Category Archives: Life

satire, Humor, Pandemic

Corona Virus and the American Psyche.

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The idea of American ingenuity formed long ago when this country was in it’s infancy. It was forged by inventors like Alexander Graham Bell, Sarah Breedlove, George Washington Carver, Thomas Edison, Robert Fulton, Elisha Gray, Beulah Louise Henry, Nikolai Tesla, Heddy Lamar, Grace Hopper….et al…. Nowhere near an exhaustive list but a representative group. You get the picture. We’ve invented a lot of things.

Don’t know some of these people? In the words of my father, “Go look it up.” This is when we had these things called books and some of them were called encyclopedias. There is Google now but check on the source of the information.

We are a country of getting stuff done, now. If we don’t have a way to do it we invent a way. We don’t like to sit around waiting.
If there is a situation that requires waiting, we want to “fix” it.
You may have had a friend or a significant other tell you “I’m not asking you to fix it, I just want you to listen.” For the record , no one ever said that to me 😉 .

Listening is what is needed now folks. Please STHU (Shut The Hell Up*) and listen to the experts.

“But they didn’t know anything when this started.” Not about this virus. They knew a lot of about viruses but not the details of coronavirus. No one did because it was a virus that had not been seen before. It spread unchecked because no one knew anything about it.

Most of us in the general population know little about viruses other than platitudes. Feed a fever and starve a cold? If your nose is cold and wet then, wait , that’s for dogs. Lack of knowledge won’t stop people from pontificating and generating advice to be handed down from their tiny mountain top.

Personally, I believe the psyche of the average person on this planet is susceptible to the Dunning Kreuger effect**. Basically people thinking they’re smarter than they are. Yea and I thought I was the first to identify the phenomenon.

The following people are not experts: Me (shocked?), A friend who works in a Dr’s office, a friend who is in med school, Either you or a friend who reads historical fiction set in the 14th century (The plague, look it up), Someone who ate their Wheaties this morning or stayed in a particular hotel chain.

“Oh, it’s like the flu.” Or “it has a low death rate.”
Greater than 600,000 deaths is acceptable?

Doctors and scientists who specialize in virology are working to estimate the mortality rate of COVID-19. At present, it is thought to be substantially higher (possibly 10 times or more) than that of most strains of the flu***. Over a population of immune compromised people, the rate is much higher.

So if you don’t care about parents, grandparents or your diabetic uncle then don’t worry..

Keep /Start listening to the experts. The CDC is stocked with them.


* My Mom reads these.

** [https://youtu.be/y50i1bI2uN4]

***https://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/health/conditions-and-diseases/coronavirus/coronavirus-disease-2019-vs-the-flu

Humor, Pandemic

Lock Down 2020(Dans Log)

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I am now journaling daily. It’s an attempt to document the screwed up times we are living in, i.e. lock down. I would also be lying if I said it was not a coping mechanism. What follows is an excerpt.

05/01/2020
I feel like my time in lock down has been forever and that time outside of my condo1 continues to march on as I languish within.
Will post lock down greet us with an inoculation for COVID-19?
If I choose to be reckless and venture out doors is my cell frozen at March 25, 2020, BC 2 or does it catch up to current time? Personally the way things are going I may want to skip straight to 2021. Actually, I think 2022 is the safer bet.

05/03/2020
Because I live in Boulder, a blip in the time space continuum would not be out of the question. Actually, we have had in influx of what appears to be normal people in Longmont and some bleed out into Boulder. The odds of the existence of a time and space discontinuity is now negligible.

Up to this point, everything I had originally written in this log is intact. The rest of this post is from scratch. I believe the former was amusing in an “old guy get off my lawn” way but not needed right now.

My outlook for the remainder of the month is one of hope.
I hope people will be more cautious if and when they do go outside.
I’ve been wearing a mask when ever I go out because there is a high probability I’ll run into someone who is convinced they are immune. As human beings, sometimes we can be “dumb, panicky dangerous animals” (Men In Black 1997).

I hope spraying a disinfectant around me is not considered by law an assault on those less than 6 feet (1.83 meters) away.

I hope everyone makes it to 2022 unscathed.

I hope more people see this as a time to unite 3 .
We’ve already proven that we know how divide and I’m not talking about Math.
Sadly, we are excellent at it. We need to work on a different skill. The skill of coming together.

Fathers Day, Life, Memories

Joy Among The Mud

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Twelve boys and a couple adults were all laying hands on a 1969 Ford Station Wagon. The exercise session was courtesy of my families  1969 Ford Station Wagon.

