One part in a hundred, that would be one per cent. Anyone would conclude that that is not much. A local art gallery is devoting an entire exhibition period to that theme, however. Choose and expand upon the concept of one per cent of anything. Now, since this is an art gallery, one would expect it to be a study of the minutiae of the visual world. Were I an artist, I would cut myself a little cardboard window and start looking at things: the heart of a flower, the end of a banana, the pebbled surface of a blackberry. Or, were I a photographic artist, I'd narrow my viewfinder down to locate texture and detail in a larger picture. I am reducing my field of vision.
But I am not that kind of artist. I am a writer and a poet and my work every day is to routinely seek the one per cent-- or even less. I zero in on a single facet of the life I have been given and examine it, hoping to use it to make sense of the rest, the enormous thunderstorm of thought and experience and sense information that rains in on me each day. Studying a single raindrop, I try to see the universe.
Monday, September 30, 2013
Regret and Rejoicing
There are times when I regret having given up our suburban quarter-acre: in spring, when the tulips and daffodils pop up in the woods behind the house and the dogwoods are dotting the woods with pink and white; sometimes, in the summer, when folks are hauling in fresh tomatoes from the garden (and even, maybe, the zucchini); in winter, when I used to go out and cut greens for the house--holly and ground pine and magnolia branches. I had a garden that I could count on--and, when I found a new plant that flourished there, I was delighted to have added it to the somewhat haphazard design I'd established.
But, in the fall...I am now so grateful for my 20x20 bricked-in patio. No leaves to rake, no mulch to spread, no lawn to mow, no acres (well, it always seemed like that) of frostbitten plants to slimily tangle around my fingers as I tried to clean up beds for the winter. In the fall, I can walk down to the river for my autumnal color fix. I can go to the nursery and replace my summer geraniums with chrysanthemums, and my pinks with pansies or ornamental cabbages. I can even (after a couple years of failure with assorted other plants there) water the sedums in the Wooly Pockets on my wall, stick in a couple mini-pumpkins and call them finished till Thanksgiving.
My various pots of spent lilies and other assorted perennials now host purple fall asters, and the foliage of my baby nandinas is turning bright red. The nameless shrubs that someone else trained into tree-shapes against the back wall are producing orange berries. (And no, they AREN'T pyracantha. I've questioned nursery people and have heard everything from euonymus to bittersweet--it's a mystery!) And all through this, I am within hearing distance of my fountain, burbling away in the middle of the patio, with the occasional bold bird swooping down for a drink or a splash. If my gate is open (and it is, so I can haul my hose back and forth) neighbors (walking dogs or themselves) almost always have a word or two to say about the flowers or the wreath on the door. Putting my 'garden' to bed is no longer a solitary chore--dirty, cold, and wet--but sort of an extended tidying up: an outside room that needs clutter-removal and sprucing up so that my winter windowscape will give me a lift instead of a dose of depression.
Today was the day. All that's left to do is a quick sweep of the bricks, and a wipe across the shed door to remove my dirty handprints. When the chrysanthemums and asters are done, I will cut them back, leaving my rosemary bushes in sole possession of the assorted pots and urns that surround the fountain. I will plant a few bulbs and protect them (somehow) from the depradations of the squirrels. But, for now, I will have a cup of tea--maybe outside in my rocking chair, with the fountain and birds for company.
But, in the fall...I am now so grateful for my 20x20 bricked-in patio. No leaves to rake, no mulch to spread, no lawn to mow, no acres (well, it always seemed like that) of frostbitten plants to slimily tangle around my fingers as I tried to clean up beds for the winter. In the fall, I can walk down to the river for my autumnal color fix. I can go to the nursery and replace my summer geraniums with chrysanthemums, and my pinks with pansies or ornamental cabbages. I can even (after a couple years of failure with assorted other plants there) water the sedums in the Wooly Pockets on my wall, stick in a couple mini-pumpkins and call them finished till Thanksgiving.
My various pots of spent lilies and other assorted perennials now host purple fall asters, and the foliage of my baby nandinas is turning bright red. The nameless shrubs that someone else trained into tree-shapes against the back wall are producing orange berries. (And no, they AREN'T pyracantha. I've questioned nursery people and have heard everything from euonymus to bittersweet--it's a mystery!) And all through this, I am within hearing distance of my fountain, burbling away in the middle of the patio, with the occasional bold bird swooping down for a drink or a splash. If my gate is open (and it is, so I can haul my hose back and forth) neighbors (walking dogs or themselves) almost always have a word or two to say about the flowers or the wreath on the door. Putting my 'garden' to bed is no longer a solitary chore--dirty, cold, and wet--but sort of an extended tidying up: an outside room that needs clutter-removal and sprucing up so that my winter windowscape will give me a lift instead of a dose of depression.
