Lebensdust

Setting sunlight through the front door of Clarence's boyhood home. The angle, brightness, color, and association with long summer days are indelible.

When I look around my house in the evening, I wonder how many people sat where I am sitting, watched the sun seep slowly across the floor like spilled paint, coat table legs and baseboards and motes of lebensdust suspended between creeping shadows.

Maybe they told themselves how pretty the lawn looked after mowing it the day before, or wondered why the Finkbeiners always have their curtains drawn, or it looks like rain or snow or going to be clear and dry again.

Every house I've lived in was a home to someone before me. My boyhood home dates back to WWII and was owned by a pastor when Mom and Dad bought it. His library was upstairs and became a bedroom for me and brother Tom.

Maybe they prayed for an end to the war, maybe they buried a son, or waved flags on V-E Day, and again on V-J Day, wondered Where's Korea? We just ended one for God's sake and hadn't the energy to understand Vietnam.

I've reflected like this since I was a child. Perhaps everyone does and I just happen to write about it.

c0

Clarence ends each prayer with these words:

Lord, help thou my unbelief, and be merciful to me, a sinner.

Not very original, but sincere.  

Does that count?

[2014-05-19]

c0

Please Stand By (while your TV set warms up).

TV test pattern with the words 'please stand by'

I'd like to see a cable channel devoted to complete broadcast days, from which I could order up a date and network of my choice, 24 hours of it, and just let it play.

How cool would that be? A museum on the wall.

I'd like the same for radio, too. There's only one I'm aware of:

d(-_-)b Complete Radio Broadcast Day (September 21, 1939) >

Of course, a whole TV broadcast day from my childhood would contain six hours or so of test pattern, which followed the National Anthem and looked and sounded like this:

Alas, that sound has gone the way of twisted pair modems, phonograph needles touching down on vinyl, and the hum of vacuum tubes.

c0

A vintage TV with messed-up horizontal hold,
from Yesteryear Remembered >

Did you know you used to have to wait for a radio or TV to "warm up"?

True.

If you peeked through the cardboard grill on the back of a TV when turning it on, you would first see the vacuum tubes begin to glow, until, as they reached a steady bright orange, the picture tube gradually brightened into an image, catching up with the sound which was already playing.

Some sets occasionally struggled through snow or a rolling horizontal hold, which made it almost impossible to watch. Adjusting the antenna sometimes took care of the snow. And there was usually a knob on the back of the set to correct the scrolling picture (though the problem returned even if you never touched that knob again).

And after all the fuss, if you lived in a moderately large city, you had four channels to choose from.

[2014-05-17]

c0

Aberrations

The 1918 flu pandemic is probably the biggest modern natural disaster you never heard of; 50-100 million died (3-5% of the world's population). These are American soldiers hospitalized at Camp Funston. Learn more about the 1918 flu pandemic here >

Yesterday I took a CNN commentator to task[1] for using "aberration" to describe racism.

Now, entirely apart from the fact that racism is reprehensible, it is, unfortunately, no more aberrant than the flu (and just as unavoidable).

It's an artifact from our evolutionary past. We're wired to see other communities as potential threats.

Our species has also grown up enough to understand why and treat it, just as we treat disease with medicine or ignorance with education.

c0

Flu prevention poster circa 1918

I might add that you can't use the term "aberration" without a fairly well-formed idea of "normal."

Unfortunately, we allow others to characterize issues in terms that require reference points without ever insisting they define them.

Disagree?

If you can find one human society ever in the history of the world that did not express racism, by all means, enlighten us.

Now…

I am not saying a hurtful behavior is acceptable because it's wired into us.

Quite the opposite.

I'm saying there are indeed standards we appeal to that conform us to better behavior and invite terms like "kindness," "mercy," "justice," etc.

(There's those pesky reference points again.)

[2014-05-19]

c0

[1]

Inhibition deteriorates with age ("chromatic dementia"?) >

c0

Inhibition deteriorates with age ("chromatic dementia"?)

I recently heard a commentator on CNN (regarding Donald Sterling) saying repeatedly that racism was an "aberration," as though he'd just learned this word and if he said it enough times, we could learn how to use it, too.

Now, we all know a racist old man, white or black or some shade in-between.

If you don't, you're just not looking very hard, and may be unaware of the medical reality that the parts of the brain that control inhibition begin to deteriorate with age and we say things we wouldn't have dared say when we were younger.

You'll do it too, in some way on some subject that someone someday thinks so egregious they may not give you a pass for being a doddering old fool.

It's easy to be unapologetically judgmental of old people.

[2014-05-13]

c0

If racism among the aged were instead called something like "chromatic dementia," would we discuss it any differently?

There are more euphemisms for mental illness than sexual behaviors.

There's a good reason for that: Mental illness is more taboo than sex.

[2014-05-19]

c0

When modest efforts are rebuffed (and pretty much guarantees no efforts at all).

