Spading The Pussyfoot

Just call a spade a spade. Unfortunately, in today's politically incorrect world, that's not possible. We all have this tiny place in our psyches that knows the actual truth of matters, but we have to go about hiding it and skirting around the real issues for the sake of decorum. This morning on national radio, yes radio, I listened to a program of interviews and even though the news journalist asked pointed questions and sought both sides of the issue, all of the experts seemed fearful of addressing the bare truths in real terms. They appeared to be protecting themselves. From what? Truth. This is common in times when truth, the uncomfortable kind that used to be spoken, is avoided for fear of bad headlines and their repercussions. We all know what lies behind politically correct terminology, but no one has the courage to voice any of it. Probably the ones who speak the loudest and truest, are those who are "unavailable for comment" or hold up a palm, and say "no comment". I am all for sensitivity, but there is a bottom line and I find it ridiculous to be part of a world that denies it. Vino veritas is a good quote. It's only in very private venues and personal asides unrecorded, that Truth may be spoken. And why? The answer is Fear. Truth and Fear are enemies. Reporting and journalism of the investigative kind, must be sugar coated according to fashionable dictates, when there was a time when blurting out the hard truth was what readers wanted. Everyone could see, read and hear the truth. It wasn't always pretty, and sometimes it was cruel, but that's what happens when the rose coloured glasses come off. To deal with Truth you shouldn't have to seek out brave, elusive documentaries that tell it like it is, or listen to those who have broken through the veiled politically correct screen at their risk.Today, hearing the experts dodge what the audience knows is  fact, is like witnessing a long, boring fencing match. It takes so long to get an honest point across all couched in cutsey terms that it is a turn-off. One of the benefits of being a listener is like being a text viewer, you can say what you really mean out loud and no one hears it. This morning's broadcast by a well-known journalist who handled the interviews of opposing commentators, was frustrating because we the listeners, wanted someone, anyone on the panel, to "stop pussyfooting around" and "just say it".  The interview ended with everyone being nice, while nothing had been done but air the subjects. No pointed or uncomfortable solutions were offered other than those over-buttered with  love and peace words. Safe words.  It made me realize how much politicians must be trained at what NOT to say, and how to avoid saying anything that could be picked up by the professional nitpickers who spend their days trying to find every little slip of the tongue as a three inch capitalized headline. Truth where are you?

Tell Me A Story

I know of no one who doesn't love stories. My first memories are of looking at pictures in books and adoring the stories that came from them. It seemed a miracle to learn how  to read so that I could hold the books and miraculously say the words myself.  It is an indelible memory to recall telling and reading stories to my child and then to his children who didn't want to go to bed without a story either read or told them. The love of story is a generic human need that emerges from our earliest times as humans.  And even now, hearing it said in Book Clubs and places where people know much of the history of legend and myth, the matter of story telling and its values, there is proof that it's more than mere entertainment. Today, I read an article about early Man, that gave evidence of story as part of our very being, in symbols found on cave walls. On them are the beginnings of  what later became, in time, written language. It began as pictures painted to tell proud, honorable stories. On cave walls, we see symbols and renderings of the hunt and the hand prints of our early fellows. Beyond the nightly story telling that good parents in their homes with their children, take time for, there is, the inborn need we all have for story. It relaxes us and entertains us and educates us. We listen to stories and let our imaginations form the images the way we feel they are. It is an exercise in personal artistry. Our inner caves. Our love of colour and shape and form made by movie makers and documentarians and news reporters are our media stories. Some are realities and others are mere creation. Story telling is part of the history of all men. Stories can be humorous or challenge our thinking or inspire us or intrigue us, but they are all fodder for the hungry imagination. They take us to places we haven't been to and never go to. They allow us to feel what we know is true and also what we need to fear, what is impossible and what is harshly real, what is so beautiful it touches us as no other form can. Think what your favorite childhood story was and how you have never forgotten it even though you may not know why it meant so much to you. Remember the teacher or librarian who read books to you, ones that became part of your most pleasurable memories. Recall the movies, plays and operas that stand out in your mind and that you love to feel over and over again. All of these are just stories. The ancients didn't need an alphabet or other symbols when they had their people relate tales of why and how and who they were. Stories are the vehicle that brings us all together. It is interesting that every society in the world, without exception, has basically the same stories, those with the same kinds of exploits and destinies and victories over evil or journeys of success or finding love and place. Everyone is comforted, relaxed and refreshed in listening to stories. There is something primitively satisfying to hear a good story told by someone with that kind of talent. It is one of our basic needs just as food and shelter and love. The eternal proof, is in hearing the words "Please tell us a story, Nana, before we go to sleep?"

