Author: Bev

There’s so much to say on this subject, I’m not sure where to begin.  So, why not start with good ole’ Pennsylvanian, Mr. Rogers, Fred Rogers, that is.

Many of today’s young American adults grew up alongside the kindly Mr. Rogers from Mr. Rogers’ Neighborhood, on PBS television.  His cardigan sweaters and gentle demeanor helped children feel safe and nurtured.  He was a helper.

Rogers said, “When I was a boy and I would see scary things in the news, my mother would say to me, ‘Look for the helpers.  You will always find people who are helping.’”  There’s a boatload of scary news to navigate these days.  There are also many helpers, to combat it.

Primary for me, to the concept of helping, is the helpmate, originating with the word, helpmeet, from the Bible’s book of beginnings, Genesis.  The creation story has wo-man, fashioned from man’s rib, as an uber-companion/helper, “meet,” or created intentionally and precisely as his spouse, joined to him at the hip, almost.

We were created together, as a pair.  He was an unfinished work, without her.  One shoe, when you have two feet, doesn’t do you much good, but a pair will take you anywhere.  This sounds like Dr. Seuss, but alas it is Mrs. LeVan.

We don’t hear that word, helpmate, used so much in today’s parlance for marriage partner, spouse, husband, wife, girlfriend, or boyfriend.  I wonder why the word fell into disuse?  Perhaps because we’ve grown an attitude of “I never needed anybody’s help in any way.”  (Note: stay alert, lyrics from the Beatles song, Help! will be interspersed throughout this piece.)

We Americans are an independent lot.  Way back when, Frank Sinatra proudly sang the other American anthem, “I did it my way.”  We were a nation fully ensconced in the “look out for number one” mentality by Sinatra’s time.  Trained to think primarily about ourselves and do what helps “one” the most, we shunned helpers, turning them away when they offered help.

It’s too remarkable not to mention a prophecy from the Bible’s, 2 Timothy, chapter 3, about the self-centered character of this age we live in.  Is it smack dab on target or what?

“People will be lovers of themselves, lovers of money, boastful, proud, abusive, ungrateful, slanderous, without self-control, brutal, conceited….” (paraphrased and abridged).  What can I say?  Help!

“When I was younger, so much younger than today.  I never needed anybody’s help in any way.”  I think it begins around the age of two, or maybe three.  “I’ll do it myself.”  With my child, it was with storybooks.  Having memorized her favorites, she no longer needed mom or dad to read them, she took book in hand, turned pages willy-nilly, and recited the story herself.

Help.  It’s not an utterance reserved just for crying out in a crisis.  But we often feel ashamed to ask for it.  I shouldn’t need help, should I?  If my parents raised me right, shouldn’t I be prepared to do stuff by myself?

“But now those days are gone, I’m not so self-assured…. Help me if you can I’m feelin’ down.  And I do appreciate you being ‘round…”.  Then we grow up a little bit and moments creep into our lives when we find that we need a little help.

Suddenly, it seems, we need a helper.  But not all the time.  Helpers.  How many Human Resource professionals have heard the phrase, “I just want to help people?”

Back when handicaps became disabilities, we were told that some people don’t want our help, even if they appear to need it.  How does one know when to help others?  It’s unclear, unless you ask.  And even then, they may respond, “I don’t need any help,” when clearly, they do.  Oh well.

Just the other day, at the grocery store checkout, I couldn’t resist helping the conveyor belt move my stuff toward the cashier.  I reorganized the stuff as it too quickly passed toward her, fruit with fruit, deli stuff together, veggies with veggies; oh no, the blueberries were with the canned beans!  I laughed but sort of panicked as I nearly threw the blueberries (“clean up aisle 3”) at the scanner, and said, “I’m sorry.  You probably hate it when we try to help.”  She was gracious but almost certainly agreed, likely muttering in her head, “crazy lady.”

My husband is an awesome helpmate.  The Beatles sentiment, “I do appreciate you being ‘round”-thing, fits us to a T.  He’s there with me in the ups and downs, through thick and thin, sickness and health, all of it.  But sometimes his “help” just isn’t necessary.

For example, after he says, “I was just trying to help,” I’ve been known to say, after cleaning up a mess related to too many cooks in the kitchen, “I didn’t need your help with this.”

Again, at the Everett Foodliner – is everybody this brutally transparent in the grocery store – when we shop together, my spouse likes to help with the bagging.  If a bagger is not immediately at the ready, he asks if he can do the task.  The cashier usually lets him have at it because he’s so willing, but there is a reluctance, in that it’s not his job.  Cashier calls “number 3” or some such code for “get a bagger here now.  Some guy is trying to help us bag.”  His help isn’t needed after all.

As I grow older, I agree more and more with the Beatles in saying, “And now my life has changed in oh so many ways.  My independence seems to vanish in the haze.  But every now and then I feel so insecure.  I know that I just need you like I’ve never done before.”  John Lennon and Paul McCartney were in their early 20s when they penned these words in 1965.

