Carving Set

Just another little tradition I remember from long ago.

 Of course we said Grace first. “God is great. God is good. And we thank him for this food. By his hands we all are fed. Give us Lord our daily bread.”

Or was it “Now I lay me down to sleep. I pray the Lord my soul to keep. If I should die before I wake, I pray to God my soul to take.” No, that was said in my pajamas before I climbed under the covers.

In the cupboard next to the dining room table was a red box taken out once a year. It was a carving set used for the Thanksgiving turkey.

The tradition was my father would stand and carve the first slices of what I found out later was a pre-cooked turkey from the club and placed samples of the bird on our plates.

Then all heck broke loose with the passing of string beans, mashed potatoes, gravy in their silver or fine china containers until my mother’s constant warming of the bread in the kitchen brought out the pots and pans.

I don’t know if my father’s father did the same tradition or was this just part of the show our family played? I don’t know if the carving set was a hand-me-down heirloom or a fancy purchase.

I don’t remember if I gave the carving set to my brother or just threw it away but I don’t have it anymore. It wasn’t a very good sharp knife, even with the honing rod. It didn’t hold an edge. My pet peeve are dull knives in the kitchen.

Years later I accumulated enough carving tools, even electric knives. Maybe that set in the red box began my fascination with knives?

Yet on this day of Thanksgiving (which to me just meant being out of school) the carving of the turkey was a tradition.

Then the carving set was neatly closed in their case and put in the drawer next to the fine linens and silver steak knives for another year.

Kid’s Shows

Now that the Boomers are getting all weepy eyed about our childhood hero’s that came to us in a box with a black and white fuzzy window. We could hear them but they could hear us.

It took some time for the tubes to heat up and clear an image as through a fog. Though the box was a huge piece of furniture, the sound came from a tiny speaker and the volume didn’t go to 11.

These were our baby sitters. Mom and dad didn’t watch with us because they were doing mom and dad stuff somewhere else. Give us a bowl of cereal and we would just sit and watch for hours; eyes glued to the limited action on screen.

We didn’t know any of these people. They were not in our schools. They didn’t go to church with us, but they all somewhat seemed familiar. Everyone was good natured and trusting. We were growing up in the Fantasy Fifties.

There where clowns and farmers and some women who seemed like a distant aunt you stayed away from at family gatherings so you wouldn’t get you cheek pinched. There was a buckskin guy with a puppet and a sailor with a puppet. Seems there were a lot of puppets around back then.

Disney, who taught us classical music to cartoons, had a group of kids (just like us) who you wanted to be a part of. It was a Mouse Club and you got to wear mouse ears. They were not worn outside the house but when the Mouse Club came on, so did the ears. Everyone sing along.

 We gradually move onto reflections of daily life like “Father knows best” and “Leave it to Beaver”. “Ozzie & Harriett” was a favorite being about the same ages as David and Ricky and mom and dad knew their mom and dad from the ole music days. Still it was just white-bread suburban commercialism television.

There was no remote to mute the messages to buy a new refrigerator or sugar covered cereal. With only three channels, there was no need to surf because each had the same content at the same time. They all ended at midnight to the Star Spangle banner. Did we stand up?

Desegregation was still buried in the back papers of the newspaper, so the only indication of another population living among us was “Amos and Andy” and variety shows with Nat King Cole or Sammy Davis Jr. Chuck Berry, Fats Domino, Muddy Waters and Howling Wolf could only be found on late night shortwave radio.

Years would pass and television realized their audience was more sensitive to the young minds watching news clips of soldiers in foreign rice paddies and leaders of our nation warning us about nuclear annihilation. No wonder monster films became so popular.

Now the airwaves are full of high tech productions for young eyes to take in the calming messages that Mrs. Frances and Mr. Rogers tried to tell when they are not playing destructive video games. Will fluffy puppets convince you to not throw trash out your car window on the way to grandma’s house for Thanksgiving?

Be Patient

It is inevitable. There will come a time when you cannot take care of yourself. How are you as a patient to another?

