Ramble With Me.

There And Back.

Author: July 19, 2019 6 Comments

I was born after the Apollo 11 moon landing. Not immediately after it, but it was recent enough that it was still a big event in peoples’ minds, a major accomplishment. Even as a kid I had a sense that there were only a few really big before and after moments in human history, events that are so big they’re transformative, that give us a chance to look at ourselves as a whole. The moon landing was one of the biggest, an event that, at a difficult time, gave a lot of people hope not just for a brighter future but a future that was close at hand. I was born into a world where it had happened, and where some older people looked at me and wondered what events I’d see in my lifetime. And it was still fresh enough that for my friends and I, even though we hadn’t been there, still shared in the afterglow. That’s why we turned every cardboard box, and the occasional bathtub, into a rocket to the moon, although I remember there was more of an emphasis on the countdown and liftoff than the actual landing. We’d crowd into a box and start the count at ten, mostly because that was as high as we could count but also because we were too impatient to start at anything higher. Then after watching and listening more carefully to launch footage which, in those days, we could only watch when one of the four TV networks deemed it ratings-worthy and not any time we wanted, we added “T minus” at the beginning even though we only vaguely understood what “minus” meant and had no idea what “T” was other than a letter in the alphabet. We dreamed of being astronauts ourselves, and I remember how excited I was when we took a school trip to the space center in Huntsville and got to see an exciting new generation of spacecraft, the Space Shuttle. We were assured it was an amazing technological breakthrough because it could go up into space and come back down again and again. I nodded solemnly even though I was thinking, that’s it? I was disappointed that it didn’t go to the moon, that it wouldn’t take me to the moon. When, I wondered, are we going back? There had been a few return trips after I came into the world but the last was Apollo 17, which returned to Earth a day before my second birthday.

Now, with the fiftieth anniversary of Apollo 11 looming I still wonder, when are we going back? And I’m trying to hold to the hope that it’s a matter of when and not if, although there are times that I’ve wondered whether we’re up to the job, whether it’s really our destiny. The idea that homo sapiens will spread out to the stars is a popular one in science fiction, and the idea’s appeal is so broad it seems like a given that it’s what all of us, or at least most of us, want. And we are a peripatetic species, which is why you find people everywhere. What we humans consider the most inhospitable regions of Earth, though—the deserts, the poles, Poughkeepsie—are paradise compared to space where we have to carry more than just an extra pair of underwear just to be able to survive. In his famous 1962 speech committing the United States to the goal of landing men on the moon and bringing them back safely John F. Kennedy said, “We choose to go to the moon in this decade and do the other things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard,” and he appealed to a human desire to overcome a challenge simply for its own sake. But is that desire to overcome a challenge, for lack of a better word, universal? It seems unlikely we’ll populate the stars without extraordinary cooperation. Maybe it’s not what everyone, or even most people, really want. Maybe the desire to reach out across the stars and even to make contact with life that must be out there is just a metaphor, and that our ultimate destiny really is here.

It’s possible I’m just impatient. There have been some extraordinary advances in the past fifty years, and there are still a lot of things here on Earth, including our need to keep in mind that technology has given us the means to wipe out every living thing, including ourselves, either through a single rash act or through slow degradation of the resources we depend on. It’s ironic that the word “lunatic” comes from another name for the moon when most of our self-destructive impulses are directed at Earth, and at ourselves. Overcoming the worst of ourselves is an admirable goal regardless of where we go from there.

In the meantime the moon isn’t going anywhere; even when it sets in the sky I see it’s rising somewhere else. Even when it wanes it’s just our shadow passing over it, and it will wax again. The sun, by most estimates, has about five billion more years to burn, and we’ve already accomplished so much in just a fraction of that time. I hope we’re up to the challenge.

Keep Looking Up, Ramble With Me., Submitted For Your Approval., The Weekly Essay

Dear John…

Author: May 31, 2019 12 Comments

Restaurant patrons in New York have a problem: they can’t find the loo, the head, the john, the restroom, or the bathroom. Apparently the problem is that old buildings are being turned into gourmet restaurants, because with rising rent prices making it harder for people to actually live in the city the most important thing New York needs is more places that serve upscale kale, quail, yellowtail, pale ale, and escargot. And that reminds me of the time I was in an English pub and asked the bartender where the bathroom was. “Why?” he asked sarcastically. “Do you need to take a bath?” I said, “Well, we are in Somerset…”