We still should ask others if they want us to help.  Our good intentions can backfire and our offer to help can seem spurned, if they want to muddle forward by themselves, in their own way.  Also, the help we offer might not be the kind of help they want.  Again, oh well.

Helplessness is a feeling most Americans with a traditional work ethic find hard to stomach.  We want to do something about it, “it” being anything that needs attended to, fixing, or helped forward.

We can’t help it.  We grew up in a broadly, working-class system.  We were born into an ideology known originally as the Protestant Work Ethic.  In this ethic, hard work, discipline, and frugality result from values espoused by Puritanical Protestant faith.

Helplessness and hard work are two concepts that do not correlate.  So, if we find ourselves in a truly helpless situation, where our efforts are useless, oh my.  “Now I find I’ve changed my mind and opened up the doors.”  And, I’ll “get by with a little help from my friends” (With a Little Help from My Friends, The Beatles, 1967, Lennon-McCartney).

“I need somebody     (Help!) not just anybody     (Help!) you know I need someone     Help!”

Is a house eternally a “Fixer-Upper?”  I fear this is a rhetorical question.

I can think of three principles driving the concept of DIY.  One is an outlet for one’s personal creativity.  Another is frugality.  And the third is based on the thought that “if you want it done right, do it yourself.”

I’m not sure if when we do it ourselves, it’s fair to say it’s always done right, with “right” being a relative term.  But, when you do it yourself at least it will have been done the way you wanted or intended it to be done.  Maybe DIY is a reflection of hope.

Okay, I’ve succumbed to the pressure of redecorating, under quarantine.  Prior to this secondment, my philosophy about fixing-up our house was directed to our daughter, and I believe it was out loud.  It went something like this, “You can do anything with this house when we’re dead and gone.  I, however, have done all the fixer-upper stuff I’m going to do with this place.  At this age, I have zero, zip, zilch, nada interest in DIY.”

Well, sh–!  There I go lyin’ again.  I’m telling you, like I said in that other column I wrote about DIY being a slippery slope, redecorating couldn’t be more infuriatingly slippery.

Wheee!  Here we go.

This time it started with a new living room rug.  Having had the rug for more than twenty years, our newest cat has been finishing it off slowly and excruciatingly over the last three years of his furry, soft, purring, anthropomorphized personage, wrapped in killer claws.

Also, it’s classic and pretty flowered pattern of rose, peach, blue, and teal colors on a beige background, in 2020 parlance, all-of-a-sudden screams grandparent style.  It has to be replaced.  I’m a grandparent of sorts, a step-grandparent.  And I love that kid but he has nothing to do with keeping me in the 90s as to our décor.

Then there’s the wallpaper border (what were we thinking), with subtle peach vine y-flowers on a beige background.  I think we’ve already been through this, grandma.  That border holds us back in some way.  It has to go so that our décor can advance our bodies and souls into the 21^st century.

The wallpaper border is the more slippery of the DIY slopes.  It skates awfully close to remodeling.  It requires a lot more commitment to the process than does a new coat of a different color of paint, which is almost a requirement of redecorating.

I’m grateful that my DIY husband doesn’t mind painting.  Our daughter actually likes to paint.  Painting is not my thing.

As to that border, I, like a fool, believed the home-grown advice on the Internet that a little spritz of vinegar-water (let stand for 15 minutes) and a heat gun applied to that wallpaper, and voila, it peels right off.  Yeah, sure.  For me, it was 45 minutes later, 3 gouges, and half of my orange vinegar squirted on that blessed wallpaper border, and, if I stretch the truth a little, I got most of an 18-inch space of paper removed.

My hands cramped up all evening, mimicking Actor, James Coburn’s famously arthritic hands.  My fingers spastically tried configurations like Star Trek’s Vulcan-salute introduced by Spock’s Leonard Nimoy, which I could never accomplish before.  Thanks for that useless skill, wallpaper.  Then there was the hammer-toe of multiple fingers.  That position was fun.  Don’t you love my clinically eloquent descriptions?

I think tomorrow I will change my methods, having found some DIF left over from our daughter’s removal of her bedroom wallpaper border when she transitioned from tween to young adult.  Maybe I’ll keep you posted on our progress, or not.  Maybe we’d all just rather forget it. (Tee-hee, update: the DIF worked as advertised; spritz the gel, wait 15 minutes, and it pulled right off, for the most part.  We used a heat gun to enhance the process.)

I’m the visionary in this DIY process and I have two visions.  Neither scenario has anything to do with that border but both are born from my need to hang on to and re-purpose that old living room rug.

First, it would just fit our master bedroom.  This, however would require repainting that room.  Don’t ask me why, but trust me, it would.

Then, our antique bed frame, a family heirloom, needs TLC repair/maintenance for the dozenth time and our almost-as-ancient mattress/box spring needs replacing.  Believe it or not, this is the simpler option.  But, when did we ever vie for simple or easy around here?

