The Start of a New Year - 2011

January 5, 2011

No, I have not been recovering from any New Year's Eve celebrations, those days ended long ago. I knew I had completed my youth, and had entered middle-age, when it finally dawned on me that my body couldn't take the abuse anymore. Even then, it never occurred to me that there would be consequences, that came at 50. I "live simply," and try not to get complicated. The "Live Simply" slogan was something I noticed at Grandma's Pantry, up around Yreka, off I-5.

We were returning to Vacaville after a week-long trip through Spokane, Seattle, Vancouver, Canada, among other Northwest cities. It was Mary, Cory, and me, we had gone to Spokane, rented an apartment, and did a little sight-seeing. I had noticed the place on the way up, and had remarked that I wanted to have breakfast there on the way back. We drove from Springfield/Eugene, all the way to Yreka before breakfast. We were pretty hungry.

Sitting in a booth, along the front windows, I noticed some stained glass pieces, and was really quite interested in them. On the window, by our booth, was an oval piece, depicting a small house, on the edge of a forest, with a path leading up to it. It's very pretty, but that's not why we bought it. On a scroll across the bottom are the words, "Live Simply".

Seriously, those two words hit me harder than any other, and believe me, I've heard about every two-word combination there is. Some, more than others, and a lot of certain combinations that I know aren't physically possible, but "Live Simply"? I had to have it. Two words that have molded my life since that day in 2003.

We've tried to live simply, and it isn't easy to do. We'd get involved in something, and pretty soon, we're checking each other's schedules, figuring out when to spend a little time together, and Bingo, things started getting complicated again. We've gone through a couple of those, and managed to untangle our committments, and get back to living simply. Whenever we do, things are really great.

Today, I start my day reading a Facebook post stating that new editions of Mark Twain's classics The Adventures of Tom Sawyer and The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn would substitue the word slave for the "N-word." I have no idea why, whether publishers were pressured to make a change, or whether the publisher decided to re-write an acknowledged author's manuscript, but it is wrong on so many levels.

My problem is, how do we know where we are going, if we change Literature to satisfy the Politically Correct? The fact of the matter remains although the word is, hopefully, becoming archaic, but it's still a part of our History. In the 1840's, the era that forms the setting of both novels, men used the n-word frequently, to reference a black slave. It was, originally, a slurred version of negro, becomming nigra, and eventually evolved into the objectionable form that Twain uses to authenticate his dialogue. What's next? Do we have to change all of the dialogue to conform with PC standards.

It's there, already, in case you missed it. Huck Finn, a Disney-backed telling, with Elijah Wood as Huck, and Courtney Vance as Jim. It's so PC, it sucks. The character Jim, in this version, sounds like a Julliard drop-out, or something, but he sure doesn't sound like the loveable-but-woefully-ignorant Jim that Twain describes. Realistically, since it was against the law, at the time, to educate slaves beyond language. It's ugly, but it's still part of our History, and things have improved a great deal since. Rather than touching-up Literature, we should appreciate how far we have come as a species, and celebrate.

I'm glad the n-word is becoming archaic, bon-voyage, hasta la later, and don't let the door hit you in the ass on the way out. I lived with a father who became a racist as a matter of survival. Few jobs were available in the late-1930's, and competition for work was stiff. I can see how it happened, and why, but he took a long time to see "blacks" as merely people. It peppered my youth, and I admit to being racially biased when I joined the Navy. Once I understood the magnitue of my father's ignorance, a lot of things happened.

I sit here, blathering on, as we approach two years since my father passed, and yet he's still alive in my heart, and in my mind. I hear his voice, when I'm trying to figure something out. Sometimes it's good advice, sometimes it's something else, something not malevolent, but impish, perhaps. I have learned a great deal from my father's example, most of it OK, but I've rejected a good deal. I learned to be patriotic, and to be honest, basic things I still claim to be, but I also learned how not to be a parent. I guess even a bad example is still an example.