HIDING ON A WALL IN A LONGAGO LIBRARY

After all those scary Mayan Calendar predictions about the year 2012, now new research says earth's flaming finale won't actually come for many years later. Therefore, fans, the never-ending, end-of-the-world cottage industry marches on. However, here's one non-Mayan who found a finale of sorts just a few weeks ago.

Despite today's exotica of GPS systems, such paraphernalia can only get you to places. Not to feelings. And so it was I ventured into my old west-side community of Austin without paraphernalia. Only passion. A passion to re- experience the feelings of my young days poring over the great books here in our neighborhood's small library.

The local demographics have changed dramatically. But the cozy, brown-brick building remains proudly intact. [Right alongside Austin's 1900 replica of Philadelphia's Independence Hall where I was to meet my wife-to-be exactly 50 years after it was apparently built for us!]. In these same dusty stacks, this pre-teen explored the classics...the biographies...most especially all those self-help books boys crave in order to improve everything from their dating personality to their curve ball.

A quiet Saturday morning and clearly out of place. I crumpled into a back chair, and pretended to be reading a magazine. What I was really doing is trying to re-live the hopes and yearnings of a skinny kid in the early 1940s looking to make sense of his place in his world's large wars and dramas. [Oh, and also trying to re-live what it felt like to be desperately in love with Rosemary, reigning beauty-queen of our 7th grade!].

It was then that my pre-Mayan finale hit home.

It was that photo on the wall. Could it be? Yes, it was. It was an old B&W group shot on the library steps of some Saturday morning kids years ago. And, gee, the skinny kid with the unkempt hair was among them. A tiny moment in distant time frozen forever by a nameless photographer. You examine it and you say to yourself the only words that fit: "That was once me. This is now me. From a finale to a prologue. All in the Biblical four-score-and-ten. Not great...but not bad!"

SURPRISE -- BEST THING ABOUT YOUR POST OFFICE

Grumble all you want about the US Postal Service, but they do reach us six solid days every week of the year. Not always with the kind of mail we may like opening, but imagine our world without them. Not only without their service, but without their stamps. Those eye-popping little works of art we take far too much for granted...!

They constitute a happy spectacle that features our lands and monuments, our heroes and celebrities, even -- well, by gosh, even our comic strips. Right now they're featuring: Dennis the Menace, Archie, Garfield, Beetle Bailey, and Calvin & Hobbes. You can of course simply stick them on envelopes; but better still, you can take the time to enjoy how these comics catch the comedic cadence of American life:

* The perpetually five-year-old Dennis debuted in 1951. His innocent curiosity about anything and everything can drive his parents and neighbors a little nuts, but doesn't his happy mischief remind you of somebody very dear? That's right: You. In so many brings-a-smile-to-your-face ways, Dennis reminds us of us when we and America were just a little younger, and maybe simpler

* Seventeen-year-old Archie is the idealized American teen. Remember...? Happily torn between the haughty Veronica and sweet Betty, Archie eternally wanders through his high school years a composite of curious and clueless. Surely adolescence never was this simple, but it's still fun to think it was

* Garfield first strutted across the stage of American life in 1978 as the incarnation of everything feline. A self- centered, cynical, crabby tabby who allows his bachelor Jon Arbuckle to live with him. Garfield can say more about the human condition is just one small thought-bubble than most us us can in a spoken paragraph. Each day we're left to wonder why we weren't born a catered-to cat

* Beetle Bailey was drafted into the Army in 1950, and has remained the laziest GI in the service. But what he and his hassling sergeant remind us is that there really is a parallel universe to our own safe civilian one. And whereas with Beetle there are laughs, he continues to remind us that his army is what allows you and me to keep laughing

* Finally Calvin & Hobbes. Six-year-old Calvin and his inseparable tiger pal Hobbes ponder the mysteries of their world. Our world. And within just a few panes of brilliant comedic artwork, they seem to solve so many of them. Philosophy 102 with pictures. But unlike most cartoonists, their creator produced only from 1985 to 1995, leaving us to ponder all that his inventions once pondered

What an amazing world...! What an amazing variety of ways to study it....! What better way than by taking a second look at what you're sticking on that next envelope...!

WATCHING THE NEWS TONIGHT

It is said: Perception is reality. Really...?

Psychologists and sociologists make a good case for it. In the case of both individuals and societies. A handy experiment would be the news we watch tonight (our perceptions) being reported on television (our reality). Night after night, we sit/slump/hide on our couch as we face this unforgiving barrage of sights & sounds. And while we are virtually helpless to do anything about this news, our perceptions continue to define and refine the reality we're watching:

* What we (and the networks) perceive as news is invariably "bad" by definition. And yet, if it takes something bad to warrant all this attention, is it possible such bad exceptions prove the rule most of the everyday world is good?

