Can You Handle The Truth?

You may or may not be familiar with Niccolo di Bernardo Machiavelli, a citizen of Florence, Italy, circa 1500. Let's call him Bernie.  When the Medici Family took control of Florence, Bernie was a political activist who sought a way to make himself viewed favorably by the new regime. So he wrote a book he titled,  The Prince.  It focused on advice for any ruler (Prince) who wished to be successful in maintaining his power.

Bernie gets a bad rap from critical historians who accuse him of being an immoral, brutal, atheist. He was only reporting what he observed over the decades of watching rulers come and go.  The honest, compassionate, rulers would go.  The brutal, lying, dishonest rulers would come.  Bernie was not judgmental, he was a truth teller.  And down through the centuries The Prince and a later work of his, The Art of War (not to be confused with the Sun Tzu book of the same title) became Bibles for despots.  His basic belief was that individuals and nations will always act in ways that serve their own self interests and if lying, brutal, immoral, behavior is necessary to make that happen, so be it.  It is better to be feared than it is to be loved, he wrote.

The recent travails of the 45th president of the United States brought Bernie to my mind.  Donald Trump doesn't read books (he got part way through The Art of The Deal because he wanted to see what his ghost writer wrote about him) but his mentor, Roy Cohen, did find Bernie's books the perfect texts for his pupil's education. It was said Adolph Hitler also kept The Prince on his night table.

So we need to give Bad News Bernie a break here in judging his character.  He was kind to his wife and both dogs while being generous to a fault. Yet he kept his prescient manuscripts at the top of the best sellers list. 

I Love A Mystery

It was broadcast on the radio at 8 PM every Monday through Friday.  I Love A Mystery, the story of Jack, Doc, and Reggie in their continuing perilous 15 minutes of adventures.  Each segment ended with a breathtaking threat to the lives of one or the other of the trio or maybe all three. Virginia, Bill, and Mary would never miss a date with Jack, Doc and Reggie to hear how they dodged the latest peril. 

Each of those characters had a distinctive voice so you always knew which one was talking and sound effects were an important feature of the program.  When the boys were lost in a bat cavern you could hear the swooshing of wings as the terrifying creatures swirled around our heroes.  And their voices would echo in the cavern.  Every sound coming out of the radio had a role to play in guiding your imagination.

We were not allowed to turn the volume up on the radio because our parents believed that would use more electricity.  Like bright lights use more juice than dim lights.  Perfect sense.  So the three of us would huddle around the speaker to listen to the harrowing adventures of Jack and his sidekicks.

Those three guys got into some god awful fixes but always managed to escape in the nick of time.  Their sponsors, Oxydol and Ivory soap were replaced by Fleishmanns Yeast and then the program just went off the air.  I'm not sure TV was any better than what our imaginations provided through the magic of all those sound effects. 

Happy Birthday To Me

At 4:15 AM on February 4, 1930 in LaGrande, Oregon, Eunice Elizabeth  Ramsdell Landers gave birth to a boy child who was blessed with the proper number of appendages and good hair.  The driver of a truck delivering fresh produce to the hospital claims to have seen a shooting star pass overhead at that precise moment and it coincided with the greatest financial depression our nation had ever experienced.  That baby boy, William Charles Landers, was destined to have absolutely nothing to do with the recovery from that cataclysmic event, but he didn't start it.  It was the stock market crash a few months earlier that did the damage.

After 91 years, one is tempted to ask, "Well, what happened since that seminal event?"  Paraphrasing Johnny Carson assessing the quality of his programs over the years,  there were peaks and there were valleys.  On this anniversary of my arrival I will share a couple of random memories that made me laugh out loud. 

It was in the middle '70s after the collapse of the Portland Storm football team (let's forget that one) and I'm driving to make a sales call on Dufer High School in the high central plains of Oregon.  My radio is playing country western music and the disc jockey ques up Bobby Bare's newest recording:  Drop Kick Me Jesus Through The Goal Posts Of Life.  Yes, I laughed out loud.  Bobby never made it big with that one (or any other one) but on that dull drive to a dull school he went to the top of my charts..

In those radio days of the 1940s, Fred Allen along with Jack Benny (This is a stick-up. Your money or your life. Benny:....long pause, I'm thinking, I'm thinking) were huge stars. I read a Fred Allen biography and in it he discusses the importance of choosing the right agent to represent your interests.  "Don't select an affable, good natured, grandfather type", he writes, "choose a vicious bulldog. Take my agent: if you crammed his heart into the navel of a mosquito, it would rattle around like a bee bee in a freight car."

Twenty-four hours in a day; 365 days in a year; 91 years in a life (so far). Laughter ensued.

Making Do-2

My post titled Making Do malfunctioned and went out without the concluding limerick. So this post will complete that one.  As it turned out the malfunction was a true blessing.  I sent the post out to my blog group on regular email and got a tremendous response from old friends that I have printed out and saved. Yes, yes, a blessing.

This place where I live is okay

If you like doing nothing each day

Excitement is rare

'til you fall down the stair

"Don't move him, just let him lay".

