The other day I posted the 1950s cautionary film for teens, Boys Beware, put out by the Inglewood CA school district. In it teen boys are advised on how to avoid catching the gay virus from older men (apparently it’s communicable by talking, as with a cold) & otherwise ruining their innocence. A quick browse on YouTube led me to the companion film, Girls Beware. I watched it as a lark, desperately hoping it would involve apple-cheeked home-ec students in poodle skirts being stalked by dyke babes sporting James Dean haircuts they’d given themselves with their square moms’ kitchen shears, but it went in another direction.
Each film tells the stories of 4 teens. 1 gets killed, 1 escapes after using common sense, 1 ends up getting under the stern thumb of the cops & their parents, & 1 boy story has a boy getting rescued by the cops, while 1 girl story has a girl also getting rescued, but after she’s raped as a result of her silly ways. Both films are aimed at mid-teens who by their nature tend to overestimate their own sophistication. Kids at these ages are grabbing at every possible opportunity for independent action with the non-discriminating snap of a dog being tossed chicken scraps. The filmmakers do their level best to nurture any doubts these kids might have about their own decision making abilities.
I’m appalled at the barely concealed messages about the roles of boys & girls. The lessons here are awful. Let me skip over the anti-gay slant for a minute here. The sexist slant makes me crazy.
The boys in the film are presented as sensible, good natured, naturally friendly, & above all – innocent. Even Mike, who is killed, (“later that night, he traded his life for a newspaper headline!”) was just getting a ride home from a stranger who’d played a little ball with him…I mean a little pick up on the court. Gosh, there’s no way to write that that’s not a pun, is there? He was offered a ride home, he took it. Is Mike’s judgment criticized? No! “The stranger’s friendliness dispelled any misgivings he might have had.” In other words, Mike did his best but it wasn’t enoubh to avert the finger of fate. Denny, hardworking young paper boy, also got into a stranger’s car, but he thought he was helping to catch a couple of bike thieves.
But don’t get the idea that getting into a stranger’s car is wrong! Jimmy is tired from baseball practice so hitches a ride home. The narrator, who identifies himself as a cop assigned to the juvenile squad, says hitchhiking is common & fun, everyone does it. There is a brief shot of a small town street with about 6 boys lined up, all hitching for a ride. A car stops for Jimmy, a car driven by a friendly older man. The film spends 5 of its 10 minutes on what could only be described as the courtship of Jimmy. After a few encounters, they are spending Saturdays fishing together, & going to putt putt golf; “Ralph took him many interesting places.” The striking thing here is I can’t imagine a 1950s girl being able to spend her Saturdays & afternoons away without the family asking where she is & who she is with. And really, all gayness aside, wouldn’t YOUR radar go off if a total stranger insisted on spending hours a week with you & showering you with gifts & money? Jimmy, lacking the native cunning of any comparable female or with even the sense of self-preservation god gave a squirrel, just doesn’t get it until it’s “too late”. The language gets vague here at about this point. All we hear is that Ralph expects things in return for his good treatment & we see them heading up outside stairs that lead to what looks like the 2nd floor of a motel. Or maybe Ralph has a bachelor apt. Anyway, Jimmy eventually tell his parents, Ralph is arrested, & Jimmy is released to his parents on probation. I don’t get that last part. I thought Jimmy was the victim. Unless the point is that if you let things go too far, you’ll be shamed & outed.
Girls Beware is a different book from the same library. Judy baby sits for a stranger & is found dead a week later. “Judy hadn’t done anything wrong but she was careless.” This is confusing, because being careless is doing something wrong because you’re just not thinking. Barbara, also babysitting, tells a knocking stranger to take his “my car broke down” woes next door then goes smugly back to her homework on the sofa. Sally & Elizabeth get hit on by 2 older guys at the movies, who offer them rides home. Sally is all for it but Elizabeth “decided it wouldn’t be right.” Sally, a petite blonde who looks like a child next to the 2 hulking guys, asks Elizabeth to lie, asking her to call her parents & say they’ll ride home with a friend’s parents. After the show, the boys reiterate their offer of a ride. Sally is single-minded & asks Elizabeth to call her parents with a different lie, that Elizabeth’s parents have taken her home. Later that night, Sally is found wandering near Lookout peak. “It is a night they’ll long remember. In fact, Sally may never be able to forget it.” The language is vague enough to create an unfocused fear in the sheltered kids that made up the 1950s audience, while more worldly viewers understand she was raped. Mary is flattered by the attention of a maladjusted loser who passes his time working at the malt shop because he can’t fit in with his own age group. He becomes more & more demanding. “Mary knew things were getting out of hand” but she doesn’t want to lose the guy or the prestige among her friends of having an older boyfriend. Soon she’s “in trouble” & has to go to her parents. She is removed from school & placed under the supervision of juvenile authorities, which is code for knocked up, no abortion, farmed out to a home till the kid is adopted out.
