Playing Fair and Being Kind

SOME BENEFITS OF LIVING LONG

Or: Dealing With the Fuckery of Life

A thought that has come to me this morning, but remains untested, is that my life has been long; so long that I have come to recognize the innocence of mistakes, rude behavior, angry response, ignorance, stupidity, impoliteness, meanness, violence, and general fucked-up-ness. In recent years my associations have provided many opportunities to see my own and the behavior of others. I have concluded that 1. we are a confused and stupid species and 2. we are innocent to many degrees of any forethought and intention.

I have benefited from this thought primarily in that it excuses a lot of those behaviors of mine that I have been unable to understand or accept. Things like this don’t come quickly for me. I need to mull and reflect for days and days and days. The days are never sequential. A few days here, a few days there. You know what I mean I think. The upshot being that I not only gain the understanding of my self but of those who have exhibited similar tendencies. I think this process is the beginning and end of empathy. I understand empathy to be the ability to comprehend what and why a person feels and behaves a specific way. Empathy does not mean to comprehend and join in the behavior/feeling. It simply gives us the ability to understand.

How I came to this thought was my watching a series of seasons and episodes of “Angel”, the spin-off of “Buffy The Vampire Slayer”. There are five seasons and I’m watching the fourth. The story line and the characters have become insufferable. Too much drama and the story lines are over the top confusing. The word that popped into my head during the last viewing was “Fuckery”. I looked up the word to make sure it was precise enough for what I was feeling toward the story line and the characters.

“Fuckery. Irritation and confusion of a situation. Total bullshit. Something so ridiculous you can’t even deal.” Bingo!

What followed is my normal mulling and reflecting. I concluded that the characters are very real and that even though the story line compresses more realistic events it still mimics fairly well the truth. Truth meaning what I have observed and garnered for nearly seven decades. This process fits what I have been leaning toward for awhile. I am trying to understand, empathize, comprehend, incorporate a feeling of forgiveness for the human species. I have trouble with that last word, forgiveness. My resentments and anger toward life don’t open me wide enough to harbor forgiveness. I can empathize faster and that is good enough for me at the moment. I empathize with the characters of “Angel” the t.v. series. I empathize with the assholes who post stupid comments on Facebook. (Is this too big of a jump?) They are humans behaving in a fashion that illustrates their experiences and conditioning. I empathize but I do not agree with them nor do I feel I need to tolerate them. The point being that I understand what it is I am looking at and I am not destroyed by it.

There, that’s about it. I could probably go into great detail with examples but I’m not going to flog an expired equine here.

This is Family Weekend at Wake Forest University. My granddaughter Hannah is a freshman there and she plays clarinet in the school band. Family Weekend could be a rough few days if she doesn’t have some family member to show up. Since her primary family is in San Diego and has no convenient way to travel or spend time with Hannah this weekend my son Sam and I are going to make the trip from Maine to Winston-Salem, North Carolina. We will provide the “family” part of the weekend for Hannah.

For the past few days Sam and Hannah and I have been in communication regarding the plan for the weekend. Hannah asked us what the plan will be and like the wonderful uncle he is he responded, “Kick ass”. I could never have come up with such a great plan. Succinct and fully understandable.

Winston-Salem. I haven’t been there since 1960. I won’t recognize a thing. I’m certain of that. I’ve been to North Carolina multiple times but not to Winston-Salem. If I can see the soil I know it will be red. I remember that well. I was in the Navy stationed at Dam Neck, Virginia during that period. One of my buddies lived in Winston-Salem and asked three of us to go with him to visit his folks over a long weekend. We accepted and thus began an overnight drive to Winston-Salem from Dam Neck. The road took us west and south along the border between the two states.

Somewhere along that highway is a small town that is know for its speed trap. That whole area is known for the speed traps actually. We were driving two lane blacktop roads the whole way. We weren’t in any rush but we were moving quickly just the same. Perhaps I am being too loose with the phrase ‘speed trap’. What truly happened was we were stopped by a local police officer at two o’clock in the morning for taking a right hand turn in the middle of town at nearly sixty miles per hour. We actually made that turn at less than twenty miles per hour. After we were stopped and he saw four young sailors in the car he decided we needed to follow him to the justice of the peace’ home to be judged and fined. We were flabbergasted. How unreal was this?

We tailed along with the cop to the JP’s house and he woke her up and court was held in her living room. She found us guilty and charged us twelve dollars and fifty cents because that is all we could scrape up between us. Lucky us.

This happened in 1960. About twenty one years later a similar thing happened to me in the same part of the country. I was driving a camper van with my girlfriend. We left Boston headed for San Diego. Our itinerary took us through Dam Neck of all places. During the leg from Dam Neck toward the south and west I mentioned to her the story I just told you above. We were careful to not be conspicuous. Sure. A dressed out Dodge van with California plates stood out like a sore thumb. We were stopped in a small town for driving a vehicle with a radar detector. Radar detectors used in private vehicles are illegal in some states still. The detector was inoperable but that didn’t deter the police officer. He told me to turn it on. I twisted the power knob and the machine made a beep noise. That convinced him that I was lying and he said to follow him to the court house. Sound familiar? We were fined thirty dollars on the spot, no questions asked. By now I felt like an old hand at this procedure. I was happy to fork it over and get back on the road.

So tonight I leave Boothbay, Maine for Winston-Salem, North Carolina. I do not expect to have anything like this happen but you never know and if it does, so what? It brings me back to what I started this post with. I’ll be dealing with the fuckery of life.

I hope your day is as beautiful as it is here in Boothbay Harbor. I sit at the Red Cup Coffeehouse and gaze at the harbor all socked in with fog. The day is cool but comfortable. I need to go home to pack and rest for an overnight drive. I plan on getting through New York City during the wee hours and onto the Jersey turnpike some time after midnight. Maybe I’ll not take the turnpike but go down the Garden State Parkway and through Pennsylvania to catch Interstate 81 south. Yeah. That’s it. Peace out.