What I don’t understand is why New York diners are treating the hard to find heads—such as the Crosby Street Hotel restaurant that, according to what I’ve read, requires people to go downstairs and through five closed doors, one with a sign that says “Beware of the leopard”—as an inconvenience rather than a feature. Why isn’t an outhouse that’s actually outside and probably formerly someone’s house seen as charming, fun, part of the adventure of going out to a restaurant? After all one of the rising industries is what’s known as—I’m not making this up—the “experience economy”, which is a new term for something that’s been around forever and encompasses everything from amusement parks to safaris. As businesses look for new ways to compete and attract customers many add features that may not be part of the original plan but that add that extra flavor that draws people in and keeps them coming back. And with these added features businesses can charge more, claiming to offer more bang for your buck, even if it is more like extra bangs you aren’t sure you wanted for more bucks than you really wanted to spend, or, as my grandfather used to say, “All the extras are free until you get the bill,” but that’s another story. A really good example of this I can think of is an Irish pub that used to be in downtown Nashville—although given its location I guess technically it was about as Irish as Lucky Charms. Still I liked it because it was a nice place to get a pint of Guinness, and they’d decorated the place to look like an old-fashioned Irish pub, and one room was even elaborately designed to look like a Dublin street from the 1920’s. They did kind of overdo it by having the waiters dressed up as Irish writers, though—having Oscar Wilde tell you “The only thing worse than having the fish and chips is not having the fish and chips” was a little odd, although not as bad as James Joyce bumping into tables and dropping hot soup in your lap because he couldn’t see anything, or Samuel Beckett who just never showed up. And then there were the restrooms. They weren’t that different from the restrooms you’d find in most other restaurants, but they had a recording of an Irish comedian playing on an endless loop, and I’d get so involved listening to his jokes that when half an hour later I got back to the table the only explanation I could give was that there was this nun and this priest forced to sleep in the same room, and the nun kept asking the priest to get up and get her another blanket. My wife would then ask me where the restrooms were located and, as she always does when we’re in a restaurant, she’d say, “Don’t point. Just tell me.” And, well, all those little extras the pub offered were enough to make the slightly higher prices, not to mention the headaches of trying to find a parking space in downtown Nashville, and for that matter the headaches the next morning from too many pints of Guinness, worth it.

It was the exact opposite of a dingy little dive where I’d worked years earlier, part of a chain of dingy little dives, but this particular one did have an added feature. Any woman who came in alone didn’t have to dine alone, even if she wanted to, because the manager made a point of always joining her. He also always made a point of letting a cigarette dangle from his lips while he cooked to give everything a nice smoky flavor, but that’s another story. Some women, I think, paid extra just so he’d go away, and I think his wife did too.

So anyway to come back to my original point, assuming I can find it, I’m pretty sure it was around here somewhere—I should have taken that left turn at Albuquerque—the New York restaurants with distant restrooms should advertise that fact and give out maps with the menus, or GPS coordinates, to diners. They should make it a game, part of the experience du jour, and since diners might get hot and sweaty in their long search for a water closet they should include a place to take a bath.

Ramble With Me., The Weekly Essay

Looking Up Uranus.

Author: March 13, 2019 6 Comments

Source: Wikipedia

It’s Uranus Day! On March 13th, 1781 the astronomer William Herschel announced that he’d discovered the previously unknown planet that would be named Uranus. Uranus had been seen before, even by ancient astronomers, but everyone thought it was just a faint star until Herschel turned his telescope toward it and took a good, clear look at Uranus. The addition of Uranus helped expand the solar system and people have been intrigued and puzzled by Uranus ever since. It’s not the biggest planet in the solar system or even the farthest but, as the third largest of the gas giants, Uranus is still pretty big, full of hydrogen and helium. There are twenty-seven known moons orbiting it and there are even rings around Uranus, although they’re faint and set at an odd angle.

It takes Uranus eighty-four Earth years to orbit the sun, and yet a day on Uranus is just a little over seventeen hours. Uranus spins really fast!

Source: Imgur

That’s all about the planet Uranus. I’d now like to focus on the town of Uranus, located just below the center of Missouri, along the historic Route 66. More of a tourist attraction than a small town it’s really home to a lot of fun attractions, although I don’t have any details about how many people regularly pass through Uranus. The world’s biggest belt buckle is there–it’s more than ten feet tall and would probably fit a pair of pants just big enough to hold all of Uranus. There’s a fudge factory in Uranus, and a place called The Axehole where you can practice competitive axe-throwing and try to hit a target. There was even a short-lived newspaper, The Uranus Examiner, which unfortunately upset the mayor of a nearby town who thought it would encourage people to make jokes about Uranus. It just seems like a fun and interesting place, and what kind of people would make fun of Uranus?