Look at the differences here. All the boys, dead or alive, were just being friendly, like Jimmy, or helpful, like Denny. Sally & Mary also become prey, but there is a strong suggestion they brought it on themselves. Mary gives in not only to the groping hands of what’s-his-name but also to the demands of her own ego. She likes having her friends see that she has an older boyfriend. Sally, too, enjoyed the movie intermission when all the other kids saw her with the 2 older guys. And Sally was easy. Jimmy had to be courted for weeks & plied with goodies & outings & then he didn’t want to hurt Ralph’s feelings as he had become fond of him; Sally is satisfied with an intermission snack & hour’s worth of flattering. She was eager to go out with the boys, willing to lie for it. Sally & Mary are impetuous creatures, they both fall into trouble because they want sex, popularity, excitement. Their film ends with a warning that kids who try to grow up too fast get into trouble. The boys, who are after all teens & are probably sporting erections 20 hours a day, are shown in a clean & sweet light, & their troubles come from being just normally friendly & decent. How can you fault that? Their film ends with a caution that they should not go off with an adult unless a parent or teacher says it’s ok.
The Victorians had a conflicting view of women: they were considered nearly ethereal, closer to heaven & fuller of pure impulses than men. As such, they were responsible for the making heaven at home, a place of shelter for the husband, a godly & peaceful home for the children. At the same time, women were viewed as beings just barely in control of their lust, greed, jealousy, & general harridan qualities. They needed the firm, wise hand of guidance as provided by husbands & fathers. Sally & Mary are inheritors of these attitudes. The films also say a lot about the freedom of girls versus boys. Sally has to lie to get a ride home, while Jimmy gets to spend his afternoons & weekends with Ralph & never is there the faintest suggestion that he’s covered his actions with a lie. From which we can infer his parents aren’t asking how he’s spending his time, since they’d surely freak out at his new friendship with old Ralph & all the gifts & such. Granted, Jimmy probably does have to report back promptly at night but you see my point.
It’s pretty much impossible for me to know what the takeaway would have been for kids back then. Their lives were so different. The message I hear is that gay men are killers. The message in the girl film puzzles me.
Posted by familyal on Nov 17, 2009 in 1950s, politics
I’ve got a couple of great vids today. First is a little film made sometime in the 1950s by the Inglewood Unified School District of Inglewood, CA. It’s 10 great miinutes of cleancut high school boys being hunted & killed by those deadly foes, older gay guys. As the film cautions us…
“One never knows when the homosexual is about. He may appear normal. And it may be too late when you discover he is mentally ill.”
I am particularly taken with the breezy music, reminiscent of a Doris Day film in which she’s picking flowers in her yard on a sunny day, or arranging her hats. The Inglewood District also put out a film for girls, & I was extremely eager to see how they’d handle the threat of horny women who tend who are overly fond of pants & severe blouses, but again, the villians were men. More on that in another post. I’m probably already past the attention span of today’s readers.
And for your more current viewing pleasure I have Steven Colbert verbally skinning yet another annoying politician, this one voting against a bill that would let gay people deal with the bodies of their partners after one of them dies.
We REALLY need to have civil unions be something other than religious unions. It is archaic that these things remain the same on the books & in people’s minds.
Posted by familyal on Nov 13, 2009 in WWII, politics
My morning reading on Veteran’s Day included more than a few comments on facebook about the bravery of our troops & how they are preserving our freedoms, & oh, thank you, thank you, you wonderful men in uniform. Warm, fuzzy declarations of agape love stirred haphazardly together with hero worship do feel delightful. Such syrupy sentiments sound wonderful & their formulaic style makes them easy & fast to dash off. But I would suggest they display a distinct lack of critical thinking.
