Tag: Will Stanton

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Cow-Town, by Will Stanton

“Cow-Town” generally has two definitions. The first, obvious one connotes a city or town that is noted for being involved in the cattle-trade. This is an old, traditional definition. The second meaning implies that a city or town, along with its inhabitants, is to some degree uninformed, uncultured, and unsophisticated. I remember while I was growing up in Ohio, Columbus was regarded as a “cow-town” for those reasons. I haven’t been back there for a generation, so probably it has changed some. I have heard that it has. For some time, Denver, too, was considered to be a “cow-town,” although it still is connected with the cattle trade and life-style.

While considering this topic “cow-town,” I began to ponder just how many cities, towns, and villages in the U.S. would fit that second definition. That reputation would have little or nothing to do with cows, nor the dazzle of modern infrastructure or sky-scrapers. It would have more to do with people, the inhabitants of those places.

I have been a long-term observer of human behavior, society, culture, and politics, particularly politics over the last thirty years and culminating with this Presidential election. I know that this conclusion may sound cynical, but I’m beginning to think that many municipalities might be considered to be “cow-towns,” regardless of size, based upon so many people being ill-informed, unsophisticated, uncultured, along with, too often, morally bankrupt.

For example, I’ve witnessed millions of Americans enthusiastically supporting politicians who spew fear, hate, anger, and who promote programs that are profoundly harmful, rather than beneficial. I have been forced to conclude that this reality of today defies all reason. I am unable to comprehend how so many Americans can be so delusional and apparently without moral-compass, failing to think and behave according to the “better angels of their natures.”

Whereas as the Democratic party, whatever its mistakes, weaknesses, or disliked candidates, does try to create policies and programs designed to improve society and the nation, the other does not. Increasingly over the last thirty years, it appears that those radicals who have taken over the Republican have focused only upon attempts to garner and to maintain power; and they have succeeded dramatically. Democrats have allowed themselves to be blind-sided and have been very slow in reacting. For example, Republican operatives cleverly figured out years ago that all they had to do was to grab power in state-houses, then gerrymander voting districts to disenfranchise Democratic voters. Records show that, in several states, Democrats have won discernible majorities of the votes; however, they have been given in those states only twenty-some percent of the seats in Congress. So much for democracy. The voting public was so unsophisticated that it allowed this to happen.

Today’s so-called “Republicans” appear to have to resort to stealing elections (sometimes with seriously felonious machinations, which I could go into detail covering the last sixty years), rather than presenting to the American public viable programs that could help the nation and its citizens. They seem to vote so consistently against good measures and, instead, vote for greedy, harmful ones. I’m not religious, but I wonder whether these nefarious power-brokers have consciously chosen to be in league with Beelzebub.

Why are so many Americans so unsophisticated that they allow themselves to be manipulated into feelings of fear, hate, anger, deep delusions, and to voting even against their own best interests and that of the nation? Could we consider ignorance and irrationality part of being unsophisticated? I certainly think so, regardless of how sophisticated some believe they are.

In addition to egocentric manipulators’ unbridled grab for power, there also is the sad emphasis upon greed. Why do a few feel entitled to billions of dollars while the majority of the population struggle? Where is the logic? Where is the empathy and care for others?

I suppose the word “culture” may be defined in two ways, also. One may use it in general terms to denote a wide spectrum of a nation’s society. It legitimately also may be used to connote the highest quality of humankind’s creative efforts in art, music, architecture, and societal interactions. In this nation, however, culture, in that second sense, no longer appears to be of any importance to the majority of the American population, especially in contrast to some other nations, where the people and their governments care for, and support, culture. During World War II, the British Chancellor of the Exchequer suggested to Prime Minister Winston Churchill that financial support should be cut off from all British cultural programs of art and music and, instead, be added to the war-effort. Churchill’s reply was, “No. Why else are we fighting?” Churchill obviously understood the importance of creating and maintaining a high level of culture in a civilized country.

In just the last eighteen years, the United States has lost 1,083 symphony orchestras, in addition to numerous opera companies, ballet companies, and school programs in art and music. Hours of operation for libraries and museums have been shortened. Apparently, most Americans just do not seem to care. They would much rather be entertained by far less sophisticated diversions. At the same time that America has been rapidly losing its culture, the American taxpayer has shelled out 5.4 billion dollars to build twenty-two new football stadiums just since 1997. Then there is pro-wrestling, cage-fighting, monster-truck contests, and rap. No, it is not “just a matter of taste,” as some claim. Medical/psychological research has documented that much of the nation’s population prefers humanly toxic exposures rather than beneficial, uplifting experiences. Of course, as today’s Republicans constantly remind us, “Science should not be believed, nor does it matter. Culture does not matter, either.”

And, this is where I get back to “cow-towns.” If “cow-towns” are made up of people who are ignorant, uncultured, and unsophisticated, then there must be many, many such places in America. My concerns bring to mind some thought-provoking words from one of the most brilliant authors of the 20-21st-century, David Cornwell (pen-name John le Carré), from his superlative book “Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy.” I often quote these words. With one of the major characters, Carré had him speak feelings of dismay and sense of betrayal: “Do you know what is killing western democracy? Greed – – and constipation – – moral, political, aesthetic, – – – the economic repression of the masses, institutionalized.” Those words of condemnation were written forty-two years ago. Now look at us. Welcome to a nation of “cow-towns.”

© 20 July 2016

About the Author

I have had a life-long fascination with people and their life stories. I also realize that, although my own life has not brought me particular fame or fortune, I too have had some noteworthy experiences and, at times, unusual ones. Since I joined this Story Time group, I have derived pleasure and satisfaction participating in the group. I do put some thought and effort into my stories, and I hope that you find them interesting.

