Giving Money Away

 

With the end of the year and so much to be thinking about with the season and the gifts and communicating with family and worrying about your health and the stack of unpaid bills, what are you going to do?

Most of us turn to family to help out, but they are in the same situation. Non-profit organizations normally step in to assist, but they are not getting the donations needed to exist. The good folk in religious congregations are overwhelmed with request. The city is stretched thin with the lack of tax revenue from business shut down. The state is looking for assistance being burdened by the pandemic and no additional funding to pay for distribution.

So everyone looks to Uncle Sam to bail us out.

This year everyone was taken by surprise. The unemployment looked good. The stock market looked good. It’s getting better all the time.

Watering holes, music venues, gyms, schools offices and assembly lines closed due health restrictions. People were told to work from home. The kids were told to learn from home. Shelter in place and wear a doctor’s mask. Many were out work and there were no alternative jobs. Many applied for unemployment until it ran out.

The cities looked to the state and the states looked to the federal government.

The solution was to present Paycheck Protection Program loans with the caveat that they may be forgiven. This was for businesses to keep paying employees, even when there is no work. A fund of $1,200 was decided to give to every person as a stimulus check.

Still the government was in the same boat as the states and cities of lost revenue due to lack of income taxes. The answer was to borrow more because the interest rate was so low and raise the deficit.

Well that $1,200 didn’t last long, but the congress couldn’t decide what to do next. Make another relief package? How much should be in this one? There are additional costs like medical supplies, laptop computers for the kids to learn at home, the cost of a vaccine all the while paying for a gigantic army and building a wall.

If the PPP loans are to be forgiven, how about educational loans? If a student borrowed money to get a good education and then can’t get a job, was it worth the cost? What about the credit card interest people are buying food and paying utilities with? If the government is going to handing out money, give me a cut too.

Raise the minimum wage for a worker who can’t get a job. Give a loan to a person who can’t pay it back. Is this assistance or charity? The divide between the haves and the have not’s widens.

Perhaps everyone can work for the government. The Newer Deal, but how much do you know about picking crops or picking up trash?

This year is drawing to a close. For the past forever there has been nothing on the airwaves except politics and pandemic. There isn’t even any sport for diversion. In a few weeks Santa will have come and gone and the ball will drop as we turn the page on the calendar.

Uncle Sam won’t you spare me a dime?

Breathing

 

Air.

It is something we don’t think about. It just floats around all of us. It’s invisible. It is tasteless. It is colorless.

Without we wouldn’t exist.

With all the mask wearing and talk of hospitals and ventilators and ultimate suffocation, I started to listen to my own breathing.

I ride a bike everyday just to get all the parts moving. External muscles stretch more than sitting in a chair. The fresh air also awakens the brain so not as to get run over.

The breathing comes naturally. If it is hot or the ride is a struggle, the mouth opens to take in more oxygen. If everything is moving smoothly the action of breathing in and out is not noticed.

Somewhere along my ride I make an intentional effort to take in a deep breath. I hold it for a minute then exhale. I may do this several times or only once. At the same time I open my eyes wide behind my sunglasses to feel the wind against my face.

Some say Yoga is about understanding your body and breathing. I agree with that but can’t get into a lotus position.

Recently I’ve been listening to other people breath. Listen to singers pause to take a breath. Radio broadcasters also have to stop their non-stop chatter to breath. How does the engineer cover that gasp?

Phone calls are so distorted and the jabber is so fast it is hard to tell the health of the other person over the line. Up close the sound of whizzing tells the effort of breathing.

Yawning and sneezing are also signs of uncontrolled intake and output of air from the body. Snoring is just loud breathing. Strenuous exercise wears out the lungs before the muscles.

When out of breath, you can slow down until your catch your breath.

Keep breathing.

You take my breath away.

Gathering

 

If anything is missing these holidays, it is gathering. Meeting at the local watering hole with work compatriots. Having friends over for holiday cheer. Traveling to grandma’s to have the family together.

Dining and drinking and toasting good cheer is better in a group, but not this year.

