TomFlannery.com

This past Saturday I was in NYC. With my family. Bus trip. Dropped off at 9:30am on 50th and 8th avenue. Nine hours to kill. I swear the driver was laughing at all of us as we disembarked. It was a swell ride in. Watched “The Bells of St Mary’s”. Timed perfectly. Ending credits…..we arrived.

For the first 15 minutes I was thinking…..”it’s not too crowded.” Walked past Hugh Jackman’s current Broadway home. Quaint.

An hour later I was paying $10 for a beer and wondering why there wasn’t dead bodies strewn all over Manhattan.

I remember crossing the street. A street in the high 40s. It was like an alternate universe. All of a sudden….there was maybe 1000 people crossing with me. Coming towards us were another 1000 people. We met in the middle. Two brick walls. It wasn’t that nobody wanted to move, although that was probably true, It was that there was no room to move. A single NYC cop was there to sort this out, egged on by bleating horns from crazed taxi drivers. Merry Fucking Christmas. It’s amazing what you can get used to. In a few hours I went from extreme jay-walking paranoia at every corner to staring cabbies down and daring them to run me over. Next block? Repeat. And so it went. After a while you literally don’t care if you live or die.That’s New York for you. It’s positively charming in a horrifyingly flippant way. Being Blasé is your best option.

Yes. This was me….a crowd hater who thinks the Viewmont Mall is crowded on a Saturday afternoon. Here I am at Rockefeller Center trying to get a picture of the tree (from Danville PA I’m told) without having my family ripped from my grasp by a busload of maniacs from Toms River. I have to say that while I noticed many folks growing a bit…er….testy….nobody truly lost it….a Christmas miracle in my book. New York gets a bad wrap in the attitude department. All in all….I’ve met more dickheads in Dickson City bars than on the streets of Manhattan.

That doesn’t mean that being there so close to Christmas…..on a Saturday….with the sun out and temps creeping into the 40s….is in any way enjoyable for somebody who munches benzodiazepines like Chicklets. I am simply saying that it could have been much worse if everybody there felt that same way I did. That is, murderous.

The main reason? I had to piss.

Hey…don’t we all eventually? Two $10 morning beers will do that to a man.

New York may be the greatest city in the world. The city that never sleeps. Whatever. What it isn’t is a good place to be for somebody who has to pee. It’s easier to get a free cab on 42nd street than it is to find a place to piss on 42nd street. Urinals are guarded like bomb shelters. Even McDonald’s has a combination lock on the loo. We made our way up to Bryant Park, which had outdoor stalls. The problem? The line was literally 300 yards long. I wasn’t the only one with bladder issues. “Go to Macy’s” somebody suggested. Macy’s was 8 blocks away. By the time I got there I would have exploded.

Hotels you say? Ha! Doormen have them locked up tighter than a virgin’s prom dress. I finally snapped and barged into some sort of whacked out vegan bakery……ran down the only steps I saw…..and stood outside locked bathrooms (again…those ghastly combination locks) and waited for the door to open. A woman and her young daughter came out and I grabbed the door (a ladies room…but time had officially run out) before it snapped shut. By the time employees noticed….I had locked myself in and spent the most glorious 45 seconds of my near half century of earth dwelling. Arrest me. I really didn’t care anymore.

So yea. That’s New York. Twenty dollar cheeseburgers and no place to urinate. Positively medieval.

Saint Patrick’s Cathedral (my daughter kept asking “is this the Vatican?”) and Saks 5th Avenue (where we were followed like drug dealers….my wife reminding me the entire time that “you dress like a homeless person”) and Radio City Music Hall and NBC studios. Christmas trees and ice skating rinks and Salvation Army volunteers forced to continuously dance while soliciting (the better to distract from the charity’s blatant homophobia, perhaps?). Surly cops and surlier waiters and drunken Santas and peering up at the ball in Times Square and thinking…”I thought it would be bigger”. I’m told tens of thousands of people were marching and protesting around Rockefeller Center the day I was there. I saw nothing at all. All you were aware of was the wall of people surrounding you. Fifty yards away? A panzer division could have rolled down the Avenue of the Americas without being noticed. It was bizarre. It was sublime. It was surreal. The sheer mass of it all made you dizzy. I loved it. And I hated every minute.

