America is People.

Memorial Day 2014 Tids, Issue 3,100

Opening Stuff:

 

I spent a kind of all-American Memorial Day, you know, in honor of the guys and gals who got us what  we got. Preserved who we are.  I went to Wal-Mart and watched Americans --  listened to two old blue collar  guys standing next to the cookie aisle trying to outdo each other with their low sugar numbers; saw a picture-perfect young socialite rush in from her Bentley, parked with blinking lights in front, looking for Drano, standing self consciously, pondering the brands as though she had never been there before; a nice young family of four working together, double checking all prices trying to save every possible penny; a check-out girl told us of her recipe for Spanish rice, while double counting an expensive item. America is all the folks, living, laughing, loving and languishing, surviving every day, now in a new economy, a changing culture, but always the same, generation after generation.

 

Sunday doesn’t look much like Sunday any more because the stores are full and the churches are empty.

 

In the forties Disney created the lovable Bambi and Thumper – deer and bunnies became the symbols of curtness and a happy forest. Today everybody is trying to find devious ways to keep these ravenous beasts out of their gardens!

 

The Question:

What was the real name of O’Henry, and what are two of his best known stories? What national convention of “humorists” did he inspire?

The Headlines:

--America Stops to Shed A tear.

--Iran’s Imperial Leader: “Jihad Will Continue Until America Is No More.”

--Karsai Refused To Meet Obama At Bagram Air base.

--Recent Elections In Europe Show Growing Strength Among Euro-Union Naysayers; Country Leaders Ponder Future Of Economic Union; Anti-Immigration Forces Make Big Gains.

--Ukraine Elects Petro Poroshenko; new Prez Says he Will use Military More Efficiently to restore Peace In East; Seeks To talk With Moscow..

--Young Repubs breaking With Oldsters Mainly On Social Issues Gay Marriage And Marijuana; Remain United On Anti-Abortion Efforts.

 

I don’t know much about Henryk Gorecki, but I know that in listening to his third symphony over this past Memorial Day weekend I felt the moving passion of the composer who sees hope from the sorrow of war. The resilience of his own Polish people who felt the despondency from the weight of their own devastation at the ugly hand of Hitler, but never gave up their spirit whether fighting to save Warsaw or lying hopelessly in Auswitz. There is nothing stronger than the human heart.

 

There is nothing more relaxing than watering flowers.

 

You may have seen the TV report on the latest “Pun” convention. That’s where professional wordsmiths relax their standards to produce inane sentence structures with liberal word usage that mostly produces groans. A punconventional use of the language. These are professionals ridiculing their own expertise, like a nuclear physicist letting himself relax a bit to invent the Rubic cube. For instance, the Tids is bits of unrelated human droppings accumulated in to piles of ----.  The pun convention consists of lots of pretty smart people laughing at themselves with often horrible puntification.

 

Yesterday seemed like a perfect day, just enjoying the simple things around me. The good side of people; the day itself trying to discover who it was as black clouds and bright sun interchanged dominance. Me, I just put the groceries in the car, jumped on the back rung of the grocery cart and rode down the bumpy parking lot to the cart cage; the breeze blowing through my thinning hair. It was that kind of day., the good kind.

 

The Big question for tomorrow: On which side of the fence will the stocks fall?

 

The Answer:

O’Henry was a prolific wordsmith, who astounded his admirers with his voracious vocabulary and love of language, even when he was himself – William Sydney Porter. Among his 300 stories, two of his best known are “The Ransom of Red Chief”, and “The Gift of the Magi.” He inspired the “O’Henry Pun-Off” in Austin, Texas where he lived when writing. Each year language adulators demean their lovers by going for the punniest 90 second play on words or match witticisms in a contest of dueling punslingers.

 

In my memorial weekend travels, I heard a baby cry. It was in a restaurant, and I asked the waitress, “where was the baby”. She looked around, finally saying saying that it must have been on TV because there wasn’t one in the room. Then she turned and pointed to two young black men sitting in a booth by the door. They both had smiles as bright as the sun gleaming above the clouds. We approached, and heard the little cry again. And also heard one of the men talking, “You can go to sleep because daddy will be home soon.” And that man turned up to us, as proud as proud can be, “Wanna see her?”. You could see the love in his eyes. He lifted his arm holding his cell phone and turned it towards us and we saw the beautiful child of this man, this navy man. This sailor posted here in Newport yearning to be back in Virginia with his wife and child. US military people make sacrifices big and small for our safety every day.