No packing the car full and going to the big game. No office parties. Socially distant lines awaiting the big guy in the red suit is questionable.

There will be no filled venues to listen to “Christmas Oratorio” by J.S. Bach or watch Swan Lake. The Messiah presentation will have to be watched on television. Even the three wise men in the nativity on the lawn must be six feet apart and wear mask. Santa will just dump the toys down the chimney so you can save baking cookies.

Can’t show off your seasonal garb at the big dance that is so crowded you have to check your wallet and virginity when you cross the floor. Legends made of overindulgence or emotional moments will have to be put on pause this year.

You’ll have to see the new baby online and hope the deliveries arrive at the correct address. A zoom sing-a-long should not be recorded.

No zipping off to Europe or the ski lodge this year. Even a get-a-way at the beach would lose it’s mystic with hula girls wearing mask (and little else). Who wants to stay in a bed that someone else just slept in?

This year you are alone.

You might have a cramped single room or a vast empty mansion, but this holiday there will be no gathering.

You can have a pet for company or dinner. You might have the immediate family who has been bumping into you for the last nine months. You have grown closer to your family than you ever anticipated.

You might have been able to walk the dog or sit out on the veranda but now the weather is colder. Your gathering is all the blankets to pile on the bed as you re-watch all the same movies while being bombarded by commercials touting gifts you should be buying online to remind others you are still alive.

They say it will be over with the vaccine, but they could be wrong. We may never see you face-to-face again?

I personally have never been fond of crowds. They just get in the way, are too loud and smell funny. Sometimes gatherings don’t turn out so well.

This is the person I have chosen to have sex with

 

When you become a couple, you lose your identity and become a pair. You are now known as “Jack & Jill” or “Bill & Bob” or “Sally & Susan” or “Tom & Angelina”  or might even get a nickname like “The Rat Pack” or “The Love Bugs”. You are now partners.

If this partnership fits you and you share more than spit, it maybe time to make it legal and share a name. You both can vow your dedication of love through eternity to each other.

No matter the legal titles you take, how does the rest of society view you?

From the time when you were exploring each other in the backseat, you presented your bond to others with a ring or a shared sweater or some symbol that you were branded. This is the person you will be taking to the dance. This is the person who will accompany you to the party. This is the person you will take home when the music stops.

Holding hands, cuddling and public displays of affection maybe feelings of love and affection, but the rest of the world knows this is the person you’ve decided to have sex with.

After one or two or three dates together, the view of the two of you tells others things must be compatible when you are alone. If after two dates if there is another person on your arm, the original attraction had faded and the thrill was gone.

If every time seen, there is a different person with you, your friends can only assume you are playing the field or can’t keep the heat. If you arrive alone, there is great sadness.

Photo galleries show each of you grow old together. It will help the children to recognize your parents when they were young.

People will also notice when you become a Sugar Daddy or a Cougar. When your children are older than the person on your arm, love has nothing to do with it.

Now in a time when you can’t touch through the plexiglass, they don’t put two to a box.

Name

 

Everything has to have a name. How else can we difference between a cow and a telephone?

When you arrive the family gives you a name. If not, you would just be called ‘baby’ and that would get old when you are twelve.

Some of us are named after a previous family member or a distant relative found in an ancestry book. Others are given weird names that might have some unknown meaning.

You have no choice. You are too young to name yourself. You can’t even talk. When you get older you can change your name but then none of your friends will know you.

You last name identifies who your family is until you meet your cousins who have different last names. If you get married you can legally change your last name…or not.

And the ‘middle’ name? What is that all about?

You name your pet. You can name your house. You can name your car. You can even give a ‘pet name’ to that special person because you keep forgetting their name.

If you employ people, you might remember their names. If the organization is large, you might want to require nametags.

If you are a politician or a sales person (both the same thing) you need to remember the names of people who have money. If you are dating, you should remember the name of the stranger you just met. You might want to call again.

The strange thing about this planet we all ride on is that there is no one name for anything. A flower in France is a Fleur. A tree in Germany is a Baum. A girl in Russia is a девушка.