It maybe a sudden event like a heart attack or a car crash when you wake up and you are in someplace unfamiliar with lots of people staring at you. You will have tubes and electronic gizmos attached all over your body to the sounds of beeps and whirs and you are not in control.

It is nice of our society to pick us up and cart us off to a medical center before the buzzards arrive, but other than mumbling to weird questions and trying to apply to directions, you are totally under control of others who tell you when to sleep and what to wear and what to eat without your consent. If that wasn’t good enough, they will pump stuff into your veins and make you swallow pills and then record you followed instructions.

Not having been to visit with a medical professional in (mumble) years, but have had a history of being part of the naked prisons in the sterile environment, self-medication has been the best policy. Total control; for better or worse. “No one to blame but myself” is a mantra.

Still of sound mind (questionable) and ancient body, one day the commands from the brain will not operate the functions required. At that point, someone else will have to step in to provide the services of eating, drinking, motion and (best of all) pooping.

Normally this is the time for family to step in. Just having the same last name does not legally require taking responsibility for this impaired relative.

Again, our guilt against destroying other people and places provides social services for those disadvantaged. Who can pass up a red bucket these days?

Lucky for the rest of us, those kind souls will pick us up, push us around, show us how to fill our time with entertainment and exercise, then go home to wash it down with wine for a paycheck.

Change your wardrobe for paper gowns open in the back to show everyone your ass. Put away those fine French patent leather shoes for some Wal-Mart slippers. Is it cold? Climb on your thin pad squeaky bed with its roller frame and pull up your paper-thin covers. Drink your water through a straw when handed to you.

Learn how to maneuver into the crowd at meal time as if getting to the table early will get you an additional napkin or package of crackers to take back to your room. This is the best you got.

You are now depending on another.

If that other isn’t a blood relative and possibly written into your will, what the heck do they care if you are comfortable or not? They are paid to clean up after you and if the insurance you purchased for so many years pays the exorbitant prices charged by the medical professionals, they will still get minimum wage. Sort of puts you in a bind.

It is easy to look behind with the photos and the memories, but there is no telling what tomorrow holds. Where is the breaking point when suicide seems to be an alternative? Even that at some point will be beholding on another.

At this season of gatherings, we get to see those who are older and weaker without much more time left and wonder when we will be sitting there too. Always courteously hold the chair for the elderly. Give them an arm when walking downstairs. You may show others how to reward you later.

Holiday Shopping

It is time again to make that shopping list and venture out into the internet or brick and mortar stores to fill your carts with all the gifts to be wrapped and placed under the tree to be a surprise to family and friends. It is one of our best commercial traditions ever invented in the Lord’s name.

The twenty-fifth of December will be nothing more than a Wednesday to me. I’ll be thinking about the New Year’s taxes and the political nonsense going full tilt until the sunshine returns warming up the old bones.

Until then I’ll check out the ‘Black Friday’ specials to see what the cultural hits are this year.  Here is what I found.

The usual items are always popular.

Fleece is the new fur, so everyone cuddle up with hoodies and snugglies and a plaid union suit for those nights you are to cheap to turn up the heat.

Underwear. What says “Merry Holiday” more than a pair of tighty whities opened in front of everyone? Even if it some sex linguine, this is not the place for that.

Followed by the seasonal sweater or t-shirt or ridiculous hat with antlers that will quickly go to the back of the closet to rot. First take some pictures and post online at your poor taste.

Here is one I never understand. Male grooming items? Now this holiday is about a bearded guy (either one) and the guys get trimmers and shavers and smelly sauce to splash on their face to have the fragrance of a sailor or a ninja or a lumberjack. This is not the time to give the ladies some sweet perfume because that is for those intimate moments.

While we are talking about the guys, seems any hammer or screwdriver or belt sander is the perfect stocking stuffer. Since no one goes in the shop to realize the variety of rusting tools gathering dust in drawers or hanging on walls, what is one more to the collection?

Since this day is about the kids (right?) the search for the latest addiction in games or toys must raise the fog of congressional inquiries. Not having kids of my own, I cannot find the latest Cabbage Patch doll or Beanie Baby so maybe this year would be some sort of electronic computerized game? Just hand the kid a gift card and hope for the best.

