Losing My Religion (Part One)

If you're new here, this is a weekly column consisting of letters written to my grandchildren (who exist) and my great-grandchildren (who aren't here yet) — the Stickies — to haunt them after they become grups and/or I'm dead.

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- Glossary  
- Who The Hell Is This Guy?

Irregularly Appearing Imaginary Guest Stars

Marie-Louise -- My beautiful muse 

Iggy -- My designated Sticky

Dana -- My designated gentlereader

"Religion consists of a set of things which the average man thinks he believes, and wishes he was certain." -Mark Twain


Dear (eventual) Grandstickies & Great-Grandstickies,

When I was a kid, specifically during my Sister Mary McGillicuddy period (first through seventh grade) it was made clear to me that to succeed in life and in death (go to heaven) it was necessary that I follow a number of specific rules to the best of my ability.

I was assured by (and reinforcement was provided by) my parents, Sister M., Father Fitzgibbon, the Catholic Church, American culture in general, and the culture of the Sou'Side a Pittsburgh (with an h) specifically -- that this was true.

Turns out that life is slightly more complicated than that and...

[No kidding, Einstein. I'll bet when you found out Santa Claus wasn't real you wound up in therapy.]

Dana! you're back! I was beginning to think you guys moved to some other would-be writers subconsciousness.

[Nope, we're still here. The Cancer thing was just too depressing for me to deal with so I took some time off. Nothing personal. Between dealing with school, adolescence, and band practice Iggy's totally preoccupied.]

What about Marie-Louise?

[She's still here but she's gone part-time. She asked me to tell you she's still doing her best to keep you inspired but she's had to take on another client, who actually makes money from their writing, because she's fallen behind on her rent. Nothing personal. She's quite busy.]

Oh.


Now, when I was 13, my parents moved part two of their brood of seven to the burbs. Group one had moved on but group two, whose first member, me, incarnated after a five-year gap still had to be dealt with. My parents purchased their first and only house. It was too small, and they couldn't really afford it, but it got us out of the city.

This was a step up from a series of too small houses and apartments that they had rented in the city (Pittsburgh, with an h). Life changing stuff. We lived in what was a very modest enclave of a very rich suburb and I spent my last year of Catholic grade school, eighth grade, going to school with kids that lived in a different world than I did.

These were the children of people that had graduated from college but had not majored in things like psychology or fine arts (unlike many of their kids, my buds, were about to do). They were the offspring of doctors and lawyers and um, pharmacists (you thought I was going say Indian chiefs, admit it). Mike C_____'s dad was a VP at Pepsi. Much to my surprise, I was not shunned.

There was music in the Cafes at night, -- and although we were too young for that, the church hall a really cool jukebox -- revolution in the air (dated boomer cultural reference). I was secretly in love with a girl named Cindy whose last name I can't remember; I was over my failed summer romance with Monica T.


It was 1966 and the revolution referenced above was primarily a cultural one that went too far but that's another story. My personal revolution, the one that occurred in my relatively naive and sheltered little world, was centered around the Catholic church.

See, this was year eight of wearing a tie, endless rules & regs, marching to the bathroom like a little soldier (or convict), every-one getting a smack on the palm with a wooden ruler if no-one would confess to talking while Sister Mary McGillicuddy was out of the room (less painful than getting shunned by the other prisoners), regularly scheduled elaborate church rituals/endurance contests, the occasional psycho-nun...

[Psycho nun?]

I could tell ya stories, Dana. For example, Sister Egg Noodle (not her real name) praying to a picture of the founder of her order that our schools CYO basketball team would beat the team of our arch-rival, St. Emerentiana. Those poor bastards had to start every school day by attending mass so of course, most of 'em were not quite right.

They did have very cool varsity jackets, however.


Where was I... oh yeah, eighth grade. Same sort of nuns (mostly, there were notable exceptions), changing church (the mass is going to be in English?!?).
Father Fitzgibbon v. Father Bing O'Malley. 

Most importantly, traditional mostly blue-collar kids replaced by mostly white-collar kids. Poppa loves you. To be continued...

Have an OK day. 
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©2018 Mark Mehlmauer

News That You Can Use (No. 2)

If you're new here, this is a weekly column consisting of letters written to my grandchildren (who exist) and my great-grandchildren (who aren't here yet) — the Stickies — to haunt them after they become grups and/or I'm dead.

[Blogaramians: Blogarama renders the links in my columns useless. Please click on View Original to solve this problem and access lotsa columns.]