Option number two for a new home for that darn rug, is to restore our once finished basement back to living space from its many years of various levels of water damage and relegation to a storage-only space.  This is truly skirting the remodel word, and it sort of terrifies me.

Walls, ceiling, sump pumps, dehumidifiers, professional consultants, load-bearing walls, trenches….  These things start to scream a lot of work and a lot of money.  These concepts conjure visions of backhoes and not the Bob the Builder ones from the dreams of little boys and girls but the nightmare ones that unearth skeletons happily buried years ago.  Welcome to the DIY slippery slope.

However, we’ve lived long enough that part of our roadmap legacy to our child and her family is the concept that the upheaval which almost certainly comes with DIY redecorating or remodeling, often, if not usually brings beneficial change to your thinking as well as to your dwelling.  When you’re in it, not so much.

When you’re in the midst of redecorating or remodeling, it’s a mass of confusion, turmoil, spats, differences of opinion, changes of plan, dirt, dust, messes, and the like.  This is not a task for a troubled marriage.

Soon, thereafter (not the marriage, but the job) you notice the good stuff, the benefits, and I don’t just mean the job completion.  You notice that not only has your dwelling changed, but so have you.

For example, just prior to the pandemic inspired paper “shortage,” we bought our customary 6-pack of Corona beer, just kidding, other things come in 6-packs, like paper towels.  I noticed today that we still have two rolls remaining.  Hm. Why is that?

I instituted a new household policy to use paper towels only when it’s too icky to clean up with a peroxide soaked rag or soaked sponge that has been sterilized in the microwave for two minutes (thank you Mary Hutchings, my Renaissance-woman, older sister).  The beneficial result has been a massive reduction in our use of paper towels.

We’ve always tried to employ the three R’s of conservation (Recycle, Reduce, Reuse), but habits sometimes encroach upon our ideals, it seems.  Since we burn our paper and most yard and garden debris (some argue that’s a carbon issue but in our small quantity, I doubt it’s measurable and the conservation effort is likely acceptable), we didn’t pay attention to the quantity of paper towels we used.  But the hassle of restricted supply during the pandemic panic buying of paper products, redirected our attention to a place where we had grown sleepy.

Thank you again inconvenience.  Once more you have, in your characteristic style of seemingly misdirection, guided us to a better place.  “It’s all good.”

I’m not a big fan of that saying because to me, it smacks a little bit of denial.  For example, when I see not- so-good stuff in the wind and someone says, “it’s all good,” something doesn’t sync for me.

I wonder, however, if this contemporary missive derives from the scripture, “All things work together for good to those who love God and are called according to His purposes” of Romans 8:28?  The literal implication of this scripture implies that the good stuff atop the boatload of bad stuff – all stuff mixed up together in a stew, might just turn out to serve me in the end, as a benefit.  If I hang in there.

When our daughter was a toddler, a friend of ours, a former kindergarten teacher, gave to us a bunch of books.  Thank you, again, Janice.

Among the books, the one that became one of our favorites was, “If You Give a Moose a Muffin,” by Laura Joffe Numeroff.  Sixteen additional books in the series, began with, “If You Give a Mouse a Cookie.”  But the Moose/Muffin one remains our stalwart favorite.

Having read the Moose book a million times and simultaneously having embarked on one frustrating DIY project after another, on a budget, I wrote the ditty which follows in the Joffe, Moose/Muffin tumbling, compounding style of the slippery slope.  I take no credit for the style, but the experience was mine.

Rather than pulling my hair out in exasperation, and because bumps and ridges cover the entire real estate of my scalp, I felt sure I couldn’t pull off the bald look, so I wrote.  Have you heard of journaling to communicate with yourself about, and unearth, what’s happening in the depths of your psyche?  Perhaps this technique prevents baldness.  I don’t know, but it’s a theory.

Speaking of frustrating, how many of you, new to the homebody-corps have done some, maybe a lot of, redecorating or remodeling, DIY-style, in the 2020 weeks of quarantine?  Some call it sheltering in place.  Most of us, I dare say, have worked a bit on our shelters, or our place, whatever you call your abode.  Whether our work could be called home improvement, I can’t say.  I’m not here to judge.

Here goes, If You Get a New Vacuum Cleaner:

If you get a new vacuum cleaner,

You’ll need new floor coverings to go with it.

If you get new floor coverings,

You’ll need new furniture to compliment the floors.

If you get new furniture,

You’ll need to paint the walls.

 

If you paint the walls,

You’ll need new window treatments to go with it.

If you get new window treatments,

You’ll have to have new windows.

If you get new windows,

You’ll need a new heating and cooling system to finish the upgrade.

 

If you get a new heating and cooling system,

You’ll need to switch to a gas stove-top.

If you get that new stove-top you’ve always wanted,

You’ll need an electric wall oven to go with it.

If you get a new wall oven,

You’ll need a new subzero refrigerator to finish the trio.

 

If you get a new refrigerator,

You’ll need new plumbing to go with it.

