Fifty years ago, two old men pulled up to the curb on Alden Street, got out of their car and began to point at things and talk. The child playing in the side yard of the house in front of which they were parked, walked up to the street to see who they were, figuring they were friends of his grandmother. They told the little boy they had lived in the neighborhood many decades before. The old men pointed to the houses and debated who had lived there and when.
“Do you know there was a community well where the entire neighborhood got their water?” asked one of the men.
“I’ll bet you can’t tell us where it was,” stated the other.
“Down by that peach tree,” said the boy, pointing toward the back of the yard in which he had been playing. “Under those concrete slabs.”
“Yessir,” intoned one of the elderly gentlemen. “That’s exactly where it was.”
“Still is,” said the boy. “Put concrete slabs over it to keep the cats from fallin’ in. You can pull the slabs apart and drop stuff into it, like peach pits and rocks. Then you slide the slabs back ‘fore momma sees ya’ and whups ya’ good.”
To that little boy, Alden Street stretched out in each direction almost as far as you cared to look. One time, when he ran away from home, he reached the end of Alden Street, up by the alley that ran through to Yecker Street, and stopped. That was as far away from home as he cared to go. And, when he stood at that end of the street and looked back at the entire expanse of Alden, it was so very far to the other end.
And when that boy stood on the front sidewalk and looked back through his side yard and all the way to the chicken wire fence on the back property line, he could imagine no wider expanse—no further vista of green. It was the yard where he had matured from infant to child.
We’ll never know who those men were. They were just like thousands of people who walk through ones life. The boy, however, was a different story. We know he grew up and became known as Jimbo. And yesterday, the Labor Day holiday, Jimbo again walked that sidewalk and street and pointed out to Jimbo’s girlfriend where the home of his childhood had been. Things are different today. Alden is such a short block one could lay the newspaper at one end, walk to the other end and still read the headline. Jimbo’s old house is gone and the yard he remembered as being so large is just a postage stamp.
There are only a few houses on the street that appear to be inhabited. There are a few houses that are open and abandoned, but the majority of the houses are gone, replaced by empty lots.
Jimbo’s girlfriend frequently commented about the total decay and squalor. She questioned how people could live in neighborhoods like these. She questioned how these kinds of neighborhoods could still exist in the twenty-first century and in the United States of America.
Jimbo, himself, had a brief feeling of having come home, standing on the sidewalk and on the rock steps leading down to where his house used to be. It was much like the tales of the old African elephants who, knowing the end is near, wander back to their place of birth, to lay their earthly remains at the foot of their childhood memories. But, it wasn’t like that at all, because we were all happy as clams when we were able to move out of that house. And, I do not grieve it nor mourn its passing. It was a dump. On the road of life, it was a start, and that’s about it.
I would have liked to stay and reminisce a little longer, but one of the locals was walking down the street and Jimbo’s girlfriend insisted in locking herself in the car for protection. I can’t say as that I blamed her, but he passed by harmlessly and no one was killed.
We drove the neighborhood for a while and past my grandmother’s old house, which is also gone and past the Spanish-style house one street over from Alden, which was always the nicest house in the neighborhood. It is still standing, as is one of my favorite buildings, Quayle Memorial Methodist Church, which is still elegant, but boarded up. I wonder if the woodwork is still intact. I wonder if the stained glass is still unbroken under the plywood.
Most of all, I wonder whether the people who inhabit these houses are better off where they are, or if they would be better off using a bulldozer to set the neighborhood in order. My old house was a shack. It has gone to a better place. It was good, however, to stand over its final resting place.
And to walk the sidewalks and streets I had walked half a century before.
A long time ago in Jimbo’s world.
Tuesday, September 02, 2008
Sunday, April 27, 2008
words to a truck drivin' song
“You a driver?” she asked.
“No,” I answered.
I knew why she asked. It was my hat. Jimbo has a black ball cap that says “Roadway” on it. I used to move castings in from Mexico on an almost-daily basis and the sales representative for the truck line we used gave me the cap one year at Christmas time. I’ve had the hat for a long time and it looks well worn. There’s an area on the right-hand side of the bill and another on the left-hand side that the black is dark gray from me taking it off and putting it on. The one on the right is more noticeable because I use my right hand primarily. However, I have the ability to do it with my left hand, too, when I am carrying something.