I’m sorry to tell you this Virginia but your government will lie to you. Don’t give out your trust with the indiscriminate enthusiasm of a 10-month-old Labrador retriever. War is utterly stupid. Humans make such a big thing of their fat brains; they are the only species with writing, the only ones with consciousness. And what do we do with it? Make weapons. Wow. I am convinced that if some alien race came to visit earth, they’d look around & say, “Good grief Zontor! Look at these strange hairless creatures. They are the worst virus we’ve ever seen! They kill each other, then go home & try to breed more! And they’ve nearly destroyed the planet. This is the most horrific genetic abnormality we’ve seen since Vagbar 12. Good thing we got here in time to eradicate them so the peaceful, non-humanoid beings can continue on. Perhaps, one day, conscious life will evolve here.”
After the bombs were dropped in Japan in WWII, films were made & pictures were taken. And then our caring govt did what it so often does with information – it hid it away for decades. It’s fine for comic books to have brave soldiers displaying a restrained, manly satisfaction after ackack-ing another nest of nips, but letting adult Americans see families, kids, old people, dying of radiation, showing them the utter destruction – can’t have that! People might actually start to protest war.You can see some of these films atGreg Mitchell’s blog.
You should know what you are so thankful for. You should see what war does. And you should put some hard, hard thinking into why you think this is worthwhile, & also you should ask the question, what freedoms is it that our wars are protecting? Is cheap crap from China really worth it? How about being limited to 3 oz of fluid when you go thru the airport? Do you enjoy it when your kid’s school grovels for money every week in the newsletter, while the Iraq war costs billions a month? Did you know that our govt won’t buy the best armor for soldiers over there? They made a deal with a company that makes low quality armor. And if a family saves up & buys the best armor & send it to their brother/son, & the guy gets injured, the army won’t pay benefits because he’s not wearing the govt issued armor. Even tho that’s what people get killed in. Does this make sense? “Freedom” isn’t the right word. We pay for it. In compromised schools, in deals with automakers & oil companies. CEOs of drug companies live in mansions that we pay for.
Be a critical consumer. In all things. Do you need it. Is it worth it. And what is the truth.
I found a great blog yesterday. One I’ll actually read, because lordy, there are a LOT of blogs out there & I can spare only so many brain cells. It’s called Free Range Kids & you can see it by clicking here. The author is a professional writer – the lucky duck – & she started her blog after getting rather a lot of attention for the subway incident. You see, she let her 9 year old boy ride the subway alone in New York. Then she wrote about it. Need I say that she got some criticisms. Let me mention here that her child is raised in New York & rode the subways all the time with his parents. In the wake of the unexpected furor, she started up her blog to discuss the generally overprotective trend we’re seeing in child raising today.
They built their own clubhouse! This makes Reid nuts.
I had this in mind yesterday as Reid & his no-school-on-veteran’s-day play-date companion careened around the living room, piling up throw rugs, slapping discordant tones out of the piano, shrieking. “Why don’t you go up to the park?” I suggested. “Yeah! Let’s do that!” Reid shouted. “When will you be ready, mom?” “I looked down at the seam I was ironing, part of a sewing project I’ve been hoping to finish sometime in this century. “Just go on without me. I’ll come up in a few minutes.” The other boy made an amazed face & announced he’d never gone anywhere by himself. I stood there thinking about his age, 9. And about his sometimes out of control behavior. And Reid’s familiarity with the neighborhood & his good sense. And what I was doing when I was 9. I put my hand on the other child’s shoulder & described the walk, instructed them both to behave & cross the streets carefully, & sent them off.
The park I speak of is 3 blocks from our house. You walk up the hill, thru a residential neighborhood, & the road dead ends. There is a long set of stairs winding up the hill & at the top is a very sweet little park with a long slide, a bit of a climbing thing, & a tiny pocket of woods on a steep hill. I first let Reid go there by himself this summer. It kind of caught me off guard. He came running in one day & said the kids up the street were going & could he go too? It left me kind of breathy. His first time out without me! Aww… But it’s a safe enough thing. No major traffic at all.