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Hunting, by Will Stanton

I know a little about hunting,
but I have no first-hand experience.  So
I cannot speak from the perspective of an avid hunter.  I do have, however, my own thoughts about the
matter.
I know that, for millennia,
human beings were required to supplement their diet of fish, fruits, nuts, and
vegetables, with meat through hunting game. 
Eventually, nobles and the aristocracy turned hunting into a sport,
sometimes even declaring certain forests off-limits to the common folks under
threat of punishment for any trespass. 
Too often, this macho inclination to prove one’s manhood by killing
resulted in the shooting of literally hundreds of birds or numerous animals
within a day.  Many so-called “hunting
lodges” of the nobility still sport the skulls and horns of thousands of slain
animals.  In theory, if I were to inherit
such a lodge, I would remove and dispose of all those morbid skulls.  Only relatively recently, the British
outlawed fox-hunts, a long-time tradition among the British aristocracy.
Only in more recent times in
history, with the development of domestically raised animals, has modern man
been able to sustain life without hunting. 
Understandably, people living in homesteads outside of urban areas
continued the tradition of hunting, even if game actually was not a necessary
component of their food-source.  I also
do recognize the occasional necessity of culling herds of wild animals that
have become so overabundant that they threaten their environment or even their
own species.
But, I also recognize in
America that this so-called hobby became combined with some people’s love of
guns, a phenomenon that has resulted in this country’s gun-collectors
possessing nearly four hundred million firearms.  So, among people of today who are avid
hunters and gun-collectors, the phenomenon of hunting is deeply entrenched in
our society.
As
for me, whose hunting is limited to the isles of the local food-market, I
sometimes look askance at those people whose love of guns and hunting seems to me
to be overly passionate.  I, myself, have
a passion for the beauty of nature, for the exercise of wandering through the
woods and bathing in the beauty of the environment.  I do not, however, feel a compulsive need to
shoot and kill things while I am enjoying nature.  For modern society, I do not see learning how
to hunt as an absolute necessity for obtaining manhood.  And, I never have had the slightest interest
in joining the NRA.

That’s
why I was amused when a 1961 New Yorker magazine-cover sported an autumnal,
Charles Adams cover showing an illegal hunter trespassing in a bird sanctuary and
being flown off in the clutches of a giant pterodactyl.
Also, as a consequence of my
personal discomfort with the concept of hunting as a sport, I understand and
appreciate the satirical “Hunting Song” written more than half-a-century ago by
Tom Lehrer, the humorist who was an apparently ambivalent academic who seemed
to prefer to write funny songs.  So, here
is his “Hunting Song.”            
I’ll always will remember,
’twas a year ago November,
I went out to hunt some deer
On a mornin’ bright and clear.
I went and shot the maximum the game laws would allow:
Two game wardens, seven hunters, and a cow.

I was
in no mood to trifle,
I took down my trusty rifle
And went out to stalk my prey.
What a haul I made that day.
I tied them to my fender,
and I drove them home somehow,
Two game wardens, seven hunters, and a cow.

The law was very firm, it
Took away my permit,
The worst punishment I ever endured.
It turned out there was a reason,
Cows were out of season,
And one of the hunters wasn’t insured.

People ask me how I do it,
And I say, “There’s nothin’ to it,
You just stand there lookin’ cute,
And when something moves, you shoot!”
Ten heads are stuffed and mounted in my trophy room right now,
Two game wardens, seven hunters, and a pure-bred Guernsey cow.
© 25 May 2016  
About the Author 
I have had a life-long fascination with
people and their life stories.  I also
realize that, although my own life has not brought me particular fame or
fortune, I too have had some noteworthy experiences and, at times, unusual
ones.  Since I joined this Story Time
group, I have derived pleasure and satisfaction participating in the group.  I do put some thought and effort into my
stories, and I hope that you find them interesting.
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Greens, by Will Stanton

This topic “greens” leaves itself open to a variety of interpretations, although I’m not sure that it lends itself to extensive discussion of any single one. So, I will refer to a variety of greens.

The word “greens” immediately suggests to me the common question, “Are you eating your greens?” Well, of course; I regularly eat vegetables and salads as part of a healthful diet. Also green, I am very fond of Limeade, and if you never have tasted the rarely offered lime ice-cream, you don’t know what you are missing, especially during the summertime. I try to avoid green meat; I have a very sensitive stomach. I might be able to handle green chili if it is not too spicy. The same goes with tasty guacamole. I am, after all, just a gringo.

“Greens” next brings to mind green grass and leaves, especially in springtime, a delightful time of year I often have written about. Over my lifetime, I have become so enamored with nature that I can not imagine grass and leaves in any other color. If I were transported to some other planet where grass and leaves were red or purple, I would find it rather disturbing.
Mother Nature certainly has proliferated Earth with a wide variety of green birds ranging from the common pet parakeets (or, as the Brits call them, “Budgerigars” or “Budgies”) to large parrots and tiny humming birds. When I was a kid, my family had a green parakeet named “Tippy.” I felt rather sorry for it because it was alone, but it became very fond of me instead.
Speaking of nature, I am aware that there is the political Green Party that promotes environmentalism, nonviolence, social justice, participatory grassroots-democracy, gender equality, LGBT rights, and anti-racism. These goals seem admirable to me, although many people believe that, had the Green Party and Ralph Nader not participated in the 2000 Presidential election, the Republicans may not have been able to steal the election, even with their stealing the Florida vote.
Of course, we all have heard that people, feeling ill, supposedly can look “green.” I have seen some people looking awfully peaked, but I don’t recall anyone actually looking green. I do recall that Khruschev claimed that, after Stalin died and most of the remaining Soviet cabal were terrified that State Security Administrator Lavrentiy Beria would kill his two co-leaders and take over the government, Khruschev staged a coup, invited him late to a meeting, and announced to him upon his arrival that he was being arrested for “treason.” Khruschev swears that Beria’s face turned a sickly-green, If anyone was justified in turning sickly-green it was Beria. He was shot.
Then, there is the hackneyed phrase, “Green with envy.” Envy is not regarded as an enviable trait, and I know that has been consistent throughout history. For example, envy is a major theme in the highly successful Baroque opera “L’Olimpiade,” which, perhaps, is timely to mention because of this year’s international Olympics. The “L’Olimpiade” opera, of which more than sixty versions were composed and performed, is set during the ancient, Greek Olympics. Lycidas loves Aristaea, who is promised to be betrothed to however wins the race, although she loves Megacles, a great athlete. Lycidas envies Megacles and persuades the unknowing Megacles to win the race using Lycidas’ name. But, you already know all about this. The Furies, including the Fury of Envy, attack and harass Lycidas for his transgression. If you never have been attacked by Furies, you have no idea how terrifying that can be. I also found that an artist created a bronze Greek-like bust and tinted the face an appropriate green.
Finally, one very odd place where I have seen the color green is at the swimming pool. There is a child-size, older man who somewhat resembles a small chunk of dried-out beef-jerky. He is invariably upbeat and cheerful but also noticeably eccentric. He has the habit of shaving his whole head except for a round, three-inch patch on top which he dyes green and brushes straight up. I have no inclination to do that. Everyone to his own. 
© 20 June 2016


