Rogue

 

Recently, I’ve heard the word ‘rogue’ applied to our current political situation. I remember hearing about a ‘rogue elephant’ that had left the herd and was stomping through villages, but not associated to people… or a culture.

I’ve known or associated with some ‘bad’ people. I don’t know all the backstory history of how they made their decisions or who they fell in with or mental deficiencies that took them down that path to become an outlaw or just a rule bender. Some have been an offender to pay a fine for speeding and some have been fatal. Some are incarcerated, some have vanished and many are dead. Yet, I never thought of any of them as ‘rogue’.

Rogue is a noun. Rogue is described as a dishonest, untrustworthy person; scoundrel: We were traveling in secret to avoid running into rogues and thieves. Synonyms: swindler, quack, mountebank, cheat, trickster, villain.

When a person "goes rogue," they are acting independently and unpredictably, often disregarding rules or expectations, sometimes to the point of behaving erratically or dangerously. 

My father was a bootlegger. He worked for private clubs during prohibition and probably knew some shady characters. He may have been a scoundrel, but I don’t think he ever went rogue.

Rogues often get a bad rap, their name evoking images of rule-breakers and troublemakers. Yet, throughout history, rogues have played a crucial role in driving progress. They are the innovators, the disruptors, the ones unafraid to challenge norms and question authority.

With that said, is today’s political situation progressing into a new world order we don’t understand yet or tearing down the house to be a ‘better’ one? Our elected and confirmed governmental officals are shaking the tree from the usual boring bureaucratically decision making we’ve all be accustomed to a seemingly shock and awe approach to finding and eliminating waste to establish a leaner, cleaner more efficient system to take our money and spend it on what a government is suppose to provide for the citizens of the land.

Governments, at all levels (local, state, and federal), provide a wide array of services and programs, including essential infrastructure, public safety, education, healthcare, social welfare, and economic stability, all funded through taxation.

Jigaboos

The other day I came across a word I hadn’t heard in some time.

A contemptuous term used to refer to a Black person. This word, along with other words that were used as a deployable yet acceptable reference to a different race were not part of my vocabulary when I was growing up, but I did hear them.

 Words like Pickaninny, Jezebel, Stepin Fetchit, Buckwheat, Sambo, Stymie, coon, n-word, negra, Negro, Black, Colored, African American, Aunt Jemima, Uncle Remos, Black Buck are still used today in some areas as a demeaning form of an insult to a different race.

  There are plenty of others.

Chink, Speck, Cracker, Fritz, Gook, Gringo, Hike, Honky, Hun, Hymie, Injun, Jungle Bunny, Kraut, Limey, Nip, Polack, Redneck, Hillbilly, Spade, Uncle Tom, Wetback, White Trash, Wop…

There are other words to describe people who you approve of like cutie pie, sweetie, hunk, burning love, hubba hubba…

These could also be taken as offensive or appreciated.

Every year there are new words to describe discuss with another race or gender or character. Boomer, woke, influencer or labeled by a political party. The worst consistent connotations of disrupted and demeaning words relate to religious beliefs.

As our culture continues to grow and shift our bias and beliefs will continue to come up with new words to express our lack of understanding. We react to words by our interpretations.

So, I present the word ‘jigaboo’. This is not to be offensive or upsetting but as a word that rolls off the tongue. I have no idea who came up with the word. I never added it to my vocabulary because I had no idea what it meant, yet I’m sure I heard it.

With all the medical terms that sound like they come from some alien planet or just a bunch of vowels and consonants thrown together, the word ‘jigaboo’ could be used in a new context.

The doctor says that bump on your back is a ‘jigaboo’. In the military you can say, “I served on the ‘jigaboo’”. Step up to the bar and order a ‘jigaboo’. 

 Make that a double...