Lenore Skenazy asks in her free range blog, if you don’t let your kids roam, why not? I’ve spent some interesting moments since then asking myself that. Hmm…I think part of it is that I am somewhat haunted for extremely vivid & graphic imaginings of things going wrong. Also, I can’t see this environment thru a kid’s eyes in my own memories. I grew up in the country. I can’t think what there is to do in a house-thick neighborhood. And a big part of it is that I can’t think what Reid would do to pass the time out there. Sure, he asks to hang out on the sidewalk, & I let him. He slaps at the bamboo with a stick, sometimes he looks at bugs or whittles. But there is no kid gang, there is no empty lot. It’s just house, house, house. All nice yards. No roaming dogs. What is there? A sidewalk. Yippy.
I read to Reid a lot & I have a nostalgic fondness for the world that was gone even when I was a kid as seen in The Moffats, & The Great Brain. In one Moffat story, the 6-year-old Rufus spends most of the day going back & forth to the library in quest of his own library card. This takes him several blocks from home on his scooter, barefoot. In another story, Mama has to go to NY for the day, so she stops by school & tell them to tell Rufus & Jane that they should get their own lunch, which sits heating on a coal stove. Jane is excited in one story when it’s her job to clean & fill the oil lamps. Can you imagine? Leaving kids alone in a house with a stove with a fire? With the house lit with oil lamps? A 6-year-old on his own for hours, across town, barefoot?
A hill, trees, a pond. Right out back?
I can’t imagine. That’s the problem. I would love to let Reid be more free-range, but it’s hard to say when that would happen. Reid has been reading Little Lulu reprints lately. He wants a treehouse. He wants a clubhouse. He laments that there aren’t more kids around. Actually there are kids on our block, 5 in his age range. But like most kids today, they’re all booked up. And when they aren’t doing math club or scouts or swimming, they’re inside watching tv or playing video games. There don’t seem to be any kid gangs anymore of the kind in Little Lulu. This nostalgia can also be seen in the works of Bill Watterson. His Calvin & Hobbes live in a house on a street of houses, with Suzy just down the block, much like our neighborhood. But Calvin’s house apparently adjoins a state park, or that’s my best guess on the frequent wanderings of Calvin & Hobbes into the uninhabited & fertile woods. Calvin’s mom deals with his childish nagging by tossing him outside. While I can certainly identify with her frazzled nerves, the only thing behind our house is the the cranky old man neighbor & his ineptly disciplined hedges.
I’m so often conflicted & frustrated by the over-protection of today’s kids. I want Reid to be safe, but I also want to let him find his own way in the world, I want him to test what I’ve taught him so he can understand why it makes sense, I want him to learn to trust his instincts. He needs to learn to be alert to his world instead of always depending on me. I mean, he should see when a car is coming, or it’s raining outside, I shouldn’t be the one to say every time, watch out, or take an umbrella. But it has become so difficult. Things have gotten really messed up when teaching your child to use their judgment opens you up to criticisms of bad parenting, when good parenting is partially defined as keeping your child under your wing at all times. We’re going to have to come back to some reasonable sense of balance.
By the way…I did wander up the hill yesterday after about 15 minutes. Both boys were absolutely fine. they made it there without getting squished or vandalizing anything, & they hadn’t been captured by insane, homicidal homeless hobos camping in the woods.
I am just back from 9-year-old son’s yearly physical. And I am displeased. Displeased! GAH!!! Hey! Here’s an idea for how to overhaul the medical system. How about we get to pay what we think it’s worth?
We go to Group Health in Seattle. I suppose it was a radical & wonderful thing when it started but I fear they have become mired in bureaucracy. “They’ve become a machine,” my husband says.
Got there & some woman (she may have been an assistant, she may have been a nurse. I never found out, since she never saw fit to tell me) came out & called Reid to come down the hall, go into a room, & take his shoes off. While she went thru the weight height list I kept waiting for her to introduce herself or MAKE EYE CONTACT, for god’s sake but apparently common courtesies & basic manners aren’t covered in our plan.
She said Reid’s right eye wasn’t seeing well & that I would want to make an appt with optometry. “He saw someone last week,” I said. “Isn’t that on the computer? I thought that was one advantage of being in the same system.” No response. Eventually we saw the doctor. He was nice enough. But what a cursory exam.