And Jesus Wept statue near the Alfred P Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, in which 168 people were killed on April 19, 1995, including 19 children. I liked the picture and subtext, so chose it for this post.

When I was much younger and attending church for the first time as a young man with a car and a job and a bible and an interest in contributing, I was making my spiritual home in a Baptist church here in Grand Rapids, MI.

One of the weekly adult Sunday school obligations was bringing in treats. There was a sign-up sheet with suggestions and I kept my promise to bring something once a month or so.

There were other opportunities, too, like Sunday school secretary, prayer chain leader, and teaching the weekly lesson.

One Sunday, on which I was feeling very involved and glad to be there, the Sunday school teacher prayed for the snacks, made a few announcements, then sternly took us to task for not getting involved. He dropped his leather bible on the podium with a heavy slap-thud and walked back to the snack table.

c0

I'm the type that wants to give and does his best to give what and when he can. I also don't respond well to guilt trips when what I can do isn't enough. And so I end up doing less, or nothing, or leaving, which is what I did then.

I wasn't miffed, and that wasn't the only thing that dampened my enthusiasm at that church, but it tipped the scale.

I realize now, however, as an ageing Christian that still has a lot of Baptist in him, that there wasn't anything outside the preaching and fellowship to keep me there.

If baptism is only a symbol, and communion a commemoration appended to the service once a month (rather than a dose of grace at every service), and repentance remains private, then what's left are only the sorts of affinities that create lodges or fraternities or book clubs, in themselves good things to be sure, but easily exchanged.

That's my opinion only, of course, and his nothing to do with how much any of us love Jesus.

[2014-05-08]

c0

Please know that I have a number of friends and family who disagree with me, some probably quite strongly. My comments are not veiled responses, just Clarence sharing his thoughts. Sometimes they coincide with other conversations I'm having, which is not a coincidence, but is entirely benign.

I respect and love those who may disagree with me.

[2014-05-19]

c0

Owie

Clarence's dry hands become cracked and infected in winter.

No one will care today (we all contend with daily injuries), but 100 years from now, who knows what Clarence's great-great grandchildren might be interested in.

(How cool would it be to see a picture and read a journal entry from my Great Grandpa Damon… Gol dernit I mashed my thumb milkin’ Clarabelle this mornin’.)

I took this picture outside Asian Delight market while Jing grocery shopped and I was tired of reading news on my phone.

My skin gets so dry in winter, despite daily moisturizing it will crack and get infected. It's very painful. Corn Husker's Lotion helps, but doesn't prevent it entirely.

[2014-01-12]

c0

A short follow-up to "some standing here right now will not die " (I've read the entire Satanic Bible)

Anton LaVey, founder of the Satanic Church (Wikimedia  Commons)

When I was in 7th grade at Bethel Christian School (then at 737 E 26th St in Erie, PA), Mrs Andrus (Pastor Kenneth L Andrus's wife and our bible teacher) was giving a lesson on Jesus' words about the Kingdom, where he says:

"... some standing here right now will not die before they see the Son of Man coming in his Kingdom." (Matthew 16:28, New Living Translation)

Mrs Andrus explained this quite clearly, but my 12-year-old mind simply didn't understand it at all. I recall it made perfect sense, had all the right pieces and accounted for the text and other related passages. Yet I felt like I was missing something I should be able understand but for some reason could not quite grasp.

Perhaps there is a GARB-er out there who knows the company line on this matter.

(My earlier comments are here, "A simple mind’s approach to a hard issue">)

[2014-05-15]

c0

I've read the entire Satanic Bible (by Anton LaVey >).

I was disappointed. It was all about hedonistic abandon and feel-good indulgence.

I already knew how to do that. I was a teenager.

I guess I was expecting some sort of "St Joseph Manual for Satanists," with naked virgins and sacrificial rites and such.

Oh well.

[2014-05-16]

c0

10 things we believed as children ***WARNING***

*** WARNING: this post contains explicit and scatological material ***

Kirlian photograph of a Coleus leaf (Wikimedia Commons)

These are things we snickered and grimaced at when we were 10-12 years old, which would have been Vernondale Elementary School in Erie, PA, and Bethel Christian School, also in Erie, back when it was at 737 East 26th Street. I can remember distinctly who said these and where we were standing, which means nothing to you but shows how indelible memories are.

(John Tushak and Steve Schloss at Vernondale Elementary were very skilled at relating the latest grossness in 6th grade. They were both very athletic and I really admired them. By the time we got to McDowell High School, they were wearing lettered varsity jackets and were moving with a different crowd, and I admired them still.

Me and brother Tom and Peanut Smith and Choo Choo (on account of he wore a striped engineer's cap) enjoyed talking about parapsychological matters at Bethel Christian School since our brains were being wired to contain such things. I enjoyed those stories most of all; they filled all the nooks and crannies that form between theologies when you're a young maturing Baptist.)

