Topic 169: Imitation

Carol:

Knock, Knock:

When Charles Caleb Colton penned the familiar phrase “imitation is the sincerest [form] of flattery (Lacon, V 1, no. 183),  he wasn’t thinking about copyrights, patents, intellectual property rights and consumer piracy.
 

Knockoffs are mass-produced imitations of popular or high-end products such as clothing, perfume, jewelry and suitcases.  Sometimes knockoffs are sold as “the real thing” to customers who think they are getting a great deal on a Luis Vuitton designer handbag or a Nordic Track.  Sometimes, the name or logo is changed slightly on the product to fool someone who isn’t paying attention. The product doesn’t even have to be expensive; it can be a lowly marking pen:

              

One of the most commonly  counterfeited goods in the United States is cigarettes, which can be sold more cheaply because the dealers and buyers are circumventing the tax revenues that hike the cost of brand-name cigarettes.
 

I suspect that most people who buy a product from an unconventional source at an unconventional price know they are “cheating the system” but may consider it a victimless crime. In actuality, the victims are not faceless government or corporate agencies but people who lose their jobs, their creative idea, and the benefits from tax revenues.  It is estimated that 750,000 jobs have been lost in the United States from counterfeiting, which has seen a huge spike in imitation drugs and computer parts over the last several years. Much of the commerce related to counterfeit goods now takes place over the Internet (source: “Counterfeit Consumer Goods”). And most of the seized products come from Asia. According to a study by the European Union, in 2005,  86% of seized knockoffs came from China (source: “Pirated Products”).
 

Another revenue loss besides the traffic in fake products is the traffic in pirated products. Despite the efforts of Hollywood and Silicon Valley to protect their latest film or cell phone technology, pirated movies, music and electronic devices show up on the Internet or are sold in international markets before they are officially released in the United States.
 

Generic products are legitimate “knock-offs” which are usually cheaper because they are often sold by lesser known companies without the marketing or advertising costs that inflate the price of products bearing the brands of famous companies or supermarkets. Generic medicines are cheaper than their brand-name counterparts because they are using drugs whose expensive patents have expired. Although studies have shown that quality is usually very similar between the “off brand” and the “popular brand,” many people will argue that they can tell the difference and are willing to pay the extra cost for a Cola, a pill or a bottle of Scotch.
 

Well, I’m going to knock off this essay even though it’s a little shorter than my usual essays. I Have a suitcase sitting on my bed waiting to be packed for a trip to the Northwest. I really like my suitcase, which I got a great deal on at an outlet mall near Sedona.  Quite chic really, a Lois Voitan original.
  

Sources:
Counterfeit Consumer Goods. Wikipedia.
Image of marking pens.  Author: DangApricot. 22 Nov 2008 No higher resolution available.
SharpieVsShoupie.JPG‎ (800 × 600 pixels, file size: 153 KB, MIME type: image/jpeg)
Image of cola can. Author: RelyAble at en. WikipediaGeneric_Cola_Can_Jewel.jpg‎ (158 × 317 pixels, file size: 19 KB, MIME type: image/jpeg)
“Pirated Products worth More Than $200 billion in 2005.” Agence France-Presse. 6 June 2007. Industry Week. 
 

Megan:

This essay has nothing to do with the topic.

These are the only essays we’ll be posting this week, because the senior member of this team has skipped town. This is a trip I might have been invited on if I had not gotten a puppy, so I’m harboring a little resentment at Bella for the moment for keeping me home.

That being said, I was also really looking forward to this week by myself. I had plans to clean and repair things, to train Bella to be the Best Dog Ever, and to eat healthy and lose 50 pounds. All in a single week! It was going to be amazing. Maybe it still will be. But it’s not gotten off to a very good start.

Last night I read a murder mystery about a serial killer who preyed upon single women home alone. I finished the book satisfied that the killer had been caught, but then realized it had gotten dark as I read away the afternoon and evening and there wasn’t a light on in the house. To say this freaked me out would be an understatement, so I did what any normal person would do. I turned on every light, locked all the doors and posted my predicament on Facebook. Then I had a glass of wine and two bowls of ice cream to calm the nerves.

I woke abruptly this morning after Bella kicked me in the face. I was relieved to be unmurdered, but not pleased that it was 5:15 AM. But I had stuff to do, so I got up. Our bi-monthly cleaning service is coming this morning and the senior member of this team failed to tidy up before leaving yesterday. Mostly this just involves clearing surfaces, and I finished with plenty of time to take the dogs on their morning walk with the neighbors.

My initial plan was to walk Milo on the leash, and let Bella walk free, which is how we’ve been doing it for the past week. This morning she decided to regress, and take a piggy back ride on the eldest and most arthritic dog in the back, which was not appreciated by either the dog or her owner. To Milo's disappointment, I cut the walk short, and skipped  coffee because I don’t like coffee and we headed home.

I let both the dogs out of the car to go into the house without leashes because, again, that is how we always do it. Within seconds, Milo was two blocks down the street. I thought he was chasing a woman who was walking by, but he just flashed past her. Bella followed for about 20 yards and then just stopped and watched him, obviously in awe of his speed and power. He turned  around, ran back past the house and disappeared into the bushes. Bella tried to follow him, but came running back to me after a minute, like she was being chased.

I wandered through the yard calling his name and shaking a bag of treats, but there was no sign of him. After 45 minutes, I got in the car to drive around the block. At the bottom of the hill, standing right in the middle of the road was the biggest coyote I’ve ever seen. I had to hit the horn to get him out of the way, and immediately I had visions of Milo lying in a ditch with his throat ripped out and his stomach torn open, and I’d left my phone at home so I couldn’t call the vet when I found him, and would I have the strength of will to pick up his body and put it in the car?

I continued driving slowly, calling his name, and swearing and praying in a weird mantra. “Dear God, shitshitshit, don’t let him be dead please, MILO,  shitshit, please God.” I pulled back in the drive way and Milo appeared running behind the car, with a very big stick (or the leg of a deer) clenched in his teeth, perfectly healthy and happy. I think Bella was even more relieved to see him than I was. She greeted him with a bark, and attempted a piggy back ride.