Keep Looking Up, Ramble With Me., Submitted For Your Approval.

Look Around.

Author: December 10, 2018 6 Comments

There’s a Nashville tour bus that passes in front of the building where I work. In the summer months it’s open and people hang out of the windows. I wave at them as they pass by. Some wave back which makes me happy. I want visitors to enjoy themselves and feel welcome and think of this as a friendly place then go home because there’s too much traffic, but that’s another story. Sometimes when the buses pass by me they’re completely empty, and you might wonder why they bother, but people don’t buy just one tour; they buy an all-day ride and can hop on and hop off wherever they want. I’ve been at the Parthenon when the tour bus is there and overheard people say, “We’ll get the next one.” So, unlike most tours, they’re not bound by the schedule can stick around and look spend time at a specific place that interests them.
It’s winter now and the buses that go by have clear plastic windows that hang down like curtains. I can sort of make out people behind them but if they wave back I can’t see it. And the buses have a wreath on front, which is something new, or at least something I’ve never seen before.
One day before a meeting a coworker and I started talking about the tour buses and travel in general, and I said I like small towns and I’m intrigued by islands–that if I could travel as much as I wanted places like New Caledonia, Tuvalu, and Yap are at the top of my list.
“Are you a completist?” she asked. I’d never heard that term before but I loved it. Yeah, I like the idea of a small place because I hate going somewhere and feeling like I’ve missed things. There are places I want to go back to–Chicago, Cleveland, and Los Angeles are high on my list–because there are still things in those places I want to see. And that’s one of the challenges of travel: do you go somewhere you’ve never been or back to someplace you’ve seen for something new? Because everywhere there’s always something new. Every place is always changing, every place has something you’ve never seen before. Even Nashville, where I’ve lived my entire life, has constant surprises.
Maybe one of these days I’ll take that tour to see what the city has to offer that I haven’t seen before, and by taking the bus I won’t add to the traffic.

Adventures In Busing., Ramble With Me.

Winning The World.

Author: December 5, 2018 6 Comments

The 2018 Mosconi Cup is now underway in London, pitting US players against European players, and the question is, will this be the year the US breaks their seven-year losing streak? Actually the question I’m asking is, since the Mosconi Cup, now in its twenty-fifth year, is one of pool’s biggest events, why is it only US and European players?

A little background: the cup is named for Willie Mosconi who was, if not the greatest pool player ever, then certainly the greatest American player. The son of Irish and Italian immigrants whose parents objected to him playing pool—even though his father owned a pool room, or maybe because his father owned a pool room—Mosconi was also an ambassador for the game. He hated hustlers and cheaters. Willie Mosconi wanted to raise pool above its association with smoky back rooms and shady characters. When he played Rudolph Wanderone, better known as Minnesota Fats, in a 1978 televised match for ABC’s Wide Wide World Of Sports Mosconi insisted on wearing a tuxedo, and focused on the match, unlike his opponent who wore short sleeves and played to the crowd as much as the table.

It’s not just a matter of who Mosconi was, though. Thumb through any issue of Billiards Digest and you’ll find that there are great players from all over the world—not just the United States and Europe. In 2016 five of the top twenty players in the world were from the Philippines, which ain’t bad for a country with a population of a little more than a hundred million. Shutting out that level of talent just because of geography isn’t just unfair. It’s disrespectful to the memory of the man for whom the Mosconi Cup is named. It seems like cheating.

Even though it would make it even harder for the US players to gain and hold onto the cup winning isn’t everything. At least it isn’t if it’s not a fair win.

Ramble With Me., Submitted For Your Approval.

Midsummer’s Not Over Yet.

Author: August 9, 2018 6 Comments

The Nashville Shakespeare Festival’s annual Shakespeare In The Park play this year is A Midsummer Night’s Dream. The set looks very impressive and detailed. It’s more than a little surprising to me that palatial doors form such a large part of the set and there’s only a little greenery on the left and right. This is strange because if you know the play you know that most of it takes place in the woods with events in Theseus’s palace only happening at the beginning and end. In the past the NSF’s productions have used more open, minimalist sets, so it’ll be interesting to see if the background changes as the play progresses.