* What we (and the networks) perceive as "good" is more and more being defined in terms of rankings. If something or someone is ranked higher by some self-appointed ranking service, this/they is deemed to be good. And yet, is it possible our obsession with being ranked first (teams, movies, sales, elections, GNP, missiles, etc) totally ignores all that is creatively happening in second, third, even fiftieth place?

* What we (and the networks) perceive as entertainment has evolved over time. From the early days of puppet shows to westerns to family sitcoms to sci-fi and now a catastrophe of reality programs. Programs in which for some sociopathic reasons we have concluded that bizarre is normal, vulgar is endearing, and over-the-top stupidity is engaging. Why is what once sent people to the principal's office or jail, is now celebrated as show business?

* What we (and the networks) perceive as democracy-in-action has often degenerated into fury-on-the-screen. Seems as if what concerns us most are the bureaucratic mistakes, off-camera gaffes, hotel-room trysts, and the talking-heads who have mastered volume over validity. Whatever happened to political philosophies, facts and policies as the issues that should be examined?

But lets be honest here.

Complaints and questions like these are standard fare these days at dinner tables, golf courses, even houses of worship. Makes us feel good to know what's wrong with our world. And to speak our piece. Trouble is, tonight we'll be back on that couch in front of that set just the same. And because most of us will be doing the same thing -- well, that's not news.

SCOOPING UP AFTER ELEPHANTS

Everyone remembers how the grungy circus handyman answered the question: When are you going to give up this lousy job scooping up after elephants. "What, and give up show business...!!" Actually there are thousands of elephant-scoopers in the world today, but dressing well and making the big bucks. They're called publicists, and they get paid to scoop up the dung left behind by their famous clients.

The clients generally come in three categories: Celebrities...competitors...capitalists.

Celebrities are the performers whose egos make them say or do dumb things. At one time the likes of Fatty Arbuckle, Errol Flynn, and Mickey Rooney. Lately: Mel Gibson, Whitney Houston, Lindsay Lohan, Alec Baldwin, and Charlie Sheen. Ahhh, but the natty elephant scoopers are always there to explain to the media why the tipsters and paparazzi got this story all wrong.

Competitors are the muscled-up athletes who, off the field, are found jumping fans in the stands, bar brawls, domestic violence arrests, and dog-fighting. Their well-heeled publicists display even greater athleticism as they dance around the ugly facts during the next morning's press conference. Just like the high-paid celebrities, these competitors are multi-million-dollar investments their owners want protected from -- God forbid! -- any bad PR.

Then there are elephant-scoopers for capitalists whose Wall Street or corporate holdings must be salvaged at all costs. Not only for the sake of their yachts and resorts, but the confidence of all the suckers who invest in them. Their publicists are usually sitting behind them in courts and Congress, whispering save-our-ass advice,

Oh yes...there's a fourth category: Our politicians.Those whose careers depend upon what and how they say things. Be they president or simple bureaucrat, these days there is always a hidden camera somewhere. So whatever stupid things they utter have the possibility of becoming viral on the Internet within moments. Their elephant-scoopers begin every next-day explanation with the scripted words: "What he/she meant to say..."

Just another schadenfreude day in the good old USA....! Will our capricious public forgive and forget, or will they bray like one of those circus elephants enjoying their owners catching a face full of their own manure...?

WHAT YOU CAN LEARN FROM A BARBER CHAIR

Reading your daily newspaper is not much fun anymore. The news is relentlessly bad, and the stories unbearably familiar. However, reading your daily newspaper in the local barbershop can be very different. Eloquently so...!

Here I refer to the little drama that was playing out during my last visit. Dickie -- I think that was his name -- 3-year-old Dickie was getting his first "grown-up" haircut. Now before we rush past this observation, lets consider for a precious moment just what a celebratory event this is.

There, cloaked and perched atop the barber-chair's kiddie platform, is the little boy about to experience his initiation into little manhood. There will of course be others. The newest teen-look...the swaggering stud-look ....the prom-night-look....eventually, at my age, the save-whatever-hair-you-can-look.

But on this particular Thursday afternoon, proud hovering mama was giving the barber her last teary-eyed instructions. She wanted Dickie to look like a big-boy, and yet not so much that he would lose the little-boy look she has so cherished for so long. Ron -- the patient master with the shears -- listened attentively. Then tried to accomplish the mission even while mama kept circling the chair. And Dickie kept fidgeting with uncertainty.

What makes the scene so indispensable is its existential implications.

Here is a study in parental love...professional patience...youth on the verge....and a shop full of adults whose lives may in some way be shaped by emerging Dickie and all the other Dickies in the land. A kind of torch-passing as one generation offers up its best gift to a waiting world. Some day soon, Dickie might just be the quarterback we cheer, the candidate we elect, the neighbor who moves next door, and yes the future we count on.

