Step Into the Rain....Leave the GPS at Home.

I honestly think that if Darwin saw us today, he would be in shock about how we have reversed natural selection. Through technology. Through science. We've actually made it possible for us all to be weaker and still survive. An example: I was helping a customer at Borders a few days ago. We did not have the book they were looking for, but after checking with the Snellville store, straight north of our location, I told them that they had it. Snellville is absolutely straight north of us, with no turns off of Turner Hill Road (124) until you reach the store. 20 minutes, tops. The customer then asked me for an address so that they could program it into their GPS system. It really made no sense to me why they would need their GPS to go in a straight line. But directions for people seem to be one of the things that we've lost as technology has improved. Many years ago, when sailors guided ships through unknown seas to islands that could have easily (and were, sometimes) missed, they took accurate and dependable navigations using a sextant, the sun, moon, and stars. Or pioneers, who used landmarks, rivers, mountains, etc... to find their way to distant posts. I often do the same thing, when my memorizing of maps (you know, the paper ones, or at the very least, a good look at Google Maps) fails me. I always seem to know the direction to wherever it is I need to go. Atlanta makes it easy that way. As long as you head in any direction, you will eventually hit an interstate, which will take you home...etc... It's easy. But people are scared of the unknown. Scared of what will take them away from someone holding their hands. They should switch off their GPS systems and rely on their brains. Much like Luke Skywalker did in Star Wars. And besides, it will keep your car from being broken into and your GPS stolen.
***

It's the paradox of technology that interests me, the pull toward timidity, a lack of vision, a lack of drive, even as the advances we have so creatively constructed pull us forward. We are fastly becoming slaves to the mechanical men around us. Take for instance the calculator, and subsequent inventions of doing math electronically. Now, at retail stores, it is quite impossible for cashiers to actually do the math of giving out change in their heads. In some instances, the registers even hand out the change for them. If one were to take the monitors offline and force everyone to give back change by simply adding back to the customer, I doubt that anyone could do it. The reliance on technology has become too great. I once was in a McDonalds in Virginia. It was a band trip to Washington DC, and so the great busses filled with hungry instrumentalists filed into the golden arches after having watched way too many movies on the DVD screens above the heads of each traveler (of which I wanted to take baseball bats to the screens, but that's another rant). We went in and saw that they had just installed monitors on each of the registers, so that the people getting the orders could see what each person ordered. So, instead of using their brains and memorizing the order, getting the fries, drink, and burger all at once, they got the fries....then looked at the monitor... then got the drink....then looked at the monitor...then got the burger.... well... you get the idea. Each order took at least 10 minutes to do. It was the most ill-run restaurant I'd ever been in, and I'm convinced it was due to the new monitors that
made it unnecessary for the workers to actually use their brains.

How many people could even estimate percentage off. Who could figure out the problems with a computer or Air Conditioning, figure out how to troubleshoot it? I'm sure that the service operators at Dell or HP must get the most asinine calls, since the troubleshooting manuals talk about the most simple of problems: Is your Computer not coming on at all? Solution: Have you plugged in the power cord? I loved the AC unit manual, which suggested that if the Air Conditioner wasn't running, that we might not have plugged it in, or turned it on. There is so sense anymore when it comes to dealing with technology or figuring out even the most mundane things about life in one's head. We need some sort of machine to do it for us. I don't doubt the novels of Isaac Asimov, when the world of robots would someday become as smart as us, and, instead of being the servants, would actually be the rulers. It makes the Terminator world seem not so far off, although I seriously doubt if any of us are intelligent enough to create such mechanical marvels.
***

One of my associates, Jeremy, told me about a time when he went to the grocery store, and when he arrived, it was raining fairly hard. He was greeted with the sight of quite a few customers standing outside the store, groceries already bagged, waiting for the rain to end. They just didn't want to get wet. They seemed frightened, as if they were cats. Jeremy got out of the car and went into the store, resulting in quite a few incredulous stares. With all of life that's going on around them, and they don't want to get wet? We are in Oz, and the people around us are combinations of the Scarecrow, the Tin Man, and the Lion. Most of all, they are too dumb to step out into the rain.
***

So what am I saying? Well, for one, I've seen too many people paralyzed at the thought of using a piece of technology. I know people who look at an ATM machine and just stare blankly at it, or cringe at using a digital camera. On the flip side, there are the people who are so dependent on their technology that they are enslaved to it. It's time we stopped cowering in fear from the Frankensteins we have created and start being their masters. We have made these wonders of science in order to progress further from them, like steps up some imaginary flight of stairs. We should also master the natural things in this world, and not be afraid of a little rainstorm. Should we get a little wet, well, that's what umbrellas are for, or if nothing else, we should get wet in order to see the sun shine again, or the rainbow filtering through the clouds. We must find our place in this world, in harmony with the natural things as well as the technological. God gave us all this that we might prosper and develop... let us make use of it.

