Mad Max, that’s the one I’d go with.
If we’re talking about someone who’s mad as hell, and not going to take it anymore, why not give him the title to go with the attitude?
As the three million or so Assistant Vice Presidents, the 27 million Administrative Assistants, and the 102 million Wal-Mart Associates will tell you, titles are important.
They’re what we hang our hats on, when the other indicators of success are not forthcoming. You know: ‘we can’t give you a raise but, how about this coool title?’
Like ‘columnist’, instead of local crank.
It’s a badge, a trophy, stripes on your sleeve: it may not mean anything in the real world, but it makes for a heck of a first impression.
Mayor?
I don’t think so.
When I hear ‘mayor’, I think of old guys in Fedoras, waving to the photographers as they board the boat for Alcatraz; or smoke-filled rooms where deals are sealed with a hand-shake and a fat envelope of cash.
Sure, I know that’s not fair, not all mayors are crooks: but if what we are looking for is someone to take names and kick butts, than mayor doesn’t cut it, for me at least.
So I went through my big book of pompous, helium-filled titles the other day, and I came up with some likely contenders.
Margrave.
The Margrave of Plymouth?
I had never heard that title before. Turns out a Margrave ranks somewhere between a Count and an Earl, and was originally a noble in charge of the marches (the border regions) where territorial disputes were common.
A Margrave has the kind of special powers that our President claims for himself today – arguing that, ‘in times of war’, just about anything goes.
If we were having daily skirmishes on our borders with Carver or Kingston, Margrave might be the perfect title for our new leader.
One of my personal favorites is Archduke – it has a John Wayne flavor to it, a high degree of inherent pomposity, and the suggestion that if things go wrong, all hell will break loose.
Archduke Jones has a nice ring to it, doesn’t it?
I don’t think it will sell though: it’s hard enough trying to go from a democratic form of government to a monarchy. But going from Selectperson to Archduke, may be asking too much.
Burgermeister should be in the running, don’t you think: it’s just the German word for mayor, but it sounds much more prosperous.
If we were looking for a guy in black leather ‘lederhosen’ to lead the Oompah Band at our annual Oktoberfest, or someone to officiate at the opening of the new Entergy Energy Mall, a Burgermeister would seem the perfect title.
Actually, I don’t think the leaders of the Mayor for Plymouth campaign would find any of the titles I have mentioned so far, acceptable: they want something that encompasses almost all of the qualities I have listed, and more.
They want a title that comes with its own brass-buttoned uniform, that suggests the power to declare martial law, that implies the ability to sing German drinking songs, and, at the same time, is as welcoming as Mr. Rogers.
Grand Poobah?
High Hokeefenokee?
They want the body of agent Jack Bauer, Harrison Ford’s head, Sponge Bob’s voice, Bill Clinton’s earnest eyes, and the salesmanship of that guy who convinces people that adding a drop of orange juice to just about any liquid will clean, brighten, and digest better than anything you have ever tried before.
But wait, there’s more.
They also want a title that implies sacrificial lamb: someone who, if they don’t appease the mob, will eagerly walk the plank.
Have you ever heard of such a thing: a full-time politician that, once elected, will willingly acknowledge his failures and resign with a smile? Still, that’s what they want.
So the big Hottentot must –like the Tin Man, take on wicked witches and flying monkeys and yet, after exposing ‘the man’ behind the curtain, take his heart-shaped watch and go into retirement without a fight.
Then, after the Tin Man or the Margrave or whatever title we thought we gave the job to, steps down, the real mayor can step forward from behind the curtain and proclaim, “I am the great and powerful Oz!”
He may be a snake oil salesman from a traveling carnival, but at least he’ll have a heck of a title.
Friday, May 12, 2006
Thursday, May 04, 2006
Do-It-Yourself Energy Policy
I haven’t got a lot of energy, haven’t for a while. You might say I’m a trend-setter.
Not that I know anything about what’s going on in the energy field: just that I’m used to making do without it.
‘Young man’, my father used to say, “you can’t just coast through life”.
Oh yes I can – and I get great mileage too.
But I don’t think it’s fair.
The rich are the only ones that can afford beach-front property, and now they’re going to let them build wind farms there.
That’s like having a house in an oil field.
They call them ‘wind farms; but they don’t grow the wind there. Maybe they should call them ‘wind slaughterhouses’?
Actually, they don’t kill the wind there either; they just package it, for re-sale.
And that just about does it: I mean, is there anything in the world that they haven’t figured out how to charge us for using it?
What about air?
You know - the wind that just sits there: otherwise known as our energy reserves
We can still breathe fee-free, but give them another five or ten years and you’ll be tickled pink to be able to order your air online, and save the cost of driving to Wal-Mart for a six-pack of Oxy.
Or, if you’re reasonably well off, they’ll pump it to your house.
Towns will charge a betterments fee to homeowners for running oxygen lines down the street.
Cars will be equipped to load up on gas, water, and air.
They’ll be grades of air: regular, for the air in malls and to inflate basketballs; Super, for everyday home consumption; and Premium, for a hot date.
You won’t have to get out of your car.
You won’t be able to get out of your car.
You won’t want to get out of your car.
And the ideological conservatives out there are probably crying out now –like a pack of crows, ‘negative, negative, negative’.
Yes, yes, we liberals are so darn negative.
We can’t see the forest for the fees.
We can’t see the opportunities that will arise out of these so-called temporary setbacks.
Instead of whining about gas fees and air fees and the latest energy crisis, we should be hard at work exploiting the situation: that’s the American Way!
Real Americans have already made a substantial investment in bus companies!
After all, our senior citizens have fixed incomes, and can’t absorb the sudden rise in the cost of gasoline.
The only way they’ll be able to afford regular trips to Foxwoods is by bus!
Brilliant!
Then again, let’s really think outside of the tank.
Buses use up quite a lot of fuel: why not take carpooling to the next level?
Instead of everybody getting on the bus, let’s designate one super gambler to go to Foxwoods, while the rest of the folks from the Nursing Home watch a live web cast of the event.
Yes, I know: this is no laughing matter.
What’s to become of historic Plymouth when the hysteric public decides to save the cost of a tank of gas and get their history at home?
Do I hear opportunity knocking, again?
If they won’t come to the Rock, we will take the Rock to them!
For the price of a tank of gas and a weekend in a chain hotel, you can have an inflatable Mayflower Moonwalk delivered to their door by a teenager in a three-cornered hat, and throw in a can of B&M Brown Bread at no extra cost!
You’ll be selling them air, history, and ‘gas’ (if you know what I mean) in one sweet, educational package!
Hey, I’m beginning to get the hang of this ‘Morning in America’ approach to economic and environmental disaster.
And that goes for you owners of Ford Expletives too.
So I’m not going to do the expected and excoriate you for wasting an entire Mesozoic era’s worth of fossil fuels just so you can look good at the Little League field: no sirree!
Instead, I am going to appeal to your vanity –and your pocketbook, in one fell swoop!
I’m going to push for the re-installation of the trolley lines that used to run all over the South Shore, only, instead of those funky old trolley cars, we’re going to run a fleet of modified Humminah Hummers on the tracks.
Imagine the looks on your friends faces when you pull up to the domed Little League field in your eco-friendly Hummer?
That’s the genius of America: we don’t need to prepare for anything.
We’re the best in the world when it comes to figuring out a way to make cash out of our screw-ups.
Iraq may be a military disaster, but it’s a construction boom!
New Orleans may still be as soggy as a microwaved hamburger bun, but there’s gold in them thar swamps.
The present administration has intentionally declined to prepare for just about every eventuality, making it necessary to spend far more money to recover than we ever would have spent being prepared.
Brilliant!
And to think people were calling the ‘Big Dig’ a colossal waste of taxpayer’s money.
The problem with the Big Dig is not that it cost so much, it’s that we committed to spending the money first, and so we’re restricted as to how much money the taxpayers have allowed us to spend.
If we’d followed the new Bush II Pre-Emptive Disaster Economic Playbook, we would have just waited a few years until the bridges into the city were collapsing on their own, and then pleaded for the government to bail us out.
There’s hope though: if we can just elect just one more brush-burning, Enron-loving, ‘nucular’ LaLouche, we may still be able to delay any serious response to Global Warming for another four years, by which time the polar ice caps will have melted, most of our coastline will be flooded (except for New Orleans), and..
Well, you know: when it comes to energy sales, the sky’s the limit!
Not that I know anything about what’s going on in the energy field: just that I’m used to making do without it.
‘Young man’, my father used to say, “you can’t just coast through life”.
Oh yes I can – and I get great mileage too.
But I don’t think it’s fair.
The rich are the only ones that can afford beach-front property, and now they’re going to let them build wind farms there.
That’s like having a house in an oil field.
They call them ‘wind farms; but they don’t grow the wind there. Maybe they should call them ‘wind slaughterhouses’?
Actually, they don’t kill the wind there either; they just package it, for re-sale.
And that just about does it: I mean, is there anything in the world that they haven’t figured out how to charge us for using it?
What about air?
You know - the wind that just sits there: otherwise known as our energy reserves
We can still breathe fee-free, but give them another five or ten years and you’ll be tickled pink to be able to order your air online, and save the cost of driving to Wal-Mart for a six-pack of Oxy.
Or, if you’re reasonably well off, they’ll pump it to your house.
Towns will charge a betterments fee to homeowners for running oxygen lines down the street.
Cars will be equipped to load up on gas, water, and air.
They’ll be grades of air: regular, for the air in malls and to inflate basketballs; Super, for everyday home consumption; and Premium, for a hot date.
You won’t have to get out of your car.
You won’t be able to get out of your car.
You won’t want to get out of your car.
And the ideological conservatives out there are probably crying out now –like a pack of crows, ‘negative, negative, negative’.
Yes, yes, we liberals are so darn negative.
We can’t see the forest for the fees.
We can’t see the opportunities that will arise out of these so-called temporary setbacks.
Instead of whining about gas fees and air fees and the latest energy crisis, we should be hard at work exploiting the situation: that’s the American Way!
Real Americans have already made a substantial investment in bus companies!
After all, our senior citizens have fixed incomes, and can’t absorb the sudden rise in the cost of gasoline.
The only way they’ll be able to afford regular trips to Foxwoods is by bus!
Brilliant!
Then again, let’s really think outside of the tank.
Buses use up quite a lot of fuel: why not take carpooling to the next level?
Instead of everybody getting on the bus, let’s designate one super gambler to go to Foxwoods, while the rest of the folks from the Nursing Home watch a live web cast of the event.
Yes, I know: this is no laughing matter.
What’s to become of historic Plymouth when the hysteric public decides to save the cost of a tank of gas and get their history at home?
Do I hear opportunity knocking, again?
If they won’t come to the Rock, we will take the Rock to them!
For the price of a tank of gas and a weekend in a chain hotel, you can have an inflatable Mayflower Moonwalk delivered to their door by a teenager in a three-cornered hat, and throw in a can of B&M Brown Bread at no extra cost!
You’ll be selling them air, history, and ‘gas’ (if you know what I mean) in one sweet, educational package!
Hey, I’m beginning to get the hang of this ‘Morning in America’ approach to economic and environmental disaster.
And that goes for you owners of Ford Expletives too.
So I’m not going to do the expected and excoriate you for wasting an entire Mesozoic era’s worth of fossil fuels just so you can look good at the Little League field: no sirree!
Instead, I am going to appeal to your vanity –and your pocketbook, in one fell swoop!
I’m going to push for the re-installation of the trolley lines that used to run all over the South Shore, only, instead of those funky old trolley cars, we’re going to run a fleet of modified Humminah Hummers on the tracks.
Imagine the looks on your friends faces when you pull up to the domed Little League field in your eco-friendly Hummer?
That’s the genius of America: we don’t need to prepare for anything.
We’re the best in the world when it comes to figuring out a way to make cash out of our screw-ups.
Iraq may be a military disaster, but it’s a construction boom!
New Orleans may still be as soggy as a microwaved hamburger bun, but there’s gold in them thar swamps.
The present administration has intentionally declined to prepare for just about every eventuality, making it necessary to spend far more money to recover than we ever would have spent being prepared.
Brilliant!
And to think people were calling the ‘Big Dig’ a colossal waste of taxpayer’s money.
The problem with the Big Dig is not that it cost so much, it’s that we committed to spending the money first, and so we’re restricted as to how much money the taxpayers have allowed us to spend.
If we’d followed the new Bush II Pre-Emptive Disaster Economic Playbook, we would have just waited a few years until the bridges into the city were collapsing on their own, and then pleaded for the government to bail us out.
There’s hope though: if we can just elect just one more brush-burning, Enron-loving, ‘nucular’ LaLouche, we may still be able to delay any serious response to Global Warming for another four years, by which time the polar ice caps will have melted, most of our coastline will be flooded (except for New Orleans), and..
Well, you know: when it comes to energy sales, the sky’s the limit!
Friday, April 28, 2006
Darfur Vigil, April 30
For years, many of us have read reports of the ongoing genocide in the Darfur region of Sudan, and wondered why world leaders have failed to step in. As many as 400,000 civilians have died and over 2 million have been driven from their homes, and yet the United States and other leading nations won't intervene and stop the killing.
This week, we may have the best chance since the genocide began to capture national media attention and give our leaders a mandate to act. On Sunday, April 30th, tens of thousands of concerned Americans, organized by the Save Darfur coalition, will gather in Washington to demand a real multi-national peacekeeping force to protect civilians in Darfur and end the genocide—now.
To support this urgent call, we're launching a "virtual march" to end the genocide in Darfur. We'll announce the total number of virtual marchers and read some of your comments at the big rally in DC (with the national media looking on) and then we'll deliver every signature to Congress and the President. We're aiming to sign up 100,000 virtual marchers in time for the rally—can you help us get there?
You can join the virtual march against genocide by clicking here:
http://political.moveon.org/darfur?id=7381-5663936-kax4yUXWT2jf340FzBzapA&t=2
This week, we may have the best chance since the genocide began to capture national media attention and give our leaders a mandate to act. On Sunday, April 30th, tens of thousands of concerned Americans, organized by the Save Darfur coalition, will gather in Washington to demand a real multi-national peacekeeping force to protect civilians in Darfur and end the genocide—now.
To support this urgent call, we're launching a "virtual march" to end the genocide in Darfur. We'll announce the total number of virtual marchers and read some of your comments at the big rally in DC (with the national media looking on) and then we'll deliver every signature to Congress and the President. We're aiming to sign up 100,000 virtual marchers in time for the rally—can you help us get there?
You can join the virtual march against genocide by clicking here:
http://political.moveon.org/darfur?id=7381-5663936-kax4yUXWT2jf340FzBzapA&t=2
Sunday, April 23, 2006
A Celebration of Community Involvement
Friend and Fellow Activists:
Next Saturday evening there will be an event in Plymouth called “A Celebration of Community Involvement”, which I hope you can attend.
It’s a party of sorts –with food and live entertainment, co-sponsored by the community groups FORT and OPEN, and celebrating what these groups, and many more in our town, have in common: a belief in the power of the individual citizen.
My personal take on these two groups, is as follows:
FORT is the grassroots organization that is trying to establish a permanent citizens organization dedicated to improving the quality of community services, especially schools, in Plymouth. They don’t want to have to re-invent such an organization every time there is a school funding crisis.
OPEN is a group of residents who are concerned that, under the guise of reforming the historic structure of our town government, a group which thinks we can do without many important town services is making a grab for power.
OPEN is committed to looking at every possible structure or modification to the town’s charter that could make it more responsive to citizens, and more effective overall.
You don’t have to believe that our existing form of government is perfect to support OPEN –only that more involvement by citizens, not less, should be one guiding principal of all allegedly democratic institutions.
You don’t have to believe that increased funding will necessarily improve Plymouth’s schools to support FORT –but you should believe that without quality schools our town will never reach its potential, no matter what form of government we have.
We are less than three weeks away from one of most important town elections in Plymouth’s history: a day which will impact the future of our community in a hundred different ways.
On April 29th, from 7-11 p.m. you can meet members of FORT and OPEN, enjoy the camaraderie of some of your community’s grassroots leaders, have a bite, take a breath, and go forward with confidence that Plymouth is not only growing larger, it is growing wiser.
Frank Mand,
Parent, Little League Umpire, Deval Patrick Delegate, MoveOn Organizer, Yellow Journalist, and Taxpayer (not necessarily in that order)
A Celebration of Community Involvement
Saturday, April 29, 7 P.M.
Quintals Warehouse, Scobee Drive, Plymouth Industrial Park
Directions to the Event
Next Saturday evening there will be an event in Plymouth called “A Celebration of Community Involvement”, which I hope you can attend.
It’s a party of sorts –with food and live entertainment, co-sponsored by the community groups FORT and OPEN, and celebrating what these groups, and many more in our town, have in common: a belief in the power of the individual citizen.
My personal take on these two groups, is as follows:
FORT is the grassroots organization that is trying to establish a permanent citizens organization dedicated to improving the quality of community services, especially schools, in Plymouth. They don’t want to have to re-invent such an organization every time there is a school funding crisis.
OPEN is a group of residents who are concerned that, under the guise of reforming the historic structure of our town government, a group which thinks we can do without many important town services is making a grab for power.
OPEN is committed to looking at every possible structure or modification to the town’s charter that could make it more responsive to citizens, and more effective overall.
You don’t have to believe that our existing form of government is perfect to support OPEN –only that more involvement by citizens, not less, should be one guiding principal of all allegedly democratic institutions.
You don’t have to believe that increased funding will necessarily improve Plymouth’s schools to support FORT –but you should believe that without quality schools our town will never reach its potential, no matter what form of government we have.
We are less than three weeks away from one of most important town elections in Plymouth’s history: a day which will impact the future of our community in a hundred different ways.
On April 29th, from 7-11 p.m. you can meet members of FORT and OPEN, enjoy the camaraderie of some of your community’s grassroots leaders, have a bite, take a breath, and go forward with confidence that Plymouth is not only growing larger, it is growing wiser.
Frank Mand,
Parent, Little League Umpire, Deval Patrick Delegate, MoveOn Organizer, Yellow Journalist, and Taxpayer (not necessarily in that order)
A Celebration of Community Involvement
Saturday, April 29, 7 P.M.
Quintals Warehouse, Scobee Drive, Plymouth Industrial Park
Directions to the Event
Things I Would Never Do in Private For Some Reason I Will Do If I Get on TV Day
I don’t want to give up my vacation days, gosh no: but if wishes were fishes I’d sure to like to know what or why I was celebrating every once in a blue moon.
This week will serve as a perfect example of the mixed metaphors, religious myths, ancient history and artificial patriotism that supposedly serve as inspiration for our so-called modern holidays.
First you had the odd mix of colonial commemoration that just concluded –a mélange of Patriots Day and Evacuation Day, Minuteman Minute, and George Bush’s Mission Accomplishment of the Month – none of which stirs my blood.
Then, before you can take down the bunting and plant your daffodils, along comes the so-called hip-hop Easter Bunny – an individual of indeterminate sex, eccentric habit, and suspicious hours who, according to informed sources, was last seen offering chocolates to a six year old.