I nearly wept when I found our bus at 6:45pm amidst the carnage of shopping bags. The first thing I did was pee. Then I probably popped another pill. Then we watched “White Christmas” on the way home. A Bing Crosby double feature.

The war was over. We had survived. Somehow.

Never again. Until they want to go again next year.

In a bit..

–tf

Where My Daddy Died

You say you gotta move and can’t sit still
fall asleep…wake up and take a pill
say you want to be alone
but won’t leave the house without your cellphone
I watched you freeze and I watched you melt
and still I never knew just how you felt
but I got hope in place of pride
laying here where my daddy died

Once knew a woman about 10 foot tall
took a christmas tree nailed it to a wall
she loved me hard scared me half to death
sold baby clothes and crystal meth
but she lived before she went away
always laughed when she ran out of things to say
so judge me not your God lied
laying here where my daddy died

dying ruins living
that’s all I got to say
best that we can do
it look the other way

I got no kids but I got a car
drive around the world to chase a fallen star
then Detroit fell like it was supposed to do
before the price of oil made a fool of you
so now all I got is walking shoes
and a new appreciation for the blues
I got nothing but this time to bide
laying here where my daddy died

dying ruins living
that’s all I got to say
best that we can do
it look the other way

I got nothing but this time to bide
laying here where my daddy died

Found these verses in my lyric tablet. Maybe a year old. Maybe more. Most of the time I write the date on the corner of the page….but not for these. Such is the life of one who prefers pen and paper.

Decided to bang this out late last night…

What’s It Gonna Take To Leave It All Behind
(Tom Flannery)

Driving on a road I’ve seen too many times
trying to dry out and stay between the lines
nothing waiting home ‘cept “where the hell were you?”
and window watching what I wanna do
All I had is hers I guess the rest is mine
what’s it gonna take to leave it all behind

Met her in a bar back in 1964
she answered my letters when I went off to war
came home said ‘son well what do we do now?”
so we rounded up a preacher and took ourselves a vow
by the summer of love things started to die
what’s it gonna take to leave it all behind

40 years with nothing left to say
and a house owned by the bank on Oyster Bay
take a train to the city get home 6:59
what’s it gonna take to leave it all behind

You are who you are when you do what you’re supposed to do
questions for the shrink on 7th avenue
put it all on the card pay for that gravestone
and hope like hell you never die alone
watch it unravel like a solid piece of twine
what’s it gonna take to leave it all behind

I was watching last night like everybody else.

I was thinking a few things while awaiting the grand jury’s decision.

First and foremost I was thinking how, unless I could somehow cut my age in half (and then some), turn myself black. and move to a depressed inner city, I have absolutely no idea how someone like Michael Brown handled himself each day.

And unless I turn myself into a cop patrolling an inner city….an area that views me with suspicion at best…..I really have no idea what it’s like to be officer Darren Wilson.

Imagine living in a world where everybody assumes your intentions are bad. You are judged for the clothes you wear. The music you listen to. The girls you date. The cars you drive and the areas you drive your cars thru. You enter a store and all eyes are on you. And your hands. And your pockets. You walk down the street with your friends and the sidewalk becomes a mini version of white-flight. Popular culture endlessly portrays you as a thug. A drug dealer. A gang-banger. Your options are limited. Raising yourself up by the bootstraps…..well that sounds swell, but the boots you have are torn and frayed and have to last the winter. But if you make it through a crumbling cash-strapped high-school….college is likely a financial impossibility. Nobody really gives a shit either. You’re either a statistic, or about to become one.

Imagine getting up every morning and putting on your badge, being willing to lay down your life for the community you’ve given your oath to protect. And imagine knowing that a large part of that community considers you an oppressor. A cold-eyed racist with a license to kill. A state-sponsored goon who gets his kicks out of hassling young men of color. Imagine parents coldly hustling their little children away from you as you attempt to engage them…..or a wall of silence being instantly erected whenever you need their cooperation. Imagine spending your entire working day without a single glint of recognition. Week after week. Month after month. Year after year.

