It seems that our family fondness for the blogs has died away, which is a shame since, for a short time, we were about as informed about each others lives via our postings as we ever have been in person. Maybe more so. I enjoyed reading the blogs of my loved ones, and for a time it was parts on my daily routine to check for new postings and read what may be there. I do miss them. Still, I too have fallen off considerably with my postings. Damned if life didn't go and get itself in the way. It has not been from a lack of things to talk about, just a lack of time to properly express them. I guess I feel that I would rather express nothing that chatter incoherently. Anyway, I will try to regain my former practice of frequent posting and hope that others follow suit.
Suit... I wonder if every generation, as they get older realizes differences between thier generation and that of thier parents. Perhaps mine is the largest generational gap due to the fact that I am a gen-X.. er, Y... some damn letter. My parents were baby-boomers so in my life time, American youth has been transformed. The advent of computer games and 24 TV has made the generation of my children, or the second generation after the baby-boom, a couch-potato culture. When I was young, especially during summer I would leave the house near dawn and might show back up by dusk. The out-of-doors was my home away from home. The generation of my children seems to need air conditioning to survive. I, as a stubborn; self-concious child wore blue jeans all summer, while playing out doors. Even during the heat wave of 85 or 86 when it stayed near 100 degrees for what seemed like the entire summer. I came home tanned, and filthy, and loved every minute of it. I rode my bike like Armstrong and ran like the wind. Sadly, these are simple pleasures my children may never know. They have a swimming pool that CHOOSE not to swim in. I used to run in the sprinkler. They have a trampoline they don't jump on, I wore my friends out... up until I graduated from high school. They have bikes they don't ride, slides they don't slide down, balls and bats they don't swing of throw. Sad.
Equally sad is the fact that a good hand of cards has disappeared from the American dining room table. Cards are the ultimate excercise in lateral thinking and mental multi-tasking. What, don't believe me? Take Hearts; a simple enough game right? Well, you have to think ahead about what cards you are going to pass, once play has begun you have to keep track of what cards have been played, who has taken how many points, who has the lowest score and what your score is as well as positioning yourself to get a certain score or card (depending on what rules you play by). Gin-Rummy? Constantly changing cards enter a constantly changing hand where you have to calculate the odds of getting the card you might need to complete your hand. Poker? More odds calculating added with reading your opponents and learning the power of postition (how to play your strengths and weaknesses to your advantage). Playing cards is like doing mental gymnastics. No too hands are the same, even if you play the game a million times. Video games, however are always the same. The same guys shows up at the same place everytime you go there. The only thing that gets stronger is your thumbs. So, instead of buying a video game for your kids for Christmas, buy them a pack of cards and play with them. If you are lucky, unlike myself, they might even want to play. Otherwise, hope like I do that someday they will embrace the world of wonder that is, in it's simplicity the best of all that games have to offer, cards. Well, except for maybe chess.
Well the World Cup is over. Another 4 years for Americans to ignore the game the the world cherishes. We thumb our nose at the rest of the world just because we can, sometimes even to spite ourselves. Take 4th of July for example. What? How can the 4th of July be us thumbing our nose at the world? July 4th 1776 was not the day the Revolutionary War started, or ended. It was not the day that we managed a great military victory or ratified our Constitution. No, 7/4/1776 was the day that a group of men, speaking for the American Colonies of England, after long debate and introspection, by the act of signing a document drafted by one of the congresses' memebers and editied and apporved by the general assembly, commited high treason against thier soverign nation.
What? did you get stuck on that? Had Washington lost the war, He along with Franklin, Jefferson, John Adams, Samuel Adams, John Hancock, et al, would have hung from the gallows in the middle of the town square in Philadelphia. But he didn't, which brings me too...
We hate the French. We bail them out of two World Wars, and they have the gall to not be supportive of our Napoleon's... I mean presidents initiative. We figure they owe us because it was because of the good old U.S. of A that they are not speaking German and wearing Liederhausen right now. But, if you roll back the clock a bit more, you will notice that there would be no U.S of A without the French. Had they not dumped half thier national treasury and thier armed forces into the American Colonies in order to defeat the English, we would be Canada south. Now don't get me wrong, I dislike those cheese eating surrender monkies as much as the next person, but without them... well.... a twenty would look like this...