Car Crazy

It was bound, literally, to happen. The world's biggest fascination by people in their cars, lies in the U.S. and NASA has taken note.Other countries take pride in their top notch hunks of metal that go places, but in North America, the auto is an extension of our entire raison d'etre. Apparently, it is gathered, judging by all of the money we spend on the things in a lifetime, significant to human existence. I hardly ever drive mine, but I want it. When I look at it, I feel whole. I don't allow it to be washed by anyone other than me, and when I do, which is all too rarely, sorry, there is a closeness that defies description. When I am behind the wheel, I not only feel the power, I am the power. Well, you car lovers out there, know what I'm saying. While better automobiles may be coming from elsewhere on earth, the U.S. reveres them. One's car is one's status. It's not that said-auto has to be the most expensive or exotic or the fastest, it simply has to be legendary. Think James Bond, or  the movie, "Christine" or "Chitty Chitty Bang Bang" and hoards of other iconic vehicles in the movie realm. People have fixations about their cars. Where I live, there is a woman who frets constantly about her  outrageously costly, foreign car being possibly scratched or rubbed against by any of our our more mundane ones in the underground parking. She has taken great lengths to make public, that her car, with all of its bells and whistles, including anti theft, camera and collection of electronics inside, as we are warned, is not to be touched. We can look however.  I have to walk by this "special" car to get to my own, never daring to go near hers, but even that frightens her. She has threatened me because I stepped over the line, the painted yellow one, between her larger parking space as I go to mine. She's, otherwise, a  perfectly sane and stable business woman and even attractively dressed. But, it is an example of how attached we become to our cars. They are not only pieces of metal and paint, but also much more. I drive an old sports model, dented here and there and slightly scarred with marks that I have memorized in all fondness. One particularly notable one, was made by an old boyfriend who forgot to consult the rear view mirror, and bashed into a sign damaging my rear fin. I had trusted him to drive my 'Tang that I loved more than him. When I insisted we get out and take a look at what had occurred, for insurance purposes, notwithstanding the salmon selling outlet's sign damage, he did look, licked his finger and rubbed the sizeable dent in my car's skin and shook his head. "Nope, nothing a good buffing wouldn't fix", and got back into the driver's seat. I was stunned, not to to say furious, but after cooling down, chalked it up to experience. It was either boyfriend or car and my social life needed the former more than the latter at the time. It hurt me physically, however, for I intend to keep this car, as my last car. Nasa loves cars, too, apparently. One of my favorite magazines, Scientific American, showed recently, the Tesla model, that is up in space tooling around, showing-off, to anyone or thing that might be in the universe, what's important on our blue planet. I am sure that many of us, don't mind the hubris of it all, but we certainly do not want to be killed by falling space junk, even if it is a Tesla.   