Today was the day. All that's left to do is a quick sweep of the bricks, and a wipe across the shed door to remove my dirty handprints. When the chrysanthemums and asters are done, I will cut them back, leaving my rosemary bushes in sole possession of the assorted pots and urns that surround the fountain. I will plant a few bulbs and protect them (somehow) from the depradations of the squirrels. But, for now, I will have a cup of tea--maybe outside in my rocking chair, with the fountain and birds for company.
Friday, August 30, 2013
Tomatoes!!!
Tomatoes
Globes, teardrops, kidney shapes, pears..
scarred, pleated, cracked with brown,
gold and green and mottled red,
striped and parti-colored,
that peculiar green tomato smell
(the smell of a summer garden)
rough, fuzzy stems,
yellow flowers;
sun and earth and seed and memory:
heirlooms.
**************
Brandywine, Marvel Stripe, Black Prince, Cherokee Purple, Flamme Orange, Green Zebra, Lemon Boy, Vintage Wine, White Beauty, Sun Gold, Beefsteak, Indigo Rose...If you thought that lovely romantic names were the exclusive province of roses and beautiful flowers, think again. Then add to scent and color the sense description of taste. It is tomato season.
A walk through your farmers’ market doesn’t do the tomato family justice. Beguiled by the smell of tomatoes, I’ve picked up the occasional beefsteak or even a nameless red tomato, and sliced it or fried it or layered it or basil-and-mozzarella-ed it without grasping the spectrum of flavor available. No more.
This week, we experienced a tomato tasting and lunch at our friends’ house in Palo Alto. I have been an on-again, off-again gardener all my life, planting the occasional pepper plant or cherry tomato seedling. I do better with herbs. In small pots. But Ann and Allen’s garden shows what avid gardeners can do: assorted beans, berries, tomatoes, squash, cucumbers growing vertically, horizontally, and every way from upside down to sideways--in beds, in boxes, in pots, in the ground. Marvelous.
Even more marvelous was our sumptuous lunch: salad greens with a king’s bounty of various items from the garden; there was also hearty bread and smoked duck and olives and mozzarella--and raspberries for dessert.
City-dwellers that we are, we forget the taste of authenticity. Granted, the relatively recent farm-to-table movement seems to be working at whittling the distance between growers and consumers, but seeing farm-to-table reduced to backyard-to-table was inspiring, to say the least. Popping sugar-sweet cherry tomatoes (ahem--or Sungolds!) has to be a lot healthier than popping potato chips. Thanks, Ann. Maybe next year, I’ll work on a pot or two of edible beauty instead of those mundane flowers.
Friday, August 9, 2013
Summer Doldrums
How else can I explain the lack of output? I haven't written anything since my last poetry workshop at Chautauqua, in spite of resolutions to the contrary. I seem to have been adrift on a sea of ennui. But that luxury is about to end.
There is one week until we depart for San Diego. One week to prepare ourselves and the house for the onslaught of the granddaughters, who will be arriving before we return. There are rooms to clear, beds to make up, toys and books to rescue from closets, and plans to be made for their visit. And, since this visit is the last one before they depart with their parents for Dundee, Scotland for two years, there are a lot of other preparations to be made: storage space to secure, preparations for the transport and storage of their car, carseats to maneuver into back seats, and realignment of our Netflix queue to include the latest and greatest in kid TV.
And so, my current wish list includes a few days with tolerable levels of heat and humidity so that I can reclaim the sidewalk from the weeds that have staged a coup there. I'd like to cut back the plants on the patio so they can revive themselves in my absence with some new growth. I'd like a good rainy day or two to wash off the dust and give everything a good long drink of water. And I'd like the painter who painted my gate to come back and deal with the mess he made: the gate has blisters the size of my thumb that swell and deflate at random in various places. It looks diseased. Last time I let any painter other than Billy near my house!
But, so it goes. Before we know it, it will be fall. I don't know whether to be glad or not.
