Mediocre Fred's Mediocre Blog (Ret.)

Year End Mail Call

Today's Musical Selection: "Auld Lang Syne" by Lou Rawls

Hello, everyone! Since it's the last day of the year, I'd like to inaugurate a new tradition here. Henceforth, I want to devote every New Year's Eve post to a discussion with you, The Reader. After all, the lifeblood of this blog is the conversation between my team and you readers. I can't thank you enough for reading and posting such thoughtful responses, and this is my way of acknowledging my debt to you.

Let's start with the responses to my random-things-thrown-together sprinting-out-the-door-to-start-Christmas post, which touched on a lot of this and that. First, loyal reader PG wants me to know that I'm not the only one who's getting old:

I was a little too buried in Jane Austen to be cool when I was in high school, but recent occurrences have made me realize that I must be old.

1) I get carded only half the time. Sometimes I don't get carded even when I'm with people who are older than I am and they're getting carded.
2) High school students also consider me decrepit.

Actually, these probably are indications that I look old, which is even more depressing.

This is the curious thing about me: I actualy look young for my age, by most accounts. I am always carded. People who meet me for the first time tend to subtract a few years from my age. Then after they listen to me talk, they add about a decade.

PG also wishes to clarify my remark that my baseball obsession has driven my girlfriends crazy:

Also, one could be considered driving-girlfriend-crazy sports fan only if one insisted on watching the playoffs while said girlfriend was sick.

And if one prepares homemade chicken soup and mashed potatoes for said girlfriends, attends to said Said daily and cuddles with said Said on those occasions when one does choose to watch the playoffs during the illness of said Said, one could reasonably be said to have discharged one's duties to said Said, no? (Also, if one had the audacity to complain about said Said getting ill during the playoffs, one could be considered crazy. But one would never do that.)

Fellow codger BallWonk wants the world to know that he's even more of a geezer than I am:

Ah, you whippersnapper. The government shutdown of '94? In high school? It was the big news of sophomore and junior year of university for this old geezer. Man, I was in high school when the Berlin Wall came down.

But like you, Fred, I've never not been old. As a kid, the moms of the girls I dated always liked me better than their daughters did. (No, not that way, I just got along better with adults than with my peers. Actually, now that I think about it, when I finally dated a girl who had no mother, we wound up getting married four years later. Maybe there's something to the mom thing.) I didn't get into popular music until high school, after 1989, and then it was late-1970s and early 1980s New Wave, later punk, first- and second-wave ska, and the like. If I'd had older siblings, with good taste, it would have been their music. I never got carded until after I turned 21, and I've always looked better in a suit.

Encountering people who don't remember the world as it was not so very long ago - I mean, there are young adults today who don't remember the Cold War - does make me feel old, sometimes. But the biggest change in the last few years is that I've actually stopped feeling like a sham adult. I've always had this vague feeling that I was just a kid playing at being grown up, and that eventually someone would see through the facade and have me out.

But then a few years ago, the year I lived in Wrigleyville, I volunteered to coach little league for a neighborhood association that didn't have enough dads willing to coach. I was 25 that year, and when I showed up to coach these first and second graders and they believed me when I pretended to know what I was doing, and looked up to me exactly like I looked up to coach Berg back in Wayne, PA, my first summer of little league, well, at that moment I didn't so much feel old as grown up.

I know what you mean, BallWonk. I'm 25 myself, and this is the first year that I've been able to wear a suit and topcoat and not feel like I was playing dress-up. (I've always liked suits and ties, and I'm reliably informed that I look dashing in them. But it always felt a little shammish before now.) I, too, have always tended to do better with adults than with my peer group, and now I finally feel that adults are my peer group.

I agree that having young children look up to you with authority and respect makes you feel like a certified Grown-Up. For me, that happened this year at the Orioles' Little League Day, when I volunteered to help with crowd control and organization. When I told the kids to do something, they did it. I told them to line up, and they did. I led them in a cheer, and they followed. At that moment, I felt like my citizenship application for adulthood had finally been accepted. No longer was I traveling on a visa.

In that same article, I mentioned that I wished Shirley Povich had lived to see baseball return to Washington, which drew this comment from loyal reader Vincent:

I indeed wish Shirley Povich were here to see this...as well as Sam Lacy, Morrie Siegel and Glenn Brenner.