Heaven And Fitted Sheets

I started out thinking I'd write about fitted sheets but I got to the part where I wanted to say how much easier it was with a mate who'd help out with getting the fitted ones on. As I keyed out the words, "but now he can't, he's in Heaven", my mind yawed over to the subject of Heaven. Usually someone points skyward to indicate Heaven but now, knowing what we do that happens to be fact, where does one point? I guess splaying your fingers in an outward direction and waving them about is more appropriate. The heavenly realm must be out there, not up? Science and its findings, makes it more and more challenging for "believers" in their duty of faith. If they choose to have it at all. The trouble is that the heavens are full of things that read it, such as satellites and probes  taking electronic pictures here and there, which has no up or down. But getting back to our nice blue planet and its inner space, there is the matter of the fitted sheet. I don't know about your house, but mine has a normal bed with a normal mattress and never, not ever have I been able to find fitted sheets that go on easily. It doesn't matter how much they cost,  they are all the same. They almost fit but it requires enormous knuckle strain to get them on smoothly, if at all. This kind of sheet problem used to be non-existent. All sheets were flat. You knew the bottom sheet  from the top one that had a nice border along it that many people still don't know how to manage. They insist, as with putting the table knife pointing out instead of in, on forgetting to place the top sheet on with the border inside, so that when folded over, the "nice" side shows. These sorts of things bother me just as cupboard doors that are not completely closed, or pictures that hang at a slant or are placed too high on walls. I have been called a Type A whatever that means.  Getting back to fitted sheets, there is another maddening thing about them. They are almost impossible to fold neatly for the linen cupboard shelves. I had a boyfriend a while ago, who fretted about this endlessly, even though he didn't make his own bed. His housekeeper had a certain method of folding the fitted sheet and he said it was perfect. And why didn't I call her and find out her method.  I don't worry about things like that. Perhaps I am not a Type A after all. Once I thought I would fool Fate and bought a king sized sheet set.  Aha, I thought, this will do the trick.  But it was worse. The flat top sheet hung down to trip over, and the fitted one had so much sheet so that it had to be tucked under the mattress on one side. And that was pointless. I gave the set away and went back to the frustrating queen size kind. Why can't sheet makers be more considerate I ask? What is the problem? All they have to do is ensure that there are a few more inches added to the corners so that human beings can tuck them in easily. Don't they have sheet engineers? In the old days, when I had a husband, we made the bed together. His hands were large and strong and fitted sheets weren't an issue. But few men are as generous about helping with bed making. Most of them arise and go about their days without a thought for the fitted sheet. I miss my once companion bed maker, but if there are fitted sheets "up there", I hope he's giving lessons.

Jury Duty

The matter of juries is as mysterious as any mystery. Knowing nothing specific about the whole matter of jury selection, admittedly, freedom of speech dictates that I can say something about it, fully knowledgeable or not on the subject.  First of all, I find that selection of a jury by lawyers in a case, seems a kind of contradiction. When an impartial lot of citizens and peers evidently, whatever "peers" means in this situation, are searched out to participate in a trial and then find themselves sitting upon a bench to be judged by the lawyers for each side as being appropriate to determine  innocence or guilt, right or wrong,  seems an odd activity to me. Clearly, it gives lawyers a great deal of power obviously in setting up justice to serve their clients, thus themselves. The law is sacred,  and what "it" decides is what is right, apparently. Just the same this feature of the court, doesn't seem fair. Naturally, the representative on either side is going to choose folks who will be impartial but empathetic toward their clients while being completely neutral in their personal and cooperative company with other jurors. They are to be forthcoming with a yes or no answer to the burning question at the end of the trial. But, it's okay for the lawyer, not to be neutral. How can the lawyers be impartial and then hope to choose those who are? The juror, and I know some people who have been asked over and over again to serve, must not be too informed of the issues at hand; they have to be solid citizens of the average kind, folks without prejudice and ones who have had no major brushes with the law. While each of the former requirements seem a shoe-in, it must be extremely difficult to actually find such  individuals. Being without prejudice or prior judgement of any kind, is not simple. The Media, like water, seeps in everywhere: what we hear and see and stumble over. Who can avoid even such things as side bar ads showing magazine cover shots or overhear conversations publicly or passing kiosk headlines on the street? It's almost impossible not to know even a tiny bit of high profile news pre-trial and not pay a modicum of attention. Certainly, we don't spend our lives digging into every tiny detail of eye-grabbing headlines. In most cases today, all we ever get in early news stories is a large, telling photograph and a paragraph or two with a lot of "allegeds"and "needs authentications". But we do, as human nature dictates, inadvertently make judgments on what we come across. It's our nature. Our curiosities lead us to look further. However lightly informed we are, as part of our conversations and thoughts we become biased in certain directions, even if we dare not reveal them. When a prospective juror is interviewed by legal folk on whether or not he or she has an opinion that will be in any way prejudicial, therefore, becomes somehow questionable, to my thinking. Certainly, a juror knows he/she is there to listen to the evidence, no matter what inner thoughts roil and to judge, based solely on what he or she learns from what is offered by lawyers, to make, with his fellows, a crucial decision. The decision always has an effect on other persons with all of their own complexities. Being a perfect juror must be perfectly hard work.

