in the way all such stories are untrue. Yet even if it did happen - and maybe it did, anything's possible even then you know it can't be true, because a true war story does not depend upon that kind of truth. Absolute occurrence is irrelevant. A thing may happen and be a total lie; another thing may not happen and be truer than the truth. For example: Four guys go down a trail. A grenade sails out. One guy jumps on it and takes the blast, but it's a killer grenade and everybody dies anyway. Before they die, though, one of the dead guys says, "The fuck you dothat for?" and the jumper says, "Story of my life, man," and the other guy starts to smile but he's dead. That's a true story that never happened."
-The Things They Carried

Where Matterhorn does excel is in Marlantes' descriptions of men in war and the relationships they develop in combat. Marlantes is also able to depict what it was like being a black Marine in 1968 in Vietnam and makes clear the turmoil that existed between black and white Marines and the life-long friendships that overcame this distrust and bigotry that existed at the time. One such relationship was between a white Marine from Idaho, Williams, and a black Marine from the Mississippi delta, Cortell. Williams is troubled by Cortell 'hangin' out' with other black Marines and wants to know why. It is one of he more poignant moments in Matterhorn as the two Marines carry on a conversation about why black people want to 'be congregatin.' The conversation hinges on the story of the Ugly Duckling.

"Well, let me tell you what I think that story be about. It be about this little duck that can't grow up. Can't grow up to be a big duck 'cause he ain't a duck. But he don't know what he's 'sposed to grow up to." Cortell looked carefully to be sure he wasn't losing Williams. "I mean, you don't know what you supposed to grow up to, that make it pretty hard to grow up." He waited a moment. "So, we ain't congregating, we just hangin' out with people best we can to figure out where to is. You with me here? To ain't with the white folk 'cause we be black folk and tryin' to find to hangin' out with you chucks just a dead end for us. When I hang out with you chucks, I'm a black man first and who I really am come next. When I hang out with the splibs, I'm me first and there ain't no black man at all. It got nothin' to do with white folk. It's just the way it is. Ain't no voodoo conspiracy. We just hangin' out and movin' on best we can."
William who had been holding his breath, let it out. "Yeah. There it is."
"There it is," repeated Cortell.
- Matterhorn, p. 115

But trust me on this one, there was definitely tension between white and black Marines in Vietnam, and, as Rick Atkinson so aptly details in the The Long Grey Line, it spilled over at many different military posts. It was one of the primary reasons for the move to an all-volunteer military, which is a whole other blog! But contrary to Marlantes' proposition that it was just black Marines involved in fraggings (attempts to blow up superior officers by using fragmentation grenades) and it was just black Marines smuggling weapons back to 'the World,' there were a greater number of white Marines involved. I would imagine there are any number of Kalashnikovs (AK-47s) hidden in white supremacist enclaves all over the Northwest Washington, if Mr. Marlantes cared to check with the FBI office in Seattle. My own squadron, on its return to the United States in 1970, had various and sundry weapons confiscated by Customs officials and even the FBI was called in to investigate. But things haven't really changed much, show a white person with a gun strapped to his hip at a Presidential event and it doesn't conjure much fear, because, hey, that's his right! But show a black man with a beret on his head and the media is up in arms, I mean, hey, it's a Black Panther trying to scare the Bejeezus out of you at a polling place! I ask you, which is more dangerous, Beret or 3.57 Magnum? But it does make it easier to understand why Karl portrayed the black Marines primarily as trouble-makers.

Worst of all is Marlantes portrayal of helicopter support, a topic he should have researched a little better. As a former helicopter crew chief, I can tell you, we flew in ALL conditions. Our pilots were Naval trained and knew how to fly IFR (Instrument Flight Rules). We flew in monsoons, at night, with one engine, in the mountains, just to extract some sad bastard that had overdosed on barbituates. In Matterhorn, Marlantes' has his Marines humping up a mountain for eight days without food or water and blames it on being unable to be resupplied. I know the book is a fictional work, or as the New York Times likes to call it, "creative nonfiction," but it does contain a certain amount of outrageous bullshit. Marines not taking care of Marines qualifies as outrageous bullshit. And if Mr. Marlantes has 10 Air Medals (over 200 missions), he should know his portrayal of Marine Helicopters is absurd. I cannot count the times Marines have flown into 'hot' zones and taken fire after being assured that they were secure zones. We held the grunts, the ground Marines, in the highest esteem. They were out there everyday under the worst conditions and if there was anything we could do for them, we did it. But even though the book contains what I consider to be 'falsehoods', it is a realistic portrayal of the war in Vietnam and I would recommend, with reservations, Matterhorn. Semper Fi, Karl.

