TheCloudWalker's blog: "TheCloudWalker's Thoughts"

Good morning y’all. Y’know, I took a ride to Jerome, Arizona a while back and did a little bit of people watching. Now, for those of you that don’t know, Jerome is up in the mountains a few miles south of Flagstaff at the 5,000-foot level. To get there you take route 89A, 158 curves in, about, 12 miles. Awesome! It’s one of those artsy-fartsy “ghost-hamlets” where anyone that can put two beads together can open up a jewelry shop. It is a fun place to visit though, an old mining town with, mostly, original buildings. Anyway, I watched all the tourists, bikers and the locals. What really surprised is about half of them had cell phones up and running… even while touring the old town area… on the back of motorcycles through the curves! Driving their SUV’s through the switchbacks! A lot of them had those little electronic doohickeys stuffed in their ears, looks like something out of Star Wars. What the hell… I have tried many times to figure out this obsession of being on the phone to somebody to no avail… until last Saturday. I think I have figured it out, it’s not an obsession; it’s an addiction figured out and developed by Nokia, and all the rest of those cell phone makers. Dateline October 1986. An electronics/radio genius was playing around with the different radio waves in an attempt to determine how many different frequencies were available for a new invention his company was working on, (the battery operated, portable phone). When he reached a certain group of frequencies he looked up and noticed that a few of his associates were staring into space, their eyes were glazed over and they had familiar, contented looks on their faces. What was that look? It appeared very similar to sexual gratification, a euphoric trance. But what caused it? He shut down his frequency modulator and, immediately they snapped out of it, curious, he turned it back on and they returned to their semi-hypnotic state. After reporting this to his bosses a study was made and it was determined that the given certain parts of the brain, (the part that sends out “we are satisfied” signals to the psyche), is affected by certain radio frequencies and gives many people a false sense of gratification to the point that it could be addictive. Scientists warned of dangerous consequences if these particular frequencies were ever to be used in this new fangled invention of theirs… and then they left the room. The corporate directors cheered and hollered, “We’ve got it!” They knew what they had to do, put the phones on the market and make them affordable then… charge by the minute. Better yet, offer some free minutes and the charge an outrageous amount when the customers went over the limit. “We’ll be rich!” They yelled, “The fools will never be able to hang up!” And… they were right! Well, that’s my story and I’m sticking to it!

I’ve always been amazed of how, as a society, we have a tendency to idolize the dead. The minute someone dies, especially if they are a celebrity of any kind, their approval rating jumps to 95%, even if they don’t deserve it; and, quite often they do not, especially considering that some of that celebrity may be gained from infamy. What is more surprising is that, if they are suicidal or, at the very best, this person lived a life that was on a path of self-destruction, (i.e., Janice Joplin, Jim Morrison, Jimi Hendrix or Kurt Cobain); we take it a step farther; we canonize them! I don’t get it! I mean, our heroes, our life’s inspiration are people that couldn’t handle life? Even worse are the maniacal killers that stalk the innocent, murder in mass for some self-serving reason; some silliness they call justice, and then take their own lives. There are probably too many to count so I’ll just bring up Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold of Columbine High School and, more recently, Cho Seung-Hui; as sick and sad as it sounds, there are people that idolize them also! And will honor them as some sort of martyrs. Here again, someone that couldn’t handle life but rather than just commit suicide, they had to take the innocent with them. It’s enough to white wash the history of a so-so politician and make them something they’re not, but, to worship some one whose life was a bad example? It’s a sad society that can’t seem to find a true hero in our history; and this isn’t just Americans; Europeans, Arab, Asian and so on, and so on…everybody does it, and it will be a sad epitaph of our existence for our grandchildren to read… if any live long enough to read. I think, what I am trying to say… what really concerns me is, what sort of message does this action send to our children? As an impressionable youth, how would I look at this? How would you look at this? “Little girl, your life is of no consequence unless I find you dead with a bottle of whiskey in one hand and heroin tracks on your arm!” “Son, if you can’t take it… take a bunch with you and you’ll be a star on CNN.” I don’t get it!