What about the old folks? They are leftover from Thanksgiving and will last until the ball drops. They don’t like your opinions, love the children until they get their diapers changed (you figure it out) and whatever you offer is never good enough. Luckily they nap a lot. You could buy them a jet ski or yoga pants or Bluetooth headphones or a basketball or just throw the money out the window. Wrap them in a blanket and mash up the food until their meds kick in. Family.

What about that special gift?

Jewelry is always nice as a big surprise but it makes everything else seem shabby in comparison. Don’t propose on Christmas day. If the box is opened and not immediately cherished, move on.

If you really, really know that special person and have spent months and dollars finding the ‘perfect present’ only to be disappointed being distracted by the wrapping paper mounds, television flashes, passing cookies and eggnog, constant conversations on another subject, Christmas tunes blaring, dogs and children scattered about to lose focus of the moment.

Now if that ‘special gift’ is a car, it will make every other gift frivolous and worthless. Be careful what you present at the holidays.

Now kitchen appliances might seem a practical gift, but just like all the fondue cookers you got as wedding presents, no one wants to open the glittery paper and ribbons to find a vacuum or a washer/dryer. They may be very practical, but this is the season for rejoicing.

Spirits are always a fine gift. On the day of celebration, no one looks at the label to see how much you spent or even the alcohol content. Just pour it into the punch bowl and slush it down. Be sure to put away your kids before you begin for in the morning you’ll have no idea where they are.

This is the season where everyone feels heartfelt for the disadvantaged. Throw some change into the red pots or donate some time to your local charity or faith base organization to smile and fill some bowls with food you would not eat wearing rubber gloves then wash off before the family gathers. They will still be standing outside.

How about a cute cuddly animal? Kittens don’t sit still in stockings but puppies are a perfect photo moment. After they are named and slept on the sofa, they are still here. Just like birthing children, they are your responsibility to feed and shelter and clean up after until they are old enough…. Oh what, these furry critters are never old enough to clean up after themselves. They won’t learn French or travel to grandmas or care to decipher the Bible. When they barf, it is up to you to care for them.

After the piles of trash are gathered up filling the waste receptacles awaiting the big trucks to haul away, Christmas is done for this year.

There is still time to do something different.

Instead of spending your time putting up lights and cutting down trees, what about picking up trash? Maybe the neighbors won’t know why you didn’t join into their cultural traditions, but you will.

For the crafters, knitting a scarf or sewing a quilt and delivering it to a local shelter will mean more. Know someone with a problem to a house or car? If you have the expertise, a few hours without pay will be the most rewarding experience ever. Ever thought about getting a marker and a pad of paper and drawing a coloring book for the ones who would be surprised by the story they told you? Take a few crumbs and spread it out on the lawn. They will be appreciated.

While you are searching for that perfect gift, whether it be a gigantic television screen you can fall asleep in front of or some magic speaker who will turn on your lights and listen to you while you are snoring or some sort of shelter in place system who will record porch pirates taking your presents you forgot you bought.

I enjoy the hurry and rush of the season. People dressed in their layers of last years winter clothing, in a frantic hurry to gather the last bit of tinsel or a few sheets of poorly designed thin paper on a toilet paper tube. It is like the panic to get popcorn before the movie begins.

Still it is a tradition we all follow. There is something special about ending the year with a new teddy bear or smiles from those around you, if even for a moment.

Some say it is the season for hope and joy to raise us above from our daily drudgery of survival so let us get lost in our comics and fantasies. Hopefully the young will learn it is better to be kind to each other, but history shows we grow out of that. Even this holiday moved onto a cross. Not a merry ending.

While you and yours struggle through the masses grabbing items to please each other and complaining in lines while accumulating senseless debt, the sun will rise and the sun will set and another day will be marked off the calendar.

As for me, I’ll not adhere the custom of decorations but will appreciate the traditions. The one day that everything is shut down, I’ll venture out on the empty streets. This day is like no other.

