Silence is not necessarily golden

Here at home in the panhandle we have begun the annual snowfall season.

For as long as I can remember, for me, this is a majestically magical time of the year.  Partially because it’s still too early to hate the stuff and the combination of Christmas, yes I actually refer to it as the Christmas Season why so many of us are afraid to call it that anymore is way beyond my comprehension,  and the first snowfalls bring some extremely sentimental memories to me.  But I think what I remember most about these very first gifts of nature is the sound.

“Sound.  What sound”, you might ask.  “Snow doesn’t  make sound.  Wind, yes, crunching ice, you bet,  but snow?” 

Snow is almost an onomatopoetic word.  OK, go look it up, I’ll wait……………………

OK?  Go it?  Good, let’s proceed.  I got busted by some friends on my last presentation of verbosity for being just that.  Never mind look that one up later.  So I need to be less volumetric and more articulate this time.

I grew up on a farm in southern WV with my grandparents and the first snowfalls were something special indeed.  They were two of the most romantic people I ever knew, me excepted of course.  I had a great example.  Anyway on the eve of the first snowfall just after dusk they would always go for a walk.  Hand in hand, bundled up.  Just the two of them.  Even though I was quite young I knew it was something special.  When I got old enough to be allowed to go wandering off in the pine forest along the fire roads I found out why they enjoyed this event so very much.

There alone in the white cascade of flakes in those muted moments, standing quite still I could hear it.

A soft cushiony almost velvet-like sound……..silence.  Surrounding, enclosing, soft, almost palpable, silence.  You could hear it and you couldn’t both at the same time.  Not the suspense thriller movie silence you hear just before the giant monster slams his foot down on the poor unsuspecting earth guy.  That’s apprehensional silence and that’s freakin’ scary silence. If I’m getting’ too technical just skip down a few lines.  I mean the soothing, comforting, wrapped around you kind of sound that only a mother could give.  In this sense it’s Mother Nature and she’s giving you a wonderful gift.  A few very special moments where she wraps herself around you and says, “Isn’t this just wonderful and clean and nice”.

For me when I get the privelidge to be out there during that first snowfall it’s as if time stops for a few precious seconds and it’s just you and, if you’re lucky as I am, the one you love more than anything holding hands maybe even smooching a little and enjoying one of the season’s greatest gifts…..the sound of silence.

For those of us fortunate enough to live where this incredible phenomenon happens take a moment  this year and try it out.  Quit screaming at the dog to stop lickin’ itself, or to your kids to turn the freakin’ iPod down ‘cause even though they have it screwed into their ears an inch-and-a-half you can still hear it.  Take someone special, put on your collection of LL Bean outdoor garb and go out and experience this opportunity.  Within a few feet you’ll notice that you’re walking quietly as if you’re sneaking up on something.  You talk in hushed tones.  You may even realize you’re doing this because        it’s        so                 q  u  i  e  t.

You can do this by yourself even.  You won’t go blind or anything.  Really.  Seriously.

Now just stand there, still.  Listen.  Not just with your ears, but with your heart as well.

Hear it?  Feel it?  Makes ya kind of wonder why we have been so crappy to Mother Nature when she can give us such wonderful memories that can last a lifetime.

If you live in Del  Rio, TX or Key West make travel plans.  Just once in your life you need to experience the wonder of it.

As to the title of this missive,  “Silence is not necessarily golden”,  this time of year it’s white and not really silent but a beautiful silent whisper.

Y’all have a wonderful Christmas, Chanukah, Kwanzaa, Las Posadas, Ashura, Bodhi Day and whatever else it is you and yours refer to this calendric time of year.

RH

Practice makes perfect

Practice makes perfect

For years and years I listened to and heeded my grandfather's advice, my football coach's admonishments, my guitar instructor's rants, and my college drawing teacher's mantras.

Practice makes perfect.  Over and over again.  And again. And yet again. And ya know what?  All those folks were right. Practicing a task at which one wishes to achieve proficiency is the only way to get it right.

This past summer I took to the stage of our local opera house and spent the ensuing months through three plays rehearsing and  re-rehearsing my lines, my blocking, and yes my singing 'til I had it right.

So, as one who has, literally, practiced and practiced and practiced what has been preached to me I have a word of advice for some very dedicated employees of our federal government.  Those brave men and women of the FBI, Homeland Security, NSA, CIA, DOJ, Park Police, Whistle Blowers, Snitches, and wanna be heroes of our American-way need to understand the practicality of practice.  Now, along with the thought of teaching this methodology comes the necessity of encouragement.  It is not enough to stand by and repeat over and over again the proverbial phrase, "practice makes perfect" each of you need to learn the art of encouragement for with the properly placed tone of encouragement great strides can be achieved.