It’s muddy brown crust the result of heavy rainfall and a fruitless effort by the boys of Scout Troop 177 to pry it from the mire. The station wagon seemed to be perfectly content in calling the muddy road home for a few more days. I, however, was not. Well, not without my dad. 

I can only speak for myself but I may have given less than 100%. In fact, I was putting more effort into looking like I was trying. 

Fake grunts and tensing your muscles takes more effort than one would think.

     I was 11 years old and my boy scout troop was in the middle of its annual week camping trip.

It was my first with the troop and once my dad was back to work it was the beginning of the longest time spent away from either of my parents. 

“What do you say we give it one more try boys,” asked my dad. 

We all managed to grunt a collective “sure why not.” 

Why not,  I thought. I’ll tell you why not, the thought continued. How about I’m tired of the mud. How about I don’t know some of these folks and they seem kind of sketchy. How about I am going to miss you.

That last thought would never be expressed out loud by an eleven-year-old boy among his peers. Especially when many of their fathers could not come along for the fun. I thought about that last item. I was lucky my father wanted to spend time with his son and the rest of this motley group.

We all gave one more push and I can honestly say that I gave 100 percent that time. I realized I was lucky he had spent some time mucking around in the wilderness with my friends and he was eventually going to have to go back to work.

I may have also realized the mud was not going to let go of that car until the sun came out and added to the effort. 

We all released a collected sigh and gave in to the reality of the situation.

“Oh well son. I guess I’m here for one more day.”

“Oh well,” I added, my stoic face betraying my inner joy. “At least one more day.”

 

Fathers Day posts from the past.

I still miss him.

Cruising With The Top Down.

Life

Below The Shimmer

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Fall leaves captured by a lonesome wind danced  above the ripples of the clear mountain lake.
He had been poised by the edge for some time now.
When it was warmer and he was younger, he could stand here spellbound for hours.
It had been enough to be near the lake’s beauty.
He was always attracted to the sun rays bouncing off the surface.
He was always attracted to the shimmer.
Every so often, he had summoned his courage to wade out and dip below the surface.
The experience always left him wanting. The shimmer never greeted him among the depths.

The edge of an inbound wind bit into his cheeks snapping him out of days gone by, reminding him of past disappointments.                                It would be easy to turn his back and return to his car with the promise of his warm home that lay just around the bend.
Sunset was just hours away.                                                                                   The window to yield to temptation, to take a risk  once again was closing as quickly as the falling temperature.
“I am not old yet he thought.”
He let his cloths drop at the edge of the lake and stepped forward.

An exercise in writing inspired by the Daily Post.

Humor, Life, Memories

Punishment (Growing up Catholic)

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I was raised Catholic in a Polish Neighborhood in Chicago. I also went to a parochial school of the Catholic variety. What occurred at the school was most of the major trauma that would shape the rest of my life. It was there that I developed a very personal definition of punishment.

I fell in love with reading from the minute I was exposed to the perils of Dick and Jane. That series soon lost its luster due to the thin plot lines and it was not long before I graduated to reading more sophisticated material. It was then I was introduced to the Great Books Club, a national program designed to foster reading excellence. The assigned reading material for the club was purposely beyond the grade level of its participants.

I achieved club membership in my first year of eligibility as a second grader and also the next year as a third grader. I was looking forward to making it my fourth year.

Sister Leonard Ann* had been teaching fourth grade at my school since forever. She had actually taught my father and his brothers. I am not sure I ever heard a good story about her.

     She was hateful from year one and by that I actually mean the first year after Christ died. She was that old. I think Jesus sensed she was on her way and feeling the futility of the future turned himself in.

I entered the fourth grade looking forward to the fifth grade. I just had to survive Sister Leonard Ann. It soon became apparent that for that to happen I had to have luck on my side. It also became apparent that I was not lucky.

I had heard about the sister’s teaching technique from my father and uncles. That did not prepare me for the actual experience. Nothing can really prepare you for the book throwing, knuckle smacking and ear pulling she employed outside of daily exposure to a 3 Stooges marathon in 3D. The one thing I had not heard about her was her degree in punishment of the psychological variety.

I soon became convinced she must have been used to interrogate prisoners during the wars. Yes, wars plural. I meant all wars.

It was after the first month of school that the Great Books Club members for the year would be announced. I expected this year to be no different. “.. Walter Praczek, Susan Shirzinski and Alan Vostek. Well congratulations children.”