The yard critters will always have a feast, even thought they don’t know it is Christmas. Everyday Santa brings them joy.

If I can help a neighbor or feed those lost in the winter, I’ll try. Station #16 will get a pie. No questions asked.

On December 26, the sun will rise and everyone will prepare for champagne, balloons and midnight kisses.

Will You Get Into Heaven?

 

Listening to the Congressional inquiry (or inquisition) one wonders how much do you really remember?

Without your notes and transcripts how can you answer Saint Peter’s questions?

What was your thinking during the moon landing of a human-made object to touch the Moon was the Soviet Union's Luna 2, on 13 September 1959? What was your reaction to the 35^th president assassination on November 22, 1963, at 12:30 p.m. Central Standard Time in Dallas, Texas, while riding in a presidential motorcade through Dealey Plaza? Where were you went your father died? What final grade did you receive on the senior high school English class? How much did you pay for your first car and who was the dealership? On what day did you get baptized? How did you get out of jail? What was your SAT score?

I can barely remember what I had for lunch yesterday, much less the meeting held on Tuesday, 25, 1985 or who was in attendance. Without a group photo there is no proof of what I was wearing. How have my opinions and thoughts changed from experiences from then to now? I may have been barefoot?

I’ve kept copious notes and detailed records through the years to book note my opinions and verify questionable activities. At some point in time, they all went into the shredder because I no longer needed the evidence of my guilt or innocence.

I feel for these ‘witnesses’ being questioned before the nation and then having their testimony analysis by the media and talking heads. How many buttons was on your yellow blouse you wore to the 2003 meeting on the agenda no one remembers? Did you wear a red tie or a blue tie when you received the phone call from a former official who may have referred to a vague bit of information? Did you pay cash for that cocktail or put it on your business credit card? When did you reimburse the payment for that cocktail?

If history makes the foggy details vague and we have trouble refreshing who, what, when, where and how events happened; will Saint Peter let us in?

These grilling sideshows (even if the job description requires detail recollections of every moment in time) would be close to impossible for most of us normal’s.

I might as well push the down button.

LEARNING: Watching or Doing?

How do you learn?

In school there is this person who comes into the front of the room and spouts off information without presenting their degree of expertise in what he or she is saying. Is there a diploma on the wall disclaiming this person should be listened to, other than you have to sit there for an hour until the bell rings.

Books are assigned for reading as background for what is being taught in the classroom. Depending on your previous understanding of grammar, the text may be relevant or just confusing gibberish.

The test will show if you comprehended the lesson, like the instructions from IKEA.

Knowledge, like libraries, can be assembled but rarely used or understood.

The real test of understanding is the transfer of past experiences for you to try yourself. It is easy to watch a YouTube about a do-it-yourself, but until you try it, you’ll never know if you can accomplish the task.

Your grandmother’s recipe for the Thanksgiving turkey seems easy enough to follow, but never taste the same. Your father’s tools used to build the bookcase never seem to be level.

The written instructions and student driver testing doesn’t matter until you hit the highway. Porn can show you techniques but not in personal contact.

Each individual must “try it out” to see if the lessons were valuable. Maybe not everyone will become a carpenter or a chief or a chemist or a doctor or a pilot or a teacher or a cowboy.

With all the training techniques and Google searches, there is always something to learn. What would it take to make dim sum? How hard would it be to learn the guitar? Could I paint a picture?

Our species are curious and challenge ourselves to explore and try new things. Sometimes they work out successfully and sometimes not, but we tried.

It is not what you think you know; it is how you use it.

Assault and Battery

Recently on social media and even professional established journalist opinion pieces, there was a perturbation about a football play that raised a dire. From the video replays it seems two (or many) big guys bumping into each other went above and beyond the accepted rules of doing such mayhem. One player tore the helmet off another player and then swung the helmet onto the head with his own hat.

It is all part of the game?

