Candy Con

 

What have they done now? I heard the little character candy M&Ms were refurbished and had to see the difference. Having a bit of advertising background I was curious to see what 21^st century technology were going to do to cartoon candy?

As you can see above, here is the ‘before’ and ‘after’. Can you tell the differences?

From what I remembered, food advertising is difficult. Children’s cereal had cartoon mascots who were pirates or birds or cave men or that big tiger, but the food itself never talked (except Snap, Crackle or Pop). Vegetables had a happy green giant. Pork products had dancing pigs going off to be slaughtered but most food is just food.

Photographers have horror stories of trying to capture an image under hot lights that will make the viewer believe it would be mouth watering to eat without the aroma to entice the purchase and consumption of the food.

M&Ms were my favorite candy growing up. “Melt’s in your mouth, not in your hands” was the slogan. Milk chocolate in a colored candy shell was a sugar rush treat. My mother would take a few of the pill-sized candy and put them all around the house to me to find as a surprise. When I found enough pieces, I would pile them up on the dining room table, separate them by color and they would be different armies.  The original colors were red, yellow, green, violet and brown. In the early 40’s the violet was changed to tan (light brown). The battles were determined by how many colors could attack other colors. The losers would be eaten.

Without a real sweet tooth, I got away from sugar and never acquired a taste for pies, cakes or cookies. Was fond of chocolate pie until it made me sick and I never went back.

So this new advertising campaign enticed me into the candy aisle. The section held my favorite candy bars (3 Musketeers, 5^th Avenue, Payday, Mr Goodbar, Snickers, Baby Ruth and even a Chunky) that I purchased across the street from my middle school at a gas station. No candy bars had faces or even mascots.

The MARS candy section had bags of M&Ms in a variety of colors and sizes. From my childhood, this simple candy has changed. There are different sizes, different fillings and even different colors. In my candy battles who would have won between the giant peanut M&Ms versus the dwarf mini M&Ms? There are pastels colors in the spring and Halloween colors are orange and black. There now are ‘blue’ M&Ms. There is no other food that is blue?

One other M&M story to sweeten the deal is in the now debunked Sears store on Broad Street was a candy counter. Just like the movies it had candy bars, soda pop, popcorn and a giant window of M&Ms. The clerk, who was usually a sweet high school girl, would scoop the amount of M&Ms requested, weight it on a scale then charge you a price. One day my group decided to stop by and get some candy. The girl was particularly cute that day. The first person stepped up and asked for 8 oz. of M&Ms, but only the ‘red’ ones. She probably thought it was a fraternity hazing trial and went along with the prank. The second persona stepped up and asked for 8 oz. of M&Ms, but only the ‘green’ ones. Under the entire snickering episode, this sweet girl is picking through the glass bubble full of M&Ms hand picking only the green ones.

We only did that once, but it was an ongoing joke for years to come. We all know the red ones taste the best.

Back to the original question about the redesign of the M&M characters, can you tell the difference? They all look the same to me. The shoes are the same, the expressions are the same and they still wear the three-finger gloves. The brown M&M still looks like a stern schoolteacher and the only one wearing glasses. The orange one is still frantic. The blue one still looks like the cool lone and the red one is assured. The green one is still sassy with lipstick but without eyelashes and sneakers instead of heels (thought the brown one still wears heels?). None of them wear hats.

My question with all the diversity awareness, why are all their limbs Caucasian? The brown one does seem to look a bit darker, but it looks more like hosiery than skin tone. No oriental, indigenous, migrants, Latino, or LGBTQ representation (except they don’t have any genitalia). If these little colored characters are suppose attract the consumer, will they be going the way of Aunt Jemima and Uncle Ben?

I got a bag of peanut M&Ms and dark chocolate M&M and I’m done with sugar for the year.

Do these characters have names? 

Empowered

 

As I do on most days, when dinnertime rolled around I popped my meal in the microwave and sat down at the computer to watch YouTube. I can go searching for some remembrance while I chow down or see the trailers to upcoming movies I won’t attend. For some reason, I landed on the 1967 LA riots. Black and white film of army trucks full of white kids with helmets and bayonets marching down the streets full of burning or burnt out buildings as folks looted and set fire to their neighborhood. Then I looked at my options and there were more riots. The calendar flipped by but the story was the same. Something would tick people off and for whatever the excuse (or movement) folks looted and set fire to their neighborhood while lines of police wearing helmets behind shields walked down the street.