War will exist until that distant day when the conscientious objector enjoys the same reputation and prestige that the warrior does today.
-John F. Kennedy

Until Next Time,
I Remain,
Just another Zororastafarian crew-chief looking for a place to hang his sidearm 'fore Marshall Dillon puts a hurtin' on me...

Aqueduct Reminiscence

The Roman Aqueduct in Segovia Spain

with a view toward the

Meson de Candido

What a busy month! Most of the time I've been busier than the proverbial 'one-legged man in an ass kicking contest.' But, the good news is that it's beginning to feel normal, whatever that might be. What got to me thinking about Spain was a workshop of the Planning Commission I recently attended in Eureka Springs. It was a a rather surreal experience by any stretch. I will not divulge who invited me to the meeting or for what purpose because he threatened to rezone the property across the street from us to allow for the construction of Sarah Palin's new restaurant, the You Betcha Cafe. Only a friend, right? Well, he kind of piqued my interest at a meeting of the Krewe of Blarney in which we are both involved. He told me that it was all kinds of fun telling the community of Eureka that you were planning to cut down some old-growth forests in order to put up a metal building housing antiques. He told me that meetings like that were "uproariously funny because they brought out all the environmental nutjobs in town that liked to hug trees and feed the animals." I thought, 'Doesn't he have that backwards?'

Well, like the curious environmental nutjob I am, I moseyed on down to the courthouse and sat in on the workshop. It was a real treat, these fellows talked about a chicken ordinance for the City of Eureka Springs for a little over an hour. It was all I could do to stay awake as the Krewe of Planning and Zoning droned on about the size of the coop and exactly how many feet the coop should be set back from a neighbor's property line and exactly what constitutes a chicken and can you walk your chicken in a parade and how do you choke your chicken. Well, this was all a little to complicated for me, it takes a more organized mind to fathom the depths of chickeness than I possess. Or, as the old Zen Chicken Master once asked, "if a chicken clucks in the henhouse and your not there, does it still make a sound?"

Well, I'm sure your asking, just what the heck does this have to do with the Aqueduct in Segovia? Well, it seems as though there a several different camps of philosophy on how Eureka Springs should maintain its 'Eurekyness.' There are those who wish to preserve Eureka as it was, those that think Eureka will lose its Chi if things change, those that want the town to grow and keep its quaintness, those that think 'quaint' stifles growth, those that want motorcycles to come to town, those that want them to go somewhere else, just a lot of factions. Sitting in the Meson de Candido, run by the same family since before Columbus set sail for America, and looking out on an aqueduct that was built 1500 years ago, you get this awesome sense of history. When I listen to people in Eureka talk about preserving homes and buildings because they are part of Eureka's history, I start to realize that our country has no real concept of history and until we do, we should not be allowed to use the word 'History' in a conversation. I can just imagine Juan on the Planning and Zoning Board in Segovia saying to the developer, Junius Brutus, "I don't know Junius, if you put that damned aqueduct through the center of town you are going to ruin the damn plaza and think of the effect it will have on Pedro the water-bearer, you are going to put him out of business."

It seems to me like it's not necessary to preserve some things, I mean if you build something to last 1500 years, you might have to remodel it once or twice, but preserve? I don't know, seems like it will preserve itself, barring some kind of natural disaster. But I think it wise to remember the lessons of Ozymandias, also. What folks need to figure out first is what is worth preserving. I mean I like a good pickle every now then, but there are folks that could care less about ever preserving a cucumber. All the different organizations and commissions in Eureka have the best of intentions, they just need to remember that the road to Hell is paved with Chicken Lips.

Until Nest Time,

I Remain,

Just Another Zoroastrian Chicken Plucker trying to figure out how to get across the road when I'm already there....

Insouciant Crucifixion

The summer soldier and the sunshine patriot will, in this crisis, shrink from the service of his country; but he that stands it NOW deserves the love and thanks of man and woman.