It isn’t the first time this has happened. Once, at a casino, a guy came up to me and said good morning.
“You drive for Roadway? Me too. Ain’t seen you around.”
I told him the story and said something like, “thanks for the business,” and wandered off past the slot machines.
My ex-father-in-law was a driver, and he told me the only way you could tell the difference between a truck driver and a cowboy was their footwear. Cowboys wore the boots; truck drivers wore sneakers. He wore boots, but it was legitimate. He ran a herd of cattle north and east of Lawrence, when he wasn’t on the road.
I have to admit, though, I have seen a lot of drivers wearing cowboy boots. Maybe they swung both ways. I don’t know.
What I do know, though, is that I have wandered off of where I was originally going. That happens more often now that I am getting older. Let’s get back on subject.
I was in Wal-Mart last Sunday morning.
A little shopping hint: If one needs to pick up some of the everyday items we all need to get through life—the kind of stuff that Wal-Mart sells—and one has no interest in fighting the crowds at ones local Wal-Mart, a good time to do ones shopping is seven in the morning on Sunday. The crowds are really thin at that time of the morning. There are probably a hundred people in the store, but they all work there, stocking shelves. If one can avoid getting run over by some teenager pushing or pulling a pallet jack, one can get in and out in a hurry. And, there will be some old man or woman to welcome you when you come in and tell you to have a nice day when you leave.
Anyway, last Sunday I had made my shopping choices and was checking out in the express line when the lady scanning my purchases asked me if I drove a truck. Although I was tempted to say yes, I gave her the real actual synopsis. Almost immediately, it occurred to me that she probably had a brother-in-law or a distant relative who drove and probably had a beat-up hat like mine, and my story about being a supply-chain manager and having had a regular move from Mexico may have gone over her head. It didn’t. She caught it and threw it right back.
“I’m a freight broker,” she said.
About that time I was signing my credit card receipt, so I didn’t immediately respond. I guess she anticipated my next question, so she answered it without my having to ask.
“Cost of diesel, there aren’t a lot of loads out there.”
In my present job, I move a lot of sheet metal on flatbeds and we use freight brokers frequently, so I asked her the name of the company for which she worked, and made a mental note.
I put my receipt in my pocket, pushed my cart toward the exit and responded, “you, too,” when the lady at the exit told me to have a nice day.
There is something eerie about that morning that keeps wandering through my mind. It is a story about how good it was last century and about how far we have fallen. It’s the story of Robert Rubin and Bill Clinton and their strong dollar policy. It’s how their strong dollar brought the price of a barrel of crude to less than $12 and how Friday it topped $118. It’s how the Euro was worth $.75 back then and now it exceeds $1.50.
It’s a story about how our worst two problems as a country back then were so radically different than they are today. First, that we couldn’t find enough workers to fill all the jobs that went begging for someone to fill them. Second, that our budget surplus was on the verge of creating a situation that could only be resolved by eliminating income taxes.
I guess our current administration solved those problems and a third problem, too. That problem was that their OPEC member buddies weren’t making enough money.
As a man who is getting some years on him, I guess it is natural to lament the good old days. Those good old days sort of passed by me when I was looking forward to something up the line a ways that I anticipated would be the good old days.
Hell, there’ll be good times coming down the road, I used to think when I was a kid. Then, when I was an adult, I would look back at those summer mornings of my childhood when I was first waking up and I could hear the doves calling outside my window. I would think back to those warm summer evenings when daylight hung on long after dinnertime, until almost bedtime, before it grudgingly gave way to darkness. Those were the days when the last school year was a distant memory and the one coming up seemed so far away. Those were the days when responsibility and homework assignments and the school day didn’t even enter the mind. I would recall those days when I had matriculated through school and was working and remember them as the good old days.
I remember working two jobs and struggling to get along when my son was an infant and thinking there would be better days. Later, I looked back to when my child was growing up and the time we spent together and thought those were the good old days.
