God gave us all brains
Think he expects us to use them?
BOY! My Mom sure did

My Grandma used to tell the joke about the boy who picked up a red-hot horse shoe.

He dropped it real quick and the blacksmith said, “Burned you didn’t it?”

Boy looked at him and said, “NO SIR . . . just don’t take me long to look at a horseshoe.”

Just so much stupid around these days.

Just plain stupid.

From the I DON’T CARE WHAT WILL HAPPEN, IT IS MUCH WARMER INSIDE THE SHIP THAN IN ONE OF THE TITANIC’S LIFE BOATS kind of stupid.

To the I CAN’T BE OUT OF MONEY, I STILL HAVE CHECKS kind of stupid.

I don’t do stupid well.

I don’t suffer stupid gladly.

I am often stupid, I admit, but lately …

So this morning I was reading an in depth article on Salmon Farming.

The wave of the future.

The green solution to protien.

The answer to so many problems.

EXCEPT that … it costs more to feed the fish than you can sell the fish for at the market.

With price supports and grants-in-aid and such, farm raised salmon is cheaper right now but not sustainable.

But that is just STUPID.

I don’t know why, but that just was the limit this morning.

Does anyone think things through?

The fires out west are bugging me.

All the brush would burn up every 10 to 20 years.

Then man starts putting out the fires.

Then along comes a developer who never met a place that wouldn’t look better with a bunch of Pulte Houses-by-the-yard and thinks these woodland views, especially in these canyons are just the spot.

The next thing you know you got these communities surrounded by 120 years of woodland trash.

And you might be able to guess what happens next and it does.

OH I KNOW.

But gee whiz.

Just so much stupid.

God DOES expect us to think sometimes.

MY MOM SURE DID.

Once I was in my room and I heard the footsteps of someone coming down the stairs.

For some reason, I knew it was my older brother Tim coming to get me.

Who knows why, he most likely had a reason, lots of reasons.

So I quick hid in the closet.

The footsteps came to the door of room and then came into my room.

I stood still and held my breath.

Then the door of my closet was pulled open.

And there I stood.

And there was my Mom with a bunch of clean shirts to hang up.

I said, “Hi Mom.”

She didn’t she hi.

She just kinda screamed and tossed the shirts to one side and started swinging her fists at me.

Swinging them in big arcs, up and down and thumping me on the head and arms.

I ducked my head and dove out of the closest

She kept swinging.

“DON’T”

“YOU”

“EVER”

“DO”

“SUCH”

“A”

“STUPID”

“THING”

“AGAIN”

She said this several times.

She said each word as she swung a fist.

She finally wore out and stood there.

Then she turned and shook the dust off her shoes and left.

All I could think was, “Boy Was I Stupid.”

ten hen remember
24 karat goldie
thou shalt not covet

One weekend when I was a kid, my cousin Jim and his wife Ruth were visiting my family in Grand Rapids, Michigan.

How conversation turned to the 10 Commandments, I do not recall, but I DO recall what happened next.

My cousin Jim mentioned that he had come across a mnemonic device for remembering the 10 Commandments.

He got out this pamphlet with odd little drawings and catch phrases and walked us through it.

I grew up in a family of 11.

Most of my childhood memories involve a group of skinny blond haired kids with glasses running around.

This memory is no exception.

I can see us all gathered around my cousin at the kitchen counter, reciting the mnemonics in unison or one at if called and all of laughing and laughing.

It was every bit as silly as “The Memory Lesson” of John Cleese but it worked.

To this day, I can rattle off the phrases and even, with a little help, recreate the odd little drawings.

The mnemonic for the 10th Commandment came to mind today.

The phrase goes something like this:

10 Hen

Hen on an egg

The egg is labeled 24 Karat Goldie.

The hen is eyeing (with a dotted line) that 24 Karat golden egg.

10th Commandment.

Thou shalt not covet.

I don’t know about you but the Commandments always seem better in the King James English.

There were some other devices to the drawing to include the verse number, 17, from Chapter 20 of the Book of Exodus but I can’t remember that part.

But 10 hen, 24 Karat Goldie is chiseled into the bedrock of my brain.

The complete verse reads, “Thou shalt not covet thy neighbour’s house, thou shalt not covet thy neighbour’s wife, nor his manservant, nor his maidservant, nor his ox, nor his ass, nor any thing that is thy neighbour’s.”

To me, going through the 10 Commandments, Number 10 always seemed to be a bit of an add on to get to 10.

It just wasn’t up there with not killing, stealing or lying.

Then today, I read this passage in the story, “Come on kids, let’s get back to normal! (But listen: if gran dies, it’s your fault)” by Joel Golby.

