Drugstore Manqué

One of the tasks following my grandparents’ passing was to go through all of their things and dispose/disperse as appropriate. It was fairly straightforward as these things go – I would imagine that most people doing this chore are confronted with memories and mold in about equal proportion.

My grandparents were of substantial means, thanks to my grandfather’s successful home building career and their relatively modest appetites. They were children of the (first) Great Depression, and were thus averse to excessive expenditure (or at least the appearance thereof). There were exceptions over the years (furs and Cadillacs), but we noticed their parsimony most when we were ourselves feeling a bit short. They saved their largess for the estate. No complaints here.

As I went through their belongings, I reconstructed aspects of their lives that weren’t so apparent while they were living.

Although they had a modern house and a regular house cleaner (and my grandmother was often seen on her knees scrubbing the floors), I came upon (disgusting) evidence of a thriving mouse population.

They had an extensive library, but it was clear that they had devolved over the years from Faulkner to Updike to Michener to Grisham to (Harold) Robbins.

My grandfather’s tools were dated, as he had purchased these things in his younger years. Vintages ranged from a heavy Craftsman electric drill with attached chuck key to hand drills and bit braces. Screws and nails and the like were stored in baby-food jars (some even with their lids screwed to the underside of the shelves, just like in my dad’s shop). I inherited these things gladly and incorporated them into my own growing organization of hardware. I don't know if he ever really used these things, for he wasn't in least handy around the house. A Case Western Reserve scholar in Engineering. Go figure.

To me, their most astounding (and revealing) collection was amassed in their declining years, and was discovered in their spacious bathroom. I have to believe that you have never seen such a variety of band-aids and bandages outside of a drug store. If you were poor, or even if you were only frugal, you would find a band-aid, depending on how organized you were, in one drawer or another, and that would be it. I had to speculate that my grandparents must have rushed out to the store each and every time they required bandaging, and made sure on each visit to obtain every possible configuration of bandage upon each visit. From butterflies to plaster bandages, steri-strips, waterproof, sheer, knuckle, sport, knee and elbow, hypoallergenic, antibacterial, antibiotic, clear, fabric, blister, callous, non-stick, active, and extreme length. Not to mention Sponge-Bob or Stars and Smiley Faces. I must have found a dozen bottles of Campho-Phenique, and countless repetitions of Robitussin, Vapo-Rub, Alka-Seltzer, and Milk of Magnesia. The list would go on for pages. You can’t sell this stuff (although I once saw someone trying to sell their toiletries at a garage sale before I had context for this preposterous conduct). To make matters worse, although I figured that we’d save a reasonable amount of the stuff, its combined aroma is so revolting that it evokes a gag reflex. Whenever I open the large plastic bin containing our retained portion of this medical stockpile, I must be prepared to hold my breath while I dig for the required item. It’s a testament to modern packaging that you can walk down the aisle of a drugstore without experiencing the smallest bit of this miasmic discomfiture.

Every man serves a useful purpose: A miser, for example, makes a wonderful ancestor.
Laurence J. Peter

I stopped paying the bills to write this...

Our piano tuner was telling me about her husband’s job. For twenty-five dollars an hour, Henry does pretty much anything you’d want done around the house that doesn’t involve getting dirty. He doesn't have many clients, but some of his clients employ him for a full day every week, so he carries a pretty full schedule.

Some of his duties include some pet care (but no child care), minor repairs around the house, transportation (for some elderly clients), and administrative duties.

Henry has a client who is an attorney married to an attorney. No kids, these two lawyers enjoy a very full schedule, and Henry is employed to attend to their household administration. He pays their bills, monitors their home maintenance, and schedules specialists (plumbers, HVAC, yard care, house cleaner, etc.). I’m sure that there are many other tasks that are shunted his way, but these fit into the description that the piano tuner gave.

All of this is nice, and it prompts reflection upon the ways that people earn a living, but for some of us, it may also induce immediate daydreams of the ways that this luxury could free up time for higher-priority dimensions of day-to-day living. Many of us who take care of these things on our own find that much of our “free time” is filled with maintenance-of-life issues, and that our true discretionary time is even less than we often calculate. I would imagine that Henry gets these things done more quickly than we do, as he is accountable to his clients for his time, and he approaches the tasks more as a job – less likely to be postponed by the persistent interruptions of life at home.

The kicker for me came after I speculated that Henry ought to have a backlog of clients based solely upon the certain recommendation that he would get from the lawyer client. She must be so pleased with his service that her acquaintances – likely of similar lifestyle and income level – would be eager to enjoy the same luxury.

“Oh, no,” replied the piano tuner. “He is sworn to secrecy. The lawyer wants everyone she knows to think that she does it all on her own.”

People find life entirely too time-consuming.
Stanislaw J. Lec

Time Bastard Origins, Part I

I wasn’t born the Time Bastard. It was the profligacy of my youth that drove me to this neurotic overcompensation. Recollections of lying on grassy hillsides staring at the sky evoke despair over time forever lost. Back in the days when I had no word for, nor notion of, productivity, I might while away the hours in the woods, in my comic books, or in my room (listening to "In My Room" by the Beach Boys).

For a while I took some solace in the notion that I was "filling the well," that I was engaged in a type of contemplation that now serves me well as I spill the contents of this accumulated reflection onto the printed page for your benefit. I have since abandoned this interpretation as wishful rationalization for misspent years which yielded little more than a final realization that Gilligan would never get off of that blasted island.

By the time I had come to my senses, I was a prisoner of my income, a wage slave with limited blocks of time to pursue my extracurricular dreams. As a family man and a home owner, my "me time" was further limited, and I became compulsive and greedy, clinging to the hours (truly, the seconds) with Gollum-esque obsession.

