DID I EVER TELL YOU ABOUT THE CLIFF I FELL OFF

There's the story of the true believer who fell off a deep cliff and was barely hanging on by a tiny tree branch. He called up, "Oh God please save me." A mighty voice came back, "Just let go my son." As the branch weakened, the panicky believer looked up again, "Is there someone else up there...?"

After a proud 244 years, Encyclopedia Britannica finally closed this month because they too didn't hear anyone else up there. The Goliath of printed ideas has been slain by the David of digital data, because it didn't listen to the right voice. There are not many left to mourn its death, because they are too busy tweeting, googling, and emailing. I take it you are among their ranks.

I was a history consultant to Britannica when they entered the field of film. A bold step beyond their traditional books. But when it was time to take the next bold step from film to Internet, they hesitated. We all hesitate at times. Sometimes wisely, often disastrously.

Life doesn't come with an owner's manual. So each cliff becomes another test. Which voice to hear...? Even more to the point, which voice to listen to...? At one time in human history the only voices we heard were those of family, clan, tribe, village. Eventually there were other voices from other villages near and far. Today's generation is the generation in which at last we have become one village. The global electronic village in which there are a billion billion voices every day.

A cacophony or a symphony? Frankly, both. So how's that tree branch holding lately...?

TICK...TICK...TICK

Time is what the engines of our lives run on. Eventually, though, they will run out of it. Knowing how to know when -- now there's a cosmic secret to be wished for.

Or not.

Would we really want to know? To know when our little engine is about to stall and sputter out? Having this would be to have the knowledge of the gods, a knowledge mere humans are not well equipped to manage. Yes, for some it could energize our sense of purpose. For most, it would paralyze our sense of existence.

The subject may have added interest this time of year as the time of our daily sunlight grows longer. University of California astronomer Steve Allen explains: "As our days grow longer, somewhat unpredictably, there are fractionally fewer days in the year. Eventually today's calender may need to be amended yet again."

Allen's concern will become important in say another 1000 years. Meanwhile, back here in 2012, the engines keep running and the clocks keep ticking. Especially our own clock. What to do then with our remaining ticks...?

Well, lets see now. There is a presidential campaign...rising oil prices...spreading culture wars confrontations in the Middle East...border jumping in the Southwest....the IRS....major league baseball's 143rd season...and the 62nd anniversary of that starry June night I first met her.

Each one of these -- the good and the bad -- comes with the fuel of time. Each to be lived as best we know how. So that when time finally runs out, we might be so privileged as to say: "The trip was well worth taking. The destination was well worth trying for."

Start your engines...!

HOW'S IT FEEL JUST BEING ANOTHER DUSTBALL!

This heading could have used a prettified word like: construct. When used as a noun, a construct is defined as "An abstract or general idea put together out of component parts." But if you notice the dust balls in the corners of your rooms, they may better illustrate a construct. A little particle from here, a tiny fleck from there, and eventually it all gathers up into what you think you see.

Whereas dust balls just happen, constructs are usually created. As an embarrassing matter of fact, constructs are the way we understand most of the people in the world around us. Picture the fast-talking publicity agents in Hollywood's hay days. They didn't discover stars, they created them!. Sometimes out of little more than a unique head of hair, set of eyes, pair of legs, pair of breasts; a special quality of voice, way of laughing, mix of the sexy and sassy. And if their creations could act a little, well that was a plus. But first there are stars; later maybe we can help them become actors.

Wait. There's more to the tale of the human dust ball. If this Pygmalion practice were limited only to Hollywood, no problem. However, the practice prevails every day, every where, among every one of us. In a world with too many people, places and principles, too many of us succumb to this easier way of figuring one another out.

Sports..? We make our players into constructs: Heroes or goats; flashy or sullen; on the make or over the hill. Politics...? Visionary or flip-flopper; scholar or stupid; one of us or one of them. Religion...? Crazy fundamentalist or stodgy traditionalist; devoted cleric or horrific predator.

The next party, reunion, or political rally you attend, behold the moving, talking human dust balls in attendance. Human constructs -- you have intuited to be the truth -- with whom you are reacting. "Who does she think she is wearing that..!" "He looks like my Father trying to look like Robert Redford..!" "I saw her marching in that parade...!" "One look at him and you know he's lying..!" "They sure don't make 'em like they used to...!"

Recognize yourself?

FORGET TODAY'S NEWS. WHAT YOU WANT IS NEWS YOU CAN USE

Among the dangers of getting older is getting bored. The I've-seen-it-all-before syndrome is rampant among the gin-playing gents in local senior homes and the whispering widows at local weddings. To their credit, they're often right. To their shame, they could be missing the point.

I dimly recall how as a youngster I could never find anything much wrong with the movies the critics were panning. Now I can rarely find anything much right. I'm obviously succumbing. Take the morning news which I can predict with virtual certainty: Rumors of war...terrorist plot foiled...anti-American demonstrations...starlet in rehab...stunning new prescription promise...mob museum opens in Vegas...local school scores plummet...another book on why Jefferson really loved his slave, why Lincoln really was killed, why FDR really knew about Pearl Harbor beforehand, oh and why Rasputin really was a nice guy after all.

Once you've been around the bend a few times, you suspect some great editor-in-the-sky recycles these stories every 90 days or so. The sign on his or her desk reads: There's nothing new under the sun, but you've got to keep them guessing!