The Fall of an Empire… By Toilet Paper? Sometimes I look around me and I’m amazed, and saddened, by things I see. I know, I’m not the first one to broach this subject, and I’m sure I won’t be the last. What I see is a soaring divorce rate, children being given away, the elderly are abandoned… and the list goes on. You don’t have to look to the murder statistics to see that our society has lost respect for the human life. Now, most of you that have read my articles before know that I usually don’t choose such a dire subject but I am going to look at this through my own glasses. Decades ago, when the United States was at it’s best, (before apathy set in), and was most admired by the rest of the world, everything had value. Very little was wasted at that time, we either used it again or found another use for it. I can’t think of too many things that were tossed out after their original use was used up… (Well, except for masticated food maybe, but we won’t go there.) Have I lost you yet? Okay, I’ll try to explain it all… well, most of it anyway. I can remember milk bottles, the ones delivered right to your doorstep. Mm, that was so good then, it was colder that way. (I slipped from the subject there, sorry.) When you emptied the bottle, you rinsed it out and set it out, with the others, and the milkman picked it up, during the next delivery, and guess what? They cleaned it out and used it again! Even the little holder the bottles were delivered in were used and reused. Shoot, before that they had milk cans, I think they were two gallon cans with the lid chained to them… used again and again, no waste that way. What else? Ah, soda bottles, of course. When I was a kid I can remember walking down to “Charlie’s” store, (we didn’t have “Circle K’s or 7-11’s pretty much everything was mom-and-pop), and I would get a Pepsi for 10 cents plus a 2 cent deposit. (All right, no age comments here!) When I accumulated several bottles I could take to Charlie’s and cash them in… and buy something else, and the bottles were used again. Everything had value, a primary value and a secondary value. We were, sort of, trained not to waste, to be ingenious enough to find a use for things, old and new. I guess we were like pack rats in a way. Old clothing, for instance, if your old shirt wasn’t passed down to a younger sibling, it was cut into strips and woven into such things as a throw rug, a blanket or whatever you wanted to make. Old coffee cans were turned into storage cans in the garage, shoe boxes were loaded with old papers or pictures and taped up and stored away. We kept old bikes to fix up not-so-old bikes; old lawn mowers were sharpened and used longer, (we pushed these babies.) We hung on to things; everything had a value of some sort. Then… one day it happened… a new term was introduced and the world, as we knew it, changed; but was it for the better? Oh, the term? “It’s disposable”. Or, just toss it away, any way you want to say it; we turned into a disposable world of cheap, plastic, throwaway containers. If it wasn’t plastic, it was some form of cardboard, and you could throw it away. Soon we had disposable diapers, disposable drink containers, paper bags, plastic bags, medical instruments (use’m once and throw’m away), throwaway clothing for crying out loud! Then there was disposable underwear, edible und… uhm; we’ll talk about that another time. So there it was, everything was cheap and disposable. Add to that, the whiz-thru junk food, (back to the edibles, wink, wink), then bundle it all together and bingo; a society that had no need for keepers So I guess it shouldn’t be a surprise that we’ve become a disposable society. Get tired of it? Throw it out! Don’t want be bothered by petty (family) problems? Toss’m aside and move on. Old lady, or old man, looks worn out? Trash him, or her, and get a new one. Why not? After all, it’s what commercialism and corporate America has been pounding in our heads for nigh-on 40 years now. You know where this all started don’t you? Toilet paper! Yup, the first thing that was used once and thrown away. Before that we used that old Sear’s catalog… one last time. Sigh. I miss my Radio Flyer Red Wagon, although the only original part was the uh… it was the rear… well, something was original.

Speaking for a large portion of the population here, at least the ones I know, it’s almost impossible to live within your means. Every time you get a yearly raise in pay, and feel good about it, it takes about three months for commerce to catch up and pass you once again. It’s almost ridiculous. It has occurred to me to give up the ghost and go on welfare or something. Of course, I could start using the hospital emergency rooms for every minor ache and pain, then not pay the bill, that should save some money. But I digress. The real problem is the bills you just can’t pay off. There’s insurance, utility bills, food and all the other monthlies that never go away; they just get bigger and bigger. It’s like buying a puppy that grows into a 200-pound creature with a 400-pound appetite and it looks as thought it will outlive you! I got home the other day and my wife told me that she had to use the credit for her doctor’s visit that day, I said, “Why? It was only a twenty dollar co-pay.” “Forty dollars, the co-pay went up. Not only that but the insurance premium went up ten percent.” “Well,” I sighed. “That’s not so bad…is it?” “Don’t forget,” she went on. “Our granddaughter, Brea, moved in with us so our food and clothing bills have jumped dramatically. To make things worse the power company got a 20% hike, the car insurance went through the roof, the HOA…” “STOP! STOP! You’re giving me a headache!” “I hate to tell this my darling husband,” I knew I was in trouble right there. “But you just may have to work over-time, take a second job and we may have to refinance the house just to pay the bills.” I said "Whaaaat?" She said "Ooo-ooo-ooo-wee" (Where in the hell did that come from? Alan O’Day I would say.) I said, “We just refinanced 3 months ago?” Anyway, where did I go wrong? When my aunts and uncles reached my age they were set. They all owned property in some rural community in Oklahoma or someplace like that, and were ready to retire to a comfy life. I don’t get it. I suppose retiring at 66 is out of the question. Not that that matters, I don’t think I could retire that early anyhow... I’d go crazy. But I sure as hell didn’t expect to be working three jobs until I was 90! Do you think Wal-Mart would mind if I just lived in one of their tents? “Good afternoon, welcome to Wal-Mart.”

I’ve never been much of a winter person. The dark days of December and January always seem a little unnerving to me. Maybe the bears have the right idea… hibernation; but, alas, the human animal has its duties; eating, survival and saving the world…from the human animal. So, daily, I trudge, half awake, to do my part; but, there are times, in the early, pre-dawn morning, I feel a chill that is colder than the night… and I wonder what it is that is waiting for me in the darkness beyond the edge of light.