Push Back

 

When young and a rule is handed down from the parents, you may not agree but there is nothing you can do. They feed you and shelter you and cloth you and teach you and they rule the roost. You can have a tizzy fit or kick your feet in the air or scream, but you will not win. You do not have a say in the matter. To top it off, you may lose privileges like movie time or dessert or may be sent to solitary confinement in your bedroom incarceration. As long as you live under the roof with your parents, they are the law. You can lose you allowance, be grounded or lost access to the car keys.

Moving out and living on your own might seem a rewarding and freeing action, but there is always someone else making the rules and laying down the law. The boss tells you when you have to be at work and what you are paid. The church tells you right from wrong. The police tell you when you are driving too fast. All have consequences.

Even romantic relationships have their squabbles over who left the lid off the peanut butter jar or their underwear on the bathroom floor. The defiant ones may yell and scream and have a tizzy fit until they kiss and makeup.

Pushing back from feeling wronged takes many turns. You can write your congress representative to change a law. You can paint a poster, staple it to a stick and walk around the streets yelling. You can sit in on meetings, like the city council or the PTA, to make your opinion heard. You can debate your case only if the other side is listening. Fisticuffs doesn’t solve the issue and road rage, while perhaps releasing the anger, only increases the potential for (perhaps deadly) confrontation.

In these trying times, the popular push back is to post an offensive meme on social media. It may give a chuckle or gather more likes and responsive comments, but it doesn’t solve the problem.

Being at an age where keeping my blood pressure under control reduces my expression of anger or frustration to those things out of my control. If physically threatened, I’ll push back as a last resort. Otherwise, I can’t tell the difference between the Nightly News and skits on SNL.

 

*No one noticed the ‘pull’ handle on the ‘push’ door

Contempt of Court

 

We have elected representatives who are good looking and have a nice family and speak well enough to gather together and make laws for our entire society to obey. As we know anytime you get a group of people together, like a family dinner or a cocktail party, cannot decide on any subject. Check out the school board. Check out the city council. Check out the PTA. Check out the board room.

Still, the law is declared and written down and distributed to all like the 10 commandments.

Obey the law

As wonderful lemmings, we follow the rules until they become obsolete or boring. The elected leaders then listen to the complaints of the public at town hall meetings and write amendments or a brand-new law.

If you decide to disobey a law, from jaywalking to shooting up a school, there are organizations to protect the rest of the public from your bad behavior and will detain you and question you and fine you with a ticket or incarcerate you and possibly kill you.

If you admit to the guilt of breaking the law, you get a mark on the record and move on. If you disagree with the charge, you can come before a judge to plea your case. After hearing your testimony, the judge (and/or jury of your peers) will decide whether the charge will be dismissed or find you guilty to pay the punishment.

What if you don’t show up?

The court can order that you be sequestered or additional fines or order authorities to arrest and place in incarceration.

Contempt of court is an act of disrespect or disobedience towards a court or interference with its orderly process, which can be classified as criminal or civil, and direct or indirect. 

If you have enough funds, you can appeal the court’s decision. Another attempt to plea your case, perhaps to another judge who may have a different interpretation of the law, with new evidence or more charts and figures in the presentation to get you off the hook.

Weeks or months or years of battling the judicial system you case may go up to the Supreme Court of the land. These nine judges must agree on a verdict that will be the final decision. They may be unanimous or have a split decision or send it back to the lower courts to futz around with some more.

While not perfect, this is the system we have chosen to resolve conflicts with our social interaction to maintain order. It is our selection of good vs evil.

Investment

 

What do you invest in? Stocks? Bonds? Real Estate? Cyber? Family?

Of course, you invest in family. That is the responsibility associated with procreation.

What about yourself?

Do you invest in the time and effort to stay healthy? Do you invest in all the bling and toys you want but don’t need? How is your circadian rhythm?

What is your Return on Investment?

How long are your relationships? Do you invest the time and effort and possibly money to keep a relationship going before losing interest?

