Then and Now

I remember my mother saying that except for the fact that people were dying, World War II was really kind of fun.

In addition to movies and radio entertainment and the usual picnics and parties, there were activities specific to the war effort – paper drives, rubber drives -- in fact drives for all sorts of materials and commodities. There were also USO dances and shows to attend.

One challenge she really liked came toward the end of the month when she had to devise meal plans based on the foodstuffs she could buy at the grocery store with the stamps she had left in her ration book.

I feel kind of the same way about the current COVID-19 pandemic. The ghastly part is that people are sick and dying, but a quick look at Facebook, with its myriad jokes and stories about the supposed deprivations of those of us under self-imposed house arrest, will confirm that there is always humor in everything, and I’m glad we are able to see it.

Laughter is just as important in this crisis as toilet paper.

Fugitive in the extreme

I often think of something I might write about in this here blog thing but then reject it if I know that what I have to say about it will generate only a paragraph or a couple sentences.

I’ll bet you’re way ahead of me, aren’t you? Yes, here are some of those things.

One year we were doing massive Christmas shopping in a huge shopping mall. Before we were anywhere near done, we had too many packages to carry, so we rented a stroller and piled all the bags and boxes into it as we went. Sometimes people stopped and bent down to look at the child, or where the child would be. Reactions varied.

My friend Tony (the guy with the deaf cat) said he used to think that SRO stood for “sold right out.”

Did you ever notice that microfiber cloth catches on your hands the same way an apricot catches on your tongue?

And why does powdered sugar taste cold?

A hundred years ago immigrants Anglicized their first names when they came to America, and they gave their kids good ol' Yankee names too. Not any more.

I object to dressing little children in caps and gowns for “graduation” from kindergarten. Caps and gowns should be saved for high school, at least.

Someone I knew tried to convince me that all baby animals are cute and cuddly. Are you kidding? Have you ever seen a baby hippopotamus?

There was a guy I saw getting out of a car who then made sure every door was locked before he left it. I thought it was very strange since it was a convertible with the top down.

I've never found a way to include one of my favorite quotes in a posting, so I'll just do it now. "A dream without a plan is just a wish." (American track star Willye White)

I used to know a woman named Jim. Not a nickname, not short for something else, just Jim. Her father wanted a boy, didn’t get one, and you know the rest. She was our family doctor’s nurse. She was very nice.

I liked the year 1961 because it is the same upside down.

There’s probably more, but that’ll do. For now.

I was so P.I. in those days

The other day I heard a story on the news about a young man who, after a traumatic head injury, was making good progress in rehabilitation, and the way he spoke – haltingly and with difficulty forming the words – reminded me of someone I once knew who talked just like that. Until that moment, I don't believe I had thought about her in decades.

Her name was Pat Boynton and she was in my gym glass my freshman year in high school. On the first day of classes, the PE teacher led our class out to the track behind the school and ordered us to run around it. That's when I noticed Pat Boynton. When running she looked like an electric mixer that has escaped the bowl.  Her legs did a Crazy-Legs-Hirsch kind of thing, and her arms flailed at her sides. I was behind her and called out, “Boynton – you are totally uncoordinated!”

She turned around and let me catch up, treating me to the most engaging lopsided smile. “Yah … Ah know,” she said.

Some other girls came over to me, pulling me away. “There’s something wrong with her,” one of them said in a harsh whisper. “Don’t make fun of her.”

“I wasn’t making fun of her,” I said, “I was teasing her.”

When we were herded into the infield to perform some calisthenics, Pat managed some toe touches and some deep-knee bends, but she was all over the place trying to do jumping jacks. "Watch out," I said to her, "or you'll fall down and hurt somebody." That made her laugh.

There was something wrong with her, of course – cerebral palsy, I think, or some such disease. We never talked about it, and the only time I ever saw her was in gym class as we had no other classes together. As I recall (or think I do) she didn't last the entire fall term either in gym class or in school.

I'm glad that that young man's voice put me in mind of Pat Boynton. I have no idea whatever became of her, but it makes me happy to remember the girl with the cockeyed grin who liked me because I teased her about having cerebral palsy.

What's the secret password?

Back in the late 1960’s I worked for a small publisher who was in serious financial trouble. The boss, John, planned to save the company by computerizing everything, a very forward-thinking idea at the time.

John owed money everywhere, and creditors called incessantly. Any employee likely to answer the phone was instructed to tell any caller who asked for him that John was out of the office. He told people he was willing to talk to, like his wife and friends and business associates to whom he did not owe money, to identify themselves and they would be put through.