The folks who are upset enough to throw rocks, flip the bird, and yell words that would normally get their mouth washed out by their grandmother while tagging wherever the spray can will reach. Then the folks who were hired to protect and serve would form a line and start throwing flash bombs and tear gas to clear the area.

Like any battle the lines would go back and forth until everyone got exhausted and went home. The winner was the department of clean up who get extra overtime picking up trash, replacing windows and putting things back to normal.

I personally have never felt empowered to march the street yelling and screaming and banging on drums and disturbing the peace and trashing cars or defiling personal property knowing full well at the end of the line will be well armored folks who, by their costumes, have to right to beat on you and tie you up and drag you into a cage. Then came social media where everyone could protest in the security of their warm sofa.

Now I grew up in a mid-size conservative southern town. I was taught and obeyed the rules as they were understood and accepted. I was (am) white male, living in a good neighborhood, going to good schools, attending a large church and had friends who had the same cultural privileges. This was my world, as I knew it.

Did I feel empowered by my circumstances?

Then at the end of being adolescent and the shock of puberty, I was introduced to people who were different.

There were people who were orphaned. There were people who had single parents. There were people who lived in rented property. There were people who did not have automobiles. There were people who did not attend church services. There were people who never ate out. There were people who had not learned golf at the country club or attended cotillions. There were people who wore second hand clothing.

Those people who did not feel they were empowered enthralled me. These people were honest for they had nothing else to lose. They didn’t have to work the caste system or play by the fake rules to satisfy cultural traditions or lacks in personality.

 

Some people feel empowered by wealth. Some people feel empowered by their family name. Some people feel empowered by athletic skills. Some people feel empowered by their appearance. Some people feel empowered by where they went to school. Some people feel empowered by their title. Some people feel empowered by their skin color.

Was I privileged? I did not attend the private schools or drive the foreign cars. I did not find the label fashion but the similar knock offs. I was entitled and didn’t realize it just because I was a white male.

 

Somehow scrolling around on YouTube (remember I’m still eating dinner – that is my excuse and I’m sticking with it) I come across some ‘Buffy the Vampire Killer’ Entertainment Weekly cast reunion show.

“What does that have to do with riots and white supremacy?” you ask.

 

Growing up in my normal white bread world, television became my baby sitter. My dad was fascinated in the latest gizmo and television was the latest wonder appliance everyone wanted. This was the 50’s.

There were three channels. It was black and white. The images were fuzzy and the sound weak but it was all we had. My dad would drive downtown to the Ward’s Appliance Store and we’d walk past rows of these screens showing the same images. It was mystifying.

The first television I remember was the size of a small refrigerator in a wooden cabinet with a maybe 8 – 10” screen and an adjustable rabbit ear antenna. The images started around 7AM and would go off the air around midnight. My stay-at-home mother listened to the radio in the kitchen all day so I could be absorbed in the television.

One day I got a small portable television that I could put in my room so I never came out. I watched the ‘Mickey Mouse Club’ while wearing my ears. I watched the cowboy shows like ‘Roy Rogers and Dale Evans’, ‘Hopalong Cassidy’, ‘Have Gun Will Travel’, ‘Wagon Train’, and ‘Gunsmoke’. All had the good guy /bad guy sermon with all white actors and stunt men in bad wigs falling off horse into a hay pit and horses racing around the same rock and every hero could shoot a pistol out of the hand of the bad guy without aiming. If there was a dying scene, it dragged out as long as filler before the commercial and was bloodless. The bad guys would even show up on the next series under a different name. Resurrection?

After school, while my friends were taking music lessons or playing sports, I was in my room drawing pictures and staring at this magic box. I watched the JFK funeral on television. I watched the first rocket go into space on a television. I believed Walter Cronkite like some wise uncle and was scared of Oral Roberts healing the lame. Instead of reading, television (and movies on Sunday after church or Saturday matinees) was my world of fantasy.

By the time I left home there was a television in every room; a tradition I continued. My first color television was a heavy set bought at Thalhimers and brought home on a bus. It even had a remote the size bigger than a cell phone. I even got cable that had a dozen channels and got free movies because they couldn’t get the billing straight. Mostly the television was on but the sound was turned down so I could play records and smoke dope. Television had become a distraction by then.

