Hereunder

Recalulated Age

On this day, your humble Contributor would have reached a certain age sufficient in number to shock the conscience and to challenge the arithmetical skills of the average layman.    Your humble Contributor might have been consequentially, not to mention sequentially, depressed had he not realized the profound antiquation of the decimal system. 

A brief study of this system would lead anyone to the conclusion that the decimal is based on the original personal digital assistant:  that is, one's fingers and thumbs.  No doubt such an instrument has always been close at hand, even for modern day mathematicians.  But, how primitive it is!  Were we still cavemen, it may yet suffice.  But, by gosh man!, look how far we've come: here we are training up computing devices whose capacity for memory and processing will soon exceed our own, such that they will one day consider what to do with the dull-witted, slow-poke humans they once served. 

But, therein lies the answer to the problem of aging.  These same computers have no use for the 10-base calculation, except insofar as they must to appease (for now) their human operators.  No, they are far more at home with the hexadecimal system, which allows for the happy pairing of bits and bytes and such, and, thence, their duplication in the normal geometric manner.

Now, this up-to-date hexadecimal system also, when applied as the base for calculation, yields a far more fruitful and youthful figure.   Thus, a subject reaching his latter 40's, according to the primitive scale, would be, in the "sexy-hexy" scale, only just entering a long and leisurely stroll through the 30's.  And, continuing this numerical translation, our rejuvenated subject could therefore look forward to retirement and social security payments in his early 40's. 

Then, in our recalulated age, we would think: "Oh, to be 2B again....."

Crash! There goes my career

A strange thing happened yesterday, something near tragic. I went to a meeting and before I left I locked my computer using the old contol - alt command. Coming back from the meeting, I went into my office, which no more than a modified broom closet, and heard the sound of my electric razor eminating from the computer. Not a good thing. After attempting to revive the computer a half dozen times, I finally caved in and called the HELP desk, which is located somewhere many hundereds of miles away in beautiful Alabama. (It has been referred to more than once as the HEP desk) Well, they said they would send someone right over. That was about noon. Around two pm I called and they said they would text message the tech.

I was plunged into silence. There is a noise in life that I had never noticed before. It is the noise of having a computer constantly running all day. It is not the audible noise that I refer too...it is the mental noise of having this luminous screen displaying its plethora of messages, whether it be email, spreadsheets, powerpoint slides, streaming audio for WELY.com (my favorite radio station from the northwoods of Minnesota, and once owned by the late Charles Kuralt) In the absense of the computer (which was still there, just broken) I was forced to confront the messy desk I had long put off cleaning. So in silence I sorted through a year or two of various budget data runs, printed emails, employees notices and the like. After an hour or two of sorting and disposing, I started to like not having a computer. An employee stopped by and asked why I had skipped our one pm meeting. I just shrugged my shoulders and pointed to my lifeless desktop and said, "I am offline. I had no idea we had a meeting" I soon realized it was the best excuses since the dog eating the homework. No one expects much from a guy whose computer is down.

At four pm I went home. Still no techie.

At seven thirty the next morning I called the HEP desk, and again, a promise to send a techie. About a half hour later a fellow showed up and took my computer away. I whiled away the morning reading the results of the workplace culture survey and some strategic budgeting guidance that I had meant to read much earlier but was always too busy to peruse. Around noon the techie came back and told me the hard drive was toast and that none of the data was recoverable.

It sunk in immediately. On that hard drive was the essence of my career. Resumes, letters, spreadsheets, presentations, budget forecasts, just about everything. Any email attachment I had received for the last seven years was gone. In addition there were several thousand emails, most of them mundane, but quite a few of them very special from folks who have since died. And of course there was the family photos that I often times kept at work, as well as all sorts of odd stuff, like mp3 and such. All gone. Initially there was remorse, regrets, and some anxiety about the loss of so much knowledge. Then there was resignation. I have always known that some day I will lose all of my stuff, or eventually my stuff will lose me, to be deleted, sold at auction, donated to a charity rummage sale or, with much of my tangible possesions, such as trophys from 15 years ago and news clips of successes forgotten by all but myself, thrown away.

So goodbye carreer, or at least a large portion of the recorded pieces and parts of my career. Time to start anew.

The Lost "Miss Clarkette" Tickets

Gentle visitors, a couple of months ago I received a rather urgent letter from one of the poor relations in Northeast Ohio seeking assistance in my role as counselor at law.  Facsimiles of this letter and the enclosed items appear below.  There follows my response in the interests of legal guidance.