One such caller was a computer programmer named Darwin who was typical of those 101101 guys in those days – absolutely brilliant writing computer programs, absolutely stupid about coming in out of the rain. I answered the phone one day when he called, and it went like this:

"Good afternoon, Unicomp."

“Hi, may I speak to John please?”

“I’m sorry, John’s not in the office this afternoon. May I take a message”

“Oh, this is Darwin. He’ll talk to me.”

“Oh, hello, Darwin. Yes, he would talk to you, but he’s not in right now.”

“I know, he said you would say that, and all I had to do was tell you who I am, and he would talk to me.”

“That’s right, Darwin, but he’s not in this afternoon.”

“I understand you’re supposed to say that, but he said he would always take my call.”

“Yes, Darwin, he would, but John is not in right now.”

“I know, but –”

“DARWIN! JOHN IS NOT HERE!”

“Oh, really? Oh, okay.”

“I’ll tell him you called.”

“You mean, he’s not in?”

“That’s right, Darwin. He’s not in.”

“Oh, okay.”

(Darwin's genius wasn't enough. I stayed with the company until my paycheck bounced.)

Homecoming means coming home, doesn't it?

This is the story of my high school's homecoming in -- well, I think it was 1966 or '67 -- a couple years after I graduated (in 1964).

I met up with an old school chum named Al (Class of 65'), who was home from college for the weekend. For something to do on Saturday night, we decided it would be fun to go to the homecoming dance.

I put on a dress, Al put on a coat and tie, and we got to the school around 9:00. We went in and approached a group of chaperones and teachers who were sitting at a table outside the cafeteria where the dancing was going on. We asked if we needed tickets and, if so, could we please buy them.

And they said -- no, you can’t come to this dance. It’s just for students.

And we said -- but we are alumni. We appealed to a couple teachers who remembered us who gladly verified that we had been students at that very high school

So we said -- see? We used to be students, which makes us alumni, and that is what homecoming is for, isn't it?

But they were adamant. They refused to let two alumni into the homecoming dance.

So we went away, disappointed. What we did that evening, I don’t remember. I wonder if Al remembers this happening.

What made me think of this story is that last night Michigan State University and at least two area high schools cancelled homecoming parades (and possibly football games for the high schools) because of the threat of bad weather.

They were not being alarmist – the storms actually did come, and they were doozies.

Be kind, rewind

People post things on Facebook all the time that are intended to help us improve ourselves. Just now I saw one that my wife shared, although I don’t know who put it out there originally. It was writ large in white letters on a black background so that it stood out, and it said:

You seriously have no idea what people are dealing with in their personal life. So just be nice, it's that simple.

I agree with that, but I also know it presents two inherent difficulties. One is, any person who is generally not nice will not suddenly renounce their nastiness and be kind to everybody from now on just because they read that on Facebook. It is just not going to happen. In fact, I don’t think all the Facebook platitudes that remind us to be nice to each other, which number in the gazillions, have any chance of helping those people who are just plain grouchy and taking it out on everybody else.

The second problem is that while we are being nice because we know people are dealing with things we don’t know about, it will not improve our interactions with such persons.

Take, for instance, that man at work who is mired in a perpetual bad mood. He grunts replies, he is unpleasant in every way, and he makes no effort to slide nicely along with his coworkers. As a result, you consider him a real jerk, and he annoys the hell out of you.

Then you find out that his wife has left him for another man, his twelve-year-old son was just diagnosed with Asberger Syndrome, his mother has colon cancer, his teenaged daughter wrecked the car, and he’s having trouble making ends meet.

Once you understand what a horror his life has become, you understand why he growls and is grumpy and makes no effort to get along.

But understanding will not solve any of the problem. He will still annoy the hell out of you, and he will still act like a real jerk.

But if you’re nice, you’ll find your reward in heaven.

Figure it out, kids

I just remembered this story, and I should probably save it until Christmas, but I'll forget between now and then. So, here's a little Christmas in July. Or August, actually.

It was December, just before Christmas break, when I was in college in Wisconsin long ago. One afternoon I went down to the dormitory lobby to check my mailbox, and I was happy to see what I thought was a letter from my mother. When I opened it, however, I found only a small, oddly-shaped fragment of a Christmas card.

Four of my friends received similar envelopes and, recognizing the sender's return address, came to my room to ask me if I knew what was going on.

Being extremely bright college kids, it didn't take us long to figure it out. My mother had cut a card into five irregular shapes, making a Christmas card jigsaw puzzle. Once we put it together, we were able to see the pretty card and read her hand-written message wishing us all a very merry Christmas.

The girls were delighted and said that my mother was "fun."

Yes, she was.