About the Author

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Blue Skies by Will Stanton

We all know that, traditionally, blue skies normally are equated with happiness and things in our lives going right. This notion frequently has been expressed in poetry, art, photography, and in songs, such as Irving Berlin’s famous “Blue Skies.” As his song suggests, being in love brings about happiness, symbolically expressed by blue skies.

People’s very real relief in finally seeing blue skies after months of winter’s dreariness has been a known phenomenon as long as human beings have been on Earth. My having grown up in a state where, each year, there were three hundred days of overcast, I recall people around me often became depressed and irritable around the month of February. Some people are so badly affected that they are required to subject themselves to daily light-therapy to lessen depression. Fortunately, I apparently have not been vulnerable to such ill effects.

I know that I am especially sensitive to beauty in nature, and that beauty can include blue skies. My favorite season is springtime when, very often, the temperature is moderately warm, perhaps with a cool breeze, few clouds are in the sky, and all of nature is turning colorful with green grass and multicolored blossoms. I experienced that feeling deeply during my recent walk through Commons Park here in Denver.

Ironically, however, there are three exceptions to my enjoyment of only blue skies. First of all, I have grown less tolerant of summer heat along with its blazing-blue skies. During such times, I crave shade and, perhaps, rainy skies. There also is my own, personal quirk that, if the skies outside my house are blight blue, I often have the uncomfortable feeling that I must be out and about, doing important things and accomplishing a lot. If outside is rainy or snowy, I don’t feel that way.

The third personal feeling is that I frequently do enjoy rainy skies, especially gentle springtime rain and subdued skies – – – that is, as long as I have shelter, especially my own home. At such times, I feel calm, more relaxed, even perhaps a little dreamy, which helps me with any creative endeavors I may be engaged in, such as writing these stories. After all, I have mentioned before that I have on my computer both a ripped sound-recording and also an audio-video recording of gentle rain, which I usually play while I am writing or engaged in other creative work.

I don’t know for sure whether my special enjoyment of overcast skies and rain is particular to me or whether people in general respond in the same way. If less common, perhaps my enjoyment of quiet skies is in-born. Maybe those feelings are from genetic memory, some of my early ancestors having come from the rainier climes of Britain.

After all, I have inherited, from that side of my family, genes from Normans, Welsh, Saxons, and the early indigenous inhabitants of those isles, called by the Saxons, “Elves” because of their short stature. As a matter of fact, I have come to think, over the years, that my Elvin heritage explains a lot about me. And, now you know.

© 03 June 2016


About the Author

I have had a life-long fascination with people and their life stories. I also realize that, although my own life has not brought me particular fame or fortune, I too have had some noteworthy experiences and, at times, unusual ones. Since I joined this Story Time group, I have derived pleasure and satisfaction participating in the group. I do put some thought and effort into my stories, and I hope that you find them interesting.

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Public Places, by Will Stanton

Gee
willikers!  What am I supposed to write
about the topic “Public Places?”  We all
have been in public places many times all throughout our lives, unless one of
us always has lived under a rock.  Were
we expected to write about something we did that was wonderful and spectacular,
or was it something embarrassing? 
Regarding myself, I can’t think of anything exciting enough to be worthy
of describing.  I haven’t led the most
adventuresome life.
I
assume by the term “public places,” the person who selected the topic was
thinking of areas where there are lots of people around, where whatever
occurred was witnessed by a large number of people.  Well, I can relate incidents that I witnessed
or was told about that might have some modicum of interest to the
listeners.  So, here goes.
When
I was in college, I was friends with one guy, Jeff, and his younger brother,
Jim.  They had very different
personalities.  My friend often displayed
a weird sense of humor; his brother always preferred to appear more serious – –
– that is, until they were together. 
Occasionally when they got together, the situation turned into a folie
à deux, that is, a “madness shared by two.”  
Having been in Army ROTC, they both ended up as army lieutenants in
Vietnam.  Jeff returned first and rather
let himself go, not doing anything in particular, not bothering to shave, just
taking it easy.  Prim Jim, however,
returned in uniform expecting a similarly neatly dressed brother to pick him up
at the airport.  Instead, Jeff appeared
wearing an old, torn raincoat and looking bedraggled. Spotting
Jim, he shuffled over to him, mimicking a demented Quasimodo.  Jim, already terribly embarrassed, became
even more so when Jeff, imitating some kind of transient who was truly off his
rocker, mumbled in a very loud voice, “Can you tell me where the really big
planes are?”
  
