Surrounded by Fools

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America, citizens, dumbed down citizenry, election, Government, political, pop culture, social commentary

“The America of my time line is a laboratory example of what can happen to democracies, what has eventually happened to all perfect democracies throughout all histories. A perfect democracy, a ‘warm body’ democracy in which every adult may vote and all votes count equally, has no internal feedback for self-correction. It depends solely on the wisdom and self-restraint of citizens… which is opposed by the folly and lack of self-restraint of other citizens. What is supposed to happen in a democracy is that each sovereign citizen will always vote in the public interest for the safety and welfare of all. But what does happen is that he votes his own self-interest as he sees it… which for the majority translates as ‘Bread and Circuses.’

‘Bread and Circuses’ is the cancer of democracy, the fatal disease for which there is no cure. Democracy often works beautifully at first. But once a state extends the franchise to every warm body, be he producer or parasite, that day marks the beginning of the end of the state. For when the plebs discover that they can vote themselves bread and circuses without limit and that the productive members of the body politic cannot stop them, they will do so, until the state bleeds to death, or in its weakened condition the state succumbs to an invader—the barbarians enter Rome. Mine was a lovely world–until the parasites took over.”

—Robert A. Heinlein 1987

I included the great author Robert Heinlein’s quote for its prescience and accurate description of the America I live in today. The idea of bread and circuses as a sort of “opiate for the masses” (apologies to Marx for borrowing his phrase) or “go get the stick” designed by cynical politicians to distract the citizenry came from the Roman satirist and poet Juvenal in 100 A.D., but its meaning is as applicable today as it was in his time. Why this comes to my mind now is really a combination of a number of events, observations, and frustrations.

I was listening to the radio on the way home yesterday and the commentator was talking about how the Obama administration was choosing not to enforce federal law against two states that just declared recreational marijuana use legal. I have my opinions about the law, but this isn’t the only time this President has arbitrarily decided which laws he would enforce and which he wouldn’t; immigration laws, the federal Defense of Marriage Act, etc. I await the outrage from my fellow citizens, but I think they are too busy watching reruns on You Tube of Miley Cyrus twerking or reading People magazine to find out exactly what Kim Kardashian thinks about the new iPhone. All I hear are yawns. Bread and circuses.

The cynic in me thinks that the marijuana issue is just another way for the government to ensure a dumbed down populace, and that if each of us was walking around in a drunken stupor, a la Cheech and Chong in “Up in Smoke”, the politicians would be giddy (Traffic Officer, “Sir, can I see your license?” Pedro, “Whuut?” Officer, “Your license. Where’s your license?” Pedro, “It’s back there on the bumper, man!”) As long as we’re not paying attention, the politicians become wealthier and more powerful and we continue to lose more and more of our liberties (The Wizard got away with the deceit until Toto yanked back the curtain, and I doubt Toto was high on weed). Bread and circuses.

I used to be upset with the politicians, but I finally realized that they are just doing what politicians do; like a cheetah dragging down a poor helpless chamois and ripping its throat to shreds with each vicious bite. How can I be disappointed in what’s to be expected? A politician, in order to be elected, must promise a number of people a number of things, in most cases things they can’t deliver. Once elected, the majority of a politician’s time is spent raising money for and ensuring their reelection. Most often the way they rule, sorry I meant to say “govern,” is to walk outside, lick their finger, stick it straight up in the air and try to figure out which way the wind is blowing. Challenged with a decision, they usually can’t answer as to why they made it, because the impetus for the decision didn’t come from them, but from someone else. The really good politician has no convictions, but is skilled in ferreting out what the people desire and doing their darndest to deliver, whether it’s good for the country or not. Bread and circuses.

