Thursday, August 07, 2008
Thoughts on life's dramas
John Long
Recent columns
- An unappealing appeal to envy
- A new world order arrives
- My business is not thy business
- Two lives well lived
From the RoundTable blog
My meandering mind: some random observations about life I've made recently:
I was cutting bushes the other day and it occurred to me that I had not seen a praying mantis in ages. I thought of other animals I used to delight in observing as a kid but seldom see anymore -- colorful garden spiders, box turtles, bats, monarch butterflies, blacksnakes, woodpeckers, etc. Where had they all gone? Then it occurred to me -- they're still here, I'm just too busy to pay attention to fauna anymore. I sighed and went back to trimming flora.
Picture this scene: At a Vacation Bible School closing program, a child is running up and down the church aisle. Most people ignore her until she knocks over a VBS decoration, hitting a longtime member of the church on her head. The lady then picks up the child, gently sets her in her pew, and tells her, "You have to sit still now, honey."
The girl's mother, sitting in the back, has watched this transpire but has done nothing. Afterward she approaches the lady. What do you think happens next? What would your parents have done? Apologize to the lady for the trouble? Express embarrassment at her rambunctious kid, and contrition for not controlling her?
No, you guessed it -- she yelled at the lady for chastising her disruptive daughter. In small little steps like this, society falls apart.
I love the Olympics, when we get to enjoy some great sports that get little attention any other time, especially track and field and swimming. Here is something I would love to see happen: Why not have mixed relay races on the track and in the pool in which nations would field teams of two men and two women? They could run or swim in any order, so you would probably not know who was ahead until the last heat. If you know anyone on the Olympic committee, feel free to pass on this suggestion.
The death of Alexander Solzhenitsyn reminds me to reread "One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich," one of the most important books of the 20th century. I don't agree with everything he ever said, but he certainly spoke the truth to Soviet totalitarianism. I'm glad he lived to return to his beloved Russia, and saw it free of the gulag archipelago he so passionately described.
Whatever happened to financial institutions with serious, gravitas-laden names like Colonial American National Bank? Is there a contest going on for silliest bank name? If so, what did StellarOne win?
Am I the last person to carry around a pocketknife? I've had one in my pocket pretty much daily since I was 10, and find occasion to use it several times a day. But lately I find myself leaving it behind in various public places -- schools, courthouses, public offices of various descriptions, lest my little blade be confiscated as a dangerous weapon. I know the problems of security in the modern world, but it's just another reminder of how much things have changed. I carried a pocketknife to school every day through middle and high school, and probably had one in my pocket the first time I flew as an adult, long before Sept. 11, 2001.
For that matter, an acquaintance who grew up in a rural county recounted that he and his friends would get up early on school days, go hunting, then walk to school and stow their shotguns safely in their lockers. (I didn't think to ask where they stored any dead animals.) Can you imagine that happening today? Not that I would advocate a return to such a policy, but it's melancholy to realize that today we have to treat every child as a potential danger.
Several columns ago, I told the story of the Kesler Mill dam in Salem, which in 1926 was blown up in an apparent attempt to keep the millpond from becoming a swimming resort for African Americans. I asked if any readers might have some info passed down through their families that might shed light on this unsolved local mystery.
Several readers have asked if I received any new information from the plea, but I'm sorry to report that, so far, no new facts have come to light.
I had some delightful conversations with older residents, but perhaps the incident has faded too far from public memory to be recoverable. Still, I'll keep looking and let you know if I learn anything.
Long, a Roanoke Times columnist, is director of the Salem Museum and teaches history at Roanoke College.