Naturally,
everyone within ear-shot turned around to look, regarding Jeff with great
suspicion and discomfort.  I assume that
this incident qualifies for happening in a very public place, an airport with
hundreds of people around.  I hasten to
mention that this occurred long before 911, so Jeff was not hauled off by the
authorities.
Jeff
and Jim also were rather disdainful of university-fraternities.  I recall one day their walking together past
a row of fraternities where a large number of frat-brats were sitting out on
their porches.  Now, this was back in the
day when fear and disgust of homosexuals was far more prevalent than now.  Realizing that they were being watched, Jeff
and Jim suddenly threw their arms around each other and began dancing gayly
down the sidewalk, merrily singing.  The
expressions on those frat-brat guys’ faces were priceless, and I enjoyed seeing
it all.
Speaking
of gay, I wrote earlier about the gayest person I ever saw on campus.  In everyone’s eyes, Peter was obviously
gay.  He looked rather androgynous, had
long golden hair, and was considered remarkably beautiful.  His choice of cute little clothes added to
that perception.  But, Peter was far
different from most gays at the time. 
People found him to be so remarkable looking that he had gained a
surprising sense of self-esteem and confidence. 
Usually,
people simply stared at Peter in astonishment.  If
anyone might have said something nasty to him, I imagine
that Peter did not let it bother him.  He apparently
rarely had any such experiences.  I do know
of one occasion, however.
I
recall one evening walking into a campus-bar where
both
straight and a few gays went. I saw Peter entering ahead of me.  Once inside, some college-stud, sitting with
his date, looked at Peter in complete disgust, and said
in a loud voice, “Look, here comes a fagot!”  Everyone
turned to look at the speaker and Peter.
As
Peter passed by, and without hesitation, he spoke up loudly stating, “This man
just called me a ‘fagot.’  Yes, he called
me a ‘fagot.’  What is a ‘fagot’?  Can someone tell me what a ‘fagot’ is?”  Everyone stared at the homophobic
college-stud, whose face quickly had turned a deep red.  He then sank down in his chair, as though he
wished he could disappear, thoroughly humiliated.   Peter, head held high, proceeded on by to
seek out some friends.  There sure were a
lot of people in that public place, and stud-guy sure drew a lot of attention
to himself that he didn’t plan on.
Last
of all, I remember my trip to Fort Lauderdale for spring-break from
college.  Late one afternoon and evening,
I was at a night-spot on the beach.  In
addition to lots of college guys, there also were some older, wealthy Cuban
emigré-men, all enjoying themselves.  I
noticed a young stud who looked no older than seventeen, very buff and very
smooth, wearing a tiny swimming suit.  He
occasionally dove elegantly, smoothly into a small swimming pool.  Then he would climb out, deliberately seeming
to ignore the crowd, and quietly stroll around the rim of the pool as though he
were on parade at a fashion-show.  He
knew exactly what he was doing.  With
regularity, one or other of the Cubans would walk over to him and slip a
large-denomination bill into the boy’s tiny swimsuit.  This went on for a while.  Finally, he must have received some rather
impressive amount because he quietly proceeded to strip naked, stand for a
moment to be admired, and then smoothly dove into the pool.
Well,
I would say that night-spot certainly qualified as a public place, and he
certainly drew attention from the crowd. 
I can understand why, too.  Hey!  I’d be satisfied just having a body like
that, even without all that money.
© 17 May 2016  
About the Author 
I have had a life-long fascination with
people and their life stories.  I also
realize that, although my own life has not brought me particular fame or
fortune, I too have had some noteworthy experiences and, at times, unusual
ones.  Since I joined this Story Time
group, I have derived pleasure and satisfaction participating in the group.  I do put some thought and effort into my
stories, and I hope that you find them interesting.
Posted on

Choices – Illustrated T-Shirts, by Will Stanton

In many years of my observing
how people dress, especially young people, I have found that they very often
advertise their personalities and beliefs by their choices of T-shirts with
pictures and messages.  Other than
wearing obligatory T-shirts with the logos of the places where some of them
work, peoples’ choices of T-shirts are as varied as are the people themselves.
Maybe it should not be
surprising to me that many young guys wear T-shirts that display bold
profanity, especially that over-used, four-letter word.  I also don’t understand so many people’s
fascination with skulls.  Some of the
images, as well, often are obscene.  Back
in the days when one Neanderthal used to be friends with me, his Christmas gift
to me was a four-panel, boldly colored T-shirt displaying bare butts and four
kinds of farts.  I’m not quite sure why
he felt I would find this T-shirt charming, but it certainly does represent the
way he thinks.
T-shirts with sports logos are
very popular among a certain group of people whose lives revolve around
mega-businesses posing as sports teams. 
Naturally in Denver, I see beer-drinking fat guys and spindly legged
septuagenarians proudly wearing overly-expensive Broncos T-shirts, hats, or coats.  The more cosmopolitan wear international
soccer shirts.    
A certain kind of people seem
compelled to wear clothes with political statements.  At the time of this writing, there appear to
be a large number of people sporting T-shirts and ball-caps stating “Trump – –
Make America Great Again,” which sounds to me to be an oxymoron.
I never have cared to wear
T-shirts out in public.  To begin with,
most of them have no pockets.  I need
places to stow my cell-phone, along with a number of other items that do not
fit conveniently into my pants pockets. 
Still, I once bought a knit shirt with collars that displayed the Gryffindor
emblem; but that was a hundred pounds ago, and I don’t wear it.
My friend John seems to prefer
wearing T-shirts as often as possible, so I found for him one with an elegantly
painted scene of timber-wolves, similar to the picture here.  Also, we both enjoyed the comedy-movie
“Moonrise Kingdom” that included a whole pack of boys who were members of the
fictional “Khaki Scouts of North America;” so I found where he could acquire
one on-line, and he soon was wearing it.
  