Now, I look back to when we were partying like it was 1999 and I think those were the best days. I hope to God I never look back at the Bush and Cheney years and think these were the good old days. I hope I never think back on the huge budget deficits we have in the first decade of the twenty-first century and think we had it good. I hope I never look back at when gas was as cheap as $3.50 a gallon and tell stories about how good we had it. I hope I never look back at the war, the recession and the dope problem we have at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue and remember them as good times.
But, most of all, I hope I never tell grandchildren the “good times” story of the lady who was the freight broker whom the government’s policies gave the opportunity to run the checkout line at Wal-Mart when the freight business dried up.
I hope I have a better story than that.
At least, that’s today’s view from here in Jimbo’s world.
“No,” I answered.
I knew why she asked. It was my hat. Jimbo has a black ball cap that says “Roadway” on it. I used to move castings in from Mexico on an almost-daily basis and the sales representative for the truck line we used gave me the cap one year at Christmas time. I’ve had the hat for a long time and it looks well worn. There’s an area on the right-hand side of the bill and another on the left-hand side that the black is dark gray from me taking it off and putting it on. The one on the right is more noticeable because I use my right hand primarily. However, I have the ability to do it with my left hand, too, when I am carrying something.
It isn’t the first time this has happened. Once, at a casino, a guy came up to me and said good morning.
“You drive for Roadway? Me too. Ain’t seen you around.”
I told him the story and said something like, “thanks for the business,” and wandered off past the slot machines.
My ex-father-in-law was a driver, and he told me the only way you could tell the difference between a truck driver and a cowboy was their footwear. Cowboys wore the boots; truck drivers wore sneakers. He wore boots, but it was legitimate. He ran a herd of cattle north and east of Lawrence, when he wasn’t on the road.
I have to admit, though, I have seen a lot of drivers wearing cowboy boots. Maybe they swung both ways. I don’t know.
What I do know, though, is that I have wandered off of where I was originally going. That happens more often now that I am getting older. Let’s get back on subject.
I was in Wal-Mart last Sunday morning.
A little shopping hint: If one needs to pick up some of the everyday items we all need to get through life—the kind of stuff that Wal-Mart sells—and one has no interest in fighting the crowds at ones local Wal-Mart, a good time to do ones shopping is seven in the morning on Sunday. The crowds are really thin at that time of the morning. There are probably a hundred people in the store, but they all work there, stocking shelves. If one can avoid getting run over by some teenager pushing or pulling a pallet jack, one can get in and out in a hurry. And, there will be some old man or woman to welcome you when you come in and tell you to have a nice day when you leave.
Anyway, last Sunday I had made my shopping choices and was checking out in the express line when the lady scanning my purchases asked me if I drove a truck. Although I was tempted to say yes, I gave her the real actual synopsis. Almost immediately, it occurred to me that she probably had a brother-in-law or a distant relative who drove and probably had a beat-up hat like mine, and my story about being a supply-chain manager and having had a regular move from Mexico may have gone over her head. It didn’t. She caught it and threw it right back.
“I’m a freight broker,” she said.
About that time I was signing my credit card receipt, so I didn’t immediately respond. I guess she anticipated my next question, so she answered it without my having to ask.
“Cost of diesel, there aren’t a lot of loads out there.”
In my present job, I move a lot of sheet metal on flatbeds and we use freight brokers frequently, so I asked her the name of the company for which she worked, and made a mental note.
I put my receipt in my pocket, pushed my cart toward the exit and responded, “you, too,” when the lady at the exit told me to have a nice day.
There is something eerie about that morning that keeps wandering through my mind. It is a story about how good it was last century and about how far we have fallen. It’s the story of Robert Rubin and Bill Clinton and their strong dollar policy. It’s how their strong dollar brought the price of a barrel of crude to less than $12 and how Friday it topped $118. It’s how the Euro was worth $.75 back then and now it exceeds $1.50.
It’s a story about how our worst two problems as a country back then were so radically different than they are today. First, that we couldn’t find enough workers to fill all the jobs that went begging for someone to fill them. Second, that our budget surplus was on the verge of creating a situation that could only be resolved by eliminating income taxes.
I guess our current administration solved those problems and a third problem, too. That problem was that their OPEC member buddies weren’t making enough money.