If you get new plumbing,

You’ll need to move the laundry room.

If you move the laundry room,

You’ll need to remodel the entire kitchen.

 

If you remodel the kitchen,

You’ll need a new bathroom to go with it, if you’re a woman, that is.

Kitchens and bathrooms.  Kitchens and bathrooms.

If you get a new bathroom,

You’ll need a soaking tub with jets, bidet, and towel warmer to go with it.

 

After you’ve relaxed your overworked remodeling muscles in the jetted soaking tub, you’ll notice you need a new sun-room to go with it.

If you get a sun-room,

You’ll need a new roof to cover it.

If you get a new roof,

You’ll need a new porch to go with it because you’ve always wanted a porch.

 

If you get a new porch,

You’ll need a new garage to go with it.

If you get a new garage,

You’ll need a new lawn shed to clear out the mess and keep the garage tidy.

If you get a new lawn shed,

You’ll need a greenhouse with a rainwater recycling unit, attached to it.

 

If you get that greenhouse,

You’ll need the driveway regraded and repaved to go with it.

If you get the driveway regraded and repaved,

You’ll need a new car to go with it.

If you get a new car,

Drive away from that old house as fast as you can!

And take your new vacuum cleaner with you, to clean the car.

 

Once you’ve entered the slippery slope of DIY redecorating and/or remodeling, nothing is found to be as simple as the theory.  Always, at first thought, it seems like it will be a straightforward process.  Then, reality sets in and all of a sudden, you’re a whole mile and a half past simple. And, all plans of frugality – thus the whole concept of DIY – fly out the window, that you just installed last week.

 

By the way, I know a good Realtor if you just want to sell that old house.

“Say my name, say my name,” is the catchy chorus to a Destiny’s Child song (1999) about a cheatin’ boyfriend.  The remaining lyrics have nothing to do with this piece, but that chorus certainly does.  I could add a relevant lyric of my own: If you want to hand me fame, say my name, say my name.  Repeat, again and again as many times as possible.  A few famous first-name celebrities, whose names we’ve all heard a few million times, include:  Exhibit A: Beyoncé.  Exhibit B: Cher.  Exhibit C: Adele.  Exhibit D: Madonna.

Honestly, have you ever checked a box on a ballot, one of twenty choices running for office, lets’ say for judge in the 419^th district court, because you’ve heard or seen that particular name somewhere?  I’m truly and civically sorry, but I have.

His or her name rings a bell.  Factoid, I think this saying derives from Pavlov’s experiment with a salivating dog, behaviorally-trained to respond to the sound of a bell, with a hunger reaction.  Can we be manipulated as easily as Pavlov’s dog, to want what we’re told to want by a powerful media master?

I recognized the name and none of the others, so I checked that box.  Maybe it had a ring to it, that name.  Maybe it sounded sophisticated or ordinary or smart or the charming kind of ethnicity that tickles my fancy.

It didn’t matter that perhaps I saw the name in the Criminal Court column in the newspaper or I saw the name in a smear campaign from his or her opponent’s political commercial on television.  The name was familiar so I checked the box.

If your name is familiar enough to enough people, you might just be a celebrity.  I’m no Jeff Foxworthy, but when a name has been repeated three trillion times, I may feel like I know that person, in the familiar but not really, “I know you from…somewhere, but I don’t know where…” kind of way.

It’s a fact of social science that the more people who know your name, the more famous you are.  Thus, the “no publicity is bad publicity” mantra of the fame-machine; the get your name out there in public, campaign of every Hollywood publicist worth her salt (can you say Kris Kardashian?); and every person whose goal is more followers and more friends on social media, are all publicity techniques in the game of how many people can I get to know my name.

Yes, it’s a game that celebrities strive to win at all costs.  And, they pay.  Sometimes they pay with real dollars.  Other times they pay with their privacy.  But often they pay with their dignity, and a moral compass gone haywire.

Why?  Power?  Clout?  Ego?  An antidote to poor self-esteem?  Or, is it as base as mo’ money, mo’ money?

Do you know the name, Alissa Milano?  First there was a television career, back in the 80s-90s.  Lots of acting roles followed, including hosting a fashion-design show.  Then she emerged, quite vocally in the “me too movement,” paving the way to a visible stint in political activism.

Besides a name, who is she?  And, why should anyone listen to her political or social opinions  as opposed to those of my neighbor or yours, or a preacher, scientist, therapist, attorney, plumber, doctor, teacher, barber, or bartender?

Why would we listen to a celebrity about anything other than the substance from which their fame originated?  Certainly, if I want to know something about acting, I should consult Meryl Streep, or Robert De Niro, and hear them out.  If I’m pursuing a career in vocal music, the popular version, or need to know what it feels like to wear a meat-dress, Lady Gaga is the one to see.  If a professional quarterback is my goal in life, then it wouldn’t be a bad idea to consult with Terry Bradshaw or Tom Brady.