 
Some -T-shirts messages
occasionally are clever, such as, “Never judge a book by its movie.”  Then, there were, “I’m a virgin.  This is an old T-shirt;” “I’m not gay, but
$20 is $20;” and “Duct tape can’t fix stupid, but it can muffle it.”  My mother was an English teacher, and she
taught me that I always should remember and use good English.  So, I suppose one T-shirt appropriate for me
would be the one I saw that says, “I’m silently correcting your grammar.”   For those with an interest in Roman history,
there was the one that stated, “I’m being raised by wolves;” and it included a
drawing of Romulus and Remus being suckled by a she-wolf.
Famous comedy-writer Bruce
Vilanch, who for years was in high demand by many Hollywood celebrities to
write truly funny jokes for them, reportedly had closets containing thousands
of custom-made T-shirts with his original comedic quips.  Another person with a huge number of T-shirts
(but also including regular shirts, jackets, ball-caps) is my acquaintance
Larry who has suffered his whole life with trains-on-the-brains.  I have to admit, however, that many of the
train images are quite eye-catching.  Any
railroad will do, but he especially is fond of anything with Union
Pacific.  There also is a shirt for
frustrated computer-users that states, “My computer beat me at chess, but it
was no match at Karate;” and it portrays an angry user kicking the hell out of
his computer.
     
 
I know people who are nuts
about dogs or cats, and there are plenty of T-shirts with pictures of
them.  To this day, the cartoon-dog
Snoopy still is popular.  I am somewhat
puzzled by how many people wish to display images implying death.  Are these people nihilistic?  I suppose that it’s inevitable these days
that many shirts announce pro-marijuana slogans.  And of course, some people wish to declare
their great admiration for various “rock-noisicians.“
Some people choose T-shirts
with portraits of cultural icons. 
Someone in my book club once gave me a T-shirt with the name and image
of the writer Kafka on it.  I wore it
once or twice when he was around, merely out of politeness.  I’ve seen T-shirts with pictures of James
Dean on them.  Now that’s going back in
time, but he is still cool. 
Going back even further in
time, there still are people, both in 
Russia and elsewhere, who have feelings for the murdered Romanov royals and wear
T-shirts with elegant images of Czar Nicholas II or his son Alexei.  Then, I recall seeing a humorous shirt that
was captioned, “Marx, Lenin.”  In this
case, however, the pictures were of Groucho Marx and John Lenin.
I wouldn’t be surprised that,
within this group, there is at least one person who is a fan of
the Australian hard-rock band
AC/DC.  I saw an inspirationally
conceived T-shirt that states in big, bold letters, “AC/DC.”  Above that, however, are portraits
of the Serbian-American, genius-inventor Nikola Tesla and DC-proponent Thomas
Edison.  I thought this one to be quite
clever.  Of course, AC/DC has another connotation
as well. 
Logically, the vast majority
of T-shirts are created to make money.  Considering that fact, I would think that a
company first conducts market-research to
determine that there is a large enough
market to cover the manufacturing cost
and to make a profit.

If that is the case, I am surprised
by the apparent popularity of
the T-shirt I stumbled upon that sports a
large symbol of the 12th
Hitler-Youth Panzer Division. Do boys actually buy and wear
those T-shirts?  They either don’t care what people think, or they are
demonstrating that typical teenage
irrational boldness. 
There are some remarkably
creative images that some T-shirt-artists have come up with.  For example, I found an image of one that
appears to eliminate the stomach section of one’s torso and replaces it with an
image of just a section of spine, a little creepy but very
effective.  
Good music is a particular
passion of mine, so those T-shirts with music-related pictures and captions
have captured my attention.  There was
one of Beethoven with his quotation, “To play without passion is inexcusable.” 
Then there was the rather cute
one for members of boys’ choirs.  Printed on it was a musical treble clef, and
below it the caption read, “Here comes treble!”
I mentioned once before in an
earlier piece that, some time ago, I met a waiter whose musical passion was the
more obscure and currently less popular genre of Baroque
opera.  His father was an opera-tenor; and he, too,
was unusually passionate about Baroque vocal
music. Their greatest opera-hero was the
superlative soprano-castrato Carlo Broschi, stage-name
“Farinelli.” 
He very much wanted to have
some high-quality T-shirts printed up with
Farinelli’s portrait.  When he told me the caption that he
wished to print below the picture, I concluded
that it took first prize for irony: “It take
balls to be a castrato.”    
So, those were only a few
examples of T-shirt choices. For fun, I really would like to look into Bruce
Vilanch’s T-shirt closet.  I could take
pictures of some really funny images and captions. 
Also, I suppose if I were to
wake up tomorrow morning to find that I had turned into some teenage kid, I
might consider wearing T-shirts.  That’s
not likely.  I’ll stick with boring
shirts with pockets, buttons, and collars.
© 07 May 2016 
About
the Author 
I have had a life-long fascination with
people and their life stories.  I also
realize that, although my own life has not brought me particular fame or
fortune, I too have had some noteworthy experiences and, at times, unusual
ones.  Since I joined this Story Time
group, I have derived pleasure and satisfaction participating in the group.  I do put some thought and effort into my
stories, and I hope that you find them interesting.
Posted on