It's going to be a very long week.

Milo taking refuge from Bella.

       

Topic 168: Gigglers and Growlers

Carol:

  The Mood Scale

Every household has its gigglers and growlers, family members whose default temperament falls toward the outer poles of the “grin to grimace”  Mood Scale.  My mother was usually as close as it gets to the happy face side of the scale; as a teen-ager, if  I heard her hand on the  knob of my bedroom door in the morning, I would spring up to avoid hearing her chirpy voice call out “Goooood morning. Rise and shine.”  Most teen-agers tend toward the scowling face side of the scale, so I often considered responding (but didn’t dare) with my favorite line from The Glass Menagerie, “I’ll rise, but I’ll be damned if I shine.”
 

When I went away to a women’s college, It didn’t take long to figure out who the morning people were by looking in the dining hall. Some of the tables would be full, with 8 or 9 girls already chatting full speed and giggling from time to time.  As far away as they could possibly get were the growlers, two or three to a table at the most and spread as far away from each other as possible. They didn’t make a sound as they sipped and stewed over their morning coffee.
 

Somewhere in there, I became my mother. I morphed into the happy, chirpy morning person and it didn’t take much to move me over to the silly end of the Mood Scale. One night at dinner in the dorm, I started laughing so hard that I inhaled wrong and a noodle came out my nose.  When I transferred to the California university where I met my husband, I got a little more sophisticated.  One night at the local bar, I started laughing so hard that I inhaled wrong and beer came out my nose. 
 

I guess my happy face temperament was pretty obvious because one of my literature professors wrote a job reference for me that described my personality as “ebullient,” which the Free Online Dictionary defines as “zestfully enthusiastic.”  The first school job I applied for required a photograph (it was legal then), and when I got the job, my principal said she could tell from my smile in the picture that I would be perfect to work with her students.
 

I learned the meaning of “laugh till you cry” when I got pregnant with the co-author of the daily theme essays. A group of friends went out to dinner 2 or 3 nights a week after work. I would get the giggles over the slightest remark (it didn’t have to be funny) and begin to laugh uncontrollably. Suddenly, the mood switch would go haywire and I would begin crying hysterically.  My friends were just a little concerned, but I would eventually settle back down and then fall asleep at the table while they were still eating. Ah, hormones. 
 

Sometimes I laugh at inappropriate moments, like when Marc dropped a scuba tank on his foot. I figured the tank had to be light since it was full of air (okay, my physics background isn’t so solid) and the expression on his face was odd enough to set me off. However, his mood shifted pretty quickly to the growling side of the scale. I guess broken toes are nothing to laugh at.
 

I still sometimes laugh so hard that I start crying. Megan watches my expression when I read her essays for the daily theme. She knows she has hit a rhetorical home run if I start weeping when I laugh.  Although she has a tendency to exaggerate for comic effect, you can tell from her cartoons that she can be a growler, especially when she is waiting for me to finish my essay. Okay, okay, don’t get so grumpy!

Megan:

Sweet and Sour

When we pulled this topic, I immediately thought of Bella – as she is a source of both amusement and extreme frustration.  She turned 4 months old this week, and right on schedule she started losing and re-growing her teeth. First it was the little teeth right at the front of the mouth, and those grew back overnight. Now she is missing her canine fangs, which have been replaced by the tiny little nubs. I know it’s uncomfortable for her and that is why she is chewing everything, but I can’t help but think she takes some delight in the destruction.

She enjoys making a mess.

Mom asked me the other day if I thought Bella had a sense of humor. She likes to play, but I’m not sure she interprets anything as funny. She definitely has a temper and occasionally urinates out of frustration. We watched her dig frantically  in Milo’s bed, growling and whining, and then she just squatted and peed right in the middle of it. She also seems to have some sense of embarassment. This morning she rolled over and fell off the bed, and immediately began jumping up and down and sprinting around the room, as if the fall from the bed had been the beginning of an acrobatic show she’d been planning all along. After she wears herself out, she is usually quite sweet.

Mom thinks this picture makes her look bald.

We cleaned the house yesterday, and I found 6 toys under the couch. Keeping Bella under control is a lot easier when there are no distractions and things she can get into, like food on the counter, tissues on the floor or dresses hung up in the closet.

The strap is probably repairable. What you can't see is the blood all over the dress.

As requested, here is a picture of the new one.

Maybe this will be an incentive to keep things tidier, because there is still plenty to keep her occupied. Milo, for example.

                     

Topic 167: On Being Misunderstood

Carol:

            Let Me Make One Thing Perfectly Clear

I wouldn’t want anyone to misunderstand daily theme essays 163 and 166 about getting a speeding ticket, ignoring the paperwork, and putting off taking the driver’s ed course. After the process server showed up Tuesday night, I cleared yesterday’s busy retirement calendar completed the online course. I am now a success graduate of the A_________Driver’s University. I have a degree in online driver’s training.
 

I felt pretty good about it too. I think my retention rate is pretty high after plowing through the material in 4 hours without taking a break (mental retention, not bladder retention—please!).  For instance, I can remember almost every single embedded factoid used as a “verification check” that I wasn’t just skimming the material or skipping sections. Did you know that the kid who designed the “swoosh” logo for Nike only got paid $35.00? Or that the New Year’s Eve falling ball from New York City is made of Waterford crystal?
 

Not, that I didn’t learn some driving facts, too.  As we were driving into town for dinner last night-- because I was too tired to cook from the mental/physical overload of finishing the online class and Megan was too tired from her shopping trip to replace the dresses Bell had shredded with her tiny little teeth-- I pointed out to Marc that the wet road we were on is most dangerous just after it starts raining because the rain mixes with the road oil. And,  when he did what is known as a “California stop” at the corner of our road, I pointed out that he had not followed Arizona statutes for length of stop and distance from corner. He must have misunderstood my intention because he was grumpy about that. “We don’t need no stinkin’ backseat drivers!”
 