However, if I need help to decide who to vote for in the next election, should I seek the opinion of an actor, singer, or athlete?  Moreover, would I even consider their opinion as valid if they tell me in no uncertain terms, that I’m stupid, unfeeling, unchristian (or too Christian, whichever is more pejorative), deplorable, an unsophisticated degenerate hick, hateful of minorities, gays, women, illegal immigrants, and any number of others if I don’t vote the way they say I should?

On the other hand, might it be better before casting my vote, to consult an historian (or history book), a political scientist (or poly-sci journal), a retired lawmaker, with little to no vested interest in my decision?

I’ve seen memes (sayings) on Facebook, throughout the pandemic period, saying in essence, who’s essential now?  It’s not professional sports figures, actors, musicians, entertainers, artists and celebrities of every ilk (can you say celebrity-politician?), whose names we know without even tapping into our long-term memory.

It’s, guess who?  Retail workers, nurses, police officers, first-responders, doctors, and so many of us out there, with names unknown but to a handful of loved ones, friends, or maybe some hundreds of acquaintances we call Facebook friends.  We’re just going around doing our jobs, unsung, and not living in the realm of privilege, that celebrities call normal.

In the sociological literature, celebrity is boiled down to renown, literally the sum of all the people who have heard a person’s name.  “Herd dynamics,” and the “bandwagon effect,” perpetuate celebrity, upping the public discussion of certain individuals, exponentially.  Did you hear about…?

However, the “knowing your name” thing can backfire.  Like with most things, there are exceptions.  For example, Jesus is quoted in the Bible books of Matthew, Luke and John as saying, “no prophet is accepted in his home town” (paraphrased). 

Why? Maybe the thought goes something like this: “That’s JUST Jesus, the aimless, illegitimate, carpenter’s son who’d rather sit around outside the temple listening to esoteric meanderings of the priests than help his dad make a living.  Why would I listen to the stuff he’s spouting?”

It’s about HOW you know that person.  For example, when I say the name, Dolly, do you imagine Dolly Parton, Dolly Madison, or Dolly, the advertising animated-cow?  Could you readjust your imagination to elect Dolly, your president, when you knew her as the four year old kid that ate her boogers or the teenager that the popular kids called a slut, or the drunk college girl who streaked the coed dorm and would have been charged with a sex crime hadn’t her powerful mom made the charge disappear?

It begs the existential question, “can anybody ever really be ‘known’?” and William Shakespeare’s equally philosophical question, “What’s in a name?  that which we call a rose.  By any other name would smell as sweet.”

(stay “tuned” for part two…)

 

The raison d’ etre of my writing this piece was teased out of my dream-like memory-store, in the form of the theme song of The Jefferson’s, an old television show.  It went like this in my head: “we’re movin’ on up, to the East Side, to a de-luxe apartment in the sky…we’ve finally got a piece of the pie-ie-ie-ie.”  Then there were references to baseball, “Now we’re up in the big leagues…Gettin’ our turn at the bat…”.

Back in the day, the 1990s specifically, and before a certain friend called Pam Foor rocketed to the top, and deservedly monopolized the genre, I won the Hershey Cocoa baking contest at the Bedford County Fair.  I have the brown ribbon from Hershey and the Best of Show blue ribbon from the Fair, stuffed in a cupboard behind some old cookbooks, to prove my win.

My next-door neighbor deemed me Betty Crocker or Suzy Homemaker or some such moniker indicating my locally publicized baking prowess.  For five minutes, it was heady stuff being recognized for something I had baked.  I didn’t fare so well at the Farm Show in Harrisburg in January, searching high and low for fresh mint in the middle of winter, and failing, to garnish my mint chocolate cake. I knew nothing about nor cared one iota for “decoration.” My poor step-sister of a cake looked anemic and sad.  But those who love me assured their Cinderella, “I’ll bet it tasted better than those ‘show-pieces’ that probably tasted like cardboard.” 

It’s been twenty-five years and compared, I don’t bake much anymore.  I lost the verve.  Besides my specialty Christmas cookies, birthday cakes for my husband and daughter, dictated by tradition, and the odd enticing new recipe, baking is in my past.  Until this week.

My other next-door neighbor and I share a “waste not want not” philosophy about food.  Having to throw out food feels to us like we’ve squandered a resource.  So, we both have been known to get creative with our food stores and often bake or make meals with what’s on hand.

We have some apple trees.  Last year’s apple harvest was good and given my relative disinterest in baking, I had quite a bunch of apples stored.

This week, “quarantine boredom” hit me.  I’m ever so grateful to be healthy and safe.  However, the stay-at-home rule, for those of us who have abided by it, has made a few of us, the word for it in the common vernacular is, crazy!

So, yesterday I baked an apple tart, from a recipe found many years ago in a Gourmet Magazine.  It became a favorite apple recipe, first for my mother-in-law, then me.  I also tried an apple ginger upside down cake which sits firmly in the okay-but-will -toss-the-recipe, category.  Given my baking reluctance, recipes that don’t rate in the can’t-live-without-this, category, get binned, as the Brits say.

