Leveraged Intelligence

If I could travel in Time, I would …

This is the Friday offering of the Loose Bloggers Consortium, a list of the members with links to their blogs on the left.  We write on the same topic each Friday without knowing in any way what the others have written.  This should be VERY interesting to see what the different members come up with and I want to personally thank Judy Harper, the Creative Writer in Progress on the left for such a delightful suggestion.

How many of you have seen the Will and Grace show when Jack met Cher?  This clip is so funny, because Jack always imitated Cher – and you will see by the end of it how it fits in with our time travel theme.

Jack meets Cher

If I could turn back time … what the heck would I do with it?

I put this together with certain assumptions.  First, I assumed that I would not be visible to anyone in the circumstance, would not be able to interfere, just observe.  Second, I assumed I could not be harmed by events or the environment.  Third, I assumed I could place myself anywhere in space as easily as I could in time.  In other words, I would be kind of a ghost!

Then I decided to just start free associating.  My interests are always so eclectic, as anyone who has read this blog for awhile knows.  I knew that if I had this ability, I would have a large number of interests that would be continually changing.  In fact, what I can’t actually put in place here is how my next target would change depending upon the experience at the current and last place.

Also, note that none of my travel is to the future!  I would only want to learn things from he past … but I wouldn’t want to screw up my present by knowing anything of the future.  Besides, I think that any future would be a probable outcome anyway.

So, enough with the prelims.  Here is the list of times / places that flowed out of me.  And, let me tell you, this list would just grow and grow and …

• Go back to see how the pyramids were constructed!
• See if I could find Jesus, Joseph and Mary, John the Baptist, the Disciples.
• Check out the events surrounding Moses at various points!
• Check out the first humans at Olduvai Gorge.
• Go see the Founding Fathers, Washington, Jefferson, Franklin.
• Go to the School Book Depository in Dallas to see if Lee Harvey Oswald really did do it alone.  Also, I might have to multiply locate to the Grassy Knoll.
• Visit Einstein in his study at the point that he boiled the essence down to E=mc²
• Return to the Renaissance and watch Michelangelo at work on David, on the Sistine Chapel.
• Go to the moon to watch the first landing, the first steps.
• Watch Mozart and Beethoven compose.
• See how Shakespeare wrote and directed some of his plays.
• Watch Krakatau explode and Vesuvius erupt!
• Watch DaVinci painting the Mona Lisa and The Last Supper.
• Watch Babe Ruth and Satchel Paige, each in his prime.
• Watch and listen to Lincoln deliver the Gettysburg Address.
• Watch Orson Wells and crew create War of the Worlds for the radio.
• Go to China and observe the life and surroundings of Confucius.
• Go to old Tibet, with one of the early Dalai Lamas – or, at least the Dalai Lama in early incarnations – at the Potala.
• Check out some of my early ancestors in Germany and see, in about 1630, where Barthold Hake came from.  He lived in Hemeringen, ten miles from Hameln, but … before that we do not know.

And on and on.  Where would you go?  What would you want to see?

The Wildest Thing I Did in My Youth

Gotta tell ya – when gaelikaa came up with this, my main problem was choosing what to say … and deciding what was appropriate to say … so I decided to just say it! I can’t wait to see what the other characters came up with, so be sure to peruse their takes on this, all published more or less simultaneously.  You can find links to all their sites on the left.  And, now, let the recounting begin:

It was the summer of 1977 when my best friend and I decided to take advantage of Greyhound’s offer of travel to anywhere in America for $50.  I had been teaching all year and while working nine months, I was paid on a twelve-month basis.  When you are young that seems like free money.