Imaging this dueling scenario…..and then place yourself in front of a Fox News screen…..where all cops are portrayed as white knights waving the American flag and saving kittens on their days off. Or MSNBC, where all young men of color who victimize their own communities (and each other) are portrayed as secret mama’s boys who just need more TLC and larger relief checks.

Somewhere in the middle is where we need to get. But it’s messy as hell in there. So….we close the garage door, grab a 6-pack (and maybe a 6 shooter)….and continue being afraid. On our side of the divide.

Because that’s what this is really about isn’t it?

I don’t think Micheal Brown was a remorseless thug. I don’t think Darren Wilson is a racist neanderthal. Each feared the other for reasons they probably didn’t understand. That fear was taught. Fear drives tragedy.

Fear drives everything.

Fear sells.

Our public debates more and more deal with the boogy man. The wild-eyed Mexican fence jumper coming to take our jobs. Crazed muslim criminals cutting off heads on YouTube. Africans jumping on planes and flying Ebola into our living rooms. The lesbians across the street who want to get married and overwhelm the local school board with copies of “My Two Mommies”. It goes on and on. Election season is particularly ghastly, which opponents dueling each other on how to best convince grandma that’s she’s financially fucked because the other wants to take her social security check and use it to buy hookers. It’s funny….until you realize that it works. The men and women running this country now are, for the most part, the best fear mongers corporations can buy. I’m pretty sure this isn’t what the founding fathers had in mind. And I’m pretty sure it wasn’t what Lincoln had in mind as he somehow kept this nation together despite the fact that we were killing each other to the tune of 600,000 fresh graves.

Is this what so many have fought and died for?

This shit?

I sensed this grand jury thing was smoke and mirrors. The prosecutor was handling it like somebody had left a live snake in his bed….so I wasn’t surprised at all with the verdict. I don’t know what happened the night Brown was killed because I wasn’t there. Some witnesses saw things one way. Some witnesses saw things another way. As usual in this country, the accounts were racially divided. Blacks see things one way. Whites see things another.

For a brief moment I thought there would be no violence.

But it all seemed so…..well….scripted. Like waiting 8 hours so they could announce the verdict in prime time. Does that pass the smell test to you?

To not riot…….it seemed almost a dereliction of duty. I know that sounds absurd and that’s exactly how I want it to sound. Read the sentence again if you need to. I’ll wait.

Ok?

It was all too perfectly laid out. The “Lights”. The “Camera”. All that was needed was the “Action”. And there’s always a few yambags ready, willing, and quite able to exploit any situation. And so it went down. A few lobbed bottles. Cars overturned……broken windows…..some tear gas in response, and then the fires. What looks better on TV than some torched cars? Cue the fucking carnival. “Look Ma! I’m on TV!” I would not be surprised if all the major cable news outlets already had cameras outside that liquor store….just goading folks into action. “Go on son…..grab that Cold-45 so I can take your picture and Hannity can call you an animal.” And the kid with the hoodie and the pants falling off his ass does your bidding. Because he knows that’s what’s expected of him. You’re noticing him. For once. He matters. For a brief moment he really matters.

You want to talk about racism? Shit. The whole broadcast…..as it went down….just reeked of it.

But that being said….I couldn’t stop thinking to myself…..”look at these assholes walking towards police one minute with their hands raised in mock supplication, and in the next minute ripping their clothes climbing out broken windows with arms full of booze.”

The duality of man and all that.

Our propensity to run around and break storefront windows and steal televisions when things don’t go our way is not something I ever understood….be it due to West Virginia winning a football game (“yes Virginia…..there are white riots too”) or (again) white folks being pissed because the beer runs out.

What happened last night was disgraceful. In any color. Nobody wins. There are no good guys.

And it makes me afraid.

