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 |   Thoughts destined to be washed away by the tides of life. |
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I've been studying my cover photo for a while now, and it seems to me that it is more than just a photo of what is there that can be seen, more than just three white rocks stacked on a beach. It contains an important question about the future, about what happens long after the photographer has gone. What will happen to our pile of stones when the tide comes in? Will it topple or has the architect built this structure at a safe distance? I don't know what will happen to these words that I stack here on the sand. They may prove safely distant, or they may be swallowed up by a rush of self-doubt. They may be here for a season. They may lose their balance and be scattered by the shoreline, or be hidden away under shifting sands. Perhaps someday, the tides of life will reclaim them. Or maybe that's just a bunch of poetic, romantic nonsense. After all, this is just a blog. |
| I came across a social media post that asked: “Do you remember your fifth grade teacher?” Yes, I do. I struggle to remember my first grade teacher. I have one image of her in my mind but cannot conjure up her name or anything else about her (except her failure to ease my fears on my first day of school) but I was five years old and such a tiny, anxiety-ridden creature that I think I pulled a Sybil and my conscious mind refused to attend first grade. It’s all lost to me. I do remember second grade and the teacher’s name. I remember third grade and what my teacher looked like, but the name escapes me. I remember my fourth grade teacher, her name and her photos of her dogs. I must have started paying attention by this time. Fifth grade was Mr. B. He was the youngest teacher that I had ever had up until that point. He was kind and handsome with thick, black hair and he wore things like purple shirts with modern neckties. Yes, I am that old. Teachers used to dress up for school. So did we. What I remember most about Mr. B is that he supplied my first experience of indoctrination in public school. It was an election year and he brought a TV into the classroom to show us news and debates. I think that bit was good. Although this was way back in the olden days before cable news and most of us watched the news nightly with our families, it was still good to expose us to more information about current events. But he didn’t stop there. Mr. B inserted his personal political opinions into the current events curriculum. He told us that one political party was in favor of some very bad things but that the other party (his, I assume) was in favor of all these good and wonderful things. I am intentionally leaving out details because it doesn’t matter which party he was praising or which he was trashing. He was speaking to the uninitiated, those who had not yet formed any opinions and he was trying to shape our opinions and make them the same as his own. That is wrong, regardless. Mr. B was not the only teacher I would have whose main interest was teaching his or her opinions, he was just the first. Although I went to school ages ago, the new crop of teachers were already trying to shape the students' viewpoints to match their own visions. I learned to like the older teachers, the ones the other kids hated because they were strict, disallowed monkey business in class and demanded more of them academically. At least they weren’t trying to convert me to anything. Teachers should teach by encouraging students to learn. They should encourage students to seek out information and form their own opinions and tastes. They should not be in the business of raising up an army of clones. |
| Last night, instead of curling up in her usual spot at the end of the bed, the cat slunk up the bed to sleep in the hollow between our bodies. The reason for this sudden desire for closeness? Fireworks. Yes, it's time for a week of amateur, backyard fireworks. These will start each night at dusk and continue long past a reasonable hour. There will be long, sustained rat-a-tat-tat-a-tat-tat of firecrackers, the ear-splitting whistle of bottle rockets and the deep, resounding boom that seems to produce no evidence of its detonation in the sky and makes you wonder if the neighbors have started mining on their property. The noise will cease somewhere around 1:00 am, just long enough for you and the cat to fall asleep, then someone who has finally found some dry matches will startle you from your sleep and send the cat under the bed with one last fiery hurrah at 2:00 am. There are three stages of fireworks. They are like Shakespeare's seven ages of man, but there aren't as many and it's much less complicated. When one is young, fireworks are an amazing spectacle, a magical light show of stars exploding into being and then fading into darkness as if one was witnessing the birth of the universe. The second stage is parenthood, when parents delights in showing their children these brilliant displays and holding them tightly to protect them from the vibrations resonating through their bones. Finally one reaches the third stage. This is the one I am at. It's the "enough already, I want to sleep, you're scaring the cat so knock it off, where are the police when you need 'em?" stage. It's the old, curmudgeon stage. Yes, I remember how much fun fireworks were when I was a kid, but that's because I didn't realize how annoying I was being. I've changed my mind. Ban them all! Of course, they are all banned already. I live in the only state where every type and class of firework is illegal to purchase, own or transport to the state from some other, less anal state. However, fireworks are going off around me in blatant disregard of these laws and I have never in my entire life seen the police stop the perpetrators or even interrupt their illegal displays. The annual trip to a neighboring state to purchase these illegal fireworks is a tradition in some families. The law exists, I think, to make a statement. The state is saying: "we made hand held explosives illegal because we care about your safety, but we don't obsess over it". So, there's nothing to be done. Fireworks are like drugs - the state has an official position but it makes no difference to the average consumer who can get what they want regardless. Except, drugs are not as loud. I know I am just old and cranky and the proof is that I don't even feel guilty about being such a killjoy. It's no longer just a side effect of age, it's a mission. |
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