And here we go...

1

Frank Zappa and Alice Cooper were performing together and had a gross-out contest. Zappa emptied his bowels on stage. Not to be outdone, Alice passed a glass around the audience and asked everyone to spit in it, then he drank it.

Figures carved in Val Camonica, Italy that suggest modern astronauts.

2

Scottish rocker Rod Stewart was taken to the hospital to have his stomach pumped after ingesting copious amounts of semen.

3

The two female leads of Heart were lesbian sister lovers.

4

Some priest at some church on some occasion spilled communion wine and when it hit the floor it was real blood.[1]

5

Disembodied white hands strangled a Baptist minister who was confronting demons in Africa.

6

Drums are satanic because they disrupt the natural rhythm of the heart and are used in African countries to conjure spirits.

7

Kiss and Van Halen were the same band.

8

Ancient astronauts built the pyramids and carved the Peruvian glyphs.

9

All living things, including plants, have a life aura, perhaps even a soul, as revealed through Kirlian photography.

P&G logo 1930-1990 (Wikimedia Commons)

10

Procter & Gamble was run by the Church of Satan, as is clearly obvious in their logo used 1930-1990.

c0

That's all I can think of right now. Probably enough stomach-churning nostalgia for one day.

c0

I read a lot of science literature at this time. I wanted to be an astronomer. These are some of the popular notions and images from the same period in which we listened raptly to stories of Bigfoot and the Loch Ness Monster:

• Neutrinos were still a theory and as yet undetected; subterranean vats were being constructed to begin the search.
• "Catastrophism" and meteoric extinctions were considered bad science (because they echoed biblical catastrophic explanations like the Noahic Flood).
• There was no such thing yet as dark matter, or dark energy.
• The universe was forever expanding and would someday cool to near 0° Kelvin.
• Nichelle Nichols (Uhura on Star Trek) was making public service announcements for the space shuttle program; the shuttle Enterprise was being tested atop a Boeing 747.
• Light pollution was a big deal for amateur astronomers. It still is, but other bigger deals have eclipsed it.

c0

[1]

Believe or or not, just a I was writing this, I happened to hear a minister on the radio discussing the Miracle of Lanciano >, which is likely the source of the story I heard as young teen. What are the odds?

c0

Clarence retires his really old office badge

Clarence's very old office badge

But I hang it at my new desk as a reminder.

BTW, the "13" year sticker is old, too :-) I stopped adding stickers when I thought longevity might be a liability. No badges today carry a year.

Clarence's office badge, now and then; yes, that's Kristoff from Frozen,
a gesture by my daughter that I couldn't bring myself to remove.

c0

This show got it right, and everything that followed was imitation.

Darren McGavin as Carl Kolchak

Kolchak: The Night Stalker lasted less than a season, but inspired a lot of imitators.

In those days, acting, story and music carried the show, not special effects, moody closeups and jerky camera work; "reality" was limited to the news; and shows began with something called a "theme," a brief musical arrangement that set the mood and introduced characters, guests, and subjects.

For example...

Opening Theme from Kolchak: The Night  Stalker

Yes,  that's the father from A Christmas Story, but I knew him first here, as an intrepid journalist who tracked down classic monsters in modern settings.

[2014-05-10]

c0

I think I'm in love….

… and they are really good.

[2014-05-07]

c0

Things Clarence thinks about often, especially today.

Why did ancient Jews stop sacrificing animals with the destruction of the temple at Jerusalem in 70 AD? Why not pitch a tent or build another temple?

I'm sure there's an answer, I just don't know what it is.

c0

And what did folks at that time think about John the Baptist's "baptism of repentance for forgiveness of sins"? (Mark 1:4). That was before the temple was destroyed and forgiveness came through contrition and animal sacrifice, not contrition and baptism.

c0

You can invent a narrative to fit your fancy on almost any subject.

That's where elves and fairies and children's smiles come from.

Nightmares, too.

[20145-05-14]

c0

Are you going to heaven?

Are you going to heaven?

	Catholic	Today, yes. I'm still working on tomorrow.
	Lutheran	Yep, but not because of anything I did or can do.
	Calvinist	I don't know and I can't change it one way or the other.
	Baptist	Yep, and I can't change it one way or the other.
	Unitarian	I thought we were here for an interpretive dance of Hard Choices by Hillary Clinton.

This table was pretty much an excuse to make a joke.

c0

How would you like to have been that guy in Corinth when the pastor read Paul's latest letter out loud and everyone realized he was talking about you getting drunk at communion.

Would have been a long camel ride home with the missus.

Oy vey, you can't be happy with a bisl, always schlepping back for seconds and thirds, and all the goyim looking at us, they're new in church, you know, they don't know matzoh from Ritz. Such a shlemiel, mother was right.

[2014-05-12]

c0