My face matched the writing paper on my brand new big chief notebook, pale and blank. I had no idea why my name was not called and I was losing a battle to prevent tears from flowing. Glancing around the room the Sister’s shark like gaze fell upon me.

“So tell me Mr. Szybinski* . Why did you not make the club this year?”

“I, uh, I don’t know.”  Then the damn broke and I could see nothing through the refraction of the tears. A few moments but what seemed like hours later the Sister announced that I had indeed made the Club. I first felt relief but that quickly morphed into anger.

Why had the bitch humiliated me? Well, I would have thought, “bitch”, if I used the word.

The vocabulary of a nine-year-old Catholic schoolboy in 1970 Chicago generally did not consist of the word bitch.

The only word I had at my disposal was wench. A strange word for a nine year old boy but I read a lot. Maybe it was Nathaniel Hawthorne. The author did not matter; the point was she was a wench.

The nun I now refer to as The Bitch Who Shall Not Be Named had tried to take away the main element in my life that brought me joy. It was her cruel idea of punishing me for what I can only image to be the crime of existence.

The experience now is pretty much just a story to tell, although from time to time I find when something good happens I keep waiting for the other shoe to drop. I guess this experience is not done with me or I it. I am currently writing a story of fiction inspired by my time with the bitch who shall not be named.

*The names have been changed to protect the innocent (me).

This post was in response to the Daily Prompt. https://dailypost.wordpress.com/prompts/punishment/, and my need to vent.

Humor, Life, personal growth, Uncategorized

The Modern Procrastinator

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Bells, whistles and default system sounds emanate from various devices around my person.

They remind me of personal tasks that I must accomplish or my world will reach chaotic mass and implode, or not.

In my situation, not is the norm. I am the most technically savvy and organized procrastinator on the planet.

There is not a device that I own that is not set up to remind me of something that must be accomplished with the future of my world at stake. As a single man, procrastination about cleaning the bathroom ranks just as risky as SPECTRE’s latest plot.

My phone contains location based reminders of items that must be accomplished around my home. Upon entrance to my garage, it shouts out with attention grabbing noises and reminds me of the items that I promised my self I will get done at home. Time based reminders are so passé.

I’ve got location reminders setup for when I reach home and when I leave home. Yes, I have them coming and going. I have reminders set for particular things I absolutely have to buy at a particular store. The problem is that I’m not much of a shopper. I rarely frequent a store unless I have a pressing need. New underwear falls into that rare category. Procrastinator and underwear do not appear in relative proximity in my lexicon.

One of the few shops I frequent with any regularity is my local coffee shop. I really do not need a reminder to buy coffee while I am there. It’s on the same level of the grocery store , I am hungry therefore I shop. Just now I was interrupted by my microwave reminding me I just warmed up a cup of coffee. I ran to it like it was a long lost love. Actually it kind of was.

When all is said and done, it usually has been my devices having a lot of say and I getting nothing done, except of course if coffee or underwear is involved. After work and a round trip two hour commute, most leftover energy is being sapped by the sinus headache I have 70% of the time. I have a very small window with which to accomplish outside chores. If my world is not going to implode as a direct result of not doing the task it probably will not get done within the first 5 appearances of said reminder.

Doing laundry usually involves underwear so that task gets taken care of upon first appearance of it’s scheduled reminder. Currently I look at my device reminders as a record of shame reminding me of all the things I have not accomplished. I am currently scheduling surgery on said sinuses hoping to shrink the size of my archive of failure. This event currently falls within the same priority as clean underwear so I know the status of that task will soon be done.

Work for me is a different story, I am a work-a-holic and procrastinator is not part of the job description. I do not need a reminder that dings and pops up text mentioning something like “work your self to death.”

I seem to have an internal scheduling device that I am not very savvy about. I can’t seem to turn that one off.

Writing, Life, Uncategorized

Fences

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Stimulated by todays DailyPrompt at WordPress.   No humor here. Laughter does not exist in a vacuum…

images – white picket, steel barbed, concrete.

What’s on the other side?”

“Don’t know.”

“Kind of ugly isn’t it”

“Yeah. Wasn’t always this way.”

“Really. What was it like.”

“Wooden, white, actually kinda pretty as fences go.”

“Really.”

“Yea, the kind that reminds you of Tom Sawyer.”

“Sounds nice. What happened?”

“What always happens.”

“Whats that?”

“More things needed to be kept out.”

“Did it work?”