Mama surely understands all this, as she carefully scoops up some of Dickie's locks for her very own....

LEWIS CARROL WAS TALKING ABOUT TODAY'S "MAD MEN" YEARS AGO

You have to wonder what Alice would have thought about today's flashy dress-up parties re-living the 1960s America of "Mad Men." The hit TV show has made it fun and fashionable. Especially around Halloween. But there may be more here than meets the jaded eye.

When Alice fell through her rabbit hole, she was falling through time. In her case, a topsy-turvy time concocted by the imagination of Lewis Carroll. In 21st C America, when we fall through time, there are usually specific conventions. Voice-of-God documentaries...sepia-toned movies...Broadway revivals....and now these costume parties where everyone dresses up to look like what we think we once looked like.

This is not to ruin the parties; but as both Alice and Lewis could tell you, the "Mad Men" years were more than narrow ties, beehive hairdos, chain-smoking offices, and three-martini lunches. In true Carrollian fashion, there are serious lessons to be harvested. Take for instance the ad game itself. In contrast to today's brashy headlines and quick-cut soundbites, back then Madison Avenue actually took time to talk about the product. As a product you could use, not a feeling you could become. Check out the records, because the American attention-span (flighty as it may be) was actually three times what it is today.

Putting aside the wows and widgets being pitched back then, its citizenry therefore was actually a tad less susceptible to what goes on here a tumultuous half-century later.The American genus circa 2010 is essentially a complex composite of genes, brain lobes and DNA which has been so thoroughly tested and timed, it's become an exotic pinball machine. The smart players with the big bucks have mastered this machine. They know our every whim, wish, and worry. So they can put the ball into play -- be it for purchases or votes -- in such a way that they, more than we, are in control of the game!

Not to become too Star Trekking about this, but "we the people" are no longer quite what we think we are. True, we still scream orders from the stadium stands...re-play every mistake on Monday morning...pronounce mighty judgments on our despised political leaders....and grumble voraciously about how we could do it all better. But stirring Fourth-of July rhetoric aside, "we the people" have been so well decoded, even we don't always know what we know and what we intend to do about it.

But "they" do.

Not the Oliver Stone "they" conspiring terrible evils somewhere. Actually most of the "theys" are nice folks in ad offices, boardrooms, government departments, and think-tanks with fine-sounding money missions. But the thing Lewis Carroll noticed so brilliantly, is how often "they" know just how to make "us" their missions' messengers....!

IN AN AGE OF KNOWLEDGE, A CASE FOR IGNOANCE

"Where ignorance is bliss, 'tis folly to be wise..." When 18th C English poet Thomas Gray scratched out those lines, he had no way of knowing how this 21st C reader has come to embrace them. Not just poetically, but philosophically. What's more, this reader invites other readers to consider it as their own secret garden from the storms of knowledge pounding outside our gates.

Knowledge -- in and of itself -- is to be desired and admired. Anyone who has invested 40 years in the classrooms of knowledge must attest to that fact. And yet, in gaining knowledge, something must yield to make room for it. Is that not Gray's blissful ignorance...?

A prima facie case comes to mind: That terrible knowledge about Santa which stoutly obliges us to dismiss all those happy little ignorances about a jolly red rider....sleighs in the night...reindeers that can fly....and gifts nested beneath great green trees. Frankly, I still hate the little jerk who smugly shared his 2nd grade knowledge with me!

And what about today's exponentially growing body of scientific knowledge? It is surely good that we now understand how our planet spins in space, how weather can be predicted, and how germs can be defeated. On the other side of the knowledge ledger, some of us feel cursed -- yes, that's my name for it! -- cursed with the knowledge that no one lives in the moon....stars are not telling us something....winds in the night are not the whispers of loved ones, simply the results of something called a trans-Canadian current!

At one time, thick red steaks and fatty donuts were fun. Napping instead of jogging was acceptable. Burning autumn leaves on the fragrant altar of our curb-sides was a dreamy liturgy, not an ordinance violation. Cigars and chocolate and cholesterol were pleasures without penalties. Oh, and our knowledge of priests and ministers and rabbis was happily limited to what they stood for more than what they stumbled over!

Good minds will protest -- ignorance is humanity's chains. Gentle hearts may counter -- when ignorance 'tis bliss, perhaps this bliss trumps brash. Sweet lies taste better than hard truths. It's that ancient head/heart thing. Which to fill more? Head raises us above the animals, but heart warms us against the cold. It's never an either/or; mainly, a which/when.

Which part of our being to rely on when a choice is to be made. As for me (and possibly Thomas Gray) a sharp wind in the night tells my head to put on a coat. But those peculiar shadows racing across the moon tell my heart that my books have not yet slain all of the night's mystery and magic....