Hairiness

If you asked anyone what their prime cosmetic concern is, they are likely to include their hair as the answer. We are hairy creatures much the same as apes, even though our hair isn't as obvious. We have the same number of hair follicles. Our hair grows and what you see, is no longer alive, but it does contain some telling evidence of our recent past. In your hair, much can be read about your chemical biological make up. Even though what you see is simple dead growth hanging from your skull, it is, in most societies, an indication of beauty. Or not. We can do a lot with that growth of protein. We can style it using scissors, razors, colours, dyes, sprays, oils or cleaners. Our hair can be a source of attraction, rejection, disease, infestation and frustration. It's likely the first thing you look at in the morning and give attention to during the day more so than any other part of your bodies. It, like in  forms of animal lower on the scale than ours, sheds. It drops out and another hair grows from the same follicle. If you don't believe me, take a look in your vacuum bag next time you empty it. Not all that  stuff in the bag is from the dog and cat. A lot of it is you. Your hair. There is great attention given to hair and what happens to it defines us. Are we fashionable, cool, freaky or scorned for this pile of hairy dead material we revere so much and that is highly visible. Lots of so-called beautiful ladies and gents of the film world, without their hair styling and even additions to it, Dolly Parton not withstanding, would be rather plain and unnoticeable if there had not been a considerable amount of time, talent and energy put into their hair. Over the centuries, hair denoted rank and position. Men had wigs with decks of curls hanging down, ladies of the courts of France made their hair accessories out of flowers, jewels and even live creatures apart from the infamous tiny unwelcome ones of those less than scrupulous times. Today, wigs are worn by those in high courts in England, a tradition that is unlikely to be left behind. Hair is also, on the positive negative side, a helper in crime solving identification, diseases and poisonings. In the street fashion world, it is braided, knotted, shorn into elaborate shapes and amongst those who care, stuck into the scalp in little plugs, hoped to grow like a mini crop on the pate. It is dyed, bleached, conditioned, hot ironed, straightened, curled and plucked. Hair is very hardy and even after death, while it doesn't grow as falsely thought, it remains intact for a longer time than most of the rest of you thanks to the lowly fly. A lot of time, trouble and money is spent on your hair as you know. These days hair additions are glued on eyelashes and bits of fake hair are clipped in for length and thickness. Bald ladies and men, pay for their wigs to be washed, dried and styled regularly by stylists as one would go regularly to the dry cleaner. Hair, according to fashion, must be straight one day but ringleted the next. It goes up or down, all off and even sideways, according to what the movie or the music stars are up to. There are places where natural hair must be removed in the most painful ways for the sake of what fashion dictates but still it grows in relentlessly, unless its follicles are fried out forever by laser beams. The true purpose of hair is to protect your head and all the wonders on it and in it and to keep us warm. Who would think it?

Friending

Social media invites "friends". I always thought a friend was the person you could trust, someone who saw you before you brushed your teeth and hair, without make-up and in your old teeshirts and didn't scowl. You could tell your friend all of your deepest, darkest secrets, hopes and dreams and your friend would never laugh at them or give you advice on what and what not to do about them. When someone said to me, "I went to your Facebook and you haven't any friends, I was surprised. Don't you 'friend' people?"  I answered, "What's that?" He explained how easy it was, and that he had dozens and dozens of friends. "Wow, that must be hard to keep up with. All that tea and idle gossip." There was laughter. "Oh silly, not that kind of friend, just Facebook friends." "What's that," I repeated, whereupon I was given a lesson in obtaining large numbers of "friends". I went to my rather thin and friendless Facebook page that somehow I have never been able to manage, the one with old photos of some years back, that lurk beyond my removal attempts. Recalling my true friend's lessons, I explored my friend possibilities and saw that I could instantly opt for any number, nay hundreds, of friends. All I had to do, was try to friend them which is kind of like speed dating. You have to be polite and ask first if they will friend you, and if they do, you have just gained a friend. In fact you not only have them but another batch of possible friends in their friends. There are pictures of these potential friends. I spent most of the rest of the day, going through the list and was astounded at the vast array of possibilities. Wait a minute, I thought, this is something that takes consideration. You have to gaze carefully at the prospects and try to read their photos and if you're lucky, their qualifications. You don't want to get a so-called rotten tomato who might be a chainsaw murderer or pedophile or spy. I began to eliminate all but the best candidates. Some were too much of that and not enough of this, and finally I narrowed it down to around fifty. It was exhausting and time consuming. I felt also somewhat intimidated due to the fact that my true friend boasted of a few hundred friends. It didn't seem to tire him. At the same time, I learned that when I did acquire a friend, it meant that his or her friends were allowed in my Facebook door and suddenly without filters, became possible friends. Friends of friends so to speak. With that in mind, the job of investigation began. My true friend advised me to Google my choices before actually hitting the friend button on my computer.  That took around a week, because by this time, I was becoming somewhat nervous about the whole matter of friendship, cyber style. Some of the photos of my erstwhile candidate friends were less than decent and I considered that any of my friends must be made of a degree of moral fibre but I won't get into that. I also learned that it was entirely possible to manipulate through various other means, faces and places using digital calisthenics available to those who were adept at that sort of thing. My face could thus be manipulated into that of a dog or pig or worse, a horse. It is long enough as it is. In the end, I felt exhausted and informed my true friend that I made a firm decision to remain among the only and lonely friendless in the computer world. It is much safer, worry free and no work at all.