Then there’s Passover and Easter Sunday – important religious holidays that, if we’re honest with ourselves, don’t get the press that the Marathon receives in these parts.
Yes, yes, yes, I understand the significance of these holidays but, again, I am not sure that they get nearly the attendance that the Red Sox did this past Monday.
And we can’t forget this holy week, as tens of thousands of devout New Englanders migrate to Tampa or St. Pete to worship the trinity of Mickey, Minnie, and Jose Cuervo.
The point again, is not to denigrate the ancient roots of our modern holidays or diminish the value of religion, but rather to ask, rhetorically, ‘can’t we come up with something a little closer to home’?
Though the harvest and the moon and the movement of the stars no longer affect our lives, we still need holidays that underline our everyday existence
What about PC Day?
Imagine the crowds that would gather spontaneously at the mall, and the sales incentives we might find, for a holiday that celebrates the day when owners of personal computers first threw off their shackles and demanded a machine that didn’t need to be rebooted every time you tried to actually use it for the fabled ‘multimedia’?
So what that this famous uprising never actually took place: there is no Easter Bunny, but that hasn’t hurt chocolate sales.
Or how about a three-day weekend holiday in honor of SPAM? Not the lard-entombed mystery meat of old, but the never-ending river of useless, profane, emails and pop-up messages that somehow can sing, dance, and do all the things that the software you paid big bucks for cannot?
King George, Caesar, Sadie Hawkins, Columbus and Abe Lincoln himself –while still worthy of serious study, don’t hold the interest of the average man in the modern world: while Johnny Damon, Donald Trump, Monty Python, Paris Hilton, and Brittney Spears are sure to draw a crowd wherever they appear (as long as you throw in free samples of Lite Beer and a wet corporate logo contest).
How would you feel about a National I Hate Celebrities Day, in which everyone dresses up as the famous person they least admire but would most like to be?
Or how about an ‘I Feel Stupid Having Spent So Much Money for this Hummer Day’, on which owners of Yellow Hummers with tinted windows drive their vehicles into their above ground pools while playing old disco music on their massive subwoofers?
I just feel very strongly that, while it is nice to have a break from our every day routines, whatever the excuse, it would be much more satisfying if at the same time we acknowledged the demons and delights of our age –not relics of the past.
National I Got Laid Off Again Week, would really be a winner, I think, and would give executives of the two remaining corporations in America an annual opportunity to express their appreciation to the tireless temps who keep buying the excuse that as soon as the corporation cuts its costs and gets on a level playing field with its foreign competition the layoffs will end.
(Whew! That sentence was its own three-day weekend!)
It’s Those Damn Illegal Immigrants Again Day would be a great excuse for people who already have trailers, to drive their mobile homes to the closest border and protect us against people willing to stand all day and gut fish for $10 an hour.
Please don’t argue that there aren’t enough Mondays in the year to accommodate all the new holidays I am proposing: a country that can order people to save daylight, and then give it back again, on cue, can certainly decree that certain Tuesdays are Monday too, if needed.
And if the Tivo subscribers out there raise too much of a stink about us throwing off their recording schedules, we can consolidate: is it really necessary to give separate holidays to Flag Day, Veterans Day, Memorial Day, and Armed Forces Day?
Don’t worry: I am not preaching anarchy.
You will still have your precious three-day weekends, your school vacations, religious holidays and the occasional Fertility Friday.
But let’s make room for Diet of the Week Day, Corporate Malfeasance Week, Outsource a Friend’s Job Month, Mortgage Deduction Day, and Things I Would Never Do in Private For Some Reason I Will Do If I Get on TV Day.
Let’s celebrate this life, this age, this week’s guests on Oprah. They may not be especially meaningful, but at least they will be our holidays.
This week will serve as a perfect example of the mixed metaphors, religious myths, ancient history and artificial patriotism that supposedly serve as inspiration for our so-called modern holidays.
First you had the odd mix of colonial commemoration that just concluded –a mélange of Patriots Day and Evacuation Day, Minuteman Minute, and George Bush’s Mission Accomplishment of the Month – none of which stirs my blood.
Then, before you can take down the bunting and plant your daffodils, along comes the so-called hip-hop Easter Bunny – an individual of indeterminate sex, eccentric habit, and suspicious hours who, according to informed sources, was last seen offering chocolates to a six year old.
Then there’s Passover and Easter Sunday – important religious holidays that, if we’re honest with ourselves, don’t get the press that the Marathon receives in these parts.
Yes, yes, yes, I understand the significance of these holidays but, again, I am not sure that they get nearly the attendance that the Red Sox did this past Monday.
And we can’t forget this holy week, as tens of thousands of devout New Englanders migrate to Tampa or St. Pete to worship the trinity of Mickey, Minnie, and Jose Cuervo.
The point again, is not to denigrate the ancient roots of our modern holidays or diminish the value of religion, but rather to ask, rhetorically, ‘can’t we come up with something a little closer to home’?
Though the harvest and the moon and the movement of the stars no longer affect our lives, we still need holidays that underline our everyday existence
What about PC Day?
Imagine the crowds that would gather spontaneously at the mall, and the sales incentives we might find, for a holiday that celebrates the day when owners of personal computers first threw off their shackles and demanded a machine that didn’t need to be rebooted every time you tried to actually use it for the fabled ‘multimedia’?
So what that this famous uprising never actually took place: there is no Easter Bunny, but that hasn’t hurt chocolate sales.
Or how about a three-day weekend holiday in honor of SPAM? Not the lard-entombed mystery meat of old, but the never-ending river of useless, profane, emails and pop-up messages that somehow can sing, dance, and do all the things that the software you paid big bucks for cannot?
King George, Caesar, Sadie Hawkins, Columbus and Abe Lincoln himself –while still worthy of serious study, don’t hold the interest of the average man in the modern world: while Johnny Damon, Donald Trump, Monty Python, Paris Hilton, and Brittney Spears are sure to draw a crowd wherever they appear (as long as you throw in free samples of Lite Beer and a wet corporate logo contest).
How would you feel about a National I Hate Celebrities Day, in which everyone dresses up as the famous person they least admire but would most like to be?
Or how about an ‘I Feel Stupid Having Spent So Much Money for this Hummer Day’, on which owners of Yellow Hummers with tinted windows drive their vehicles into their above ground pools while playing old disco music on their massive subwoofers?
I just feel very strongly that, while it is nice to have a break from our every day routines, whatever the excuse, it would be much more satisfying if at the same time we acknowledged the demons and delights of our age –not relics of the past.
National I Got Laid Off Again Week, would really be a winner, I think, and would give executives of the two remaining corporations in America an annual opportunity to express their appreciation to the tireless temps who keep buying the excuse that as soon as the corporation cuts its costs and gets on a level playing field with its foreign competition the layoffs will end.
(Whew! That sentence was its own three-day weekend!)
It’s Those Damn Illegal Immigrants Again Day would be a great excuse for people who already have trailers, to drive their mobile homes to the closest border and protect us against people willing to stand all day and gut fish for $10 an hour.
Please don’t argue that there aren’t enough Mondays in the year to accommodate all the new holidays I am proposing: a country that can order people to save daylight, and then give it back again, on cue, can certainly decree that certain Tuesdays are Monday too, if needed.
And if the Tivo subscribers out there raise too much of a stink about us throwing off their recording schedules, we can consolidate: is it really necessary to give separate holidays to Flag Day, Veterans Day, Memorial Day, and Armed Forces Day?
Don’t worry: I am not preaching anarchy.
You will still have your precious three-day weekends, your school vacations, religious holidays and the occasional Fertility Friday.
But let’s make room for Diet of the Week Day, Corporate Malfeasance Week, Outsource a Friend’s Job Month, Mortgage Deduction Day, and Things I Would Never Do in Private For Some Reason I Will Do If I Get on TV Day.
Let’s celebrate this life, this age, this week’s guests on Oprah. They may not be especially meaningful, but at least they will be our holidays.
Thursday, April 13, 2006
Fun in the Tub
When you make a mistake, Richard Nixon said to his close friend Millie, admit it: just don’t tell anyone about it.
That’s essentially what I want to do now – not admit that I made a mistake when, about a year ago, I impulsively suggested that Karl Rove had something to do with the Valerie Plame ‘leak’.
Actually I want to do a bit more than simply not admit to something.
In the spirit of modern, existential political honesty, I am not only not going to admit to making a mistake, I am going to suggest that what I did not do was not illegal.
Not that anyone has accused me of doing something illegal: just that if they do, what I did not do, was not illegal.
(Politics and good grammar do not mix.)
We’re dealing in hypotheticals here: I wasn’t around when the White House sprang a leak, so I can’t personally attest to the facts surrounding this famous drip.
We do have the written reports from those that were there – and Grand Jury testimony and, coincidentally, those reports have now been retroactively declassified, allowing me to share what others knew to be leaks, at the time, without being accused of leaking myself.
According to those reports, Karl Rove had nothing to do with the leaks at the White House.
In fact, Karl turns out to have been a victim of those leaks. Or perhaps I should put it a different way.
When the leaks first appeared (and leaks are like trees that fall in the forest, if you’re not there to see them, they don’t exist) Karl was the one called in to the fix them.
Karl was essentially - the declassified, insignificant, politics as usual, facts now seem to suggest, a plumber.
Now I don’t want you to think (wink wink, nudge nudge) that by using the word ‘plumber’ I am in any way suggesting any similarities to the way that Karl Rove functioned in the White House, and the way the infamous Watergate ‘plumbers’ functioned.
No: they are very different.
Karl has his plumber’s license, and Nixon’s plumbers were undocumented aliens that the White House hired to save a few bucks.
Poor Karl, he was just a hired hand, called in to fix a few leaks.
You know how it goes: you see a little water damage on the ceiling, a few drips, and so to be safe you call for the plumber.
The plumber would be just as happy tightening up a few screws, adding a nut and bolt here and there, and getting his $250. But when Karl arrived, it was immediately apparent that there was a hidden leak, the source of which had to be found, or else.
So Karl got out his tools and started looking.
He dug through the ceiling of his office, and into the office of Scooter Libby: though he found a big pool of water there, the source was still hidden.
So he dug through the wall of Libby’s office and into the Vice President’s office: though the water was a lot deeper, the leak did not originate there.
So he dug through the floor of the Vice President’s office and, finally, he found the source.
There was the President himself, taking a bath: laughing and splashing about, playing with his GI Joes, and unknowingly causing a little water to cascade over the tub and onto the floor and.. well, you know the rest.
Nothing illegal there.
Just a lot of good clean fun, and a little innocent, inadvertent leaking.
Or course Karl and Scooter and Dick couldn’t talk about the President taking a bath. The press would have had a field day with the image of the President and his GI Joes.
So they protected him.
The President did not even know that he was the one responsible for the leak. He couldn’t imagine anyone would care about his bathing habits.
So when days later, he told the plumbing press that he would not tolerate any leaks in the White House, he meant it.
Informed sources at the White House have now told me, on condition of anonymity, that he is very sorry for all the trouble that he has caused, however inadvertently.
The President has now had all the tubs in the White House removed, replacing them with enclosed shower stalls.
And just to be safe, the President has issued a secret order that all classified information that is inadvertently leaked, for any reason, is to be considered declassified as soon as it is revealed.
So okay, I will admit that when I leaked the story of Karl Rove leaking the story I was not exactly leaking the truth.
I didn’t know the truth, at the time.
But now that the truth has changed, I stand by my story.
That’s essentially what I want to do now – not admit that I made a mistake when, about a year ago, I impulsively suggested that Karl Rove had something to do with the Valerie Plame ‘leak’.
Actually I want to do a bit more than simply not admit to something.
In the spirit of modern, existential political honesty, I am not only not going to admit to making a mistake, I am going to suggest that what I did not do was not illegal.
Not that anyone has accused me of doing something illegal: just that if they do, what I did not do, was not illegal.
(Politics and good grammar do not mix.)
We’re dealing in hypotheticals here: I wasn’t around when the White House sprang a leak, so I can’t personally attest to the facts surrounding this famous drip.
We do have the written reports from those that were there – and Grand Jury testimony and, coincidentally, those reports have now been retroactively declassified, allowing me to share what others knew to be leaks, at the time, without being accused of leaking myself.
According to those reports, Karl Rove had nothing to do with the leaks at the White House.
In fact, Karl turns out to have been a victim of those leaks. Or perhaps I should put it a different way.
When the leaks first appeared (and leaks are like trees that fall in the forest, if you’re not there to see them, they don’t exist) Karl was the one called in to the fix them.
Karl was essentially - the declassified, insignificant, politics as usual, facts now seem to suggest, a plumber.
Now I don’t want you to think (wink wink, nudge nudge) that by using the word ‘plumber’ I am in any way suggesting any similarities to the way that Karl Rove functioned in the White House, and the way the infamous Watergate ‘plumbers’ functioned.
No: they are very different.
Karl has his plumber’s license, and Nixon’s plumbers were undocumented aliens that the White House hired to save a few bucks.
Poor Karl, he was just a hired hand, called in to fix a few leaks.
You know how it goes: you see a little water damage on the ceiling, a few drips, and so to be safe you call for the plumber.
The plumber would be just as happy tightening up a few screws, adding a nut and bolt here and there, and getting his $250. But when Karl arrived, it was immediately apparent that there was a hidden leak, the source of which had to be found, or else.
So Karl got out his tools and started looking.
He dug through the ceiling of his office, and into the office of Scooter Libby: though he found a big pool of water there, the source was still hidden.
So he dug through the wall of Libby’s office and into the Vice President’s office: though the water was a lot deeper, the leak did not originate there.
So he dug through the floor of the Vice President’s office and, finally, he found the source.
There was the President himself, taking a bath: laughing and splashing about, playing with his GI Joes, and unknowingly causing a little water to cascade over the tub and onto the floor and.. well, you know the rest.
Nothing illegal there.
Just a lot of good clean fun, and a little innocent, inadvertent leaking.
Or course Karl and Scooter and Dick couldn’t talk about the President taking a bath. The press would have had a field day with the image of the President and his GI Joes.
So they protected him.
The President did not even know that he was the one responsible for the leak. He couldn’t imagine anyone would care about his bathing habits.
So when days later, he told the plumbing press that he would not tolerate any leaks in the White House, he meant it.
Informed sources at the White House have now told me, on condition of anonymity, that he is very sorry for all the trouble that he has caused, however inadvertently.
The President has now had all the tubs in the White House removed, replacing them with enclosed shower stalls.
And just to be safe, the President has issued a secret order that all classified information that is inadvertently leaked, for any reason, is to be considered declassified as soon as it is revealed.
So okay, I will admit that when I leaked the story of Karl Rove leaking the story I was not exactly leaking the truth.
I didn’t know the truth, at the time.
But now that the truth has changed, I stand by my story.
Hovercraft
My timing was good this past week.
On Wednesday I drove to Leominster to help my older son, Robert, celebrate his 21st birthday.
We had dinner, drinks, and now his name is going on the wall of the restaurant because he was able to down a double-shot of tequila, worm and all.
My sister-in-law, I have heard, was appalled by my participation in those festivities.
I understand her concern, but I don’t think I was encouraging bad behavior: I actually thought I was making quite the opposite statement.
The best we can do, I have always said, is to not make things worse.
Whatever you do, I love to quote Camus in “The Plague”, just don’t spread the microbe.
Besides, I wanted him to know that I was impressed that he had made it this far, relatively unscathed.
On Friday we bought a new bike for my 7 year old son.
By the weekend the weather had warmed considerably, and the seven year old was able to stay out for hour after hour, riding his new bike.
By the mid-afternoon he already had a few tricks to show me: first balancing his feet on the back of the bike and rolling down the hill, and then putting his feet up against the front and, again, balancing as the bike rolled along.
Be prepared, I told my wife, with bandages and first aid cream.
But what are we supposed to do – forbid him from attempting any tricks, taking any risks? You all know what comes of that.
So instead, seeing he was big enough for the 20” bike, we took him to the street, give him the bike, and let him ride.
Maybe it’s all about balance.
You have to let your children learn to walk on their own, otherwise when they needed to get something from the refrigerator they would fall right over.
It’s hard to strike the right balance yourself, as a parent: if you hold on too tightly, you’re both going to crash. If you let go too quickly, well, they’re still going to fall.
So what you do is hover.
You practice the fine art of hovering, of subtle support: you mix praise with fear and sneak laughter into the lecture.
This past week was a triumph of hovering.
God knows it ain’t easy.
To hover in Leominster I had to drive two hours, eat some mediocre Mexican food, and down a few shots of tequila myself.
Then it was on to Worcester –where Robert was sure to get carded, for more drinks (his, not mine) and bad karaoke.
Then a two hour drive home, interrupted just before I turned into the driveway by a call from my son –closing down the bar with his goodhearted (and sober) girlfriend.
“Yes’ I told him, “I had a great time too. Sorry I had to leave so early, but I have some more hovering to do with your little brother.”
Hovering around a seven year-old is just as tough as hovering around a 21 year-old –maybe tougher.
First of all, at my age, drinking a shot of tequila is far easier than keeping up with a seven year old.
And if the 21 year-old screws up, at least you can say that he should know better. The seven year-old still has the youth excuse.
There is very little difference though, in how much help they will ask for.
The younger son will actually ask for help, at first, for about 30 seconds: then he wants you out of the way.
The seven year old is, at least, not as good as hiding their desire for your approval, and will beam at praise.
The 21 year old will only ask for help after they have screwed up: but be careful not to think that your help gives you the right to lecture.
The 21 year old bristles at the offer of any advice from his father. He occasionally needs help, not advice, which usually translates in to cash.
So you hover: half way between the ground and the air, between praise and advice, between fear and laughter.
You need to have great balance.
You need to have great timing.
It was just one of those weeks, when everything that could go wrong, didn’t.
The sun was out, the wind was just right, and I managed to just hover in mid-air, like a dad is supposed to do.
On Wednesday I drove to Leominster to help my older son, Robert, celebrate his 21st birthday.
We had dinner, drinks, and now his name is going on the wall of the restaurant because he was able to down a double-shot of tequila, worm and all.
My sister-in-law, I have heard, was appalled by my participation in those festivities.
I understand her concern, but I don’t think I was encouraging bad behavior: I actually thought I was making quite the opposite statement.
The best we can do, I have always said, is to not make things worse.
Whatever you do, I love to quote Camus in “The Plague”, just don’t spread the microbe.
Besides, I wanted him to know that I was impressed that he had made it this far, relatively unscathed.
On Friday we bought a new bike for my 7 year old son.
By the weekend the weather had warmed considerably, and the seven year old was able to stay out for hour after hour, riding his new bike.
By the mid-afternoon he already had a few tricks to show me: first balancing his feet on the back of the bike and rolling down the hill, and then putting his feet up against the front and, again, balancing as the bike rolled along.
Be prepared, I told my wife, with bandages and first aid cream.
But what are we supposed to do – forbid him from attempting any tricks, taking any risks? You all know what comes of that.
So instead, seeing he was big enough for the 20” bike, we took him to the street, give him the bike, and let him ride.
Maybe it’s all about balance.
You have to let your children learn to walk on their own, otherwise when they needed to get something from the refrigerator they would fall right over.