If you have disposable income to invest outside the necessities of life, are you making a profit? It is all a gamble. You can buy a house and do all the tinkering with it only to have it burn down. You can invest in an expensive driving machine only to have it depreciate after leaving the lot. You can invest in a fine fashionable coat only to find out it was constructed in a foreign land with little quality control standards and the pockets fall out. You can invest in a distant vacation only to find you are staying in a room full of bed bugs and eating some kind of foreign food that does not agree with your normal digestion functionality. You can invest in your children only to find they have desires of their own and may follow the temptations of pleasure. You may invest in a fine dining experience only to find it was nothing more than a heat up meal from Casco. You may invest in fine works of art only to find it was an AI duplication with not value.

Do you invest in dreams? Do you tithe to the denomination of your choice? Do you adopt orphans? Do you send donations to scientific research hoping to find the answers of the unknown or cure to death? Do you invest in someone’s else’s faithful disasters or woes hoping to aid without expectations of repayment?

The return of investment is the dopamine rush of being a good person. It won’t make you wealthy or the envy of your neighbors, but it is worth it.

The Gift

 

A gift is usually given from one to another to show a sign of affection. It may be a small trinket or a holiday surprise. It may be valuable or just in a memory.

Look around your house. All those items sitting on tables, stuffed away in closets or cubits are gifts. They may be gifts from someone else or a gift to yourself.

At a certain age, as the end of time approaches, one may divide these gifts to another in a will or last testimony. Others may wind up in an estate or yard sale. Most gifts are not returned to the sender as it shows a lack of appreciation for the effort.

The most cherished and emotionally invaluable gift will become ‘stuff’ that must be hidden, passed on, sold or disposed of. The original intent to be given are long lost history.

When the giver, rewarded in smiles and appreciation to be enjoyed for years, sees someone else pick it up and use it causes pause. When this ‘gift’ was created, it did not know who would purchase it or who it was intended for.

Now it would become someone else’s treasure.

The sons of Jack and Marion

 

A couple of fellas I’d sort of known during high school and some what college. They were friends before I met them and they were friends in the spaces of unknown. They speak the same language. They remember the same history and have interweaved with each other through the years.

The son of Jack was introduced to me by an congregational member of the First Baptist Church. They were school mates who were joining the high school ROTC together. I knew no background or had any previous judgement of this person other than he seemed happy. I did not know he was living in a duplex with a single mom and three siblings. Our true connection was music. He played guitar and I was learning to play the guitar. We tended toward different genres of tunes, but enjoyed singing together through the years.

The son of Marion was in my high school homeroom. He was a friend of the son of Jack through middle school so a group of friends were starting to form. He lived within walking distance in a house, similar to mine, with a father, mother and younger sister. He was fashionably dressed and well mannered. We bonded over music. He was a poet and wrote good lyrics to my attempt to write songs. His family took me camping and to their family’s homes in the county, so I felt adopted.

The son of Marion left to go to an elite college while the son of Jack and I went to an inner-city institute. The three of us kept in contact with close proximity and illicit substances. Our families never met.

The sons of Jack and Marion participated in my first wedding. The son of Jack and I participated in the son of Marion’s wedding. The son of Marion and I attended the son of Jack’s wedding but did not participate.

Employment, houses, children and relocating made our encounters less frequent. Occasional get-to-gatherings were usual noisy chaos clouded in smoke and drink. Whatever meaningful conversations shared earlier in life were not gone. We grew apart.

I’ve tried to keep in contact with the sons of Jack and Marion through letters but the addresses kept changing. Digital media made connections but only a few face-to-face conversations.

The other day the three went to lunch. For an hour and a half, we sat at a familiar site and attempted to catch up. Unfortunately, at this age, our conversations are about family and illnesses. I bring some gifts and donate a 40-year-old t-shirt to the dining establishment, but have little to add to the topics discussed. We have a few laughs over 60-year-old subjects but only depressing news of today. We share no secrets or present surprises but are comfortable with each other.

There were no memorable take aways from the luncheon. As we part ways I ponder if this will be the last time?