It's A Nice Thought, Though

(I wrote this post last month, but decided at the last minute not to post it, because it was Christmas Eve, and I didn't think it was an appropriate time to rain on the Peace On Earth parade. Then I forgot to post it after the holidays were over. I'm leaving it as it was written on December 24, though, as they often do, my thoughts on the matter have eased back a bit.)

It's been six or seven years since I've seen Charlie Chaplin's The Great Dictator, but a few weeks ago I saw two references to it in as many days, specifically, this clip...



Inspiring and just as relevant today as it was in 1940, no? I got all inspired by it and decided to share it on the ol' Facebooks, but before I got around to it, I started a-thinkin'...

Here he is, talking about greed and cannon fodder as if it was a new development that we can overcome. But it's not new, and there's a reason why this is as relevant today as it was in 1940 - because human nature hasn't changed in the past 71 years. Or in the past 71,000 years. There has always been greed. There was always been those that would dominate others. Hell, you can see it happen with the runners-up in the Animal Kingdom Intelligence Competition, the apes and the dolphins. Did Charlie Chaplin really believe that the oppressed could unite against the "unnatural men" and bring about a world of peace and happiness?

Or, as Charlie Chaplin might say, has my knowledge made me overly cynical?

Where Carl Lewis Treads, So Go I

I'm hoping that the statute of limitations has expired and that I'm not incriminating myself by telling this story...

Back in '96, my dad got tickets to the U.S. Olympic Track and Field Trials. Every day of 'em. It was awesome.

We arrived in Atlanta the day before the Trials, rented ourselves a car at the airport and headed on out to the Atlanta suburbs and the house of my dad's friend, where we were staying. Our drive there took us right past the Olympic Stadium, so we got off the highway to check it out up close. We did a drive-by, and then my dad went looking for a place to park.

We found a church parking lot nearby and proceeded on foot. As we got close to the stadium, we noticed a bunch of people, presumably meet volunteers or something, trying to find an open door. Eventually, someone inside let them in.

And my dad followed them in. It was an unexpected development for me, so I just blundered along in as well.

So now we were inside the bowels of the Olympic Stadium, standing around with a bunch of volunteers having some sort of orientation meeting. Trying our best to blend in with one of us (me) wearing a camera around my neck. And not wearing the same t-shirt as everyone else. Though I was thoroughly convinced that we were mere moments away from getting tickets to the inside of the Fulton County Jail, nobody paid us any mind at all.

Eventually, the meeting came to an end, and the group started moving deeper into the stadium. So we followed them. After a short while, we saw an opening to the track area, so we broke away from the group and headed towards that.

And then we were standing on the track upon which Olympians would be running.

(Pictured: My dad, the Olympic track, the Olympic torch)

It was a track unlike any that I had been on before or since. The surface was made up of little rubber-like bristles, rather than the rough rubber-like sheet that you see on high school or college tracks (maybe the more high-falutin' colleges have the good stuff, but I haven't been on those to know.) It made the surface slightly more bouncy - very good for helping one run faster. Certainly helped Michael Johnson, I think.

So yeah... two guys off the street easily sneak their way into the Olympic Stadium and end up right there on the track. That's some bang-up security going on there! 1996 was a simpler time, before the Olympic Bomber and 9-11.

After taking some pictures and running back and forth a little, we saw the volunteer group come into the stands to get a group picture taken. My dad considered going up there and getting into the picture, but it was decided that we best not push our luck. And so, we went back out the way we came and drove on out to the suburbs.

My dad is, of course, off the hook from any after-the-fact prosecution, now. I'll thank you not to turn me into the authorities.

To Finish Is To Win

I was going through my dad's old briefcase when I found a newspaper clipping, from the September 3, 1977 edition of what I assume was the Lexington (KY) Herald-Leader, in an envelope. It was something I had seen before, in a photo album, but it had been a while, and I had forgotten about it. The headline was "Winners All" and the text read thusly...

Charleston Distance Run's one-two finishers look fresh (right) as they discuss the race after crossing the finish line at Laidley Field today. Scott Edens (No. 403) was runner-up and Bill Haviland (No. 777) was the winner. Also winners were Bill Hall (below), first wheelchair finisher, and Kim Merritt (No. 47 lower right), winner of the women's division. Behind her an unidentified runner raises both arms in triumph, showing that to finish was to win.

The picture of the one-two race discussers, Scott Edens and Bill Haviland, was not included in the clipping, nor was the picture of wheelchair champ Bill Hall, but Kim Merritt and the "unknown runner" did merit saving for posterity.

I did ask my dad about this years ago, and, as I remember it, he knew that Kim Haviland was right in front of him as they were approaching the finish line (my dad would, of course, be up on the who's who of the local running scene.) Figuring that someone would be taking a picture of her as she finished, he decided to make the most of the opportunity.

Also in the envelope was a letter that my dad wrote to the paper, identifying himself as the "unknown runner" and requesting an 8x10 print of the picture. Unless he wrote another draft of the letter, it's unlikely that it was ever sent, being as it's on my desk right now, and not 50 feet below the surface of a landfill in Lexington (or in the archives at the Herald-Leader... I don't know what would have happened to it after the request was fulfilled.)