It’s hard to strike the right balance yourself, as a parent: if you hold on too tightly, you’re both going to crash. If you let go too quickly, well, they’re still going to fall.
So what you do is hover.
You practice the fine art of hovering, of subtle support: you mix praise with fear and sneak laughter into the lecture.
This past week was a triumph of hovering.
God knows it ain’t easy.
To hover in Leominster I had to drive two hours, eat some mediocre Mexican food, and down a few shots of tequila myself.
Then it was on to Worcester –where Robert was sure to get carded, for more drinks (his, not mine) and bad karaoke.
Then a two hour drive home, interrupted just before I turned into the driveway by a call from my son –closing down the bar with his goodhearted (and sober) girlfriend.
“Yes’ I told him, “I had a great time too. Sorry I had to leave so early, but I have some more hovering to do with your little brother.”
Hovering around a seven year-old is just as tough as hovering around a 21 year-old –maybe tougher.
First of all, at my age, drinking a shot of tequila is far easier than keeping up with a seven year old.
And if the 21 year-old screws up, at least you can say that he should know better. The seven year-old still has the youth excuse.
There is very little difference though, in how much help they will ask for.
The younger son will actually ask for help, at first, for about 30 seconds: then he wants you out of the way.
The seven year old is, at least, not as good as hiding their desire for your approval, and will beam at praise.
The 21 year old will only ask for help after they have screwed up: but be careful not to think that your help gives you the right to lecture.
The 21 year old bristles at the offer of any advice from his father. He occasionally needs help, not advice, which usually translates in to cash.
So you hover: half way between the ground and the air, between praise and advice, between fear and laughter.
You need to have great balance.
You need to have great timing.
It was just one of those weeks, when everything that could go wrong, didn’t.
The sun was out, the wind was just right, and I managed to just hover in mid-air, like a dad is supposed to do.
All the Marbles
I’ve lost my marbles.
At least it feels that way.
I loved marbles, as a kid: it was such a simple ‘sport’, so easily understood, so effortless to play.
Nowadays things are a bit more complex, a bit more demanding..
Nowadays you need a graduate degree just to read the Sports section of the newspaper.
But even with the proper education, you still need to regularly devote at least two hours a day to studying rosters, compiling statistics, and memorizing the names of mascots, just to stay competitive.
Not competitive in the actual sport, of course: no, you need all that education and ongoing research just to compete in the Fantasy Leagues.
The Fantasy Leagues!
You know what they are, don’t you?
The one thing the Fantasy Leagues are not, is a fantasy. They are all about real athletes, actual performance, player drafts, and piles and piles of statistics.
It takes weeks of intense preparation to be competitive in a Fantasy sport.
Don’t get involved in a Fantasy sports league if you are inclined to fantasize. Don’t get involved in a Fantasy sports league if you have a real life –unless of course you are willing to make the Fantasy Leagues your real life.
And please, don’t get involved in Fantasy Sports Leagues if you are only looking to have some fun.
You want fun, try marbles.
But as I said at the start, I have lost my marbles.
I succumbed to the alleged fun of March Madness and now, perhaps mercifully, I am already out of it.
Again, I am not talking about the real games, the actual basketball: no, of course not.
What I am talking about is Bracketmania.
All across the country millions of Americans put their chores aside, rescheduled medical appointments, postponed bachelor parties, and otherwise put their lives on hold so they could predict the outcome of 59 basketball games in three weeks.
You probably have a better chance of winning the Powerball game, but that hasn’t stopped hordes of people from filling out their brackets, putting down their cash, and staying up past their bedtime to find out if the Rootabaga Giants from the MidSouthern Conference upset Altoona’s Laughing Cows, or the Humpbacked Whales of Miller State managed to eek out a win against perennial powerhouse Anthracite State.
Are you following this?
Who’s fooling whom?
I’d never even heard of Arkansas Central Christian, and yet I was fairly confident that they’d advance to the second round.
I couldn’t tell you which side of the Alabash River the campus was located on, but I confidently predicted Whoozits U. would surprise St. Juleps of Naomi.
I never stood a chance.
Of course, hope springs eternal: before the first game of the first round I stood atop the leader board (tied with everyone else at zero points), full of potential, sure of victory.
I had even filled out the tie-breaker sheet, predicting the total amount of points that would be scored in the championship game.
Then they played that first game and I plummeted down through the standings, like the Knights without Roy Hobbs.
After two rounds I was still in the top 30% of all participants, which placed me ahead of over 100,000, but behind 37,105.
I took some solace in the fact that there were so many pathetic losers behind me in the standings, at that point –and even scoffed at those who purported to know what they were talking about.
I, on the other hand, never had a clue.
Marbles, as I said, are more my speed.
In marbles, you have your Clearies, your Snotties, your Purees and your Agates.
You draw a big ring in the dirt, and then you take turns with one opponent, dropping marbles into the circle.
Then you take turns shooting at the marbles.
If you knock them out of the ring, you keep them.
I still have a bag of Purees, mementoes of my days as 2nd grade champion of St. Johns Elementary in Bangor.
The last time I looked at my March Madness bracket, I was in 89,473rd place, with that number growing faster than the national debt.
At least it feels that way.
I loved marbles, as a kid: it was such a simple ‘sport’, so easily understood, so effortless to play.
Nowadays things are a bit more complex, a bit more demanding..
Nowadays you need a graduate degree just to read the Sports section of the newspaper.
But even with the proper education, you still need to regularly devote at least two hours a day to studying rosters, compiling statistics, and memorizing the names of mascots, just to stay competitive.
Not competitive in the actual sport, of course: no, you need all that education and ongoing research just to compete in the Fantasy Leagues.
The Fantasy Leagues!
You know what they are, don’t you?
The one thing the Fantasy Leagues are not, is a fantasy. They are all about real athletes, actual performance, player drafts, and piles and piles of statistics.
It takes weeks of intense preparation to be competitive in a Fantasy sport.
Don’t get involved in a Fantasy sports league if you are inclined to fantasize. Don’t get involved in a Fantasy sports league if you have a real life –unless of course you are willing to make the Fantasy Leagues your real life.
And please, don’t get involved in Fantasy Sports Leagues if you are only looking to have some fun.
You want fun, try marbles.
But as I said at the start, I have lost my marbles.
I succumbed to the alleged fun of March Madness and now, perhaps mercifully, I am already out of it.
Again, I am not talking about the real games, the actual basketball: no, of course not.
What I am talking about is Bracketmania.
All across the country millions of Americans put their chores aside, rescheduled medical appointments, postponed bachelor parties, and otherwise put their lives on hold so they could predict the outcome of 59 basketball games in three weeks.
You probably have a better chance of winning the Powerball game, but that hasn’t stopped hordes of people from filling out their brackets, putting down their cash, and staying up past their bedtime to find out if the Rootabaga Giants from the MidSouthern Conference upset Altoona’s Laughing Cows, or the Humpbacked Whales of Miller State managed to eek out a win against perennial powerhouse Anthracite State.
Are you following this?
Who’s fooling whom?
I’d never even heard of Arkansas Central Christian, and yet I was fairly confident that they’d advance to the second round.
I couldn’t tell you which side of the Alabash River the campus was located on, but I confidently predicted Whoozits U. would surprise St. Juleps of Naomi.
I never stood a chance.
Of course, hope springs eternal: before the first game of the first round I stood atop the leader board (tied with everyone else at zero points), full of potential, sure of victory.
I had even filled out the tie-breaker sheet, predicting the total amount of points that would be scored in the championship game.
Then they played that first game and I plummeted down through the standings, like the Knights without Roy Hobbs.
After two rounds I was still in the top 30% of all participants, which placed me ahead of over 100,000, but behind 37,105.
I took some solace in the fact that there were so many pathetic losers behind me in the standings, at that point –and even scoffed at those who purported to know what they were talking about.
I, on the other hand, never had a clue.
Marbles, as I said, are more my speed.
In marbles, you have your Clearies, your Snotties, your Purees and your Agates.
You draw a big ring in the dirt, and then you take turns with one opponent, dropping marbles into the circle.
Then you take turns shooting at the marbles.
If you knock them out of the ring, you keep them.
I still have a bag of Purees, mementoes of my days as 2nd grade champion of St. Johns Elementary in Bangor.
The last time I looked at my March Madness bracket, I was in 89,473rd place, with that number growing faster than the national debt.
Thursday, March 23, 2006
A Grin Without a Cat!
“Well! I’ve often seen a cat without a grin,” thought Alice; “but a grin without a cat! It’s the most curious thing I ever saw in all my life!” --Lewis Carroll, Alice in Wonderland
I’m confused.
I thought the question was, whether we should abandon our historic town meeting form of government in favor of a mayoral system?
But from what I have seen in recent weeks, we may be considering creating a Ministry of Propaganda instead.
Not that there’s anything wrong with that.
Then again, that’s no way to run a town, and I thought that was what the argument was about: the best way to run the town.
Instead we are hearing Reagan-era platitudes about ‘morning in America’, and ‘new beginnings’, and wild claims of an uber-mayor who will single-handedly keep the streets clean, improve schools, build parking garages, attract business to town, negotiate with Entergy, impose a blue-blazer dress code on all residents, put slot machines at Plimoth Plantation and sell hot dogs from a cart on Water Street.
Oh, and I almost forgot, spread the love.
And how are they spreading that love, today? Why, by press release and publicity events, and by what appears to be an endless loop of video tape being broadcast on the local cable access.
In between harmless half-hours of psychics and Japanese wrestling our local cable access station is featuring hours of interview and self-congratulatory commentary featuring supporters of a Mayoral system earnestly describing their ‘vision’ of a revitalized Plymouth.
To hear the so-called Unity party leaders today, they have nothing but the highest regard for the town’s elected officials, and always have.
To hear Unity leader Mike Jones speak this week, he believes Town Manager Mark Sylvia is a world class professional who is doing the best he can, ‘under the circumstances’.
(Then, sotto voce, the Jones Gang notes that the Town Manager is not one of ‘us’, that our elected officials are dishonest, and that the only way to guarantee accountability is to pay for a full-time city council and mayor )
Gone and (nearly) forgotten are the past several years of personal attacks on town officials.
Gone and (nearly) forgotten are efforts to delay or deny funding for new schools.
Gone and (nearly) forgotten are efforts to split the town down the middle, between families with children and retirees.
The new ‘Unity’ mayor –they say with a straight face, will be a Plymouth guy, on our side, with no ax to grind, no special interests to please, who will descend from the clouds surrounded by trumpeting angels and declare peace and prosperity in Plymouth.
The Unity party line is that they love everyone, are against no one, respect all town officials, embrace the unions, and that if it weren’t for the constraints of our existing form of government Plymouth would be the ‘jewel of the South Shore’.
Excuse me while I pull over to the side of the road and heave.
Do I need to say that it’s not that simple?
Do I need to say that a great deal of the fault for Plymouth not being “all that it can be” lies with us, the residents?
Do I need to speak to the preposterously low turnouts at elections, big and small?
But back to the Ministry of Propaganda’s prime time schedule, most of which –curiouser and curiouser, have the same producers, camera operators, and technicians.
It’s television by Unity, for Unity, and featuring Unity.
Particularly hilarious was a recent episode of a show called This Old Towne – in which the host hardly had time to ask any questions of his guests (all Unity charter commission candidates) because he spent so much time saying what great humanitarians they were, how right they were, how much he agreed with them, and how he was a proud member of their team.
According to Unity’s leaders, the only reason that there is organized opposition to their efforts to trash 400 years of town government is because town officials are worried about losing their jobs.
Think that through: a group of long time town residents, who devote countless hours to the town for little or no money, take constant abuse from residents and the media, are supposed to be desperate to hold on their jobs.
Excuse me while I pull over to the side of the road and have a good laugh.
Honestly, if its platitudes and self-sacrificing behavior that you are looking for, you need look no further than our existing form of government.
You may not like the outcomes, you may not like the people, but you should appreciate a system that allows for maximum involvement of town residents.
According to proponents of a Mayoral system, our existing form of government is antiquated. Well, yes, the test of a good system of government is often how long it can last. So when did the existing system become antiquated? After 100 years? 200 years? 300 years?
Everyone believes that the present system can be improved, enhanced, and made more accessible –especially if our townspeople are really interested in playing their part. But I for one do not believe we should start all over.
Maybe if Ronald Reagan were running for Mayor of Plymouth I’d feel differently. Not that I liked his policies, quite the opposite: but at least you got the sense that Reagan actually believed the words that were coming out of his mouth.
Instead, the Unity slate leaders seem to have adopted the Cheshire cat approach to town politics: no matter what happens, stick to the script and keep on smiling.
I’m confused.
I thought the question was, whether we should abandon our historic town meeting form of government in favor of a mayoral system?
But from what I have seen in recent weeks, we may be considering creating a Ministry of Propaganda instead.
Not that there’s anything wrong with that.
Then again, that’s no way to run a town, and I thought that was what the argument was about: the best way to run the town.
Instead we are hearing Reagan-era platitudes about ‘morning in America’, and ‘new beginnings’, and wild claims of an uber-mayor who will single-handedly keep the streets clean, improve schools, build parking garages, attract business to town, negotiate with Entergy, impose a blue-blazer dress code on all residents, put slot machines at Plimoth Plantation and sell hot dogs from a cart on Water Street.
Oh, and I almost forgot, spread the love.
And how are they spreading that love, today? Why, by press release and publicity events, and by what appears to be an endless loop of video tape being broadcast on the local cable access.
In between harmless half-hours of psychics and Japanese wrestling our local cable access station is featuring hours of interview and self-congratulatory commentary featuring supporters of a Mayoral system earnestly describing their ‘vision’ of a revitalized Plymouth.
To hear the so-called Unity party leaders today, they have nothing but the highest regard for the town’s elected officials, and always have.
To hear Unity leader Mike Jones speak this week, he believes Town Manager Mark Sylvia is a world class professional who is doing the best he can, ‘under the circumstances’.
(Then, sotto voce, the Jones Gang notes that the Town Manager is not one of ‘us’, that our elected officials are dishonest, and that the only way to guarantee accountability is to pay for a full-time city council and mayor )
Gone and (nearly) forgotten are the past several years of personal attacks on town officials.
Gone and (nearly) forgotten are efforts to delay or deny funding for new schools.
Gone and (nearly) forgotten are efforts to split the town down the middle, between families with children and retirees.
The new ‘Unity’ mayor –they say with a straight face, will be a Plymouth guy, on our side, with no ax to grind, no special interests to please, who will descend from the clouds surrounded by trumpeting angels and declare peace and prosperity in Plymouth.
The Unity party line is that they love everyone, are against no one, respect all town officials, embrace the unions, and that if it weren’t for the constraints of our existing form of government Plymouth would be the ‘jewel of the South Shore’.
Excuse me while I pull over to the side of the road and heave.
Do I need to say that it’s not that simple?
Do I need to say that a great deal of the fault for Plymouth not being “all that it can be” lies with us, the residents?
Do I need to speak to the preposterously low turnouts at elections, big and small?
But back to the Ministry of Propaganda’s prime time schedule, most of which –curiouser and curiouser, have the same producers, camera operators, and technicians.
It’s television by Unity, for Unity, and featuring Unity.
Particularly hilarious was a recent episode of a show called This Old Towne – in which the host hardly had time to ask any questions of his guests (all Unity charter commission candidates) because he spent so much time saying what great humanitarians they were, how right they were, how much he agreed with them, and how he was a proud member of their team.
According to Unity’s leaders, the only reason that there is organized opposition to their efforts to trash 400 years of town government is because town officials are worried about losing their jobs.
Think that through: a group of long time town residents, who devote countless hours to the town for little or no money, take constant abuse from residents and the media, are supposed to be desperate to hold on their jobs.
Excuse me while I pull over to the side of the road and have a good laugh.
Honestly, if its platitudes and self-sacrificing behavior that you are looking for, you need look no further than our existing form of government.
You may not like the outcomes, you may not like the people, but you should appreciate a system that allows for maximum involvement of town residents.
According to proponents of a Mayoral system, our existing form of government is antiquated. Well, yes, the test of a good system of government is often how long it can last. So when did the existing system become antiquated? After 100 years? 200 years? 300 years?
Everyone believes that the present system can be improved, enhanced, and made more accessible –especially if our townspeople are really interested in playing their part. But I for one do not believe we should start all over.
Maybe if Ronald Reagan were running for Mayor of Plymouth I’d feel differently. Not that I liked his policies, quite the opposite: but at least you got the sense that Reagan actually believed the words that were coming out of his mouth.
Instead, the Unity slate leaders seem to have adopted the Cheshire cat approach to town politics: no matter what happens, stick to the script and keep on smiling.
Taking Credit for Someone Else's Art
I want to do an art installation, and you can help.
You know, a collection of unconnected stuff, artfully strewn across a designated ‘space’, signifying different things to different people, depending on the time of day, the amount of sunlight, socio-economic assumptions and the like.
Art is more and more not what anyone makes, but what we are subjected to.
Know what I mean?
The cool thing, or at least one of the cool things about installations, is that we all bring something to them: they require our participation.
That wasn’t always the case.
DaVinci didn’t need a long queue outside of the palace to verify the obvious: that guy could paint!
But modern art installations require participation: which in a way, is to say that all of life, seen from a particular perspective, is art.
Where am I going with this?
Nowhere.
I’m just sitting at home, opening my mail, and from my perspective CapitalOne – the big credit card company, is making an artistic statement that deserves a greater audience.
Actually, you probably couldn’t get a bigger audience than CapitalOne already has, but what they need is for someone, like me, to comment on the artistic aspect of their endeavor.
Or perhaps what they need is someone like me to gather others like me, together, to share the experience that each of us, individually, is experiencing courtesy of CapitalOne.
Did you ever see those sculptures – mostly busts, which are made out of hundreds of separate, flat slices of wood?
Are you familiar with that modern artist who uses a thousand tiny little painted pictures to assemble one portrait?
Have you received 173 separate mailings from CapitalOne –each one completely different from the other, yet each one making the same silly appeal to accept another credit card?
I have before me as I write, my favorite: what appears to be a brown paper lunch bag – with the words “Time Sensitive Documents Enclosed” written boldly across the front. In fact I have four of these: one addressed to me, one to my wife, one to my college age son, and one to Art Gecko, a pet that is well on his way to fertilizing the back yard grass.
How “Time Sensitive” can the message be, that comes every day, every week, every month?
I am not sure why they resorted to the brown paper bag approach. Maybe they thought it would appeal to my blue-collar sensibilities. But then why did they send me the same offer, enclosed in a shiny, shimmering futuristic-looking envelope, a few weeks ago? And why the 170 other variations on the same theme?
I can’t be the only one that is receiving this kind of attention – but that in itself seems absurd.
Can CapitalOne really afford to send every man, woman and child in America a new credit card offer every week?
And if they can afford to do that, why can they afford to do that?
Or maybe it’s my questionable credit-worthiness that attracts them: though I don’t look like a great credit risk, I may look like a sure-fire bet to pay loads of late fees.
Maybe it really is a joke.
Perhaps a long-forgotten college room mate, who made a billion dollars selling imitation Viagra tablets using Spam email messages, is now spending some of his ill-gotten gains torturing me with these endless mailings.