Thursday mornings are always tough for essay writing  because the neighbors come for coffee, which means my usual  5-7 a.m. writing time is taken up cleaning several days’ worth of accumulation of newspapers, unwashed dishes,  counter stains, etc. Although Marc usually takes care of making the coffee and washing the big stuff that won’t fit in the dishwasher, I asked him to vacuum the living-room instead. And a good thing he did. When he moved the washstand cum mail center in our front hall, he found an envelope wedged underneath. He brought me the envelope because he didn’t have his reading glasses although he could make out that it was from the Prescott Valley Magistrate Court.
 

It turned out to be addressed to Marc, not me. He pulled several sheets of paper out of the envelope and handed them to me. And, there it was, another photo from the exact same intersection where I and our other two dog-walking friends had received their photo-radar generated speeding tickets. He grabbed the paper. “Does it look like me?” Not only was Marc’ his photo was just as crystal clear as mine had been, but he was even driving the same vehicle. 

Please don’t misunderstand me. I’m not complaining here that the town to our east with all the speed cameras has a racket going just because 4 out of 5 of us dog-walkers got a ticket in the last two months at the same intersection (where the speed drops from 45 mph to 35 mph). After all, my online driver’s education class taught me that being a good driver means being a careful driver, remaining ever vigilant for hazardous road conditions, traffic obstacles, changing speed zones and…. the camera’s evil eye!

Megan:

 (but not too sore for cartoons)

Topic 166: On Hugging a Conclusion

Carol:

So Long, Farewell,  Auf Wiedersehen, Good-bye

I was very disappointed when Megan and I were watching the Masterpiece Theater mini-series South Riding. I suddenly realized it was the final episode,  which  took me by surprise.  I would have paid closer attention to how the various characters marched, tripped, or leaped to their respective conclusions. We did agree that the final minutes of the show provided satisfactory closure for all but poor Midge Carne who left a public school  education in a working class English town to live with her rich grandfather and go to a Swiss finishing school. Poor, poor Midge.   I love a satisfying conclusion, whether to a movie, a book, or real  life.
 

My favorite film ending  was  a surprise that would  have been a literal seat-grabber if I had anticipated the final scene. Instead, I settled back into my seat to wait for the credits, so when Carrie’s bloody hand reached up from her fresh grave and grabbed hold of what’s-her-name’s  wrist,  I jumped a foot out of my seat.  Another movie ending I think I would like is A Letter to Three Wives (1949) where Addie Ross announces which of her three best friends’ husbands she has run away with.  Next time I watch this movie—I think it will be the 4th time—I plan to record it in case I fall asleep AGAIN during the last 15 minutes.
 

I appreciate literary endings with a punch to them but also with internal consistency. For example, a good mystery does not resort to red herrings  or last-minute clues  thrown in to account for a completely implausible solution to a crime. The clues need to be doled out along the way --with  subtlety because if the solution is too obvious, the reader doesn’t have the opportunity to feel smart  My very favorite ending  is John Collier’s  story  “Thus I Refute Beelzy,”   a little slice of dark, shocking fantasy in a 9th grade literature anthology I taught. The story is quite short and the text happened to fit exactly on two pages.  But, it ends abruptly without any resolution (denouement).  I loved to watch my students react when they invariably turned the page to read the rest of the story—which, of course, wasn’t there.  We always had fun talking about why they expected more, why the author stopped when he did, what makes a great ending, etc.
 

One end  I’m really looking forward to  is my online driving school, which I wrote about last Thursday for Topic 166 “Mental Detours.”  Just as I was really getting into writing this essay, the dogs began to bark and I saw a car stopped in front of our house. The subject of the doggish uproar was a process server—omigod—who was luckily intercepted by my husband (thank you thank you thank you) who promised that I would contact the Court tomorrow to verify that I am doing traffic school.  It seems that I never sent  notice to the Prescott Valley Magistrate that I signed up for traffic school . In fact, there it is next to my computer, the form all filled out and ready to mail.
 

I told Megan she has to stay home tomorrow and watch me like a cop (how apropos) so that I actually DO finish the online course and send in my paperwork.  A John Collier ending with Surprise and Shock is okay in fiction, but in the real world, my idea of  a conclusion worth hugging is Safe and Dull.

 

Source:
Collier, John. “Thus I Refute Beelzy.”

Megan:

I cheated again and read mom’s essay first. She finished it yesterday, which almost NEVER happens and now for once, she’s waiting around for me. I like her idea of talking about endings to books or movies that she really likes. I wish I had thought of it. All I can relate this topic to is the feeling I keep having that “When this is over, I’m going to be so happy.”

I’m really sort of frustrated today. Everything is a mess. I have a sneaking suspicion that this is a ploy by my parents to get me to move out of the house. My mother denies it, and makes the novel suggestion that if I don’t like the way the house is, then maybe I should help out more. I do help out. I still do most of the cooking. But I can’t cook if the kitchen is dirty, and I can’t wash my clothes if your clothes are in the washer and no, I’m not going to do your laundry because I would never ask you to do my laundry cuz it’s gross.

And then the puppy ruined not only my new favorite dress (which replaced my old favorite dress that she ruined last week), but ALL of my dresses because I left them hanging next to her crate. One by one she tore them off the hangers and pulled them into her lair, shredding them methodically, not along the seams because that would be too easy to mend, and then nesting in the pieces. This  was my fault obviously, but it’s not hard sometimes to see why people return dogs to the shelter. But it’s not really the dog I’m frustrated with, it’s myself.

Whenever I make up my mind to change something, to get started in a new direction, I’d rather skip to the end than wade through all the crap on the way. I’ve always been less of a goal-oriented person and more of an instant gratification type person. In my mind, I know how the world works, how grownups are supposed to act. But I’m impatient. I want results now. I want the house clean and the puppy trained.  I’ve decided to apply for grad school, so now I want to fast forward to being accepted – skip over the GRE,  and the application process.

