The Glorious Fourth
Mamacita says: We used to go all-out for over-the-counter fireworks; my son and his friends were crazy about them. They were too young to buy them, so I did that little service for them, smiling sincerely at the clerk while I signed the document that assured the federal government that I wasn’t going to USE the fireworks; I was just buying them so I could look at them. It was legal to buy them, but illegal to use them in any way that involved a lighted match. Go figure.
I’m not going to say that there were no accidents involving fireworks in my back yard, but I did used to have TWO cherry trees back there.
And I think everybody’s deck and sidewalk should have scorch marks on them; it tells people that once upon a time, kids lived here. When I moved out of my parents’ house, I actually wept a little inside at saying goodbye to many years’ worth of scorch marks.
I do not like the loud “bangs,” but I do love the spectacle in the sky. The drought here is so bad that our fireworks show really ought to be cancelled; it would be the wise thing to do, but apparently it’s still on tonight’s agenda.
We all also know that fools everywhere are going to disregard all the fire warnings; already I can hear the bangs and booms all over the neighborhood. These people be crazy. There will be sirens all over town. The fireworks tents and kiosks here are all displaying signs reading “Don’t worry about the fireworks ban; our products won’t cause fires.”
Because gunpowder and matches never cause fires, especially on grass so dry it pierces a bare foot like widely-spaced awls.
My ability to suffer fools decreases with each passing day; I often think that if our society didn’t try so hard to put up with fools, there might not be as many.
The Bible is harder on fools than on evil people, to which I say, YESS. Evil people can reform; fools stay stupid all their lives, and bring everyone and everything around them down, as well.
I do not believe that Americans take the Fourth of July seriously enough, any more. It used to be huge deal, with entire communities taking part: leaders read the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence aloud as the audience recited in their heads along with him – yes, everyone used to be required to memorize important documents! Memorizing things was considered good exercise for the brain. Now, we’ve got kids who don’t know their own middle names, and wouldn’t know the second line to a nursery rhyme if they were offered cash for it. Sad, sad, and very, very bad. (I seriously believe that children who don’t know a dozen nursery rhymes by heart before they ever set foot in kindergarten have been raised poorly, and that their parents are fools.) (Don’t get me started about stupid parents; you might not like what will happen.)
Independence Day is important. It should remind us of the many things we take for granted that citizens of other countries would give anything to have.
It should remind us of how our nation began, and what it stands for, and why we should never take any part of our freedoms for granted. It should make us remember to be grateful.
Independence Day is one of my favorite movies, and, corny as it may be, I love this speech by the President, portrayed by Bill Pullman.
In America, it’s legal to question. Smart people love and encourage questions. Any belief system that can’t hold up under questioning is not a viable belief system. Any person whose sensibilities are offended by questions about his/her beliefs, and who can’t abide other people’s beliefs, and who don’t wish to have anybody else’s beliefs demonstrated in any way, are themselves the very fools who deserve the punishments fools have ultimately gotten for a thousand years.
I don’t like fools. Nope, not a bit. They’re just so, so, so. . . . foolish.
Be smart on the Fourth. If you’re one of the many areas that is drought-ridden, don’t play with matches. If your kids are very young, or any age and irresponsible, don’t allow them to get anywhere near a match under any circumstances.
There are safe ways to blow things up and have fun on the Fourth; go for those. Oh, and DON’T break open a glow stick and add it to anything; those glowing bubble posts and pins are hoaxes. The stuff inside a glow stick can be dangerous.
And above all, think about where we live, and be grateful. Gratitude is one of the most beautiful of all emotions. Feel it and share it. Appreciate things. Express that appreciation. Glory in the wonder of living in a country that allows you to express it.
Well, unless you try to express it in a public school, that is. Or many workplaces. Or. . . . but I digress.
Have a safe and happy Independence Day. Or, if you don’t believe in that, have a safe and happy Fourth of July. You HAVE to believe in that one; it falls between the Third of July and the Fifth of July.
Bazinga.
Miss Wilder and the Bent Pin
Mamacita says: I’ve been a hugely obsessed fan of Laura Ingalls Wilder and all of her books since before I could read.
I first visited the Laura and Almanzo’s Mansfield, Missouri, home when I was in college, and at first was puzzled by the big electric fan on the porch – Laura, with an electric fan? This was my actual realization that she had lived through a multitude of discoveries and inventions, and of course would have electricity. Heck, they had a car. Etc. Laura had been a savvy, sociable, stylish, knowledgeable girl, and was the same as a woman.
My whole family loves Laura. As a family, we traveled to Mansfield, MO to visit her and Almanzo’s beautiful home there. My mother has been several times with her friends.
One of my favorite chapters in Little Town on the Prairie is “The School Board’s Visit.” Laura fans will remember that Almanzo’s older sister Eliza Jane was teaching school in DeSmet while Laura and Carrie were there, and that Miss Wilder was perhaps the world’s worst teacher. She treated all of the students, even the young ladies, as if they were babies; she condescended to them (worst possible thing to EVER do to a student of any age!) and said things like “. . . birds in their little nests agree!” in tones that made even good girl Laura squirm in her seat.
Miss Wilder’s classroom control was non-existent; she never punished anyone, so first the little boys, then the little girls, and then even the big girls, began to disregard rules, stopped studying, and the classroom became a nightmare. That’s what happens when you treat kids like babies, and never follow through with anything.
The school board finally came to Miss Wilder’s classroom, and one of my favorite conversations ensued:
Pa looked at Charley and his eyes were twinkling. He said, “Young man, I hear you got punished for sitting on a bent pin.”