So, we got on the bus in Topeka, Kansas and headed for California!  Let me recount for you, chronologically, all the things that happened.  Cross my heart, all of them are true:

• On the way to Denver, the guys behind us were smoking pot.  The bus driver kept thinking it was us, probably because we had hair down to there.  I was getting ready to give the driver what for when my friend informed me that he was “holding,” the term for having a drug or two in his possession, and that we should just let it go.  So we did.  And we were summarily kicked off the bus at the Denver Depot.  At midnight.
• In the bus depot, the manager told us that if we wanted to go to the bathroom, it was best to go together, since a guy had been murdered in the bathroom overnight a couple of weeks before.So, a guy came in and we smoked some really good pot with him out back.  We had to do something with our time.
• We decided that we should make even better use of our time, so we decided to get train tickets across the Rockies to our friends’ house in Grand Junction.  We were on the train by 6:00 – and if you’ve never taken a train across the Rockies, let me highly recommend it!  We would stand between the cars and hang out in the fresh air, taking in the gorgeous views.  Then we settled in a car that seemed really nice – only to find that it was really nice because it was the crew’s car.  But, they liked us and told us we could hang with them.  In return, we got them stoned in Grand Junction.
• In Grand Junction, we got back on the bus with the ticket from the original $50, if you can believe that.  We went to Salt Lake City, where I met a lovely lady with whom I made out all the way to San Francisco.  You need to do something on a bus to pass the time.
• She put us up in North Beach in San Francisco for a couple of days and I really think she and I could have made a go of it – except that I was moving on, she had her boyfriend returning to town and, unbeknownst to me, my future mate was only 25 miles away.  Anyway, that was when I fell in love with San Francisco!
• Traveled on the bus to Southern California.  Met up with my buddy’s distant cousins.  Did our laundry.  Spent some time with them.  They tried to convert us to their brand of Christianity.  So, we exchanged pleasantries, explained how tight our schedule was – of which there was actually nothing, of course – and moved on.
• Took the local bus with no destination in mind.  Decided totally on impulse – because, and I mean this sincerely, when we did that, something a whole lot greater than us guided with uncanny precision, a concept a bit foreign to my buddy’s relatives – to get off at a hole we saw in the fence.  Went through the hole to the beach below.  Found out it was named Capistrano Beach, put down our sleeping bags … and found out later that this was a contested stretch of beach and thus was the only beach in Southern California you could sleep on without fear of reprisal.  Thank you, GREATER POWER!
• While we are staying on the beach, learning to harvest grunion, and partying in general (we were very popular, because we brought no expectations and just joined in), we sleep through a woman having a domestic argument, being shot, trying to run away and being hit by a train that ran by the beach.  She was OK after some patching up in the morning, because people who sleep on the beach seem to be pretty damn hardy, and my buddy and I helped her patch it up with her husband the next day.  We were very good at listening.
• Deciding to take a bus for a quick jaunt, we find a movie we’ve never heard of, go to the first Star Wars movie.  Walked up just in time to be in the front of the line … of course.  The Force was definitely with us and the movie made a crapload of sense.  Dude, we lived like that!
• Take another bus trip to the LA area and miss a connection.  No problem, because even the screw-ups workout for the two of us.  We notice that we are across the street from Disneyland (I’ll be damned!) so, my buddy, who always seems to have an endless supply of something, wheels out some mushrooms to munch and we go get tickets.  Wow!  It really IS the magic kingdom!
• Near the end of the day, out of the blue we meet up with a girl we know from Kansas.  This is a girl whose parents  have decided I am bad for her and that she is not to see me anymore.  We REALLY like each other.  Neither of us had any idea that the other was going to California, let alone anything else.  So, we go back to the Whalers Inn to talk and make out.
• Time to meet up with my buddy’s brother in Tucson.  We head back, find that Hell is actually cooler, but somehow find a place that we can stay for a bit.  I sleep in the basement the first night – and … the wall opens up for me with no chemical assistance whatsoever and I see things that Moses could relate to.  Next morning, I tell my mates that I am not sleeping down there again!
• Head to Durango, have adventures in mountains a bit, sleep on a mountainside – you know, regular stuff.
• Well, it is time to head home.  Now, we split into different groups and I am with my buddy’s brother, definitely one of my best friends in the universe these days, a guy I will be calling Saturday.  But, he and I can’t get a ride hitchhiking for anything.  However, we are picked up by a forest firefighter who is having all his animals and his wife shelling out new little beings.  This guy is magical!  He puts us up in a bedroom to sleep in paper firefighter sleeping bags on a floor that goes right out the window to a patio that he built on a second story into the trees.  Wow!
• We can’t get a ride together for anything.  So, we split up and decide that might help.  It does, but I get caught at the end of a day in Limon, Colorado in a rain storm and sleep overnight under a park bench.  I’m really starting to feel ridden hard and put away wet at this point, but I haven’t been put away quite yet.  Sheesh!  Cop wakes me up, makes me move on.  Later, I find that Mom had to pay a $12 fine for me sleeping there.
• Finally get the remainder of the rides home that I need.  Or, at least close enough that my folks can pick me up.  I have … and this is no exaggeration … 4 cents in my pocket!