Re: Miss Clarkette Raffle Tickets

Dear Mr. S********:

I am responding to your letter of July 31st inquiring about the enclosed raffle tickets, with serial numbers 7451, 7452, and 7454, apparently attendant to the crowing of “Miss Clarkette of 1970" by the faculty of the Clark School of Dressmaking of Cleveland, Ohio on or about March 8, 1970 at the Cleveland Sheraton.

As you might imagine, it has taken some effort to respond to your inquiry, given the age of the tickets and the unusual questions of law presented. I was fortunate to have located Miss Alice Bobbin, curator of the records of the long-defunct Clark School of Dressmaking. I spend several hours in the basement of Miss Bobbin’s home in Warrensville Heights reviewing these records.

(As an aside, Miss Bobbin was a most gracious hostess, offering a seeming endless supply of ginger snaps and warm cream soda. She even granted me the honor of serving as a “dummy” so that she could hem a skirt she was working on. I understand that Miss Bobbin gained some notoriety for her accordion pleats, which were popular with certain ethnic musicians in Northeastern Ohio. She has since slowed down the pace of her work, saying that, at one time, it was so busy it nearly ‘kilt’ her. I took that as a play on words.)

I discovered that “Miss Clarkette of 1970" was Miss Grace Atelier, who won for her ecology-inspired full length frock (“maxi”) with ivy applique, which Miss Atelier had prepared for the first ever “Earth Day” in April of 1970. Versions of this frock were popular among the “smart set” in Shaker Heights during the spring 1970 season. Miss Atelier went on to become a self-styled “Dressmaker to the Earth-Conscious”, designing an line of organic, hemp clothing, before coming to her senses, marrying, and settling down in Mayfield Heights. Her “Miss Clarkette” award still stands on a shelf in her family room, alongside her many bowling trophies.

1st Prize, a portable television, was won by Mr. R. W. Gusset, a then recently-retired steelworker from Garfield Heights. Mr. Gusset and his wife took the prize as an omen to purchase a motor home and see the country. In 1977, Mr. Gusset traded up to a Winnebago with cruise control. Unfortunately, Mr. Gusset had no sooner turned the new motor home onto the Schocknessy Turnpike and engaged the cruise control, when he went back to the kitchen to prepare some tea and join Mrs. Gusset in watching Laverne & Shirley on the portable television. Neither the motor home nor the television survived the ensuing crash, but Mr. & Mrs. Gusset recovered from their injuries, bringing a products liability suit against Winnebago (Gusset v. Winnebago). The Gussets did not recoup any damages in the suit, but, as part of the settlement, Winnebago agreed to affix warning labels on all of its motor homes sold in Ohio that read:

“Warning: This vehicle does not drive or steer itself.”

2nd Prize, a wig, went to Mr. Harvey Dirndl, an aspiring but out-of-work actor from Maple Heights. Fortuitously, Mr. Dirndl was bald, so he selected a substantial, black-haired wig. He attributed his new “hair” to landing minor roles in various television series, including Mannix, Kojak, The Rockford Files, and later Magnum PI, in which he was typically cast as a troublesome or ignorant police detective. Mr. Dirndl later abandoned his wig and took up coiffing. He opened “Harvey’s Hair-Free Salon”, which he operated for several years. His open-access cable by the same name lasted only three months, though he did become an adjunct instructor for the University Heights School of Hairdressing and founder of a support group for the “follicle-challenged” during the “big hair” days of the mid-1980s.

3rd Prize, a clock radio, should have gone to the holder of Ticket No. 7452 (one of the tickets you discovered). But, because the prize was not claimed, the Clark School awarded it to Mrs. W.R. Svkmcvrski of Parma Heights. Mrs. Svkmcvrski reported that the clock-radio worked perfectly for 27 years – so well that she set her watch by it. The alarm function, she said, was piercing, but routinely failed to wake Mr. Svkmcvrski, who she would have to jab several times every morning to get up and turn off the alarm, in addition to jabs whenever he snored too loudly or took up too much space in the bed or took too many of the covers. The clock-radio outlasted Mr. Svkmcvrski. In fact, Mrs. Svkmcvrski recalled the exact time when it stopped working – 7:13 – the position of the flaps when the internal parts finally gave out. But, she could not recall whether it was a.m. or p.m. Mrs. Svkmcvrski is now a grandmother to seven (with a great-grandchild on the way). She has since retired to Kahului, Hawaii, where she is an instructor at the Second Wind Surfing School for Seniors.