Mr. Golby wrote, “What the Conservatives understand better than any party is that peculiarly English tendency to get quietly furious with anyone you perceive to be having an easier time than you.”

Mr. Golby was writing about the UK.

I have no problem swapping in ‘American’ tendency for ‘English’ tendency.

And when I made the swap I had to stop my day.

I had to stop my day as if I was hit with a brick.

It all was if the mists cleared and I saw it ALL clearly.

What was driving the fear and the pandemic concerns and the economic worries and the election reactions was the perception that somehow someone might have an easier time than me.

10 hen, 24 Karat Goldie swam up into my consciousness from the bedrock of my brain.

I look in a mirror?

What do I see?

Do I use the mirror to reflect myself?

Do I use the mirror to correct myself?

Just for fun here are the mnemonics as I remember them …

1 bun – budda on the bun – no other gods before me

2 shoe – hammer and chisel working on the show – make no graven image

3 Tree – Tree is filled with $ # @ ! % signs – Do not take the Lord’s name in vain

4 Door – Name on the door is S.A. BATH – Remember the Sabbath

5 Hive – Bee hive with mail box out front – on the mailbox is painted Mom & Pop – Honor thy parents

6 Sticks – pile of sticks like on a clock – sticks at Noon to Six – 2 to 8 and 4 to 10 – in the middle is a knife – Shalt not kill

7 Heaven – castle (as marriage) that is broken in half – do not commit adultery

8 Gate – thief with a mask looking at you through the gate – Shalt not steal

9 Pine – Christmas Tree with the block letters L I E wrapped up as presents – Shalt not Lie

10 Hen – Hen on a 24 Karat Gold egg – hen is eyeing that egg – Shalt not Covet

remember, forget
remember what I cannot
remember, forgot

Maybe its better to just forget.

Forget and move on.

Move away from the memory.

Move away from the memories.

Or as the poet closes:

For one that you remember
    And ten that you forget

Adapted from Rococo by Charles Swinburne.

TAKE HANDS and part with laughter;
    Touch lips and part with tears;
Once more and no more after,
    Whatever comes with years.
We twain shall not remeasure
    The ways that left us twain;
Nor crush the lees of pleasure
    From sanguine grapes of pain.

We twain once well in sunder,
    What will the mad gods do
For hate with me, I wonder,
    Or what for love with you?
Forget them till November,
    And dream there’s April yet;
Forget that I remember,
    And dream that I forget.

Time found our tired love sleeping,
    And kissed away his breath;
But what should we do weeping,
    Though light love sleep to death?
We have drained his lips at leisure,
    Till there’s not left to drain
A single sob of pleasure,
    A single pulse of pain.

Dream that the lips once breathless
    Might quicken if they would;
Say that the soul is deathless;
    Dream that the gods are good;
Say March may wed September,
    And time divorce regret;
But not that you remember,
    And not that I forget.

We have heard from hidden places
    What love scarce lives and hears:
We have seen on fervent faces
    The pallor of strange tears:
We have trod the wine-vat’s treasure,
    Whence, ripe to steam and stain,
Foams round the feet of pleasure
    The blood-red must of pain.

Remembrance may recover
    And time bring back to time
The name of your first lover,
    The ring of my first rhyme;
But rose-leaves of December
    The frosts of June shall fret,
The day that you remember,
    The day that I forget.

The snake that hides and hisses
    In heaven we twain have known;
The grief of cruel kisses,
    The joy whose mouth makes moan;
The pulse’s pause and measure,
    Where in one furtive vein
Throbs through the heart of pleasure
    The purpler blood of pain.

We have done with tears and treasons
    And love for treason’s sake;
Room for the swift new seasons,
    The years that burn and break,
Dismantle and dismember
    Men’s days and dreams, Juliette;
For love may not remember,
    But time will not forget.

Life treads down love in flying,
    Time withers him at root;
Bring all dead things and dying,
    Reaped sheaf and ruined fruit,
Where, crushed by three days’ pressure,
    Our three days’ love lies slain;
And earlier leaf of pleasure,
    And latter flower of pain.

Breathe close upon the ashes,
    It may be flame will leap;
Unclose the soft close lashes,
    Lift up the lids, and weep.
Light love’s extinguished ember,
    Let one tear leave it wet
For one that you remember
    And ten that you forget.

Nations truly great
free, active, in service of
an ideal higher

Adapted from a Matthew Arnold’s Democracy, 1860, where Mr. Arnold is quoted as writing:

Nations are not truly great solely because the individuals composing them are numerous, free, and active; but they are great when these numbers, this freedom, and this activity are employed in the service of an ideal higher than that of an ordinary man, taken by himself.

Employed in the service of an ideal higher.