As a man who is getting some years on him, I guess it is natural to lament the good old days. Those good old days sort of passed by me when I was looking forward to something up the line a ways that I anticipated would be the good old days.
Hell, there’ll be good times coming down the road, I used to think when I was a kid. Then, when I was an adult, I would look back at those summer mornings of my childhood when I was first waking up and I could hear the doves calling outside my window. I would think back to those warm summer evenings when daylight hung on long after dinnertime, until almost bedtime, before it grudgingly gave way to darkness. Those were the days when the last school year was a distant memory and the one coming up seemed so far away. Those were the days when responsibility and homework assignments and the school day didn’t even enter the mind. I would recall those days when I had matriculated through school and was working and remember them as the good old days.
I remember working two jobs and struggling to get along when my son was an infant and thinking there would be better days. Later, I looked back to when my child was growing up and the time we spent together and thought those were the good old days.
Now, I look back to when we were partying like it was 1999 and I think those were the best days. I hope to God I never look back at the Bush and Cheney years and think these were the good old days. I hope I never think back on the huge budget deficits we have in the first decade of the twenty-first century and think we had it good. I hope I never look back at when gas was as cheap as $3.50 a gallon and tell stories about how good we had it. I hope I never look back at the war, the recession and the dope problem we have at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue and remember them as good times.
But, most of all, I hope I never tell grandchildren the “good times” story of the lady who was the freight broker whom the government’s policies gave the opportunity to run the checkout line at Wal-Mart when the freight business dried up.
I hope I have a better story than that.
At least, that’s today’s view from here in Jimbo’s world.
Saturday, April 12, 2008
letter to boone
Dear Mr. Pickens,
I was delighted this week to hear that Bill Self has decided to stay at Kansas and that the large amount of money in your personal stash was not sufficient to hire him away.
However, after giving the matter some thought, it dawned on me that I have never mentioned to you that I know how to coach basketball. I coached my son's teams when he was young, and although we were more interested in developing talent than in winning games, we picked up some skills in coaching on the hardwoods.
I know you have money to burn, but I could be had for a contract in the low seven figures. Heck, even that is negotiable.
Please let me hear from you at your earliest convenience.
Sincerely,
Jimbo
Tuesday, April 08, 2008
Monday, April 07, 2008
Sunday, April 06, 2008
the big game
Has Jimbo ever mentioned he is a fan of the Kansas Jayhawks?
Oh,yeah. I guess he has.
Well, it seems like the one thing that came screaming out of the headlines this week is that there are a number of Kansas fans who absolutely hate Roy Williams. The truth is that Jimbo is not one of them.
Granted, Roy was on the other side on Saturday night, and therefore, for one night, he became the hated opposition. I was more than happy to see him lose.
But the other side of the coin is that he was our guy for fifteen years, and they were some of the best fifteen years of our basketball lives. And, even though there seems to be a lot of hatred among Kansas fans toward Roy, I kind of think it is like when a lover breaks off a relationship with a guy. The first thing he thinks about is that he will never find another one again who is as good. Or, at least, that is what they tell me. I, of course, would not know that feeling, never having experienced it.
And, I have to admit that, right after Roy left, I might have felt that way for a few days. I felt the same when Larry Brown took off, but I got over it quickly and three years later we were playing in the National Championship game. I think I knew that, deep down inside, because of the tradition we have at Kansas, there would always be some top notch coach who'd say, okay, I'll come over and put some trophies on the shelf. And, we got a very good one.
But, while Roy was here he took us to that improbable 1991 championship game and to the sweet sixteen, the great eight and the final four more than once. They were good times. All good times, though, have to come to an end. One way or another, we all have to hang it up and move on. It's life. One hopes that he'll always hang on to those who are important in his life, but sometimes they say adieu or adios or goodbye, y'all.
No hard feelings, Roy. You're a good man.
Just sorry we had to kick your butt last night so bad. Well, even though I like you, I guess I'm not that sorry.
But, that's the way we do it, here in Jimbo's world.
Oh,yeah. I guess he has.
Well, it seems like the one thing that came screaming out of the headlines this week is that there are a number of Kansas fans who absolutely hate Roy Williams. The truth is that Jimbo is not one of them.