My second wife loved appliances and a television is an appliance. We got televisions of different sizes in every room with VHS (and then DVD) players. This is the point.

She watched television all day. She followed the soap opera circuit on Channel 8 with fervor. “Days of Our Lives”, “The Young & Restless” and “General Hospital” were times when she must not be disturbed. I would come home from work and hear about all these fascinating events that happened to people who I didn’t believe were our neighbors. These were her friends. They were her only friends. I couldn’t keep track of who was the richest man from 2 to 3 PM or when I did see a scene wondered where was the woman who was named ‘Blair’ yesterday but looks different today?

Then soap operas started to come on at night. “Dynasty” and “Dallas” became the mysterious family adventure of the rich and famous coming into the bedroom.

By now, we had settled into a routine of watching the evening news and then whatever came on after it. “Quincy, ME” to “Doctor Quinn, Medicine Babe” to “ER” (until that got to realistic) to “M.A.S.H” was a group of series watched every week. “Miami Vice” to “Rosanne” to “The Cosby Show” to “Cheers” entertained us every night. We became television junkies.

Work had moved beyond the 7½ hours day to extend hours spent writing reports and documenting associates I’d been empowered by the company to supervise. I moved out to my ‘man shed’ and turned on football as background noise and a filter from my wife who was not interested in sports to hours of typing about people who deserved a raise to those who didn’t deserve to be employed.

Without cable (it was a waste of money and time watching movies until 4AM and wonder why?) new series that was not on analog TV were not available… until the VHS. My wife purchased box sets of “M.A.S.H.”, “Gilmore Girls”, “Air Bud” and “Buffy the Vampire Slayer” from Barnes & Noble for binge watch while I worked 24/7. Are you following this so far?

“Buffy…” was a good series, from the parts I saw, but I didn’t know all the characters. The actors, who were mostly unknown and in their elderly twenties, were playing teenagers in high school with the angst and emotional trials of that age. Oh, and they killed vampires. The script was fast and witty but I didn’t follow it. “Buffy…” also crossed some barriers of showing strong female leads, death of a parent, lesbian couple, and experiences of the coming of age series. It even had a musical.

Last night I’m listening to the actors reliving a television series that was a cult following for teens from the late 90’s to the turn of the century. In the story, Slayers, or the “Chosen Ones”, are chosen by fate to battle against vampires, demons and other forces of darkness. Buffy struggles throughout the series with her calling as Slayer and the loss of freedom this entails, frequently sacrificing teenage experiences for her Slayer duties. Her difficulties and eventual empowering realizations are reflections of several dichotomies faced by modern women and echo feminist issues within society.

My wife was an orphan. She never found her birth mother (pre-Internet) but kept the dress she was adopted in. She didn’t speak of her adopted family but wanted to be accepted.

Television accepted her without question.

Did I empower her?

I certainly gave her the freedom to explore whatever interested her. Cooking, gardening (landscaping), knitting, sewing, animals, fashion, art were all sparked by television.

What about “Buffy…”

The television shows were her family. Reality was a lonely place of only one other person (reside to or preferred?) and television gave her a choice of family she could live with.

In the end, Buffy passes being a slayer, not to one, but to all girls (women) everywhere to be empowered to follow their dreams and strengths without restrictions of gender or old traditions.

The bewitching hour came and I shut down my YouTube connection with a smile feeling empowered.

Investments

 

At the end of the day, do you have a little leftover change in your pocket? Save it up to invest.

You invest in the agriculture industry to feed your face. You invest in the petroleum industry to fill your tank. You invest in off shore manufacturing to cloth your children. You invest in your shelter to fund the construction industry. You invest in weapons to give the army something to play with. You invest in space exploration to see if a grill cheese sandwich can be prepared in outer space. You invest in pharmaceutical industry to make new opioid to keep the medial industry busy. You invest in Silicon Valley so you can play Angry Birds.

You invest in your children to give them an education with hopes they have a better life than ancestries’ and remember to pay back when you get old. You invest in your house of worship in hopes that the afterlife will have wings and harp instead of heated pitchforks. You invest in your business to keep your head low and hope when your name comes up you gets that long awaited raise. You invest in health insurance in hopes you won’t get caught with a bill you will never be able to pay off. You invest in your significant other to keep a happy environment at home. You invest in your distraction to keep sanity.