There is one week until we depart for San Diego. One week to prepare ourselves and the house for the onslaught of the granddaughters, who will be arriving before we return. There are rooms to clear, beds to make up, toys and books to rescue from closets, and plans to be made for their visit. And, since this visit is the last one before they depart with their parents for Dundee, Scotland for two years, there are a lot of other preparations to be made: storage space to secure, preparations for the transport and storage of their car, carseats to maneuver into back seats, and realignment of our Netflix queue to include the latest and greatest in kid TV.
And so, my current wish list includes a few days with tolerable levels of heat and humidity so that I can reclaim the sidewalk from the weeds that have staged a coup there. I'd like to cut back the plants on the patio so they can revive themselves in my absence with some new growth. I'd like a good rainy day or two to wash off the dust and give everything a good long drink of water. And I'd like the painter who painted my gate to come back and deal with the mess he made: the gate has blisters the size of my thumb that swell and deflate at random in various places. It looks diseased. Last time I let any painter other than Billy near my house!
But, so it goes. Before we know it, it will be fall. I don't know whether to be glad or not.
Sunday, July 28, 2013
Chautauqua, Year 2
It's a different world. Last year, when I described my first trip to Chautauqua, I talked about Brigadoon. There is still some magic associated with the experience, but this year, it is easier to define. There are things that happen at Chautauqua that CAN happen elsewhere...but it is far easier to let them slide in my daily life. At Chautauqua, you stop long enough to get in touch with yourself and with the world.
At Chautauqua, I look. I look at houses, at gardens, at the lake, at people. I actually see--and speak to--people I see on the street, and they respond with a smile, a pleasantry, sometimes even a conversation. I complimented one lady on her garden (it had to be her own, as she was dead-heading the flowers and sweeping the curb..) and we had a pleasant conversation about her daughter's wedding, the 'flower-towers' that she had planted this year, the mysterious ailment that had plagued impatiens recently, and her assertion that the gardens didn't look quite as good this year as last.
The gardens and the houses are enough to look at, in themselves. Victorian gingerbread and vibrant paint, gardens that subscribe to the Victorian ideal of excess, old-fashioned flowers from your grandmother's garden: hydrangeas and daisies and Queen Anne's lace, begonias and bee balm, coleus and gladioli. Wicker furniture on generous porches with vases of flowers connecting them to their surroundings. And people on those porches, with lemonade or iced tea or something a little stronger, watching the passing parade.
If you are a people-watcher, Chautauqua is heaven. There are people bicycling, jogging, riding scooters, strolling, bench-sitting..There are people with dogs, people in the amphitheater, the Hall of Philosophy, people on their way to class, or enjoying a cup of coffee or an ice cream cone on Bestor Plaza. I saw a man pushing his dog in an umbrella stroller one morning; I took his picture, but didn't ask him why. Though I'm sure he'd have told me. In the middle of the plaza, there was a girl playing the violin--beautifully, I might add. Maybe she had an open violin case inviting tips--I don't know. I was too far away to do anything but hear the music.
Listening is part of the experience too. There's the singsong chanting of the newsboys selling the Chautauquan Daily. "Chautauquan Daily, full of knowledge! Chautauquan Daily, send me to college!"--or whatever rhyme they've devised for the day. Some even wear the knickers and vest and caps of Victorian newsboys. And the carillon marks the hours down by the shore--hymns and popular songs at specific hours, bells for the hours and the half-hours. Early in the morning, the most notable thing is the ABSENCE of sounds. It's quiet. No cars, no airplanes, no hubbub...but birds, and the sound of fountains..
This would be quite enough to make a vacation, but one of the most Chautauquan of experiences is thinking. There is food for thought around every corner: lectures and classes and religious services, an orchestra, a choir, an opera, a dramatic group, art galleries, a library, a bookstore, a Literary Arts Center with brown-bag lunches with resident poets and prose writers. There are authors and diplomats, teachers and musicians, children and adults, ballerinas and artists...whoever and whatever you'd want to see, they are there. And they are there to join the conversation with anyone and everyone who makes Chautauqua their home, whether for a week or for the summer.
I brought home pictures, I brought home ideas, I brought home memories. I stopped, I looked, I listened, I learned. I am far richer for the experience.
At Chautauqua, I look. I look at houses, at gardens, at the lake, at people. I actually see--and speak to--people I see on the street, and they respond with a smile, a pleasantry, sometimes even a conversation. I complimented one lady on her garden (it had to be her own, as she was dead-heading the flowers and sweeping the curb..) and we had a pleasant conversation about her daughter's wedding, the 'flower-towers' that she had planted this year, the mysterious ailment that had plagued impatiens recently, and her assertion that the gardens didn't look quite as good this year as last.