But back to the arts.
For the next year I want you to take every one of the unsolicited credit card offers you receive –not just CapitalOne, and put them in a big trash bag.
Then, next year on March 16, bring them to a local museum where someone with experience in installations can note the number and variety of your contribution, then arrange them in an effective way.
I envision the exhibition room shaped like a giant glass mailbox.
On the outside of the museum building there’ll be a giant slot where anyone could drive up, drop their letters in, and watch them fall on to the heads of those attending the exhibition, then scatter all over the exhibition floor.
We’ll have sponsors for our exhibition too: corporations love to support the arts.
We’ll have a special reception and fundraiser to benefit a worthy charity, at which executives from the corporate sponsors, selected guests, and a representative sample of poor credit risks will be able to argue about the artistic potential of direct mail.
Any funds leftover after the reception, the show, and the clean-up, will go to paying my existing credit card bills.
What’s in your wallet?
Mine’s overflowing with art!
You know, a collection of unconnected stuff, artfully strewn across a designated ‘space’, signifying different things to different people, depending on the time of day, the amount of sunlight, socio-economic assumptions and the like.
Art is more and more not what anyone makes, but what we are subjected to.
Know what I mean?
The cool thing, or at least one of the cool things about installations, is that we all bring something to them: they require our participation.
That wasn’t always the case.
DaVinci didn’t need a long queue outside of the palace to verify the obvious: that guy could paint!
But modern art installations require participation: which in a way, is to say that all of life, seen from a particular perspective, is art.
Where am I going with this?
Nowhere.
I’m just sitting at home, opening my mail, and from my perspective CapitalOne – the big credit card company, is making an artistic statement that deserves a greater audience.
Actually, you probably couldn’t get a bigger audience than CapitalOne already has, but what they need is for someone, like me, to comment on the artistic aspect of their endeavor.
Or perhaps what they need is someone like me to gather others like me, together, to share the experience that each of us, individually, is experiencing courtesy of CapitalOne.
Did you ever see those sculptures – mostly busts, which are made out of hundreds of separate, flat slices of wood?
Are you familiar with that modern artist who uses a thousand tiny little painted pictures to assemble one portrait?
Have you received 173 separate mailings from CapitalOne –each one completely different from the other, yet each one making the same silly appeal to accept another credit card?
I have before me as I write, my favorite: what appears to be a brown paper lunch bag – with the words “Time Sensitive Documents Enclosed” written boldly across the front. In fact I have four of these: one addressed to me, one to my wife, one to my college age son, and one to Art Gecko, a pet that is well on his way to fertilizing the back yard grass.
How “Time Sensitive” can the message be, that comes every day, every week, every month?
I am not sure why they resorted to the brown paper bag approach. Maybe they thought it would appeal to my blue-collar sensibilities. But then why did they send me the same offer, enclosed in a shiny, shimmering futuristic-looking envelope, a few weeks ago? And why the 170 other variations on the same theme?
I can’t be the only one that is receiving this kind of attention – but that in itself seems absurd.
Can CapitalOne really afford to send every man, woman and child in America a new credit card offer every week?
And if they can afford to do that, why can they afford to do that?
Or maybe it’s my questionable credit-worthiness that attracts them: though I don’t look like a great credit risk, I may look like a sure-fire bet to pay loads of late fees.
Maybe it really is a joke.
Perhaps a long-forgotten college room mate, who made a billion dollars selling imitation Viagra tablets using Spam email messages, is now spending some of his ill-gotten gains torturing me with these endless mailings.
But back to the arts.
For the next year I want you to take every one of the unsolicited credit card offers you receive –not just CapitalOne, and put them in a big trash bag.
Then, next year on March 16, bring them to a local museum where someone with experience in installations can note the number and variety of your contribution, then arrange them in an effective way.
I envision the exhibition room shaped like a giant glass mailbox.
On the outside of the museum building there’ll be a giant slot where anyone could drive up, drop their letters in, and watch them fall on to the heads of those attending the exhibition, then scatter all over the exhibition floor.
We’ll have sponsors for our exhibition too: corporations love to support the arts.
We’ll have a special reception and fundraiser to benefit a worthy charity, at which executives from the corporate sponsors, selected guests, and a representative sample of poor credit risks will be able to argue about the artistic potential of direct mail.
Any funds leftover after the reception, the show, and the clean-up, will go to paying my existing credit card bills.
What’s in your wallet?
Mine’s overflowing with art!
Plymouth 2020
Mazz, a friend of mine from deepest, darkest Carver, was over the house the other day, and caught his first look at the Winter Olympics.
Where he lives – in a shack somewhere on the great expanse of cranberry bogs that stretches from the Myles Standish State Forest to Wisconsin, they have only recently been hooked up to the ‘telly-graph wires’: so the competitions in Torino were, to his eye, exotic in the extreme.
After a long day of watching mostly snow board sports, with a few glimpses of women’s figure skating, he suddenly sprang up from his perch in front of our 88-inch flat screen beauty, and announced he understood, he finally understood the criteria by which the participants were being judged.
And to demonstrate his insight, he then fell forward, doing a face plant into our vintage shag carpet.
Technically, Mazz misunderstood what was going on. But he was correct in concluding that the camera’s eye valued images of competitors falling, above all else.
The women’s figure skaters appeared to be champion fallers. The snowboarders seemed to use their butts to steer with. Highlights were rare, but mis-steps, trips, pushes, and pratfalls were shown over and over, in super-slo-motion.
I agreed with my friend’s general conclusion, but his enthusiasm also made me take another look at what I had previously considered a spectacular waste of time and money.
As I now understand - thanks to Mazz, the appeal of the modern Winter Olympics is that anybody can do what they do – stumble, fall, trip, get in fights, criticize, space out, and choke.
And if anyone can play, why can’t any town hose? And there’s no any town, like America’s Home Town.
Boy, imagine that: Plymouth, host of the 2020 Winter Olympics. Timed of course, to coincide with the 400th anniversary of the First Pilgrim Olympics - when there was only one country represented, and medals were given out a hundred or so years later, posthumously.
It could never have happened 20 or 30 years ago, when Olympic competitions were, for the most part, athletic.
But now that 16 year olds are being paid millions for doing the kinds of things our kids do in the basement - when we aren’t watching, Plymouth has a great opportunity.
Venues? We don’t need no stinking venues. We’ve got the old Armstrong Rink, and a soon to be abandoned Nuclear Reactor chamber. And most everyone else (like those crazy cross country skiers) can be stuck over in Myles Standish State Forest.
Alpine Events? No problem: a few million extra feet of ‘clean fill’ and Mt. Manomet (the former landfill) will have all the altitude we need.
The most difficult challenge we would face, as I see it, is in making these Olympics ‘Plymouth’s Games’, and not just some abstract, idealistic exercise in international cooperation.
Here I think we can take our cue from the Canadians, who managed to have Curling made an Olympic sport in time for the Vancouver Winter Olympics in 2010. And the Canadians aren’t done yet: they hope to have both Ice Fishing and Mosquito Swatting made demonstration sports in time for 2010.
What can Plymouth do?
Well, it is hard to rival Curling for pure cultural obscurity. We could have Candlepin Bowling on ice, but that might be expensive.
My personal favorite –a pseudo sport that combines all the falls of figure skating with the grass-growing drama of curling, is Beginning Skating Lessons.
Imagine endless hours of hundreds of four and five year olds clutching orange cones, and gingerly making their way across the ice, with the medal winners chosen by the mysterious votes of judges who tally the total number of falls, the total volume of tears shed, and the scowls of impatient fathers.
Another local sport that could make it to the Olympics is our own Parking Meter Jump –utilizing the existing downtown Middle Street lot competitors could use ramps of snow to leap from meter to meter to see who can go the longest without adding any quarters or being ticketed.
Cross-Rotary-Skiing could combine the endurance of traditional cross-country skiing, with our regional version of the demolition derby.
Outfitting our school buses with skis we could hold School Bus Relays, where competitors try to get kindergarten, elementary, middle school, and high school kids to and from school using the same bus.
For dedicated fans of the new ‘board’ competitions, we could add a slight twist. Instead of creating expensive ramps and half pipes of snow, we could just use the existing gravel operations on Beaver Dam Road.
Or for a real hot event, try half pipe competitions inside the abandoned reactor building. One fall and you’re toast!
There could also be a competition to see which country could fit the most Olympians on ‘The Rock’ at one time.
And what about a Mark Lord Monologue Competition?
Instead of the silly biathlon where skiers race around a course and take pot shots at paper targets, I’d have them ski down the re-created Leyden Street of Plimoth Plantation, build a new home for Governor Bradford, race over to the Wampanoag Settlement, dig out a canoe from a whole log, paddle that canoe over the pond to Plymouth Beach and take pot shots at Piping Plovers.
And to really boost the ratings, instead of allowing countries to choose their teams based on their athletic abilities or odd skills, I’d have the producers of ‘Survivor’, run the whole show.
That would really open up the whole Olympics, because no one would want to do too good, because they’d risk being voted out at the Tribal meeting.
I was wrong in not seeing the value of the Winter Olympics, and for that insight I owe a debt of thanks to Mazz.
It’s not just about falling down though. It’s about hyping up.
It’s about getting your turn in the spotlight, falling down, and getting paid no matter how you perform.
It’s about Plymouth 2020: A Turkey on Skis.
Where he lives – in a shack somewhere on the great expanse of cranberry bogs that stretches from the Myles Standish State Forest to Wisconsin, they have only recently been hooked up to the ‘telly-graph wires’: so the competitions in Torino were, to his eye, exotic in the extreme.
After a long day of watching mostly snow board sports, with a few glimpses of women’s figure skating, he suddenly sprang up from his perch in front of our 88-inch flat screen beauty, and announced he understood, he finally understood the criteria by which the participants were being judged.
And to demonstrate his insight, he then fell forward, doing a face plant into our vintage shag carpet.
Technically, Mazz misunderstood what was going on. But he was correct in concluding that the camera’s eye valued images of competitors falling, above all else.
The women’s figure skaters appeared to be champion fallers. The snowboarders seemed to use their butts to steer with. Highlights were rare, but mis-steps, trips, pushes, and pratfalls were shown over and over, in super-slo-motion.
I agreed with my friend’s general conclusion, but his enthusiasm also made me take another look at what I had previously considered a spectacular waste of time and money.
As I now understand - thanks to Mazz, the appeal of the modern Winter Olympics is that anybody can do what they do – stumble, fall, trip, get in fights, criticize, space out, and choke.
And if anyone can play, why can’t any town hose? And there’s no any town, like America’s Home Town.
Boy, imagine that: Plymouth, host of the 2020 Winter Olympics. Timed of course, to coincide with the 400th anniversary of the First Pilgrim Olympics - when there was only one country represented, and medals were given out a hundred or so years later, posthumously.
It could never have happened 20 or 30 years ago, when Olympic competitions were, for the most part, athletic.
But now that 16 year olds are being paid millions for doing the kinds of things our kids do in the basement - when we aren’t watching, Plymouth has a great opportunity.
Venues? We don’t need no stinking venues. We’ve got the old Armstrong Rink, and a soon to be abandoned Nuclear Reactor chamber. And most everyone else (like those crazy cross country skiers) can be stuck over in Myles Standish State Forest.
Alpine Events? No problem: a few million extra feet of ‘clean fill’ and Mt. Manomet (the former landfill) will have all the altitude we need.
The most difficult challenge we would face, as I see it, is in making these Olympics ‘Plymouth’s Games’, and not just some abstract, idealistic exercise in international cooperation.
Here I think we can take our cue from the Canadians, who managed to have Curling made an Olympic sport in time for the Vancouver Winter Olympics in 2010. And the Canadians aren’t done yet: they hope to have both Ice Fishing and Mosquito Swatting made demonstration sports in time for 2010.
What can Plymouth do?
Well, it is hard to rival Curling for pure cultural obscurity. We could have Candlepin Bowling on ice, but that might be expensive.
My personal favorite –a pseudo sport that combines all the falls of figure skating with the grass-growing drama of curling, is Beginning Skating Lessons.
Imagine endless hours of hundreds of four and five year olds clutching orange cones, and gingerly making their way across the ice, with the medal winners chosen by the mysterious votes of judges who tally the total number of falls, the total volume of tears shed, and the scowls of impatient fathers.
Another local sport that could make it to the Olympics is our own Parking Meter Jump –utilizing the existing downtown Middle Street lot competitors could use ramps of snow to leap from meter to meter to see who can go the longest without adding any quarters or being ticketed.
Cross-Rotary-Skiing could combine the endurance of traditional cross-country skiing, with our regional version of the demolition derby.
Outfitting our school buses with skis we could hold School Bus Relays, where competitors try to get kindergarten, elementary, middle school, and high school kids to and from school using the same bus.
For dedicated fans of the new ‘board’ competitions, we could add a slight twist. Instead of creating expensive ramps and half pipes of snow, we could just use the existing gravel operations on Beaver Dam Road.
Or for a real hot event, try half pipe competitions inside the abandoned reactor building. One fall and you’re toast!
There could also be a competition to see which country could fit the most Olympians on ‘The Rock’ at one time.
And what about a Mark Lord Monologue Competition?
Instead of the silly biathlon where skiers race around a course and take pot shots at paper targets, I’d have them ski down the re-created Leyden Street of Plimoth Plantation, build a new home for Governor Bradford, race over to the Wampanoag Settlement, dig out a canoe from a whole log, paddle that canoe over the pond to Plymouth Beach and take pot shots at Piping Plovers.
And to really boost the ratings, instead of allowing countries to choose their teams based on their athletic abilities or odd skills, I’d have the producers of ‘Survivor’, run the whole show.
That would really open up the whole Olympics, because no one would want to do too good, because they’d risk being voted out at the Tribal meeting.
I was wrong in not seeing the value of the Winter Olympics, and for that insight I owe a debt of thanks to Mazz.
It’s not just about falling down though. It’s about hyping up.
It’s about getting your turn in the spotlight, falling down, and getting paid no matter how you perform.
It’s about Plymouth 2020: A Turkey on Skis.
You Know What You Can Do!
My fiftieth column is coming up, in a month or so, and I know a lot of you are starting to wonder how to celebrate that momentous milestone.
There is some talk of a surprise party, another of a ‘cruise to nowhere’, and yet another group of dedicated readers that is in favor of a more formal recognition of my significant contributions to the public discourse: a plaque, speeches, and the like.
While I am not averse to any of the aforementioned activities, I would like to let you know that there is a simple, elegant, and relatively inexpensive way for you to let me know how much you appreciate these ‘ramblings’, and one that would also help to curry favor with my editors – a letter.
Not a personal letter mind you, scented or stuffed with cash, but rather a traditional, spur-of-the-moment, relatively inarticulate and hopefully angry letter – to the editor!
Is that too much to ask?
Actually, maybe it is too much to ask, or at least too much to hope for. After all, the average Plymouth resident has neither the time nor the vocabulary to communicate with me, regardless of the issue.
And I will freely admit that I have not done all that I might have done – to encourage the kind of raw emotional response that is so prized in journalistic circles.
Instead I have gone out of my way to be articulate, humorous, and self-deprecating.
Instead of writing about idiots, meatheads, thieves and perverts, I have written about moths and caterpillars, turkeys and Well Guys.
Instead of using my position to preach for the dissolution of the existing government and institutions, I have lobbied for a continuation of the traditional forms.
I guess it is a bit difficult to get readers riled up over a discussion of the various names of the thousand ponds of Plymouth.
There is not much controversy in the debate over whether we should call our local ice cream drink concoction a frappe, or a cabinet, or heaven forbid, a milkshake!
It is hard to argue with columns that wax poetic about snow, silence, and corn chowder.
Yes, I know it is difficult, but is that what friends are for?
For god’s sake, isn’t there anyone out there who can publicly disagree with me?
Maybe part of the problem is my intimidating intellectual abilities. Admit it, some of you don’t know what the heck I am talking about half the time.
Well, hey, there’s a nice subject for a letter.
Start off your diatribe by saying just that: “What the heck was that wacko Frank Mand talking about the other day, in his column about the Billington Brothers?”
Maybe part of the problem is that I am too concerned with ideas, too little with people.
The truth is I would love to have a local version of Trump or Martha to make fun of;
Every knows that a power-mad local cop makes for great copy;
A truly corrupt politician or civil servant is worth a half dozen columns or more.
So why don’t I go on the personal attack more often?
Honestly, I just don’t think we have anyone who really fits the bill.
As towns go, ye old Plymouth is relatively tame, relatively honest.
My biggest criticism of the town and its leaders overall is that they are unimaginative: not exactly a tar and feathering offense.
But if you know better, if you have the skinny, the inside dope, if you can name names well then do so now: preferably in a lovely, bitter, lengthy letter to the editor.
And while you are at it, you might wonder, ‘out loud’, why I don’t seem to be as bitter and angry as you are.
You might infer, imply or come right out and suggest that my silence on these and other allegedly controversial issues, is a clear sign of a deliberate attempt to suppress the truth.
I am not saying any of that is true, just that it wouldn’t do any harm (to me) for you to suggest that.
Conspiracies are great –for everyone involved.
You know, when I think about what I might want to commemorate my fiftieth column, a public accusation that I am at the heart of a giant conspiracy to suppress the truth, well that ranks right up there with the Cruise to Nowhere.
And if you did write a letter suggesting such a conspiracy, though I can’t promise anything, I can say that there is a high likelihood that I would have to respond with an angry column, defending myself, and naming you personally.
And well, after that, I’d be on my way towards, well -to be perfectly frank, towards another fifty columns about raccoons in the attic, the kingdom of Walmart, and the Billington Boys.
Don’t like it? You know what you can do!
There is some talk of a surprise party, another of a ‘cruise to nowhere’, and yet another group of dedicated readers that is in favor of a more formal recognition of my significant contributions to the public discourse: a plaque, speeches, and the like.
While I am not averse to any of the aforementioned activities, I would like to let you know that there is a simple, elegant, and relatively inexpensive way for you to let me know how much you appreciate these ‘ramblings’, and one that would also help to curry favor with my editors – a letter.
Not a personal letter mind you, scented or stuffed with cash, but rather a traditional, spur-of-the-moment, relatively inarticulate and hopefully angry letter – to the editor!
Is that too much to ask?
Actually, maybe it is too much to ask, or at least too much to hope for. After all, the average Plymouth resident has neither the time nor the vocabulary to communicate with me, regardless of the issue.
And I will freely admit that I have not done all that I might have done – to encourage the kind of raw emotional response that is so prized in journalistic circles.
Instead I have gone out of my way to be articulate, humorous, and self-deprecating.
Instead of writing about idiots, meatheads, thieves and perverts, I have written about moths and caterpillars, turkeys and Well Guys.
Instead of using my position to preach for the dissolution of the existing government and institutions, I have lobbied for a continuation of the traditional forms.
I guess it is a bit difficult to get readers riled up over a discussion of the various names of the thousand ponds of Plymouth.
There is not much controversy in the debate over whether we should call our local ice cream drink concoction a frappe, or a cabinet, or heaven forbid, a milkshake!