In a bit…

–tf

Music is best when it’s shared. Last night I took my daughter and my niece, both 16, to see Los Lobos at a local casino.

The girls are the best kind of music lovers. They have open ears. If it’s good, they’ll come along for the ride. Read more…

Sitting downstairs tapping these words out on my phone while listening to an assortment of Marah records on my IPod. (I know you’ve never heard of Marah but really that’s your problem and not mine) My life may suck these days but it ain’t due to a shortage of great rock and roll music (literally) in my leg pocket (cargo pants…what can I say? I feel like Woody Guthrie would wear ’em so….) Music keeps me sane and when it can’t do that it lets me dance all over my blues, excellent cover for a crazy person.

I’m pushing 50. My head is getting grey. My beard is getting grey. I was hoping for that graceful George Clooney look but something is missing I guess. They never warn you about the intangibles. The bastards.

My girls are 16 and 12 now. College is around the corner. I’ve worked full time for almost 30 years. Despite this everything with my name on it is still owned by various banks. We live week to week. If we emptied our savings account I might be able to buy Dylan’s new Basement Tape boxed set on CD. And maybe a case of beer with the change. Lionshead. Cans.

College tuition is 60k a year on average these days. When I ponder this I don’t know whether to laugh or cry so I split the difference and do both. I’d ask others in the same position as me how they do it but I’m not up for bookie/drug dealing/prostitution stories. Not that there’s anything wrong with that.

I’ve got new music in my head. I’ve got new lyrics in my notebook and new melodies captured on my IPhone. I’ve got a million different ideas on how to present them, the only common thread being that I can’t afford any of them. But I’ve got a guitar and a mic so I’ll get ’em out there. I always do. I hope when I do you’ll give a listen. Someday I’m gonna write the perfect pop song and make Spotify tremble. But for now just pull up my stuff on there and spin it. I wanna complain about the size of the checks. So, you know, first I need to get a check.

I’m tired. I’m always tired. All over tired. The kind of tired that a 12 hour weekend sleep shift can’t touch. When I have to concentrate during the day I drift way more than I used to. I’m a Notre Dame and Pittsburgh Steeler fan, so that might have something to do with it. No rest for the weary. Especially when you keep turning the fucking ball over and losing to the Jets and Northwestern.

Somedays I can make my guitar sing. Some days I make it sound like a cigar box wrapped with rubber bands. Some days I can warble like a bird. Some days my rusty pipes scare our pets. Some days I can still write. Some days I can barely speak a coherent sentence. Some days the melodies are laying (lying?….dammit I always punt on this one and as the son of a writer it sorta pisses me off) on the floor in front of me. Some days they feel like shit on my shoe.

Some days you’re the windshield and some days you’re the birdshit. Something like that anyway.

Youth, a cheerleader’s smile and a cold 12 pack solved all these problems in the past. These days nothing but a great book, a warm blanket, or some serious Netflix binge watching comes close. Throw a few benzodiazepines in the popcorn bowl. Who’s got time for anything graceful these days?

I’m looking over my “people you may know” section on Facebook. All mucho-tattooed half naked women with come hither looks. Of course I don’t know any of them. What kind of perverted algorithm did that Zuckerman cook up anyway? Does this sort of thing just happen to us old, sore Who fanatics or what?

How about some more bands as drop-dead real as Marah? That would be some serious social networking. Rock and roll never let me down. I can’t say the same about half naked women with tattoos.

Today has been horrible. You know what got me through it? Songs like “Poor People” and “Out of Tune”. And ear buds. To those about to rock, I salute you. To those who have been rocking this entire time, thanks for saving my life.

I suspect this is all part of growing up. And growing old. I suspect that the only people who truly understand the power of rock and roll are those who can’t live without it.

In a bit.

–tf

It’s been common water-cooler fodder these last few weeks. What exactly would the PSP do to Eric Frein when they caught him. Everybody had their own take on it. Fists and feet and rifle butts to reorganize facial features. Some suggested dispensing with the cost of a trial altogether. Put a slug between his eyes. Give as good as the PSP got. There would be guffaws all around….and then everybody would disperse, not really understanding what they were just advocating.