Yes, with the right amount of encouragement individuals will follow your sage wisdom and indeed take practice to heart and do so with gusto!  And gusto is what we're all about here in the old US of A.

Some of you are, at this point asking, "What the heck is he talking about?"  Some are probably hoping I will get to the point shortly as they have a hard time understanding all these big words strung together.  And so I shall.

Lately I have listened to an ever growing number of news reports about how our wonderfully vigilant law enforcement folks have been able to thwart potentially disastrous terrorist attacks on the unsuspecting citizens of our beloved heartland.  Believe me when I say, Thank you all so very much for an ever increasingly difficult job being well done.  Thank you for keeping us safe and whatever it is you do to find these freakin' weirdos keep it up!

But! It has come to my attention that you find these folks, and convince them you're the real bad guys and set them to take the fall before they're trotted off to the pokey where we'll eventually spend a zillion dollars of our hard earned cash on prosecuting these nut cases.

But, you did nothing to encourage them to practice before you had them show up in a fake truck with a fake bomb and fake detonator to then not blow up a real building!  So I have a couple of thoughts for you.

Planning is key here.  When you find one of these nitwits in whatever darkened alley, deserted woodland park, transvestite leather bar or wherever it is these cranially misshapen people go you seem to start off with several basic assumptions.  This is very wrong and needs to be addressed.  First you assume they can drive a van or truck loaded with heavy explosives.  You assume the educational system they briefly encountered taught them to read.  You assume they can both drive a push a detonator switch at the same time.  And most importantly you are assuming they can actually park a vehicle!

My God! That, my ever vigilant heroes is a heck of a lot of assumptions.

So, let’s see what we can do to make the whole thing work much better and this is where my initial comments come in.  Yes, you got it…Practice makes perfect!  You spend a heck of a lot of time and money on these joojoobees without actually knowing if they have the cerebral capacity and eye hand coordination necessary to carry out the fake act in the first place.

Some of the hardest hit individuals in our current economic state of affairs are the men and women of this country who toil each day on the family farm.  Government subsidies are way down and these hearty men and women who feed us could use a little help.

So, let me make a couple of suggestions.  

First make some type of financial arrangements with these farmers all across America for occasional temporary use of about, oh say 15 – 20 square

acres.  Next get in touch with some of our government agencies who purchase and use vans for a variety of whatever it is they have a variety of chores for that involve using vans.  Buy their high mileage vans.  Purchase a few old replacement road signs and stick ‘em in the ground around the acreage you’ve ‘borrowed’ from the farmers.

OK, now we’re ready.

Now go out to wherever it is you find Faruk or Amed, or whatever it is these wannabes call themselves.  Convince one you’re a true blue evil jihad son-of-a-gun and you want to help him blow the hell outta something.  Now this is where the encouragement part comes in.  He’s gonna be shy and a little introverted ‘cause he’s probably not ever blown the crap out of anything before.  That’s OK. That’s to be expected mainly because he’s still suckin’ air so even if he has done this before he’s obviously not very good at it.

Encouragement is key her.  Don’t be judgmental.  Tell him it’s OK you understand and that you’re gonna help him make sure he gets it right.

You and your back up team pick up good ol’ Quasi Stupa-Menlo and head out to the wide open countryside.  On the way you explain the need to for accuracy, timing, steadiness, etc.  All the while encouraging him that he’s gonna do great.

Now when you arrive at Mr. and Mrs. Smith’s Farm do a couple of run throughs with the van empty so he gets the feel of it.  Ask him to park in front of a couple of the signs to make sure he can read and properly park.

OK, now give him the final instructions, load the van with the bomb, hand him the detonator, point him in the direction of those 15-20 acres tell him where he should park and when he should hit the detonator and remind him one final time, “OK, Quasi, remember, practice makes perfect”.

BOOOM!  Done. 

If for God’s sake he doesn’t get it.  Run him through it again.  Most of them will get right on the first try.

Millions of dollars will be saved in wasted prosecutorial clap trap, America’s farmers are back to making a decent living.  If you use enough explosives things should pretty much be vaporized so clean up is easy.   We get all those old crappy vans off America’s roadways and eventually, maybe these

mentally limited folks realize that perhaps trying to freakin’ blow up pieces and parts and folks here in the US just isn’t a very good idea.