It is hard to argue with columns that wax poetic about snow, silence, and corn chowder.
Yes, I know it is difficult, but is that what friends are for?
For god’s sake, isn’t there anyone out there who can publicly disagree with me?
Maybe part of the problem is my intimidating intellectual abilities. Admit it, some of you don’t know what the heck I am talking about half the time.
Well, hey, there’s a nice subject for a letter.
Start off your diatribe by saying just that: “What the heck was that wacko Frank Mand talking about the other day, in his column about the Billington Brothers?”
Maybe part of the problem is that I am too concerned with ideas, too little with people.
The truth is I would love to have a local version of Trump or Martha to make fun of;
Every knows that a power-mad local cop makes for great copy;
A truly corrupt politician or civil servant is worth a half dozen columns or more.
So why don’t I go on the personal attack more often?
Honestly, I just don’t think we have anyone who really fits the bill.
As towns go, ye old Plymouth is relatively tame, relatively honest.
My biggest criticism of the town and its leaders overall is that they are unimaginative: not exactly a tar and feathering offense.
But if you know better, if you have the skinny, the inside dope, if you can name names well then do so now: preferably in a lovely, bitter, lengthy letter to the editor.
And while you are at it, you might wonder, ‘out loud’, why I don’t seem to be as bitter and angry as you are.
You might infer, imply or come right out and suggest that my silence on these and other allegedly controversial issues, is a clear sign of a deliberate attempt to suppress the truth.
I am not saying any of that is true, just that it wouldn’t do any harm (to me) for you to suggest that.
Conspiracies are great –for everyone involved.
You know, when I think about what I might want to commemorate my fiftieth column, a public accusation that I am at the heart of a giant conspiracy to suppress the truth, well that ranks right up there with the Cruise to Nowhere.
And if you did write a letter suggesting such a conspiracy, though I can’t promise anything, I can say that there is a high likelihood that I would have to respond with an angry column, defending myself, and naming you personally.
And well, after that, I’d be on my way towards, well -to be perfectly frank, towards another fifty columns about raccoons in the attic, the kingdom of Walmart, and the Billington Boys.
Don’t like it? You know what you can do!
White Stuff
My old snow thrower is up in Maine, in his junior year.
My new snow player is, well rarin’ to go: go out and play that is.
My Boro Snowblower is not too good in snow more than six inches deep, so I usually take it out two or three times during a big snow. When family from down south call and ask how much snow we got, I multiply the total snow fall by the number of times I had to go out.
We had 343 inches last year, really!
The guy across the street has his house on a big chain, so that when the snow falls it just picks up the house.
He never has to plow.
Then again, when we have a year like last year, sometimes he doesn’t come down for weeks.
The guy on my right has a Boro SnowChewer. Actually, I am being a chauvinist here: what I should have said is that the guy and gal on my right seem to both be out there when it snows, wo-manning their Chewer.
The lady on my left has a very short driveway, and uses a Krupps Snow-Juicer: it takes a very long time, even with her short driveway, but she says she gets about a half gallon of juice in the bargain.
The Infante family has everything heated: their driveway, their lawn, their mailbox, and their roof. Their lawn stays green the whole year. We tell new people they heat with nuclear energy.
It’s an odd sight, but one we’ve gotten used to: in the middle of the biggest blizzards, the whole Infante family out there on their lawn, in beach chairs, having snacks and watching the plows go by.
Of course there’s good and bad to the heated lawn thing. Last year, during the height of the snowfall, several weeks went by when everyone’s mailbox was buried under about ten feet of plowed snow.
So all the mail was delivered to the Infantes.
I didn’t pick mine up until May 1st, and Mr. Infante was not too neighborly when I did.
I’ve thought about getting a more powerful snow re-arranging device, but besides the expense, I am a bit intimidated by the terminology.
There are snow blowers, throwers, juicers, chewers, chompers, stompers and one that makes slurpees too.
Some are great with deep snow, some just with flurries and the like.
Some you are only supposed to use on paved areas, some on grassy areas, some on ski slopes, and some on ice.
The neighbors ‘Chewer’ has a heated driver’s area, a four-speaker sound system, fog lights and a Panini grill.
If you use the Snow Juicer on grass or gravel you could permanently ruin it, and the juice tastes horrible.
The Snow Stomper requires four guys from the DPW department to be harnessed to an old Flexible Flyer and marched around the yard until the snow has been stomped down to a manageable level.
I actually made the Chomper up: there’s no such thing –although my brother Bob used to eat more than his fair share of fresh snow when we were kids.
Some people say that the SnowThrower and the SnowBlower and the SnowBore are the same thing.
I supposed that’s true, for the first two: they’re only different in terms of the size of their engines and total snow re-arranging capacity.
But the SnowBore is clearly different. While the others only come out after the snow has fallen, the SnowBore is usually going back and forth, up and down the street, long before the first flake has fallen, making exaggerated claims as to how much snow ‘he got’, and how long ‘he was out there’.
I’m not trying to claim that I am expert in snow removal, far from it. But I do think I have made the right choice as regards snow removal equipment, and I’ll tell you why.
The most important factor to consider when removing snow is how long the job will take.
You want the job to take no less than one hour, no more than four. So estimate the amount of area you have to clear, and the capacity of the device you are considering purchasing, so that after a six inch snow fall you will be out of the house for 2 ½ hours.
Much less and your significant other will doubt you did the job right.
Much more and they will suspect you’ve been hanging out at the mailbox with your buddies, drinking beer, smoking cigars, and telling snow stories.
If you time it just right, when you come back in the house you’ll find that you are appreciated –as much for the work you’ve done, as for the quiet time they’ve had without you.
My new snow player is, well rarin’ to go: go out and play that is.
My Boro Snowblower is not too good in snow more than six inches deep, so I usually take it out two or three times during a big snow. When family from down south call and ask how much snow we got, I multiply the total snow fall by the number of times I had to go out.
We had 343 inches last year, really!
The guy across the street has his house on a big chain, so that when the snow falls it just picks up the house.
He never has to plow.
Then again, when we have a year like last year, sometimes he doesn’t come down for weeks.
The guy on my right has a Boro SnowChewer. Actually, I am being a chauvinist here: what I should have said is that the guy and gal on my right seem to both be out there when it snows, wo-manning their Chewer.
The lady on my left has a very short driveway, and uses a Krupps Snow-Juicer: it takes a very long time, even with her short driveway, but she says she gets about a half gallon of juice in the bargain.
The Infante family has everything heated: their driveway, their lawn, their mailbox, and their roof. Their lawn stays green the whole year. We tell new people they heat with nuclear energy.
It’s an odd sight, but one we’ve gotten used to: in the middle of the biggest blizzards, the whole Infante family out there on their lawn, in beach chairs, having snacks and watching the plows go by.
Of course there’s good and bad to the heated lawn thing. Last year, during the height of the snowfall, several weeks went by when everyone’s mailbox was buried under about ten feet of plowed snow.
So all the mail was delivered to the Infantes.
I didn’t pick mine up until May 1st, and Mr. Infante was not too neighborly when I did.
I’ve thought about getting a more powerful snow re-arranging device, but besides the expense, I am a bit intimidated by the terminology.
There are snow blowers, throwers, juicers, chewers, chompers, stompers and one that makes slurpees too.
Some are great with deep snow, some just with flurries and the like.
Some you are only supposed to use on paved areas, some on grassy areas, some on ski slopes, and some on ice.
The neighbors ‘Chewer’ has a heated driver’s area, a four-speaker sound system, fog lights and a Panini grill.
If you use the Snow Juicer on grass or gravel you could permanently ruin it, and the juice tastes horrible.
The Snow Stomper requires four guys from the DPW department to be harnessed to an old Flexible Flyer and marched around the yard until the snow has been stomped down to a manageable level.
I actually made the Chomper up: there’s no such thing –although my brother Bob used to eat more than his fair share of fresh snow when we were kids.
Some people say that the SnowThrower and the SnowBlower and the SnowBore are the same thing.
I supposed that’s true, for the first two: they’re only different in terms of the size of their engines and total snow re-arranging capacity.
But the SnowBore is clearly different. While the others only come out after the snow has fallen, the SnowBore is usually going back and forth, up and down the street, long before the first flake has fallen, making exaggerated claims as to how much snow ‘he got’, and how long ‘he was out there’.
I’m not trying to claim that I am expert in snow removal, far from it. But I do think I have made the right choice as regards snow removal equipment, and I’ll tell you why.
The most important factor to consider when removing snow is how long the job will take.
You want the job to take no less than one hour, no more than four. So estimate the amount of area you have to clear, and the capacity of the device you are considering purchasing, so that after a six inch snow fall you will be out of the house for 2 ½ hours.
Much less and your significant other will doubt you did the job right.
Much more and they will suspect you’ve been hanging out at the mailbox with your buddies, drinking beer, smoking cigars, and telling snow stories.
If you time it just right, when you come back in the house you’ll find that you are appreciated –as much for the work you’ve done, as for the quiet time they’ve had without you.
Thursday, February 16, 2006
ZuZu's Petals?
Bedford Falls or Pottersville?
Sooner or later, it has to get personal.
Sooner or later it’s going to be you up there, giving it all you’ve got, and then listening to the snickers.
None of us is perfect, not even close.
Sooner or later –as the song goes, it will be our turn to cry.
That’s obvious, isn’t it? Still, it doesn’t hurt to remind yourself that you’re supposed to treat others, as you would have them treat you. It’s called the ‘Golden Rule’, though it’s looking a bit tarnished these days.
These days it’s a national sport, making fun of each other. These days, the biggest stars are the biggest fools.
Maybe part of it is the distance, the safe distance there is between us and the embarrassment. But don’t you still feel embarrassed for them: doesn’t it feel like we are watching something that should be private?
The cameras don’t just watch either, waiting for something to happen. The hosts provoke and cajole, tease and taunt. The cameras follow the embarrassed into the street, waiting, hoping, for more priceless moments.
No one is happy – and that includes you and me, until and unless the very last drop of ridicule has been wrung out of the poor, the uneducated, the naive, or the innocent.
I think back to a different day, perhaps a less sophisticated time (and I swear, before my time) when the odd or unusual among us were, at worse, characters that added flavor.
I think back to the film “It’s a Wonderful Life” in which the director, Frank Capra, showed two towns: the one that had been touched by idealism and affection was peopled with eccentric characters; the other, abandoned to the so-called market forces, wore the perpetual shadow of mean-spiritedness, and was populated by what you might generously call ghouls.
Bedford Falls was not a real place, but it was an ideal worth aspiring towards.
Pottersville was a fantasy too, but a dark fantasy, and something to be avoided at all costs.
Are we just not willing to pay that price? Or are we just so lazy that the only entertainment we can find is that which we are spoon fed by giant corporations?
Which reality do you live in today: Bedford Falls or Pottersville?
Certainly our Selectmen can’t sing, not one of them, not a note – so run the bums out on a rail?
The guys at the landfill could use a visit from the guys from Queer Eye, if you know what I mean.
The head of that youth sports organization – you know the one I’m talking about, the guy with the toupee: what a laugh. Never mind the endless hours he puts in for your kids.
The local kid passing by in his new car, with the big woofer, what a spoiled punk: you’ve never talked to him at all but somehow you know all about him.
And did you hear the voice on that, well, person: man or a woman? Your guess is as good as mine: your smirk is as sharp as a knife.
Or do you actually recognize these people: are they friends, neighbors?
Does it matter if you know them?
Is it ever fair to scrutinize friends to a degree that none of us could hold up under, if the camera were turned around?
And if we wouldn’t stand for our friends and neighbors being ridiculed for the way they looked, the way they dressed, or their lack of talent, how can we sit there and watch other people’s neighbors, and laugh at their imperfection?
My sense is that American Idol is far from American in spirit. My belief is that The Biggest Loser is the Biggest Loser. My idea is that, as difficult as it might seem, we need to turn these shows off.
They’re laughing at us – laughing all the way to the bank.
Show some pride. Or when the camera focuses in on you, you will have no one else to blame.
Sooner or later, it has to get personal.
Sooner or later it’s going to be you up there, giving it all you’ve got, and then listening to the snickers.
None of us is perfect, not even close.
Sooner or later –as the song goes, it will be our turn to cry.
That’s obvious, isn’t it? Still, it doesn’t hurt to remind yourself that you’re supposed to treat others, as you would have them treat you. It’s called the ‘Golden Rule’, though it’s looking a bit tarnished these days.
These days it’s a national sport, making fun of each other. These days, the biggest stars are the biggest fools.
Maybe part of it is the distance, the safe distance there is between us and the embarrassment. But don’t you still feel embarrassed for them: doesn’t it feel like we are watching something that should be private?
The cameras don’t just watch either, waiting for something to happen. The hosts provoke and cajole, tease and taunt. The cameras follow the embarrassed into the street, waiting, hoping, for more priceless moments.
No one is happy – and that includes you and me, until and unless the very last drop of ridicule has been wrung out of the poor, the uneducated, the naive, or the innocent.
I think back to a different day, perhaps a less sophisticated time (and I swear, before my time) when the odd or unusual among us were, at worse, characters that added flavor.
I think back to the film “It’s a Wonderful Life” in which the director, Frank Capra, showed two towns: the one that had been touched by idealism and affection was peopled with eccentric characters; the other, abandoned to the so-called market forces, wore the perpetual shadow of mean-spiritedness, and was populated by what you might generously call ghouls.
Bedford Falls was not a real place, but it was an ideal worth aspiring towards.
Pottersville was a fantasy too, but a dark fantasy, and something to be avoided at all costs.
Are we just not willing to pay that price? Or are we just so lazy that the only entertainment we can find is that which we are spoon fed by giant corporations?
Which reality do you live in today: Bedford Falls or Pottersville?
Certainly our Selectmen can’t sing, not one of them, not a note – so run the bums out on a rail?
The guys at the landfill could use a visit from the guys from Queer Eye, if you know what I mean.
The head of that youth sports organization – you know the one I’m talking about, the guy with the toupee: what a laugh. Never mind the endless hours he puts in for your kids.
The local kid passing by in his new car, with the big woofer, what a spoiled punk: you’ve never talked to him at all but somehow you know all about him.
And did you hear the voice on that, well, person: man or a woman? Your guess is as good as mine: your smirk is as sharp as a knife.
Or do you actually recognize these people: are they friends, neighbors?
Does it matter if you know them?
Is it ever fair to scrutinize friends to a degree that none of us could hold up under, if the camera were turned around?
And if we wouldn’t stand for our friends and neighbors being ridiculed for the way they looked, the way they dressed, or their lack of talent, how can we sit there and watch other people’s neighbors, and laugh at their imperfection?
My sense is that American Idol is far from American in spirit. My belief is that The Biggest Loser is the Biggest Loser. My idea is that, as difficult as it might seem, we need to turn these shows off.
They’re laughing at us – laughing all the way to the bank.
Show some pride. Or when the camera focuses in on you, you will have no one else to blame.
The Official Do-It-Yourself Isolationist Kit
What do present-day pilgrims want most today? To be left alone! So, to help you out, I’ve put together this do-it-yourself isolationist kit.
Follow these instructions and, in no time at all, you won’t know what hit you.
1. Change the locks on your doors.
2. Cancel your cable TV subscription.
3. Likewise, with the newspaper.
4. Get one of those walkie-talkie phones for yourself, but no one else: then have your land-lines removed.
5. Cancel your credit cards.
6. Cancel your magazine subscriptions.
7. Do not renew your voter registration.
8. Turn in the plates on your car.
9. Cut down your mail box.
10. Get a windmill…
11. and some big batteries.
12. Disconnect from the power grid.
13. Clear the backyard and plant corn and peas.
14. Potatoes are nice too, and filling.
15. Keep pigs.
16. And chickens.
17. Home-school your kids.
18. No, on second thought, send them to a naïve relative.
19. Wear earplugs 24 hours a day, or get an IPod.
20. No, on second thought, forget the IPod. Get a guitar instead.
21. Sit in the backyard and sing acoustic versions of Black Sabbath songs.
22. Erect a tall fence around your property.
23. Dig a well.
24. Post ‘No Trespassing’ signs all around your property.
25. Learn to bake bread.
26. Learn to like the bread you bake.
27. Keep your opinions to yourself, all of them, forever.
28. Vote to have a Mayor in Plymouth.
You think I’m kidding? I’m not.
If we are going to detach ourselves from the community we live in, we might as well go all the way.
We might as well put our money where our mouths are –and show how much confidence we have in the concept of ‘government by a few people, for the rest of us’.
Sure, wars have been fought to earn the right to full representation, but we’re beyond that. Our democracy is so well put together that it doesn’t need us to make it work.
We trust our representatives – it’s just that we trust fewer and fewer of them.
No, that’s not it.
Okay, so maybe we don’t trust our representatives, but we believe that if there are less of them to trust, they’ll be more trustworthy.
No, that’s not it either.
Oh, I know what it is.
We don’t trust the people in government, but rather than get involved at any level, we’ll just get back at them by eliminating their jobs, and who ever is left, well even if they are not trustworthy, at least we’ll have an easier time assigning blame.
Yeah, that’s it:
We’re for a Mayoral System because when you have a mayor you have someone whose name you know, and can shout out at rallies, when he or she screws up.
The way things are now, the only ones to blame are..well, you and me, and that’s confusing.
And, as I was saying, we just want to be left alone.
I’ve got the perfect slogan for everyone that just wants to be left alone:
“Vote for Mayor –but leave me out of it.”
Place that sign in your yard, but way back, where no one will see it.
Follow these instructions and, in no time at all, you won’t know what hit you.
1. Change the locks on your doors.
2. Cancel your cable TV subscription.
3. Likewise, with the newspaper.
4. Get one of those walkie-talkie phones for yourself, but no one else: then have your land-lines removed.
5. Cancel your credit cards.
6. Cancel your magazine subscriptions.
7. Do not renew your voter registration.
8. Turn in the plates on your car.
9. Cut down your mail box.
10. Get a windmill…
11. and some big batteries.
12. Disconnect from the power grid.
13. Clear the backyard and plant corn and peas.
14. Potatoes are nice too, and filling.
15. Keep pigs.
16. And chickens.
17. Home-school your kids.
18. No, on second thought, send them to a naïve relative.
19. Wear earplugs 24 hours a day, or get an IPod.
20. No, on second thought, forget the IPod. Get a guitar instead.
21. Sit in the backyard and sing acoustic versions of Black Sabbath songs.
22. Erect a tall fence around your property.
23. Dig a well.
24. Post ‘No Trespassing’ signs all around your property.
25. Learn to bake bread.
26. Learn to like the bread you bake.
27. Keep your opinions to yourself, all of them, forever.
28. Vote to have a Mayor in Plymouth.
You think I’m kidding? I’m not.
If we are going to detach ourselves from the community we live in, we might as well go all the way.
We might as well put our money where our mouths are –and show how much confidence we have in the concept of ‘government by a few people, for the rest of us’.
Sure, wars have been fought to earn the right to full representation, but we’re beyond that. Our democracy is so well put together that it doesn’t need us to make it work.
We trust our representatives – it’s just that we trust fewer and fewer of them.
No, that’s not it.
