Looking at the Upside for 2012

I have been feeling down as this new year arrived. I have looked at myself with regret, thinking about all the things I want to do but do not have the means to pursue. In so doing, I forgot about the things I have done and am still able to remember with a fond heart and a clear – or nearly clear – mind.
This is part of it:
I have been so fortunate in my life. I have gotten to do things most people never get to do, see things most people never get to see, and share all of it with a partner who has managed to stay with me and put up with me for 37 plus years, and counting. I have walked on a hillside where Charlemagne once stood overlooking his empire. I have watched Christiaan Huygens’ pendulum clock working in his father’s summer house. I have seen The Girl With The Pearl Earring—so close I could have reached out and touched her. I have found Delft Blue dildos in Amsterdam’s flower market and screamed in bemused delight. I have walked on the Third Floor at the Belleek Factory in Northern Ireland and survied driving on the wrong side of the read.
I have gotten to travel, not once but several times, to the land of my birth and the land of my wife’s ancestry. I got the travel bug and always am itching to go back. My regret is that travel is only a distant possibility. My joy is in knowing what I am missing.

Busy Remembering

This one will be brief. I am just about to start a few hours working on my ghosts. And I was thinking about . . .

Our children are not taught to remember. They are taught to forget. Learn enough to take a test, pass it, move up, forget about it. They are told, You always can look it up. But how can anyone look up an answer if they've forgotten the question? No search engine is that good. And will anyone drive down the information highway if the fuel that drives them -- curiosity -- is in low supply and their tanks are empty?

Why is remembering so important? Does it get you a Job, the house, the girl (or boy)? Well, I knew what question to ask and so I looked the reason up. It is contained in George Santayana's famous quote: "Those who cannot remember the past are doomed to repeat it."

Humanity has gone through hell after hell of our own creating. And yet each generation seems more than willing to make the same mistakes, to enter the same bloody ventures, to go for glory not in the library but on the battlefield. Santayana also said, "Only the dead have seen the end of war."

So, lets simplify, shall we? A slogan of sorts, short, not sweet:

THOSE WHO FORGET, REPEAT.

Daisy Bell Is Ringing For Me and My Gal

Another blog, another day. Or is it another day, another blog? Either way, I am going to give you all a ghost of a chance to forget about ghosts today and remember an old chestnut instead. My European friends may not get the reference, but here goes.

When I hit college I joined a very impromptu barbershop quartet. First, we were not strict about there being only four of us. Second, we sang whenever and wherever we wanted, often by the Cowell Fountain at the tops of our lungs, just for shits and giggles. One of our favorite songs was "Daisy," also known as "Bicycle Built For Two." Everyone remembers the lyrics:

Daisy, Daisy, give me your answer do/I'm half crazy all for the love of you/It won't be a stylish marriage/I can;t afford a carriage/but you'd look sweet upon the seat/of a bicycle built for two.

But we feminist liberals at UC Santa Cruz loved the second verse more:

Billy, Billy, here is my answer true/I'm NOT crazy all for the love of you/And if you can't afford a carriage/There won't be any marriage/"Cause I'll be daamned if I'll be crammed/On a bicycle built for two.

Years later Diane and I got into a debate as to whether the second verse was real or not -- it was a friendly disagreement we hit upon from time to time over the years of our marriage (which was stylish, by the way, and no bikes in sight). It turns out that she was -- ug, hate to admit it -- RIGHT. The second verse is one version of several so-called :"answer verses" added on for fun. The other key variety substitues damned.crammed with switched/hitched. Further, it turns out the original verse is merely a chorus throughout a muich more elaborate song, the lyrics for which can be found online at Wikepedia -- type in Daisy Bell. The article is interesting and fun for the curious -- which I always encourage you to be!

And remember: you can't stay serious all the time. Bad for the face.