If someone comes to you and says their idea will double your money, would you invest. Investing is a gambling speculation that you will win. Can you afford an investment that might lose?

You invest in the government in hopes they keep the toilet flushing and the electricity surging and the bridges sturdy and highways level and the streets safe. You also invest in your elected employees to implement ideas that will be good for most of us.

What do you invest in yourself?

What are your returns? How is that working for you?

Surrounded by family and friends

 

I hear this in death announcements and it give me a shiver. I know everyone has their own ideas for death and dying but having a selfies while someone is dying seems creepy to me.

I’ve heard of family gathering around the dying and saying prayers and singing as if this person who is about to breath their last breathe will want you there. If this process has been agreed to before, then it is a family tradition and the person will just have to lie there and take it, because it is too late to fight it. The last thing I would want is to hear off-key harmonies before I pass over.

Each of us will have to deal with death, others and our own. It is said we are the only creatures who is aware of our own demise. There are a variety of methods and procedures for death. You can die at home. You can die in a hospital. You can die anywhere.

It seems we are fascinated about death. We rubberneck at auto accidents to see if there are any bodies that haven’t been covered in a tarp. We watch movies that show dismemberment and vile forms of carcass manufacturing by monsters or angry people. We rerun history with pictures of war where the purpose is to destroy other people in the foulest manner.

I do not understand our fascination of being next to another person who is dying? In the movies the extended death scene holds our attention and brings emotional tears. Is this what we are taught? We don’t seem to have the same interest in your steak or fried chicken before it made your dinner plate?

Like a hospital, that will keep you living as long as possible with gizmos and liquids pumped into our almost rigor mortis shells for that is how they make their money, there is the folks who prepare us for review before dumping us into the ground. They make their money, pumping us up and dressing us in our Sunday finest and place us in a box so family and friends can see our corpse up close and personal. Check the pockets for a forgotten lottery ticket.

If we are so depraved at leaving the loved one, why not go to the taxidermist and have them stuffed like your last hunt?

You can have a remembrance portrait painted before you go to the great beyond but please no flat line selfies. 

I Promise

 

A: a declaration that one will do or refrain from doing something specified. 

B: a legally binding declaration that gives the person to whom it is made a right to expect or to claim the performance or forbearance of a specified act.

A promise used to be a handshake. A promise signed the deed. A promise was a Twinkie finger link.

We promise to obey the rules. We promise to be home on time. We promise our love. We promise to pay you back.

“Blah-Blah-Blah”

 

We approve our terms and conditions without reading the fine print and promise to pay our bills on time. We elect people who repeatedly promise to make things better and cheaper. We promise to make up the bed. We promise to take out the trash.

“Blah-Blah-Blah”

A signature on a contract is a promise to adhere to the words on paper. An allegiance to the flag is a promise. Taking an oath to abide with one hand raised and another on a book is a promise.

“Blah-Blah-Blah”

“I promise I’ll never do that again.” “I promise I’ll love you forever.” “I promise I’ll return on time.” “I promise I’ll pick that up.” “I promise I won’t cum in your mouth.”

“Blah-Blah-Blah”

Maybe you heard recently that nations got together to discuss Climate Change. Representatives gather to give speeches, formed working groups and made promises on how each will reduce global warming.

“Blah-Blah-Blah”

Next year they will get back together and show their papers and how the process of reducing fossil fuel is going. There will be more speeches and charts and graphs and statistics and excuses… and promises. Then they will get back into their petrol mobile machines and drive or fly back home to contemplate new promises.

“Blah-Blah-Blah”

 

A promise is only good if the promise is accomplished.

 

 

A promise can be broken

 

 

The Final Frontier

 

To go where no one has gone before.

Homo sapiens are a curious bunch. What is behind that tree? What is over that mountain? What is up there on the moon?

We are never satisfied at where we are and what we have. We’d still be in the Garden of Eden.

After ‘man’ had grown tired of exploring the land and water, there was space.

Being of the competitive nature the two super powers, who had the know how to created rockets topped with bombs, decided to put a radio on top of one and blast it into space.

This was where the Internet started.

After learning once through the atmosphere the payload could obit the earth. There were all kinds of electronic gizmos but could a human live in the space environment?

But before putting a baby in a spaceship and shot it into the great unknown, we picked man’s best friend, a dog.