Empty Things

I talked about memories in the last blog, the tastes of foods and the smells of the chlorine water wafting up from the indoor pool at the college, filling the air with a warm humid touch (well, I would have had I wanted to). We all have those memories, things we pasted into our brains as children. Places that I visited often as a child, that once seemed magnificent and wonderful, now seem mundane. I remember going to Crossroads Mall in Oklahoma City with my grandmother (my dad's mom, Mema. My other grandmother couldn't stand shopping). It used to be one of the biggest malls in the nation, 9th I think, at one point. The glass ceiling arched overhead, as if some artificial sky, keeping us dry and warm. The small fountains that surrounded the stairs and escalators, moving in a single file line, like ants, toward the magnificent plume of a fountain in the middle of the mall. Where coins would be thrown, and wishes made, and the water would tower up to the second floor before hurtling downwards. The McDonald's food always seemed better there (imagine, a McDonald's! inside a mall!). The long rows of clothing stores and other chain establishments meant nothing, really. It was the size of the place. It was the toy isles at Montgomery Wards or maybe Toys R Us just outside the mall. What a gigantic cathedral to human consumerism, exalted and revered.

And later, in college days at Milledgeville, GA, our friends would go to nearby Macon, where the Macon Mall was the largest in the state. You had to walk through J.C. Penny to get to the other side of the mall. It had a Disney store (much to the glee of Brandy, one of my friends that always drug us along), and a full parking deck which made it easy to go through the Parisian's door, past the green manikins, a sip at the water fountain, and into the mall itself, toward EB or Waldenbooks. How many days when, a year or two after, I would arrive in Macon for my classes, and, depressed from being in those classes, would run to EB and purchase any number of Magic the Gathering cards to take up time in the classes, as purchasing them made me feel better. And then eating at the Applebee's across the street. Always Fajitas. It was a destination, an evenings outing, with maybe a movie at the end. How special those days were. How long ago in times of economic prosperity. And now, both malls stand vacant, as empty shells of human happiness, echoing through the shelves of closed shops.

My family went to the Macon Mall a week or so ago, to meet up with relatives driving to South Carolina from Texas. After our breakfast at Waffle House, we drove around the mall, now filled more with a police precinct and armed forces recruiters than shoppers. There were entire sections of the mall without stores, and it made me sad, that the once vibrant structure was now so still. It reminded me of the day I drove around Dekalb County, handing out fliers for Teacher Appreciation Day at Borders, and finding on my outdated map schools, and then driving to see them boarded up and empty on days when they should be alive with children. What if one of my schools became that way?

Upon returning home, I wondered, what would become of those malls that are now afflicted with the economic downturn? So, upon doing research, I found Deadmalls.com, a site that keeps tabs on empty shopping malls. I looked back at Oklahoma's list, and was shocked to find Crossroads on there as well. It was dying a slow death just like Macon was. What would we do with these now slumbering giants?

For most malls, I would use them as I have seen in my dreams before. Let's turn them into Community-based learning centers, much like the Forums in Ancient times. Take the Macon Mall, for instance. The Macon mall has three colleges nearby (Macon Tech, Macon State, and Mercer). Combined with the Bibb Co. school system and the private schools which are a big part of the county, the Macon mall could be refit to house classrooms, conference rooms, lecture halls, as well as shops and restaurants that would make it financially profitable. The main anchor stores could be gutted and made into athletic centers and gymnasiums, and the outside area could be landscaped to allow for park space and outdoor activities. Now, of course, with the economic state as it is, this probably isn't possible right now, but it might be doable in Oklahoma for some of those malls (there's one in Midwest City that is dying.) They could also be used to house vocational and technical classes that could teach the unemployed to learn new skills to become more competitive in today's market. I've always felt a need to have someplace in a community where people can continue their education, much as the old opera houses and lecture halls were in the 1800's. Some place that Emerson or Thoreau would feel at home in, or even perhaps Plato, debating philosophy inside a comfortably A/C'd building. It's simply a dream of mine, but maybe one day it will happen. There are too few centers of education and culture in the world these days. Perhaps in the world of empty shopping malls and vacant boxes, one can be constructed.