 

I have a difficult time just remembering my name.

Raise The Flag

 

Flags.

I like flags. I don’t know why?

A flag is a piece of fabric (most often rectangular or quadrilateral) with a distinctive design and colors. It is used as a symbol, a signaling device, or for decoration.

The term flag is also used to refer to the graphic design employed, and flags have evolved into a general tool for rudimentary signaling and identification, especially in environments where communication is challenging (such as the maritime environment, where semaphore is used). The study of flags is known as “vexillology” from the Latin vexillum, meaning “flag” or “banner”.

National flags are patriotic symbols with widely varied interpretations that often include strong military associations because of their original and ongoing use for that purpose.

 

From my knowledge of history, a “flag” or a “banner” started as a sign of a tribe or family. In a battle or a gathering, a flag was used to fly above the crowd to be seen by members. Symbols and colors were also transformed to coats of arms.

With all the flags being waved and shown recently reminded me of this story.

 

Abbot Howard Hoffman (November 30, 1936 – April 12, 1989), better known as Abbie Hoffman, was an American political and social activist who co-founded the Youth International Party (“Yippies”). He was also a leading proponent of the Flower Power movement.

Hoffman was arrested and tried for conspiracy and inciting to riot as a result of his role in protests that led to violent confrontations with police during the 1968 Democratic National Convention, along with Jerry Rubin, David Dellinger, Tom Hayden, Rennie Davis, John Froines, Lee Weiner, and Bobby Seale. The group was known collectively as the “Chicago Eight”; when Seale’s prosecution was separated from the others, they became known as the ‘Chicago Seven’. While the defendants were initially convicted of intent to incite a riot, the verdicts were overturned on appeal.

 

Appellant Hoffman was convicted in the Court of General Sessions on the charge he “knowingly cast contempt upon the flag of the United States by publicly mutilating, defacing and defiling” it, in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 700, entitled “Desecration of the flag of the United States.” After waiving his right to a trial by jury he was tried by the judge. He was sentenced to a $100 fine or imprisonment for thirty days. The District of Columbia Court of Appeals affirmed the conviction, Hoffman v. United States, 256 A.2d 567 (1969), and allowed this appeal. 

The Government’s case in chief consisted of a brief oral statement to the court by the Assistant United States Attorney embodying facts, which the defense stipulated represented the basis for the charge. It appears that on the morning of October 3, 1968, in response to a subpoena to testify before the Committee on Un-American Activities of the House of Representatives, appellant, accompanied by a number of other persons, approached the Cannon Office Building where the Committee met. Three Capitol Hill policemen observed appellant wearing a shirt, which, while not actually a flag of the United States, resembled the flag sufficiently to come within the terms of the statute. Pinned to the shirt were two buttons, one bearing the legend, “Wallace for President, Stand Up for America,” the other saying, “Vote Pig Yippie in Sixty-Eight.” The officers arrested appellant “after confirming their conclusion with their fellow officers” that the shirt “closely resembled the symbols and designs of the American flag.”

At the conclusion of the Government’s case as thus presented, the court denied appellant’s motion to dismiss the charge for failure to prove a prima facie case under the statute. Appellant then testified in his defense. He said:

“ I had a shirt that resembled the American flag. I wore the shirt because I was going before the Un-American Activities Committee of the House of Representatives, and I don’t particularly consider that committee American in the tradition as I understand it, and I don’t consider that House of Representatives in the tradition that I understand it, and I wore the shirt to show that we were in the tradition of the founding fathers of this country, and that that committee wasn’t. That’s why I wore it.” 

Hoffman continued his activism into the 1970s, and remains an icon of the anti-war movement and the counterculture era. He died of a Phenobarbital overdose in 1989 at age 52.

 

At the time I thought the shirt looked cool. It was a bold design to protest (or praise) the United States of America, or at least their symbol. Like Uncle Sam, the bald Eagle and apple pie, the stars and strips shows the old American red, white and blue to the world. The flag is carried by a color guard in parades. All Americans know the words to the Pledge Alliance to the Flag. There is a Flag Day. When a great leader dies, the flag is lowered to half-staff. Dead soldier’s coffins are draped in the flag.