 Sport includes all forms of competitive physical activity or games which, through casual or organized participation, aim to use, maintain or improve physical ability and skills while providing enjoyment to participants, and in some cases, entertainment for spectators. Hundreds of sports exist, from those between single contestants, through to those with hundreds of simultaneous participants, either in teams or competing as individuals. In certain sports such as racing, many contestants may compete, simultaneously or consecutively, with one winner; in others, the contest (a match) is between two sides, each attempting to exceed the other. Some sports allow a “tie” or “draw”, in which there is no single winner; others provide tie-breaking methods to ensure one winner and one loser. A number of contests may be arranged in a tournament producing a champion. Many sports leagues make an annual champion by arranging games in a regular sports season, followed in some cases by playoffs.

Sport is generally recognized as system of activities which are based in physical athleticism or physical dexterity, with the largest major competitions such as the Olympic Games admitting only sports meeting this definition, and other organizations such as the Council of Europe using definitions precluding activities without a physical elements from classification as sports.

However, a number of competitive, but non-physical, activities claim recognition as mind sports. The International Olympic Committee (through ARISF) recognizes both chess and bridge as bona fide sports, and Sport Accord, the international sports federation association, recognizes five non-physical sports: bridge, chess, draughts (checkers), Go, and limits the number of mind games which can be admitted as sports.

Sport is usually governed by a set of rules or customs, which serve to ensure fair competition, and allow consistent adjudication of the winner. Winning can be determined by physical events such as scoring goals or crossing a line first. Judges, who are scoring elements of the sporting performance, including objective or subjective measures such as technical performance or artistic impression, can also determine it.

Records of performance are often kept, and for popular sports, this information may be widely announced or reported in sport news. Sport is also a major source of entertainment for non-participants, with spectator sport drawing large crowds to sport venues, and reaching wider audiences through broadcasting. Sport betting is in some cases severely regulated, and in some cases is central to the sport.

The world’s most accessible and practiced sport is running, while association football is the most popular spectator sport.

Now talking about American Football (not soccer).

Football is a sport. Football is a game. Two teams try to get the ball down the field to score points. The person with the ball can throw it or run with it. To stop the play, the person holding the ball must be tackled or pushed out of bounds. There are offensive and defensive guards and tackles pushing each other and there is even a kicker.

It is a violent sport even with all the safety gear worn. When a player is injured all the fans applause and wait while the player is being dragged off the field for the game to continue. When players gets too rough the fans boo (or cheer). Yet every play has big burley guys knocking each other down until the whistle blows.

Fights break out and the fans cheer. It is not only football that gets this reaction. Baseball has bench-clearing rumbles, NASCAR has crashes, even tennis has swearing and racket throwing.

Sports are about competition and intensity, but when does it cross the line into a crime?

Assault and battery is the combination of two violent crimes: assault (the threat of violence) and battery (crime) (physical violence). This legal distinction exists only in jurisdictions that distinguish assault as threatened violence rather than actual violence.

At common law, battery is the tort of intentionally and voluntarily bringing about an no consented harmful or offensive contact with a person or to something closely associated with them. Unlike assault, in which the fear of imminent contact may support a civil claim, battery involves an actual contact. The contact can be by one person of another (the victim), with or without a weapon, or the contact may be by an object brought about by the tortfeasor. For example, the intentionally bringing a car into contact with another person, or the intentional striking of a person with a thrown rock, is a battery.

Unlike criminal law, which recognizes degrees of various crimes involving physical contact, there is but a single tort of battery. Lightly flicking a person’s ear is battery, as is severely beating someone with a tire iron. Neither is there a separate tort for a battery of a sexual nature. However, a jury hearing a battery case is free to assess higher damages for a battery in which the contact was particularly offensive or harmful.

Since it is practically impossible to avoid physical contact with others during everyday activities, everyone is presumed to consent to a certain amount of physical contact with others, such as when one person unavoidably brushes or bumps against another in a crowded lift, passage or stairway. However, physical contact may not be deemed as consented to if the acts that cause harm are prohibited acts.

Battery is a form of trespass to the person and as such no actual damage (e.g. injury) needs to be proved. Only proof of contact (with the appropriate level of intention or negligence) needs to be made.