 

This is the story of Laika.

Laika (Russian: Лайка; c. 1954 – 3 November 1957) was a Soviet space dog that became one of the first animals in space, and the first animal to orbit the Earth. ... Laika died within hours from overheating, possibly caused by a failure of the central R-7 sustainer to separate from the payload.

 

Imagine what this pup went through. How does your dog handle going to the vet? How would you feel stuffing your puppy into a trashcan and blasting it off into space? What was the fear of this dog without being able to move and no human around to beg for treats?  What were the last thoughts of this panting canine before succumbing to man’s experiment?

 

There were other animals sent into space. Some survived. Experimental test before a human astronaut climbed into a cramped capsule for a view of our home from outside.

 

Was this humane behavior? What does the good book say?

 

Then God said, “Let us make man in our image, after our likeness. And let them have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over the livestock and over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.” So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them. And God blessed them. And God said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over every living thing that moves on the earth.”

Genesis 1:26-28

 

“Man has regard for the life of his beast, but the mercy of the wicked are cruel.” This important verse suggests a Biblical division of people into two distinct types – those who are “righteous” and just are kind to their animals, and those who are “wicked” and are cruel to creatures under their care. Genesis 24:19

 

“Righteous man cares about his animal’s health”.

Proverbs 12:10

 

Even on solid ground, we, as a species, are not very kind to our furry and feathered fellow occupants. We call those who are less likely to kill us for mistreatment, Pets!

The others we mount their heads on our walls, make rugs and coats out of their skins, pull them out of the water to suffocate and eat their flesh.

Now the International space station is alive with insects and bugs for scientific and medical experiments.

Once we figured out how to circle the globe, we raced to the moon. The U.S. conquered the moon first and planted a flag, but could not make it into the 51^st state. Instead we picked up some rocks, and then left a pile of trash. Was it worth the money?

 

It seems we are always trying to go faster and further and higher and deeper, so the futile experiment goes on. Going to a place where a pinprick would mean certain death.

Kaila didn’t know that. Still she was sacrificed to become a national icon.

Numbers, Charts, Graphics, Predictions, Analysis…

 

Have you heard enough? Do all those numbers get confusing?

Seems there are a lot of folks out there figuring out methods to inform and profound you with their efforts.

Trends, references, continuum, comparisons…

37% versus 63%, study group size, variables…

Any good accountant will tell you how to adjust and present the numbers to prove your point of view.

Investigation, inquiry, research, examination, analysis, review, survey, scrutiny, evaluation, interpretation…

Universities and Medical institutions use studies to post opinions and theories.

Do all the numbers and charts and graphs and speakers give us enough significant information to make our daily decisions?

Get a shot or not? Go to school or not? Go to work or not?

Do you find a number you approve of and tout it as fact, without any research of footnotes? Do you ballyhoo numbers that you can agree with that fits your opinions and lifestyle?

There are numbers for suicides. There are numbers for auto deaths. There are numbers for gun killings. There are numbers for war body counts. There are numbers for births. There are numbers for deaths. There are numbers for left handed people. There are numbers for people with halitosis. There are numbers on your credit card. There are numbers of family members. There are numbers on houses. There are numbers on your phone. There are numbers used in gambling. There are numbers on your money. There are numbers on pages. There are numbers in scores. There are numbers on commandments. There are numbers on your blood pressure. There are numbers on your license. There are numbers on your height and weight. There are numbers on rulers. There are numbers on clocks. There are numbers on ovens. There are numbers on prices. There are numbers on birthdays. There are number of votes.

Do all your numbers add up?

The Look

 

Have you noticed; that ‘special look’ between two people?

It doesn’t happen all the time, but you know it when you see it.

Before you get a conversation or an introduction, the appearance is your first evaluation to the other person. It might be a polite smile that is going through the motions or the awkward my mind and focus is somewhere else.

Then there is that magic moment when you walk into a room full of people and across the room your eyes connect with another. It doesn’t have to be love at first sight, but immediately there is a connection.

The look may not appear except in intimate moments. Sometimes you don’t even realize it is there.

The other day checking out at the scanning machine with a crowd of frantic shoppers I was waiting for the blue apron with the magic card to come by and verify I was old enough to drink 3.2 beer, I saw ‘the look’. Through all the chaos a woman on the other side of the crowd looked at me. We stood there for a minute or two staring at each other. No words were spoken, but it was ‘the look’.