I’m thinking about how our understanding of how our bodies & minds work is expanding constantly. And one thing we’ve figured out is that there are MANY factors to health: what we eat, how much we eat, the quality of the air we breath, our daily stress level, how much we exercise, drugs or medicines we take, allergens around us, & that’s just a bit of the list. This would have been an ideal time to ask me about what I feed my child, & does he exercise, is he sleeping well & how much does he sleep, how much tv does he watch? But these things were not discussed. Does he eat a lot of sugar? Didn’t come up. Reid splits his time between my house & his dad’s house, which is surely a factor, but they don’t know about it because they didn’t ask the most basic questions about his living situation. And they made him undress & put on one of those lame robes, which by the way was an adult size so he couldn’t even tie it on reasonably. I expected the doctor to have him stand up & turn around so his skin & posture could be observed. I think this is quite reasonable. What if I’m practicing my tattooing on Reid? What if I’m abusing him by burning little patterns into his skin with match heads? If I were that kind of parent I would surely have threatened him not to mention anything. Or what if he has some kind of weird blot that is skin cancer only I’m too clueless to ask about it?
I don’t expect them to run a cat scan or bloodwork on a child that is to all appearances bright, alert, & healthy. But a few words on what’s currently considered a healthy diet, a quick glance with trained eyes at the skin & posture of a child…these things don’t require any flavor of test, any kind of special equipment, except, of course, an active mind & some semblance of professional interest.
We left with our little sheet of paper placing Reid in his percentiles. As if I care. His next visit is recommended in 3 years. The American Academy of Pediatrics recommends every 2 years at this age, but I suppose that isn’t covered on our plan.
THAT’S my boy. Joy on his face, his grim reaper staff in his hand, striding past the funeral home. Ah, to be young.
———————–
———————–
———————–
———————–
Today I want you to see the food pyramid from Dr. Weil’s site – click HERE. It’s interactive on his site. Red meat 2 times a week is something I know I wasn’t raised with. We now know that much of the original govt issued food pyramid was written by agribusiness. No one needs meat every day. A recent study finds (no surprise) that high fat diets make people feel mentally dull. Today & the next few days, think about what you’re eating & look at how you might could make some better choices.
And click HERE for a amazon.com for your fall Moon Pie needs. And I don’t use that ‘need’ word lightly.
Lately I’ve been doing some volunteering at my son’s school. Every Tuesday I take a group of 7 4th graders out to “find urban nature.” It’s interesting in its own way. However, I always come home feeling like I’ve conveyed very little. An hour out of the school day & they spend 1/4 of it getting to the lunchroom to meet then back to class, 1/4 of it listening to the head of the program attempt to teach by the Socratic method, which really means some kids raise their hands, waving wildly, while most of the rest sit, doodling & bored, & 1/2 the time supposedly listening to me (or one of the other volunteer moms).
My group has 4 girls & 3 boys. I had heard tell that boys were different & boy, howdy, let me tell you it ain’t no lie. When I ask the girls to look at their plants & speculate on what the roots are for, they actually bend their little heads & fasten their eyeballs on the plants. The boys don’t hear me ask the question because they are too busy throwing clumps of wet leaves at each other.
In my little group is a boy who is testing. Me, his teachers, the other kids’ willingness to follow – everything. I liken this boy to a 10-month-old border collie puppy. He’s mostly friendly, plenty smart, with lots of energy, & if you don’t find him something to do, he’ll find ways to entertain himself. Shredding the sofa, for instance. I’ve done 3 of these sessions now & I’ve gotten hip to his ways. As soon as we pass thru the doors, he immediately veers off from the group. Apparently he’s hoping to vanish on the school grounds. Or off them. First I tell the other boys they must stay with the group. This is to avert their quick defection to his camp. I went thru this in week 1. Then I herd him back with mild pats on the back. This is repeated time & again. He loves pillbugs. Quick as you can think it, he’ll be off from the group & turning over rocks in search of a new “Fred,” which is what he names every pillbug. This must be shut down AT ONCE, or one of the other boys will sense a slackness in the leash & also immediately leave the group to invert rocks. I reached a low point last week when my own son listened to this boy instead of to me. (This caused me to have my first “perils of bad companions” talks with my son after school that day.) I was standing there asking them to listen (the girls were already listening) & they were just riffing on their own boy silliness. On a side note, why can’t boys ever hold still?