Irregularly Appearing Imaginary Guest Stars

Marie-Louise -- My beautiful muse  

Iggy -- My designated Sticky

Dana -- My designated gentlereader

"Winter is nature's way of saying, 'Up yours.'" -Robert Byrne


Dear (eventual) Stickies & Great-Grandstickies,

This letter/column will probably be of more interest to my current gentlereaders than to the eventual yous but you might find something of value here.

- To my gentlereaders who live north of the Mason-Dixon line and have the good sense to regard the approach of winter (appropriately) with fear and loathing, the forecasts are in.  

NOAA predicts precipitation will range from below average to average. Temperatures, will be above average. Works for me. 

On the other hand... "Contrary to the stories storming the web, our time-tested, long-range formula is pointing toward a very long, cold, snow-filled winter..." -Peter Geiger, Editor, and Philom, Farmers Almanac. 

[Purple Journalism Alert: the quote above is from a Fox New website story. The actual quote is, "Contrary to some stories floating around the internet..." Someone at FOX sexed it up. Fair and balanced? Perhaps, but what about accuracy? My emboldening by the way.]

But then again... The Old Farmer's Almanac, not to be confused with the Farmers Almanac, says that "This winter we expect to see above-normal temperatures almost everywhere in the United States..."

Having been temporarily living in Canada's deep south for the past 33 years (Northern Ohio) and having seen my life flash before my eyes on more than one occasion (my vision obscured by horizontal snow showers) I predict it will snow heavily at the worst possible times and probably not on Christmas.

The Sun will rarely be visible. It's most likely to come out early in the morning and shine directly into the eyes of people who would rather be home in a warm bed as they are driving to work.

What are the four seasons of Northern Ohio? Almost Winter, Winter, Still Winter, Construction. Thank you! thank you very much!


News That You Could Have Done Without...
...But the Purple Press provided saturation coverage nevertheless.

Now, while the following is also primarily directed at my gentlereaders, my Grandstickies may find it interesting from a historical perspective. I wonder if the Purple Press will still be devolving or have stabilized by the time they read this?

As this is being written, a news story about the ancestors of Senator Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts, currently one of several hundred politicians tirelessly teasing the public about a possible run for the presidency in 2020, is currently "trending."

That is to say, unless you're pursuing enlightenment in a cave in the Himalayas, you've encountered this story -- and the tempest in a teapot it has generated -- here, there, and even way over there.

This wily woman, a veritable soda cracker (white and salty), has been claiming for decades to be 1/32 Cherokee. That's what her saintly mama told her, and after all, she does have high cheekbones.

Of course, she did this out of pride. It wasn't an attempt to advance her career by playing a minority card, which can sometimes serve to assist a given individual in climbing the ladder of America's complicated meritocracy.

Having had it with the racist/sexist/eteceterist attacks by her political enemies, including the tweeter-in-chief himself, she released the results of a DNA test. It provided  "strong evidence" that six to ten generations ago a Native American and an individual of European descent, distant relatives of Ms. Warren, made the beast with two backs.

In other news, America recently marked the 17th anniversary of the war in Afghanistan.


Latest From the You Can't Make This Shtuff Up Desk
Kimberly-Clark, the firm responsible for the United Kingdom's most popular brand of kleenex, Kleenex Mansize -- "confidently strong, comfortingly soft" -- have seen the error of their ways. Thanks to a flock of politically correct twitterers tweeting on Twitter the offensive name has been changed to Kleenex Extra Large.

One can only hope that the marketing minion that came up with the clever new name was appropriately rewarded.

A spokesmanperson for the company made clear that "Kimberly-Clark in no way suggests that being both soft and strong is an exclusively masculine trait, nor do we believe the Mansize branding suggests or endorses gender inequality."

Ain'tcha glad they cleared that up?

Personally, as an H. Sapien with the letter M on my birth certificate, were I a twitterer I'd request that they'd start selling an American version of the product in question. I, and I'm certain I'm not alone, would love a larger (perhaps even slightly more substantive) tissue.

I prefer my tissues with added lotion so I hope they provide that option as well. I'd like to suggest a name and tagline. Kleenex Extra Large Whipped Tissues -- the tissued with extra softness whipped in. Poppa loves you.

Have an OK day.
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©2018 Mark Mehlmauer   

It's All Relative

If you're new here, this is a weekly column consisting of letters written to my grandchildren (who exist) and my great-grandchildren (who aren't here yet) — the Stickies — to haunt them after they become grups and/or I'm dead.