“Don’t know. Can’t tell the difference between either side now”.

Life, Humor, Writing

Life is Saga

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We live therefore we know saga. We all have a narrative. Our lives tell a story. If we really pay attention to our lives we find that they are populated with interesting and even great characters. Myself included. Yes, I consider dust bunnies characters. I write fiction. I could also be considered a great character in someone else’s narrative. I’m convinced i’ve been called a character many times when coworkers and friends talk about their day to their loved ones.

“You’ll never believe what this character said today…”

The word saga has gotten a bad rap. Somewhere along the line modern culture has linked saga with drama. The pop use of drama itself is abused.
“You don’t want to get involved with them. They bring to much drama.”
“OMG , they’re into daytime television?”

A perusal of some olde fashioned writing tools, dictionaries, will reveal that drama is not even in the lexicon of the definition. The following description appears number one among most definitions. “A long story of heroic achievement, especially a medieval prose narrative in Old Norse or Old Icelandic: a figure straight out of a Viking saga.”

I am not naive in the belief that figures straight out of Viking Sagas were not without some drama. On more than one occasion during the saga of Erik The Red, a character must had the following conversation.

“Where ever Erik goes there is always some kind of drama, what with the pillaging and the looting and all.”

“You know it. Where his he now?”

“The town had him exiled again and he didn’t know what to do with himself. I told him to find an island to explore. That should keep him busy for a while.”

In between the looting and pillaging, what we have come to spin as “conquering,” lands were discovered, legends were born and tales told.

Your life is a saga,hopefully devoid of pillaging and looting, but a saga none-the-less. You are the protagonist in your story. Make sure your character is a nice one.  A heroic protagonist would be epic, but a nice person in the least. The world is populated with enough antagonists. By all accounts Erik The Red was not a nice guy.

You don’t get exiled from two towns in Iceland by being a nice guy.

So go live your saga but don’t be like Erik The Red. He brought a lot of drama.

This post happened as a result of  the daily prompt meeting my mind. Fortunately there were survivors.

Image – Summer in the Greenland coast circa year 1000 Jens Erik Carl Rasmussen (1841–1893) (public domain).
Saga

 

Life, Memories, Uncategorized

Sometimes, It’s Just Too Much

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St. Peter was back at his podium before the gates.

 

 

 

He was just beginning to get back in to the swing of things when the days first shuttle announced its arrival.

Peter felt something he had not experienced in quite a long time, sadness.

The shuttle arrived bourn on the strains of a soliloquy by Professor Snape and supported by the melody of David Bowies “Heroes” leading into the Eagles “Best of My Love.”

Peters view of the shuttle became cloudy and he wiped a tear from his cheek.

“Sometimes , this job is just too much and vacations are way too few.”

 

 

 

 

Life, Memories

Lovable Winners (Go Cubs Go)

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Sports teams are mostly remembered in the won-loss column. Whether it is fair or not is inconsequential. That is just how it is. Athletes are judged by similar guidelines. How good was the fielder? What was their batting average? How many yards from scrimmage did the running back accumulate? How many league rushing titles did they have? Unfortunately, the same kind of judgments made every day in the real world do not escape those of the sports arena.

Once in a while there is transcendence. Players of all qualities can win humanitarian awards. Sometimes when worlds collide, teams do the right thing.

The passing of Ernie Banks highlighted what he meant to the city and the neighborhoods of Chicago. The memories shared by friends and family highlighted his sunny disposition and revealed that yes he really was that happy.

His passing also highlighted the fact that he was human. In his twilight years he became estranged from his wife. When he passed, another women lay claim to his assets stating that Ernie gave them to her in a new will. The legal fight that ensued may or may not have threatened the last wishes of Mr. Cub.
In the skirmish, the funeral home that performed the burial services waited to get paid and in turn filed a claim against his estate. Many internet comments urged the Chicago Cubs to do the right thing. Perhaps I am foolhardy to believe otherwise but I do not believe some comments on the internet persuaded the Cubs to settle the matter. I think when the need presented itself they did not hesitate to settle the bill for the man who had given so much to the Cubs and the city of Chicago.

We all know the last time the Cubs won the world series was 1908 and most of us can calculate that it has been 106+ years since those games. We don’t need the math wizards behind the mikes to remind us of that every time there is a break in the action and the talk turns to the “lovable losers”. I for one do not put the Chicago Cubs in that category. Their recent play for Ernie in the game of life puts them in the all too lonely Lovable Winners category.

Go Cubs Go!