Horizontal Hold

Far away and out in the sticks, a lot of what young I learned came from a 16-inch black and white screen.  My family was hardly the sort to glean social skills from, as my mother was painfully shy and my father taught us how to disarm a German in hand-to-hand combat by slugging him in the throat.  I took after my mother, for the most part.

Television was my babysitter of sorts because after a day of tempering machine parts, Dad had no interest in sharing the dinner table with kids who didn't like green beans.  I remember a few suppers at the table in the knotty pine dinette, before which Mom would prep me in behavior, pleading with me not to make faces or complain.  It was difficult at age three, especially since I had already decided that I would like to get rid of the noise in the house and have Mom to myself; I hadn't developed discretion yet.  My father's irritation irritated me, and I would shoot him a look.  We would battle, with it ending in my mother getting yelled at for my moody little self.  Her solution was to turn on the television, spread newspaper on the living room rug, and plop my dinner plate down.  On the floor, I guess as a safety precaution. This was the golden era, with the new tv dinners touted as timesavers for families to watch more programming together instead of mom being stuck in the kitchen; maybe she thought television was a great idea or more likely she was desperate.  It was weirdly isolating, but I soon dissolved into what I thought were real lives on the screen.  I never ate with my family again.

So, what was on at supper?  Two stations, even though the tuner went up to 22 channels, were broadcasting at the time, WGR and WBEN.  A third station eventually started up in 1958, the logo being a rabbit with bent ears supposedly as antennae.  There were plenty of Popeye cartoons with Mike Mearian and Buttons, Three Stooges shorts, and sometimes seasonal shows like A Visit to Santa with Forgetful the Elf; there was a story book show that had puppets who talked very slowly or maybe that was just me.  All of this verified life as I knew it, with Popeye and Bluto beating the brain matter out of each other, or with Bluto choking Olive Oyl for not being his girlfriend and then you would have Christmas.  Sort of like disarming Germans.

Remarkably, for all the encouragement, the only instance in which I behaved badly in a physical manner was when one of my older cousins took a comic book away from me and refused to give it back.  It was showing Catnip the Cat getting hit with a frying pan, making his head match the shape of the pan. We were scooched on the floor, he grabbed the comic, the action of which put his rear end conveniently in my direction; I bit him.  He was my favorite cousin, and how on earth could I do such a thing?  Simple: in my mind, I was mimicking the enlarged choppers of a character in a cartoon, and how was this not a solution, Mom?  I apologized sincerely, once realizing the denouement of my idiocy, helped by my mother who was a gentle soul, supremely embarrassed by her child.  I now have a cat named after that cousin, and his older sister recently told me that he probably deserved getting bit anyways.  No, he didn't.

Cartoons fueled my brain, Saturday mornings gave me a buzz like a bowl of Sugar Pops knocked down with a glass of Nestle's Quik.  I had preferences, being spoiled with the writing and animation of Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies, and grew a strong distrust of Harvey Cartoons, especially those concerning  Casper the Friendly Ghost.  Fraud!  Deceit!  A friendly ghost doing good deeds and hanging out with woodland animals?  One that got bullied by three nitwits when he had powers of invisibility and flying?  Really, after watching Disney's Fantasia sequence of the Night on Bald Mountain and hiding behind the couch as a result, I knew marshmallow-shaped Casper was just biding his time before pulling out some ghost combat on the unsuspecting animals and children.  Now that I am older, my idea is that the reverse is true, that spirits are mostly a benevolent people that do no harm and maybe do make friends with chipmunks and lost puppies.  Just leave me alone.  Skedaddle.

But how do we get through our lives?  By what degree are they shaped by people around us, by environment, by the current popular culture?  How do we learn to make proper decisions if there aren't many people around to learn from?  Kindness isn't automatic, I subscribe to the notion that we would all be knocking each other over the heads with caveman clubs if left to our own talents, a la Lord of the Flies.  So, what makes us good?  Brain chemistry, sure, but maybe also a hope that we can make things better for others, therefore benefitting ourselves by loving the next living thing as best we can.  Find something and give it some love.  Buy a newspaper, send a letter, donate five bucks to an animal rescue, pick up someone else's wrapper.  Don't just read to a kid, but find an older person who can't anymore.  Keep us going, it's hard work but so needed.  Descent: I climb down from the soap box.

Warm days and cooler nights signal midfall changes in seasons.  Today at the market, large orange globes lit up the areas under wooden tables, no shortage of pumpkins in this area.  The leaves on the city trees are changing to yellows and a few emotional reds; the greens are aged and less vibrant, no longer lush or unmeasured.  We are getting ready, steeling our northern selves for the coming drop in temperature and sun; hardy, tough, determined, that's us.  We sleep fiercely, dream deeply, and abandon ourselves unafraid to the oceans of timeless space between midnight and morning.  Sleep well, sleep in temporal rhythm.  With love.