Hell,we all did it.

Things aren’t always as black and white as we’d like them to be. The brain recognizes this. And upon reflection, it can be a bit of bother.

Nobody was surprised when Frein’s nose looked like it had taken on a rifle butt and lost. A lot of people seemed aggrieved that he didn’t look worse. The press was simply doing its job when it asked about Frein’s injuries. The State Police said he’d been busted up prior to his arrest. He’d been in the woods for 48 days, so…..maybe we snickered, but that was that. Nobody was really giving a shit about a cop killer’s nasal health.

Alleged cop killer of course, something we tend to forget. Innocent until proven guilty and all that. That being said, if I had money I’d lay it all on Frein as the trigger-man. If he ain’t the killer, this is gonna be a classic TV movie someday.

He’s gonna rot in prison until he dies. All the saber rattling about the death penalty is just small penis talk, magnified by grief and DAs and the fact that it’s an election year. Check the books. Pennsylvania doesn’t carry out death sentences. That’s not pro or anti talk, It’s just fact talk, the kind that is so often lost in the echo chamber.

The US Marshals are the ones who actually collared Frein. Eleven of them. Frein was out in the open, unarmed, and did not resist. That being said, he’s also an alleged cop-killer. And federal cops now had him at their mercy. Turns out that Frein’s lopsided face was created by being driven into the pavement by 11 armed US Marshals. If he dared to resist? Use your imagination.

Can you blame them?

In retrospect I can go all ACLU on anybody. But cops (increasingly ridiculed by social media “experts” as bumbling incompetents, or worse) tramping through the woods for the 48th day in a row aren’t apt to be a retrospective bunch.

Then they took pictures of themselves and told the press, “yea, we did that to his face, what about it?”

And people thought….”well jeez the PSP told us whatever happened to his face happened when he was on the run”. PSP officials may indeed have been telling the truth as they understood it. But you only get one chance to make a first impression when the cameras are turned on.

It was not the truth.

So then the inevitable.

If they lied about this, what else are they lying about?

Lies are what gives birth to conspiracy theories. “It’s the lie that gets you”. Nixon said that. He ought to know.

What law enforcement has done is created a talking point for the defense. A monumental blunder.

But again, when you’re actually in the arena, what would you have done?

American DNA is filled with superiority. We consider ours to be the greatest nation on earth. The way we do things are the way things should be done. Nothing crystallizes this attitude more than how we feel about our own legal system. Innocent until proven guilty. Give the dirty rotten sonofabitch a fair trial and then string his ass up.

This is pie in the sky stuff of course. If you’re a dirty rotten sonofabitch with deep pockets, your odds in front of a judge improve dramatically. Nobody likes to brag about this part, except maybe the people with the deep pockets.

But still, everybody is entitled to their day in court. To legal counsel. To speak up when they need to and shut up when it’s best to. No matter how ghastly the crimes they have been accused of are. It might not be a perfect system, but I constantly recall what Churchill said about democracy….

“…..the worst form of government, except for all those other forms that have been tried from time to time.” 

….and think maybe our legal system is the best imperfect people can come up with.

As a nation we do things pretty good.

If I was accused of some evil I’d rather have US Marshals come for me than, say, the Secret Police of Sierra Leone.

And just think. The Secret Police of Sierra Leone are probably sitting around laughing at us for discussing a busted nose in such law and orderly terms. To many, it seems positively absurd.

But you know what? I’m glad it’s worthy of discussion in the United States of America.

In a bit..

–tf

The same people who have spent the last few weeks ridiculing law enforcement for not capturing Eric Frein are now calling out hosannas to the men in blue for….capturing Eric Frein. Apparently all is forgiven and whatever they’ve said about the incompetence of the PA State Police was somehow taken out of context. Or something. Now they stand and cheer and wave signs and say “we were with you all along”.

With friends like these, look for the PSP to oversee a sudden spike in highway speed enforcement. Deservedly so.