[Blogaramians: Blogarama renders the links in my columns useless. Please click on View Original to solve this problem and access lotsa columns.]

Irregularly Appearing Imaginary Guest Stars

Marie-Louise -- My beautiful muse  

Iggy -- My designated Sticky

Dana -- My designated gentlereader

"Everything is relative except relatives, and they are absolute." -Alfred Stieglitz


[Gentlereaders, sorry I published late. Spent the day with a sibling, a sister, that I haven't seen in literally decades and just got home. She rocks.]

Dear (eventual) Grandstickies & Great-Grandstickies,

I hope that by the time you're geezers (or geezerettes) like me things have settled down a bit, but I doubt it. At the moment, we're living through a time of unprecedented prosperity and invention -- and unprecedented change.

Change, of course, is normal and inevitable. Unrelenting, high-velocity change, which appears it will never end, which appears to be the new normal, which appears to be still picking up speed -- is not.

Therefore, I maintain that there are three new things under the Sun.

Unprecedented Prosperity (UP): According to the Brookings Institution as of September 2018 half of the inhabitants of the planet Earth, 7,800,000,000 souls, are middle class or wealthier. "In the world today, about one person escapes extreme poverty every second; but five people a second are entering the middle class."

Unprecedented Invention (UI): The consulting firm TEF predicts that in five years technological innovation will be 32 times more advanced than it is right now. Ten years out, 1,000 times. Twenty years out, 1,000,000 times.

UP + UI = Unprecedented Change

[Of course, something could go terribly wrong and there might not be anyone around to read this. A Zombie Apocalypse for example. Or suppose that the Donald and the Pooteen get into an argument over a golf game resulting in a series of events that culminate in nuclear Armageddon.]


I remember sister Mary McGillicuddy telling the class that we little Boomers and Boomerettes were fortunately/unfortunately growing up at a point in history when mankind's sociological/psychological/etceteralogical knowledge lagged far behind its technical knowledge.

If she's still out there somewhere (unlikely, materially speaking, but we're talking world-class force of nature so...) I think she'd agree with me that the velocity of change in the developed (and shortly to be developed) world is a new thing and we're probably not ready for it.

There have been no corresponding quantum leaps in the social sciences. And while traditional religious beliefs still work for many, for many others... not so much. But there's no shortage of people loose in the world who have replaced God with an ideology and who are prepared to burn non-believers at the stake.


Some perspective, if you please, is necessary at this point. My parents (and their parents) groused about how much more laid back and less dangerous life was when they were young, bulletproof, ten feet tall, immortal, and living in the golden age.

However, historians tell us that this (relatively speaking) is a new phenomenon and it wasn't all that long ago (relatively speaking) that the average lifetime of the average person was mostly "solitary, poor, nasty, brutish and short."

[I used the phrase relatively speaking twice in the previous paragraph to try and call your attention to the fact that (relatively speaking) the modern, postmodern, or whatever this era of history is ultimately labeled, is less than a New York minute of big picture time (relatively speaking).]

You and your spawn are and will grow up taking high-velocity change for granted. You may be scratching your heads as you read this and wondering what the hell I'm talking about. You may regard the life of an average Boomer to have been slow and dull (relatively speaking) and you might be grateful that you live in a more dynamic era.

Which, now that I think about it, is how I viewed my parent's life prior to me showing up. However, I sincerely hope that you live...

[Captain Crank, I think it's time to chart a new course, sir, we're headed for the rocks.]


Point taken, Dana. My Dear Stickies, my point is that when you're looking back and making the inevitable historical judgments of your predecessors keep in mind that although we don't like to admit it we are/were in over our heads as much, or more, than our predecessors were.

Learn and discern the lessons (the easy way), but don't make the mistake of judging us/them as though we knew/they knew everything that you take for granted. At the moment, an awful lot of people that should know better, are doing just that. It's not helpful.

Learn and discern more lessons (as you go, the hard way), chose a goal, formulate a plan, rinse and repeat. Poppa loves you.

Have an OK day.
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[P.S. Gentlereaders, for 25¢ a week, no, seriously, for 25¢ a week you can become a Patron of this weekly column and help to prevent an old crank from running the streets at night in search of cheap thrills and ill-gotten gains.

If there are some readers out there that think my shtuff is worth a buck or three a month, color me honored, and grateful. Regardless, if you like it, could you please share it?]


©2018 Mark Mehlmauer   (The Flyoverland Crank)