Granted, Roy was on the other side on Saturday night, and therefore, for one night, he became the hated opposition. I was more than happy to see him lose.
But the other side of the coin is that he was our guy for fifteen years, and they were some of the best fifteen years of our basketball lives. And, even though there seems to be a lot of hatred among Kansas fans toward Roy, I kind of think it is like when a lover breaks off a relationship with a guy. The first thing he thinks about is that he will never find another one again who is as good. Or, at least, that is what they tell me. I, of course, would not know that feeling, never having experienced it.
And, I have to admit that, right after Roy left, I might have felt that way for a few days. I felt the same when Larry Brown took off, but I got over it quickly and three years later we were playing in the National Championship game. I think I knew that, deep down inside, because of the tradition we have at Kansas, there would always be some top notch coach who'd say, okay, I'll come over and put some trophies on the shelf. And, we got a very good one.
But, while Roy was here he took us to that improbable 1991 championship game and to the sweet sixteen, the great eight and the final four more than once. They were good times. All good times, though, have to come to an end. One way or another, we all have to hang it up and move on. It's life. One hopes that he'll always hang on to those who are important in his life, but sometimes they say adieu or adios or goodbye, y'all.
No hard feelings, Roy. You're a good man.
Just sorry we had to kick your butt last night so bad. Well, even though I like you, I guess I'm not that sorry.
But, that's the way we do it, here in Jimbo's world.
Saturday, March 22, 2008
bush, happy as a clam
President George W. Bush and Treasury Secretary Henry M. Paulson, Jr., enjoy a chuckle together at Bush’s comment, “The economy is fixed, now, and we still have another half-hour scheduled. What else can we fix today?”
Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke (foreground) is slow to catch the rich irony and respond, much as he has been slow to recognize the threat of inflation to our overall economic stability. Moments later, after this photo was taken, Bernanke had a moment of recognition and laughed last and best (about the irony; not the inflationary threat).
Sunday, March 16, 2008
historic moments in NCAA basketball bracketology
Here we see an artist’s rendering of Captain Ahab at his moment of decision of which team to choose in some long-forgotten game involving an eight-seed versus a nine-seed in some NCAA Western regional of yore. The entire story, of course, is not depicted, however.
The legend goes that Ahab—in trying to make correct choice for this game in his NCAA basketball tournament brackets used the common tools that all men do. He recalled his rote knowledge of brief snippets of highlights of the teams playing he had seen on ESPN’s Sportscenter. He analyzed the coaches overall records, especially their NCAA tourney history. He compared RPI and strength of schedule. He also considered the overall strength of their respective conferences. He looked at the teams’ won/lost records, including their quality wins against ranked teams and their losses of games against inferior teams. He analyzed their schedules and looked for performances against common opponents.
Ahab factored in the previous performances in the NCAA tournament of the players on the teams, where applicable, and the players’ overall talent and experience. He also considered the “X” factors, such as whether the site of the game was close enough to the teams’ respective campuses that they would have a fan-base in attendance.
Finally, after two solid hours of research, he reached the conclusion he should have reached 120 minutes earlier and had his crew paint the names of the teams on either side of a whale. Then, as we can see depicted here, he stood in the prow of his whaling boat, blindfolded himself, and prepared to let the harpoon aid in his choice.
The legend goes that Ahab—in trying to make correct choice for this game in his NCAA basketball tournament brackets used the common tools that all men do. He recalled his rote knowledge of brief snippets of highlights of the teams playing he had seen on ESPN’s Sportscenter. He analyzed the coaches overall records, especially their NCAA tourney history. He compared RPI and strength of schedule. He also considered the overall strength of their respective conferences. He looked at the teams’ won/lost records, including their quality wins against ranked teams and their losses of games against inferior teams. He analyzed their schedules and looked for performances against common opponents.
Ahab factored in the previous performances in the NCAA tournament of the players on the teams, where applicable, and the players’ overall talent and experience. He also considered the “X” factors, such as whether the site of the game was close enough to the teams’ respective campuses that they would have a fan-base in attendance.