So is there a point to all this or not...? The gents and I kinda think there is. It's in the very unvarying rhythms to our daily world. So unvarying at their core as to become universals. Universals which have never really changed from the day we lost the lease on Eden: "Earning our bread by the sweat of our brow"..."There will be wars and rumors of war"..."Expectation is the root of all heartache" ... "Give every man your ear, but few your voice"..."Holding on to anger is like holding on to a hot coal" ..."Ambition is the last refuge of failure"..."Cowards die many times, the valiant but once"..."A jug fills up drop by drop"..."A man cannot be comfortable without his own approval"..."Ahh, women.They make the highs higher and the lows more frequent."

Every one of these universal thoughts was penned hundreds of years before this morning's headlines. And yet are these not more than news, but rather news-you-can-use? Arguably the best thing about getting older is starting to understand the universal Human Condition. If you do, chances are you'll never have to read another newspaper again.

DO YOU KNOW YET WHAT YOU WANT TO BE WHEN YOU GROW UP...?

Grandmothers and old uncles were famous for patting us on the head and posing this question. And at one time in America the answers came easily. Boys wanted to be, in order of preference: President, fireman, policeman, cowboy, Hollywood hero. Girls: Wives, mothers, teachers, Hollywood heroine.

As they say [exactly who "they" are is never defined] It's complicated.

Not many guys today want to get into the snake pit that is the modern presidency. Firemen and policemen are portrayed as corrupt pensioners stealing from the public trough. Cowboys have lost their status to hedge fund managers and astronauts. As for the girls, choices in their lives have dramatically expanded. Stay-at-home moms are no longer on every girl's pedestal, as an entire world of careers beckons.

On the upside to this historic shift is choice. Nothing is out-of-the-question, because everything is possible. On the downside is a mountain of choices which can sometimes overwhelm the seeker at the very start of the trip up. Whereas at one time, in a less socially mobile America, one's place in the sun was fairly well mapped out for us, now WE'VE become the map.

Two glitches to those maps:

* Some young Americans substitute freedom for purpose. Their dreams of who they want to be is...well, not to be anything prescribed by society. These are the dreamers, the seekers, the poets who envision finding their own Walden Pond while the rest of the world spins madly and avariciously out of control. As some of my envious peers grumble: Nice work if you can get it, kid!

* Then there are some young Americans who have hitched their wagon of dreams to the star of science. I've heard them explain it won't be long until science finds a cure for death. At a time of their choosing, their preserved brains will be attached to robotic bodies for life ever after!

What a world...! What an age...! What will grandmothers and old uncles be asking then...?

WHATEVER HAPPENED TO THE AMERICAN CORNER? THINGIFYIED, THAT'S WHAT!

Hang on tight, folks, because the dreams are all coming true. Twenty-first century society is hurtling us into newer and wider orbits of digitalized living in which we are thinking, acting and growing faster than ever before. Conquering disease, famine, space and perhaps immortality itself.

Mark Twain was living in just such a time at the dawn of the 20th century. He applauded the progress of his generation. Remember, though, he had come from a simpler frontier age. In later reflecting on his sentimental travels with Tom and Huck, he wrote to a friend: "Don't part with your young illusions. Once they are gone you may still exist, but you have ceased to live."

One such illusion -- hardly understood by anyone holding a smart-phone or an Ipad -- is the American Corner. Those cozy intersections dotting every urban community in the land with such as: The corner drugstore...corner bakery...corner barbershop...corner saloon. Maybe not always exactly at the corner, but darn close. And close was of course the name of the game.

These locally owned local establishments were there so you and I and they could stay close to one another. After all isn't closeness another way of saying community, and isn't community the necessary heartbeat of society?

Sorry to report what you already know. What's at the American Corner these days is probably a strip mall. Or if not that, certainly a franchised establishment of some kind whose owner lives in New York, manager comes from Seattle, and promotions are packaged from Philadelphia. Closeness to them is better ways of getting their products closer to your purse.

Nice people, you know what I mean. But not close enough to be called your people. That's because they are organized to see you as a statistic on their computerized cashier tabs every night. They know what you want not from you as much as from your stats. Very much like today's brilliant neuro-biologists have "thingifyied" us into genetic codes and neural responses, today's franchised American Corners are "thingifying" us into buying graphs and charts.

A small price to pay for progress...? Perhaps so, given today's highly competitive global market. However, exactly HOW small is still under consideration by us illusionary river-rafters....

I WROTE FOR THE MOB. WELL, THE ONE IN SKIRTS

Are you ready for this? There's the Mob...New York Mob...Vegas Mob...and now Chicago Mob Wives coming to TV. I kid you not. Five hot-looking babes who have the dubious distinction of being related to local mobsters. As it turns out, I once wrote an "authorized biography" for one the Wise Guys, because his grand-daughter wanted his reputation "salvaged." I'm not going to mention his name, because her family killed the deal. Which frankly was better for me than killing the intended author.

I bring this up to make a point. The press always labels the Wise Guys. The Don. the Nose. the Fist. the Barber. Exactly the way they do politicians. And we, the dumbed-down citizenry, accept the labels as the man. This is crazy!

Washington was not the kid with the cherry tree...Lincoln was more than a rail-splitter...Teddy was not simply a Rough Rider...FDR's jaunty cigarette-holder did not really capture his persona [ this on the authority of his Secretary of the Interior Harold Ickes's own grandson here in Chicago ].

So why do we continue this habit of cariciaturizing complex subjects? Simple. It makes complexity simple. Romney does not equal Capitalism. Santorum does not equal Medievalism. Obama does not equal...well, any one of the dozen labels slapped on his resume by his detractors. Anymore than my deceased mobster was "just a sweet grandfather to me and my kids" as my anonymous benefactor wanted his posthumous label to read.

Although I have to say, my first draft would have made intriguing reading for some Chicago locals.