I had read an article about parenting that said something to the effect that if you give your kids attention every time that they ask for it, that you will send the implicit message that they are the center of the universe and become inappropriately entitled and have expectations of others’ time disproportionate to their true value. This made perfect sense to me, so that I felt completely justified for ignoring the kids when they requested my time, making it clear that I had more important things to do. They have grown to be less entitled than their peers, but they, like me, have become greedy little buggers.

Millions long for immortality who do not know what to do with themselves on a rainy Sunday afternoon.
Susan Ertz

Jim Crow lives down the street

My eleven year-old son confided to his mom the other day that during a disagreement with one of his school pals about Obama’s merits, the friend said that he agreed with his own father’s proclamation that if Obama was found dead in a ditch it would be okay with him.

Now, it should be noted that this trailer-trash talk is coming from a guy who’s “trailer” is a McMansion in the Pittsburgh suburbs, and who’s pickup truck is a luxury performance coupe. Though non-religious, I still try to find the log in my own eye before I complain of the mote in the other’s, and my own residual prejudices deserve persistent scrutiny. His offensive and (presumably) racial sentiment which we might have hoped to be relegated to eras gone by has visited our doorstep as unwelcome - let’s be honest - as a hip-hop gang-banger from the inner city. We celebrated Obama’s inauguration with genuine enthusiasm, but we know better than to declare this historical event as the pinnacle of post-racial America. It’s a landmark, to be sure, but based on this situation, I wonder about the expected positive catalyst to dialogue on race.

This unfortunate exchange of my son’s might for some spark just such a dialogue, but practically speaking, I am forced to consider desired actions and desired outcomes? It’s easy to dismiss my desire for heated confrontation as the result would at the very least be recurring social awkwardness (our paths cross frequently and our community relationships are deeply intertwined). The most desired outcome may be a complete reversal of sentiment on the part of the dad and his son; a declared genuine mutual admiration of our new president and repudiation of all judgments based on race. What action could possibly precipitate this outcome? Intermediately, I speculate on what action might nudge the atavistic racist even slightly toward a more progressive view. I can hope to plant some seeds of enlightenment here and there in coming months and years with mild expectations of improvement. In the meantime, I use this episode as an instructional opportunity for my son. We discussed the issue openly, including the notion that we will always be confronted with friends and acquaintances that hold differing values. In each of these cases, our values are tested and opened for re-examination without being compromised for expedience.

Or is that exactly the opposite of what I have modeled by not confronting the dad?

The mind of a bigot is like the pupil of the eye. The more light you shine on it, the more it will contract.
- Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr.

Gallery Crawl in the Cultural District, Pittsburgh / A Review

The frigid blast of the last two weeks relented just long enough to allow for a comfortable crawl, so despite the competition(?) of a Steeler send-off rally across the river, the event was well attended. Special stop signs on the sidewalks made the tour of the Cultural District galleries easy for us newbies. Updated maps added to the paper glut (I saw a woman filling a bag with the numerous flyers and brochures like she was a CES swag hoarder), and it may have been just as easy last night had you just followed the clusters of eager crawlers from one to another of twenty-two locations. A few of these sites were music specific, but most agreeably held to the presentation of art as the focus of the evening. It was a night to rub elbows with the more bohemian Pittsburghers, which is the vibe I was looking for when I asked a friend to join me for an evening of catch-up and camaraderie. The ever-changing nature of our surroundings prompted fresh conversation throughout the evening, and the mostly youthful crowd added energy to our more middle-aged pace.
The next time that I review a gallery crawl, I will have something to compare it to, so my impressions of the works are based solely upon my own amateur enthusiasm for all things art. The “Gritty 250” at ArtUp was an abbreviated collection of representational art of local steelmaking heritage. Most pleasing was the work of Cynthia Cooling - nicely textured and well within the comfort zone of less adventurous consumers. The installation pieces on the third floor of 927 Penn were quality works in a roomy space which worked to their benefit. Military ribbons and crashed planters caught our eyes and our imaginations, and the works on the opposite wall used earthy tones to capture lonely images without relying on stark sensibilities.
As we crawled, we went from spacious to cramped and back again though the reasons were unclear. It may have been a slinky effect of human physical dynamics, but there might have been some insider information that pulled crowds to certain collections. We heard vocal appreciation for the sensory disorientation of fog and light, with return visitors eager to relive the experience, but since I already inhabit a world of persistent sales pitch and 24/7 newsfeeds, I never lack for the opportunity to become disoriented.
The August Wilson Center Gallery didn’t so much grip as entertain, with compelling found-object art, past era photography, and portraiture of various media. I wanted the carved canes to be more serious, and although I am an ardent Obama fan, I don’t know what I wanted from the air-brushed Barack on a car hood.
Crimson anime characters worked, but over-worked, slides of outdoor Pittsburgh needed three projectors instead of one, small masks in a back room delighted, a Steeler-festooned creche nailed my companion’s cultural sentiments (as did Ben Franklin in a lightning-bolt t-shirt), and the Ramones on the “Marshalls Stacked” tower of speakers attached to an Ipod evoked the Pushme-Pullyou effect of consumerist desire for both the large and the small.
Fulfilling and uplifting as it was, the cumulative effect of the works called for a little more weight. I found pieces that I would share my life with (at least for a while), but the next level up is for me to invite friends from out of town with confidence, knowing that home-town bias won’t skew the assessment. I look forward to the next quarterly crawl, and send my gratitude to the organizers and artists. Oh, and thanks for the Cheez-Its.