Friday, November 28, 2014

Is it Christmas or Halloween II? Depends on how you tell it.

The season begins with something called Black Friday. From there, the days get shorter as we march relentlessly, inescapably toward The Longest Night of The Year.
Oh, the weather outside if frightful!
All the while, your behavior is being monitored. There is an ancient being—over 1000 years old, older than Methuselah—and he has helpers in every mall in America to help him keep track of you. He sees you when you’re sleeping; he knows when you’re awake; he knows everything you’ve done. He is old. He has long hair and long whiskers. He wears a red suit. He smokes. He drinks heavily-sugared soda and eats enough cookies to choke a monster. He is overweight—his stomach shakes when he laughs. What’s so funny?
What’s funny is that one night very soon this creature is going to use his magical powers to take to the skies and fly; he’s coming to your house. Got deadbolts on your doors? Got a security system? He finds that funny, too. He’s going to shrink himself and come down the chimney. Don’t have a chimney? No problem; he can fit down a vent pipe. Is there anything you can do to stop him?
Sure: all you have to do is stay awake. He cannot come in if you don’t fall asleep. That’s not a problem at first because you’re so keyed up, but eventually—and he knows this—you will sleeeeeep. Sleeeeeep. Sleeeeeep! Even the government can’t stop him. NORAD will track him, sure, for all the good that will do.
Up on the housetop: click…click…click. Do you hear it? No, because you are sleeping in spite of yourself. Sugarplums are dancing in your head and you don’t even know what the hell a sugarplum is. You dream about a snowman, with coal black eyes and a magic hat, who comes to life.
One of the most popular songs tells you that Christmas should really go on for 12 days, not just one. It also lets you know that you are not truly loved. You got a pear tree? Didn’t think so. Okay, a few do, but is there a partridge in it? No. Know why? Because no one really, truly loves you, otherwise they’d have given you one. When’s the last time anyone gave you 5 golden rings? I rest my case.
Will this night never end? Maybe you could go hang out with your parents. No, they’re not home. They’re attending a ritual ceremony called Midnight Mass, lighting candles and chanting with other members of the parish. The babysitter is useless; she’s on her phone and obviously doesn’t want you to know who she’s talking to or what they’re saying. “Go back to bed!” she says. “Santa Claws will come if you go to sleep.” She says that like it’s a good thing. Of course she also thought that movie about the Christmas ghosts was a good thing. Can you trust her? Dare you sleep? Could you maybe fake it? No…he knows…he knows when you’re awake. And he can wait, for as long as it takes.
What’s that?! It’s not so much what you hear as what you don’t hear…such a Silent Night. Yes…it’s quiet out there. Too quiet.
What fun it is to ride and sing a slaying song tonight.
Word to the wise: You'd better watch out!

Saturday, October 11, 2014

All Aboard and All But Bored

If you and I see a freight train going by, we shrug and think no big deal. We may feel inconvenienced if we have to wait for one to go by at a crossing; we may be a little excited if we’d put a penny on the track, but for the most part, hey, a train.
If folks had seen one go by in 1814, God only knows what they’d have thought it was. It might be interpreted as a fire-breathing dragon or one of those horses from the apocalypse. The noise alone would likely scare the daylights out of them.
It took us millions of years to get to the Hunting/Gathering Age.
Then, it took around 590,000 more years to get to the Horticulture & Agrarian Ages.
From there, it took a little less than 12,000 years to get to the Industrial Age
From the Industrial Age to the Information Age only took about 260 years.
The gaps between the ages have gotten progressively shorter, from millions of years to just over half a million years to 12,000 to 260. Things are changing fast. The progress that used to take a thousand years will soon take only ten…or two…or, what time is it now?
Everything necessary to build and run a railroad was right here on this planet, under the very noses of our hunting and gathering ancestors. All the physical elements were there, they just didn’t know how to isolate, manipulate, and distribute them. They were there, but no one noticed. What else might be right here, right now, under our very noses without our being aware of it? What will the folks in 2114 laugh at us for not knowing? (Hey, for all we know, we’ll still be alive to laugh about it, too.) It’s easier to believe that anything is possible than it is to declare anything impossible.