Now, with Reid, I can apply all sorts of psychological warfare. I can tell him, for instance, that if he doesn’t behave in a certain way, then I might not use any hot water at all in his next bath. Or that his lunch the next day might consist entirely of dried apricots. Ah, how I do love the screams of protest. You parents out there know exactly what I mean. There is something truly delicious in the immediate capitulation of your small adolescent wannabe when faced with treats withheld, in the begging insistence of your bratty child they they WILL behave, just PLEASE can they have a cookie in their lunch the next day? With this boy, tho, I couldn’t get a handle. Hmm, I thought, what will work on this little beast? He’s rather street smart & as one of the other moms pointed out, he’s just as likely to respond by flipping me the the bird & telling me to fuck off. Charming behavior in a 9 year old, but emasculating for me. So last week, I put my arm around his shoulder & said I REALLY needed him to cooperate with me, that while I’d be leaving in half a hour, he’s with his teacher for the next 7 months, & if I had to tell her about his attitude, I was betting she could find ways to make his life hard. He got a rather thoughtful look in his eyes & mostly behaved the rest of the session.
And this week, as with every week since the nature program started, I’ve spent a bit of time pondering this kid & his situation. He seems quite smart, seems bored, & lord knows he’s mentally alert. Comes up with all sorts of clever things. And he’s not an evil kid. Any of you who have been around kids know what I mean; there are kids out there who seem to be creatures from the dark side from the get go. But this boy is somewhat charming & not particularly bad, he’s just floating around in any random direction because there is no compass in his world. I have asked around & found out he lives down the street with his mom & some other quantity of younger kids. He had to have a neighbor bring him to open house night. He might have a learning disability or he might qualify for the advanced learning program, but both those things require some parent involvement which doesn’t seem there for him. It’s like watching a slow moving train wreck. He could go far. He could go too far. It’s like he’s in the woods, ambling back & forth between the path to an interesting & fulfilling life, & the path to juvie. Further on the woods will thicken & it’ll be harder for him to find the other path. It’s such a waste, you know. That’s what I think when I see kids like this. About all I could to do was call the local chapter of Big Brothers & get an application. I’ll see if his teacher can pass it on during the parent/teacher conferences upcoming at Thanksgiving break. I can’t think of anything else.
People used to live more in small communities. And in that situation, people knew each other, & they weren’t hesitant to enforce the local rules & mores. That dynamic can be bad, such as when a small town hates gays or blacks, but there were definite benefits, too. Used to be, a kid who was kind of on his own might have relatives or a mentor to go to. But in the case of this boy & many kids like him, you don’t even know your neighbors. And if your parents are not even really there, you are on your own.
It’s worth understanding that the space between good parenting & child abuse is a vast field with lots of hidey holes. As long as a kid doesn’t come to school with an eyeball hanging out or fingers missing, he’s considered fine. Teachers might see clear signs of bad parenting, but unless it’s extremely obvious, they can’t do much at all. In previous times, various community busybodies or relatives might have stepped into this legal gap, but these avenues are now for the most part closed.
My "new" Cuisinart. Less than 1/2 price on craigslist.
(Did you know Seattle has a goal of zero waste? I just found that out.)
I don’t recall thrifting being cool when I was in college. Shopping in malls – actually, roosting in malls, was the thing to do. Then there started to be a change down in the scattered communities of Y folk, people in their mid-twenties who were avoiding soulless yuppie jobs. They combined a necessary frugality with a nostalgia for things before their time, & the thrifting movement began to catch on. Anyone seen the now defunct zine Thrift Score? In which the author, Al Hoff, discussed shopping strategies, great thrift finds, & how to make a look out of random junk? Hey, she got her stuff published in a book & was sent on tour.
I’m sure many of you never thrift, or do so only unintentionally, such as when you pass a fertile looking yard sale on your way to the grocery store. But I bet you DO recycle. Because it’s PC. Because, in many places, it’s the law. And finally, because it makes you feel good. I mean, really good. These days, we are absolutely haunted by all the ways we’ve screwed up the world. High food chain animals are dying, air pollution warnings are given in big cities on hot days so delicate people can lock themselves up indoors, there’s that huge Sargasso Sea of floating plastic crap in the Pacific….on & on & ON, for pity’s sake. But every time you toss a can into your recycling bin, you know you’re doing something. You drag the stuff to the curb, then turn away, lighthearted & untroubled, your face glowing with the righteousness of one who is living the morally right life. You feel so…good. So potent. So noble. Listen – get over yourself.