(The vitriol I’ve read over the last few weeks has been positively medieval. More than one person has suggested that the entire scenario was nothing more than a PSP overtime grab. Others theorized that Frein was sipping mai tais on some Caribbean island, thanks to his pals in ISIS. Or that it’s all Obama’s fault. Or Governor Corbett’s. The cops were pissing on civil liberties. Behaving like an invading army. They were Jack-booted thugs. Nazis. Or just plain old Mayberry goobers trampling through flower beds dressed like Rambo….soldier wannabees searching for another soldier wannabee. They were everything, apparently, except fallible, grief-stricken, exhausted men and women doing their best under trying circumstances. )

All of this hypocrisy serves as a brain-numbing reminder that sometimes it’s best to stay quiet and let people who are probably smarter than we are do their jobs. Abraham Lincoln once noted that the hen is the wisest of all animals because “she never cackles until the egg is laid”. If old Abe had governed during a time of social media and insta-pundits, he might have deduced that his human subjects had degenerated into a pack of howling trigger-happy half-wits. No wonder he admired hens.

It’s become so simple to run off at the mouth. And so expected…what with opinions being like assholes and all that. Using that same metaphor, everyone with said opinion now has a Facebook and/or Twitter account. So when they are not posting grumpy cat memes, they feel eminently qualified to pass judgment on how to manage a man-hunt over a spectacularly dense terrain that the fugitive knows like the back of his hand. It used to be that only major tools opined on things they knew very little about. Either most of us have become major tools, or things have just gotten too damn easy. To be fair, we’re living in a time when we don’t dare sit on a toilet without bringing a smart phone with us, in case a sudden burst of…er… inspiration hits. Inquiring minds want to see both throw-back Thursday pics of our pets and our thoughts on the budgetary hubris of tracking down cop killers. More and more giving a human a smart phone is akin to giving a cat a ball of yarn.

So yea, I’m proud that I kept quiet and did not resort to tool-like behavior. A pat on the back is nice, and if you’re not gonna give me one I’m gonna reach around and do the honors myself. All sorts of things ran through my head, of course. But I felt no compulsion that such thoughts should come out my mouth…..or be tapped into cyberspace with my 2 thumbs. I simply do not know as much about law enforcement as the State Police and the US Marshal Department. Nor, come to think of it, am I an expert on Eric Frein’s survival skills. If you want to argue that John Prine and Richard Thompson not being in the rock and roll hall of fame is not a travesty, I’ll attack you with a fountain pen. Otherwise, I hide my teeth.

It’s hard for me, even now, not to think of the wife and children of the murdered trooper. What was their reaction when they heard Frein was captured? As children we’re constantly on-guard for an assortment of boogey-men. These children have lived for 48 days with a live monster. Imagine their thoughts when the lights went out. Where was he? Would he come back? Would he come for me? Would he take our Mom away too? Maybe now the nightmares will stop.

Now that Frein is in custody, the PSP can catch its collective breath. It can determine what it did right and what it did wrong over the last 48 days. Thankfully it’s not often a trooper is gunned down in cold blood by a survivalist who then takes to the woods. Considering what they didn’t know, the fact that this guy didn’t elude law enforcement for years (see Rudolph,Eric) is a tribute to their collective tenacity. I’m hearing kudos like this today, as those who ridiculed the effort now bask in the glow of a job well done by others.

It’s a shame is has to be this way.

We never learn.

That scares me more than the boogeyman.

In a bit…

–tf

There is something magical about this time of year. The snap in the air. The explosive colors. We dig out our baggy sweaters and our hoodies. We’re just more comfortable. Nobody is worried about tan lines and bathing suit bellies anymore. It’s time to stop pretending. Fall is when we let our hair down, spend 12 hours on the couch watching college football, all as a sort of warm-up to Sunday when it starts to get real. And Sunday night. And Monday night. And if there is any down time, playoff baseball covers nicely. Like Grandma’s nightshirt.

I’d feel this way even if I didn’t hate everything about summer. I’m sure of it.