Friday, August 1, 2014

How is A Bridge like A Squirrel?

I like thinking exercises that are effective and fun, and I found one back in 2001. Pam Blundell, Executive Director of Adult Education with the Oklahoma State Department of Education, told a group of us about forced analogies.
A forced analogy is when you take any two nouns and find things they have in common—something that’s true for both.
To get the ball rolling, Pam gave us these two nouns: marriage and a yellow, number 2 pencil.
I’m one of those off-the-scale Introverts. Typically, I have trouble coming up with a quick answer. Let me go somewhere quiet and think about and I’ll probably have a pretty good one later today or tomorrow.
All around me in that huge pit auditorium I could hear people writing their answers. I was getting nothing. Not wanting to appear dense to my colleagues, I started scribbling on my legal pad. I wrote, “You can bring a horse to water, but a pencil must be lead.” Not a bad line, but not what she was asking for, either.
After I heard some of the others’ responses, it started to click. What do marriage and a yellow, number 2 pencil have in common? How about the number 2? That works. And that metal band that holds the eraser to the wood part…and, well, see what you can come up with.
I’ve used the forced analogies exercise with a wide variety of folks, everything from single mothers in a GED class to college and university educators in conference sessions.
Forced analogies are an excellent brain exercise, a good way to warm up for any learning endeavor. Beyond that, I like them because

·       Students enjoy them. Even the most reluctant ones become intrigued and end up thinking in spite of themselves.

·       They level the playing field. I let the students choose the nouns, so I have no way of knowing what they’ll be, no way to prepare ahead of time.

·       They force me to be a little more like my Extrovert pals. (Just because we have a preferred learning style or an introverted personality, that’s no excuse not to exercise our weaker muscles.)

·       They’re fun.

So far, we have never been foiled. No matter what the two nouns, we’ve been able to find something they have in common—and I mean something beyond the cheap answers like “they’re both nouns” or “they both have letters in them.”
I have many favorite stories about forced analogies. If you have time, let me tell you one.
This one took place in Arkansas. I was facilitating a concurrent class at a local high school. (Concurrent means they get high school and college credit for the same class.)
These students were tenacious with the forced analogies. They refused to give up. One day, the two nouns they chose were Walmart and pebble.
I wrote the words on the board, as usual, and we all stared at them for a good long while. Tick…tick…tick… Damn. Nothing. I thought that for the first time ever we were stumped.
Ninety-nine times out of a hundred, it’s the students who come up with the best (sometimes only) responses. The reason this is one of my favorite stories is that this was one of those rare times when I saved it.
“I’ve got one.”
What?!
“Arkansas.”
They stared at me like I’d just set fire to my moustache. (Is he crazy?) Arkansas?
“Think about it.”
They thought about it.
“Where is the Walmart world headquarters?”
Oh, okay. (Bentonville, AR.) So, where does the pebble fit in?
“What’s the Capitol of Arkansas?”
Ahhhh. Good one, Mr. Tom!    

(If you’d care to read more about forced analogies, click upon this:


Thursday, April 3, 2014

Granny Wisdom



I don’t remember who had the bright idea for the “Share That Wisdom While You Can” weekend. It just kind of grew out of an all night bonfire and beer drinking conversation at our last family reunion. The seed was planted when little Cody Dakota Hunter Trapper Cowboy singed off all his hair, even his eyebrows and lashes, while doing an Evel Knievel impersonation on his junior ninja dirt bike. His grandmother, “MawNana,” was awakened by all the screaming and laughing. MawNana barged her way into the circle of gawking nitwits, lit an unfiltered Camel, snorted, and said, “Put some mayonnaise on it!” No one in their right mind (which by no means excludes anyone in this bunch) would bring a jar of mayonnaise to an outdoor picnic, so Uncle Cooter, revered throughout the family for his ability to think on his feet, even when he could not stand on them, unwrapped a tuna sandwich and rubbed it all over the injured boy’s head and face. Next thing I knew, we were making plans.
The plan was to gather the fifty wisest grandmothers and their granddaughters at a retreat place out in the woods. The grand dames would hold forth in response to their granddaughters’ questions, and I would record it for posterity and a small profit...just covering expenses, you understand. Two glorious days of life lessons and words to live by. Instead of making their own mistakes, these lucky granddaughters—and our lucky readers—could simply learn from the experiences of their elders. Hell of a deal. The “Dueling Banjos” of wisdom sharing. A geezer geyser of good sense would rain down upon us, refreshing our hearts and minds; sapience and sagacity would flow like a mighty river, right down the mountain, through my pen, onto these pages, and into your soul.
Great, but how do you go about picking the fifty wisest grandmas?
Someone suggested an essay contest. We announced it in Parade magazine and AARP.
Reading essays gets real old, real quick. We all have a new respect for English teachers. There were hundreds of them.
Someone else on the selection committee said, “Hey, we’re Americans. We don’t do research! Just have them send in pictures and we’ll pick the fifty who look the wisest.” Playing devil’s advocate, I pointed out that that seemed a tad shallow. The committee member said, “Okay, I can’t define wisdom, but I know it when I see it.” Good enough. All those in favor? They ayes have it.
Long story short, we settled for twelve grandmothers and twelve granddaughters. We spent a Friday afternoon and all day Saturday at a Boy Scout camp in the Arkansas Ozarks. It was the off season and we got the place pretty cheap. In the main lodge, we put a dozen rocking chairs in a semicircle. The rest of us sat facing them on wooden benches. We’d intended to hold the Saturday session up on Council Bluff, but the wind was howling like Judgment Day. There were a few complaints from some of the granddaughters—“Guess that blows the weenie roast all to Hell!” “If I wanted to sleep on an Army cot, I’d join the &%$#@ Army!”—but most took it with good humor. I left with a better appreciation of why this was the off season. Remind me to tell you later about the dead bat we found in the meatloaf. That was hilarious. That, along with the outdoor community showers, is what took us from fifty down to twelve.
It wasn’t quite the “Dueling Banjos” of wisdom we’d envisioned. It was more like Fogy Mountain Breakdown, but we came away with some pretty good ideas. We definitely heard stuff we’d never thought about before. The cornbread recipes alone were worth the trouble. What follows is a faithful transcript of the group gathering. If you are easily inspired, then grab a mug of hot cocoa, wrap yourself in an heirloom quilt—not the one where your toes get all caught up in the strings—and take a semi-mental journey to Wiseville with us. 
A granddaughter named LaMegan said, “Grandmother, speak to us of marriage.”
Apple-cheeked MeeMaw wiggled her fingers, indicating that she’d like to field this one.
“Dear, you do not have to love a man to stay married to him for fifty years.”
There was groaning and rolling of eyes from the granddaughters.
MeeMaw cleared her throat, both as an attention getter and as a phlegm remover.
“Buh...whuh! Kaa-HUM! Uh-HYEA! Hwick-Hah!” (She had our attention.) Mee-Maw continued. “Pardon me. Whew! But you must respect him, especially at those times, those many times, when he doesn’t deserve it. It’s like two trees in the forest: If they’re too close, you can’t sling a decent hammock.”
We waited for her to go on, but she never did. Most of us sat there nodding like we knew what the hell she was talking about.
Two granddaughters found themselves on their feet at the same time. Each hastily offered to sit back down. “Go ahead.” “No, it’s okay. You go.” One of them did sit down, leaving a self-conscious, nervous woman to address the sage assembly.