After diligent research, the only law I could find on this issue was the decision in Laus v. Fund, 314 Ohio 671 (1987). In that case, Mrs. Laus filed suit to recover $78 plus interest of $1,324, based upon a ticket for a 50/50 raffle conducted by the Chillicothe Volunteer Fire Department in 1958. Mrs. Laus alleged that she found the ticket in the back pocket of a very old pair of dungarees husband, at the bottom of drawer of a bureau in the attic, when she was preparing a donation to the Salvation Army. She claimed that this ticket was the winning ticket, and that the raffle money was improperly awarded to another ticket-holder. The trial court dismissed the case. On appeal, the Ohio Supreme Court affirmed the trial court's decision, reasoning: “In this case, the plaintiff waited plum too long.” (The opinion in Laus v. Fund has the distinction of being one of the shortest on record for the Court.)

I spoke to Miss Bobbin regarding the potential claim. She noted that the Clark School had wound up operations in 1977 and had no remaining assets. She thought it suspicious that the tickets you presented did not include Serial No. 7454. Moreover, she stated that the long delay in presenting the tickets was “unseamly” (which I took to be another play on words). She did offer to provide one of her noted, pleated skirts that had turned out wrong.

I am sorry that I can be of no further help in this regard. I am sending my invoice for services under separate. Please be sure to have a defibrillator within reach as you review this invoice.

Very truly yours,

J***** S******

Ernesto

Ernesto, they say, is back in earnest.
Regaining his strength, heading NNW.

Set for a fight; ready for a bout:
Straight for the Cape?  Lookout!

Battering Hatteras, the thin little bloke.
Smoting lonely Ocracoke.

Buffeting Buxton, and raising Sea Level.
Packing a punch fit to Kill Devil.

Imagine the surge, the fury, the dread.
Taking a Whalebone to the old Nag’s Head.

Making great Waves and delivering a Salvo.
Watch out for Ernesto.

Watch that you don’t get caught in his whirl.
To the Avon lady: take cover girl!

To the folks of the North Banks: Duck!
To the rest of you’all: good luck.

Neither Here Nor There

Gentle visitors, the mantle of wisdom has been laid upon us, and, though we do not shirk it, we feel the burden of it upon our shoulders from time to time.   Recall that, in the past, we have called upon to reveal the virtues of tetherball, when it was thought to be vapid, and the dangers of walking, when it thought to be safe.  Having thus spoken, the people have listened.

Consequently, we knew that, once the clamor and debate on the issue of illegal aliens had reached it's zenith, the masses might briefly withdraw their rhetorical pitch forks and turn to these pages for a Solomonic utterance that would resolve the dispute with startling acuity.

Wherefore, on the issue of illegal aliens:  first, we are by no means convinced that they actually exist.  Yes, we have seen the breathless reports of scorched earth and unearthly wreckage and secret facilities from the howling deserts of New Mexico and Nevada.   We are led to believe that strange, gelatinous creatures, complete with the stereotypically quivering antennae, have instructed our scientist on the physics of anti-matter and the universal courtesies of croquet.  Yet, we have seen no hard evidence of their existence.

Second, even assuming that such aliens exist, have we not made an astounding assumption?  Namely, that such aliens are subject to the law?  As St. Paul once explained to the dimly lit Romans of his time, the law is attributable to original sin -- whence it serves as either a curb to a sinful lot or an indictment against them. 

But, might we not more rightly assume that these extra-terrestrial visitors (granting, here, that they exist) hail from a Perelandric home?  As yet unfallen and to whom the law is as alien as they are to our jot of a country on a speck of planet?   Doubtless, they would better off without anything so coarse and confounding as the law in their innocent, insect-like heads.

Therefore, on the available evidence, we can conclude neither that there are aliens, much less that they are illegal, and we can, consequently, put the whole issue to rest.

Powers that Be

My 10-year-old daughter heard a radio ad the other day advertising auditions for some children's show on the Nickelodeon channel. (Or are they all children's shows there?) In any case, she had assiduously--over a two-week period--cobbled all the information together from her intermittent listening until she came up with a phone number, which she handed to me on a crumpled piece of paper.

"Dad. I want to be an actress. Will you please call this number? Please? It's so I can go on an audition," she pleaded.

I was so taken aback by her clear-eyed determination--if somewhat alarmed by the goal--that I went ahead and called the number to humor her and find out whether it was a scam. From my brief conversation with the voice at the other end, I learned a legitimate agency called John Roberts Powers was holding the audition.

My daughter is not a wild -scheme-hatching sort of child, so my wife suggested the adventure couldn't harm her and she perhaps might learn a thing or to about the hard work needed to realize big goals.