Hidden Things

Nostalgia lurks within many things.  The irresistible pull of the past, like some giant electromagnet, it always brings us back to those memories, through smells or tastes or actions, things that we did before so many years ago.  The taste of a Hardees' Hot Ham & Cheese on a winters day after church.  Now that was a memory, and all the more poignant when the empty shells of Hardees restaurants now filled with Pawn shops or Chinese establishments.  We savor the foods of our childhood not because of exquisite tastes, but rather because of the memories of long ago.  It's what makes Braum's, a fast food chain (oh, but so much more than that!) in Oklahoma and Texas, such an amazing place to eat.  It had the best of everything. 

Such was a similar feeling when I sat down at my computer and pulled up a game from PopCap, Escape from Whisper Valley.  It is a Hidden Object game, where a thin story line brings together scenes in which is hidden different things (a hat, a cat, a vase, a comb...etc...) for you to find.  The game could call for finding 3 birds, one of which is flying in the sky, the other drawn into a painting, and one an origami folded swan.  Or it might call a future butterfly, in which you would find a caterpillar.  Some games of this ilk are better than others, and this particular game is one of the best I've played.  It also takes me back to looking through the pages of Highlights magazine and finding the Hidden Pictures page.  Although it's a magazine for children, the Hidden Pictures activity is extremely difficult.  I remember, as a child, looking through the pages, bit by bit, trying to find the hidden toothbrush, the bird...etc... Sometimes I would have my grandmother with me and we'd look together for them. 

Of course, now finding the hidden things, the needle in haystacks, is what I do.  I find the hidden book by Anne Tyler misplaced with Tolstoy.  The top corner of a magazine amongst all the others.  The unwrapped Playboy hidden behind the Kids bibles.  It's what I do.  And the Dopamine levels that a found object projects is what makes it a great job to do.  A researcher who finds a long lost article that proves his thesis is as to be ecstatic over his find as me catching a sought for book out of the corner of my eye.  In fact, it's the same brain chemical response.  It is the natural Prozac that is created just by finding something.  It's what makes the Hidden Object games such as Escape from Whisper River so addicting, because so many people cannot find the things they seek for in life.  Whether it be their keys or their lost birth certificate or true happiness.  It's the hope that, in finding something, we will discover something truly hidden from us. 

I looked over what I just wrote, and realized that I started with one theme and switched to another.  But, as I looked at it, the theme is the same.  Sensory recall, the bringing up to the surface a memory and a feeling from the depths of the subconscious mind, from the great rooms of filing cabinets that store all memories somewhere in the brain.  That, in fact, results in the same Dopamine release as finding that long lost toy under the bed.  And there's nothing like the smell and taste of a Hardees Hot Ham and Cheese to do that.  The warm comfortable foods that we eat, or the smells that remind us of our grandmother's kitchens.  We find something in each sensory touch.  It's an amazing feeling.  It brings us to a place where we were once happy and secure, loved maybe, and we can feel the remnants of it for a short time, before looking for the next needle. 

Holes of Glory....

 I read, some time ago, a book by Arthur C. Clarke and Stephen Baxter, called The Light of Other Days, in which scientists learned how to create wormholes in space, ones big enough to send light and sound waves through. And with minuscule cameras, almost any place in the world, and at any time (for wormholes can penetrate any of the four traditional dimensions, including time), there was no place or time that was private. It changed the world, in astounding ways. Modesty and privacy went out the window. So did fraud, deception, lying. In the book, it became normal to see two people, of any sex, to copulate in a park, out in the open. Nudity, drugs, etc... all became normal, because none of it was forbidden any longer. It couldn't be. With the cheapness of a device that could create such a wormhole, children, adults, anyone, could go and see anything. It is surely the end of childhood, as Neil Postman talked about in his book (see my other blog entries). As you can see, this fundamentally would change the entire foundation of society. An amazing work from an amazing author.