(The beastly heat. My glasses sliding off my nose. The interminable days. Bored kids. Stressed adults needing vacations to recover from “vacations”. Nobody contemplates anything during the summer. They just run out and mindlessly do stuff in case somebody mocks them for not doing stuff. It’s why so many long days end up with sun-burnt heads and blistered feet and draining sand and empty wallets. And it’s why Labor Day weekend, far from being depressing, feels to a grown up like Gerald Ford taking over for Nixon, reminding us that “our long national nightmare is over”.)

Photo by Esther Clarke

I adore the fall. And I don’t much mind the winter either. Christmas is near. All the great Charlie Brown and Elvis songs. The homemade cookies. The splendid lights. The way even the most disagreeable persons swallow their miserableness in honor of the holidays. It’s the only time of the year I actually welcome crowds. Patience is a virtue, and between Thanksgiving and New Years we’re virtuous as hell. Nobody wants to be the Grinch (that comes by Valentine’s Day).

Like most folks I know, I spent 40+ hours a week doing something I don’t want to so, surrounded largely by people I’d prefer to not be surrounded by. I’m nobody’s boss and like it that way. I would prefer to be nobody’s underling at the same time, but alas that ain’t so. I answer to a bewildering assortment of real and pseudo bosses, most of whom live the “kick down, kiss up” lifestyle to the fullest extent of the law. I’ve discovered it’s best to think little and say even less. Smile and wave and wear a nice shirt and stay awake in meetings.

As much as possible I occupy my desk with ear buds blaring and teeth clenched, watching the wheels go ’round. When time expires I run like hell and sleep like a stone. I’m too damn tired to dream at the moment. Maybe something in color slips through on the weekend…..if I’ve been a good boy.

What makes the 40+ bearable? The view. A gorgeous painting of NEPA foliage outside the 3rd floor window that reaches from the floor to the ceiling. A quick spin of my chair is like a oil change. Good for another 3000 miles. Ok, maybe 10 minutes or so but still. It’s better than nothing.

I was hoping at my age that my livelihood would have more going for it than the fucking view, but the economy is a bitch and all that. We’ve been programmed to feel lucky for such largess. And so…..thank you Wall Street. I guess. Could be worse. Ebola, which is apparently contagious even if you dress like a condom, could be creeping under the door like the blob in that diner. And Steve McQueen is dead….so what now?

The bank is no more than a holding pen. What goes in is earmarked for dismissal before the electronic transfer ink is dried. “Retirement” is a word that silly actors who claim to have “financial planners” on speed dial use in glossy commercials. For most it means the years we’re going to spend as Wal-Mart greeters until the college loans are paid. Or until we drop dead from excessive minimum wage-ism. Who “retires” these days anyway? It’s un-American.

But still….

Looking out the window at something ugly just might be the thing that makes me take my ball and go home.

It’s the little things. That’s what those who have most of the big things tucked away in safe deposit boxes usually say.

But sometimes….there’s a kernel of truth to even the hoariest of clichés.

If the view is pretty enough.

In a bit..

–tf

Since I’ve been laid up for 2 days running with my own personal case of Ebola, I’m doing my best to catch up on an ever-changing world. Yesterday my daughter mentioned that the latest shot across the progress bow is for schools to replace libraries with computer work-stations. Not add computer work-stations to libraries mind you. Get rid of libraries altogether. You know, no more of those quaint (and space-eating) books. Because who needs them in the world of Google and all that.

So essentially, let’s revise our reading lists shall we? Replace “The Grapes of Wrath” with http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Grapes_of_Wrath? Perhaps a link to purchasing the Cliff Notes on Amazon.com? With some kick back to the school?

So first we stop teaching kids how to write (cursive writing? gone…), and now let’s encourage them not to read, as if the devices that schools are forced to rip from Junior’s hand every morning don’t do enough of that already.

I can hear you though, don’t worry. Surely they’ll simply “read” on their devices. You know. Kindles and Nooks and whatever the ghost of Steve Jobs calls the Apple version. Yes….and they can learn a foreign language by falling asleep listening to tapes too! There are two types of people in the world. One side decides they want to bend a spoon, so they take it in their hand and bend it. The other side googles “Uri Geller”.