I love the view from the stage.

If there’s a downside it’s that they’ve done A Midsummer Night’s Dream. And done it. And done it. This will be the fourth production in its thirty year history, although I get it. They’ve done some of the darker plays—like a brilliant and haunting production of the Scottish play—but when you’re hanging out in the park, maybe with your kids, you want to watch something light as the sun goes down. And actress Denise Hicks, who’s now the NSF’s director, played Puck in the troupe’s first production back in 1994. It was her idea that the spirits use tai chi moves and at dramatic moments would stomp on the stage, making the unearthly characters menacing, but in a good way. So if I happen to have offended think but this and all is mended: there’s always new life in an old play.

Quick Takes., Ramble With Me.

After The Fire.

Author: August 1, 2018 10 Comments

Because I have a hard time following rules, at least when they’re arbitrary, meaningless rules I’ve decided to extend the seven days of black and white photographs by one with this final picture. It’s one I also really like and I hope others do too. It reminds me that I grew up on a cul-de-sac and for years there was no fire hydrant anywhere nearby. I’m not sure if this was an oversight or if regulations just didn’t stipulate it, but then one day in late summer a construction crew showed up and blocked off a rectangular section of asphalt. Then they came back over several more days and dug a trench that extended about four feet out from the curb and was about five feet deep. Every time they left all the kids—there were about six of us who lived there at the time—would gather around it. There was a neighborhood dog, a friendly Springer Spaniel named Freckles, who would later be the sire of my dog Friskie, but that’s another story. Freckles loved to chase tennis balls and one day as I was throwing a ball for him it bounced into the trench and Freckles went in after it. It had rained so there was a layer of water at the bottom of the trench. Freckles was splashing around down there and I thought, Oh great, how am I going to get him out? And then he hopped right out, shook himself, and dropped the ball at my feet and gave me a look that clearly said Do that again!

Within a couple of weeks a fire hydrant had been installed and the trench filled in and it just faded into the background as if it had always been there.

The story would have ended there had I not read Dylan Anderson’s post about the Carr fire in California, which has also affected Tom, who challenged me to start the black and white photographs challenge in the first place. There’s very little I can say beyond expressing sympathy with all those affected and the hope that the fire can be brought under control soon. It also made me think about how quickly things can change, how an event in the present can reframe a memory, so that something that had faded into the background can suddenly become very relevant, very important.

Ramble With Me., Submitted For Your Approval.

Time To Leave.

Author: July 31, 2018 9 Comments

The Vanderbilt University campus is a national arboretum. When my mother was a student at what was then Peabody College—it’s since been incorporated into Vanderbilt—she took a botany class and had to collect the leaves of one hundred different trees. The professor directed the class to Vanderbilt and said, “Trust me. You won’t have any trouble.” And just a few years ago a friend of mine was visiting Nashville and I gave him a tour of the campus, which I really enjoy doing. He kept looking at all the trees and green spaces and saying, “This is what a college campus should look like!” He works for another university that shall remain nameless, but that’s another story.

Among Vanderbilt’s many trees are several gingko trees, including at least one that’s over a hundred years old, so here’s my final entry in the Black & White Photo Challenge, which I call, Gingko? Why Don’t You Go?

Thanks to Tom Being Tom for nominating me and now it’s time to go out on a song.

Quick Takes., Ramble With Me.

There’s A Way Out.

Author: July 28, 2018 2 Comments

My Scout troop once went spelunking in a wild cave. I’d been to Mammoth Cave and Cumberland Caverns and thought caves were really cool–although after seeing the movie The Descent I may not ever go in a cave ever again, but that’s another story—but those hadn’t prepared me for the darkness and strangeness of a cave that could only be entered through a narrow crevice that swallowed the beams of our flashlights. We had a guide leading us, by the way—the cave was wild but had been thoroughly explored by professionals. Amateur spelunking is a bad idea which we were reminded of when we came into a large room. At its center was a stalagmite that had been built to about four feet high by the slow drip of mineral-rich water from the ceiling. Then, at some point, the water’s composition changed and began to wear away the stone so the top of the stalagmite was now a shallow basin.

“We call this Injun Joe’s Altar,” the guide told us. I had just read The Adventures Of Tom Sawyer so this was very eerie.

Anyway here’s today’s entry in the Black & White Photo Challenge, a little number I call Overarching Concerns.