Tomorrow or as soon as I can muster the baking-energy, it will be an apple cake and an apple pie or two, for my husband.  He’s a “real American,” who loves apple pie.

“As American as apple pie,” originated in the 1860s.  The 1974 ad jingle touting apple pie along with baseball, hot dogs, and Chevrolet, personified this pie as American.

I don’t like apple pie.  Not even a slice, a piece, or a taste.  In fact, pies in general get a response from me of a neutral or disinterested “meh.”  Of all the dessert categories to choose from, pie is at the bottom of my list, unless we’re talking peanut butter pie.  But I would argue it is a parfait atop a graham cracker crust.

And, cutting a pie into pieces.  I can do precision but I’d rather not.  I’m not all that fond of rulers, and in my kitchen they just don’t belong.  I’m not even keen about the pie chart.  It’s too exact.  I want some leeway, wiggle room, space for creativity and imagination.

It comes down to temperament.  I’d rather write the explanatory essay than answer true or false; “well, if you mean this…, then it’s true; but if you mean, that…, then, it’s false.”  For me, there are too many ifs, or if you need to be scientific, variables, in the true or false and multiple-choice question-answer format.  I’d rather explain, sometimes in detail.

So, the American dream of upward mobility, with its baseball and apple pie were alive and well in the 1970s when The Jefferson’s aired.  I wonder if the American Dream, the concept coined by Writer and Historian, James Truslow Adams, in his 1931 book, Epic of America, remains relevant in today’s cultural landscape?

“That dream of a land in which life should be better and richer and fuller for everyone with opportunity for each according to ability or achievement.”  In 1931, the same year the Star-Spangled Banner was adopted as the United States national anthem, and the nation saw the Empire State Building completed, experienced the Dust Bowl and lived the Great Depression, those words outlining the American Dream were penned.

Notice that in 1931 the apple pie of opportunity was divided among each and every person who contributed to America via “ability or achievement.”  In a way, we were all relieved of the duty to contribute to the nation through our abilities or achievements, when President FDR, from 1933-1939 instituted The New Deal as a temporary umbrella to help America through the financial storm of the Great Depression that produced widespread financial hardship.

The Jefferson’s worked hard to climb the ladder to their de-luxe apartment in the sky and to get their turn at bat.  It “took a whole lotta tryin…Just to get up that hill.”  And, they were African-American.  No excuses.  Opportunity was limited.  However, those who were determined to accomplish the dream, worked, sacrificed, and persisted, until they achieved their goal, located some steps up the ladder.

Theoretically, those who could not work, via disability of any sort, were and are helped by the necessary New Deal programs that remain as an umbrella for the hard times.  Social security and Medicare, although part of the New Deal, were and are “insurance-like” programs that workers invested in through payroll deductions, to reap the benefits at retirement when working would no longer be an option. 

If nothing else, I believe perhaps today’s perceived path to the dream has put a kink into the dreaminess of the dream.  Are today’s American dreamers biding their time with hands out, hoping for pie in the sky?

Work was always built into the American way.  The predominant rule for getting a piece of the pie, which is to work hard, can be followed by anyone who wants a chance at the opportunity formerly known as the American Dream. 

Have some pie, and Bon appétit.

There was some dirt littered along a threshold and it was attracted to the broom like metal filings to a magnet.

Even before I did a speck of analysis, this dream felt hopeful, somehow.  We, being the floor, the broom being our savior, and the dirt being this pandemic, that is.

Even the opposite of the dream message, that the “dirt won’t stick,” feels like light at the end of a tunnel, or the exit from a cave/tomb.  Dreams have a funny way of unearthing deeply buried truths.  Sometimes it’s in opposites.  Sometimes it’s in symbols, figures, numbers, or crazy scenarios.  But, always dreams hold truth, if we can but discern it.

In this time of international fear and uncertainty, people are jittery and the nations are shaking in their boots.  I think we could all use a bit of cosseting, as it happens, the Dictionary.com word of the day, for being treated like a pet; pampering, coddling.

I think the old-timey British way of comforting someone by saying, “I have good news for you, pet,” is just about what we need.  But, depending upon one’s parenting style, some think coddling or comforting is not what we need, but a good, swift kick in the butt; a talking-to; or a good shaking back to the stone-age.  Whatever your style….

How timely is it that this dream occurred on the eve of Resurrection Day, otherwise known as Easter, when Christians celebrate the life after death of our Savior?  Jesus of Nazareth was the epitome of a humble, benevolent, non-political nor establishment leader.  People listened to him and followed him because they wanted to.  Today, some two thousand years later, people are drawn to him and his message of love, salvation, righteousness through sacrifice, and liberty.

Most world religions acknowledge Jesus, if not as their Savior or Messiah, then as an extraordinary human being, set apart from all others.  Variously, Jesus has been understood by throngs around the world, as a remarkable prophet, a mystical, charismatic, historically poignant and universal figure of good will and kindly wisdom.

