Back to Basics - Making of a Strong Middle Class

I read a book recently. The Americanization of Edward Bok, by Edward Bok. Edward wrote most of his autobiography in the third person, which was very strange. I don't recommend the book as a particularly good read. What I did find interesting was examining the thoughts of a very wealthy self made man living at the turn of the last century.

Ed is what I would describe as especially conservative politically. He was against women obtaining the vote. Now, where I would provide my typical knee jerk to the proverbial crotch for this sort of backward thinking, Ed expounded on that. Ed had reasons. Ed believed women were socially and politically unsophisticated; that women had not been prepared by virtue of their educational backgrounds to effectively make decisions on political issues. That having been said, Ed didn't just sit back, light a cigar (Ed believed smoking was bad even then) and leave it there. No, Ed set about recruiting some of the finest political minds in our nation to write articles in order to provide the sort of background and education they believed was needed for women to become sophisticated in the art of politics and voting. I have to think that if today Ed believed gay soldiers weren't fit to fight, he would go about doing whatever he believed it would take to make them fit. What does Ed teach us here? Ed teaches us that it's not enough to have an opinion. You have to do something about it.

Ed was also the sort to appreciate good music. To that end, Ed not only put up tens of thousands of dollars of his own money to fund and support a philharmonic orchestra, but he also convinced thousands of his friends to do the same. He set up civic organizations and funded them with his own money and double dog dared other rich people to do the same. And other rich people did the same. When the U.S. went to war in 1918, he ponied up his own cash into treasury bonds and he also ponied up the cash of other millionaires to pay for the war. That's how they paid for wars in the old days. Rich people gave money. Go figure.

He also gave money to support a program that sent home economists around the country teaching very young married women about sex, nutrition, childbirth, child rearing and health safety. Other money went into amking sure those very young women had pre and post natal care for themselves and their children. Then he set about making sure there was food on the tables for those children. Still, that wasn't enough. He bitched so long and loud that snake oils (then called patent medicines) were made illegal, but only after he had educated people on their ills enough so that they weren't profitable anymore. How did he do that? This is the amazing part. He was editor of a magazine that relied on advertisers, ninety percent of whom were patent medicine companies. He refused their advertising money. Yes, you heard me. Refused it outright. His magazine became the biggest money maker ever, the first to earn a million subscribers, the first to invent the Living Room: The Ladies' Home Journal.

This country is a better place because Edward Bok lived. We are better Americans because Edward Bok lived here. Unlike current billionaires today who pledge money to funds and charitable institutions that advocate and proliferate and so far haven't fixed a good damn thing, Edward Bok actually helped people on a national scale. Every millionaire in America needs to learn from Edward Bok, a man who immigrated to America as a child, how to be a truly wealthy man. First clue: To whom much is given, much is expected in return.

Contrarian

Any other day, I would be sitting here, doing something less productive, less interesting, less fulfilling. Today, however, I wish I could be doing something else. It's only because I can't that I wish to be doing otherwise. Yes, I'm a contrarian. We know from yesterday I'm a hogoholic. Well, I'm also a contrarian. Whatever it is that I am doing, I wish I were doing something else.

For decades, I wished for the time and opportunity to not work a 'real' job and be able to write. Once I'd inadvertently achieved that, I began painting. I rarely write anymore. In fact, I only feel like writing when I have art commissions awaiting completion (a reality that can only be achieved after starting). So, I suddenly am relentlessly eager to express myself in the written word. Contrarian.

I rarely venture out of my mountaintop lakeside world before noon. I have my routine and schedule which includes sleeping late, checking Facebook, drinking lots of coffee and watching the fog roll around on the lake.

You can see the compelling reasons to spend mornings at home. I live in heaven. Still, I walk, I breathe, I laugh and I actually am unhappy from time to time. It's the contrarian.

I have to accept this aspect of myself and keep enough interests going in enough areas so that whenever one dominates, I can procrastinate by enjoying yet another. Of all the problems I could possibly have on this earth, I am so grateful and blessed to have my own silly little ones.