Actually, I’m looking forward to some of that process. I like working on the stories, figuring out which samples would be appropriate for which program. I like researching the programs and figuring out which ones would be appropriate for me. I have an idea again of where I want to be and what I want to do, and I’m willing to do the work to get there. I just wish I was there already. 

Topic 165: On taking thought for the world

Carol:

Throw the Porcupine a Blanket

The film version of Ayn Rand’s 1957 Atlas Shrugged came through town a few weeks
ago. My husband went to see it on a dull day, and apparently the movie was dull, too. I
read the novel when I was in college, so I don’t remember much about its philosophy
other than the concepts of “rational self-interest”and individualism.

The title refers to the mythical Atlas, a powerful titan condemned by Zeus to carry
the heavenly sphere upon his shoulders. Over time, the celestial globe in the myth was
mistaken for the earth, which is why maps are named for Atlas. Rand uses Atlas to
symbolize the heavy “burden” placed on the shoulders of highly creative and productive
individuals by the weaker, parasitic majority. Her earlier work Anthem depicts a future
world in which individuality has been squelched and the pronoun “I” has disappeared
from the vocabulary. The main characters discover a “sacred” word: EGO.

I’m not interested in an “I” versus “we” debate in black and white, that people are
either self-centered egoists looking out for our own interests or service-valued altruists
who place higher value on others than ourselves. I prefer a “yes, but” or a “both/and”
approach.  One of the most frustrating conversations I ever had was with a college
friend who argued that human beings always act out of self-gratification at the most
primal level out of love, hate and fear, indulging in whatever makes them feel good.
What about someone who is self-destructive, I asked, like drug addicts? She replied
that they act out of instant reward to alleviate pain and didn’t know how to delay
gratification. What about people who sacrifice themselves for others, like soldiers
or religious martyrs? She said they act out of values that reward loyalty and self-
sacrifice, outweighing fear of war or death. Not one example I gave could move her
from the position that all people are innately selfish and will act out of ego even though
the action may appear selfless. She was smart, rational, eloquent, and for some reason
I felt sorry for her underneath my frustration.

Years later, I came across Lawrence Kohlberg, who examined moral behavior much
as Piaget looked at cognitive behavior . After analyzing responses of young boys
presented with moral dilemmas, Kohlberg proposed a model beginning with early
stages of action out of obedience to authority or self-interest and evolving to higher
levels of action out of a sense of universal justice greater than the “I.” Harvard
professor Carol Gilligan conducted her own studies, asserting that Kohlberg skewed
his system against values traditionally attributed to women that viewed relationships in
more complex ways than just rights and rules.

An example that sticks in my mind was a dilemma about a porcupine who asked some moles if he could share their cave in winter. He was so prickly that the moles asked him to leave, but he told them they could leave if they weren’t happy. How to resolve it?
A “justice” approach would say the porcupine should leave because the cave belonged
to the moles (some young boys proposing killing the porcupine). A “relationship
approach" would seek compromise rather than justice, wrap the porcupine in a blanket.

What about Atlas? Does his condition constitute a moral dilemma? He has been
sentenced to carry the weight of the world on his shoulders for eternity. Ayn Rand
suggests that with a shrug, he can relieve himself of that burden through “enlightened
self- interest.” Either Atlas continues to carry the load of the world, or he gives it up.
But, there is another option—hey, guys, give Atlas a little help. Maybe we could take
shifts, or a bunch of us hold the world up together.

That’s my thought for the world today.
 

Sources:
“Carol Gilligan.”  

Crain, W.C. “Kohlberg’s Stages of Moral Development.” Theories of Development. 118-136

Megan:

Thoughts on (the end of) the world

This topic could probably go a few ways: political, environmental, philosophical, apocalyptic… Hey did you hear the Rapture is coming up this weekend? According to the Internet (www.wecanknow.com), this Saturday, God will call His followers bodily into heaven, and then sometime in October the world is going to end completely.

 In high school, I saw a bumper sticker that said “WARNING: In case of Rapture this car will be unmanned.” The hubris of that driver made me furious. I wanted to ram her with my car. More recently,  I was checking a church website for directions so I could attend a wedding and noticed a note at the bottom of the page.  It said that visitors should not be alarmed if they find that the church empty because that just means that God has returned for his people. Maybe it was because I was older, but that didn’t bother me the same way the bumper sticker had. I respected the couple who were getting married enough to pause for a moment and wonder if they knew something I didn’t.

A few years ago, I spent an entire summer reading the Left Behind books by Tim LaHaye and Jerry Jenkins– a 16 book religious fiction series about the End of Days. It was a compelling if not particularly well-written story following the post-Rapture events and conversion of a group of people who had been Left Behind. I checked in with the website to confirm the spelling of the authors’ names, and there is a notice advising readers that May 21st is not the correct date of the Rapture, citing the book of Matthew that no one will know the actual time.

I know people who believe that the world will end in 2012. I also know people who think it will just mark a change or leap in our evolution – that there will be some sort of paradigm shift. That’s pretty vague, but I can wrap my head around it. Sometimes I have day dreams about how the world will end or change, about technology failing or rebelling, about having to live off the land. Or maybe it will be contact with aliens, or a supernova. Or zombies. There are just too many possibilities to be scared all the time.

I have a friend who worries about the apocalypse. She worries about her daughter, and hopes it doesn’t happen until the baby is old enough to run and hide and keep quiet. My friend’s fear is too genuine to laugh at – no one wants children to be hurt.  I went and saw An Inconvenient Truth with my cousin, when her son was only a few months old. I told her that movie made me not want to have children and I could tell it had shaken her as well. 

Every time I don’t get a job, I console myself that this just means I’ll have more time to spend with my family before the world ends. My passport expires next summer, and maybe that’s another reason I moved back from England. If it hits the fan, I didn’t want to be 6,000 miles away.  Now I worry about Bella. I wonder if she will survive a natural or manmade disaster, if she will be my loyal companion or a desperate last meal.