Quick Takes., Ramble With Me.

Annual Report: 2017/2018

Author: April 1, 2018 6 Comments

April 2017-The Freethinkers Anonymous fiscal year runs from April 1st-March 30th for reasons no one can remember and no one really wants to bother to research because the archive is located in the attic and there are wasps up there. This year the team responsible for writing the 2017/2018 annual report looked at the calendar and was faced with a crisis: delay because April 1st was Easter, or go ahead and risk getting egged? After much discussion the decision was made to go ahead when an assistant manager said, “If you’re going to postpone it you better hurry up and do it.” There was also discussion about whether April 2018 would be mentioned in the report, but this was put aside with a company-wide vote affirming that March comes in like a lion and goes out like a lamb with really bad diarrhea.

May 2017-An internal audit revealed that sometimes the company finances are in the red and sometimes in the black and sometimes in green and once in a color that, after much research, was revealed to be Noodler’s Dragon’s Napalm. A team was put together to figure out whether there’s actually any money coming in and also to figure out what the word “amortize” means.

June 2017-A series of focus groups drawn from the general population was brought in and asked whether they preferred the 1977 Rankin-Bass animated version of J.R.R.R. Tolkien’s The Hobbit or the three-part live-action version directed by Peter Jackson released beginning in 2012. Respondents fell into three broad categories: those who were unfamiliar with or had never seen either adaptation, those who preferred the 1977 Rankin-Bass animated version, and those who preferred the live-action version. The first two groups were dismissed. The final group was kept and asked a series of additional questions starting with, “What the hell is wrong with you?”

July 2017-Kevin was sent out for milkshakes. At the time of this report he has not yet returned.

August 2017-Blah blah blah productivity blah efficiency blah staff morale blah blah blah accounting something something pensions lost blah blah criminal charges blah prison time yadda yadda something something anyone else remember the show Hill Street Blues and the guy who called people “dogbreath”? What was that supposed to mean?

September 2017-
Chuck: Let’s take a call. It looks like we have Gloria from Poughkeepsie on line 2. Hi Gloria, welcome to the show. What’s your question?
Gloria: Hi Chuck. My husband and I have invested in a small property which we plan to use for short-term rentals. What zoning regulations do we need to look at most carefully, and what kind of insurance should we get in the case of property damage?
Chuck: That’s a great question, Gloria. That’s a really good question. Boy, is that a good question. You know, when my producer suggested we do a show on real estate I didn’t anticipate a question that good. In some cultures people eat leeches. To get back to your question, Gloria, it’s a really good question. That’s the sort of question you really put a lot of thought into. The Beach Boys used a theremin in their song “Good Vibrations”. Anyway, regarding your question, that’s a really good question. One of the most famous stage directions in theater is “Exeunt pursued by a bear,” from Shakespeare’s A Winter’s Tale, and on that note it looks like we’re out of time. Thanks for your call, Gloria! And the producer is telling me we still have a minute and a half, so I’m going to curl up into a ball on the floor until everyone goes away.

October 2017-The company corn maze was deemed an enormous success. The only dissenting voice came from Tom in advertising who suggested that it would have been better if the corn had actually been planted several months earlier instead of just scattered on the ground. Katherine in security took him aside and explained that if he didn’t think it was a success he’d be “sent out for milkshakes”. After this brief meeting staff approval of the maze was unanimous.

November 2017-A staff memo recommending that Kevin be put in charge of the office thermostat contained a typo with the result that the office thermostat was adjusted to Kelvin. Staff remarked that it did seem a lot warmer now that all temperatures were adjusted upward by 273 degrees Celsius or 460 degrees Fahrenheit.

December 2017-The annual office holiday party was held, as usual, at the Sheepshead Pub on 27th Avenue. As usual no one showed up.

January 2018-Management announced that this was the perfect time to wash the car. A focus group made up solely of managers was put together and subjected to a series of questions starting with, “What the hell is wrong with you?”

February 2018-Valentines were exchanged by all staff on February on Tuesday, February 13th, because that’s how we roll. Accounting reminded everyone that the question of black versus red ink had been brought up several months earlier but never fully resolved. A decision was made to use multiple colors and let everything sort itself out later. This was followed by a toast made with glasses of chartreuse.

March 2018-Exeunt pursued by a lamb.

 

 

Happy Birthday., Not Non-Fiction, Quick Takes., Ramble With Me., Submitted For Your Approval.

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