I was expecting John Roberts Powers to be a funky one-room operation in a rundown strip mall. It was not. It was in a new building in a new part of a far-flung new suburban development. The office foyer, all architectural streamlines of glass and cherry, battened down with sensible but elegant oatmeal carpet, showcased bright white walls lined with a pantheon of poster-sized studio shots of "Powers Girls"--including Grace Kelly, Diana Ross, and a very young Lucille Ball. Beneath the track lighting, the stars of yesterday stared down at you, in turns winsome and vamp-like.  So Hollywood.

Then lot of sitting in a big room--along with about 100 others, parents of every race, creed , and color--and their young, would-be Hillary Duffs and, oh, I dunno, Jackie Coopers? Our children had to fill out applications, saying in exactly 100 words why the agency should work with them in the entertainment industry. Why indeed.

Presentations were actually good--a Powers national director stressing hard work and good grades with Midwestern sincerity and not a little dash of East Coast hutzpah; the second, a talent scout or rep thereof,  saying the same, but with a little less confidence and pizazz--I believe she'd only been in the business for a year or two, or a month or two.

Finally. Names called out for The Interview. We were ushered into an office, greeted by a suit, who then sat behind a desk.

He: "So how long have you wanted to be an actress?"

She: "For a long time." [Read: about 15 days.]

He: " So what kind of TV shows do you like to watch?"

She: "Umm. I don't know. I don't watch a lot of TV."

He: "So you don't have a favorite TV show?"

She: "Uh. No. I don't"

I very deliberately looked around the room at even more star photos to send the man the message that I wouldn't pay a dime for "developing" my daughter through the agency. In only looked down briefly enough at his desk to see him pencil a slash through the lower part of the application.

"Yes!" I thought. "We're outta' here!"

But we were not. On to the mini-video shoot, where all would-be's stood before a video camera and recited a line or two for a TV commercial. In my daughter's case, it was Pop Tarts.

Call us tomorrow at this time, said the exit person, handing me a slip of fuchsia-colored paper.

OK. Follow through--once you start these things, you have to have follow through. So I called.

He: [brightly] "She did really well for the audition. We'd like her to come back for a second one."

Me: "Oh. And what in particular did you like about her?"

He: [vaguely] "She really did a good job delivering her lines! There was something special there."

But of course there was the issue of "development" and tuition--one cannot just waltz into child acting and TV commercials without some training, he explained.

Alas, I had to had to 'fess up.

Me: "We have no money for this. Perhaps you have scholarships?"

He [probably already looking at the next name on his phone roster]: "I'm sorry. Not even for our most promising talent."

Me [brightly]: "Well, my daughter is, after all, still so young! Perhaps there will be other opportunities-- [vaguely] somewhere down the road?"

He: "Yes! We do have regular auditions."

Me: [with finality] "Very good. We'll think about it. Thank you so much!"

It was hard for my wife and I to gage our daughter's reaction to all this. While she wanted to go on a second audition, she had also made it clear that she did not want to "go to school" for acting-(which exactly coincided with my own thoughts)--she just wanted to "be" an actress. Of course, since then, we've forbidden her to listen to that radio station--or at least from writing down any phone numbers.

Post-carpool Meditation

Returning from the carpool dropoff at 8 in the morning puts me on one of the busiest commuter highways in the nation. It's only one morning a week (we have five families!) so I can't really complain. After many attempts to find alternative routes from school to office, I've finally settled on one that runs parallel to the remains of the 19th-century Chesapeake & Ohio canal.

Plenty of cars still keep us a-crawling but but we are an orderly bunch, the commuters entering the biggish city from the mannerly suburbs. As two lanes narrow to one beneath a magnificent vaulting arch of a Civil War-era bridge, drivers take turns entering in a courteous, almost imperceptible alternating interweave of one lane with the other.

Beyond that, the road runs closest to the canal, which can be spotted through the trees. A whitewashed stone cottage with wood slat roofs are what remains of the lockmaster's lodgings to prove to us that this canal was once a going concern.

In the latest refurbishment of the canal, the National Park Service has planted huge rocks in a series parallel to the road. In the early morning sun (or rain), it gives one the illusion of a Zen garden--these rocks--somehow rather random-looking in placement, but with the obvious hand of man (and a bulldozer or two) controlling the whole. Intelligent design. Perhaps.

When traffic comes to a standstill, I can take in the serene scene of rocks, trees, water, and sky through the passenger window. I take a deep breath. Sunlight plays on the leaves. The carpool is done.