Topic 164: On Outgrowing One's Family

Carol:

The Lure of the Golden West

The 1930 census lists two transplants in Maywood, California, a tiny Los Angeles suburb  that had grown from a population of 1000 in 1924 to 6000 by 1930.  Winifred Fike from New Jersey lived at 4637 58th Street.  Texas-born Ed Scott lived a few blocks away at 5645 59th Street. What brought them to California?  Why did their parents uproot themselves from large, close-knit families?
 

In 1880, the population of Los Angeles was just above 33,000. Easterners had already been reading about California in Overland Monthly and Out West magazine   By 1876 the Transcontinental Railroad was completed and by 1887 the trickle of immigrants became a flood when 120,000 people came to Los Angeles in a single year, “drawn by the promise of pure air, warm sunshine and prosperity” (source: The West). By the time the Fike and Scott families arrived, the population of LA County had climbed to almost one million, and it would increase by another 135% to over 2 million by that 1930 federal census (source: Los Angeles).
 

Thousands of families headed West, pulled by a desire for a fresh start, the universal story of immigrants  seeking  a Promised Land of opportunity. To overcome the inertia  of habits and family connections, there must have been two forces at work, both a push and a pull.   The  private circumstances that pushed them out of the family nest are not told in the statistics of a federal census or a city’s population tables. But looking back to 1920 Fike and Scott census reports gives  a hint as to what catalysts set them on their journeys to California.   

There is no 1920 census report for Winnie Fike’s family. But  January 1920 death records show that her maternal  grandmother died after living with the family in Plainfield, New Jersey for almost 5 years. Did Grandma’ death release the family to pursue a secret dream? What conversations took place that led three neighborhood families to pack up their Model T’s and caravan to California that spring of 1920, a six-week trip that left them out of both the New Jersey and the California census reports?

Winne with Grandma, New Jersey

 Ed Scott’s 1920 census report shows him, his younger brother, Texan mother and step-father in New Mexico, the childhood home of Ed’s father, who had died in 1915.  What dream was Ed’s step-father following that took them to California? Or were they just trying to distance themselves from the ghost of a dead husband and the influence of his extended family? 

Ed with Grandpa, New Mexico

 

Did my father Ed miss his grandparents in New Mexico, did my mother Winnie feel homesick for her cousins in New Jersey and Pennsylvania? What about their relatives that stayed behind, who watched  loved ones ride off to pursue the lure of the West? Did they envy their intrepid son or daughter? Perhaps, they felt resentment that their brother or sister had let  wanderlust outgrow the families left behind?
 

Home is so Sad   (Philip Larkin)

Home is so sad. It stays as it was left,
Shaped to the comfort of the last to go
As if to win them back. Instead, bereft
Of anyone to please, it withers so,
Having no heart to put aside the theft

And turn again to what it started as,
A joyous shot at how things ought to be,
Long fallen wide. You can see how it was:
Look at the pictures and the cutlery.
The music in the piano stool. That vase.

Sources:
“Los Angeles.”  Wikipedia.
Larkin, Philip. “Home is So Sad.” Poets.org 

Burns, Ken. The West. PBS.org 
 

Megan:

My brother and I were the only kids in our neighborhood when we were growing up. We lived too far from town to spend much time with other children (aside from at school and at the sitter’s house), so we explored every inch of our wild back yard. We used to dig through the bushes, playing and screaming and running and fighting. Our 1.5 acres has never been tamed, despite occasional attempts. A collapsing fence still outlines the area where we kept the goat that came with the house. A sandbox stands empty in cactus and catclaw. There is half a tetherball pole, cemented into the dirt – the consolation prize after the guy who replaced our deck failed to complete the promised basketball court, itself a consolation for the pool I’d always begged for. My mother is the only person on her side of the family not to have a pool or a hot tub, and I think she should be ashamed.

But now, 20 years later, our neighborhood has changed. The number of houses has tripled at least. The elderly neighbors have been replaced with loud and active families, with trampolines and forts and 4-wheelers. Our middle-aged neighbors are now elderly. 

For as long as I can remember, I wanted to escape from here – from what I considered a dry and dull backward place. I loved my family, but I was eager to move far away from them, start out a new life, like my parents had when they were in college.  Until my grandparents moved to Prescott in the late 80’s, we had always lived hundreds of miles from anyone else in the family.  When I was in high school, a cousin moved to the area to go to college. Then came an aunt and uncle,  and then another cousin. The cousins married (not each other), had kids, and I moved back to Arizona last summer to find myself surrounded by family – with some still  far enough away to take vacations to visit.

I was so afraid that I would hate being back here that I didn’t even notice when I started to love it. If my MFA plan works out (or I find a job), I’ll likely be moving hundreds of miles away again, but this time I won’t be telling myself it’s forever.  There’s a lot of value in living close to family.  You learn a lot about yourself observing how people with the same blood can turn out so many different ways, have different values, take advantage of different opportunities. 

I’m still waiting to see how I turn out.

Topic 163: Mental Detours

Carol:

Smile! You're on candid camera.

 Prescott Valley has photo-enforced speed zones, and of the 5 of us who walk in the morning, 3 have gotten tickets at the same intersection.  My first reaction was to consider never driving the car again, neighbor Jim decided never to drive in PV again, but eventually we got around to  discussing the more practical merits of (a) ignoring the ticket, (b) fighting the ticket in court, or (c) going to traffic school.
 

I don’t know what the penalty is for not paying a ticket, but clearly people do ignore tickets without being thrown into jail. A member of my family, who shall remain anonymous, accumulated a bunch of parking violations when he was in law school because he would forget to move the car when the meter was up. The car was registered to my father, who got really mad at me who got really mad at the member of my family who shall remain anonymous.. If I actually  chose to ignore the ticket, I would punish myself by spending sleepless nights worrying about when and how I would eventually be punished. Apparently, some people are opting to ignore the tickets because a September 8, 2009 article in The Arizona Republic cited data from the Arizona Department of Public Safety that in the six months since the photo enforcement system was installed percentage of drivers who paid their tickets had dropped from 34% to 24% (source: Hensley).
 