So yeah... My dad was capable of being a goofball even after finishing a distance race of undisclosed length. Nice of the paper to go into detail about the runners' names (the known ones, anyway) but never bother to mention how long the race was.

One Coin Worth Six Cents?

Tonight we were reading to PG some original Beatrix Potter stories from about 100 years ago. There were a lot of references in one 1904 story, "The Tale of Two Bad Mice," to stuff that people don't have or use anymore, such as "perambulator," "the oilcloth under the coal-box," "Sago," "bolster," and "a crooked sixpence." It got me to thinking what words might be potentially confusing 107 years from now, in 2118.

Possibilities:

calculator
iPod
mouse (as it pertains to a computer... I assume mice will not go extinct in the next 107 years)
DVD
penny
gasoline (dare to dream)
cable box
ATM (all monetary transactions being done via smartphone)
smartphone
batteries

Anybody have anything else?

I Gave The Law As Little Resistance As Possible, And The Law Kinda Won

Once again, a Facebook Friend unwittingly comes to my rescue when I need something to write about. She went down to southern Virginia to fight a traffic ticket and ended up catching a break from the judge. And so here is a similar story from my own past that I trot out whenever the topic of conversation turns to traffic tickets.

Back in my college days, I lived in an apartment complex that had a one-way entrance. You could go right into the complex from the main street, but to get out, you had to wind your way through the rest of the complex, then through neighborhood back streets until you finally got deposited back onto the main street. And if you didn't already know how to get back to the main road, you had a pretty good chance of getting lost, because anyone with any sense of direction would take a right turn onto the neighborhood back road, when the correct answer was, in fact, a left turn.

As luck would have it, my apartment was in the building closest to the entrance, just about the furthest point from the exit. And so it was that, one fateful morning, I found myself running late for class and faced with a decision: Go the wrong way on the short, one-way entrance road onto the main street, or do the legal thing and add two or three minutes to my travel time. I took the quick way.

As I was pulling out onto the main road, I could not help but notice that there was a car barreling down the hill towards me. My first thought was that this explained why you aren't allowed to go out that way - downhill traffic is hard to see until you're actually out there in front of it. My next thought, after I had floored it to get myself going fast enough to match the speed of the car coming down on me, was that the aforementioned car wasn't going nearly as fast as I had previously believed. Almost as if it had made a big effort to slow down. Then I finally noticed the cop standing in the road signalling me to pull over.

He asked me if I knew why he had pulled me over. I knew it was either because I had gone the wrong way on a one-way, or it was because I had been going pretty fast to avoid getting hit from behind, but I wasn't sure which had gotten me busted. So I just said yes. I got my ticket and went along on my less than merry way, getting to class even later than I would have if I had gone the legal route.

My day in court eventually came. I got up before the judge and told him that I had been late for class and made the decision to go the easy way out, instead of the long way, and he told me I was the most honest person he had seen all day and knocked off almost the entire cost of the ticket. He also didn't put any points on my license.

I don't know if owning up to it helped, or if I was going to get let off easy anyway. There was another guy in the courtroom that day who had done the same thing at the same place (perhaps even the same day,) and he either claimed ignorance of it being a one-way or acted like it was an understandable thing to do, given how hard it is to leave the area otherwise. Don't remember which it was, but I can't say as I remember him getting off as easy.

When Men Were Men and Chicken Wasn't A Topping

I was putting away my freshly laundered clothes in my dresser and had just closed the last drawer when I heard something swish inside, and a door hanger suddenly poked out from beneath the bottom drawer.

It was a Domino's Pizza flyer, and, not remembering getting any Domino's Pizza ads recently, I wasn't expecting the coupons to be valid still. Sure enough, they had indeed expired on July 31st. 1995.

My best guess is that the flyer was hiding in my dresser, remaining so through eight moves from one house/apartment to another, until it was old enough to get its driver's license.

Where He Spoke It Would Raise The Roof

From "The Ballad of Peter Pumpkinhead," by XTC...

Peter Pumpkinhead came to town
Spreading wisdom and cash around
Fed the starving and housed the poor
Showed the vatican what gold's for
But he made too many enemies
Of the people who would keep us on our knees
Hooray for Peter Pumpkin
Who'll pray for Peter Pumpkinhead?
Oh my!
Peter Pumpkinhead pulled them all
Emptied churches and shopping malls
Where he spoke, it would raise the roof
Peter Pumpkinhead told the truth
But he made too many enemies...
Peter Pumpkinhead put to shame
Governments who would slur his name
Plots and sex scandals failed outright
Peter merely said
Any kind of love is alright
But he made too many enemies...
Peter Pumpkinhead was too good
Had him nailed to a chunk of wood
He died grinning on live TV
Hanging there he looked a lot like you
And an awful lot like me!
But he made too many enemies...
Hooray for Peter Pumpkin
Who'll pray for Peter Pumpkin
Hooray for Peter Pumpkinhead
Oh my oh my oh!
Doesn't it make you want to cry oh?

Here's hoping the story comes true. With a different ending, of course.

(Song reference: "The Ballad of Peter Pumpkinhead," by XTC)