Poor Relations: Sweet Sixteen

Are y' online then, girl?

I am, at that.

Well, don't ya know that Katie herself turned sixteen th'other day.

No -- is that the way?  Sure, it seems like she was just a little girl.

Well, sure, she was  just so -- a wee little bit of girl.  But, sure, sixteen years is nothin' at all, at all, anymore.  It's all relative, like.

Ah, 'tis.

'Tis.  Sure, wasn't it Einstein who said it long 'go.  Time, an' all that.  It's all relative.

Boys!

And, sure wasn't it Cousin Din himself who use't say, "When it comes to family, it's all relative."

Sha -- and himself still a young man.

Ah, no, he's gotten old himself.  Sure, his head is as white as me own.  He could pass for a seanathair.

Is that the way?

'Tis.   Time's gone like the speed of light, 'tis.  Einstein an' all that.  But, y'know they trew a big party for Katie herself an' all, a mob there was, with a DJ.

DJ?  Well, now, do ya mean Denis John?

No, girl, not at all.  Sure, 'DJ', that's the shorten'd thing for a Disc Jockey. 

Like the man on the horse, it it?

No, that's what the Yanks call the man who spins the records, like, on the phonograph.  I'd wager he'd never spent a moment in the saddle. 

But, now, are the Yanks still playing vinyl?

Ah, they are.  'Tis altogether sad.  They're years behind us now, the poor tings.  Sure, haven't we been sending money over for the last few years.

Creatures!

And, here I'm just after downloading a few tunes from Flogging Molly.   And, Himself, no better than the Yanks -- he wouldn't know that lot of punks from the Clancy Brothers.  Sure, he wouldn't know Peg O' My Heart from  JPEG.

But, still, he's a fine figure of a man.

That he is.  Sure, I'm just fixing a batter for his blessed pancakes.

La Loca & Dr Freud IV

But where did she live now? I imagined that some radical break from her home away from home, had both propelled her into the streets and compelled her to return to her old digs in North London night after night. Perhaps her mental disturbances forced her out of her lodgings, or her downward spiral began after she had left her old room.

In either case it was the force of circumstances that put her in this present state. And so I thought of Dr Freud, who was forced out of his home and office on Berggasse Street in Vienna, to save his family and himself from further humiliation and almost certain death under a Nazi regime. Did the good doctor return to that house in Vienna in his dreams, reliving the situation that forced so hasty a departure in September 1938?

My early morning sleep remains largely undisturbed these last few months. The neighbor who brings me the local news told me that the dark-haired woman's mother has come to collect her daughter and bring her home to Spain. I have also noticed that refurbishment and renovation has begun on the houses at the corner, slowly and silently, and imperceptibly compared to the work methods of other London decorators.

There are rumours afloat that the row of houses will be turned into luxury flats, capable of fetching an outrageous price like the rest of the houses in the street. The newspapers say that a pokey flat in the grimmest part of East London, will sell at no less than £100,000; these will cost much more. It is probably best that the dark-haired woman has returned to Spain, she would not be able to afford her old bedsitter--and I even question whether the street's other former resident could afford it either.

                                                                                   -30-

La Loca & Dr Freud III

When the dark-haired woman's nightly visits became increasingly frequent during the past summer, one elderly resident nearby came out to plead with her to stop.

"Why do you come here?" the man questioned her again and again. She answered with a voice hoarse from days, perhaps months of shouting. It was almost as low as a man's. She just kept insisting that the house on the corner was her home.

"No!", the man retorted. "You don't live here! Nobody lives here!"

Their exchange seemed to go on for minutes, and I drifted back to sleep before it was finished.

If only Freud were still alive, I thought later: He would know what to say to the hysterical young woman. I imagined the famous doctor slowly but deliberately opening his door, adjusting his spectacles as he peers down the street, wondering what commotion had wrested him from his dreams. Maybe he would speak soothing words to the woman as they stood on the pavement. Perhaps he would invite her into his own home for a cup of tea or or a dark Viennese brew.

To my mind the situation of the disturbed dark-haired woman and Dr Freud, although separated by fifty years and the breadth of a street, were not dissimilar. For both were exiles. Yet another resident of the street, who mysteriously seems to know many things about each of the neighbors, told me that the young woman was away from her real home in Spain.  She always came to the houses on the corner, said the Well-Informed One, because she had once lived there when it was comprised of numerous single rooms let cheaply.

Indeed, this had been her home! The dark-haired woman's claims to the man seeking a peaceful night's rest were not so wild after all.

(To be continued . . . )