Fighting the ticket in court is worth more thought.  One argument is whether the photo proves who is driving the car. The Arizona Republic illustrates with a Phoenix man who was caught on photo radar numerous times, but it’s hard to identify him because of the monkey mask. In my case, that photo is one of the nicest pictures of me that has ever been taken, and I look so happy as I am chatting with the other people in the car. Another argument is that citations have to be be personally served. Apparently, the   State Appeals Court ruled in 1992 that mailing speeding tickets violated Arizona statues, but I guess if you sign the ticket and send it back, you are waiving that right. Even though I could probably get an attorney to represent me for nothing (he still owes me for the embarrassment of those parking tickets 39 years ago), I did exceed the speed limit and deserve my punishment.
 

My best option was to go to traffic school. I felt great relief when I heard about the online option.   I signed up for the course and felt pretty confident that I could complete it in plenty of time to meet the June deadline. My neighbor decided to just complete the class with an instructor, and he did the whole thing last Saturday in four hours. Meanwhile, I have been puttzing around and have only finished the first of six sections online. Every morning I would get up and think, “Today, I am going to finish that traffic school,” but I got sidetracked instead.  I probably should have just gone ahead and taken the course in a regular classroom. Too late now.
 

Soooo, I am going to set aside four hours and focus on the driving class—no mental detours. Can’t do it today, though, maybe tomorrow?
 

On the other hand, there is that other option….

Source:
Arizona State Appeals Court Photo Radar Decision. The Newspaper.com.  

Hensley, J. “Fewer Paying Speed-Camera Tickets in Arizona.” Arizona Republic  Sept 8,
     2009.

Megan:

I’m glad this topic came up because I’ve been wanting to share something. This website is not a journal so I had to wait for a semi-relevant topic that I could loosely tie to what I wanted to say.

I decided to become a librarian after I graduated from Mills for two reasons. I wanted to go back to England and I wanted a job that could support writing. I never imagined how interesting and fun working in libraries would be.  However, working in the prison, although it provided plenty to journal about, was so mentally exhausting that I never got further than the first draft of anything I wrote.

I’ve been job searching for over a year now, trying to find jobs in academic libraries with the idea that I might eventually enroll in an MFA program. I became distracted by the local opportunities, but so far have been turned down for everything I’ve applied to.  I was talking to a good friend of mine about his plans to apply for a graduate fellowship so he can get his PhD. There are some programs, he explained to me, that actually pay you to go to school.  Turns out this is true for MFA programs as well.

On Monday, I purchased a prep book and registered to take the GRE in August. Not having to take that test was a perk of attending library school in England and it is not required for all programs. However, a lot of the funding sources require it so I’m just going to take it. I haven’t taken a math class since my junior year of high school, but occasionally I do complicated multiplication and division problems in my journal to exercise my brain, so I’m sure I’ll be fine. Also, I’m going to take a class.

Application deadlines for fall 2012 are this winter, so I will take creative writing classes at the community college this fall to prepare some writing samples for submission. Some of these programs are extremely exclusive, only accepting 4 new students a year but I’m not going to let that intimidate me. The fellowships and assistantships require students to teach an average of one class a semester, in return the tuition is waived and the student receives a stipend, in some cases, enough to live on.  Some of these programs also have semester abroad opportunities, a summer in Prague or London just for writing.

That’s pretty much my dream life. I have a realistic understanding of the publishing world, but getting the MFA would give me a structured environment, and professional feedback, and teaching experience that would help me get academic positions in the future. I still want to be a librarian. I am still going to the annual ALA conference this June, and will still apply for jobs as they come up. But applying for MFA programs seems like a good next step, since that’s always been part of my plan. 

Topic 162: Epitaph Humor

Carol:

Grave Matters

 Generally, I don’t talk about the Daily Theme topics with my husband before I get my ideas, but this morning I did. That’s because when we were in college, we wrote humorous obituaries one evening when we were traveling. Since we were traveling light and didn’t have any paper, we wrote in the blank pages of used paperback books. Our obits were fairly similar:  grand, overblown descriptions of lives as a literary Nobel Prize winner and accomplished Supreme Court Justice. Each of us wrote of outliving our spouse after a Methuselah-like life of 150 years. I would guess that people write humorous obituaries and epitaphs either about themselves when they are young or about someone else when they are old.
 

 Marc didn’t remember writing that silly obituary 30 years ago, but he did remember a quote. He said, “Well. You know W.C. Field’s epitaph, don’t you? Frankly, I’d rather be in Philadelphia.”  Turns out that Fields’ actual epitaph  is simply “1880-1946 W.C. Fields.” The origin of the quote is actually a 1925 article for Vanity Fair magazine, in which famous literary and theater people were invited to write their own epitaphs. And, what he actually said was “Here lies W.C. Fields—I would rather be living in Philadelphia.”   The comment is only humorous if you understand its context, i.e. the humor of W.C. Fields and his recurring sarcastic comments about his hometown Philadelphia. I think they call this “wry humor.” 

 

Another contributor to that Vanity Fair article was the poet Dorothy Parker, who wrote simply “Excuse my dust” (Source: Bauman).  Her words are witty rather than wry and need no context. We don’t guffaw at wit; we smile and appreciate. What of Dorothy Parker’s last remains? She left her estate to Martin Luther King, and she was cremated. Her “dust” was later scattered in a memorial garden at the headquarters of the NAACP in Baltimore (source: Findagrave)
 

Click to enlarge

I have been reading a lot of epitaphs lately as I continue my family history research. I haven’t come across any that stray from either the solemn or the sentimental, but apparently graveyard humor wasn’t that uncommon before the 20th century, often using short rhymes or puns on the deceased’s name or occupation, as in the example of the lawyer whose grave marker read “The Defense Rests.”  Boot Hill in Tombstone, Arizona south of Tucson has its share of both famous people and grave humor. My favorite is the wooden marker for Lester Moore, Les to his friends and apparently the anonymous undertaker or casket maker who came up with the epitaph.
 