You and me both, Vincent. You and me both.

My post-Christmas commentary also drew a couple remarks. First, from loyal reader Tripp:

Lotta good stuff but I'm busy.

Do you want to know the real "Reason for the season?" Axial tilt!

Oh, and 'holiday' means 'holyday' so put that in your pipe and smoke it!

The essence of Christmas with a large gathering of in-laws and their small children is this simple three word phrase:

"Look at me."

Repeat this over and over and over again with all the possible variations you can think of. Imagine looking here and here and here and here and here and here. Twenty three performers and only one audience member.

For recovery I spent all of yesterday specifically NOT looking at ANYONE.

For some reason, this comment read like a cross between Larry King and Hunter S. Thompson, at least to me. The point about "holyday" is a good one, and highlights the situation we face: Even with dedicated effort, we are never going to be able to erase all traces of religion from our culture. Nor do I think we should try. The trick is to be as respectful about it as possible, and that's where the trouble part comes in.

I'm very sympathetic to your "Look at me" plight. I spent Christmas in the company of my two young cousins, and I too heard about every possible permutation of that phrase several times. Between that and the constant calls for the services of my and my knife... well, let's just say I wasn't terribly broken up about coming home to my empty apartment with no one for company but the squirrels outside my window, whom I believe also say "Look at me!", but in squirrel language, which I can ignore.

My disgusted reaction to the mingling of Christian imagery and commercialism drew hearty agreement from loyal reader arrScott:

Amen on the creepy Christmas messages from businesses. I feel the same way about any commercial establishment (or political candidate) that display more than one U.S. flag at any time. Flying one flag can be a sign of sincere patriotism; flying more than one is never an expression of honest love of country. There is something so cynical as to skirt the borders of evil in a business attempting to sell stuff based on appeals to nationalism or religious sectarianism.

(And, specifically, for most Christians, doing so happens also to be a form of blasphemy and therefore sinful. You don't see Quakers or Mennonites putting up "Follow the SON for Light & Life - Shop at Bob's Hardware" signs. Are there Christian denominations that approve of bringing the money-changers back into the temple? There must be, since that's pretty much what the car dealer you mention was doing, and presumably he has a minister who doesn't mind the billboard. "Great sign, my brother. I've always thought Jesus went overboard that day in Jerusalem; if God didn't want business in the temple, he wouldn't have let the money-changers in there in the first place. Praise Jabez!")

Thanks so much for this excellent comment. I remember from my bookstore days a few years back the popularity of the "Book of Jabez." I was curious, so I skimmed it one day over lunch, and found it to be a sort of Tony-Robbins-meets-Jesus mess that didn't appear to have that much to do with actual religious faith. This particular brand of Christianity is popular, I believe, because it meshes so well with what people want anyway (money, power, and success), and asks very little in return. This particular strain of Christianity is the one that has become fused with the Republican Party, and the GOP has done an excellent job exploiting that by wrapping their platform in religion and "traditional values." Too many people of faith automatically assume that anything promoted as "religious" must be good, and therefore assume the Republican message is the right and holy one (despite the fact that God is not, to the best of my knowledge, a registered Republican).

What's worse is that the Democrats keep falling for it! Secular urban dwellers, who place their faith in capitalism and science, are so turned off by the Republicans embracing religion that they walk right into the trap. They allow the battle to be defined as religion vs. non-religion, and in this country religion wins every time. Are Democrats going to realize this before they finally drive off every person of faith by characterizing religion as ignorant superstition and nothing more? Too many urban Democrats are willing to equate religion with intolerance, narrow-mindedness and backward thinking. And in doing so, they drive a lot of sincere people of faith into the arms of the Republican Party. The ongoing debate on gay marriage is an example. The Republican message on this issue panders to bigotry and fear. And rather than try to lead people to tolerance, the Democrats walk straight into the punch by sneering at religion and implying that anyone who has any sort of problem with gay marriage is an intolerant hick. And then they seem puzzled when they lose elections.

But to get back to your point, arrScott... the fact that a lot of people see no problem in marrying religion and commerce demonstrates the state of religious teaching in our country. I, for one, am less than impressed.