Finally, after two solid hours of research, he reached the conclusion he should have reached 120 minutes earlier and had his crew paint the names of the teams on either side of a whale. Then, as we can see depicted here, he stood in the prow of his whaling boat, blindfolded himself, and prepared to let the harpoon aid in his choice.
Saturday, March 01, 2008
a country for an old dude
Earlier this year we went and saw the movie No Country for Old Men. Jimbo’s girlfriend didn’t care for it. I thought it was one of the best movies I had ever seen. When it won four Oscars last Sunday night, it occurred to me that someone must have agreed with me.
I’m pretty sure that Jimbo’s girlfriend considered this just to be another shoot ‘em up movie with a lot of guys shooting at other guys and a lot of dead bodies lying about, and this is not the genre (if you’ll pardon my French) of movie that she enjoys. However this movie was telling Jimbo a story that was a lot more complicated than that.
Oscar winner Javier Bardem, a Spanish actor I had never seen before, plays a character named Anton Chigurh. His haircut looks like mine did twenty-five years ago. Chigurh is a reasonably emotionless killer who occasionally gives his prey a fifty-fifty shot at survival by means of a ceremonial coin toss. Chigurh walks through this movie, playing a grim-reaper-type, just as surely as the character Death in the movie The Seventh Seal.
Josh Brolin, playing a welder named Llewelyn Moss, wanders across a massacre, which was the aftermath of a drug deal gone bad. Among the carnage, he finds a survivor. Unable to get an answer from him as to who did all the killing, Moss finds a blood trail and follows it to the one more dead guy and a bag with 2 million bucks in it. Moss takes home the money and becomes the target of Chigurh, who is charged with recovering it.
Although Moss and Chigurh are relatively young men, the perspective of the story comes to us from Sheriff Ed Tom Bell, who is played by Tommy Lee Jones. Bell gives us a narrative of a world gone wild—a place and time that has passed by decent and normal people. Bell is nearing retirement and laments a time when life was measured and predictable. Hence, the “old men” reference in the title.
Chigurh is the symbol of an end that comes and gets all of us eventually. Some of us, like Llewelyn Moss, put up a struggle and deny the inevitability, as he shoots it out with the mop-topped grim reaper and they seriously wound each other.
By the way, Jimbo will never again suture a six-inch gash in his leg with a needle and thread without thinking of the scene in this movie where Chigurh does exactly that after being wounded in a shootout with Moss. Eventually Chigurh gets the upper hand and Moss is discovered dead on the floor of a motel room.
At the investigation of Mosses murder, Bell discusses with another local sheriff the decline of civilization. The sheriff describes to Bell another similar crime scene he has seen recently, and asks rhetorically how is it possible to prepare for that kind of violence?
In the next scene, Bell visits a relative, presumably an ex-lawman, and announces his plans to retire. They discuss a similar crime scene to the one he had discussed at Mosses murder site. The crime they discussed this time, however, had occurred one hundred years earlier.
Having the benefit of perspective of the proverbial old men in the movie, it occurred to me that it is not the times that are changing-- rather, it is our perspective of the times. We carry with us a remembrance of times past and times largely forgotten except by ourselves. We seem to be prone to lamentations of the way things used to be. I remember my father used to do that and I used to think that it was just because he was old.
Anyway, the movie had an extremely abrupt ending. Bell was sitting at the breakfast table telling his wife about two dreams he had. Then, boom, the movie was over. At the time, I thought it was the worst way to end a movie as I had ever seen. Having had a chance to mull it over, I think my initial thought was wrong.
I don’t dream much, but that night I had a dream. I don’t remember much about my dream, but I think I had a much clearer understanding.
Then I woke up.
And that is the way things happen in Jimbo’s world.
I’m pretty sure that Jimbo’s girlfriend considered this just to be another shoot ‘em up movie with a lot of guys shooting at other guys and a lot of dead bodies lying about, and this is not the genre (if you’ll pardon my French) of movie that she enjoys. However this movie was telling Jimbo a story that was a lot more complicated than that.
Oscar winner Javier Bardem, a Spanish actor I had never seen before, plays a character named Anton Chigurh. His haircut looks like mine did twenty-five years ago. Chigurh is a reasonably emotionless killer who occasionally gives his prey a fifty-fifty shot at survival by means of a ceremonial coin toss. Chigurh walks through this movie, playing a grim-reaper-type, just as surely as the character Death in the movie The Seventh Seal.