Hogoholic

New word. What does it mean? I eat, therefore I am. I have reached that point in my life where I simply must admit (I can't deny) that I achieve all my gratification from food. It's more than just a foodoholic. Nice word, but not even close. It's the difference between having all you can eat pancakes at IHOP and having AYCEP plus hashbrowns, bacon AND sausage (because you just can't choose between the two) and then actually wondering what's on the dessert menu. I stop before I go there. I can fathom only so much sugar before I'm done in.

I don't just have breakfast, lunch, dinner. I have all that with multiple courses and in between meal snacks. To my credit, I did quit smoking. Food tastes better and at least for the first year it's an excellent excuse for all manner of culinary indulgence. I love Christmas simply because it provides so many excuses to eat without apology. Bourbon balls, cheese balls, balls, balls, balls. YUM. It's a little disappointing that you don't find the holiday barbecue or the Christmas lobster, but fudge, nuts and pie more than make up for it.

I'm facing a dilemna. It's eleven days until Christmas and I'm tired of eating. I'm eat up with it, so to speak. I have refrigerator full of food, party plans and numerous events planned and I'm just not hungry. My clothes don't fit and I find myself skipping meals, not even caring that ice cream is calling my name repeatedly. Not even caring that it's Strawberry Cheesecake that flinging itself at me every time the freezer door opens.

It's a brave new feeling.

My Best Thanksgiving (repeated from last year)

It was twenty-five years ago that I started my new tradition of actually being grateful. That year was set to be a good year. I had just bought my first house. My sister was sharing it with me. A group of her 'friends' were staying with us for the holiday feasting. I don't know exactly when things started to go south, but sometime during the night before Thanksgiving one of Deb's psychotic episodes took hold. She left the house. Sometime around 3 a.m., I was awakened by someone who said she just took off. Naked. Down the street.

My house was not in a particularly good neighborhood. It was mixed residential - commercial, with the residential part being borderline vagrant. The 'friends' had been especially vocal in their displeasure about that. One woman angrily admonished me for not warning her that I lived in an integrated neighborhood. I told her that if it weren't for me, it wouldn't be integrated (bitch!). At any rate, it wasn't an area to walk around at night. Or naked. I set out find Deb, but had no luck. Sometime around daylight Deb came home. She had found her way to the tattoo parlor nearby. She was with a group of very rough looking men and women. She had on scruffy clothes. By the mercy of whatever gods protect us, the tattoo parlor just so happened to also be home to an all night AA/NA biker group. They knew why she was there. They took care of her. They had seen her before. Knew where she lived. Safe.

Since she was in a full blown psychosis, I took her to the local facility for dealing with that. They took her in. They sent me home. Her 'friends' were gone by then.

There I was with a twenty pound turkey and all the fixins. I had taken out my grandmothers 100 year old Haviland china. The old silver made by my great grandfather. The good stuff. So, in the great pretense of having some higher purpose, I started cooking. Mostly, I was angry, frustrated, afraid for Deb and what life trying to care for her would be. I cooked that turkey. Stuffing. Dressing. Sweet potatoes. Two kinds of pie. Ambrosia. Green beans. Asparagus. Ice cream for the pie. By the time it was done, I didn't even want to eat it.

I was about to cry when there was a knock on the door. The local yard man, Deacon Eddie. "Ma'am. If it wouldn't bother you none, could you please spare me a plate of food? It smelled so good." I invited him to come in and join me, but he didn't want to do that. Just the plate of food please, ma'am. So, I grabbed one of Nana's extra large fine antique china plates, loaded it up with turkey and fixins. Then I loaded up another plate with pie. Covered it all with foil. Deacon Eddie left with quite a smile on his face and gave me his eternal gratitude.

I started to find the tupperware to put it all away, when there was a knock on the door. I didn't know the man, but he looked thin and harmless enough. "Ma'am. Could I have a plate of food, too, please, ma'am?" You bet. I loaded him up. He walked off down the street smiling.

Pretty soon there was a line going out the gate and down the road. All twelve place settings were filled up, covered up and sent off. I put away the tupperware. I was tired. I fell asleep. I slept all night. When I went outside the next day, there by the door, was a box. In the box, cleaned and neatly packed were all twelve place settings. Not a nick. Not a scratch on a one of them.

