we collectively
decided that every conscious
moment be filled

Adapted from this paragraph in the article, ‘Do you mind listening to that with headphones?’ How one little phrase revolutionised my commute by Hannah Ewens in the Guardian where Ms. Ewens writes:

Now it’s not just younger people polluting our public spaces with Joe Rogan interviews and biohacking how-tos – it’s everyone.

I don’t think people even realise they are doing this.

Somewhere along the line this became normal – almost certainly during the pandemic, when we collectively decided that every conscious moment had to be filled with visual and audio content, before we were told to return to society.

Let’s just say we’ve struggled.

I believe this because when I’ve asked people to turn their devices down, they make one of two faces: either they look as if they are rousing from a century’s slumber or appear shocked at themselves, as if they don’t know how they got to this moment.

I don’t think people even realise they are doing this.

Quiet.

Real quiet.

I am coming off a bout of the Covid.

My ears were so plugged, I couldn’t hear a thing but the fact that my ears were plugged didn’t come to mind until later.

I was up late late at night, reading, trying to come up with the energy to get up and go to bed and it came to.

It was quiet.

So quiet.

Deathly quiet.

A quiet I haven’t experienced in years.

If not electronic devices, I am near enough to traffic that the steady hum is the down beat to my life.

Surrounded by noise.

I talk about the time when you could go outside in the summertime and someone had the Detroit Tigers and Ernie Harwell playing loud enough to hear/

I started thinking about that.

Back then there were only so many options.

Now the options for audio are limitless.

And somewhere along the line this became normal – almost certainly during the pandemic, when we collectively decided that every conscious moment had to be filled with visual and audio content, before we were told to return to society.

I am reminded of Alice Tyler and her book, Accidental Tourist.

We join our hero, Macon, on a plane trip to New York.

Ms. Tyler writes:

On the flight to New York, he sat next to a foreign-looking man with a mustache. Clamped to the man’s ears was a head¬ set for one of those miniature tape recorders. Perfect; no danger of conversation. Macon leaned back in his seat contentedly.

He accepted nothing from the beverage cart, but the man beside him took off his headset to order a Bloody Mary. A tinny, intricate, Middle Eastern melody came whispering out of the pink sponge earplugs. Macon stared down at the little machine and wondered if he should buy one. Not for the music, heaven knows — there was far too much noise in the world already — but for insulation. He could plug himself into it and no one would disturb him. He could play a blank tape: thirty full minutes of silence. Turn the tape over and play thirty minutes more.

what new story heard
agreeable for telling
in conversation

Back in the day, Benjamin Franklin put together a club known as The Junto.

According to Wikipedia, The Junto, also known as the Leather Apron Club, was a club for mutual improvement established in 1727 by Benjamin Franklin in Philadelphia. The Leather Apron Club’s purpose was to debate questions of morals, politics, and natural philosophy, and to exchange knowledge of business affairs.

They Junto met on Friday nights and to get the debate started, Dr. Franklin put together a list of 24 starter questions.

Question number 2 asked, “What new story have you lately heard agreeable for telling in conversation?”

As this question asked about new stories, it should be no surprise that the Junto members realized they would need access to new books which led to the creation of the The Library Company of Philadelphia and libraries were established in America.

The Library Company of Philadelphia occupied the 2nd floor of what was called Carpenters Hall in Philadelphia.

In a room on the 1st floor of this building, the Continental Congress met and in 1776, signed the Declaration of Independence.

The Library Association is older than the United States.

Libraries and me have had a long association.

At Crestview Elementary School in Grand Rapids, Michigan, where I grew up, the library was where I had to spend ‘time-outs’ when my behavior in class made it desirable for the teacher for me to be someone where else.

In agreement with the Principal, I would spend 15 minutes or so by myself in the library.

Not a punishment and really, a bit of rewarding bad behavior, but it worked out for all those involved.

When I was 6 or so I got my first library card at the Creston Branch of the Grand Rapids Public Library.

But it was the summer of 1970, when I turned 10 that I got a new bike and the main branch of the Grand Rapids Public Library became available to me.

I would ride a route of back streets that required me to cross several busy streets and then navigate downtown Grand Rapids but I made it.

I would park my bike in the bike racks, didn’t need a lock back then and walk to the main entrance of the magnificent Grand Rapids Public Library Main Building.

I didn’t realize it at the time, but this building was pretty much brand new, having been opened in 1967.

Walking into the lobby in 1970, it still had that ‘new building’ smell.

The first thing that would hit was the air conditioning which, after my ride downtown, felt great.

It is hard to describe, but after getting downtown on my own, when I walked into that library I felt it was MY library.

Anyone else in the library was there at my sufferance.

Once in the library, there was a wall of double glass doors with the sign ADULT SECTION.

It would be a couple of years before I dared go through those doors if my Dad wasn’t with me.