Wait. A. Minute.

There is currently, a movement to mold and re-shape, not only history, but the meanings of words spoken or actions taken by others, that have nothing to do with reality. I don't know about you, but I am feeling that kind of let's-all-get-a-grip sensation. While being all for Freedom Of Speech and Personal Privacy, the matter of what is said and said to be done, needs actual hard proof, and not immediate condemnation without first, confirmation. The Media, and capitals are certainly deserved here, has often taken on more than reporting, and strikes first, asking needed questions later. And how about waiting patiently, when the term, "not available for comment" happens. Press judgement does grab the headlines which is the bottom line for unscrupulous journalists, but it also alerts the attention of those who adore hammering signs together and yelling in the streets. That costs us all a lot of policing time. But we, the vast silent majority, need a little more space to absorb what's going on before we get our blood pressure all a-steam. We, the average Joe and Jane, need to see more than a headline or a cooked up digital on things. We like to see both sides of the picture and then make a determination. Unfortunately, those under the microscope that Media condemns, often throw up their hands and walk off into a more comfortable and safe oblivion and questions are never answered. It takes massive courage to stand up and defend oneself if innocent, if misinterpreted or misrepresented. But in doing so, the gloves are off and those holding the mike and having the hard-nosed interview education and experience, can make porridge out of defenses. It seems that making an accusation creates judge, jury and punishment in a single swoop. It is not to say that the truly proven guilty are, in fact, guilty, but that we do have processes that should and must be taken to protect society and bring justice. Here in the West and in lots of other free countries, we like to give the accused a chance to speak fully, but more importantly, to be heard fully and without prejudice. I like to say that I am politically neutral until I get inside the voter's box, but more and more, I find the way politicians are under the microscope of blame for all and sundry, I feel sad for them. Even the most innocent slip of the tongue, a second or two of just being human like everyone else and putting one's foot in it, makes for two or three days of media hype that is overplayed to the max. And it does raise the specter of who and what is responsible for the spin. All the hype does for me, is to stop trusting what I read and see in the media. Oh, I know the defense, "you're taking it the wrong way" or "what do you know, you weren't there",  but hey, you brought it to me, Media. All I am asking as a listener or viewer, is that you do what good reporting should do, and it's not "investigative reporting", it's just plain good journalistic tell-it-like-it-happened and let me do the judging and reacting. And stop the cute editing jobs of taking words and photography out of context. Please.