Cooking, by Will Stanton

James was a fantastically good cook, and I believe I have figured out
why.  There are several reasons that led
to his preoccupation with having enough food to eat and enjoying it.
To begin with, James knew hunger. 
He had very little to eat as a boy in Georgia and probably went hungry
quite often.  Although his father was
undoubtedly very intelligent (he could quote passages from the Bible merely
from having heard them at church), he was illiterate and could find only menial
work, which brought in very little money. 
They lived in a pre-Civil-War-era house without electricity and
sometimes had only collard greens for supper. 
As a growing boy, this lack of food frequently must have preyed upon
James’ mind.
James left home at age fifteen to make his own way.  During this time, he had very little money
and ate very little.  Probably the first
time he had a square meal was when he joined the Air Force.  Although he, at last, did not go hungry,
military chow doesn’t have a great reputation. 
It wasn’t until after he left the service and used the G.I. bill to
begin college that serendipity set him upon a path to learning about good
quality food, prepared well.
One rainy day in San Antonio, James took refuge inside the lobby of an
elegant hotel and sat down to study his French. 
In walked a well-dressed, older gentleman who immediately took notice of
James.  Did I mention that young James
was stunningly handsome, enough to turn heads? 
Well, he certainly did with Monsieur Charles Bois de Chêne, millionaire
from Lausanne, Switzerland.  Charles spoke to James in French, who also
replied in excellent French, James having inherited somehow an innately
brilliant mind and could learn rapidly. 
A strong friendship rapidly progressed to the point that Charles decided
to take James with him to Switzerland and France so James could gain greater
experience speaking French.
While traveling through France and Switzerland, James accompanied
Charles to operas and ballets, afterwards being taken to meet the casts.  They attended the exclusive Cannes Film
Festival.  And central to this story, he
certainly learned a lot about proper preparation and presentation of food.  This understanding and interest in food
stayed with him throughout the rest of his life.
Charles introduced James to elegant and varied meals among the
five-star resorts along Lake Como. 
Whenever they came across one of the famous French pâtisseries with
their all-too-tempting pastries, they indulged themselves so much that James
became concerned that those pastries easily could turn him into a cochon de
lait, or ”suckling pig,” the French idiom for someone who has become
rather chunky.   And, when they were in
Paris, they dined at the world-famous Hotel Ritz, where James came to truly understand
haute cuisine.
By the time I met James in Denver, he already had developed an interest
in cooking fine meals.  I know that I
have a natural instinct for knowing how to cook, and I have done so on
occasion; however, I never cared much for taking the time.  Before I had met James, I generally prepared
simple meals for myself.  Then after
James and I moved in together, James’ preference was to do the cooking, so I
generally assisted only as a sous chef, except when I was inspired to
create a favorite dish of mine.
James had many varied interests and excelled in them all, yet I am sure
that there remained a residual emotional scar from childhood when there was
virtually no food in his family’s house. 
As a consequence, he always made sure we had a full larder, including a
large pantry, extra storage on basement shelves, and in a large freezer in the
basement.
Because James enjoyed cooking so much, I bought him cookery gifts over
the years, such as a Cuisinart food processor, enameled, heavy-iron Le Crueset cook-pots, the best quality
mixer, Chinese woks, bread-maker, pasta-maker, crystal wine glasses, and a
large set of stoneware dinnerware.  While
we were together, we enjoyed hosting dinner-parties.  For a while, after he died of lung cancer, I
tried occasionally to continue that practice, but I finally lost heart and
suspended the practice.
I set the professional mixer on top of the refrigerator and covered it
with a plastic cover. I also covered the two dozen cook books.  The plastic covers have remained there now
going on twenty years.  An acquaintance
coveted my expensive Cuisinart and asked to buy it for only $20.  Because she supposedly is a friend, I agreed
and let it go for that.  Most of the
professional Le Crueset pots went in
a garage-sale.  Other pots and pans
remain, dust-covered, in the bottom drawer of my stove.  I have little interest in drinking wine, and
few people come to my house, so the crystal wine-glasses remain in the buffet,
unused.
Now my meals are what I call “utility eating.”  I prepare salads, heat a can of soup, make a
sandwich, or occasionally cook something simple on the stove-top.  The oven hasn’t been on in years.  I just don’t have the interest in preparing
varied and interesting meals just for myself. 
Perhaps the most used appliance in my kitchen is the old microwave.  Sometimes I think that, if I didn’t have a
microwave, I’d starve.
The one prevention for repetitive and boring meals for me, however, is
that I often have modest meals with friends out in various restaurants, nothing
fancy, just basic food.  And, that’s not
so much because of being able to order varied food which I don’t wish to bother
making for myself.  It is because of the
good company with my friends, which is especially important in my life right
now.
©
19 May 2016 
About the
Author 
I have had a life-long fascination with
people and their life stories.  I also
realize that, although my own life has not brought me particular fame or
fortune, I too have had some noteworthy experiences and, at times, unusual
ones.  Since I joined this Story Time
group, I have derived pleasure and satisfaction participating in the group.  I do put some thought and effort into my
stories, and I hope that you find them interesting.
Posted on

Puzzling People, by Will Stanton

People puzzle me. In fact, just about everything regarding human beings puzzles me – – – emotions overriding rational thinking, beliefs that defy fact and reality, faulty decision-making, taking irrational high-risks. Such thinking and behavior can result in harmful consequences, such as my young friend thinking he could leap from a cliff and safely catch a vine just like Tarzan (that actually happened; he fell and broke his back) to starting World War I, a devastating and totally unnecessary war that permanently disrupted world-order, killed millions, and ended up resulting in World War II.

One type of puzzling behavior that I have witnessed has taken place during dangerous storms. Mother Nature often can be quite dramatic, wreaking havoc upon people, their homes, and the land around them. Some people must feel that they are special, that they are invulnerable the dangers and immune to possible consequences of not taking shelter. They see harm to others portrayed on the TV news, but that just won’t happen to them.

I recall on one occasion sitting inside a café having coffee. It was an old-fashioned, converted mercantile store. A tornado warning-siren went off, and several of us descended into the basement for safety. After waiting for the tornado to pass, I returned upstairs only to find that several people, apparently curious about tornadoes, had remained standing right in front of the plate-glass windows. As it turned out, the tornado, albeit only an RF1, had come straight toward the building but, at the last moment, had risen and skipped over the building.

If it had not, there could have been broken glass and bleeding people all over the place.

The all-clear signal went off, and I headed back to my office, already having been delayed by the tornado. As I dashed out the door, the first person I came out to was a colleague coming in. He had a strange expression on his face, and his eyes looked like saucers. He explained that he had been in his car in the parking lot when the tornado went over, and the air pressure was so strong that it nearly pulled out his windows.

Later, a friend who worked in an office-tower in the business district nearby told me that many of the well-dressed businessmen, who had offices on the top floors, had stood by their windows to watch. I could just imagine, had the tornado hit their buildings, pin-stripe suits could have been flying all over the sky.

I witnessed a second episode when overly confident people ignored a tornado warning and thunderstorm. One day, I was sitting in my livingroom looking out the window at a torrential rainstorm. Sheets of rain were pounding down, and the flooded street overflowed up over my lawn. Suddenly, a tremendous boom sounded with a simultaneous flash. I don’t recall moving a muscle, but somehow I think I levitated several inches off the couch. I dashed to the window to look out and saw that the old pine tree directly across the street was blown away. And only a few feet away from the lighting strike was a jogger, running in the storm. Now, I admit that this is an example of dedicated exercise; however, it must be an example of lunacy as well.