That is the wildest adventure of my youth!  But, I still have a few others to relate to you.  Uh … quite a few!

Fifteen Minutes of Fame

“If I have given my all and still do not win, I haven’t lost. Others might remember winning or losing; I remember the journey.”

Apolo Ohno

Another in the Loose Bloggers Consortium series, this topic suggested from Maria.  I have Consortium members listed with links to their blogs in the left margin.  Since we all post simultaneously, it will be interesting as always to see what they have to say!

Question of the day: does loose refer to bloggers or to consortium here?  Ah … might have something to do with today’s topic, so let’s begin …

Lindsey Vonn / Apolo Anton Ohno / Lindsey Jacobellis / Shaun White

Above, I have four American Olympic athletes, each interesting in her or his own right.  Each represents an aspect of the American psyche in rather unique ways and it is a very important part of the American psyche at that.  America embraces competition as part of our ideal, so the way that our representatives relate to competition is very important to understanding us as a people – a people in transition.

In the ideal, we believe in accomplishment of the individual and we believe in that accomplishment in a competitive environment.  We believe that is what drives our wealth and – as I observe it – that our job in the world is to NOT LOSE!  We often see ourselves as the heroic carriers of the torch.  The world is obviously more complex than that, but it is very much at our core since World War II.  That colors how we compete in something like the Olympics, so let’s look at our four competitors as examples and see how they are doing and their attitudes toward it.

Lindsey Vonn

Lindsey is an American story that we really like.  She is the best, but she is injured, playing in pain.  She has to overcome obstacles to achieve her goal, she has to EARN a medal.   And, she has a mixed bag so far, but she sees it all to the good, for she gutted her way through to a gold in the women’s downhill skiing event.  It meant everything to her and she let it be known that she had given up so much to get that medal.  She was very emotional.

The mixed result for her is that I have just gotten the news that she fell in her second event and thus ends out of contention.

Apolo Anton Ohno

Apolo is, in many ways, the competitors competitor.  He has tied Bonnie Blair as the most decorated American Winter Olympian ever, with six medals, undoubtedly with more to come.  His workout regimens have been grueling to get to this point and he is in the prime condition of his life.  He will, almost without a doubt win more medals than the silver he got in his first race, thanks in VERY large part to one Korean skater taking out himself and his teammate to prevent a Korean sweep of the Short-track skating event Ohno has competed in.  It is a sport where fortune, good or bad, can play a major role and sometimes I wonder how much that has to do with Ohno’s attitude.

He is a nice balance of fiercely competitive and philosophically mellow, as evidenced by the statement he made at the beginning of this post.  The statement was put on Twitter this morning by him.  And, from observing him, I think he means it.  Nice.

Lindsey Jacobellis

This is one of the most interesting cases ever.  Lindsey is arguably the best in her sport of Snowboard Cross.  She has been world champion numerous times and – this is the monkey on her back – she dominated the Olympics in 2006 when, with a commanding lead coming to the finish line … she … tried an unnecessary trick … fell down … and took Silver! This was her chance for redemption, because she has been reminded of this every interview for four years.

She was well on her way.  Until she slipped up on a hard turn, hit a gate, and was immediately out of the race!  It was a stomach blow that would be hard to take!

But, she rolled with it and pitched herself into winning the consolation race.  Like Ohno, she talked about how great the experience of this Olympics was.  But, she added something else – she said that she was grateful she wasn’t injured and would be able to keep on racing.  The way she said it, you realized that she just LOVES to get on that snowboard and do what she does and I had the feeling that is more important to her than the medal.