School Janitors Ago

The Janitors of the old days were figures of mystery. They were silent and serious. I saw them dimly in old educational institutions but never knew one personally.  They came out early in the morning to get things warmed up and opened up, then disappeared into the dark depths during the day to turn up mysteriously in the eves of the night, cleaning the floors. We pupils, all pretty much took them for granted but feared them secretly. These denizens of school basements when they had them then as dank, smelly, rainy day play areas, were hidden behind doors that led to their furnace rooms. They appeared only occasionally, saying nothing and going about their business of tapping thermostats and nodding with disapproval at various visible vents. The school principal could be seen through class windows, conversing with them and gesticulating mid play field or in quiet huddles around corners speaking authoritatively to school administration officials. After my school years, when I became a teacher, the janitor and I were on verbal terms, but only "hello and how are you today?". Janitors were always going somewhere they were needed in a hurry and had little time to waste on trivial chat. In my early teaching days, when I was first assigned to a school, the room was in the lowest floor. It was a dark basement classroom opposite the janitor's den off the Boys Basement. The former teacher in the room with its ground level windows overlooking the gravel soccer field, had died during the summer. I learned that she and the ancient janitor had been on very friendly terms. Eyebrows aloft. It answered my wonderings about the number of empty bottles in the back desk drawer. I requested permission to put some bright curtains on the wire covered windows, and was asked why  I would want curtains of all things. The asker had a sunny upstairs classroom on the third floor.  In another school, another janitor  appeared only at recess outside where he chased little girls at play who screamed with laughter. He was released  and left quite suddenly one day. The elusive teacher aide in the school, missed him greatly. Apparently, they enjoyed frequent games of poker in the furnace room on days when no one could find the aide. I did, in fact, know one janitor a little better. He resented the term "janitor", preferring the word "engineer". He was the father of one of my friends and was British originally, he told us proudly. His hobby was flattening English coins and punching holes in them to sell reasonably, as pendants to his daughter's friends. I have the tupence to this day. Another janitor in a school up the coast, frequently offered me fish recipes. I had a large gold fish named Bilbo Baggins in the library, and allowed the kids to handle him. The janitor didn't like the fish tank with all of its slimy algae dripping over the side. What with electric heating, janitors are replaced now with  sweepers who come into classrooms and converse with teachers acting as amateur advisers and counselors. Why? They know everything and everyone. They are greatly respected and thus, you do what they say when vacation time rolls around. You stack the desks just as they tell you. Many a sweeper leaned on a broom and counselled me over the years, with wise and useful words even though I never came to know a single last name of any.  But none of them had the same mysterious aura as those janitors who strode silently about amongst the pipes of the mysteries in the dim, dark school basements of the past century.

Just Apple Pie

I don't know anyone who has not eaten and loved apple pie. To me, apple pie isn't all about the flaky crust, and it isn't about inventive craft or the kinds of apples. It's mostly about the aroma of apple pie baking, the sight or memory of a special  someone peeling apples and rolling out the dough and the slipped in taste of  purloined slices of crisp apple. When I bake an apple pie, Gramma is behind me and Grampa is sitting at the oil cloth table with the Winnipeg  Free Press in the background, smiling over the top of it. Gramma, the red haired pioneer one, from Saskatchewan who immigrated in the early 1900's, didn't really care if  Johnny Appleseed invented apples or that apple pie is American: North or South. She didn't have time to speculate about such nonsense. In fact, the first apples are about as likely as the first Men who made ovens, and the first apple pie on record, was recorded in Jolly Old in the early thirteen hundreds. Or so Chaucer tells us. But today, while baking an apple pie, as always, I enjoy all the sensations and memories of what apple pie brings us. Apples are available all times of the year and making crust is as simple as a couple of cups of flour, a dash of salt, a little butter and shortening and a splash of cold water, a mix and push or two, and there's your crust. Make a ball of it to press into a pie plate bottom; I don't do a top crust, plop in the heap of apples that wait stirred up with a bit of sugar, melted butter and a grind of cinnamon. It's ready for the oven. I had a man friend once whose apple pie was named after him, and he measured everything to perfection. When I baked with him, it drove him silly to see me measure using my hands, and testing the dough by feel.The poor fella had to walk out of the kitchen. Sure, our pies were different, but I don't know a single apple pie creator whose home-made pie is the same as any other. Apple pie making also reminds me of a dear friend now gone, who did annual apple pie marathons. She was one of these cute little ladies full of energy. When there were too many apples in late fall, she would go out and get them free. For the next whole day, she made apple pies and baked them. They went into the freezer so that she could distribute them to her family and friends every time they came. There was never a cup of tea without an offer of apple pie and something on it. And what you put on it, determines its temporary character. Could be a slice of cheese, a dollop of whipped cream, a scoop of ice cream or just nice thick cream drizzled over the hot and steaming treat. I think my pie is about ready to take out of the oven. Excuse me please.