When I could badger my Dad enough to take me downtown, he would go through those doors and then head upstairs to the Newspaper Room and read out of town newspapers while I looked at books.

When I had my books from the Youth Section, I felt confident enough to go into the Adult Section as I knew if someone challenged me, I could say I was getting my Dad.

BTW the Newspaper Room was in the original Main Building that had been built in 1904 and despite all their efforts, modern architects were not able to line up the floors of the new and old buildings.

To get to the old building, you took the stairs and then took a door off the landing to another inner kinda secret flight of stairs.

Just to know these stairs were there was pretty cool.

If you took the elevator, you would press the buttons with an R or 2R for the 2nd floor of the Ryerson Building, the original name of the main building and magically the elevator doors would open behind you.

As an aside, Mr. Ryerson of Chicago offered to build the library as a gift to City of Grand Rapids in memory of his pleasant memories of visiting family in Grand Rapids.

No one knows how much the building cost as Mr. Ryerson had all, and I mean ALL, the bills sent direct to him.

The day the Library opened, the Public Schools were closed for the day and all the kids and citizens of the city went to the Library where Mr. and Mrs. Ryerson received guests on the landing of the main marble staircase.

That’s my kind of rich benefactor.

It was always fun to get on the elevator, press 2R and then turn your back to the doors and watch the other patrons wonder what in the world you were doing.

But that was when I was there with my Dad.

It was years before I dared enter the Adult Section on my own and the first time I did, I waited to get nabbed and ordered out.

There was another sign over the doorway that said YOUTH SECTION with an arrow to the right.

That was my world.

I might walk in and start looking at the new titles.

Or I might walk back to the Civil War books to find something I hadn’t read.

I would greet the Librarian on staff who would often recognize and ask about my ride.

I walked through those aisles with seven league boots and took no prisoners and admitted no faults.

And I looked and looked at all those books and I wondered just what new stories they might contain that would be agreeable for telling in conversation.

And I did my best to find them all.

BTW – Was paging through old New Yorker Magazines when I came across this cartoon that appeared on December 12, 1932.

animating cause!
brave spirits are not subdued
with difficulties

One June 26, 1776, John Adams wrote to his wife, Abagail, saying: But these Reverses of Fortune dont discourage me. It was natural to expect them, and We ought to be prepared in our Minds for greater Changes, and more melancholly Scenes still. It is an animating Cause, and brave Spirits are not subdued with Difficulties.

Two weeks later, the Declaration of Independence was signed by Mr. Adams and the members of the Continental Congress.

The same fellers who had just recently been reminded by a message from King George III that while he, the King, was open and willing to receive back those wayward subjects of the North American Colonies, those fellers in Philadelphia who were causing all the problems, would be hung.

They voted for and signed the Declaration anyway.

To read it again …

… these Reverses of Fortune dont discourage me.

It was natural to expect them, and

We ought to be prepared in our Minds for greater Changes,

and more melancholly Scenes still.

It is an animating Cause, and brave Spirits are not subdued with Difficulties.

I will read this out loud today, the 4th of July.

I will remind myself not to be discouraged by the reverses in fortunes and I will prepare my mind for greater changes and more melancholly scenes still.

And I will remember that, after all, It is an animating Cause, and brave Spirits are not subdued with Difficulties.

I guess it is the least I can do for those Founding Fathers.

as well equipped for
life right now if had never
gone to school at all

Of course I had always known men of no schooling who were hugely successful in the mere making of money.

But it took a longer time for me to find out that a man could say “would have went” and still be welcome at more tables,

… have a surer and a more aristocratic taste in matters of painting and music,

… and reveal in all ways a greater gift for living the good life than most of the Ph.D’s of my acquaintance.

Indeed, as I look about me among my neighbors,

… I find myself wondering whether I have anything at all to show for the score of years I spent in going to school,

… whether I would not be as well equipped for life right now if I had never gone to school at all.

From the essay, I Might Just as Well Have Played Hooky as published in Long Long Ago by Alexander Woollcott, (New York, The Viking Press, 1943). Originally published in the American Legion Magazine, January, 1931.

A greater gift for living the good life?

Can we flip that to a question and ask, “Is there a greater a gift than living the good life?”

Hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm …

I am reminded of one of my favorite Carl Sandburg poems, titled Happiness:

I asked the professors who teach the meaning of life to tell me what is happiness.
And I went to famous executives who boss the work of thousands of men.
They all shook their heads and gave me a smile as though I was trying to fool with them
And then one Sunday afternoon I wandered out along the Desplaines river
And I saw a crowd of Hungarians under the trees with their women and children and a keg of beer and an accordion.

Am I thinking too much.

Am I over thinking this whole mess, the politics, the climate, the weather, everybody having a gun and NCAA Conference realignment?

As baseball great Ted Williams once said, “If you don’t think so good … don’t think so much.“

I’ll shut up now and pass me that church key.