Good for her!

Shaun White

This kid is phenomenal.  He does the half-pipe snowboarding and he absolutely dominates.  Like Lindsey Jacobellis, he is part of a culture more surfer than anything else, and they really hang loose!  Known as the Flying Tomato for his long red hair, Shaun has learned to market himself without losing either his competitive edge or his cool.  He is kind of the new American hero of his generation, to be honest.  He is someone you CAN’T resent for making 8 mil a year, more than any other Olympic athlete.  He hangs out with people like Richard Branson!

How does this fit in with our title of Fifteen Minutes of Fame?  Olympic athletes, unlike our professionals who parade before us week after week, year after year, only get one shot every four years.  There is only so long you can train before you age or just get tired of the regimen.  More than any other athletes, these people will be pretty much forgotten by the public until it is time for them to compete again.  They epitomize the torch itself that no one thinks about between Olympics, in the background, forgotten.  These people really don’t worry about that, I don’t think, for when they burn, they burn bright!

And, there you have it.  America as seen through one group of Americans.  We are a young culture.  We have a lot to learn.

A Person, Place, Thing or Idea

They call it the Annus Mirabilis of Albert Einstein, the year 1905.  In one burst of genius virtually unparalleled,  he produced four papers that year and a doctoral thesis.  Every one of the papers was Nobel Prize caliber and every one of them helped shape our modern world.

The first three papers, remarkably were all published in the same journal, Annalen der Physik 17.  This is what they each essentially accomplished:

Explanation of the Photoelectric Effect – for which he received the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1921 – described light as composed of photons and led to the quantum revolution in physics.

Explanation of Brownian Motion of small particles in liquids.  This indirectly confirmed the existence of atoms and molecules.

Special Relativity.  Perhaps you have heard of this one!  It ushered in a whole new way of understanding space and time and tossed our understanding of what we perceive on its head.

His fourth paper was a further work on Special Relativity and introduced the famous E = mc2.

And, did I tell you he also did a Doctoral Thesis that year?

Years later, after the Nazis had run him out of Germany in 1933, he was courted by the best American academic institutions.  He was at Stanford and they were showing him all the magnificent scientific instruments and tremendous facilities they had and he was like a kid in a candy shop.  When one of the professors turned to his wife Elsa and asked her if she thought he was impressed, she told them that he loved it – but that they needed to realize he could do more than all that on the back of a postcard.

From his theories, nuclear energy has grown, the LASER – which he spelled out as possible – was developed, and the list of derivative inventions in many ways frame the Twentieth Century and beyond.  But, he only invented and patented one item himself – a refrigeration unit.

Just think.  Instead of all that academic stuff in his head … we could be seeing a quite wealthy Einstein legacy of Frigidaires with his picture right on the front!

This is another Friday offering in the Loose Bloggers Consortium, the list of whom are on the left.  The Magpie came up with this topic – so I tried to channel him in its creation!  Please take some time to enjoy the writings of the others on such a broad theme.  I have no idea what they will write, but it is always interesting, fun and thought provoking.

A Visit … To The Barber

Our LBC topic this week is on a Visit or Visitors.  You can read the takes of others on this topic, suggested by Grannymar, by using the links to the Loose Bloggers Consortium members on the left.

Each week we take a single topic tossed in by a member and then we write on it totally independently, posting simultaneously.  This might yield anything from the silly to the sublime.  But, what you can guarantee is that it will be fun and unique!

My idea is to write on the American ritual chore right behind mowing the lawn in regularity and popularity – visiting the barber.  It takes time, it takes money, and often the result isn’t exactly what you were hoping for.

I have found a solution to this that works very nicely for me, thank you very much and I thought I would present it to you in the following video:

The Perfect Life

This piece is part of the Loose Blogger’s Consortium series that appears on Fridays.  And, these are a blast.  This topic really was a stumper, Ramana Rajgopaul!

You can find the other members’ names – and they will be tackling this same subject – on the left.