No, the group I’m most disappointed in is my fellow citizen. I used to think that most people were just like me, that they desired what was best for the country; that they valued hard work and integrity and the only thing they wanted from government was for it to stay out of their lives and out of their way. I’m now convinced that I’m in the minority. I now believe that most citizens are looking for what the government can do for them, what benefit they can receive just for being a citizen, for doing nothing; not knowing or caring that all of the money the government has comes from their neighbors. I used to think that the average citizen in this country was fairly intelligent, but now realize that I’m surrounded by fools. I’m surrounded by people who haven’t a clue as to what’s going on and where we are headed as a country. I’m surrounded by people who have their hands out and look for government to bail them out of whatever jam they’ve gotten themselves into. I’m surrounded by people who when it comes time to vote, don’t care who will serve the best interests of the country, but vote for who will serve their best interest. The majority of citizens seem to care little about the demise of America; I hear and see mostly apathy and ignorance. They want their government to educate, feed and clothe them and their children as well as provide health care and retirement benefits; they being responsible for none of it. Bread and circuses.

If you care to look around you, it’s easy to spot the modern-day equivalent of ‘bread and circuses’, the number of them increasing day by day. Welfare, food stamps, school lunches, MTV, drugs and alcohol, pro and amateur sports, television, ipads and iPhones, texting and sexting, toys and possessions, the list goes on ad nauseam. I hate to see it happen, but America is headed down the road that Rome and other countries ventured down in bygone years. I love this country but I serve God first, and this country’s future, as with all other nations, will be determined by the will of the Sovereign God I serve. Will we return to the days of a peasantry being ruled by a monarchy? The days when the King, in order to keep the rabble from rebelling, could be heard to say, “Give them bread and circuses,” meanwhile whispering to the court jester, “the bread came from grain grown on land I stole from them, ha!”

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“All Right, Come Out With Your Hands Up!”

Tags

cops, curfew, disturbing the peace, Humor, mischief, teenagers

Who knows, he may grow up to be President someday,

unless they hang him first!

Aunt Polly about Tom Sawyer

-Mark Twain, The Adventures of Tom Sawyer

Enough time had elapsed from the night of the infamous “soaping all the cars at the apartment complex” debacle for my penance to be paid, and the moment had arrived for me to ask to spend the night at a friend’s house once again. This time it was at Jimmy’s and I had a lot of convincing to do. “Dad, can I spend the night at Jimmy’s?” I knew full well the line of questioning that would follow and was prepared for the first response out of his mouth, “No”. Not to be easily deterred and able to present a pretty good argument (It’s been said that I would argue with a fence post), I came back with the usual, “Why can’t I?” The strategy here was to force Dad to come up with a reason, a logical rebuttal; something other than a “gut feeling” that trouble was in the offing.

He proceeded to go on a long-winded lecture about how I was a sheep and if all the other kids ran off the side of a cliff would I, and how Jimmy was known to get himself and others into trouble (Dad really liked Jimmy, but he also knew that Jimmy liked to push the envelope and that I too was a bit mischievous; not a good combination), and how I had disobeyed him the last time he let me spend the night at a friend’s house. I let him ramble on for a while and then blurted out, “Jim and Andy are going to be there.” All of a sudden, Dad’s features softened and he said, “Jim and Andy, huh?  Well I guess it’ll be alright.” Boy that sure seemed easy. With sleeping bag in hand, Dad let me off at Jimmy’s to spend the night, but with the usual instructions; “You are not to leave his yard at any time in the night! Do you understand?” Jumping out of the pickup I yelled back, “Yeah,” and rushed up onto Jimmy’s front porch, not looking back in case there were additional instructions; that I would also ignore.

Once the family had gone off to sleep, the four of us snuck out the back door of Jimmy’s house and made it out into the alley undetected. From there it was down one street and across another and we were in the clear. I had lived in Carthage for a few years, but these streets and houses were foreign to me and I was enjoying the adventure. Even though it was deep into the witching hour and pitch dark on a moonless night, the street lights on every corner made it seem as bright as day. Walking down deserted streets, the only signs of life we saw were the occasional grinning possum scurrying behind a galvanized garbage can or someone’s house cat, locked out for the night and waiting patiently on the front porch for the door to open at the start of a new day.

Looking for some mischief, not usually too difficult to find, we ran into some other guys from school; Mark, John and Red. After chatting for a while, some of the group headed down a side street, away from us and we continued on. Suddenly we heard loud firecrackers, the sounds coming from at least a block away. It startled us for a moment, but within a few seconds we continued on our way; in one way, glad that it wasn’t us disturbing the neighborhood, but in another way, jealous that it wasn’t us disturbing the neighborhood. One great thing about Missouri is that firecrackers and a host of other explosive devices are legal and plentiful. One bad thing about my home town and local statutes; firecrackers are not legal after curfew or during times other than Independence Day. Somebody was heading for trouble, and it wasn’t going to be us; or so we thought.