The gardens and the houses are enough to look at, in themselves. Victorian gingerbread and vibrant paint, gardens that subscribe to the Victorian ideal of excess, old-fashioned flowers from your grandmother's garden: hydrangeas and daisies and Queen Anne's lace, begonias and bee balm, coleus and gladioli. Wicker furniture on generous porches with vases of flowers connecting them to their surroundings. And people on those porches, with lemonade or iced tea or something a little stronger, watching the passing parade.
If you are a people-watcher, Chautauqua is heaven. There are people bicycling, jogging, riding scooters, strolling, bench-sitting..There are people with dogs, people in the amphitheater, the Hall of Philosophy, people on their way to class, or enjoying a cup of coffee or an ice cream cone on Bestor Plaza. I saw a man pushing his dog in an umbrella stroller one morning; I took his picture, but didn't ask him why. Though I'm sure he'd have told me. In the middle of the plaza, there was a girl playing the violin--beautifully, I might add. Maybe she had an open violin case inviting tips--I don't know. I was too far away to do anything but hear the music.
Listening is part of the experience too. There's the singsong chanting of the newsboys selling the Chautauquan Daily. "Chautauquan Daily, full of knowledge! Chautauquan Daily, send me to college!"--or whatever rhyme they've devised for the day. Some even wear the knickers and vest and caps of Victorian newsboys. And the carillon marks the hours down by the shore--hymns and popular songs at specific hours, bells for the hours and the half-hours. Early in the morning, the most notable thing is the ABSENCE of sounds. It's quiet. No cars, no airplanes, no hubbub...but birds, and the sound of fountains..
This would be quite enough to make a vacation, but one of the most Chautauquan of experiences is thinking. There is food for thought around every corner: lectures and classes and religious services, an orchestra, a choir, an opera, a dramatic group, art galleries, a library, a bookstore, a Literary Arts Center with brown-bag lunches with resident poets and prose writers. There are authors and diplomats, teachers and musicians, children and adults, ballerinas and artists...whoever and whatever you'd want to see, they are there. And they are there to join the conversation with anyone and everyone who makes Chautauqua their home, whether for a week or for the summer.
I brought home pictures, I brought home ideas, I brought home memories. I stopped, I looked, I listened, I learned. I am far richer for the experience.
Thursday, July 11, 2013
The Single Best Moment of Your Life
Writing a blog means never letting a stray thought go by without evaluating it as a possible topic...and writing and saving at least a subject line for a potential blogpost. And that is why I am here. When Andy Murray got his Wimbledon trophy, the picture prompted some news person to ask his readership to post pictures of the single best moment of their lives.
The request snagged my attention, and, as such things do, forced me to think about what picture I might post. I zipped through the posted pictures and was unsurprised to see wedding and baby and graduation photos, some with annotations of physical and emotional circumstances that raised the ante to 'best' rather than simply momentous occasions. None, however, prompted me to the 'Aha! That's it!' response I was looking for.
Can I pin down the single best moment of my life? There have been many that I remember vividly, so I suspect that they would be in the running, but...'best'??? Hard to categorize all the moments and arrange them from worst to best.
Wedding, yes. The birth of our girls, yes and yes. Our granddaughters, yes and yes, squared. The first smiles, the first recognitions, the first laughs..yes, oh lord, yes. Our first house, and the second, and the third, and the fourth, and..well, you get the idea. The unforgettably happy and momentous teaching moments. Garden moments. The double rainbow moments when Nature overwhelms you: the golden light of a sunset in Venice, Lake Louise, the day it went from frozen green to brilliant blue overnight, glaciers calving on our Alaska cruise, the blue Caribbean..The wonder in our daughters' eyes when they experienced Disneyworld for the first time, being part of one of the famous marches on Washington in the Vietnam era, the awe of being in Westminster Abbey amidst the resting places of the great, or seeing the heavenly colors of Sainte Chappelle; Monet's Waterlilies at l'Orangerie, standing in the silent square before the Winter Palace in St. Petersburg near midnight, or on the field at Gettysburg or Antietam in summer heat, being where history was made in so many places, at so many times..these are all moments worth remembering.