So what have we now, in this reality, that is the same as this? Obviously, there are cameras everywhere. From webcams to cell phone cameras, There are holes that allow us to see into the personal lives of everyone around us. Even without cameras, the social websites allow us to see what is going on in people's lives, whether we want them to or not. Because of Facebook, it is easy to keep track of most of my friends, on a daily basis. Not that I want to, of course, but Facebook has changed the way that people look at their daily lives. There is no reason not to let people know that I put too much basil in my tomato soup, or that one of my friends changed the carpet in her house. I can be witness to the everyday lives of the people that subscribe to the social networking site. And it's amazing...  I've always wondered, when the people go inside and shut their doors, what they do. I've always wanted to be a little fly and sit on people's shoulders, follow them throughout their day, participate in their daily lives. I think that's what I'd do if I were invisible (Clay Aiken song title not referenced). I'd see what people do in their own lives.

But the wondrous thing about the internet, about cell phone cameras...etc... is that, in some respects, people allow us to see inside of their own houses, inside their lives, and give us a glimpse of what life could be like, if we were someone else. What if I wasn't me, if I lived by myself, if I wasn't overweight, if I was sexy, if I had lots of money...etc... I could be this, or this, or even this. You see what I mean. And I think it's good, for people, to let others look at the reality of their lives, because it gives you options, if you work hard enough, that it could be your life, too. There are worlds far beyond your front door, and the Internet can, if only for a snapshot, let us see what those worlds are.

Ketchup on Eggs, or Things I Don't Get

So.... there are some things in this universe that I Just. Don't. Get. Like why a half gallon of milk is more expensive than a gallon of milk...??? They're just trying to make the cows work harder. There are aspects of this crazy world that make no sense. And so I'll put on my Andy Rooney hat and.... here we go...

Criminals are so baffling, or at least, single minded. A Fox 5 report recently talked about idiots that used two vans to smash their way into a CVS drug store (one to smash, one to get away in). And their target? An ATM machine inside the front door. ????? Two things... one, ATMs are so out of date. You can get cash back at the register! So the business people should think about not having the thing installed because the profit made from it will be offset by having to replace your entire front wall. And also... the criminals weren't thinking that if you're gonna break into a drug store.... get the drugs! A bottle full of Lortabs will go for whatever was in that ATM machine. At least get something from smashing a car through the front door. Get some packages of premium M&M's. Something.... I just don't get it.

So I'll be working, with a cart of books, a name tag, my red "Borders" polo shirt on, and a radio stuck in my ear like I'm a part of the Borg, and inevitably, at least 10 times a day, I'll get, "Do you work here?" I think it's a way of saying "I need help." without actually saying that they need help. Okay, so that one I do get, but it's annoying anyway.

I just don't understand fashion. Just ask anyone that knows me. They'll agree. But there's a difference between being fashionable and doing something that hinders everyday life. For instance, I was driving down GA 20, and I spotted this guy, in his 20s,talking on his cell phone with one hand and holding his belt and his pants up...way below where they are supposed to be. Now, before anyone responds with a certain Youtube link, it's more than I can fathom. Clothing is supposed to be worn, for whatever reason. For warmth, for fashion, for the colorations that somehow attract mates, much like the feathers of a peacock. The only thing I can figure out is that they are trying to show off their butts. Because the usually baggy pants aren't revealing enough. Why hamper movement so, in that way. My brother says that people with pants around their knees is encouraging for police officers, because they're easier to catch when they try to run.

So on a related note... Guys wear all this clothing, layers upon layers. I mean, what's the need for wearing more than one shirt at a time??? Doesn't it get stuffy? And it's just more laundry to do. But girls (women...whatever) wear the exact opposite. I see all these female type people wearing shorts that are about a mile from their knees, and tight enough to be cutting off circulation. I know it all has to do with sex appeal, but I'm confused about why. I guess society mandates that women wear as little as possible to show off their physique, and most of the time, it's not a physique that's at all attractive, and yet guys have to wear as much as possible to cover themselves up. I think it all started back in the late 80's, when shorts got longer and the whole depressing grunge/alternative rock era took over. It's also interesting how clothing is related to the style of popular music...but that's another line of thought. Doesn't make sense to me. Of course, I've been wearing the same types of clothes for years. Heck, I'd be wearing Velcro shoes still if they had ones with high arches. I just don't get it.

Silly Bandz. I know! I'll make Silly Bandz in the form of perfect circles... kids can use them to tie up their hair, or keep their crayons together in their book-bags, or keep their pants up...oh, wait.... I'll make millions!! They're just Rubber Bands people! And yet they're like $6.00 for a package. Capitalism at it's finest. I'll put them next to my pet rock. I just don't get it.