What is the difference between an obituary and an epitaph? As tributes or markers of people’s passing, they are the long and short of it. Since this essay is about epitaphs, not obituaries, I will keep it brief. And, I will end with the words from the gravestone of another famous comic. In this case, a picture is worth a thousand voices:

Sources:
Bauman, Richard. “Grave Commentary.” Military Officer.     
Dorothy Parker obituary on Findagrave. 

Image of Tombstone Grave> Mhlradio. Matthew High. Taken Dec. 31, 2008 using a     Kodak EasyShare C613 Zoom.    
Image of Mel Blanc tombstone. Robert A Estremo. 22 Sep 2006.
          

Megan:

I have no source for this but my memory, but as I recollect after Dr. Robert Atkins died from a brain injury, his lawyer released the following statement about the accident:

“Dr. Atkins was negotiating with the ice, and failed in that negotiation.”

If you Google this topic, or lookup “funny headstones” you will find a plethora of examples odd final statements. “I told you I was sick” is one.

Last night I attended a short talk on the National Writing Project given by a friend of the family. As part of her presentation, she had us do a couple of exercises, including a "bio poem." We were discussing its applications beyond creative writing, and someone mentioned that they could be used in a history class to describe the famous dead people. So, now I’m thinking they could be used to great effect with creating epitaphs.

Here is what mine would look like:

Megan
Creative, Sensitive, Insecure (at times)
Daughter of Marc and Carol
Lover of books, dogs and travelling
Who felt confident when writing
Who felt conflicted about religion
Who doubted every official version
Who feared failure, depression and dead animals
Who would have liked to see her name in print
Who would have liked to see her children’s children
Who would have liked to know how it all worked out in the end.
Resident of this little plot of earth
Hammond

Of course, that’s not very humorous. 

How about this instead:

Topic 161: On answering advertisements

Carol:

Let Your Fingers Do the Walking 

I found my first apartment through an ad in the Riverside Press-Enterprise in 1970. My roommate from the dorms and I decided to find a place  off campus. We both left town for the summer, leaving the apartment search for our return. I skimmed the classified ads for a few days, wrote down the phone numbers of a few rentals, and spent an afternoon driving around once I had made appointments with landlords.  

 

Happy Home 1970

The place I chose was not fancy or new, but the price was right--seventy-five dollars for a furnished two-bedroom apartment downtown,  utilities included.  The apartment was the top story of an old, wood-framed house among many old homes that had been evolved from stately, one-family Victorian homes into semi-shabby multi-unit housing for university students. And, it had a certain eccentric charm. Most of my friends lived in places like it, but nobody had a bathroom you entered through the front hall closet or a bathtub in an alcove off the kitchen (no curtain).  The furniture matched the age and state of the house, shabby without the chic.  The house was a block from the railroad tracks, but we got used to the noise and the rattling windows of both the trains and the Simi Valley earthquake.
 

Happy Home 1987

Before the move to Prescott in 1983, Marc and I found  a real estate agent  instead of looking at the housing ads. The agent was efficient, made all the telephone contacts before we arrived in town, and arranged  appointments for a “look-see” weekend. Housing was so much cheaper than California that It only took one visit for us to find a house we liked. The realtor wrote up the offer, sending us off to dinner while we waited for the reply. A block down the road, we saw a “For Sale by Owner Sign” in front, not a house we liked, but a house we loved…and have lived in for 28 years
 

Happy Home 2010

 When Megan  got her job in England, the moving process was complicated. She was concerned about buying a car, setting up a bank account, and finding a place to live , so I decided to help her find living quarters by doing an on-line search. The process wasn’t really any more complicated than my perusal of the classified ads in 1970, or our appointment with the realtor in 1983, just different. Thanks to the Internet, I could plug in locations, type of housing, price range, and pictures and lists would pop up. up.  It was fun to see what kinds of places people in East Anglia were living in and paying for…until I started converting the rental costs from pounds to dollars and  their locations in relation to her job from kilometers to miles. Suddenly, the list of options shrank. But, there it was, a charming little flat with a courtyard, flowers and vine-covered walls. Could she answer that ad with the click of a computer key and arrange a look-see from 5456 miles away (8781 kilometers)? Although Megan will tell you quaint isn’t all that it’s cracked up to be, especially in the winter without central heating, that little High Street flat in March, advertised on the Internet, was her home for four years.
 

I skim the classified ads in our newspaper everyday. Sometimes I look at houses that would downsize us from our 3-level house and acreage of weeds and critters. Who knows what I might find when I let my fingers do the walking.

 Megan:

As an unemployed person, I obviously spend a lot of time perusing job advertisements. But that’s not very interesting. So, when I need a break, I read the personal ads on Craigslist. I have never responded to an ad on Craigslist, but as far as dating sites go, my understanding is that it is not the greatest place to meet people. Other sites like match.com, eharmony and my favorite Alikewise, (which lets you select people based on reading interest) seem like serious sites for people looking for more than a hookup.

Anyway, Craigslist hasn’t completely caught on in Prescott. There are a few “men for women” ads posted each day, but nothing like the Portland or Bay Area sites.  Even with the poor selection, I still find plenty to amuse me.

Here’s one from today, perfectly in my age range:

seeing whats out there - 29
Well I would like to say what on looking for but I hate going into anything with set expectations lol. The title says it all, I'm looking to see what's out there and to hopefully meet a cool girl, please include a pic with a reply, I don't open anything without a pic. I will send a few back, oh please put cool girl in the subject line.

This poster is hoping to cast the widest net  but offers nothing for the reader to respond to, nothing to suggest that writing back wouldn’t just be a huge waste of time. 


This guy is probably too old for me, but I have to admit that the headline caught my interest. I wasn’t disappointed.