What we Christians have done with Jesus’ legacy…. Well that’s a long story and even though I have a relatively informed opinion on this, I choose to let it lie dormant for the time being.

My concern here is with the dirt’s attraction to that broom.  The dirt being the pandemic and the broom being our savior.

On Facebook the other day, I saw a meme (a saying) and forwarded it to my list of friends, because I found it particularly striking.  Here is the gist of the meme:

6+3=9   So does 5+4.  The way you do things isn’t always the only way to do them.  Respect other people’s way of thinking.

Shortly after I posted this meme, I noticed a friend’s Facebook post which contained some pretty emotionally- charged and politically-sided “information.”  Putting the two messages, “my” meme and my friend’s post, side by side, in a eureka way, I noticed something IMPORTANT.

I saw that BOTH SIDES want THE SAME OUTCOME.  Isn’t that awesome?  Do you see the possibilities in that?  Do you see the hope in that?

Both sides of the aisle, or the issue, or the table, or the door; whatever divides the sides, want the same thing.  This means there is POTENTIAL for AGREEMENT!  Agreement tears down walls and opens doors; invites to the table, where give-and-take are exchanged back-and-forth, and problems get solved.

I wish we would all grow up and stop taking sides like bullies exerting their power in a school yard and get some stuff done.  What happened to “the greater good?” 

“Ask not what you can do for your country.  Ask what your country can do for you?”  Wait.  That’s not quite what Catholic Democrat President, John F. Kennedy said.  It sounds a bit closer to something straight out of Atheist Socialist, Karl Marx’s playbook.

Short lesson on socialism from a former Sociology teacher:  from the central government, everyone is disbursed economic sustenance, equally; we all receive the same check.  Neither enterprise (work) nor creativity/brilliance are rewarded.  There is no incentive to improve or excel, because everyone is given the same reward regardless of effort.  Productivity, the hallmark of capitalism, is not rewarded; and fails, eventually; leaving in its wake, a stagnant, disinterested, languishing, then declining, economy and a broken, hopeless society clamoring to flee.

Equality and equity are vastly different concepts.  Equality = sameness.  Equity = fairness.  Do you want to be treated the same as everybody else; never rewarded for the outstanding things you do, produce, or share with humankind?  Or would you prefer to be treated in some way commensurate with your contributions to society?

Kennedy said, “Ask not what your country can do for you.  Ask what you can do for your country.”  This statement is the antithesis of socialist thought.  This quote is oft spoken when we are, as a nation, in crisis and public service and collective, civil behavior is paramount to moving forward.  Perhaps it needs said in such a time as this?

However, me fears that possibly we are at present, “a house divided against itself” (Mark 3:25).  Matthew (12:25) put it this way: “Every kingdom divided against itself is brought to desolation; and every city or house divided against itself shall not stand.”

Abraham Lincoln, repeated the same sentiments in regard to his bid to end slavery.  Thomas Paine paraphrased the quote in his 1776 document, Common Sense, ironically.  Abigail Adams wrote to a friend, “A house divided upon itself – and upon that foundation do our enemies build their hopes of subduing us.”  Subduing us, can you say Socialism?

The takeaway is, division ruins a nation, a family, a community.  Let me add, if you believe, “Those who do not learn history are doomed to repeat it,” (George Santayana) then here we go.  But must we?

If one side wants to get to 9 by adding 3+3+3 and the other side wants to obtain 9 by subtracting 3 from 12, is it possible by using Jesus’ humble, benevolent, selfless, and love-motivated leadership style, some methodical combination of formulae could be discovered to get to 9, together?  I prayerfully hope that the answer is yes.

“When the Lord brought his exiles, out of captivity, back to Jerusalem, returning them to prosperity, they were like them that dream (it seemed so unreal) …. They who sow in tears shall reap with joy.” Psalm 126, paraphrased from several Bible translations.  Let’s hope my dream image of the dirt (COVID19) becoming powerfully attracted to the broom (our unified efforts to grow forward) is fulfilled.

I’ll conclude this essay with another equation: “1&1&1 is 3” which begs the further solution, “come together right now,” so said Lennon and McCartney in 1969 along with every Jewish mother, Catholic mother, and common-sense filled mother in the world today.  Some of them say it like this, “get your sh—together children.”

I understand it but I don’t really “get it.”  I guess we need an official “holiday” (April 22, 2020) in order to collectively pick up litter and celebrate the magnificence of the land we live atop.

I am not a romantic.  I am a person who fathoms not the concept of making a celebration out of every little thing.  Consequently, with some “holidays” I just can’t perceive the point of setting a day apart from all others to celebrate it.  Some of us celebrate these things every day.  I honestly just go through the motions with a few of these “minor holidays.”