Okay, so maybe we don’t trust our representatives, but we believe that if there are less of them to trust, they’ll be more trustworthy.
No, that’s not it either.
Oh, I know what it is.
We don’t trust the people in government, but rather than get involved at any level, we’ll just get back at them by eliminating their jobs, and who ever is left, well even if they are not trustworthy, at least we’ll have an easier time assigning blame.
Yeah, that’s it:
We’re for a Mayoral System because when you have a mayor you have someone whose name you know, and can shout out at rallies, when he or she screws up.
The way things are now, the only ones to blame are..well, you and me, and that’s confusing.
And, as I was saying, we just want to be left alone.
I’ve got the perfect slogan for everyone that just wants to be left alone:
“Vote for Mayor –but leave me out of it.”
Place that sign in your yard, but way back, where no one will see it.
Saturday, February 04, 2006
Option Seven
Don’t be fooled by the six so-called options for a revitalized Plymouth High School system, that were unveiled before a gathering of town officials this past week.
Though thousands have already been spent on blow-ups of aerial photographs, reprints of sewerage study statistics, and for hundreds of those cute little colored plastic report folders, the worst-kept secret in town is that -- waiting in the wings for the inevitable rejection of those first six options, is a stupendous, unique, and never before seen lucky seventh option that will finally put Plymouth back on the map – just in time for the Quadrennial Celebrations in 2020.
What is that lucky seventh?
Well, first, let’s look at just how bad the first six really are (wink wink, nod nod):
Option One calls for utilizing the catacombs beneath the old North High School for religious studies, and for allowing out of towners to pay to have their oppressed Episcopalians and Methodists attend as well. Then, with the fees paid by the out of towners, the town would build a new school above the catacombs, sealing in the out of towners until and unless they pay an additional fee.
Option One also calls for a third high school to be built, at Pine Hills, at their resident’s expense, and for their children only.
Option Two calls for the town to take the Pine Hills by eminent domain, convert their imitation town green into a school for the arts, connect Plymouth South High School’s septic system to the Pine Hill Affluent Effluent District, and let North High School continue to deteriorate until actually forced to take action by the State.
Option Three creates what is referred to as the Guantanamo-by-the-Bay School Zone, in which unnamed students in unknown numbers could be kept in open-air buildings and taught by masked military men posing as educators.
Option Four kicks the kids out of the South Intermediate School, converts it into a high school, takes the Waverly Oaks clubhouse, converts it into a high school, takes the Plymouth South High School and converts it into a high school, and takes the old North High School and turns into the official residence for the Lord Mayor of Plymouth.
Option Five has Plymouth declaring education optional, and converting all of the former high schools into minimum security prisons to house the expected rise in Congressional convicts.
Option Six is to save all of the money that would have been spent on new or rebuilt high schools and instead, use it to lobby the national government for the re-institution of the draft, thereby removing a major segment of the high school population and rendering moot the need for additional structures.
Option Seven?
Well, first let’s discuss the parameters under which the architectural design firm was operating.
While they had been given a great deal of latitude in coming up with their options, they were told that any design they proposed must meet three minimal criteria.
First, it must be inexpensive to build.
Second, it must be inexpensive to operate.
And third, it must require a very long construction phase, over a minimum of ten years, so that the town never had to ask the town’s people for an override.
High School at Sea!
The secret seventh option, and you heard it here first, is for the town to purchase the Queen Mary and have it refitted for academic purposes.
Plans are already underway to have the Queen Mary winter in the deep harbor adjacent to Cordage Park, thereby allowing town residents to tour the facilities.
Even in its present configuration, the entire student body –including the increases in school population expected over the next 50 years, can be housed and schooled within its decks.
Furthermore the entire high school population can be taken on an extended cruise from September to June, with the summer and vacation breaks utilized for paying customers. Imagine that, the entire high school population spirited away, like the children in the Pied Piper!
While in town, the ship will serve a major tourist attraction, taking day cruises to Nantucket and Martha’s Vineyard, and instantaneously increasing the town’s hotel space by hundreds of rooms whenever it is docked.
Inexpensive to build –only minor retrofitting required.
Inexpensive to operate: all costs offset by paying customers.
And not requiring an override vote.
“It’s a win-win situation,” one leading opponent of just about everything told this reporter on condition of anonymity. “No more fancy schools, no more grubby kids, plenty of parking spaces to go around!”
Though thousands have already been spent on blow-ups of aerial photographs, reprints of sewerage study statistics, and for hundreds of those cute little colored plastic report folders, the worst-kept secret in town is that -- waiting in the wings for the inevitable rejection of those first six options, is a stupendous, unique, and never before seen lucky seventh option that will finally put Plymouth back on the map – just in time for the Quadrennial Celebrations in 2020.
What is that lucky seventh?
Well, first, let’s look at just how bad the first six really are (wink wink, nod nod):
Option One calls for utilizing the catacombs beneath the old North High School for religious studies, and for allowing out of towners to pay to have their oppressed Episcopalians and Methodists attend as well. Then, with the fees paid by the out of towners, the town would build a new school above the catacombs, sealing in the out of towners until and unless they pay an additional fee.
Option One also calls for a third high school to be built, at Pine Hills, at their resident’s expense, and for their children only.
Option Two calls for the town to take the Pine Hills by eminent domain, convert their imitation town green into a school for the arts, connect Plymouth South High School’s septic system to the Pine Hill Affluent Effluent District, and let North High School continue to deteriorate until actually forced to take action by the State.
Option Three creates what is referred to as the Guantanamo-by-the-Bay School Zone, in which unnamed students in unknown numbers could be kept in open-air buildings and taught by masked military men posing as educators.
Option Four kicks the kids out of the South Intermediate School, converts it into a high school, takes the Waverly Oaks clubhouse, converts it into a high school, takes the Plymouth South High School and converts it into a high school, and takes the old North High School and turns into the official residence for the Lord Mayor of Plymouth.
Option Five has Plymouth declaring education optional, and converting all of the former high schools into minimum security prisons to house the expected rise in Congressional convicts.
Option Six is to save all of the money that would have been spent on new or rebuilt high schools and instead, use it to lobby the national government for the re-institution of the draft, thereby removing a major segment of the high school population and rendering moot the need for additional structures.
Option Seven?
Well, first let’s discuss the parameters under which the architectural design firm was operating.
While they had been given a great deal of latitude in coming up with their options, they were told that any design they proposed must meet three minimal criteria.
First, it must be inexpensive to build.
Second, it must be inexpensive to operate.
And third, it must require a very long construction phase, over a minimum of ten years, so that the town never had to ask the town’s people for an override.
High School at Sea!
The secret seventh option, and you heard it here first, is for the town to purchase the Queen Mary and have it refitted for academic purposes.
Plans are already underway to have the Queen Mary winter in the deep harbor adjacent to Cordage Park, thereby allowing town residents to tour the facilities.
Even in its present configuration, the entire student body –including the increases in school population expected over the next 50 years, can be housed and schooled within its decks.
Furthermore the entire high school population can be taken on an extended cruise from September to June, with the summer and vacation breaks utilized for paying customers. Imagine that, the entire high school population spirited away, like the children in the Pied Piper!
While in town, the ship will serve a major tourist attraction, taking day cruises to Nantucket and Martha’s Vineyard, and instantaneously increasing the town’s hotel space by hundreds of rooms whenever it is docked.
Inexpensive to build –only minor retrofitting required.
Inexpensive to operate: all costs offset by paying customers.
And not requiring an override vote.
“It’s a win-win situation,” one leading opponent of just about everything told this reporter on condition of anonymity. “No more fancy schools, no more grubby kids, plenty of parking spaces to go around!”
Sunday, January 29, 2006
Afraid of the dark?
What is it about certain words?
No matter how much we abuse them, misuse them, or refuse to use them, somehow they still maintain their power.
You’d think in this age of endless hype, that we’d run out of things to say, or people willing to listen, or care.
Take New Orleans’s mayor Ray Nagin for example. He’s in a hot water just for saying New Orleans should be a ‘Chocolate City’.
Did anybody really misunderstand that?
Is there anyone who believes that New Orleans – the Big Easy, as they call it, could ever be the same without the unique culture that lies at its foundation?
Louis Armstrong wasn’t born in Anaheim, California. He didn’t grow up listening to the marching bands at Disneyland.
New Orleans, the city that we all imagine, has a flavor that we can all taste, even if we have never been there.
The flavor of New Orleans is so strong that it has seeped in the river, the Mississippi, and found its way upstream into every corner of America, into all of our lives.
We know the truth, but the words still scare us.
I had a different reaction than most, when I heard what the mayor said. I didn’t think he was saying anything unusual but, I thought, he was being a bit greedy.
New Orleans already has a great nickname – The Big Easy, they don’t need another.
And I thought, isn’t Washington D.C., the original ‘Chocolate City’?
When I was a young man, living just outside our nation’s capital, I first heard that term. It started, I believe, with a famous funk group of the time, who had an album entitled ‘Chocolate City, and its Vanilla Suburbs’.
That, I thought at the time, was telling it like it is. And that, I still feel, was a wonderful irony: just a few years after the assassination of Martin Luther King Junior, the capital of a racist nation was 90% black.
I’m still convinced most Americans aren’t aware of that. They think of the Capital in terms of the monuments and the government, not the half million or more blacks that live there.
D.C. is like that old movie, Lost Horizons: hidden in the center of the world, is a majority black southern city!
Chocolate City indeed.
Maybe what most Americans are reacting to, when they hear that term, is their own city, or town, or neighborhood.
If Washington D.C. is a chocolate city, what flavor is their own community?
Tutti Frutti, Rocky Road, Butter Pecan?
If there isn’t an obvious self-consciousness about race in America today, there still is a degree of subconscious guilt: so some words or phrases still make us wince.
On the other hand, a good nickname can do a lot for a town. A bad nickname will keep the tourists away, no matter what.
Take ‘America’s Home Town’, please!
No, that’s not fair. ‘America’s Home Town’ is a great slogan, for tourists headed here with their history books in hand.
But for everybody else, it doesn’t sound like much fun, does it?
And it certainly doesn’t have any ‘taste appeal’.
So we’ve come to the question, what flavor is Plymouth?
Vanilla is, of course, an obvious and perhaps controversial choice.
Plymouth would seem to quality for official vanilla status too, as according to the 2000 census we have only a very small minority population: less than 2% blacks, a hundred or so Native Americans, a few hundred Asians.
But it’s probably not accurate, to say Plymouth’s character is ‘vanilla’.
Is any American truly vanilla?
On job applications I have to put a check in the ‘Caucasian’ box, but as I do so I always long for a more detailed choice. After all, I am do-it-yourself ice cream Sunday kind of Caucasian, with a scoop each of Ireland and France, Romania and Russia, covered by syrup that is equal parts Catholic and Jew.
And my kids: well, just say that Tutti Frutti doesn’t begin to cover it.
So though Plymouth is statistically ‘white’, I’m sure the reality is far more ‘flavorful’.
Maybe Plymouth could be the ‘Chocolate Chip City’: you know, vanilla with freckles?
Or how about ‘Mint Chocolate Chip’, which you might say is Vanilla, with freckles, and an Hispanic brother-in-law?
Maybe we could claim to be the Howard Johnsons of America: you know, with 57 flavors.
Or are we perhaps a bit more bland - the Dunkin Donuts of America: a regular, with the blue stuff, to go.
I remember a decade or so ago, when Dunkin Donuts tried to change the coffee drinking habits of New Englander’s? Instead of their standard Cinnamon roast style, they were pushing a more robust, Seattle style of coffee.
They knew it would be tough.
They knew we would resist it.
So they came up with a special slogan, meant to address our fears.
“Don’t Be Afraid of the Dark”.
Maybe the town’s slogan should be, “Don’t be Disappointed by the Rock.”
I don’t think anyone is really afraid of the idea of a Chocolate City.
It’s just the words that make us nervous.
No matter how much we abuse them, misuse them, or refuse to use them, somehow they still maintain their power.
You’d think in this age of endless hype, that we’d run out of things to say, or people willing to listen, or care.
Take New Orleans’s mayor Ray Nagin for example. He’s in a hot water just for saying New Orleans should be a ‘Chocolate City’.
Did anybody really misunderstand that?
Is there anyone who believes that New Orleans – the Big Easy, as they call it, could ever be the same without the unique culture that lies at its foundation?
Louis Armstrong wasn’t born in Anaheim, California. He didn’t grow up listening to the marching bands at Disneyland.
New Orleans, the city that we all imagine, has a flavor that we can all taste, even if we have never been there.
The flavor of New Orleans is so strong that it has seeped in the river, the Mississippi, and found its way upstream into every corner of America, into all of our lives.
We know the truth, but the words still scare us.
I had a different reaction than most, when I heard what the mayor said. I didn’t think he was saying anything unusual but, I thought, he was being a bit greedy.
New Orleans already has a great nickname – The Big Easy, they don’t need another.
And I thought, isn’t Washington D.C., the original ‘Chocolate City’?
When I was a young man, living just outside our nation’s capital, I first heard that term. It started, I believe, with a famous funk group of the time, who had an album entitled ‘Chocolate City, and its Vanilla Suburbs’.
That, I thought at the time, was telling it like it is. And that, I still feel, was a wonderful irony: just a few years after the assassination of Martin Luther King Junior, the capital of a racist nation was 90% black.
I’m still convinced most Americans aren’t aware of that. They think of the Capital in terms of the monuments and the government, not the half million or more blacks that live there.
D.C. is like that old movie, Lost Horizons: hidden in the center of the world, is a majority black southern city!
Chocolate City indeed.
Maybe what most Americans are reacting to, when they hear that term, is their own city, or town, or neighborhood.
If Washington D.C. is a chocolate city, what flavor is their own community?
Tutti Frutti, Rocky Road, Butter Pecan?
If there isn’t an obvious self-consciousness about race in America today, there still is a degree of subconscious guilt: so some words or phrases still make us wince.
On the other hand, a good nickname can do a lot for a town. A bad nickname will keep the tourists away, no matter what.
Take ‘America’s Home Town’, please!
No, that’s not fair. ‘America’s Home Town’ is a great slogan, for tourists headed here with their history books in hand.
But for everybody else, it doesn’t sound like much fun, does it?
And it certainly doesn’t have any ‘taste appeal’.
So we’ve come to the question, what flavor is Plymouth?
Vanilla is, of course, an obvious and perhaps controversial choice.
Plymouth would seem to quality for official vanilla status too, as according to the 2000 census we have only a very small minority population: less than 2% blacks, a hundred or so Native Americans, a few hundred Asians.
But it’s probably not accurate, to say Plymouth’s character is ‘vanilla’.
Is any American truly vanilla?
On job applications I have to put a check in the ‘Caucasian’ box, but as I do so I always long for a more detailed choice. After all, I am do-it-yourself ice cream Sunday kind of Caucasian, with a scoop each of Ireland and France, Romania and Russia, covered by syrup that is equal parts Catholic and Jew.
And my kids: well, just say that Tutti Frutti doesn’t begin to cover it.
So though Plymouth is statistically ‘white’, I’m sure the reality is far more ‘flavorful’.
Maybe Plymouth could be the ‘Chocolate Chip City’: you know, vanilla with freckles?
Or how about ‘Mint Chocolate Chip’, which you might say is Vanilla, with freckles, and an Hispanic brother-in-law?
Maybe we could claim to be the Howard Johnsons of America: you know, with 57 flavors.
Or are we perhaps a bit more bland - the Dunkin Donuts of America: a regular, with the blue stuff, to go.
I remember a decade or so ago, when Dunkin Donuts tried to change the coffee drinking habits of New Englander’s? Instead of their standard Cinnamon roast style, they were pushing a more robust, Seattle style of coffee.
They knew it would be tough.
They knew we would resist it.
So they came up with a special slogan, meant to address our fears.
“Don’t Be Afraid of the Dark”.
Maybe the town’s slogan should be, “Don’t be Disappointed by the Rock.”
I don’t think anyone is really afraid of the idea of a Chocolate City.
It’s just the words that make us nervous.
Tuesday, January 24, 2006
Escape from the Doldrums
We’re headed into the doldrums folks, the Horse Latitudes, the Sargasso Sea.
The days are shorter, the nights are longer, the heating bill’s going up and sooner or later we’re all going to start feeling a little down.
It’s human nature, and it’s nature nature: less sunlight often translates directly into a less sunny disposition.
That’s probably why we become pre-occupied with our selves, at this time of the year: not only do we have the time to take a closer look, we are often left with nobody else to talk to.
So we turn inward – and in my opinion, get a little obsessed with self-improvement. We change our hair, go on a diet, start working out, re-visit that unfinished novel, and in general turn all of our free time to the study and improvement of the most fascinating person we know.
But it’s hard to inspire yourself.
So we turn to religion: and specifically, Oprah. Because that’s what she does so effortlessly –talk about herself I mean, which translates directly into official permission to be self-obsessed.
If Oprah says it’s okay, it’s alright with me!
Is it any wonder that Valentine’s Day comes smack dab in the middle of the dreariest time of the year. The ancient talk-show hosts who played the coliseum and other venues knew that they couldn’t fight human nature: so they invented a holiday that seems to be about ‘others’, but is really about us, ourselves, again.
Sure we rush out and buy the chocolates, grab a bunch of flowers, and write out a little ditty for our significant other, or others. But we do so with the knowledge that this is an empire-wide holiday and that confirmation of our own importance to the world is sure to come by the afternoon mail.
We are loved, therefore we love.
I mean come on, if you were really romantically inclined and wanted to let your lover know how much they meant to you, you wouldn’t wait until the middle of the winter to make your case.
The real refrain of Valentine’s Day is, “Candy is dandy, sugar is sweet. I am the most wonderful person you are likely to meet.”
What has this got to do with Deval Patrick?
No, I don’t love Deval Patrick, but it’s something like that.
This column was inspired by him.
On a cold winter night I roused myself out of my usual state of near-hibernation and reluctantly drove over to the Radisson where Mr. Patrick, a candidate for governor, was scheduled to meet and greet local residents.
It would have been easier to stay home and watch Oprah, or any of the uplifting reality programming that is geared to make us feel superior by showing us people far worse than we are.
I could have stay home and watched SuperNanny, or FatChance, or The World’s Stupidest People, but I somehow managed to drag myself off the couch, out the door, and into an overheated conference room. Whoopee!
And Deval inspired me.
Okay, forget the politics of it. Forget whose side you are on, which channel you watch, how much you make, what kind of car you drive, where you went to school, how green your lawn is, or anything that includes the words ‘you’, ‘me’, ‘my’, or ‘our’.
What I am painfully slow at getting around to, the point I am trying to make, is that the best way to escape the doldrums, the best chance to get out of these ‘me months’ with your community spirit intact, is to let someone else pull you out.
And what better way to do that is to spend these long cold months with a nice warm ‘cause’.
Careful though, its easy to mistake self interest for a ‘cause’, or simply to make yourself the only cause on your plate.
Paradoxically, the best way to improve you, is to improve the lives of others.
But let’s be brutally honest here, about motivation.
If the only reason you join up is to take down, then it’s still about you.
If politics for you is only about lowering your tax bills, then do me a favor and stay at home and write a letter to the editor.