The ‘look’ that offered possibilities. The ‘look’ of unique interest. The ‘look’ of a mysterious connection.

She packed up her bags and moved on. I got my ID approved and headed in another direction.

At another place, at another time ‘the look’ could have, but it wasn’t that time or place.

Mysterious lady from the super market, this old man says, “Thank you for ‘the look’. It was good while it lasted.”

People Are Strange

 

Have you noticed? We, as a species, are unique. Most animals on this blue marble just want to eat, drink, roam and mate. We all are born and we all die, but only the homo sapiens want to fly to the moon.

We are the ones who worship some unknown deity. We are the ones who invented fossil fueled vehicles to take our family to the beach or the mountains for vacation. We invented electricity. We invented computers. We invented cell phones. We invented religion. We invented bad haircuts. We created rock and roll. We created mood rings and pet rocks. We created platform shoes. We created high heels. We smoked cigarettes. We wore clothing. We went into the ground to dig coal in tunnels. We flew balloons. We made art. We fought each other in the name of God. We protested abortion while executing prisoners. We created money in hopes of getting rich. We created bigotry. We learned to speak in many different tongues. We cooked food and made the cooking show. We evaluated knowledge to wisdom. We printed books. We buried our dead. We wasted more than we used. We legislated laws to be broken. We enjoyed alcohol to excess. We stumbled into dancing. We created dangerous games and called them sports. We constructed multi-layered houses. We got married. We got divorced. We created weapons to kill. We fought wars to murder our young. We created stress, depression and love. We learned to not trust people who look different. We name other animals we feed. We build statues to honor ourselves. We practice medicine. We perform for each other. We make our opinions known. We listen and learn.

Beware of these people. They are strange.

POP Culture

Our society loves our youth and our young people supply us with POP Culture. Look at any news site or new broadcast and the categories have changed from National and Local news, Sports and Weather to Entertainment, Video, Music, Fashion, Health, Shopping, Politics, Tech, Business, Media and Opinion. There are features on LGBTQ, Black, Asian and Latino, Conservative, Progressive, Rural, Urban, Immigration, Science, Pollution, Crime and Sex all with analysis, examination, inspection, study, scrutiny, evaluation and interpretation of the POP culture.

POP culture has it’s own speech. There are magazines, television shows and social media to keep everyone aware of the latest style, reads, philosophy, dances moves, food, art, hairstyles and hip terms. POP culture also has it’s own brand of music.

 

At a certain age, we lose touch with POP culture. Perhaps it is the distraction of paying the bills, getting the roof fixed, taking the dog to the vet, or the kids who have already created another generation of POP culture you don’t understand.

My parent’s POP culture was Frank Sinatra and Fred and Ginger and they also participated. My POP culture started with the ‘beat’ generation of poets and folk singers then shifted to the Beatles and mods and long hair. The Hippie POP culture just was early grunge and the Disco POP culture blended the white/black music.

Today’s POP culture is unknown to me. I don’t know the terminology, the celebrities, the music, and games, dance moves or social media sites. Whatever trends are ‘happening’ I can read about but am not part of.

Whether age or just no interest, when the announcements of the Emmy winners or the Oscar nominees or the birthday list, I don’t know any of the names or faces. I find it disturbing we spend so much time on the frivolous and nonsensical.

 

Been thinking about this old man

 

He is my father’s father. He was George senior, the son of Corporal Thomas of the Richmond Howitzers, Co A 1^st Va. State Reserves 2^nd Class militia. George senior was third of four children born in 1862.

He was raised on a farm in Powhatan, VA. He was educated at Richmond College. Joined the Baptist church at age 13. Moved to Wilmington, NC in 1890. Married in 1893. Had two sons born 1897 and 1905. Owned the Leftwich Wholesale Grocery Company. He was a deacon at the First Baptist Church. His wife, Mary E. Dixon (born 1873) died at age 74. First son died in 1957. His second son brought him to Richmond, VA nine years after his wife’s death where he died in 1956 at the age of 93.

That is about all I know of him.

He lived in a large house at 515 Chestnut Street, very similar to this.