- Thomas Paine

Vice President Cheney proved he was the consumate 'summer soldier' during the Viet Nam era, when he avoided the draft with several deferments. I can't really blame him about that too much, many of my friends did everything they could to prevent being drafted during that war. I even tried it myself up until the time I could no longer avoid service. My deferments came from being in school, not unlike the former Vice President. However his behavior as Vice President and his behavior since leaving office perplexes me. My granddaddy always told me that it was a sin to question another man's patriotism and for the life of me I can not figure out why anyone else would want to do that, especially a former Vice President of the United States who did everything possible to avoid service in the military. When did he earn the right to tell Americans what being a patriot entails? When he gave the name of a CIA operative to the press? When he let his chief of staff, Scooter libby, take the fall for him? When he continued to lie about WMD even after GWB said publicly, we could not find any? When he continued to lie about the Al-queda/Saddam Hussein connection? When he criticized the 'patriotism' of a Viet Vet who not only was wounded in combat three times but was awarded medals for gallantry in combat? When he lied about how much 'actionable intelligence' we gleaned from torture? When he continues to politicize fear? Dennis Kucinich was wrong, Dick Cheney should not have been impeached. However, like many people in this country, I think he should be held accountable for his words and his actions. I do not think History will remember Mr Cheney fondly or be as forgiving of his abuses of power as the current administration.

From time to time I forget about the power of forgiveness. Of course, before you can be forgiven, reason dictates that you must first ask for forgiveness and before you ask for it, you have to believe that you have done something wrong. At the present time, I can not imagine Dick(less) Cheney ever asking for forgiveness for anything he has ever said or done. I asked a former pastor, Reverend Cathy, if she thought you could forgive someone when they did not ask for forgiveness. Cathy said I could wait quite awhile before some folks would apologize or ask for forgiveness, so you might as well forgive them, "...ultimately, it's the greatest gift you can give yourself!" So then, I'm trying to figure out how it's 'the greatest gift', when I see this trailer on the Tube (not to be confused with the underground rail system in Paris) for Invictus, a new movie about the reconciliation efforts of the Mandela government in South Africa. "Aha!", I sez, "If you get too deep, you can not see what's on the surface."

Forgiveness should not be that complicated, it's the individuals involved that make it complicated. We are all at different places on life's journey and we all have differing views about forgiving. I remember as a young Marine in Viet Nam our motto was 'Kill 'em all, let God sort 'em out.' Sounds rather foolish to me now, I must admit. But many hold that same philosophy today, let God do the forgiving, it's not my place. I also hear people say, "I'll forgive somebody but I won't forget what they did." Is that really forgiveness? Does forgiveness require any 'buts' or 'if onlys'? Does forgiveness mean that you forget about justice or punishment for criminal acts, no. It doesn't really matter what religion you are or if you have none, forgiveness is powerful because it relives you of your burden and resentment.

Not forgiving someone is like taking poison and expecting the other person to die.

- OPRAH (I think)

So, by now, I suppose that you might have been able to surmise that I have been harboring some really ill feelings towards the former Vice President. Feelings that were really making me bitter and filling me with hate. But after much soul searching, I have decided to let them go, to forgive. Do I expect an act of contrition on his part? No. Do I expect him to continue to live in fear and to spread his venomous attacks on the Obama Administration? Yes. Will anything Dick Cheney says ever affect me negatively again? Hopefully and prayerfully, No.

Until Next Time,

I Remain,

Just another Zoroastrian Sudoku Warrior that finally knows Dick about Forgiveness...

FALSELY Shouting "Fire"

Land Shark

The word 'politics' is derived from the word 'poly', meaning 'many', and the word 'ticks',meaning 'blood sucking parasites'.