The Ole Glory is our nations brand.

 

The Flag Code - Respect for Flag

No disrespect should be shown to the flag of the United States of America; the flag should not be dipped to any person or thing. Regimental colors, State flags, and organization or institutional flags are to be dipped as a mark of honor.

(a) The flag should never be displayed with the union down, except as a signal of dire distress in instances of extreme danger to life or property.

(b) The flag should never touch anything beneath it, such as the ground, the floor, water, or merchandise.

(c) The flag should never be carried flat or horizontally, but always aloft and free.

(d) The flag should never be used as wearing apparel, bedding, or drapery. It should never be festooned, drawn back, nor up, in folds, but always allowed falling free.

Bunting of blue, white, and red always arranged with the blue above, the white in the middle, and the red below, should be used for covering a speaker's desk, draping the front of the platform, and for decoration in general.

(e) The flag should never be fastened, displayed, used, or stored in such a manner as to permit it to be easily torn, soiled, or damaged in any way.

(f) The flag should never be used as a covering for a ceiling.

(g) The flag should never have placed upon it, nor on any part of it, nor attached to it any mark, insignia, letter, word, figure, design, picture, or drawing of any nature.

(h) The flag should never be used as a receptacle for receiving, holding, carrying, or delivering anything.

(i) The flag should never be used for advertising purposes in any manner whatsoever. It should not be embroidered on such articles as cushions or handkerchiefs and the like, printed or otherwise impressed on paper napkin or boxes or anything that is designed for temporary use and discard. Advertising signs should not be fastened to a staff or halyard from which the flag is flown.

(j) No part of the flag should ever be used as a costume or athletic uniform. However, a flag patch may be affixed to the uniform of military personnel, firemen, policemen, and members of patriotic organizations. The flag represents a living country and is itself considered a living thing. Therefore, the lapel flag pin being a replica should be worn on the left lapel near the heart.

(k) The flag, when it is in such condition that it is no longer a fitting emblem for display, should be destroyed in a dignified way, preferably by burning.

 

Today, the Flag has become just another logo for commercialism. Patriotism has lost respect for the flag’s powerful image being raised at Iwo Jima. Betsy Ross did not intend for her design to spread out on a football field or become wallpaper for televised debates. When you do not play by the rules in football, the referees throw a flag.

Remember when, after 9/11, everyone was putting metallic flags on their cars? Everyone had a flag hanging at their front door as symbols of unity, not seen since the Second World War.

Where are they now?

 Just like the words to the Star Spangled Banner:

“O say can you see, by the dawn’s early light
What so proudly we hailed, at the twilight's last gleaming
Whose broad stripes and bright stars, through the perilous fight
O’er the ramparts we watched, were so gallantly streaming?
And the rocket’s red glare, the bombs bursting in air
Gave proof through the night, that our flag was still there
O say does that star-spangled banner yet wave
O’er the land of the free and the home of the brave”

Conceited

 

 Another story of life

 I live in a nice neighborhood. Not too fancy, not too sweet. People keep up their yards and wave politely when I ride by.

 There are shopping centers within walking distance that have been established for years and frequent by the neighbors.

 Quaint little shops and boutiques that sell fashion, trinkets among cozy little delis are always inviting and comfortable. There are no big box stores. You can buy fine wine but no dishwashers.

 Many hours have been spent window-shopping and engaging with the proprietors. More than a few shekels were exchanged for quality products and wisdom. Some prices were out of the range of my budget but they would still allow me to look.

 As the story goes, my wife comes home troubled. She had been up the street to one of these establishments and had been treated unfairly.

 Normally I would just shake this off and try to focus on a positive interaction with another merchant, but this got under my skin.

 

 I’ve never worked retail, but fully understand a sales clerk must evaluate a customer for revenue potential, but to dismiss is unforgivable.