ArrScott also offers his opinion on the art of turkey cooking:

As to the turkey, not even frying solves the basic problem: different parts of the bird need to be cooked to different temperatures. The only way to make a truly good turkey is to cut the thing up and cook the bits for different lengths of time. You can fry, bake, grill, boil, or even solar-oven the meat just so long as you don't try to cook the whole bird for the same length of time at the same temperature. Not even professional chefs can reliably cook a whole turkey properly, not with all the foil shielding in the world.

You're right about this. Personally, I always eat the dark meat and avoid the white, possibly because at my family gatherings, the turkey is always cooked to the point of doneness for dark meat and overdoneness for white meat. Should I ever find myself tasked with the duty of cooking a whole bird, I'll take a tip from you and cut it up.

Finally, just to prove that we're open to the dissenting opinion, I present a comment from a reader who calls himself "Wildweed," who lists Hank Williams III's Web site as his. While I doubt very much that this commenter is actually the grandson of the country legend and son of the "Are You Ready for Some Football?" guy, if this really is Hank III, let me say that I'm honored.

Anyhow, Wildweed takes exception to a throwaway bit in a post I wrote back in August (why do the rippers always show up late to the party?), which read as follows:

...a bumper sticker I saw aboard a Chevy pickup in my neighborhood yesterday. The bumper sticker read "FIGHTING TERRORISM SINCE 1861." Next to this slogan was a Confederate flag. That's a really, um, strong message. I was tempted to leave the fellow a note reminding him who won that "war on terror" in 1861, and that he might wish to rethink the message behind it. But I chose not to, because I'm certain the fellow was packing heat, and I was afraid he might be able to track me.

Wildweed felt this was "drivle" (sic) and posted the following response.

Maybe the reason you were afriad is because yer a pussy. You also know nothing of history. If the South had won the Civil War, slavery would have still ended but state's would have more rights than they do now, and we wouldn't have the IRS, FBI, DEA and BATF chompin on everybody's ass. And just in case you were not aware, Abe Lincoln was a racist and didn't free the slaves. Congress freed the slaves after the war. Lincoln didn't even want to free the slave. Read a freakin history book ya PC idiot!!!

(Ed. note: sic ad infinitum)

Ignoring for the time being the personal insults, there is actually a kernel of a point in here, which I'll do Wildweed the credit of pointing out. The Emancipation Proclamation did not free any slaves. It applied only to the states then in the Union, which did not include the slave states, obviously.

In response to your invitation to read a history book, I have. I've read several. I even took a course on the Civil War in college. And it's true that it's an oversimplification to say that the war was, strictly speaking, about slavery. (I'd also like to point out that I didn't say that.) It is also, however, a gross oversimplification to say that the war was about state's rights, and specifcally the South's desire to have them against the North's desire to deny them.

This idea that the Confederacy was a romantic champion of state's rights has come into vogue these days, particularly among Southern Republicans. (See also Trent Lott's contention that his weak-minded speech of admiration for Strom Thurmond's Dixiecrat days was an endorsement of state's rights.) Besides entrenching GOP support in the South, it also gives Southerners a non-racist excuse for flying the Stars and Bars.

But it simply isn't true. It is true that the South seceded as a perceived response to Northern denial of their culture and rights. But it's also true that Northerners were just as excited about perceived trampling of their own culture and rights by the Southern "slave aristocracy." Hence the rise of the Republican Party, which was formed to give Northerners an outlet to combat the rise of Southern power in Congress. (Oh, the irony!) The appropriate analogy for the battle between North and South is not a grass-roots uprising against a brutal dictatorship. Rather, it is two brothers squabbling in the back seat on a long car trip. Only with firearms. (You know that old adage that history is written by the victors? The Civil War seems to be the exception.)

What would have happened if the South had won the Civil War? Well, I think there would have been a struggle for control of the West between the Union, the Confederacy and Mexico. I'm not sure how long the Confederate economy, which was in shambles, could have persisted, which would have called the country's viability into question. Either way, the South would not have imposed its values on the North. Let us not forget that the South fought for the right to secede, not to conquer the North. And even if the South had imposed its values on the North, this idea that liberty would have had free reign strikes me as implausible.

I'd go on, but I think that's enough. Thanks for writing, Wildweed.

And that wraps up the year. I think I'm going to take a sabbatical for a couple weeks to start the year. I need to recharge my batteries a bit. Thanks to everyone who read and wrote me this year! Happy New Year! See you down the road in 2005!

Posted by Fred at December 31, 2004 05:22 PM