{Need a girl that can work it} - 41
Hi There. I,am looking for a girl that can take it all they are hard to find. I.am 5"11 and 205lb & lightskin. I have been here for 3yrs. I.am nice looking & body. I like to have a beer or two and fun to be with but i like to stay at home and cill to.I dj back in the days so i know how she shoud work it!!! so email me to get my # and we can talk for the frist time. Will see wear it gos we can go slow from there!! Be over 21 have a drink or 2 some wine. Look me up I.am at home. And if u need it now iam game.We can go swiming indoors or hit the spa its all up 2 u FEEL ME!!!!! Got to go. BE DF!!

I’m not ruling out internet dating. I know people who have had success with it. The thing is, sometimes I try to come up with personal ads for myself. What am I supposed to say? “I’m almost 30 and I live at home with my parents. I also don’t have a job.” I’m not in the mood for dating, not until I figure the other stuff out. So for now, the only ads I’ll be responding to will be for jobs.  And when I need a break, I’ll be reading the book I just got on preparing for the GRE.

Topic 160: Social Misfits

Carol:

A Story in Two Parts

 I married someone who sounds like a social misfit when you hear half the story. Marc repeated the 10th grade twice for truancy, usually heading for the library once he had snuck out of class. The second time he had already skipped 45 days before the administrative wheels began turning and he was withdrawn from school. Not that he would have passed his classes anyway. How did he get away with it? Mostly, he forged his mother’s signature on report cards, wrote forged notes to excuse his absences, and had a talent for lying in tough situations. He ran around with a tough crowd, but he admits to having been a bit of a coward when it came to fighting. He just didn’t like the idea of getting beat up.  Finally, on the third try at 10th grade, he talked his mother into completing the paperwork and he joined the Navy at the age of 17.
 

His best friend Larry was also a social misfit, but with a violent streak that set him apart from Marc. Larry was a drinker and a hard-core fighter. You didn’t mess with him, and you didn’t mess with his friends.  He was a bona fide juvenile delinquent whose record of trouble-making caught the attention of some documentary film-makers investigating juvenile delinquency in Massachusetts.  Marc and his navy buddies were watching TV together the night the documentary was shown on national television, Larry the central focus of the program who announced to the interviewers that nothing was “cooler” than fighting. 
 

That’s the first half of the story. Here’s the second half.
 

The truant who ditched school to go to the library went to college on the GI bill after his stint in the Navy, ended up graduating with highest honors from a California university and became a lawyer. Among the ex-military in his law school class, there were lots of former officers but he was the only enlisted man, and surely the only one kicked out of high school twice.  He is not a famous man like some of his classmates at law school, but he is respected in his community, loved by his family, and known for being fair, ethical and kind.  He is a good defense attorney, and I think he has a special compassion for some of his clients who remind him of Larry.
 

The teen-age misfit who lived to fight became an adult delinquent, an alcoholic who never lost his taste for brawling. He was a teen-ager when his daughter was born, but he missed her birth  because  he was watching the  Superbowl. He worked in a lumberyard for years, drinking his lunch at a local bar and marching with the Vets in the 4th of July Parade even though he had never served in the military. He died in his 40’s, his health likely ruined by the hard life of a social misfit.
 

The last time the truant saw the fighter was on our motorhome trip around the country in 1985. We went out for hamburgers, and Larry sat in the back of the car with our children while Marc drove. I looked in the rearview mirror from time to time, just to make sure the kids were okay with him.  Before we said our final good-byes, Larry took Megan on his knee and began to sing. “Skidda-ma-rinky-dinky-dink, skidda-ma-rinky-do. I love you.” He smiled, she laughed.
 

You see, there are always two sides to every story.

Megan:

Social Misfits

My first boyfriend was a homeless runaway from Georgia. He came to Prescott because he met a girl (not me) on the Internet.  This was in 1997, so that’s pretty impressive. I didn’t even get my own email address until 1998, but he was clearly an early adopter. The girl was not happy see him when he turned up unexpectedly, so their romance was short lived.  I was never really sure what his circumstances had been at home. He just said he didn’t get along with his father.

I was introduced to him by my best-friend at the time. My friend had just been expelled from our high school after refusing to attend the in-school suspension he’d been assigned for some trouble that I cannot remember. He then spent most of his time pacing across the street from the high school waiting for his girlfriend and I to have free periods and lunch. He met the homeless guy, who also spent a lot of time across the street, and he introduced us.

The first time I saw the homeless guy he was wearing a bicycle helmet and  a skirt – a long hippie type skirt – over his jeans and . He had green hair and was sunburned. In the two weeks we “went out,” I spent most of my time driving him and my expelled friend around town, buying them food. We went to the movies once and he held my hand. When I introduced him to my parents, he spruced up a bit – shoplifting new clothes from the Kmart just for the occasion. After our dates, I drove him back to his tent in the woods behind Thumb Butte.

My parents were concerned about this relationship, but didn’t forbid me from seeing him. There were a lot of reasons to be concerned about me at that point in my life: I stopped going to church. I tried to drop out of school. I wasn’t a very happy person, but hanging out with these guys was sort of exhilarating. We never drank or did drugs, so I’m not sure what excuse we had for jumping my car Dukes of Hazzard style out in the desert. They were both in the car when I had my accident. The boyfriend (although by that point, the ex) in the backseat hit his face on my headrest and there was blood everywhere.

We broke up after I confessed to having feelings for our friend. They had  both been hired by my parents to paint the house, and I picked that time to end it.   In retrospect was pretty dumb, because then my parents got to witness the aftermath. The homeless boy took off his shoes, and walked barefoot over the hill towards the mountain. He was gone for hours. When he returned, his feet were bleeding and he had a row of safety pins stuck through the skin in his arms. In the prison, I got used to seeing self-mutilators, but this was my first experience and it terrified me.

But we continued to hang out, the three of us, until just after my car accident. I went to France that summer with my parents, and the boys were arrested while I was gone. My best friend moved to Florida to hide from the charges, and the homeless boy was eventually shipped back to Georgia because he was a minor.  I found him on Facebook recently. From the pictures, he looks like the Unabomber, but he has a girlfriend and works for a computer company so maybe he’s ok. I’m not going to friend him. No reason to remind him of a sad, difficult time in his life.