Don’t get me wrong.  What I call a “minor” holiday might be one of your favorites and ranks high on your celebratory radar.  And that’s cool.  Have at it.  You certainly don’t need my “hoorah” to get excited about a day, or get a nod from the federal government or the post office to take a day to celebrate, away from the usual grind.

In fact, what’s minor to me might be major to most everybody else and vice-versa.  Having studied the Bible I used to be downright annoyed that Hebrew and Christian scholars called Habakkuk a “minor” prophet.  What?  I’ll bet God didn’t consider him or Malachi minor.

So, did we not celebrate mother’s before May 9, 1914?  And was love not the object of revelry before the 18^th century embellishment of Saint Valentine’s “Day?”  Now we have Siblings Day.  I love my siblings every day and some don’t love theirs any day, but a holiday?   Surely, we didn’t give one hoot about cleaning up the earth before “Earth Day” was conceived on April 22, 1970, did we?

I don’t know, but I think I’ve been picking up litter my whole life.  I grew up in rural Pennsylvania, specifically Bedford County.  I wonder if when our rural mother’s “picked up the house,” which meant tidying up the mess strewn about, came from “picking up” the litter strewn about their outdoor home.  The “land” we lived on was significant, noticed, and respected.

I’ve walked firmly on the terra of this local land, intermittently, throughout my life.  I see minor things like squished worms on the pavement; bright red, expended shotgun shells; oddly shaped or colored mushrooms; Snicker’s wrappers; beer & energy drink cans; empty chocolate pudding cups & chocolate milk bottles; gnarly, knotted vines; smokeless tobacco (snuff) cans; golf balls; differences in the look of mosses, up close; Styrofoam containers and packing material of all shapes, sizes and uses, from “peanuts”  to takeout trays and coffee cups to huge cubes from someone’s latest Amazon acquisition, all in or near the woods.

These are objects that your usual auto or truck passerby doesn’t notice.  One only sees these things with your feet on the ground.  With the tons of roadside litter available to be picked up, apparently there are far fewer of us with our feet on the ground than in our vehicles, tossing the packaging of our lives out the window to the great beyond, or just to the brink of the woods.  Also, the Pennsylvania Department of Transportation Litter Laws distinguish unintentional litter from the other, as the stuff that blows around in the wind, Kansas-style, Dorothy.

Oh, and I’ve seen even more “imaginative” things which I’ve picked up with the proverbial “ten-foot pole,” plastic gloves, and tank of antibacterial soap at the ready.  Not really.  I use a $1 generic dollar store “grabber-stick” to distance myself from the nastier objects that I pick up and discard in a trash bin or take home to include with our recycling.

“Out of sight out of mind” is real, my friends.  And the opposite is true for me and my tribe of walkers, hikers, joggers, and ploggers (joggers who pick up litter, the Swedes “invented” this, just like Al Gore “invented” the Internet in some election cycle, some years ago).

“Where the rubber hits the road,” means when theory meets reality.  Walkers see the reality of litter, every time we take a walk.  Earth Day is not just a commemorative day to us, one that seems good in theory or in the abstract.  It’s an everyday reality.

Socialism is not just a theory, studied in a book.  To Venezuelans and others, it’s a devastating reality.  The Holocaust is not a myth, talk to a survivor, read The Diary of Anne Frank, or Elie Wiesel’s books, especially, Night, which are NOT fiction.  Climate change is, boots on the ground, real; what we should do about it is another matter altogether.

The pandemic of Corona-virus is no joke.  Go to New York, oops, no you can’t, to see how it looks on the ground.  For heaven’s sake wear a home-made cloth mask to the grocery store, it won’t kill you.  I’ve done it, it’s not that bad, compared to the alternative.  Wash your hands more often and more thoroughly.  What harm can that do?

We’re all losing income right now and staying “home,” well….  Let’s face it, having “enough” money is relative to how you define “enough.”  I think it’s fair to say that you and I don’t have enough of it.  And, staying home should feel pretty good to those of us who have one.

In fact, a while ago when I was picking up litter along a secondary rural road while walking, a young man emerged in his vehicle from a local industrial business, stopped, rolled down his window and asked point blank, “Do you have a home?”  After I picked up my jaw from the pavement, unfixed my duh-stare, and sufficiently suppressed the hysterics about to overflow from my gut, I said, “yes I do, thank you for asking.”

Granted, I wear some casual clothes when I walk/jog, not tracksuit- or gym-clothes-worthy, but I really didn’t think I was exactly bag-woman-chic either.  What did they call it? Boho?  Maybe I should coin a new term for it: Earth Day Fashion, EDF-gear?

Presumably if you’re reading this in April 2020, you live in or near rural Pennsylvania and you’re spending a LOT of time at home.  How about joining my tribe, but in your own time and location, and celebrate the concept of earth day?

Go to your favorite dollar store, donning your recyclable cloth mask and pick up a “grabber,” and set out for a plogging adventure.  And keep your polite, best, COVID19 distance from the other ploggers.  Maybe this endeavor will become a personal tradition, as well as a national holiday.