“Oh, no, sir!” Charley replied, a picure of innocence. “I was not punished for sitting on it, sir, but for getting up off it.”
I still think this is hilarious.
And then Pa, as head of the school board, told the students to behave themselves. “We want a good school, and we are going to have it.” When Pa spoke like that, he meant what he said, and it would happen.
Wouldn’t it be loverly if our classrooms could be like that? Students behaving properly because it was the right and decent thing to do? And to have every student there understand that there would be serious consequences for misbehavior? In a perfect world.
P.S. When Laura’s daughter Rose was a pre-teen, she went to live with her Aunt Eliza Jane in Louisiana, as the schools in Mansfield weren’t advanced enough for her. (Rose was extremely gifted.) Eliza Jane had married later in life to a widower with grown children, and when her husband died, his children took everything, even Eliza Jane’s wedding ring. Rose finished school in Louisiana and became a telegraph operator and then a reporter and real estate agent, as was her husband, Gillette Lane; they lived in San Fransisco for a while, and in 1915, Laura took the train to California to visit them during the World’s Fair. Rose and Gillette were later divorced. They had no children, so Laura and Almanzo have no direct descendents. They had only one other child, a boy, who died when he was so young he hadn’t even been named yet.
And now I shall stop lest I keep going and give you a complete history of these beloved people.
P.P. S. I have to say one more thing about Rose: she was the oldest Vietnam war correspondent, and had a home in Albania with her friend Helen Boylston (Sue Barton!) My favorite of Rose’s books is Let the Hurricane Roar, but if you search for it, be sure you get the original; it’s been edited, edited books are never as good. Her characters were named Charles and Caroline, after her grandparents, but the editor changed them to Molly and David, and renamed the book Young Pioneers. Such a stupid move, as are all edited versions.
All the books in the series have been “updated and made more relevant,” which means they’ve been murdered and bespoiled, and tons of cool stuff has been left out, so don’t waste your time with the new versions; find the originals; they’re ALWAYS better. Censors and editors are Satan. Yes, THAT Satan.
Okay, I’m really stopping now.
One more thing: I do love it when a misbehaving child gets what he’s asking for. It seldom happens in real life these days, but in our beloved books, things are still done right.
Happy Birthday to My Beautiful Son
Mamacita says: June is a busy month here, as both of my beautiful children have June birthdays. Last week was my daughter’s birthday, and today is my son’s birthday.
I remember so well the night he was born. Well, every parent remembers details, but his are unique. He was almost born in the car, because of the railroad track that goes right smack through the center of downtown. As we pulled up to the track, we heard the train. But let me start at the beginning.
I’ve posted this before, but it’s especially poignant today.
I woke up already in labor. When I tell you that I am a comatose sleeper, I am not exaggerating. It’s bizarre, really: alarms and radios and doorbells and conversation and labor? I’m unconscious. But let a child turn over in his/her bed, barely making a sound, and I’m wide awake and alert. Go figure.
We packed up the newly two-year-old Sara and ran for the car. Thankfully, it started.
We lived way out in the country then, and the hospital was on the opposite side of the county. We had a ways to drive.
When we got to town, we heard the train. Tim stopped, of course, and looked carefully at the approaching bright light.
“What do you think?” he asked.
“Gun it,” I replied.
So we did.
We pulled up in front of my parents’ house, where Mom was waiting on the sidewalk. We literally tossed Sara out the window and raced towards the Medical Center.
Tim dropped me off at the emergency entrance and went to park the car.
When he came back a few minutes later, the doctor and I were standing out in the hallway admiring the baby.
Truthfully, I’ve had, um, “constipational disorders” that were worse than my son’s birth. He weighed a little over eight pounds and the whole evening had an aura of unreality to it, because it was so easy. The worst part of it was my whiny crybaby roommate.
Yes, my son’s birth was a cinch. The whole thing (after I woke up) lasted about twenty minutes. No problems, no sweat. He later made up for lost time but I digress.
His bright red hair shone like the red planet among stars in the hospital nursery. Visitors would comment about it.
“Hey, lookit the one with the red hair, did you ever see anything like that before?”
And of course, nobody ever had. And he was MINE.
My little son, who has brought joy and laughter to my life. My precious and beautiful boy-child, whose glowing red hair is now shoulder-length, which doesn’t bother me in the least as I am a former long-haired hippie-type myself. My freckle-faced smiley boy whose arms and legs and heaven knows what else are covered with tattoos.
My tiny loving little boy, who cried over sad stories and poems, who knows how to play Pan pipes and bagpipes and bassoons, cooks like a top chef, and who would win a philosophical debate with anyone on the planet.
My nearly-seven-feet-tall son, almost ready to graduate from college, living in a bachelor pad on the top floor of an old apartment complex, who hates to drive and takes the bus or walks wherever he goes. Well, sometimes young women drive him around; you know how it is. Young women with excellent taste, I might add.
My beautiful son, who is a computer expert and works in the IT department of the college where I teach. I love running into him in the hall, and watching him at work, helping people, doing complicated things with wires and plugs and stuff that would make Arthur Weasley pee his pants with excitement. When I look at my son, I feel a surge of love and pride combined that is so intense, there are no words yet invented to describe it.
His birth was easy. His journey to adulthood contained some serious trials, but he is now a cool and intelligent young man, and if you send me your resume and pass my rather lengthy interview process, I will consider introducing you.
And, of course, if you do marry my son, you will have ME as your mother- in- law. Talk about PERFECTION, right?
Right?