Larry Hardiman

I saw my friend Daniel B., who manages the Twilight Terrace, out at Harold's Storage the other day and he wanted to know why I had not written anything on my blog in awhile. I told him I had been in a true dark funk. Black cloud syndrome. And I just didn't want to write because I was so pissed about the whole health care issue. Dan said why not write about it? Duh? Most of the time I just do not want to expose my dark side. My Jungian Shadow. "All the more reason to write about it," Daniel replied, "Deal with IT or IT will deal with you!" So, this is my Shadow creating. This blog is a rant. A scream. An dark indulgence I do not usually allow myself to have since the primary function of my writing was originally intended to talk only about Eureka Springs and the Magic that engulfs this area. So what does the old SNL vid have to do with my rant? It reminds me of how health care companies are behaving regarding Health Care Reform. They will say anything to prevent reform of the status quo. You can not really blame them, it will certainly hurt their profit margins, even though Congress has bent over backwards to help them, including the administration. It's almost like Congress has to apologize for meddling with, dare I say it, 'Capitalism'. God knows there is no greater sin in this country than politicians messin' with 'bidness'. My question is 'How in the hell did we get here?'

It seems totally insane to me that we have to have health insurers to begin with, I mean why? There was a time in this country when you got sick, you went to the doctor and you either got well or died. So, where did the health insurer come from and how did we allow them to take over our health? There is a lot of history about it out there and reading it you can see how health insurers got their foot in the door. But the BIG LIE is that we need health insurers. There are some in congress that realize that health insurance companies do not provide any added value to our health status, of course these are 'communists' according to the health insurers and their cohorts in congress. These dances of 'hysteron proteron' by both sides of the aisle only serve as a political smokescreen that conceals a greater problem in our country and in no way succeed in answering the question, how the hell did we get here?

Some say it's the lobbyists, you know the old maxim at work in the nation's capitol, 'money talks and bullshit walks'. But would the money talk if those elected to represent the people actually did so. My daughter, the political science major, says there is money available for all forms of belief. So is it really about the money? I'm prone to think it is about the power you can accumulate through the acquisition of wealth, the power to maintain your seat in Congress and the power to effect the business of the the country. We have become what the founders of this country warned us against, Corporate Owned Government aided and abetted by our banking system. How did we get here?

It seems to me that the road we traveled to get to this point in our history has been paved with lies and falsehoods. Politicians and lying go together like Romeo and Juliet, Tom and Jerry, salt and pepper, light and dark (did I mention I was in a dark mood?), Batman and Robin, Yin and Yang, ad infinitum. I know, I know...my naivete is exceeded only by my gullibility. But is it my imagination or has a lie become an acceptable form of opinion? How does a nondescript section of the Health Care Bill dealing with Doctor/Patient end-of-life-counseling become 'Death Panels'? Why is it acceptable to call the President of the US a terrorist, a Nazi, a Communist? When does an 'opinion' violate the First Amendment? Is it only when it causes harm? Are our courts so inept that 'defamation', 'slander', and 'libel' lawsuits can no longer be won, because it's just someone's opinion? What if their opinion makes me feel like whoopin' their ass, is that OK? How did we, as a people, get to a point where we are so divided? Where it's acceptable for you speak derogatorily about anyone or anyone's ideas and hey, you are protected by the First Amendment?

Of course, I believe there are solutions to all the problems that confront our country, I am the eternal optimist. I'm also pretty much of a realist. And I know that many of these problems will not be solved in my lifetime. I am just concerned that it is now permissible to FALSELY shout fire in a crowded theater.

Until Next Time,

I Remain...

Just another Diogenistic Zoroastrian looking for a little light on a cloudy day...

Geezeracity Manifestations

If you live to be one hundred, you've got it made.

Very few people die past that age.

- George Burns

Why is it our children are constantly complaining that we are 'too old' to understand, then with the next breath telling us to grow up? More than likely they are going through that phase where nothing we do is right! Of course, I never complained as a young adult (wink, wink, nod, nod) so it is difficult for me to understand where they are coming from. But for a moment let's focus on people who are growing older, say past sixty at least. (Of course, this won't make much sense to a 15 year-old who thinks a 25 year-old is over-the-hill or a 25 year-old who thinks 35 is ancient!) What is it that gives folks like those in the video such a passion for life at age ninety, while we all know people that act like they may not make through tomorrow and they are only fifty? Is it nature or nurture or some combination of the two? There are older folks I love to be around, because of their positive outlook on life and the zeal they have for adventure. My wife belonged to book club where the she was the youngest member, the rest of the group was in their 70's and 80's. This group of women enjoyed every minute of every day and when they got together they knew how to party. After a book review they loved to share a glass of wine or two or three and could easily go through two cases of Chardonnay. They broke all the familiar stereotypes of old people.