I spent a while online & I can tell you, you should not be getting your warm fuzzies from the fact that you recycle. A lot of cities are using programs & technology that is so young, they end up spending more on recycling than they would just land-filling the stuff. This is a problem because, despite certain Beatles songs & the damp yearnings of various poets, the world does not run on love, it runs on MONEY. Money, money, money. And if/when various locales decide they need to trim budgets, & there’s a lot of that going on these days, pretty but expensive programs like recycling may get “paused”. Think it would never happen because who would make such an un-PC decision? In 2008, the problem was so bad in NYC that Mayor Bloomberg proposed canceling certain recycling programs for 18 months until the city learned to do it with at least some semblance of cost effectiveness. (BTW, here’s a fun site – Waste Age, for professionals in the waste industry.)
Gloat. Gloat. You heard I paid $65 instead of $170, right?
So what CAN we feel good about? Recycling doesn’t save money, but it does keep us from using as much in the way of virgin resources to make new items, & it does keep trash out of landfills. Recycling does cost a lot, tho. And the process of recycling uses a lot of energy, which has to come from somewhere. Think about it. Your recycling is picked up by a truck larger than most living rooms. It uses a LOT of gas. People are paid to drive it. Recycling glass may keep companies from needing new raw materials to make more glass, but it took a lot of raw materials & energy to manufacture the machines that actually recycle the glass.
You all know the mantra – Reduce, reuse, recycle. The words appear in the order you’re supposed to do them. Use less stuff when at all possible. If you do need something reuse something. That way, the work & energy involved in making it goes further. And recycle is LAST. If you have no other choice, if you were obligated to buy something & you can’t find any reuse, then recycle.
I’m encouraging you all to reuse whenever possible. To motivate you, I’m posting pix of the fine Cuisinart I got on craigslist.com for $65. The current model of this is $170 on the Cuis site. I have found a large plenty of appliances on craigslist. People get them as wedding gifts from hopeful relations, or they go thru phases of pretty enthusiasms which fade like Polaroids in hot sun. Shopping on craigslist & at yard sales is an excellent way to reuse perfectly good items that would otherwise be just thrown out, & would cost you a lot more if you were to buy them new.
My suggestion to you – take a look at your wish list & start cruising for good used versions. MUCH better than recycling, & the severely lower price might let you have some longed for goodies a lot sooner than you’d expected.
It is summer. No school. The boy, when not at some camp or another, lays like a wasted victorian maiden on the floor of my attic office, moaning about his impending death from boredom. I have decided to deal with this by working thru a list of diverting & educational projects, things I might not have time for in the school year. The most recent was teaching him a bit about evolution. We started out with a brief talk about genes, & once he got the hang of that, I was able to easily slide into the idea that creatures can change over generations, because they inherit different traits. There are lots of good illustrations of evolutionary trees online, along with the fun kingdom, phylum, class, order, family, genus, species breakdown, which has some different subcategories since I learned it.
I had this on my list anyway, but I developed a new sense of urgency during tuck-in time one recent night when he asked me if evolution was real. Sure, I said. He said he wondered because a boy he’d played with the week before, a visiting grandson of the neighbors’, told him scientists had discovered that evolution wasn’t true. I stood there with that blank gaze parents get when they’re forced to suddenly dive into a subject which is the ideological equivalent of the bottomless & murky waters of Chichen Itza, & emerge with a simple explanation using words of no more than 3 syllables, that can be spoken in 3 minutes or less, to get it all in before their little butterfly brains flit lightly off to something else.
I have no problem explaining evolution & debunking organized religion. My sticking point was that I needed to find a way to encourage Reid in critical thinking, yet get the point across to him that he should still respect our very religious neighbors, who are quite old, decent enough neighbors, & to their credit, have never tried to proselytize to us. Perhaps the horns on the car tipped them off that we’d be a bad risk. Or maybe it was the goat idol statue on the porch. Or all those tribal masks in the living room. Hard to say. But to get back to the point, It was a one of those genuinely challenging parent moments for me. Reid really enjoyed playing with their grandson, whom I found to be polite, well behaved, & neither a bully nor a weenie. What path thru this rocky territory could I find that would get the message across to him that I expect him to offer some respect to our neighbors despite the fact that they’re teaching their grandson to get a jump on cognitive dissonance by turning off select portions of his brain? (BTW, love the part where “scientists” discovered it wasn’t true. The irony is laughable to the point of tears. This is like the devil quoting scripture for his own use.)