“Grandmother, speak to us of children and young kids.” She put a finger gun to her temple and let the hammer/thumb fall as if to say, Am I dopey, or what? She sat down quickly.
After what seemed like forever, Gramma Cracker took the pipe from between her teeth and said, “Most folks don’t know the difference.”
No one was arguing with that.
“Children,” Gramma Cracker croaked, “are God’s gift. To you. Not to me. I’ve got plenty of gifts already, thank you very much. Have all the children you want, but don’t expect me to raise the damn things!”
Hallmark lost a fine greeting card author when Gramma Cracker decided to become a sharecropper.
A thin, attractive woman dressed in a business suit, her hair pulled back into a severe bun—she looked a lot like Bebe Neuwirth —stood and said, “Grandmother, speak to us of money.”
 Granny Smucker stopped rocking and held up her hand. “I got this one.” She emptied an ounce of snuff into her lower lip, peered at the woman through the spectacles perched on the end of her nose, and said, “Are you gonna marry Frazier?”
The granddaughter looked confused. “I don’t know anyone named Frazier, so probably not.”
Granny Smucker nodded; the look on her face said Okay, I’ll pretend to believe that. “A lot of people will tell you that the Bible (she crossed herself) says that money is the root of all evil, but that’s bullshit. It was Vince Lombardi said that…and he was quoting Benjamin Franklin. The simple fact is that accumulating money is mostly guesswork. But—and it’s a big but—there are ways to guess correctly.”
She gazed at the granddaughters one by one. “By way of illustration, I’m guessing that probably all of you have with you a bill with George Washington’s picture on it.” They all nodded.  "Probably a few of you even possess a bill featuring the likeness of Abe Lincoln.” More nods, but a few less. “Alexander Hamilton?” Two or three nods. “I hope none of you has a bill with Vince Lombardi on it, but I’ll bet nobody has one with Ben Franklin’s picture.”
Kristal jumped up, flapping a piece of green paper. “I do! I do!”
“Well,” said Granny Smucker, “aren’t you something. Bring it here.”
Kristal proudly marched up and handed the money to Granny.
Granny raised an index finger. “Remember what I said: It’s mostly guess work, but there are ways to guess correctly.”
The granddaughters nodded.
Granny Smucker wadded up the bill and dropped it in her spit cup. She looked at Kristal and said, “I’m guessing you don’t want it back.”
She’d guessed correctly.
  A grandchild named Becky stood and addressed the matriarchs: “Grandmother, speak to us about religion and politics."
(Chirp...chirp...chirp...)
“Put some mayonnaise on it!”
How did MawNana make the cut? She doesn’t look wise. She looks like Popeye on acid.
Gram Gram held up her hand, both to quell the laughter and to chime in on this one. When she had our attention, she said, “The important thing with religion is to live within your miens—that’s m-i-e-n-s. Find something to preach that you’ll be comfortable practicing. For example, if there’s anything you don’t like or aren’t any good at, find an outfit that says those things are wrong. And then don’t do them. There’s something for everyone, no matter what you like or don’t like. Then you label every other group a cult. Remember this statement; make it your motto: ‘My theologians can beat up your theologians.’ Quote Scripture, but choose wisely; only quote—or make them up if you have to—the ones that fit your team.
“Politics? Pretty much the same rules as religion. You can find candidates galore who believe—or at least say they do—the same as you, and there are ‘news’ networks and celebrities to lend them credibility. If you want to be on the winning side of any election, just vote for the candidate who has the most Elvis. Values, issues? Hogwash. Our attention spans are way too short for that nonsense. It’s a popularity contest. Think about it: Obama was elected because he has more Elvis than Newt Romney. Romney has plenty of of Pat Boone—not that there’s anything wrong with that—but it ain’t Elvis.”  
If there was a flaw in her logic, no one could find it. She got a great round of applause.
 Becky smiled, blushed, and said, “Thank you, Gram Gram for your wisdom.”
Were this a documentary film, our transition scene would be the fountains in front of the Bellagio Hotel & Casino, gushing in time to “Viva Las Vegas.”
Then we would…
(Roll credits)
Our Grandmothers (in order of appearance)
MawNana
MeeMaw
Gramma Cracker
Granny Smucker
Gram Gram 
Mammy Cakes
Big Mama
Abuelita Gorda
Mamoo
Mémère
Ninny
Grammy
Our Granddaughters (in alphabetical order)
Becky
Ed (these days, it’s best not to ask)
Frosty
LaMegan
Kristal (7 of them were named Kristal, with various spellings)
Tia Maria  
Reflections:
I came away with this familiar quote—I think Vince Lombardi said it—echoing in my mind: “Wisdom is often the companion of advancing years. Sometimes old age shows up all by itself.”