Then the tornado warning-siren went off. I extricated my dog from behind the couch and headed downstairs to a basement-closet. We stayed there for twenty minutes, and it was just as well that we did so. I learned later that a tornado had come up from the southwest, touched down at Broadway and Evans damaging some businesses, and then headed straight for my house and the park across the street. Again, fortunately, the tornado lifted up somewhat and skipped over my house and the park. It continued northeast to Monaco Parkway and took out a whole swath of grand old pine trees. One man lost all the trees around his house, but he was lucky not to have had damage to the house.

Once the storm passed on beyond my house and the park, I stepped out to my front porch to take a look at the destroyed tree across the street. The first person I met coming out the door was my neighbor who was about ready to push my doorbell. He said that a branch had knocked down his electric and phone lines; he had lost his power and phone, and he would like to use my phone. As I was about ready to come back inside, we both looked across the street at the park, and we saw a group of tennis players standing under a tree. How wise was that? They were very lucky not to have been harmed. Only a few years later, three people stood under a tree in the middle of the park and were struck by lightning. Two were badly hurt; the third did not make it.

Just what were all these people thinking – – – that they were immortal, that harm comes only to others? Yes, people puzzle me, and this was only one type of behavior among many that I don’t understand.

© 12 February 2016

About the Author

I have had a life-long fascination with people and their life stories. I also realize that, although my own life has not brought me particular fame or fortune, I too have had some noteworthy experiences and, at times, unusual ones. Since I joined this Story Time group, I have derived pleasure and satisfaction participating in the group. I do put some thought and effort into my stories, and I hope that you find them interesting.

Posted on

Bicycle Memories, by Will Stanton

My bicycles memories are very clear still, even though they are from long ago. I still toy with the idea of riding a bike from time to time, yet I never seem to get around to it. I do have two English Raleigh bicycles in my garage. They are about fifty or sixty years old, three and five-speeds, no resemblance whatsoever to advanced, modern bicycles of today. They were hanging on hooks for many years. Two summers ago, a friend helped me lower one off the hooks so that I could ride it. After all, there is a park right across the street from me. However, I still haven’t pumped up the tires. It still sits there in the garage with flat tires. I’m not even sure that the tires are still good after all these hot summers stored in the garage.

I see lots of young and adult riders in the park when I occasionally take a walk there. What astonishes me are the very tiny, pre-school kids, mostly boys, wearing protective helmets, zipping around the park on miniature bikes without trainer-wheels. I never saw that when I was very young. I never did that myself, either.

Back in the day (I’m talking two generations ago), kids that age had tricycles and no helmets. Apparently, no one dreamed of putting tiny kids onto tiny bikes. Then, when kids graduated to small bikes, they started out with training wheels. I was grade-school age before I biked around on just two wheels. Although I did a lot of exploring around the neighborhood on that bike, I never raced around, jumping over humps are doing dangerous tricks like kids today or like the ones portrayed in kids’ movies such as “E.T.” or “Max.”

My small bike was a typical, rather heavy bike, similar to ones that all the other kids were riding in those times. My older brother was the first to experiment with the new European style bike that was taller and had very narrow tires. It sported a generator attached next to the wheel that powered the headlight, a small saddle-bag with tools, and a tire-pump attached to the frame. That was quite something. I inherited this French bike when my brother went away to college.

I road this bike everywhere, even all the way to down-town, so often that I became quite expert; and, that is saying something, considering how rough the streets were. For example, there were two ways to ride to the center of my small town. One was a two-lane State Street that originally was the state highway through town. It was the busier street, so I normally avoided it. The other was a zig-zag course of rough brick streets through residential areas. Because the railroad line curved around the south side of town at an angle, a street ran straight south until it could go not farther, then I would have to turn right onto an adjoining street, then south again, then west again, right, left, right left. At one point, there was a very bumpy railroad crossing where a siding ran to the A&P grocery store.

I rode the French bike so often that I gained a remarkable degree of balance. I could ride without touching the handle bars, even on rough patches, going around corners, or over the railroad crossing. I steered simply by shifting my weight one way or the other to turn corners.

I recall one day, I spotted a teacher of mine slowly approaching me in his car going the other way. I decided to tease him. I sat up straight on the bike, grabbed a large book from my bike-rack, and pretended that I was reading, holding it with both hands while riding my bike. I did see a clear view of his face as we passed by each other. His eyes looked very big, and his mouth was hanging open.

I continued riding my bike early in college. I was so confident with my skill that I recall an incident when, ordinarily, a rider might have become hurt, but I wasn’t. There was one very steep, rough-brick hill that I rode down – – – no problem. At the bottom, however, all the sand from winter had washed down to the base of the hill. As I began to ride around the corner, I could feel the wheels slipping out from under me. I knew I could not prevent my going down, so I decided to gently lay the bike over on its side, coming to a halt just as I touched the ground – – – not a scratch! One kind-hearted student was concerned that I might have been hurt, but I was just laughing about how easy a landing I had.

On occasion over the years, I have considered possibly obtaining a more modern bike with fatter tires that would be less likely to become punctured by all the sharp stuff in the streets; however, I never have felt that ambitious. If I don’t even ride my old bikes, why get another?

Maybe it’s just as well. I have met people who bought fancy, $2,000.00 bikes and had them stolen, even with bike locks and chains on them. My acquaintance Larry always hired cheap laborers, including one young guy who was a drug-addicted thief. After the helper died of throat-cancer from the effects of constantly smoking marijuana, people checked out a storage shed he had and found around 200 bikes. I’m fairly certain he never bought them.