Stereotype 1 - Od people smell badly. Not that I have noticed. Rest Homes smell badly, basketball games smell badly, motorcyclists, babies, homeless people, congressmen, garbage dumps (P.C: Landfills), anyone in an occupation that requires strenuous outdoor physical activity, and young people that think it is healthy to bathe only once a week smell badly. To generalize that all old people smell badly is grossly inaccurate. O-o-o-o-oh, what is that smell? Do you have moth balls in your pocket?

Stereotype 2 - Old people drive slowly. This is a generalization that has more evidential support, however it does not approximate any truth. The ladies in my wife's bookclub (bookclub ladies) all felt like they were in training for NASCAR and that it was a sin to be the first in line at a stoplight. Young people should be aware that they must yield anytime they see someone with grey in their hair driving down the middle of the road at an excessive speed. On the other hand those olde farts weaving down the road and being passed by snails should be reported immediately to the old people police, they are giving the rest of us a bad name.

Stereotype 3 - Old people are always complaining about their physical ailments. True, some old people gritch (a hybrid of gripe and bitch) a lot. But what makes you think hypochondria and complaining are the domains of the elderly? You might even be thinking at this juncture that I did a little gritching of my own in my last blog. Not true, i was just 'splainin' croquet. My daughter has a friend that ALWAYS has the symptoms of whatever designer ailments happen to be in vogue at the time. Trust me on this one, gritching is not the sole province of old people, but I will concede that if you gritched a lot about your physical ailments (or anything else for that matter) when you were young, you will probably be gritching as you grow older. Truth is none of us want to hear it but all of us want to let others know what is bothering us, the problem is some people make a religion out it. Am I gritching too much here?

Stereotype 4 - Old people can't see, hear or remember a damn thing. Actually, this stereotype could have been combined with Stereotype 3, because there are old people who do complain about these things, only they just can't remember any of it. Sure there is some eyeball distortion as you grow older, and you may need reading glasses or surgery to correct visual problems (unless you are still driving), and yes their is definite loss of hearing for some folks and a highly developed sense of tuning out the noise that causes so much distortion in the lives of others. My wife says I'm a tuner inner/outer, but it doesn't bother me all that much because one of my daughters is a fine tuner, also. A humorous note here, why do young people think old people don't like loud music, but then accuse us of being deaf? Truth is, the music that is being played so loudly at every stop light I come to just SUCKS! And Alzheimer's and senility are certainly not conditions that we would wish on anyone, no matter what their ages. As a former high school teacher and coach, I can tell you it was very distressing for me to see so many young people with symptoms that could only be described as the early onset of Alzheimer's. But a friend of mine told me that there is a positive side of Alzheimer's, you get to sleep with a new woman every night!

Stereotype 5 - Old people are wise. Some are, like the folks in the vid, most are just marking time until they die and I wouldn't give two cents for anything they might have to offer. When I was younger, there were old people that I knew that could bore the bark right off a Dogwood tree, and others that I could listen to for hours on end. The wise ones involved you in their tales and remarkably, never repeated themselves. But the stories they told remain with you forever. Guess which one I chose to spend time with? Spend time with?

The problem with stereotypes or forming a hardened view about old people is usually that if you think old people behave a certain way, then the odds are that you will act that way when you are older. If you have a negative view of growing older, then you will have a negative experience as you age. However, if you have a positive view of growing older, your personal experience should be much more positive as you age. The psychology of how we view the world has been exploited successfully by advertising for generations. Even today, I can't tell you how many of my friends think they have to take medication to stop going to the toilet so much! Flomax, was originally developed to lower hypertension, NOT to reduce the number of times you have to go to the toilet. Now they even have a Flomax for women! Hell, if enough people said they had a particular symptom, there would be a pharmaceutical company selling a quick over-the-counter fix for it within the week. I'm not saying 'having to go often' is not a problem for some people, I'm saying that it became a much larger problem when the drug companies started advertising that it was a problem! Same with stereotypes. As long as older people are portrayed as 'smelly', forgetful, hard of hearing, nearly blind, idiots that repeat themselves and need drugs for erections and peeing too much, what will the future be like for younger people who never see anything different? Where are the Golden Girls now that we need them?