Walking down the middle of an empty street, we turned the corner and coming from the other direction were the headlights of a car. The headlights caused us to stop in our tracks as the car advanced in our direction. As the car came closer we recognized it as a police car. We hesitated for a second, as most people do when a police car enters their space, but at the exact moment the car stopped and two policemen jumped out with guns raised, yelling “Stop!”, someone whispered a shout, “Run!” and each of us began to run; where wasn’t a consideration and at this point, unlike the Three Musketeers, it was every man, or boy, for himself (imagine someone tossing a live skunk into the middle of a group of boys and the subsequent reaction to said skunk).

I ended up behind a hedge in the front yard of a house on the corner of two streets. It was dark, but I noticed someone else lying silently next to me and I could hear a couple of the other guys continuing to make their way to what they considered a safe hiding place. Barney Fife and his partner (unlike Barney, I’m sure these two cops had more than one bullet between them) stood in the street with their guns drawn and yelled out, “You kids better come out from your hiding places. We’ve got you surrounded and we will shoot!” Lying there, I knew they were full of baloney, but the wee doubt in my mind caused me to consider very carefully my next move. Their bluff worked and we all came out with our hands up and slowly walked out into the street; all except one of us. Red escaped from the dragnet and afterward I realized that he was the person lying next to me behind the hedge. I could have escaped, but fear had gotten the better of me.

It was the first time I would ride in a police car, but not the last, as the cops loaded up the remaining five of us and took us down to the station. On the ride to the station we were asked, “Do you boys know its past curfew?”  “There’s a curfew in this town?” I answered, not concerned that my smart mouth might lead to further discipline.  From there we were hauled into an interrogation room and peppered with questions. “Who was with you? Who had the fireworks? Give us the names of the ones that got away.” We all would have made pretty good intelligence operatives that night, willing to undergo extreme torture to protect our friends; we gave up nothing. They threatened to call our parents, and we called their bluff. We shouldn’t have.

As we sat nervously waiting for our dads to come pick us up and take us home, we occasionally whispered to each other the secrets we refused to reveal to the cops under their extreme interrogation and bright lights; names, hiding places, locations for our weapons cache, and other valuable information; always conscious of the cops walking by the room, inconspicuously listening in for additional incriminating admissions and evidence. Technically we weren’t under arrest, all of us being far under the legal age, but were being detained until our legal guardians came, allowing the authorities to release us into their custody.

Finally our fathers walked in and we could tell by the looks on their faces that this wasn’t exactly the place they wanted to be at 3:00 a.m. (Dad was extremely aggravated, knowing that in an hour and a half he would be getting up to go to work). All except Andy’s dad; he had a huge smile on his face. We would find out why later. In front of the police, our dads each gave us a series of one or two sentence bites, that when combined made up a serious lecture on obeying the law, curfew, and disturbing the peace. Not only that, but Dad gave me a look that I read as “I told you not to leave Jimmy’s yard and you did it anyway. You and I will talk about what this means when we get home. Don’t even think about asking to spend the night again, anywhere. Not until you leave home and get married.” If I was going to get into this much trouble, I would rather it have been for shooting off fireworks instead of just being accused of the deed. At least I would have had the pleasure along with the punishment.

In later years Andy would tell the story of what his dad said to him when he got home and why he had the smile on his face when all the other dads were so serious and upset. When Andy’s dad walked into the police station and saw us all lined up like criminals, like members of Al Capone’s gang on St. Valentine’s Day, he had to chuckle at the irony. Here were some of the most innocent boys in town, the kind of boys most fathers would want their daughters to date, and the police were treating them as if they had kidnapped the Lindbergh baby. Dad didn’t say a word to me the entire ride home, but when we arrived home and sat down in the living room for the full-blown lecture, I wished that in all the confusion I had gone to Andy’s house and he mine.

*This story is an excerpt from Always a Little Heathen, to be released in the fall of 2014.