But it is impossible to winnow them down to a handful, far less a single moment. So, if I can't have one, I will take them all. All the moments of my life are singular, are the best, are the most memorable, the most wonderful, whether they be the ones I spend at my laptop or scrubbing floors, or fixing dinner. I wish that I could live that way, celebrating all my moments as if they were the single best moment of my life. A circumstance devoutly to be wished. Carpe diem. Live the moment.
Take the picture, because today's the day, and this, right now, is the moment.
The request snagged my attention, and, as such things do, forced me to think about what picture I might post. I zipped through the posted pictures and was unsurprised to see wedding and baby and graduation photos, some with annotations of physical and emotional circumstances that raised the ante to 'best' rather than simply momentous occasions. None, however, prompted me to the 'Aha! That's it!' response I was looking for.
Can I pin down the single best moment of my life? There have been many that I remember vividly, so I suspect that they would be in the running, but...'best'??? Hard to categorize all the moments and arrange them from worst to best.
Wedding, yes. The birth of our girls, yes and yes. Our granddaughters, yes and yes, squared. The first smiles, the first recognitions, the first laughs..yes, oh lord, yes. Our first house, and the second, and the third, and the fourth, and..well, you get the idea. The unforgettably happy and momentous teaching moments. Garden moments. The double rainbow moments when Nature overwhelms you: the golden light of a sunset in Venice, Lake Louise, the day it went from frozen green to brilliant blue overnight, glaciers calving on our Alaska cruise, the blue Caribbean..The wonder in our daughters' eyes when they experienced Disneyworld for the first time, being part of one of the famous marches on Washington in the Vietnam era, the awe of being in Westminster Abbey amidst the resting places of the great, or seeing the heavenly colors of Sainte Chappelle; Monet's Waterlilies at l'Orangerie, standing in the silent square before the Winter Palace in St. Petersburg near midnight, or on the field at Gettysburg or Antietam in summer heat, being where history was made in so many places, at so many times..these are all moments worth remembering.
But it is impossible to winnow them down to a handful, far less a single moment. So, if I can't have one, I will take them all. All the moments of my life are singular, are the best, are the most memorable, the most wonderful, whether they be the ones I spend at my laptop or scrubbing floors, or fixing dinner. I wish that I could live that way, celebrating all my moments as if they were the single best moment of my life. A circumstance devoutly to be wished. Carpe diem. Live the moment.
Take the picture, because today's the day, and this, right now, is the moment.
Tuesday, July 9, 2013
Mediocrity
Oh no! In today's newspaper (excuse me, today's FB pronouncements...) I saw that Kroger has purchased Harris-Teeter. Kroger...the store I remember as that none-too-clean grocery store in Charlottesville that was my last choice for grocery-shopping. Kroger...known for maximum coupons and minimum quality. And now, they will own Harris-Teeter, my favorite non-neighborhood shopping destination that does it all: good produce, good meat department, good selection, good house-brands, good prices--and samples! Don't forget the free samples! And above all, purveyors of Mary T's frozen tea biscuits that are good enough to pass for (and perhaps are better than) homemade. I am officially depressed. Particularly since a new Harris-Teeter is on the verge of opening a new store in Old Town this fall. I have been patiently waiting for the grand opening since the first shovelful of dirt was moved. And now...Kroger!!!
Perhaps you think I am making too much of this. Perhaps I am. But I am getting tired of mediocrity in my world. There seems to be a serious dearth of truly GOOD things, and an alarming increase in the mediocre and/or sub par. I find myself latching onto anything that exceeds the (low) bar of acceptability. Why else would I watch endless crime shows if not to avoid the tsunami of 'reality' shows on TV? Detective shows at least employ a modicum of thought and generate interest in the outcome of the story.
This morning's TV page in the Post touted an extreme makeover of a 300+ pound young woman, which entailed a trip to Chile to find her birth mother. What???!!!!???? And a show that falsely contains in its title the word 'entertainment' insists on regaling me with stories and interviews of people who are famous for being famous. My interest in Paris Hilton, the Kardashians, the left-behind family of Michael Jackson (who apparently are all engaged in self-promotion) and the many and varied antics of assorted B (C, D and below)-list celebrities (who could POSSIBLY call them 'personalities'?) fails to meet even my lowest measurable level of brain activity.
Were it just TV that exhibited such a fall from grace (remember The Twilight Zone, Playhouse 90, All in the Family, The Cosby Show...) we could manage. However, movies have adopted another path as well. Spectacle. Apparently, explosions are necessary. Perhaps there is an unemployment issue or an under-representation of special effects artists in Hollywood, and each movie is forced to include at least five technically-demanding explosions in order to provide equal opportunity employment. Or maybe the viewing public is perceived as having the attention span of a gnat, and explosive effects are needed to keep them awake and aware of the screen in front of them.