As I write this, there are approximately 6,980,353,928 answers to the question, “What is a perfect life?”  Everyone is born with different circumstances, different abilities and different challenges.  We try to approach the question through so many of our disciplines, to give guidance that all can follow even though each fulfills unique values in life. So, let’s look at three sources.

———————————————————————–

Matthew 5:48 – Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect. – From Christ’s Sermon on the Mount

The above picture is Bloch’s painting of The Sermon on the Mount

The Sermon on the Mount is the core teaching of Christ’s ministry.  Even for those quite opposed to religion, it is worth reading, as it would seem to be the most succinct guideline to “perfection” from Christ’s pronouncements.  It might also make you wonder how we derived the Christian religion as practiced after you have read it.  It is in the Gospel of Matthew, Chapters 5, 6 and 7.

It is the realization of how far short that we fall that most Christians take as our lot in life and that only through the salvation of Christ’s sacrifice on the cross that we can gain entry to what would be called a perfect life.  However, this seems to me to, in part, be an avoidance of a direct commandment from Christ to His followers.

———————————————————————–

Tao Te Ching – Lao Tzu – chapter 16

The following is a translation by Jane English with Gia-Fu Feng.

Empty yourself of everything.
Let the mind rest at peace.
The ten thousand things rise and fall while the Self watches their return.
They grow and flourish and then return to the source.
Returning to the source is stillness, which is the way of nature.
The way of nature is unchanging.
Knowing constancy is insight.
Not knowing constancy leads to disaster.
Knowing constancy, the mind is open.
With an open mind, you will be openhearted.
Being openhearted, you will act royally.
Being royal, you will attain the divine.
Being divine, you will be at one with the Tao.
Being at one with the Tao is eternal.
And though the body dies, the Tao will never pass away.

I’ve always liked the Tao Te Ching.

———————————————————————–

The Perfect Height

The best, however, I save for last,  insight that came from a very unexpected source.   When my uncle, my father’s brother lost over Germany in World War II – my namesake – was in high school, he was asked by an older woman how tall he was.  When he answered, “Six feet tall,” she had to correct him.  “Oh no, dear.” she said, “Only our Lord Jesus was exactly six feet tall.”

From this, we can see that we have ONE truly objective measure of perfection in life – you must be precisely six feet in height.  I assume this is true for women also.  It is also clear that anyone currently taller than six feet, unless they were momentarily perfect, discretely jumped from five feet eleven+++ inches to six feet zero+++ inches skipping over the perfect height.  Alternately, you must assume not only that they were temporarily perfect, they were actually Jesus momentarily, which seems unlikely.  However, God does work in mysterious ways.

Somehow, I find this last definition of perfection to be the best I have ever heard.

Doubts and Regrets

It is common to think that all lives are filled with doubts and regrets; for to err is human, to come to terms with oneself is to experience remorse for one’s actions, and too much is always unknown.  Outside of religious faith, I had not become acquainted with anyone solidly asserting otherwise until I read in one of the Castaneda books that one of Don Juan’s teachings regarding the warrior’s path was to live WITHOUT doubts and regrets!  I was intrigued, but could never quite resolve in my mind what it meant until …

During this phase of my life, I was doing a lot of meditation as well as having the adventures that make my mother cringe.  Indeed, from the meditation itself many things emerged which were marvelous adventures in their own right; but this is a story of meditation’s good buddy, dreaming.

In the dream, I found myself sitting in the lotus position in what appeared to be an apartment in a high-rise building in the city.  I was gazing peacefully out through a sliding glass door onto a balcony without rails, more like a ledge, that parted in something of a U shape from both sides of the door.  Then I noticed something very interesting …

Emanating from me in two lines which headed toward the balcony were strings of the number two’s.  I sat in puzzlement, for I knew this had meaning, for it was one of THOSE dreams.  Maybe you’ve had them.  A dream filled with meaning, vivid, more real than the waking world you came from.  Between meditation and dreaming, it is hard to tell how long I observed these two long lines, the duality that held me in stasis.