True Art

I volunteered recently to provide art for a book that is being published. Today, I received an email about this venture which said that, because there were so many volunteers, the publisher would do a random drawing to determine who will be included. This is so very wrong on so many levels. Poor art. She sits alone at the end of the dark bar quietly sipping her chardonnay just praying to meet someone, praying that bands of heavenly angels will descend from on high singing choirs of Some Enchanted Evening and she will be chosen as the true love to hang on that wall. But no. That is not to be. Instead, she finds herself an unwilling contestant as an ersatz Bachelorette - the Artistette! Good God, could anything be more humiliating?

I've complained bitterly on several occasions with what I consider to be HGTV's slapdash treatment of art as a second thought, color on a wall, something to draw your eye in that direction. Art is not a decoration, people. It's not a theme. Art is that face across a crowded room that drops your jaw and reels you in. Art is alive. She's the wayward child of some wayward child who would rather create beauty than earn a good living. She is the cherished prize of a vivid imagination that will not be stilled by the grind of the every day or thwarted by the lack of cash.

Art is also incredibly egotistical. She doesn't want to be second best. She doesn't want to hang on your wall unless you really intend to caress her with your eyes and let her play with your heart and soul.

There are artists in this world who every day put their soul on paper using water color, acrylic, oil, wood, concrete, spray paint - anything and everything they can find. In German prison camps, artists used burned sticks to draw on scraps of cloth and paper because the simple fact is that if you are a painter, you must paint. A painter doesn't one decide "Hmmm! I think I'll try this." An artist is compelled, not to try, but to do. Some larger universal force commands it be done.

All art asks in return is to be engaged. "Look at me, see me, FEEL me" and yes, the ultimate, "TAKE ME HOME AND NEVER, EVER PART WITH ME!"

Well, Goodbye, Dolly

She introduced herself as Dolly. Dressed in a colorful, just this side of flashy but still tasteful, skirt and sweater, she was a gorgeous. Her eyes danced with merriment and I wanted to dance with her. We were at the Mountain Light UU flea market. Mary was running things and being the ultimate OCD salesman, totally focused on 'are you spending money or not' attitude. Dolly and I rummaged around, chatting the whole time about this and that, finding fun things to laugh about.

We were looking at my paintings when she leaned over, looked around for potential eavesdroppers, and whispered to me "I was a Ziegfield Girl." "GET OUT," I screamed. She was with a younger woman who rolled her eyes and confided that I didn't have to listen to her, and suggested maybe Dolly didn't want to talk about that, but I was all ears. I couldn't get enough. You can read the biographies slamming the internet today and learn a lot. It sounded better coming from Dolly.

I've met some great people in my life. I'm not going to name them all here, but really an amazing array of famous and infamous, movie stars, celebrities, rock stars, assholes. Dolly was the most charming, the most vivacious, the most star quality I have ever seen or heard of. She went to college at 76 and graduated at 88. She was the youngest show girl ever, dropping out of school at about age 10, in a time when it was not that odd for girl to do so. She never worked a day in her life - it was always just the greatest fun - waking up and seeing what this day might bring you. Those days are gone forever now.

Well, Goodbye, Dolly. I'm so glad I met you. That laughter and sunshine you brought into my life is still rollicking along. I promise to kick up my heals today in your honor. And to laugh. (Say "Hey" to Lena for me).

Healthcare NOW

England has provided government run health care since 1948. For the most part, it seems that people like it over there. Only 8% of the population has private health insurance.

If Stephen Hawking were an American he'd be a dead nobody. He wouldn't have earned a Ph.D. in physics. He wouldn't have been able to achieve it, even if he would have been allowed. Whatever insurance he had when he diagnosed with ALS would have dumped him, sooner rather than later. Disability health care would have fought him in court. He would get medicaid and social security disability. It's doubtful his disease would have gone into remission with the disparity in and availability of treatment here, as opposed to there.

What a loss to the world that would have been. How many others have we lost? Does any one out there really want another human being to suffer and die needlessly?

I know, and we do have to pay for it somehow. Here's the perfect solution. Legalize pot. Strictly limit who can grow it - land and loans to the chronically unemployed will be paid back ten fold in taxes. Then there's all the job growth. Entire industries will spring up. Stores to sell, chefs to cook it up, waiters to serve it. The taxi industry will be thriving. Restaurants can have smoking rooms, thereby greatly increasing their food sales. We'd be out of debt in no time.