Restaurants also are getting wilder and wilder, if not necessarily better. For myself, I'd prefer my ice cream without herbs, my food cooked instead of raw, and maybe, less focus on creative mixtures and more on quality ingredients. I enjoy innovative cooking now and then, but I'd like to find something on a menu that is comfortingly familiar.
Stop for a moment and catalogue the mediocrities in your day: the misspelled words, the technological glitches, the potholes you bounce through, the bad service at the department store, the countless mini-annoyances and disappointments of going about your business. It could all be so much better if there were an effort to achieve excellence, rather than a satisfaction with providing the minimum. Where have we lost our aspirations? When did we come to the decision that things were 'good enough'? Why did we all stop trying?
Okay. I am admittedly being a curmudgeon, and am prone to exaggeration. The fact is that we are all party to this trend toward the lowest common denominator in society. We accept it as the norm and are not writing scathing letters to the networks and movie studios and are not raking newspapers over the coals for their inattention to grammar and spelling, their bias, and their extensive coverage of violent events. We are not out campaigning for the few good and true politicians we believe in, nor are we supporting with our efforts the good works of organizations that are struggling mightily to keep their heads above water. Some of us are--but nowhere near enough.
I suppose we are getting what we deserve. Mediocrity. In spades. Goodbye Harris-Teeter. Hello Kroger.
Perhaps you think I am making too much of this. Perhaps I am. But I am getting tired of mediocrity in my world. There seems to be a serious dearth of truly GOOD things, and an alarming increase in the mediocre and/or sub par. I find myself latching onto anything that exceeds the (low) bar of acceptability. Why else would I watch endless crime shows if not to avoid the tsunami of 'reality' shows on TV? Detective shows at least employ a modicum of thought and generate interest in the outcome of the story.
This morning's TV page in the Post touted an extreme makeover of a 300+ pound young woman, which entailed a trip to Chile to find her birth mother. What???!!!!???? And a show that falsely contains in its title the word 'entertainment' insists on regaling me with stories and interviews of people who are famous for being famous. My interest in Paris Hilton, the Kardashians, the left-behind family of Michael Jackson (who apparently are all engaged in self-promotion) and the many and varied antics of assorted B (C, D and below)-list celebrities (who could POSSIBLY call them 'personalities'?) fails to meet even my lowest measurable level of brain activity.
Were it just TV that exhibited such a fall from grace (remember The Twilight Zone, Playhouse 90, All in the Family, The Cosby Show...) we could manage. However, movies have adopted another path as well. Spectacle. Apparently, explosions are necessary. Perhaps there is an unemployment issue or an under-representation of special effects artists in Hollywood, and each movie is forced to include at least five technically-demanding explosions in order to provide equal opportunity employment. Or maybe the viewing public is perceived as having the attention span of a gnat, and explosive effects are needed to keep them awake and aware of the screen in front of them.
Restaurants also are getting wilder and wilder, if not necessarily better. For myself, I'd prefer my ice cream without herbs, my food cooked instead of raw, and maybe, less focus on creative mixtures and more on quality ingredients. I enjoy innovative cooking now and then, but I'd like to find something on a menu that is comfortingly familiar.
Stop for a moment and catalogue the mediocrities in your day: the misspelled words, the technological glitches, the potholes you bounce through, the bad service at the department store, the countless mini-annoyances and disappointments of going about your business. It could all be so much better if there were an effort to achieve excellence, rather than a satisfaction with providing the minimum. Where have we lost our aspirations? When did we come to the decision that things were 'good enough'? Why did we all stop trying?
Okay. I am admittedly being a curmudgeon, and am prone to exaggeration. The fact is that we are all party to this trend toward the lowest common denominator in society. We accept it as the norm and are not writing scathing letters to the networks and movie studios and are not raking newspapers over the coals for their inattention to grammar and spelling, their bias, and their extensive coverage of violent events. We are not out campaigning for the few good and true politicians we believe in, nor are we supporting with our efforts the good works of organizations that are struggling mightily to keep their heads above water. Some of us are--but nowhere near enough.
I suppose we are getting what we deserve. Mediocrity. In spades. Goodbye Harris-Teeter. Hello Kroger.
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