The Paper Chase

I go religiously each Sunday morning to the local gas station to pick up a paper. I'd subscribe to the Rockdale Citizen, but for some reason the budget never comes available for it. So I actually spend more getting it at the gas station then having it delivered, but...anyway...

We live in a time when the papers are drastically diminishing in sales and readers, and what with electronic media and all, it's easy to see why. It's all stored and presented easily on your computer, or iphone, or e-reader. And unless you have a parrot, or an 80 year old relative that has to do the crossword every day, it's just not necessary. But I do think there's one exception for this--the local paper. There are very few places where you can keep up with the goings on of the Rockdale County Board of Commissioners, or find out what's happening with town events, the local little league club, get the local sales papers for the grocery stores, and find out how much the 1990's Honda's are going for and at least dream. Sure, you can find some of this out online, but there is no revenue from this, except advertisers. So I think it is important to do business with local papers because they are one of the most important avenues of communication between the local governments and the people. For state or Federal, we can always go get brainwashed by whatever 24/7 news network you want to listen to. But for what really matters, the local stuff, it's the 10 page papers that are tossed at houses at 6 in the morning that delivers that news.

So I pick up copies of the Rockdale Citizen (and you might get the Rockdale News as well, and even though they only publish twice a week, it's all in color and is all in digest form, all about the local area.) at the gas station and then wait in line for 10 minutes while everyone in front of me fills out lottery tickets and buys and scratches instant games to hopefully win a boatload of money. All the while, the lottery contestants are bragging about how they, or someone they know, won $100, or maybe more, right there in that station. And it is a victory, even though they might have spent $200 doing it. And they pay for their tickets with wads of paper cash and walk out, hoping that they didn't just buy useless paper with their paper.

I guess it's just one of those things I don't get. Are there people that win millions of dollars on these lottery numbers? Of course. And the government would love for them to keep on buying those tickets, because a large amount of it goes toward the running of school systems, etc... The lottery is a very small part of the Huxleyian model of governing, through happiness, and this is a blog I'll wait until later to write. I would much rather buy the local paper, with their job ads enclosed, and see what money I could make by actually doing something, rather than hope that a million to one odds that I might win that million through the luck of numbers.

And what if these contestants are buying those lottery tickets with the money they're getting from Unemployment benefits from the government? It's just going around in a vicious cycle, with the losers being the taxpayers and the people buying the ultimately useless papers. So I'll pay for my Rockdale Citizen, go home, and skip the part where I pursue paper money that is a mere shadow, a dream, of ever coming my way, and I'll see what events are happening in my town that I might go to. Actually do something with my time and life, instead of endlessly chasing papers.

B&B: Frankenstein, Faust, and the Tower of Babel

I watched / the greatest miracle
Take three quarters / of a year.
To bring forth life / in a tiny breath
For all the world to hear.

There is a motion here
There is a flow
There is a tension here
like a hard bent bow.
And suddenly, you realize
That this time... it's all right.

David Crosby, "Time is the Final Currency," from CPR

I don't really know how it feels to have brought a baby into this world. I probably never will, but I can imagine it. By having a child, a man and woman have become as much like God as is possible on this Earth. They have created a life form, created a soul, a person, and by that, they have imitated the creation of Adam by the clay by the river in Eden. God has meant us to create, just as he did in Eden so long ago. He gave us free will and reason, the ability to think for ourselves, even knowing that we would partake of the Tree of Knowledge and be thrust forth from Eden into the world, where Death and Satan are forever lurking. The Unmaker... the one standing opposite of the Creator's paradise, but within it as well, as a snake. But we are capable of handling such enemies, because we can create as well as destroy, as we can pass on the wisdom that the Tree of Knowledge held (both good and bad) to the generations following us, by creating life ourselves... our own children.

We don't just create children. As I've shown in previous blogs, we imitate God by creating other things as well, from the imaginary worlds of cyberspace and literary works, to the books themselves, to statues and monuments . We move as one force on sports teams, creating joy and excitement, works of art as balls go into nets and through hoops at precise arcs and speeds. And while the ultimate reason is to imitate God, to create a world in our own image, we do it for other reasons as well. We have an underlying fear of death, a resulting desire for immortality in whatever form we can create. This could mean having kids and passing down knowledge and memories, but it could just as well mean writing blogs, like I do, or making novels, or art, or monuments like the one in Dakar. We desire fame in the present to overcome the idea of death. For fame will make the memories of our lives more widespread, so that everyone will know who we were. Maybe that is why the obituaries I see in the papers sometimes are long, too long, filled with endless nothings about their lives and euphemisms that make it painful to read. As if an obit. details the thread of that persons life by how long it is. I would rather have mine short, and mean something, than pages long, but say nothing.