Battery need not require body-to-body contact. Touching an object “intimately connected” to a person (such as an object he or she is holding) can also be battery. Furthermore, a contact may constitute a battery even if there is a delay between the defendant's act and the contact to the plaintiff's injury. For example, where a person who digs a pit with the intent that another will fall into it later, or where a person who mixes something offensive in food that he knows another will eat, has committed a battery against that other when the other does in fact fall into the pit or eats the offensive matter.

In the United States, the common law requires the contact for battery be “harmful or offensive.” The offensiveness is measured against a reasonable person standard. Looking at a contact objectively, as a reasonable person would see it, would this contact be offensive? Thus, a hypersensitive person would fail on a battery action if jostled by fellow passengers on a subway, as this contact is expected in normal society and a reasonable person would not find it offensive. Harmful is defined by any physical damage to the body.

Because courts have recognized a cause of action for battery in the absence of body-to-body contact, the outer limits of the tort can often be hard to define. The Pennsylvania Superior Court attempted to provide some guidance in this regard in Herr v. Booten by stressing the importance of the concept of one’s personal dignity. In that case, college students purchased and provided their friend with alcohol on the eve of his twenty-first birthday. After drinking nearly an entire bottle of Jack Daniels whiskey, the underage man died of acute ethanol poisoning. Reversing the decision of the trial court, the Pennsylvania Superior Court held that supplying a minor with alcoholic beverages, while certainly constituting a negligent act, did not rise to the level of a battery. In the words of Judge Montemuro, supplying a person with alcohol “is not an act which impinges upon that individual's sense of physical dignity or inviolability.”

The victim of a battery need not be aware of the act at the time for the tort to have occurred. For example, if a surgeon performing an appendectomy on an unconscious patient decides to take out the patient's spleen for his personal collection, the surgeon has committed a battery against the patient. Similarly, a battery occurs if the surgeon allows a cousin who is a plumber with no medical training to help fish out the appendix during the surgery. Although the patient has consented to being touched by the surgeon, this consent does not extend to people who the patient would not reasonably anticipate would be participating in the procedure.

The battery may occur even if the victim is unaware of the contact at the time and the defendant is nowhere near the scene at the time of the contact. If a tortfeasor puts an offensive substance in another person’s food, and the other person consumes the offensive substance, the battery has been committed even if the victim is not made aware that they have eaten something offensive until much later.

The degree and quality of intent in civil (tortious) battery is different from that for criminal battery. The degree and quality of intent sufficient for battery also varies between common law countries, and often within differing jurisdictions of those countries. In Australia, negligence in an action is sufficient to establish intent. In the United States, intention to do an act that ultimately results in contact is sufficient for the tort of battery, while intention to inflict an injury on another is required for criminal battery.

Intent can be transferred with battery, i.e. a person swings to hit one person and misses and hits another. He or she is still liable for a battery. Intent to commit a different tort can transfer in the same way. If a person throws a rock towards one person intending only to scare them (but not to hit them), they will be liable for battery to a different person who is hit by that rock.

The standard defenses to trespass to the person, namely necessity, consent, self-defense, and defense of others, apply to battery. As practical examples, under the defense of necessity, a physician may touch a person without that person's consent in order to render medical aid to him or her in an emergency.

Under the defense of consent, a person who has, either expressly or impliedly, consented to participation in a contact sport cannot claim in battery against other participants for a contact permitted by the rules of that sport, or expected to occur within the course of play. For example, a basketball player who commits a hard foul against an opposing player does not thereby commit a battery, because fouls are a regular part of the course of the game, even though they result in a penalty. However, a player who struck another player during a time-out would be liable for battery, because there is no game-related reason for such a contact to occur.

Self-defense as to battery can occur when a person reasonably believes that he or she is going to be attacked by another person, and involves engaging in a reasonable level of physical contact with that person in order to prevent that person from engaging in a physical attack.

I don’t know if a professional (or semi-pro) player has to sign a Release of Liability (Waiver Form) that is a legal document, which prohibits one party from suing another in the event of an accident. If one player knocks down another player, is that all part of the game? Or a crime? Assault and battery?

If the same action took place in a Wal-Mart parking lot; call the cops.