Suddenly, without warning …

A man came dancing gaily past me, executing a light-footed jig as he went, obviously enjoying life to the hilt.  As he went forward, I noticed that the number one’s continuously and dynamically appeared in a string before him – and that every one of his hopping, dancing, seemingly random steps landed squarely and lightly on a number one.  He never missed, never guessed, never lost balance.

And the numbers unfolded before him and went right over the edge of the ledge!!!  I watched him go right off the precipice, falling to his obvious death, yelling as he went.  But, I noticed something a bit odd.  His yell was not a yell of fear.  It wasn’t even good acting and obviously not intended to be.  It was that kind of mock fear sound you make when you are poking fun at someone!

He popped right back up on that ledge, doing a kind of yell in reverse and laughing at the same time.  The one’s started unfolding before him once again.  And, as he danced his jig back past me, he leaned over to say …

… I changed my mind!

That dream is reported as I experienced it and it has been my internal reference on the question since.

This piece is part of the continuing Blogger’s Consortium series with simultaneous posts on the topic being done by Anu, Ashok, gaelikaa, Ginger, Grannymar, Helen, Judy, Magpie 11, Maria and Ramana – give or take a few!

Faith

Every walking step taken is an act of faith, natural faith.  You have faith in the landing, faith in your balance, faith in the fluid shifting of weight that maintains momentum into the next step.  You never think of it as an act of faith until you trip or realize it can be lost, permanently or temporarily as Grannymar and bikehikebabe in our own group have found out.  Last year, my wife turned and stepped against a raised joint in the sidewalk and fell to a knee – breaking her kneecap and spending a significant stretch in a brace then going through rehabilitation.

Every step taken is a step into the future, a step into the unknown.  While walking takes a little faith, running takes more.  There is more potential for falling, but more reward in the process.  The unknown comes faster, is consumed, is known.  And, there is another difference, for now both feet are off the ground simultaneously.  For brief periods, you are no longer anchored to terra firma.

When I was twenty-one, I took the faith to the next level.  Five of us took off for the Bridger Wilderness in the Wind River Range of the Rockies just south of the Grand Tetons in Wyoming.

That’s me at the top right in this picture.  In fact, this is how we looked at the end of the journey.  Seventy-five miles through some VERY rugged terrain.  Up and down, slippery, steep, unsure footing!  Here is one of the mild parts, a picture of me crossing a shallow stream.

The reason I include this picture is that it was the best illustration of my theme, a continued growth of faith in your next step on uncertain surfaces.  At one point, a gravelly surface gave way under me, leaving me clawing for a hold – only to stop at a ledge with about a 1500 foot drop on the other side!  But, day by day, we all became more fit, more sure-footed.

Then, we hit a point of challenge without choice, the ultimate test for a group of rank amateurs.  We came over a ridge only to discover that the only realistic way down was over a LARGE slope strewn with very big boulders!  It was not feasible to go back and we could see no other realistic way to reach our next destination.

This is where the literal leap of faith came in.  We found that we could not climb from boulder to boulder, we had to jump.  And, further, we found that the gaps were too large to do it without momentum.  So, we did the thing twenty-one year olds feeling their oats do – we ran all the way down, never knowing where the next leap would go until the prior was completed!  One step per boulder became the best way.  Faster, faster, faster.  Ah, the exhilaration.  Confidence grew with every step.  And, finally the bottom, faces split with smiles from ear to ear.

All of this is a true recounting – but, it might as well have been the Metaphor Mountains …

This piece is part of the continuing Blogger’s Consortium series with simultaneous posts on the topic being done by Anu, Ashok, gaelikaa, Ginger, Grannymar, Helen, Judy, Magpie 11, Maria and Ramana.  This is Anu’s first topic suggestion and I tried to do her youthful exuberance justice by recalling a little of my own.

[Vision] Quest

Many Native American tribes have the tradition of the Vision Quest, a journey into the wilderness alone, usually fasting, before puberty, a rite of passage.  But, it’s more than a rite of passage, it is a voyage of self-discovery, for when you head into nothing the only thing to be found is yourself.  That is how you become a man.  Beautifully, it is now also how you become a woman, for our culture has also entered a vision quest!

