Doing Stuff

Last night I was watching a sitcom and one lead character said to another, "Let's go do something." By using the noun "something" I assume they meant verbs that were designed to pass the time, such as having coffee, going to the movies, or buying high powered laxatives at Walgreens. You know, action verbs that end in ING. I feel it's my job to point out that people often use their time offhandedly when they should do anything but. Note also when people refer to time, they also use the verbs "SAVING time and SPENDING time." This obviously shows just how precious the minutes are to us when we refer to them like currency. And we no doubt should. The point is, time may just be a concept and indeed one we cannot point to tangibly, but it is nonetheless important. If you disbelieve my premise, lay a needle on one of your Pink Floyd albums.

I find that seeking out entertainment for myself is not all that important. The number of errands I have on my to-do list is not an issue for me because every task I do in a 24-hour period fits my day like a cold hand in a warm glove perfectly. Keep in mind that the sun will either rise again tomorrow or it won't, but it's likely it will. Most of us realize what an important commodity time is, but I seem to dwell on it a lot. This just means that people like me should be compelled to remind people like you of the inevitable. If your kid is five minutes late for soccer practice today and you slide into a casket tomorrow it won't matter. AND, unless we have a loved one who makes sure we receive a nice marble head stone for our final resting place nobody will ever know we were here. That's just the human condition. It may be debatable whether or not we come from and go back to dust. But it's fair to say that our time on this big blue ball we call earth is finite and fleeting. It's amazing I never became a life coach huh? Now that I have totally flattened your spirits let's see if I can lift them with a bit of humor once again.

This brings us back around to the inevitable question in life which is, "why are we here?" That's a heavy question and my old man answered it like this, "the meaning of life is about the pursuit of the meaning of life." I can neither confirm nor deny that's true, but in addition to being humorous it's also thought provoking. In his case it could be either terrific advice or absolute gibberish. Having firsthand knowledge of how the old man's mind worked it could have been a bit of both. This is just one of the things that made me love him so. He was often the Dali Lama and Jerry Seinfeld all rolled into one. Here is another golden gem that often came out of his mouth, "two days from now will be day before yesterday." I'm in my late fifties and I still don't know if that is merely humor or him just stating the obvious. The man spent most of his free time kicking around farm ponds (often called honey holes) in western Oklahoma seeking out the ultimate HAWG, which is just Okie slag for any largemouth bass that goes over eight pounds. The truth is he CHOSE to be a simple man, but he could have easily written fortune cookies or played substitute for Confucious. Here are some more of his other isms I have enjoyed over the years, "don't marry for money, it's cheaper to borrow it." I also like this one "your banker just called, it seems your reality check just bounced."

I have promised you fine people I will try my best to stay on topic so here it goes. I watched my mother's parents fit everything that needed to be fit from Monday morning until midday Saturday in a neat little box. This included calf castrations, treating pink eye, milking, and branding. You couldn't count Saturday night against them because that was when they traveled over to Harper Kansas to blow off steam, granny tickled the ivories, and grandpa played the guitar and the fiddle with gusto. You may have wondered what the difference is between a fiddle and a violin is, I can tell you it's simple. A violin is carried in a case; and a fiddle usually travels in a gunny sack. The dance hall they played in was a cross between a run-down old barn and a speak easy. It often smelled of cheap perfume, Coors Lite, and cigarettes. But I forgave all that cause they made the best chicken fried steak south of the Mason Dixon line. Granny and grandpa usually got a pass on Sunday because that was the Lord's Day which was the time they spent licking their wounds and getting ready to do it all over again. Don't quote me directly because to this day I am still uncertain whether that is Biblical or not. Grandpa gave me a lot of advice and most of it couldn't be shared in Sunday school, or even public school for that matter. The old man always meant well, he just didn't always do well.

I suppose my point is they we never hurting for something to do. In my day if you ever shared with a person older than you that you were bored, you'd probably find yourself on your hands and knees scrubbing the chicken house floor with a toothbrush. Even when those old folks had "coffee" that was a word that was often used as a noun AND a verb. I suppose the reason those two were so happy was because they spun deliberately between sanity and insanity and they smiled and held hands the whole time. Tomorrow was not promised to them, and they lived like they understood that. They did what they had to do but they never fretted about what tomorrow might hold. In short, there is no reason to contrast reality against the unknown of tomorrow. That's why the saying "good Lord willing and the creek don't rise" is so important.