Our neighbors have an interesting story. They seem quite the standard older couple. They celebrated their 50th wedding anniversary last year. They are retired & putter about the yard. Virgil is one of those old guys who just must keep on, & he finds more to do around that house than you’d think possible. Hard labor stuff, too. This week he started tearing off the side of the front steps. He says it sags & he’ll have to lift that corner of the house. They look just like any old couple that would get flustered at changes, be confused at new things. But in fact they’ve traveled to China a great many times as part of their missionary work, & they house Asian students in their house now that their kids are grown. They’ve hosted 24 students & have 2 now, both from Korea. They are nice people, & good neighbors, & all that int’l travel has broadened their minds so that they are devout but non-judgmental. They understand first hand that people choose different paths.
As for my curious boy, I ended up explaining that when someone wants to be a leader & gain power from followers, there are 3 good ways: fear- I’ll kill your family if you don’t help me; greed- you’ll get money/fame/success if you help me; & the most powerful…belief – I have the secret & I’ll share if with you if you help me. I told him that some people are taught to just accept what they are told, but that often they start thinking on their own as they grow up. And lastly, that there are all kinds of christians. Some froth & damn you to hell, as if they had the power, & some truly seek selflessness & help the homeless, the needy, the weak. He should enjoy playing with the grandson the next time he visits. And remember that I will always welcome his questions, & he should ever be cautious of those who say they know all the answers.
We’re just back from a week of camp food. By that I mean we started the week eating apples & bananas & other such fine fare, but by day 2, Reid had joined the gang around the nightly fire to make s’mores & immolate marshmallows. Also on day 3 he spotted the box of Lucky Charms breakfast cereal our campmates had bought for their daughter. (They made sure everyone knew it was a special, vacation, once a year treat.) Halfway thru the trip I finally folded &, on a supply run into town, bought a box of Apple Jacks. Reid was pleased, & I was smugly happy. I had loved Apple Jacks as a kid. Well, it’s changed. Of course. Fluffier, not so crunchy. Boring. But the box made for great reading.
Apple Jacks is not good for you. We’re all clear on that, right? I mean, it’s not a healthy food. The first ingredient on the list is sugar. Apples are 7th on the list. Yet Kellogg’s puts all this great copy on the side of the box, entreating kids to get out & exercise, that kind of thing, as if they can get the flip side of guilt by association. Maybe if we talk about healthy things on the box, the contents of the box actually become more healthy. I don’t know, maybe it works by suggestion, like a placebo. But anyway, the best part was when it challenged kids to find out how many sit-ups they could do during commercial breaks while they’re watching TV!!! Not if you’re watching TV, WHEN!
Part of me is thinking, why am I writing this inane entry? Most of the people I know are educated & aware enough to mostly avoid this kind of marketing abracadabra. But all I have to do is think back to those sunny mornings in camp, Reid gazing with longing at the bright red Lucky Charms box & begging me for just a little bit. I’m a parent now. I may be thoughtful & jaded, but Reid is exactly the customer P. T. Barnum was thinking of when he coined the phrase, “a fool born every minute & two to take him.” And Kellogg’s doesn’t think this is inane. They spend millions a year marketing to kids. Kids who are increasingly distant from the real source of food; gardens, chickens laying eggs… We always need to be aware & thoughtful about our food choices. After all, what is more intimate than eating? You put something in your mouth & it becomes your very flesh.
Directions
1. Melt chips in heavy saucepan over very low heat, stirring constantly; remove from heat. Add KELLOGG’S APPLE JACKS cereal. Stir until well coated.
2. Drop by level tablespoonfuls onto waxed paper or buttered baking sheets. Let stand in cool place until firm.
THAT’S my boy. Joy on his face, his grim reaper staff in his hand, striding past the funeral home. Ah, to be young.
And I don’t use that ‘need’ word lightly.