Now that I have way too many years and pounds on me, I sometimes think back to those easy-biking days. I have a feeling that, if I pumped up the tires on my fifty-year-old Raleigh and took it for a spin, I’d feel like an over-size circus-bear laboriously pumping away on a little bike, much too small for his bulk.

© 15 May 2016

About the Author

I have had a life-long fascination with people and their life stories. I also realize that, although my own life has not brought me particular fame or fortune, I too have had some noteworthy experiences and, at times, unusual ones. Since I joined this Story Time group, I have derived pleasure and satisfaction participating in the group. I do put some thought and effort into my stories, and I hope that you find them interesting.

Posted on

Security, by Will Stanton

A person’s sense of security or insecurity may be based upon realistic concerns, concerns such as feeling the need to minimize the possibility of home-break-in, avoiding dangerous locales within cities, or perhaps concerns about local terrorism. In many cases, there are some rational steps people possibly can take to provide a greater sense of security.

There is for me, however, a concern (and this is a concern that progressively has worried me over the years), about a more subtle and perhaps even more dangerous sense of insecurity that plagues certain kinds of people and, consequently, society as a whole. That chronic sense of insecurity may warp those people’s emotions and thinking, resulting in actions that are harmful to others and to the society in which they live.

As I have stated several times earlier, there are various ways that people feel, think, and behave, part of that being based upon what they may have learned from their life-experiences, plus part of that literally based upon how their brains are structured physically. For example, everyone is a mixture of rational thinking and emotions. Research shows, however, that there always has been a group of people who appear to be much more prone to emotional responses and less rational, open-minded thinking. As a potentially terrible consequence, such people are more easily manipulated by devious people with harmful intentions. Also, they become very tribal, work together, often with anger and “fire in the belly,” making them too often more politically effective than more cerebral, better informed people.

Manipulating people’s fear and sense of insecurity has been around ever since the creation of humankind, and I have seen much of that over the last several decades here in America, notably in politics. Whereas it appears to me that one of the major political parties contains a good percentage of people who are open-minded, search for facts, try to think rationally about them, and to form logical, constructive conclusions, there is another major party, with much evidence I might add, that contains a large percentage of people who are more prone to fear, hate, and anger. Consequently, some politicians have mastered the craft of manipulating these people to side with them, to support them, even to the extent that the people vote against their own best interests. These voters not only form opinions that are against what is good for them and society as a whole, but they do so with great emotion, even abject anger against other persons who have formed more rational opinions.

I always have been a student of history, which has taught me lessons about human thinking and behavior. One of the most striking lessons I have learned is from a very revealing quotation from one of the most notorious individuals of modern history, a quotation and lesson that certainly are a warning to what is occurring today here in America. What this person said, along with my comments about each part of it, should ring an alarm bell.

This monster of history was asked how he was able to so control the masses of people in his country. To start with, he maintained that most people are ignorant. Now immediately, some of us might respond that this assertion is an overstatement; yet I ask everyone to recall how ignorant people were shown to be when Jay Leno went on the street and asked simple questions of many people, including graduate students, teachers, businessmen, and even government officials. Need I also mention the recent Republican so-called debates?

Even more harshly, the political leader stated that most people are stupid. Now, I know that this term too frequently is used simply as a slur to denigrate people, yet I have noted for many years that certain people do seem to lack the ability to think rationally. I occasionally over thirty years have tested an acquaintance of mine to ascertain whether or not he can follow simple processes of logical thinking; and, truthfully, he never has. He always responds in irrational, emotional ways, so much so that his thinking is very distorted. I recall in the year 2000 during the Presidential election, this individual actually wrote a letter to the Republican National Committee stating, “If Al Gore steals this election, I volunteer to lead the first tanks into Washington.” In addition to his statement being dramatically irrational, it is quite ironic, now that there is strong evidence that the theft actually was the other way around.

The notorious quotation goes on to state that all the leader had to do was to employ (first of all) fear, and we have witnessed in the U.S. how effective fear-mongering by certain political leaders has been over several decades, stirring up the citizens and priming them for manipulation. “Let us political leaders, along with the top one percent, do whatever we want, and we will make you secure.”

Secondly, he also utilized hate by demonizing certain peoples based upon race, religion, sexual orientation, political beliefs, etc.; and those persons today who are easy prey to such manipulation increasingly express opinions and beliefs that can be quite shocking and unsettling to those of us who have more empathetic, civilized beliefs. In this way, the manipulators can misdirect the public’s attention away from the real problems and constructive solutions by blaming everything on other groups unlike themselves.

And thirdly, he employed anger, and we have seen both verbal and physical violence as a result. This certainly was horrifyingly true in his time and his country. Here in the U.S. in the recent Republican debates and town-hall meetings, we have seen anger too often expressed among the candidates and audience. Several times now in Donald Trump rallies, we even saw violence against dissenters and journalists. One Trump supporter even shouted out, “Sieg heil!” Such violence can spread throughout society as a whole, rather like metastasized cancer. For example, at the beginning of the 20th century, one of the two most spoken languages in the U.S. was German, the language of a large portion of our emigres, along with it being the language of medicine and science. Yet, with the advent of the Great War, suddenly German-Americans were hated. The German language unthinkingly was banned in all schools. Shop-keepers of German heritage had their windows smashed, and others were physically beaten. During World War II, many innocent Japanese, Italian, and German families were sent to prison camps, the German families being the last to be released.

Now we see such fear, hate, and anger being directed toward Mexicans and Muslims, among others. (I suppose certain people always will fear and hate homosexuals). My belief is that the more knowledgeable one becomes, the more rational one’s thinking, the more empathetic and understanding of others, then the more secure one becomes in his own mind. A lack of a sense of security too often is within people’s minds, not necessarily within the real world.

© 02 March 2016

About the Author

I have had a life-long fascination with people and their life stories. I also realize that, although my own life has not brought me particular fame or fortune, I too have had some noteworthy experiences and, at times, unusual ones. Since I joined this Story Time group, I have derived pleasure and satisfaction participating in the group. I do put some thought and effort into my stories, and I hope that you find them interesting.