If the only person you will ever look to for inspiration is staring out at you from the bathroom mirror, than brother, this is your time to shine!
The days are shorter, the nights are longer, the heating bill’s going up and sooner or later we’re all going to start feeling a little down.
It’s human nature, and it’s nature nature: less sunlight often translates directly into a less sunny disposition.
That’s probably why we become pre-occupied with our selves, at this time of the year: not only do we have the time to take a closer look, we are often left with nobody else to talk to.
So we turn inward – and in my opinion, get a little obsessed with self-improvement. We change our hair, go on a diet, start working out, re-visit that unfinished novel, and in general turn all of our free time to the study and improvement of the most fascinating person we know.
But it’s hard to inspire yourself.
So we turn to religion: and specifically, Oprah. Because that’s what she does so effortlessly –talk about herself I mean, which translates directly into official permission to be self-obsessed.
If Oprah says it’s okay, it’s alright with me!
Is it any wonder that Valentine’s Day comes smack dab in the middle of the dreariest time of the year. The ancient talk-show hosts who played the coliseum and other venues knew that they couldn’t fight human nature: so they invented a holiday that seems to be about ‘others’, but is really about us, ourselves, again.
Sure we rush out and buy the chocolates, grab a bunch of flowers, and write out a little ditty for our significant other, or others. But we do so with the knowledge that this is an empire-wide holiday and that confirmation of our own importance to the world is sure to come by the afternoon mail.
We are loved, therefore we love.
I mean come on, if you were really romantically inclined and wanted to let your lover know how much they meant to you, you wouldn’t wait until the middle of the winter to make your case.
The real refrain of Valentine’s Day is, “Candy is dandy, sugar is sweet. I am the most wonderful person you are likely to meet.”
What has this got to do with Deval Patrick?
No, I don’t love Deval Patrick, but it’s something like that.
This column was inspired by him.
On a cold winter night I roused myself out of my usual state of near-hibernation and reluctantly drove over to the Radisson where Mr. Patrick, a candidate for governor, was scheduled to meet and greet local residents.
It would have been easier to stay home and watch Oprah, or any of the uplifting reality programming that is geared to make us feel superior by showing us people far worse than we are.
I could have stay home and watched SuperNanny, or FatChance, or The World’s Stupidest People, but I somehow managed to drag myself off the couch, out the door, and into an overheated conference room. Whoopee!
And Deval inspired me.
Okay, forget the politics of it. Forget whose side you are on, which channel you watch, how much you make, what kind of car you drive, where you went to school, how green your lawn is, or anything that includes the words ‘you’, ‘me’, ‘my’, or ‘our’.
What I am painfully slow at getting around to, the point I am trying to make, is that the best way to escape the doldrums, the best chance to get out of these ‘me months’ with your community spirit intact, is to let someone else pull you out.
And what better way to do that is to spend these long cold months with a nice warm ‘cause’.
Careful though, its easy to mistake self interest for a ‘cause’, or simply to make yourself the only cause on your plate.
Paradoxically, the best way to improve you, is to improve the lives of others.
But let’s be brutally honest here, about motivation.
If the only reason you join up is to take down, then it’s still about you.
If politics for you is only about lowering your tax bills, then do me a favor and stay at home and write a letter to the editor.
If the only person you will ever look to for inspiration is staring out at you from the bathroom mirror, than brother, this is your time to shine!
Friday, January 13, 2006
The Return of the Moth-Mand
The Patriots have their Elvis, the Celtics their leprechaun, my mascot is the moth.
I’m not sure which moth, which genus, but I think you know the one. The creature that’s supposed to be long-dead, especially this far into the wintry weather, but is still there, clinging onto the clapboards, ready to sneak in, to bask in the warmth and dance in the excess wattage, whenever anybody leaves the door open just a few seconds too long.
‘Shut the door, you’re letting the moths in’.
That’s a familiar refrain around our house.
Is it just us or, as I suspect, are there quite a few of you experiencing this phenomena this winter?
Usually, I think, these pesky, non-descript, blandly brown little winged critters are gone after the first frost.
I don’t think there was anything out of the ordinary this fall. I don’t remember the summer as being particularly hot, or humid.
But for some reason these otherwise uninteresting specimens are showing unusual hardiness.
Or maybe I am projecting.
Projecting: that’s a psychological term I learned back in tenth grade, a millennium ago. It means, basically, seeing things the way you want them to be.
I perceive these brown spitballs with wings as particularly hardy this year, because that’s what I want to be.
A survivor.
My little blue species is supposed to have been frozen out of existence long ago.
I have been barely hanging on, clinging to the door and to the fading belief that the light is getting stronger, the climate warmer.
In my delirious state I often fantasize that I have made it inside and found an enormous wool coat that, tiny bite by tiny bite, I consume it it’s entirety.
A wool coat, or as Dick Nixon said in his famous Checker’s speech, ‘a respectable Republican cloth coat’.
But when the wind blows and threatens to rip me off the wall where I am clinging I wake up to the truth that the odds are against me.
I should be long gone by now.
This climate is not conducive to the health of my kind.
Wool or cloth is, however tasty, without any nutritional value whatsoever.
You’ve got to give these little guys credit.
Did you ever flick at a moth clinging to the wall, and have them just turn to dust? Man, that is dedication to a cause.
It’s like a science fiction film: the prehistoric creature fights with every ounce of energy to escape its fate and -- millions of years later, is discovered where it made its last stand: a pile of petrified bones and footprints in the dirt.
Right up to the end they were carrying on.
That’s how it feels sometimes, to be a liberal.
I’m flying on fumes.
I’m held together by wire and wax.
Extinction is just around the corner.
But if the door opens just a crack, and the thinnest spear of light slips out, miraculously my wings come to life.
Lately, perhaps, there seem to have been more than a few ‘chinks’ of light, more than a few glimpses of the warm, well lit world inside the big house.
Is it the light at the end of the tunnel?
Maybe, maybe not.
But even a few reluctant admissions about Iraq, a handful of plea bargains from corrupt lobbyists, and a dollop of outrage that our Homeland Security turns out to mean that the government is spying on you in your home - even these scraps of light are enough to keep up my strength, allow me to hold on a little longer.
On these intermittent flashes I have made my way from the scrub oaks in the front yard, to the steps, to the door, and inside onto the wall.
I am lying low here, my wings folded tightly, barely a splinter of brown on a beige wall, above eye level.
Out of sight, out of mind.
If I can just stay here, undisturbed, for a few days, maybe weeks, I can regain my full strength and take on bigger challenges, take bigger bites out of the wooly mammoths of this new age of conservatism.
For now though, I have to conserve my energy.
For now, I have to rest my wings.
.
Keep your front door shut, the lights off, the closet closed.
Beware the Moths of Spring!
I’m not sure which moth, which genus, but I think you know the one. The creature that’s supposed to be long-dead, especially this far into the wintry weather, but is still there, clinging onto the clapboards, ready to sneak in, to bask in the warmth and dance in the excess wattage, whenever anybody leaves the door open just a few seconds too long.
‘Shut the door, you’re letting the moths in’.
That’s a familiar refrain around our house.
Is it just us or, as I suspect, are there quite a few of you experiencing this phenomena this winter?
Usually, I think, these pesky, non-descript, blandly brown little winged critters are gone after the first frost.
I don’t think there was anything out of the ordinary this fall. I don’t remember the summer as being particularly hot, or humid.
But for some reason these otherwise uninteresting specimens are showing unusual hardiness.
Or maybe I am projecting.
Projecting: that’s a psychological term I learned back in tenth grade, a millennium ago. It means, basically, seeing things the way you want them to be.
I perceive these brown spitballs with wings as particularly hardy this year, because that’s what I want to be.
A survivor.
My little blue species is supposed to have been frozen out of existence long ago.
I have been barely hanging on, clinging to the door and to the fading belief that the light is getting stronger, the climate warmer.
In my delirious state I often fantasize that I have made it inside and found an enormous wool coat that, tiny bite by tiny bite, I consume it it’s entirety.
A wool coat, or as Dick Nixon said in his famous Checker’s speech, ‘a respectable Republican cloth coat’.
But when the wind blows and threatens to rip me off the wall where I am clinging I wake up to the truth that the odds are against me.
I should be long gone by now.
This climate is not conducive to the health of my kind.
Wool or cloth is, however tasty, without any nutritional value whatsoever.
You’ve got to give these little guys credit.
Did you ever flick at a moth clinging to the wall, and have them just turn to dust? Man, that is dedication to a cause.
It’s like a science fiction film: the prehistoric creature fights with every ounce of energy to escape its fate and -- millions of years later, is discovered where it made its last stand: a pile of petrified bones and footprints in the dirt.
Right up to the end they were carrying on.
That’s how it feels sometimes, to be a liberal.
I’m flying on fumes.
I’m held together by wire and wax.
Extinction is just around the corner.
But if the door opens just a crack, and the thinnest spear of light slips out, miraculously my wings come to life.
Lately, perhaps, there seem to have been more than a few ‘chinks’ of light, more than a few glimpses of the warm, well lit world inside the big house.
Is it the light at the end of the tunnel?
Maybe, maybe not.
But even a few reluctant admissions about Iraq, a handful of plea bargains from corrupt lobbyists, and a dollop of outrage that our Homeland Security turns out to mean that the government is spying on you in your home - even these scraps of light are enough to keep up my strength, allow me to hold on a little longer.
On these intermittent flashes I have made my way from the scrub oaks in the front yard, to the steps, to the door, and inside onto the wall.
I am lying low here, my wings folded tightly, barely a splinter of brown on a beige wall, above eye level.
Out of sight, out of mind.
If I can just stay here, undisturbed, for a few days, maybe weeks, I can regain my full strength and take on bigger challenges, take bigger bites out of the wooly mammoths of this new age of conservatism.
For now though, I have to conserve my energy.
For now, I have to rest my wings.
.
Keep your front door shut, the lights off, the closet closed.
Beware the Moths of Spring!
Start the new year 'trashed'
Janus isn’t my trash man, but he should be.
Janus is the two-headed Roman god of doors, and January, supposedly, is his month.
The basic concept is easy, even for those who never took Latin: here we are, at the end and the beginning, and it’s time to make a choice.
On one side is the past – a calamitous year for many, and on the other side is, at the very least, the hope that things will be better.
Seems like an easy decision.
And God bless those who can take such a sanguine, philosophical look at life. All praise to those who can simply turn the page on their life and start anew, even if they don’t manage to actually pull it off by year’s end.
As for me, I can hardly get to the front door, much less the New Year, for all of the junk.
Maybe junk is too strong a word, too negative: call my end of the year condition instead, a mess, an accumulation, a disarray or disorganization.
For me, and I suspect for many others, the year doesn’t build to a crescendo and then refresh itself to the accompaniment of French Horns. Rather the year is a runaway train that only stops its squealing when it leaves the track and crashes head on into a concrete abutment.
Again, I have to say that I know it’s possible that there are those who have everything together: on the day after Christmas they have already taken the tree down, written their thank-you notes, and are enjoying a Pina Colada on the Tahiti deck of the Enchantress of the Seas as it purrs out of Miami Beach.
Happy New Year indeed!
But for me, I’m still stuck on the ‘pooped’ deck as the year ends.
Once again my December didn’t follow a clear, well-lit path to an impressive solid oak door with a carved alabaster knocker in the shape of a god’s head. My year ran amok, like a coed fleeing from an ax murderer, emptying her pockets as she fled.
2005 steamed through spring, lost its breaks in the summer, careened madly through the fall, before finally crashing down December’s aisles.
Consequently, I don’t have a clear view of the future. Instead, I have a house full of empty packages, torn wrapping paper, old toys, old Sports Illustrated magazines, and discarded computer peripherals.
To make matters worse, the really old junk – the allegedly important papers and designated ‘collectibles’ that I couldn’t bring myself to throw away last year at this time, were recently moved from their normal piles to free up a sleep sofa or otherwise help establish the illusion that our home was safe for the annual influx of relatives.
If there is a door here someplace, I can’t find it, much less squeeze through to a hopeful future.
My future is on hold until I can get to the dump.
Is there a patron saint of landfills, and a special prayer to invoke her blessings?
Is there a father of waste incineration with his own plaque in the town square?
Is there a Rufus Refuse comparable to Dewey Decimal, or a biodegradable Roman god of trash?
There should be, there must be: there will be.
My path to the immediate future – and probably the paths of millions just like me, cannot be navigated without first dredging the muck from the channels of the recent past.
And considering the amount of trash American’s generate, the first Monday after New Year’s Day should be declared a national holiday.
Trash Day?
Incineration Day?
Dump Yours Day?
Whatever, let’s party at the dump!
Let’s take all of last year’s excess and compact it down into a manageable bale.
Let’s break a bottle of champagne over a brand-new dump truck, and bang pots as 2005 is hauled away.
Let’s sing and dance on the top of the landfill mountain until we can hardly stand, then drive home in the dark and point out the shooting stars that are the embers of a year of waste sent up the chimney like a prayer toward heaven.
Lord let me make it to the New Year, and let me be able to tell when it arrives.
Janus is the two-headed Roman god of doors, and January, supposedly, is his month.
The basic concept is easy, even for those who never took Latin: here we are, at the end and the beginning, and it’s time to make a choice.
On one side is the past – a calamitous year for many, and on the other side is, at the very least, the hope that things will be better.
Seems like an easy decision.
And God bless those who can take such a sanguine, philosophical look at life. All praise to those who can simply turn the page on their life and start anew, even if they don’t manage to actually pull it off by year’s end.
As for me, I can hardly get to the front door, much less the New Year, for all of the junk.
Maybe junk is too strong a word, too negative: call my end of the year condition instead, a mess, an accumulation, a disarray or disorganization.
For me, and I suspect for many others, the year doesn’t build to a crescendo and then refresh itself to the accompaniment of French Horns. Rather the year is a runaway train that only stops its squealing when it leaves the track and crashes head on into a concrete abutment.
Again, I have to say that I know it’s possible that there are those who have everything together: on the day after Christmas they have already taken the tree down, written their thank-you notes, and are enjoying a Pina Colada on the Tahiti deck of the Enchantress of the Seas as it purrs out of Miami Beach.
Happy New Year indeed!
But for me, I’m still stuck on the ‘pooped’ deck as the year ends.
Once again my December didn’t follow a clear, well-lit path to an impressive solid oak door with a carved alabaster knocker in the shape of a god’s head. My year ran amok, like a coed fleeing from an ax murderer, emptying her pockets as she fled.
2005 steamed through spring, lost its breaks in the summer, careened madly through the fall, before finally crashing down December’s aisles.
Consequently, I don’t have a clear view of the future. Instead, I have a house full of empty packages, torn wrapping paper, old toys, old Sports Illustrated magazines, and discarded computer peripherals.
To make matters worse, the really old junk – the allegedly important papers and designated ‘collectibles’ that I couldn’t bring myself to throw away last year at this time, were recently moved from their normal piles to free up a sleep sofa or otherwise help establish the illusion that our home was safe for the annual influx of relatives.
If there is a door here someplace, I can’t find it, much less squeeze through to a hopeful future.
My future is on hold until I can get to the dump.
Is there a patron saint of landfills, and a special prayer to invoke her blessings?
Is there a father of waste incineration with his own plaque in the town square?
Is there a Rufus Refuse comparable to Dewey Decimal, or a biodegradable Roman god of trash?
There should be, there must be: there will be.
My path to the immediate future – and probably the paths of millions just like me, cannot be navigated without first dredging the muck from the channels of the recent past.
And considering the amount of trash American’s generate, the first Monday after New Year’s Day should be declared a national holiday.
Trash Day?
Incineration Day?
Dump Yours Day?
Whatever, let’s party at the dump!
Let’s take all of last year’s excess and compact it down into a manageable bale.
Let’s break a bottle of champagne over a brand-new dump truck, and bang pots as 2005 is hauled away.
Let’s sing and dance on the top of the landfill mountain until we can hardly stand, then drive home in the dark and point out the shooting stars that are the embers of a year of waste sent up the chimney like a prayer toward heaven.
Lord let me make it to the New Year, and let me be able to tell when it arrives.
Sunday, January 01, 2006
Easier said, than done
Plymouth isn’t in bad shape; it’s just out of shape. Here are a few New Year’s Resolutions for the town.
1. Stop whining and embrace the history of this community. That doesn’t mean that everybody wears funny hats and speaks with a lot of ‘thees and thines’, but rather that we take advantage of our history in everything we do, or don’t do.
Don’t, for example, continue down the road of ‘Retail Right or Wrong’. Yes, we need tax income, but the kind of development going on now is going to make us indistinguishable from any other community –if it hasn’t already.
If that kind of economic development is going to continue, then we should sell the entire downtown historical area to a community that appreciates history, and be done with it.
If we want to hold on to our history, we can’t just sit on it, we do have to develop it: cobblestone Court Street and limit traffic there; build a free, underground parking facility; develop an institute that supports greater citizen involvement in governmental institutions (where our own town meeting could serve as both an example for emulation and a draw for tourists), for example.
2. Abandon the idea of large, efficient school buildings, and embrace the reality that the better a town’s school system, the better the town.
The notion of a single high school campus is a recipe for disaster. It may be more expensive to develop an integrated neighborhood school system, but such a system will provide a better education, help foster a real sense of community, and allow for the kind of programs that excite the imaginations of everyone who lives here.
3. Prescribe some Preparation H for the so-called ‘flare-up’: you know, the Mayoral Flare-up that was recently reported in the press.
Allegedly there is a groundswell of support for completely revamping our 375 year old governmental system. The truth is that there is only a small cadre of radicals who would rather turn the town on its head than accept defeat.
And putting aside the argument as to which government system would be more efficient, abandoning town meeting in Plymouth would be like turning the Eiffel Tower into condominiums, or the Alamo into a Holiday Inn, or slapping a paddle-wheel onto the back of the Mayflower.
4. Fore! I was one of the first to laugh at the notion of Plymouth as a ‘golf destination’, and I still find the proliferation of courses in town, amusing. But I also think that golf courses are far better than retail development, in the long term, and point the way to other kinds of development that allow us to preserve our history, improve our bottom line, and maintain a certain quality of life.
My pet peeve is bicycles. Plymouth seems tailor-made for bicycle tourists. We have the extensive trails of Myles Standish and a plethora of historic and scenic sites throughout town that visitors would love to ‘cycle through’. Many do, but many more would if we catered to that segment of the tourism industry. I would like to see Plymouth actively pursue the development of bike paths throughout town.
With our size, our history, and our scenery, Plymouth could become the bicycling capital of New England.
5. Education, again. Abandon the illusion that we can have a cheap, effective school system, and embrace the reality that when it comes to education ‘more’ is always good.
I don’t know about you, but I am embarrassed that my town’s school teachers have to spend so much of their time begging for things. I am willing to accept the notion that parents should pay for extra-curricular sports and activities –as long as those without the means are not left out. But I don’t believe that art and music are extras.
If we abandon the idea of massive middle schools and town-wide high school campuses, we can look to utilizing the town’s multitude of school buildings for, among other things, buildings dedicated to students with interests in the arts, music, and technology.