Entered under the tutelage of the wise elders, it is designed to bring our child seeking adulthood closer to his/her spiritual base and usually does indeed produce a vision, a vision of meaning and relevance only to the initiate.  Most of us have undergone something similar –dimly similar, perhaps – although perhaps never with such class or spiritual elegance.

It need not end with puberty or adulthood.  Have you ever felt lost in your own wilderness, totally overwhelmed in your life?  Perfect.  You are on a vision quest, so learn, for this is when you are more open (if you let yourself be) to knowledge than any other time.  All of us have elders in our lives, so listen to them.  Grow closer to your true self.  With whatever grace you can muster, accept the next step.  If grace evades you, forgive yourself that it may return.

Then wash the tears of tribulation from your face, return to your tribe, sit by the fire and accept sustenance.  Well done.

This piece is part of the continuing Blogger’s Consortium series with simultaneous posts on the topic being done by Anu, Ashok, gaelikaa, Ginger, Grannymar, Helen, Judy, Magpie 11, Maria and Ramana.  Ginger brought us this topic – and let me tell you, I am impressed with her depth.  She is a fine addition to this tribe.

Humor

Good Humor: a cheerful and agreeable mood.

Humor: The quality that makes something laughable or amusing.

Above, you see Baby aka Dolly.  Baby was  Carly’s comforter, her companion, her reassurance.  A cold when she was six months of age cemented the relationship.  A little terry cloth doll that has meant EVERYTHING to this family.

Let me tell you a story.  We took a trip to Kansas to visit my parents one summer when Carly was little.  Baby was, of course with us.  After the visit, we were traveling to Disneyland, so the folks took the long trip (well over 2 hours) from Abilene to Kansas City so we could fly to LAX.  Part of the trip there is over the Kansas Turnpike, with toll booths at either end for no apparent reason other than it was originally set up as a speedway with a speed limit of about 80 mph as I recall and no one stopped collecting money when the speed limit became uniform and the Turnpike just became another part of the Interstate Highway.  Anyway, I digress.

At the airport, it was awhile until our flight, so we settled in.  Carly wanted to snuggle up with Baby – or Dolly, which she was also called – only to find that … gasp!!! … Dolly was nowhere to be found!  In a panic, we called with my cell phone to the Kansas Highway Patrol, since the folks had no cell phone back then.  But, try as they might (and, they did try!), they did not intercept the folks at a toll booth.

Now, we had to get on the flight.  Panic.  We had a small girl quite distraught.  We had a child in bad humor!!!  That means we were all in bad humor.  It was not looking good.  Life was NOT funny!

Well, the planes had just put in phones.  When we calculated the folks should be home, we called them and were able to get in touch.  Mom immediately prepped the ragamuffin and I don’t know if she put Dolly in the mail immediately, but that little rag doll made its way to Disneyland express mail!  You should have seen Carly when we unwrapped that little terry cloth being at the Disneyland Hotel!  Good humor restored BIG TIME.  Laughter!!  Life was once again fun and funny.

And, now we return to the topic.  Humor is centered in the child in us really.  Humor leads to good humor and vice versa on a two-way road.  It becomes more sophisticated, sure, over time, but to really get what is funny, it isn’t a matter of analysis.  Like Carol says, if you have to explain it, it ain’t funny.  It is that return to the immediate perception of the child within, that unfiltered response that has tears rolling down your cheeks.  THAT is the playful creativity engaged in by the Einsteins of the world.  Paradoxically, it is where you find humor that the serious work is done, where the plow digs deep.

And … it’s where daughters are happy.

PS In case you noticed, the face of Dolly looks a bit different from the first picture to the second.  Well, our dog chewed off the first face!  As Carol informed Carly, “It’s bad!”

So, Supermom kicked into gear and took a backup Pink Dolly and did one of the most amazing feats of surgery ever.  She did a face and head stuffing transplant!

I love that woman!

This piece is part of the continuing Blogger’s Consortium series with simultaneous posts on the topic being done by Anu, Ashok, gaelikaa, Ginger, Grannymar, Helen, Judy, Magpie 11, Maria and Ramana.  I can hardly wait to see what they have done with this topic!