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A Child of the . . .

  What was it like to grow up as a child in the 90s? How about the 1940’s? Thinking about a child growing up in each different decade, conjures up images in my mind. But that is all they are: images. I was a child in the 1960’s. I can tell you what it felt like to be growing up in the 60’s and 70’s, but what it felt like to me is not what the history books remember. History will tell you the 60’s was about the Viet Nam War, civil rights, and the space race. The 70’s was Disco and Watergate. I remember being aware of all of those things, but to me this era was about finding time to play with my friends, something I probably share with a child of any decade. It was about navigating the social intricacies of school.   It was about the Beatles, Three Dog Night, The Moody Blues, The Animals, Jefferson Airplane. It was Bullwinkle, the Wonderful World of Color, and Ed Sullivan. There are things that a kid pays attention to that the grown-ups don’t. Then there are things the adults pay atten
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Back on Stage

  I enjoy doing community theater, but with Covid and other life events, it has been five years since I have been on stage. That is about to change as I am in a production of The Tempest in October. I love Shakespeare, so it was a good one with which to get back on the train. But I had some niggling concerns going in. It has been five years, and I am five years older. Would my older brain still be able to memorize lines as easily as I had in the past? Was my voice up to the challenge of projecting on stage? The memorization has gone okay, but the voice has been an issue. The voice must be trained. Like an athlete that trains their body for a sport, the voice needs practice. The muscles have to get in shape, in particular, the muscles of the diaphragm, which are not used as much in normal speech. My director keeps telling me, “louder” and he is right. My voice is not quite there yet, but it is getting there. The character I play is Gonzalo, and I have a confession to make. Despite ha
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Land-centric

  When we were kids, we used to talk about digging a hole all the way to China. In my teens the movie The China Syndrome came out. The title comes from a hyperbolic story that if a nuclear meltdown occurs, the reactor contents could melt through the Earth all the way to China. This is clearly a fanciful notion because even if it could melt all the way through the Earth, it would only fall down to the center. It would not start falling up to China. But China is the bigger problem. The point on the opposite side of the Earth from where you are standing is called the antipodes. The antipodal point for almost anywhere in North America would be in the Indian Ocean. And since North America is in the Northern hemisphere, our antipode would be in the southern hemisphere, somewhere between the southern tip of Africa and the southern tip of Australia, and there is a lot of open ocean between those two points. Since humans live on land, we tend to be prejudiced toward land. We tend to think in
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Trust

  When we take a drink of water, we trust that the water service people are doing their job so we won’t get sick. When we push the button on an elevator, we trust that it has been well maintained so we won’t go crashing to the ground. When we call 911, we trust that the dispatchers and emergency responders will do their job and help is on the way. Some of these things we don’t even think about, we just unconsciously trust. We don’t ask if the air traffic controller is a Republican or a Democrat, a Buddhist or a Muslem, white or black. We don’t think about it. We just trust them to do their job. Without trust, there is no society, there is no civilization. We would all be huddled in our caves guarding what we have with clubs. But trust seems to be in some danger. For the past few years, the tides have been not so gently eroding away the bank of trust. Trust used to be harder to break. Before the internet, before social media, if you wanted to break down trust in an institution or a
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The Midnight Dolls by Zoe Partyka

  The Midnight Dolls by Zoe Partyka is a love letter to music. Set in the early 1970’s we have a young reporter following a band on tour and "The Midnight Dolls" is the name of the band. If it sounds like the plot of the movie Almost famous, it is true that it does have a similar basic premise. But the novel takes us down the rabbit hole of insecurity. We see rock stars who seem to have everything, but they cannot manage without crutches, be those crutches alcohol, pills or adoration. It is not just the band members who have issues. Our narrator the reporter is full of self-doubt and has his own crutches. Rock stars doing drugs. Heard it all before? Perhaps, but the reporter and we, the audience, begin to see the band members as real people in a way that their fans never can. There is a drive to perform for people. If you have experienced it, you know what I mean. I have performed on stage as an actor, not a musician, but I know a little bit about wanting to share your ar
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Bureaucrats

  I am one of those nameless, faceless bureaucrats. Yes, that is my job. Though I actually have a name; I even am rumored to have a face. Bureau is the French word for desk, so you could say bureaucrats are “desk people.” In short, I work for the government. I sometimes have to deliver unpleasant news to a taxpayer. I sometimes have to tell them that the deed they recorded won’t work and they will have to record another one with corrections. Or we can’t process their deed until they pay their taxes. I can understand why some of these things upset people. The thing is, we don’t decide these things. It is not the bureaucrats that make the laws. The legislature writes the laws. We are required to follow the law.   If you are going to get mad at someone, get mad at the legislature. Or maybe get mad at the voters who voted the legislature in (That’s you, by the way). The same thing happens when the voters vote in a new district, or vote for a bond, or a new operating levy for an existing
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E Pluribus Unum

  E pluribus unum was the unofficial motto of the United States of America since its founding, and even before its founding. It was approved to be included on the Great Seal of the United States by Congress in 1782. Ever since it has appeared on many US coins. The Latin phrase e pluribus unum translates to: “out of many, one.” It is intended to put forth the ideal that even though we are many different kinds of people, we are one people. We are Republicans, Democrats, Libertarians, and independents, but we are one people: e pluribus unum. We are White, Black, Native American, Asian, Hispanic, and many more, but we are one: e pluribus unum. We are Catholic, Protestant, Jewish, Muslim, Buddhist, atheist, agnostic, and all the rest. But we are one: e pluribus unum. This is of course the ideal. In the modern world we are factioned and fractured. Sometimes it is hard to imagine that we could ever come together and agree on anything. Sadly, my country is not alone in this. Many countries a
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