Until Next Time,

I Remain,

Just another Old Zoroastrian Cowboy looking for his glasses and his hearing aide so he can mount old whatshisname, and hunt down those young heathens playing their music so damn loud...

Numinous Croquet Lunacy

Woke up, fell out of bed,

Dragged a comb across my head

Found my way downstairs and drank a cup,
And looking up I noticed I was late.

- The Beatles (A Day in the Life)

Early on Friday morning, before Labor Day, we were up at the crack of dawn, running around trying to make sure that we were packed and ready to go to Tulsa for a Labor Day Croquet Tournament. Then we remembered we weren't leaving until One o'clock! My first indicator that I had done something to annoy the Croquet Gods. So, after we slowed our pace considerably, I decided to make a quick trip to the market, and found that during the night two of the tires on our car had been punctured by an intolerably inconsiderate vandal. Obviously, the Vandal had received his/her inspiration from the Croquet Gods. The second indicator that the Croquet Gods were not only annoyed but downright pissed off. Luckily, we had our daughter's car, the Baborus (-a, -um) Tintinnabulus (-a, -um), or the Babe for our transportation purposes. I don't know if she calls it the Babe because it is so deceptively alluring (like the tinkling of a small bell) or because it smells like it was used to transport pigs to front during the Crimean War. So, the Dans (there were two of them) show up and we get their gear situated and we're off. Almost. The car starts grasping for air, then goes into electric mode. We are out of gas. Thank God for Hybrids. This was the third indicator that things were just not going my way. The Dans, bless their black hearts, spent about two hours trying to help me get over it. They provided me with a dozen tried and true aphorisms. "That which does not destroy us makes us more inebriated". "When life hands you lemons, make yourself a vodka martini with a lemon twist." Ad infinitum.

One of the Dans stalks his shot, thinking,

"What the f...!"

We arrived around four, checked into the hotel and then took off for the croquet courts at La Fortune Park. After a practicing for a bit I met my partner for doubles on Saturday morning. A college student from Oklahoma Wesleyan. He might possibly have been conceived in a blender or one of those Dyson vacuum cleaners. Let's just say he was a wee bit hyper and resembled the much-maligned Roadrunner on the crouquet greens. It struck me that this was some type of Cosmic justice being meted out by the Croquet Gods, pairing the old slow Elmer Fudd kind of guy with gimpy knees and the young athletic Tasmanian Devil. He slowed down after a bit when he noticed he was talking to air, because I couldn't keep up with him. But, I have to admit, he garnered my respect for the game and the gracious people who are involved in it when he told me to either keep up or have my brains smashed in with a New Zealand built crouquet mallet. Being older and quicker of wit I says, "What brains?" "Don't worry," he says. "I'll just keep smashing 'til I find one."

One of the Dans lines up his croquet shot, thinking,

"How can I best destroy this S.O.B."

Friday evening we enjoyed a wonderful Last Supper at the Stonehorse Restaurant in Tulsa. For me, it was the highlight of the trip. Do you like that foreshadowing of how I played in the tournament? It started off well on Saturday morning, my partner and I won our first match and then proceeded to lose our next two. One to a pair of Octogenarians and the other to a pair of college students. The gods have no mercy. And neither does croquet. It doesn't matter how well you know the strategy or how smart you are, the bottom line is you have to first make your shots. Without the skills to put your ball through a wicket that is only a fourth of an inch wider than the ball, or croquet a ball that is only three feet away from your ball, you are pretty much up the creek. After being spanked by the two 80 something females and put to bed crying, I had a decision to make. Would I let the croquet gods defeat me, would I learn from the tournament and try to improve my skills, or would I hide behind a tree and smash the old ladies over the head when they walked by. I decided to smash them over the head but I missed...then I had to endure a lecture from them on how to properly line up a head with a croquet mallet. Humiliating, I tells ya. But like my friend Arnie Palmer used to say, "It doesn't matter if you win or lose as long as you're in there swingin'."

It doesn't take long for the experience of the numinous

to unhinge the mind.

Umberto Eco

Until next time,

I remain,

Just another Zoroastrian Croquet Player seeking a didactic pretext for being unable to place his balls in the right postion....