But what of Frankenstein? I considered the reason why we create things, and it brought up the work by Mary Shelly. Once again I am left with standing upon the clifftops as The Traveler on a Sea of Fog is in Caspar David Friedrich's painting. What if man is not trying to imitate God, but rather trying to become God? When Dr. Frankenstein created his "modern Prometheus," he did so to pursue the unlimited possibilities of science and knowledge available to mankind. He brings the abomination to life, only to realize that he had brought death upon his family and friends. In trying to reach the miraculous feats that he eventually attained, he found that, like the Tower of Babel, he would be severely punished.

By creating life as an end to achieve knowledge, or in other words, with life not being the end result, he achieved little but despair. There were a couple of lines in Lord Byron's "Manfred," in which a character says, "the Tree of Knowledge is not the Tree of Life." This takes the idea back to that of Eden, of the Tree that Adam and Eve partook of. "Manfred" is a play that mirrors the Faust story told by Goethe and others. Faust, of course, is a scientist and doctor who, having learned all he can from the schools and practices of his time, resorts to witchcraft, and, thus having summoned a demon (Mephistopheles), makes a deal, ultimate knowledge for his soul. In the end, he has used his maligned agreement not to further his education, not to further his knowledge of life and the great unknowns that mankind has yet to penetrate, but rather to play cheap practical jokes on the Pope. His wish to fly, for instance, is one that comes from man's emotional desires, not any scientific basis. He chooses instant gratification, fame, fortune, and the glitz of the day instead of using his knowledge to create something good for the world. The road to destruction is often the easiest path. It is the most fun, the most dramatic, but it often leaves little behind but misery. This is the Unmaker's intentions. If he can unmake the world, especially with the people who have the most potential to remake it into something glorious, he has achieved twice what a normal person can do. He has knocked the traveler high from his look at paradise, and cost the world the experience and knowledge of such a splendid mind.

So to modern day, in real life. Dr. Craig Venter has recently created a bacteria organism from a computerized generation of DNA strands. In other words, Venter created Artificial life. See an interview with the scientist here:

Does this mean that Dr. Venter is Frankenstein, or that his creation will spell doom for all mankind, as the media is so apt to suggest? No, of course not. But the idea is a valid one. It is easy to suggest that in time, scientists will create a DNA strand that might as well have green skin and bolts for ears. They will see just how bad bad can get. Then we'll see Stephen King's The Stand come to life. If you think about that novel, the antagonist is the Unmaker. He's the same one that exists in Eyes of the Dragon, and verbally talks about raising havoc in each world he comes to.

It can very well happen here. In fact, I would call it inevitable. Like Adam, we crave knowledge. We want to be as much like God as possible, and that drive makes us want to know more and more about the unknowns. We yearn to create life, to find the particles, quarks, photons, in the tiniest parts of this universe. And we gaze upward and outward, wanting someday to reach the farthest stars. And God gave us the free will and the self-determination to do so. He gave us the faculties to create the most wonderful, and most horrific, creations ever conceived, but most importantly, he gave us the mental capacity to determine the outcome of doing so. We must strive forth, ever towards the unknown, but with a mind to the consequences of reaching those far points. Unfortunately, mankind will reach those unknowns and someone, with the Unmaker's intentions in mind, will create something that is great, but terrible (as the Sorting Hat said.). It will be up to us all to fight the Unmaker and his creations.

***
So.... I guess that's it for this series. I have no knowledge about bio-genetics, nor have I the ability to make sculptures and paintings. But I can write. I can make poems and blogs. So I will leave these things here, as my own creation. It won't give me immortality, but, I think, when I'm gone, there will need not be a Speaker for me to tell of my life. It will be on these pages. And I can also make bread. Loafs of nourishment from flour, yeast, and water. How wonderful is that? It makes me feel like I've created something, as God did at his Picnic of the multitudes. If we cannot create the monuments of this world, let us create what we can, be it bread, or blogs, or boys and girls that we can pass on our knowledge and love.