 

I only went to that house once or twice. It was dark with the shades drawn. There was a long dark stairway that went upstairs but I never attempted to wander. There was a living or sitting room then through an archway to a large dark table and then a kitchen. There were no books or any photos or trinkets on side tables. The chairs smelt like musky smoke. Don’t remember any artwork on the walls. Don’t remember the freezer box or type of stove but they were ancient. The rooms were sparse. I don’t remember a telephone. I don’t remember a radio or television. I don’t remember an automobile. The overhead lighting looked like gaslights converted to electricity. There were no outlets in the walls. The light switch was an on button and an off button. Have no idea if there was indoor plumbing but never saw a bathroom.

My father and his father would go out on the back steps and talk. I was not invited to listen.

This old man was in his 80’s when I was introduced. Maybe a pat on the head or some mumbled incoherent phrases and then he would shuffle off. Never an invitation to a treat or drink unless we went next door to the corner bodega. Maybe that was just the way his household was run?

Why do I think about this stranger? He was family. He was an unknown, family never spoken of, for whatever reason but he was part of my ancestry.

Did he walk to church, which was a block away? Did he prepare his own meals? Where did he wash his clothes? Did he have people over? Did he drink? Did he have any hobbies? Where did he get his haircut? What did he read beside the Bible? Did he ever dance? Did he ever clean?

He liked to rock on the front porch, which was passed down to me. Don’t know if he liked the music his son played or if he tolerated the drunken philandering other son? Never seemed to give any attention to his two grandsons and neither of us ever sent him a Christmas present.

All the photos I have George senior is in his 80’s or 90’s. I’m not there yet but can empathize with his daily challenges. How was his mental shape toward the end? Did he have the doctor visit? Was he ever in the hospital? Seemed he was getting frail so my father brought his father up to Richmond to a hospice. This was a cost my father hadn’t planned on but he was the only one left. Was not invited to the funeral.

Today is a snow day. I don’t leave the house on snow days. I cook my New Year’s meal, and then wash my dishes that have been sitting in the sink for a week.

I went back to search for photos and email my brother. The NPR plays in the kitchen and in the music room. Look out the window to watch the snowfall then go back to search for places long gone. What is that noise? Is that snow melting?

No, it was the repeat of the major floor. Mopping up for a couple of hours and kicking myself in the butt, I wonder what George senior would have done. Is it a sign of not paying attention or the start of dementia? The Golden Years do create some previews of what the future holds.

It is too late to get advice from George senior or George junior.

Still I wonder why he called his first son William and his second son George Jr.?

Time Capsule

 

It has been all the rage around this burg. While taking down a monument to the Lost Cause all the chatter turned to a time capsule embedded in the podium.

A box was found and there was minute-by-minute coverage of masked gloved conservators slowly lifted the lead to expose a couple of books, a letter and a coin from over a century ago. Everyone was disappointed because they expected more.

Then, the site of deconstruction another time capsule was found. Again the fervor went up like opening a present on Christmas morning.  More books, bullets, coins were found (closer to the newspaper description of items buried at the time).

When the building I worked in was destroyed and a new monstrous block was constructed, a time capsule was dropped in a hole next to the front steps. Being a newspaper I’d think it was full of tasty archives that the generation after the next generation would find fascinating.

What about making your own time capsule?

What items could I gather up and fill a box to drop in a deep hole to be found (or not) years from now? What acceptable items could I select that would become ancient relics ready for historic museums?

Maybe one of my guitars could go in the box? Done of them are that special but in a hundred years they would be vintage in mint condition. Could put in some photos but they are all scanned and in one hundred years technology won’t understand these old formats. The same with music unless vinyl is still being played after fossil fuel elimination (like everyone promised). I could draw some pictures on paper, if the colors don’t fade and the paper breaks down?

A watch, a corded Princess rotary phone, white bucks, a chain with a spoon on it, a switchblade knife, a credit card or a computer mouse would all be remembrance of past times.

Or you can make the usual time capsule in the graveyard. A head marker will at least give the finder a name and age of who will be found.

While a cemetery is suppose to be sanctuary for the dead, someone might need that land to dig for oil, build a box store or lay down a parking lot in which case you’ll just have to move.

The anthropologists will handle you with care with rubber gloves and little brooms. By this time you may just be a bag of bones but your double knit outfit will last as long as the plastic bag.

If your family stuffed the coffin with gifts and memorabilia it will give the finder a hint of your legacy. If not, have a note in your pocket that says, “Do Not Disturb”.