“I got this lousy haircut for nothing!”

Tags

basketball tryouts, Humor, junior high, sports, teenagers

Following football in the seasonal sports rotation was basketball. I never thought about playing basketball before this, my seventh grade year, but since all my friends were going to try out for the team, I thought I would too. I had a really nice arrangement on the driveway behind our house; a goal post, backboard, and goal were set up at the edge of the driveway and the arrangement made a nearly perfect half court. After my brother Timmy and I had diagrammed and painted the free throw line (exactly fifteen feet from the goal post) and lane, complete with hash marks on either side ( just like a real court), the layout was complete. Other than the fact that I had never played basketball, couldn’t dribble very well with my good hand (and not at all with my other), couldn’t shoot, and didn’t understand the game, I was ready to give the game a try. I was above average in height, so I had one stroke on the positive side of the ledger (Timmy and I had received sweat bands for our wrists and a new basketball for Christmas to complete the picture).

When the day arrived for tryouts, I was as nervous as a cat. With little confidence and little skills, it is a wonder that I made it through the drills. I could tell that there was a difference in talent between some of the players and myself, but that didn’t deter me from trying hard. When the coach blew the final whistle to end the tryout and later listed the boys who made the team, I saw my name on the sheet and nearly passed out with excitement (looking back, I’m not sure anyone was cut; there were barely enough trying out to fill the roster). Unlike football, I would not be a starter, but rather ended up coming off the bench for the “B” team. A bench player on the seventh grade basketball “B” team! How much lower could a person go? In one of the final games of the season, the coach felt sorry for me and a couple of the other “splinter gatherers” and we were designated as starters. Somehow I scored six points in that game. I’m not sure how, but there it was in the box score so I must have.

Needless to say, basketball wasn’t “my sport” but when the next year rolled around I was ready for another try. I would say that I spent the entire off-year practicing my game; running drills in the back driveway, shooting until all hours of the night, sleeping with a basketball in the bed beside me, walking to school dribbling the ball all the way there and back, rotating between my right and left hands, and watching Jerry West and Pete Maravich videos, but I would be lying. I didn’t pick up a ball the entire off-season, so my expectations for making the team were a bit misplaced. Dad on the other hand was excited about me trying out again (he was a high school player in his day; the old one-handed set shot his forte) and he pulled me aside with some very important advice. “Ronnie, Coach Lewton is a real old-fashioned kind of guy and your appearance is important. I realize that some of the boys will have longer hair and probably make the team in spite of it (yeah, the fact that they were good might have had something to do with it), but I would recommend that you get a “flat top” before tryouts. I think Coach Lewton would see how serious you were about basketball and it would help you make the team.” I was a little skeptical at first, but being naïve about the ways of the world at this point in my life I said, “Okay”. Of course, this had nothing at all to do with the ongoing battle between me and Dad regarding the length of my hair. Whatever gains I had made over the past couple of years in pushing the length of my hair to finally cover the tops of my ears, were now to be left on the barbershop floor.

I got my haircut the day before tryouts and with dark, horned rim glasses I sure looked the part; if I didn’t make the team I could always join the military. When I came to school that day I noticed a few of my friends staring at me in disbelief, but once I had explained the overall strategy to them, they still shook their heads and walked away. During the tryouts I noticed as I glanced around the group of boys, that other than one or two other kids who were sure to hit the “cutting” room floor, I was the only one with a haircut that looked like a throwback to the basketball days of George Mikan and the Minneapolis Lakers. To say I stood out would be an understatement.

After the grueling drills (layups aren’t as easy as they look) and intense pressure of everyone trying to impress the coach, the tryouts came to an end. When Coach finally posted the list of names making up the team, I didn’t see my name listed. Jim consoled me as I stood there, nearly in tears, “That’s okay Ronnie, you can try out again next year. There’s no reason to get upset.” Still dejected I replied, “I’m not so upset about not making the team as I am about getting a lousy haircut for nothing.” It seems that even old-fashioned Coach Lewton was more concerned with talent than with looks.

It was the last time I ever tried out for basketball and the last time I received a real haircut, at least until I was a grown man. Sure, I played plenty of one on one contests out back with my brother, who became an outstanding player all throughout junior high and high school, and honed my skills enough to be competitive in pickup games, but I knew my limitations and turned my attention to other athletic endeavors.