No harm in the fall has been done

I'm up, I can walk, I can run 

 That drama is through

We need something new

Or it's back to the jigsaws for fun.

(Acknowledgement of truth:  There was no fall.  I just needed a rhyme for "rare")

Making do

 Back in my old life I spent little time deciding what I was going to do each day.  The course was well mapped out for me by whatever was needed to meet my job's and my family's obligations.   The daily juggle dictated my agenda. Not so now, working in the mines of my golden years.

6:00 A.M.  Press the button in the wall next to my bed to let the resident's control center know that I've made it through the night.  Brush my teeth.  Shave.  Shower.  Eat something. Take my meds.  Seize the day.

I don't concern myself with what day it is.  First I figure out what year it is.  Review my "To Do" list of important dates (doctor visits) and social obligations (weekly meetings with other inmates for special interests).

Thank God for the internet with its magic abilities to connect me with loved ones, friends from that other life, and virtual stores full of stuff I'm certain I need.  The other day I got an email from Mike Westra, a friend from that other life.  If you are a little bit old and are a basketball fan you will remember Mike as a star roundballer for USC.  We met when we both worked as reps for Jostens of Minnesota, selling high school students various items they didn't really need.  We discovered we shared a love of limericks, poems by Robert Service ("He was always cold but that land of gold seemed to hold him like a spell") and Rudyard Kipling ("Though I've belted you and flayed you, By the livin Gawd that made you, You're a better man than I am, Gunga Din!") and any other written material that caused one to laugh out loud or think deep thoughts.  At boring sales meetings we would exchange original limericks about anything and everything and in the tradition of the best limericks, they were blue in color.

So I sign off in the spirit of our friendship with a limerick. (Also, Mike asked how to respond to my Methuselah postings. Click on the "no comments or 1 comment or 2 etc at the bottom of the post).

This place  where I live is okay

If you like doing nothing each day

Excitement is rare

'til you fall down a stair, 

“Don’t move him, just let him lay.”

No harm in the fall has been done

I’m up, I can walk, I can run

That drama is through,

We need something new

Or back to the jigsaws for fun. 

(Acknowledging truth: there was no fall. A rhyme was needed for "rare").

New Year Coming On

About this new year. Do I have the necessary equipment in my tool kit to cope with all the challenges I know are out there? It's too late to order new stuff, so I'll just have to go with what I've got.  Many of the issues are beyond my ability to control. I can't whip up a batch of vaccine, although I can hound the people who control my access to the wonder juice to help me get my share.

I cannot find the means of rounding up every one of those individuals who invaded our nation's capital on the 6th of January and make them listen to me unload hard facts that have lain dormant in my mind since those days at the University of Oregon pursuing my degree in History.  About the wonder of how our democracy even made it through the complex obstacles of the founding and then continued to weather the continuing horrendous  challenges.  Without some penetrating lubricant to coat my words it would never change any of their beliefs, but it would make me feel fine.

Whether I'm ready or not, all that 2021 stuff is going to come rolling in.  I probably have not anticipated much of it.  It triggers a Glenn Miller song from way back in that other century:

Last night I saw upon the stair, a little man who wasn't there

He wasn’t there again today, oh, how I wish he’d go away

When I came home last night at three, the man was waiting there for me

But when I looked around the hall, I couldn’t see him there at all.

Bring it on.

Bye, Bye Blackbird

 It has been 630 days (122 posts) since that first Methuselah Report in 2019;  now as I gear up for a continuing run in 2021,  I reflect on the Big Bang that got these tales spinning into orbit.  I've been old for quite a while and I still haven't adjusted to it very well.  The title of that first posting, "Old Is Just Another Word For Screwed" set the tone.  Since that time I have made a remarkable discovery.  I've found the one thing that is wonderful about being ancient: Everything is about me. 

Teams of doctors keep me on their speed dials.  If a nurse comes in while a doctor is examining me I let the nurse know not to interrupt us.  The doctor is committed to finding out everything about me and I'm a willing responder.

People on the train insist that I sit down where they are sitting.

Russellville Park where I live now is obsessed with keeping me safe from anything that would endanger my health. They want me to be happy and they are constantly seeking programs that I will find interesting; that will jazz up the hours between meals and bedtime. 

My children seem to devote their lives to making certain they've answered my every possible human need for physical well being and mental tranquility.  So what have I got to whine about?  Nothing.  Scrub all that negative stuff from past postings.  Pack up all my cares and woes, here I go, singing low, bye,bye blackbird...

In the beginning, Methuselah seemed the logical guy to carry my thoughts.  Born in 3317 in the Near East, he is the oldest Biblical patriarch while also figuring in Judaism and Islam, thereby bringing most of the religious material inside the tent. Having lived for 969 years you know the guy had to gain knowledge of a lot of stuff, so choosing him as my guide gave me an enormous warehouse of material  to plunder.  Meth still has a few years on me but I will continue to channel him as we go skipping down the yellow brick road. Que the rose pedals.