I would rather spend the time figuring out how to coordinate two dozen buildings and activities, than how to separate two thousand students in one campus.
6. Take down the parking meters, again. Parking meters in Plymouth are like those invisible fences that are used to keep pets in the yard. Is that what we really want: to give tourist and locals a little shock, every time they are foolish enough to visit the downtown area?
How about a little positive reinforcement instead?
Or leave the meters and make contributions voluntary – then donate the receipts to a worthy charity.
7. Why should anyone be denied access to the greatest information revolution in the history of the world –just because they can’t afford it.
Plymouth should have a town-wide free Internet system, and the entire downtown area should be a wireless zone.
This would attract new business, help existing business, support education, and help distinguish Plymouth from other communities without having to abandon or diminish our history.
8. New Year’s Resolution, from the word ‘resolute’, which is defined as firm, determined, definite, steadfast, tenacious, or purposeful.
Any or all of the above would do.
1. Stop whining and embrace the history of this community. That doesn’t mean that everybody wears funny hats and speaks with a lot of ‘thees and thines’, but rather that we take advantage of our history in everything we do, or don’t do.
Don’t, for example, continue down the road of ‘Retail Right or Wrong’. Yes, we need tax income, but the kind of development going on now is going to make us indistinguishable from any other community –if it hasn’t already.
If that kind of economic development is going to continue, then we should sell the entire downtown historical area to a community that appreciates history, and be done with it.
If we want to hold on to our history, we can’t just sit on it, we do have to develop it: cobblestone Court Street and limit traffic there; build a free, underground parking facility; develop an institute that supports greater citizen involvement in governmental institutions (where our own town meeting could serve as both an example for emulation and a draw for tourists), for example.
2. Abandon the idea of large, efficient school buildings, and embrace the reality that the better a town’s school system, the better the town.
The notion of a single high school campus is a recipe for disaster. It may be more expensive to develop an integrated neighborhood school system, but such a system will provide a better education, help foster a real sense of community, and allow for the kind of programs that excite the imaginations of everyone who lives here.
3. Prescribe some Preparation H for the so-called ‘flare-up’: you know, the Mayoral Flare-up that was recently reported in the press.
Allegedly there is a groundswell of support for completely revamping our 375 year old governmental system. The truth is that there is only a small cadre of radicals who would rather turn the town on its head than accept defeat.
And putting aside the argument as to which government system would be more efficient, abandoning town meeting in Plymouth would be like turning the Eiffel Tower into condominiums, or the Alamo into a Holiday Inn, or slapping a paddle-wheel onto the back of the Mayflower.
4. Fore! I was one of the first to laugh at the notion of Plymouth as a ‘golf destination’, and I still find the proliferation of courses in town, amusing. But I also think that golf courses are far better than retail development, in the long term, and point the way to other kinds of development that allow us to preserve our history, improve our bottom line, and maintain a certain quality of life.
My pet peeve is bicycles. Plymouth seems tailor-made for bicycle tourists. We have the extensive trails of Myles Standish and a plethora of historic and scenic sites throughout town that visitors would love to ‘cycle through’. Many do, but many more would if we catered to that segment of the tourism industry. I would like to see Plymouth actively pursue the development of bike paths throughout town.
With our size, our history, and our scenery, Plymouth could become the bicycling capital of New England.
5. Education, again. Abandon the illusion that we can have a cheap, effective school system, and embrace the reality that when it comes to education ‘more’ is always good.
I don’t know about you, but I am embarrassed that my town’s school teachers have to spend so much of their time begging for things. I am willing to accept the notion that parents should pay for extra-curricular sports and activities –as long as those without the means are not left out. But I don’t believe that art and music are extras.
If we abandon the idea of massive middle schools and town-wide high school campuses, we can look to utilizing the town’s multitude of school buildings for, among other things, buildings dedicated to students with interests in the arts, music, and technology.
I would rather spend the time figuring out how to coordinate two dozen buildings and activities, than how to separate two thousand students in one campus.
6. Take down the parking meters, again. Parking meters in Plymouth are like those invisible fences that are used to keep pets in the yard. Is that what we really want: to give tourist and locals a little shock, every time they are foolish enough to visit the downtown area?
How about a little positive reinforcement instead?
Or leave the meters and make contributions voluntary – then donate the receipts to a worthy charity.
7. Why should anyone be denied access to the greatest information revolution in the history of the world –just because they can’t afford it.
Plymouth should have a town-wide free Internet system, and the entire downtown area should be a wireless zone.
This would attract new business, help existing business, support education, and help distinguish Plymouth from other communities without having to abandon or diminish our history.
8. New Year’s Resolution, from the word ‘resolute’, which is defined as firm, determined, definite, steadfast, tenacious, or purposeful.
Any or all of the above would do.
Magical Woods
Where did the magic go?
When we were younger it seemed so easy, so effortless.
Christmas came into our minds like a magician practicing his sleight of hand: a single silver sleigh bell appeared between his fingers, multiplied, and then disappeared.
Where did it come from?
Where did it go?
Magic!
Maybe the first mistake we made was thinking that because we once thought we saw the magic, we could make the magic ourselves.
We certainly try.
Those same sleigh bells suddenly appear on our lawns, multiply, enlarge, and soon the night is ringing with sleigh bells, and is lit by a thousand tiny glowing bulbs, and populated with enormous electric reindeer and inflatable snowmen.
Few of us have the magician’s nimble fingers, so we compensate with quantity.
We console ourselves with the little white lie that says we are doing it for the children.
And certainly for the very young and innocent it is nearly wondrous to see the tree go up, the presents appear, the family arrive.
But we know better. And we know that we are doing these things for ourselves, as much as for the children.
We still long for the magic.
We still hope to be dragged away from our plans and procedures and made a witness again, an audience member, a waif with his nose pressed against the glass.
But the magician, good or bad, must take his pleasure in the audience’s reaction. Those drawn to the practice of magic, who endeavor to master the skills and learn the secrets, do so only because they really the want it for themselves, want to rediscover that feeling of awe and mystery.
The great Houdini spent years mastering tricks, dedicated himself to uncovering the spiritualist frauds that were common in his lifetime and yet, at the end of life, was desperate to find a way to communicate with departed loved ones.
Despite all he knew about the tricks of the so-called ‘spiritualist’, what Houdini desired most was to be tricked himself.
And so our most precious stories of the season are not about the innocence of children, but rather, about the forestalling of inevitable disbelief: stories of children who had vowed they knew better, had figured it all out, but were tricked nonetheless one last time
Stories of how Papa played Santa for year after year until the children began to catch on and, that year, it was arranged for someone else to comes to the door with a sack full of presents. The children looked at Santa, and then back at Papa, back and forth and back and forth, their eyes getting wider and wider.
We try, for everyone’s sake, to make the magic, and to feel it too.
The streets of our town are now bright with a thousand homes lit by the desire to recapture the old magic.
But let me just mention one, a display in what my son calls the ‘Magical Woods’, on Halfway Pond Road, a few hundred yards west of its intersection with Long Pond Road.
There you’ll see an unassuming Christmas display, simply a single illuminated tree and star: very easily missed if you’re in a hurry.
If you do slow down though, and take a good look, you’ll notice that the 8 foot tree is covered in meticulously placed red bulbs that, glowing brightly in its otherwise dark, isolated patch of wood, point upwards toward a simple white star floating ten feet above.
This display has an admirable –and all too rare simplicity.
There is also a sense of peacefulness, heightened by the absence of any other decorations nearby and the lack of any home or structure lurking in the background.
So though it doesn’t compare in size of wattage to many of the more ostentatious displays about town, if you see this little tree and star, you’ll remember it, and turning to look that way as you drive by again the next night you’ll find it perplexing, for no apparent reason.
The shape is the same the next night, the star above fixed and bright, the lights a constant blue.
But wasn’t it red, the night before?
On successive nights a sense of anticipation will build, as you head down the road and, quite unexpectedly, the lights are green this time.
Needless to say, each time you pass the ‘Magical Woods’, it is a surprise. Even if you guess right, you cannot be quite sure what colors you will see.
Will the colors be mixed?
Are there other colors, yet to be revealed?
Are there other stars in its firmament?
Do the colors change every hour, or every night, or every week.
What’s the rush: let’s wait and see.
Maybe the magic has never left, but has always been there, waiting for us to let go.
You begin by knowing how little you know, yet feeling a sense of wonder every day.
Gradually though, you come to think you’re pretty smart, that you can’t be fooled.
Then the colored lights flicker and you’re a child again.
When we were younger it seemed so easy, so effortless.
Christmas came into our minds like a magician practicing his sleight of hand: a single silver sleigh bell appeared between his fingers, multiplied, and then disappeared.
Where did it come from?
Where did it go?
Magic!
Maybe the first mistake we made was thinking that because we once thought we saw the magic, we could make the magic ourselves.
We certainly try.
Those same sleigh bells suddenly appear on our lawns, multiply, enlarge, and soon the night is ringing with sleigh bells, and is lit by a thousand tiny glowing bulbs, and populated with enormous electric reindeer and inflatable snowmen.
Few of us have the magician’s nimble fingers, so we compensate with quantity.
We console ourselves with the little white lie that says we are doing it for the children.
And certainly for the very young and innocent it is nearly wondrous to see the tree go up, the presents appear, the family arrive.
But we know better. And we know that we are doing these things for ourselves, as much as for the children.
We still long for the magic.
We still hope to be dragged away from our plans and procedures and made a witness again, an audience member, a waif with his nose pressed against the glass.
But the magician, good or bad, must take his pleasure in the audience’s reaction. Those drawn to the practice of magic, who endeavor to master the skills and learn the secrets, do so only because they really the want it for themselves, want to rediscover that feeling of awe and mystery.
The great Houdini spent years mastering tricks, dedicated himself to uncovering the spiritualist frauds that were common in his lifetime and yet, at the end of life, was desperate to find a way to communicate with departed loved ones.
Despite all he knew about the tricks of the so-called ‘spiritualist’, what Houdini desired most was to be tricked himself.
And so our most precious stories of the season are not about the innocence of children, but rather, about the forestalling of inevitable disbelief: stories of children who had vowed they knew better, had figured it all out, but were tricked nonetheless one last time
Stories of how Papa played Santa for year after year until the children began to catch on and, that year, it was arranged for someone else to comes to the door with a sack full of presents. The children looked at Santa, and then back at Papa, back and forth and back and forth, their eyes getting wider and wider.
We try, for everyone’s sake, to make the magic, and to feel it too.
The streets of our town are now bright with a thousand homes lit by the desire to recapture the old magic.
But let me just mention one, a display in what my son calls the ‘Magical Woods’, on Halfway Pond Road, a few hundred yards west of its intersection with Long Pond Road.
There you’ll see an unassuming Christmas display, simply a single illuminated tree and star: very easily missed if you’re in a hurry.
If you do slow down though, and take a good look, you’ll notice that the 8 foot tree is covered in meticulously placed red bulbs that, glowing brightly in its otherwise dark, isolated patch of wood, point upwards toward a simple white star floating ten feet above.
This display has an admirable –and all too rare simplicity.
There is also a sense of peacefulness, heightened by the absence of any other decorations nearby and the lack of any home or structure lurking in the background.
So though it doesn’t compare in size of wattage to many of the more ostentatious displays about town, if you see this little tree and star, you’ll remember it, and turning to look that way as you drive by again the next night you’ll find it perplexing, for no apparent reason.
The shape is the same the next night, the star above fixed and bright, the lights a constant blue.
But wasn’t it red, the night before?
On successive nights a sense of anticipation will build, as you head down the road and, quite unexpectedly, the lights are green this time.
Needless to say, each time you pass the ‘Magical Woods’, it is a surprise. Even if you guess right, you cannot be quite sure what colors you will see.
Will the colors be mixed?
Are there other colors, yet to be revealed?
Are there other stars in its firmament?
Do the colors change every hour, or every night, or every week.
What’s the rush: let’s wait and see.
Maybe the magic has never left, but has always been there, waiting for us to let go.
You begin by knowing how little you know, yet feeling a sense of wonder every day.
Gradually though, you come to think you’re pretty smart, that you can’t be fooled.
Then the colored lights flicker and you’re a child again.
Thursday, December 15, 2005
The Billington Memorial Freeways
Members of the Society for the Protection of Clichés (SPOC) are planning to disrupt the ribbon cutting ceremony marking the official opening of the new Route 44.
SPOC members believe that with the ability to travel quickly from Plymouth to Middleboro, residents of our historic community are perilously close to being able to ‘get there from here’, casting doubt on the veracity of one our regions most famous clichés and, possibly, endangering our very way of life.
“Our quaint customs and cultural eccentricities provide the rest of the nation with some important comic relief,” SPOC President Homer Kingsbury told this reporter last week. “But behind every joke, there’s a kernel of truth. And the truth here is that we New Englanders treasure our isolation.”
“Efficient highways and mass transit are the enemies of that isolation”, Kingsbury continued, “and that’s why we feel it necessary to take this unprecedented action.”
Despite the signs, no one –not even the SPOC, thought this day would ever arrive.
The New Route 44 has been in the planning stages for the last 300 years but, until this century, had never actually progressed beyond vague suggestions and election promises.
Even when the first section was finished several years ago, the delay in completing the connecting roadway was widely assumed to be proof of that famous old adage’s ‘truth’.
Besides, local wits had argued, the real reason the first section of the road was constructed, was so that Wal-Mart could have its own thirty million dollar exit ramp.
At this moment Exit 7 off the Expressway remains a glorified driveway – where wayward commuters find they are limited to a choice of a trip to the Super-Duper Wal-Mart, several gravel operations, the Independence Mall, or an endless, giddy loop de loop between each.
It appears that this circus ride is finally about to come to an end- but questions remain.
Will faster translate in to an improved quality of life?
Will Carver finally get their share of parking lots and abandoned strip malls?
Will this just be another excuse for building another dozen Dunkin Donuts?
And more importantly, shouldn’t Monopoly games have a Cement Truck along with the sports car, top hat, and battleship?
Speaking of Top Hats, on the press release listing the dignitaries expected for the upcoming ribbon cutting ceremony, representatives of Wal-Mart are conspicuously absent. This seems to lend credence to the rumor that, given that they no longer have a ‘captive audience’, plans are already underway to abandon the new super-sized Wal-Mart for Clark Island, which corporate officials allegedly have purchased and renamed Sam’s Island.
Rumors aside, now that the old ‘new’ 44 is about to open, a new problem has emerged: what should they call the old new road, and/or how should we refer to the new ‘old’ 44?
To local residents who have experienced the epic saga of Route 44 firsthand, what the new and old roads are called is a critical issue. They know that the so-called New 44 is actually not so new, having been conceived during the Revolutionary War, designed during the Eisenhower administration, and finally completed a millennium later.
The new 44 will connect to a not-as-new section that runs from Carver to Middleboro, an even older segment that runs from Middleboro to Taunton, and a road that is 44 by name only, meandering from Taunton to Providence without rhyme or reason.
Taking all of this history into account, I feel the old new section should be called The Billington Highway, in honor of the two Billington brothers -passengers on the Mayflower, who became famous for their complete lack of a sense of direction
I would also suggest that the new old section – the quaint, dangerous roadway that still winds past an endless series of cemeteries, ponds and campgrounds through West Plymouth into North Carver, also be called The Billington Highway.
Calling both roads by the same name would create confusion as to how you actually get ‘there from here’ or ‘here from there’, allaying the fears of SPOC members.
Deliberately confusing travelers from outside of the area, would also ensure that at least a modicum of tourists become lost, and are forced to stop at Billington Highway’s famous used book and cranberry gift shops, to ask for directions.
Confused?
Lost?
Looking for the going out of business sale at the old new Super-Sized Wal-Mart?
At least the price of gas is coming down.
SPOC members believe that with the ability to travel quickly from Plymouth to Middleboro, residents of our historic community are perilously close to being able to ‘get there from here’, casting doubt on the veracity of one our regions most famous clichés and, possibly, endangering our very way of life.
“Our quaint customs and cultural eccentricities provide the rest of the nation with some important comic relief,” SPOC President Homer Kingsbury told this reporter last week. “But behind every joke, there’s a kernel of truth. And the truth here is that we New Englanders treasure our isolation.”
“Efficient highways and mass transit are the enemies of that isolation”, Kingsbury continued, “and that’s why we feel it necessary to take this unprecedented action.”
Despite the signs, no one –not even the SPOC, thought this day would ever arrive.
The New Route 44 has been in the planning stages for the last 300 years but, until this century, had never actually progressed beyond vague suggestions and election promises.
Even when the first section was finished several years ago, the delay in completing the connecting roadway was widely assumed to be proof of that famous old adage’s ‘truth’.
Besides, local wits had argued, the real reason the first section of the road was constructed, was so that Wal-Mart could have its own thirty million dollar exit ramp.
At this moment Exit 7 off the Expressway remains a glorified driveway – where wayward commuters find they are limited to a choice of a trip to the Super-Duper Wal-Mart, several gravel operations, the Independence Mall, or an endless, giddy loop de loop between each.
It appears that this circus ride is finally about to come to an end- but questions remain.
Will faster translate in to an improved quality of life?
Will Carver finally get their share of parking lots and abandoned strip malls?
Will this just be another excuse for building another dozen Dunkin Donuts?
And more importantly, shouldn’t Monopoly games have a Cement Truck along with the sports car, top hat, and battleship?
Speaking of Top Hats, on the press release listing the dignitaries expected for the upcoming ribbon cutting ceremony, representatives of Wal-Mart are conspicuously absent. This seems to lend credence to the rumor that, given that they no longer have a ‘captive audience’, plans are already underway to abandon the new super-sized Wal-Mart for Clark Island, which corporate officials allegedly have purchased and renamed Sam’s Island.
Rumors aside, now that the old ‘new’ 44 is about to open, a new problem has emerged: what should they call the old new road, and/or how should we refer to the new ‘old’ 44?
To local residents who have experienced the epic saga of Route 44 firsthand, what the new and old roads are called is a critical issue. They know that the so-called New 44 is actually not so new, having been conceived during the Revolutionary War, designed during the Eisenhower administration, and finally completed a millennium later.
The new 44 will connect to a not-as-new section that runs from Carver to Middleboro, an even older segment that runs from Middleboro to Taunton, and a road that is 44 by name only, meandering from Taunton to Providence without rhyme or reason.
Taking all of this history into account, I feel the old new section should be called The Billington Highway, in honor of the two Billington brothers -passengers on the Mayflower, who became famous for their complete lack of a sense of direction
I would also suggest that the new old section – the quaint, dangerous roadway that still winds past an endless series of cemeteries, ponds and campgrounds through West Plymouth into North Carver, also be called The Billington Highway.
Calling both roads by the same name would create confusion as to how you actually get ‘there from here’ or ‘here from there’, allaying the fears of SPOC members.
Deliberately confusing travelers from outside of the area, would also ensure that at least a modicum of tourists become lost, and are forced to stop at Billington Highway’s famous used book and cranberry gift shops, to ask for directions.
Confused?
Lost?
Looking for the going out of business sale at the old new Super-Sized Wal-Mart?
At least the price of gas is coming down.
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