Josh Brolin, playing a welder named Llewelyn Moss, wanders across a massacre, which was the aftermath of a drug deal gone bad. Among the carnage, he finds a survivor. Unable to get an answer from him as to who did all the killing, Moss finds a blood trail and follows it to the one more dead guy and a bag with 2 million bucks in it. Moss takes home the money and becomes the target of Chigurh, who is charged with recovering it.
Although Moss and Chigurh are relatively young men, the perspective of the story comes to us from Sheriff Ed Tom Bell, who is played by Tommy Lee Jones. Bell gives us a narrative of a world gone wild—a place and time that has passed by decent and normal people. Bell is nearing retirement and laments a time when life was measured and predictable. Hence, the “old men” reference in the title.
Chigurh is the symbol of an end that comes and gets all of us eventually. Some of us, like Llewelyn Moss, put up a struggle and deny the inevitability, as he shoots it out with the mop-topped grim reaper and they seriously wound each other.
By the way, Jimbo will never again suture a six-inch gash in his leg with a needle and thread without thinking of the scene in this movie where Chigurh does exactly that after being wounded in a shootout with Moss. Eventually Chigurh gets the upper hand and Moss is discovered dead on the floor of a motel room.
At the investigation of Mosses murder, Bell discusses with another local sheriff the decline of civilization. The sheriff describes to Bell another similar crime scene he has seen recently, and asks rhetorically how is it possible to prepare for that kind of violence?
In the next scene, Bell visits a relative, presumably an ex-lawman, and announces his plans to retire. They discuss a similar crime scene to the one he had discussed at Mosses murder site. The crime they discussed this time, however, had occurred one hundred years earlier.
Having the benefit of perspective of the proverbial old men in the movie, it occurred to me that it is not the times that are changing-- rather, it is our perspective of the times. We carry with us a remembrance of times past and times largely forgotten except by ourselves. We seem to be prone to lamentations of the way things used to be. I remember my father used to do that and I used to think that it was just because he was old.
Anyway, the movie had an extremely abrupt ending. Bell was sitting at the breakfast table telling his wife about two dreams he had. Then, boom, the movie was over. At the time, I thought it was the worst way to end a movie as I had ever seen. Having had a chance to mull it over, I think my initial thought was wrong.
I don’t dream much, but that night I had a dream. I don’t remember much about my dream, but I think I had a much clearer understanding.
Then I woke up.
And that is the way things happen in Jimbo’s world.
Sunday, February 10, 2008
let's caucus again like we did last summer
We had the opportunity to attend the state caucus on super Tuesday, and saw our governmental process at work.
As one who enjoys a taste of sausage once in a while at Arthur Bryant's, Haywards and on my pizza, I'm told I would not want to witness sausage being made. As one who enjoys freedom and democracy and America, I think the same applies to witnessing the political process. It was ugly, disorganized and time consuming.
I figured it would be a win-win situation, because the two candidates were Clinton and Obama, and I have no problem with either. Unfortunately, at the caucus location where we were to vote, they were expecting thirty people. They assigned us by a consecutive number system and I was number 743, and one of the very last to pass through the verification process, so there were about 750 of us there, or twenty times what they expected. Because of that, one would have to expect that there would be some built-in chaos.
I was one of the last to be certified, even though we were there early. They divided us into four groups by alphabetical order of the first letter of our last name. Mine was the smallest group, so they processed everyone else first and held my group until last. I stood for over an hour on a long stairway, waiting, so I wasn't in the best of moods. When it came time to certify me, they couldn't find my name on the rolls, so I had to re-register. Since I am already a registered voter, and have been for almost forty years, now I am registered twice.
I was not the last person in line in my group, but because I had to do all of the re-registering crap, almost everyone in my group passed me up, leaving me to be almost the last person to be certified.
A brief aside: The people who were running the show divided us up into groups by alphabet, as I said earlier. As such, each group had a limited number of last initials. The people who were hearding us around would come up to our group and ask if there were anyone with initials that were not in our group.