 I’ve also known enough people who have privilege due to wealth or position. Some are pleasant to be around and others aren’t but we run in different circles.

 I called in a few favors.

 

 A few friends got one of their fancy cars and we gathered for a rumble. We didn’t dress to the nines, but were presentable. I told them my game plan and they all agreed to willingly participate.

 On the assigned day we drove to the front of the establishment. It was a fine sunny fall day, so we took our time before entering.

 We were immediately greeted by a bored employee looking for something other to do than dust antiques. He smiled politely with the phrase, “Can I assist you gentlemen?”

 “I’d like to see your manager.” I replied.

 As he became befuddled, my friends started spreading out checking the items displayed.

 “I’m sure I can help you.”

 I just stood still.

 An older man walked up and asked if there was a problem.

 “Are you the manager?” I asked.

 “Yes sir”, he replied looking annoyed by the interruption to the daily routine.

 “Do you own this.. business?”

 “No sir, I am the manager. I’m sure I can handle whatever you need. I’d rather not disturb the owner unless…”

 “I want to see the owner.”

 “I’ll have to call him and…”

 “Now!”

 My friends continued checking price tags and examine items pointing out details to each other in a subtle hush.

 The manager came back and said the owner would be here in a few minutes. Still unaware of what was about to happen, he offered his condolences at any grievance with well-mannered etiquette of a fine butler.

 My friends and I gathered outside, had a smoke and stood in deep discussion. We had to stifle the laugher for the comedy that was about to take place.

 As if scripted, the manager opened the door and beckoned us back for the owner had arrived.

 

 Stop for a moment and remember where this all started.

 

 We walked back up the steps, probably looking like some mobsters by this time. Our youth or long hair may have cast doubts but even in a swanky neighborhood a Silver Cloud gives a sense of validity.

 An older, seemingly disturbed gentleman in a golf shirt and ruffled slacked was directed by the manager toward us.

 “Can I help you?”

 Looking around the walls and ceiling I asked, “Do you own this place?”

 “Yes, this is my estab...”

 I raised my hand before he could finish his sentence.

 “My wife came in here to shop and was treated badly.”

 The owner, manager and clerk all stared at each other silently.

“Sir, I’m sure we can make this right”, the manager whimpered.

 Again I turned away and huddled with my friends. We pointed to certain areas and nodded.

 “You don’t know who I am, do you?” I asked focused on the owner.

 “No sir, but I think we can come to some…”

 The hand was back up.

 “This salesperson was rude, no, dismissive of my wife when she came in here and I want him fired.”

 There was a pregnant pause.

 “Sir”, the salesman pleaded, “I certainly didn’t mean to…”

 Just to make a point, I pulled out a checkbook and some money spilled to the floor.

 “How much?”

 The manager and owner looked at each other with that dazed confusion.

 “How much to buy this whole rotten place. I’m going to buy it.”

 The owner stammered that lawyers would have to be involved and the inventory and the…

 “I’m going to buy it now. Lock, stock and barrel. Floor to ceiling. What is your asking price?”

 I could hear my friends starting to lose their composure but I pressed forward. They started moving tables and placing items on the floor to keep it together.

 “Now I’m the new owner and you twit are fired”, I pointed to the salesman. “You too”, I said turning to the flushed manager. 

 “We will clear out all this crap and bring in some quality items fit for the customers with fine taste.”

 Silence.

 “And we will treat everyone who walks in that door with respect.”

 More silence.

 Before my friends could break up, I stopped.

 

 “No! Wait. It is not worth it. I’ll just tell my wife and her friends and associates to boycott this place. That should do it.”

 We turned in unison and walked out the door. Climbing in the Rolls we finally broke down. We drove off after a great performance watching the manager at the door waving a handful of Benjamin’s I’d dropped while pulling out the checkbook.

 

 It is all about attitude.

 

The establishment of rare antiques and knick-knacks went out of business and was converted to an office building, now abandoned.

I don’t do things like this very often, but sometimes it is good to get the last laugh.

 

PS: The bills were counterfeit.