*This story is an excerpt from Always a Little Heathen, to be released on October 14, 2014.

Once Bitten, Twice Shy

Tags

crushes, girls, Humor, junior high, teenagers

There was an incident that happened relatively early in the junior high experience that added to my apprehension about the opposite sex and ensured that I would make all efforts to keep a safe distance from all females for the foreseeable future. It happened during the summer in the middle of baseball season. I had sustained an injury to my thumb and had to sit out a couple of games and decided to go to the ballpark anyway, this time in the rare role of an observer.

I rode my bike to Jim’s house and the two of us rode together the remaining two and a half miles out to Municipal Park where the ball fields were located. We weren’t all that keen on watching a game, but were more interested in seeing who we might run into out at the park. We wore our usual cool outfits; jean shorts (cut off so short that the pockets stuck out like rabbit ears from under the front of the jeans), tennis shoes  (no socks), and “muscle” shirts, although in my case muscles weren’t apparent and they could have just called it a tank top.

As we approached the park, I noticed in the stands between the Little League and Babe Ruth fields, one of the cheerleaders, Christie, sitting and watching a ballgame. As we parked our bikes against the fence and cooly sauntered over to the aluminum bleachers, Jim began talking with her, as if she was a normal human being, while I stood next to him, as invisible as I could make myself. She did acknowledge me, “Hi Ronnie”, and I elicited this response in kind, “Hi”; but the bulk of the conversation was between Jim and her (the reason I was the silent type, besides being shy, wasn’t because I didn’t have anything to say, but more a result of whenever I did say something it usually came out wrong). After the formalities we decided to stay and watch one of the games.

We could have watched the game from any number of locations; two sets of bleachers, behind the backstop, over by the dugouts, but we ended up in the stands, sitting one row behind Christie. As much as I love baseball, the distraction sitting in front of me kept diverting my attention away from the action on the field. Not only was there a visual attraction, but the smell of sweet perfume didn’t help my situation in the least. Even with all my efforts to appear to be watching the game, trying to be as subtle as possible, my eyes kept returning to stare at her as she sat in front of me; she likely being unaware of the attention. I wouldn’t dare be caught  staring, but I was.

During the game she would occasionally turn around to chat, the usual small talk about who was going steady with whom, and were we looking forward to school, and this led me to relax a bit and become emboldened, my tongue loosening as the evening wore on. The more she talked to us the more comfortable I became, and eventually, as was common with me, my mouth got the better of me. At one point she talked of a particular player on the field, whose little brother just happened to be sitting next to her (I hadn’t caught on to the connection), and in an effort to show off, I smarted off with some derogatory comment about said player.

Not anticipating what was about to happen, I noticed Christie quickly turning around to face me, her anger evident from her neck up, the color red dominating her demeanor. Before I had time to react, her right hand forcefully slapped me on the left cheek; hard. The sound could be heard throughout the park and I’m sure that everyone stopped what they were doing, even the players on the field, to see what was going on up in the stands.

At that exact moment time seemed frozen, since being slapped by a girl had never happened to me and I didn’t quite know what to do. If it had been another boy, then I would have done what I normally did, strike back, but this was a girl! What now? I sat there for a while, silent, trying to figure out exactly what it was that I had said, while Christie turned back around and continued to watch the ballgame, as if nothing had ever happened. Jim looked at me as if to say, “Why did you have to go and say that, you dummy?”

From that moment until we got on our bikes to go home, I didn’t say another word (finding the ballgame interesting all of a sudden), clamming up being my normal way of pouting. On the ride home, Jim did his best to counsel  (and console) me on the proper etiquette involving girls, what you could say and not say to avoid offending them, and I dutifully listened, nodding my head in response.

Reacting to the evening’s circumstances, I made up my mind that I was done with girls, at least for the time being, and I retreated back to my previous strategy of observation from a safe distance. I never felt completely comfortable around Christie again, always sure to keep a sharp eye on her right hand whenever I was in her presence.

*This story is an excerpt from Always a Little Heathen, to be released in the fall of 2014.