The lady would ask, "Are there any 'Ts?' Anyone with the last initial 'T?'"
No, there were not.
Later she would come by and ask for any 'A' or 'B.'
There weren't.
Finally, I started catching her attention and pointing here the right direction. After a number of times of my pointing her to the correct letters, she started looking at me like I was some kind of genius. I can imagine that later, so went home and told someone about it.
"There was some guy there who knew everybody's name in the entire place. That guy must have been connected, but I didn't recognize him. Maybe he was just one on those savants."
Anyway, back to the subject.
When, at long last, it was time to stand up and be counted, they asked us all to sit down in the area where all the supporters of our candidate were, and not move around, so we would not be mis-counted, or duplicate counted, or missed entirely. After they came along and counted us, they gave a preliminary count. Then they asked for the undecideds to choose a candidate. I guess there were some people there who thought if they could remain uncommitted, they would be able to parlay their vote into some kind of power brokerage mechanism. Anyway, they did the recount and they announced the results and told us we could all go home.
Of the 750 or so votes cast, Obama got 710 of them and Clinton got 161. Sometimes the alphabet and math can be very difficult. Perhaps if we could alphabetize and add and subtract, we could elect competent leaders. Perhaps that is too much to hope for. Until then, I'll continue to vote and hope for the best. And, I'll probably continue to eat sausage.
At least, that's the view from Jimbo's world.
As one who enjoys a taste of sausage once in a while at Arthur Bryant's, Haywards and on my pizza, I'm told I would not want to witness sausage being made. As one who enjoys freedom and democracy and America, I think the same applies to witnessing the political process. It was ugly, disorganized and time consuming.
I figured it would be a win-win situation, because the two candidates were Clinton and Obama, and I have no problem with either. Unfortunately, at the caucus location where we were to vote, they were expecting thirty people. They assigned us by a consecutive number system and I was number 743, and one of the very last to pass through the verification process, so there were about 750 of us there, or twenty times what they expected. Because of that, one would have to expect that there would be some built-in chaos.
I was one of the last to be certified, even though we were there early. They divided us into four groups by alphabetical order of the first letter of our last name. Mine was the smallest group, so they processed everyone else first and held my group until last. I stood for over an hour on a long stairway, waiting, so I wasn't in the best of moods. When it came time to certify me, they couldn't find my name on the rolls, so I had to re-register. Since I am already a registered voter, and have been for almost forty years, now I am registered twice.
I was not the last person in line in my group, but because I had to do all of the re-registering crap, almost everyone in my group passed me up, leaving me to be almost the last person to be certified.
A brief aside: The people who were running the show divided us up into groups by alphabet, as I said earlier. As such, each group had a limited number of last initials. The people who were hearding us around would come up to our group and ask if there were anyone with initials that were not in our group.
The lady would ask, "Are there any 'Ts?' Anyone with the last initial 'T?'"
No, there were not.
Later she would come by and ask for any 'A' or 'B.'
There weren't.
Finally, I started catching her attention and pointing here the right direction. After a number of times of my pointing her to the correct letters, she started looking at me like I was some kind of genius. I can imagine that later, so went home and told someone about it.
"There was some guy there who knew everybody's name in the entire place. That guy must have been connected, but I didn't recognize him. Maybe he was just one on those savants."
Anyway, back to the subject.
When, at long last, it was time to stand up and be counted, they asked us all to sit down in the area where all the supporters of our candidate were, and not move around, so we would not be mis-counted, or duplicate counted, or missed entirely. After they came along and counted us, they gave a preliminary count. Then they asked for the undecideds to choose a candidate. I guess there were some people there who thought if they could remain uncommitted, they would be able to parlay their vote into some kind of power brokerage mechanism. Anyway, they did the recount and they announced the results and told us we could all go home.
Of the 750 or so votes cast, Obama got 710 of them and Clinton got 161. Sometimes the alphabet and math can be very difficult. Perhaps if we could alphabetize and add and subtract, we could elect competent leaders. Perhaps that is too much to hope for. Until then, I'll continue to vote and hope for the best. And, I'll probably continue to eat sausage.
At least, that's the view from Jimbo's world.
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