As you can tell…I am here to praise books, not to bury them. The burying kind are misguided souls who never experienced the pure joy of packing for vacation and setting aside a separate suitcase for reading material. And maybe….just maybe….these are the same folks who want to ban Twain and Salinger every September….to save our little darlings from life itself. Wild guesses are my thing.

(Why don’t we get rid of all the Chemistry beakers and replace them with YouTube links to experiments? Think of the insurance money we could save? There’s always that idiot who manages to get chemicals in his eyes.)

I adore books. They are my passion. Before the written word our learning was via the oral tradition. Just think how a simple statement whispered around a room gets mutated by the time it reaches the first cheerleader and you can see the down side to this. But words written down. Now that’s grown up stuff. Steinbeck. Twain. They’ll last forever. And while they may spark debate….hell….all good learning sparks debate…nobody can claim that Tom Joad was a right wing conservative (well..um…see next paragraph for what they do claim). It is written. Read it. Learn from it. Go out and multiply and teach your offspring to do likewise.

I’m not against technology. This is a blog after all, I’m not writing these words with a quill pen. I’m all for technology when it advances learning. I’ll all against it when it encourages laziness. How many kids in high school actually read the books assigned to them? I mean cover to cover. Every word. Teachers love to think they can ask the kind of super-duper-insider-handshake questions that can’t possibly be known otherwise. But teachers are sometimes blinded by the fancy degrees hanging on their walls. So I’m here to say that any reasonably intelligent kid can pass a normal test on “The Grapes of Wrath” without actually reading “The Grapes of Wrath”. Hell….watching the movie might be enough in some cases. But the “themes” and the “what does Tom represent” questions are almost as predictable as the Fox News housewives who consider the Joad family to be Stalin loving commies.

I’ve read the Grapes of Wrath. Multiple times. I’ve devoured this book. Give me an hour with a kid with an average IQ and I’ll trick that kid’s teacher. Because what you learn from a book can’t possibly be tested. It’s what you carry away from it in your DNA….dare I say….your soul. A great book and its lessons stay with you forever. Long after a harried teacher puts down his or her red pen.

But the kid has to read it first. You know. The book. In it’s glorious heft. From a library (or for 1 penny on Amazon. Yes, 1 penny. The world can be had that cheaply….3.99 shipping included of course). That’s where books used to be. And that’s what some schools want to take away. In the name of…well….something that seems like progress because it’s got wires coming out of it.

“To Kill a Mockingbird” is still on high school reading lists. There are still those who try to suppress it, but stupid is as American as apple pie too. You can’t regulate small minds (although a nation that put a man on the moon should be able to keep them off school boards).

I read this book as a very early teen. At the time I knew nothing….like most teens. I lived in my own head…inside my own four walls. History meant 4th period, and the world was created the day I was born. Civil rights? Blacks? What?

Atticus Finch….a man who never existed. Fiction. Gregory Peck in that splendid white suit. He gently explains racism to his precocious daughter Scout. She asks him if he’s a “nigger-lover”….and after he tells her not to use that word (“ignorant, trashy people use it”) he says to her “I certainly am….I do my best to love everybody.”

And at that moment….I started to mature. I wasn’t asked about this on the test…..a test I probably passed with an 85 or so (“Discuss the author’s treatment of Boo Radley using the passive voice and no adverbs….” arghhhh!)…as a student I lived in Lake Woebegone and was depressingly slightly above average. But it was my personal moment. It belonged to me. Such lines in the sand can’t be dictated by questions on a test. And they don’t exist at all if all you do is scour wikipedia. It was a one on one connection. Harper Lee….to me.

I’m not done yet either. That’s what books do. Like a good drug….you’re always searching for that same high (get that suitcase ready!). And you know what? Over the years I’ve gotten there. Again and again.

But I never got anywhere taking a shortcut.

In a bit..

–tf