nancysue’s posterous

Tiger, Tiger, burning bright?
     Not so much right now. 
Are you the new Wilt Chamberlain?
Or are these vamps, vixens, sirens, and such
Simply seeking to share your not-so-flattering limelight?

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For the post-baby boomer generations who were taught the U.S. barbarically, mercilessly bombed Japan in 1945, it's not your fault.  No one ever told you the Japanese were not always the cool, car-building, techno-genius, anime-creating society you know them to be.  So, please look up December 7, 1941.  It was "9-1-1" before September 2001.

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This Just In:  It Is All About Appearances

(Ask anyone who has seen THE WIZARD OF OZ – would Dorothy and her menagerie have made that long trip had they not been bedazzled by the Emerald City?)

I think it was comedian Gallagher who said, “God made babies cute so you don’t kill them.”  Based on my own experiences with two beautiful children, I knew when I heard it, he was absolutely right.

It is so true – Beautiful people, cute kids, even pretty pets get away with a lot more than the rest of the dull, mousey, ordinary populace.  

This past week, the headlines reminded us all that beauty may only be skin deep, but, most people don’t have x-ray vision.  And so the physically blessed among us seem to get a pass, like a note from their mother, “Please excuse Beautiful Person’s transgression.  It won’t happen again – and if it does, please excuse again.  After all, he/she is blessed with beauty, thereby above the law, and entitled.  He/she may color outside the lines, pass on the right, go to the head of the class, pass go and collect as much money as he/she wants, text while driving, and anything else he/she chooses to do…”

I’m just sayin’ if those two White House party crashers had looked like Ma and Pa Kettle (oops, dating myself) – okay, if they had looked like –Roseanne Barr and Randy Quaid– would they have made it past any White House gate?  I don’t think so.  But, they were dashing and charismatic.  Well, he – not so much, really.  But, she?  Thin, blonde, the lady in red - that’s the magic formula.  All Mr. Crasher had to do was put his arm through hers, fasten his seatbelt.  I am going to take a guess here that most of the Secret Service agents at the entrances were male.  Mr. Crasher alone might have been stopped – but, he was eclipsed by the skinny blonde.  (We probably need more female Secret Service agents at those events.) 

And then there was Tiger Woods – beautiful, gifted Tiger.   Elin let him live – probably because he’s great looking (not to mention very rich).  If he looked like Ozzy Osbourne, she might have killed him.  And eventually, she (and we) will all forgive Tiger, because he is gorgeous – which, come to think of it, is what got him in this mess in the first place.  

Oh, cursed, cursed beauty!  

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          Thanksgiving is one of those inconspicuous, innocuous holidays most people take for granted, much as we take for granted the very things for which we should be thankful.   

          Wedged between six weeks of Halloween and at least three months of Christmas, the entire Thanksgiving celebration takes only about 24 hours, from bake to belch.  Once the dishes are washed and leftovers refrigerated, it’s on to the more commercial concerns of Christmas shopping.  Sundown on Thanksgiving is essentially the checkered flag of the Christmas retail race – “Gentleman, start your gold cards!”

          When I was a child, Thanksgiving was a pretty big deal.  Of course, that was before the age of immediate gratification.  Despite the onset of the space age, in the 1960s, we were still a society conditioned to wait for all good things.  Consequently, Halloween occurred exactly on October 31 – not for the three preceding weekends.  Thanksgiving was THE “holiday of the month” for November, and not until and only after Thanksgiving did we even seriously think about Christmas.  I am pretty sure it was not until the 1980s that the human eye had ever even beheld a Jack-o-lantern and Christmas tree displayed together in a retail setting.  

          I’m not sure how it came to this.  It seems we are but innocent consumer victims of a retail revolution in seasonal celebrations.  Clearly, Thanksgiving just needs a better p.r. agency – or maybe it could use a novel pitch man, like the Geiko gecko or something. 

          My guess is Thanksgiving is just too basic and non-glitzy, like the very values it represents:  home, family, good health, good food, freedom, and gratitude.  This Thursday in November is simply a day to sit down together with loved ones and enjoy those blessings.  It’s really not very commercial, and certainly not sensational – not the stuff of which retail profits and headlines are made.  It is baking, basting, and broiling; turkey, television, and travel.

          Yet, aside from football games and good food, Thanksgiving gives us at least 24 hours to count our blessings and say thank you.  And to the cynic who would argue that it doesn’t take long to count his blessings, try this:  Count all the things you don’t have that you don’t want.  It’s food for thought.

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My perception of the "Balloon Family,"Octomom, Jon & K8, and this entire generation of unreal "reality" celeb wannabes is their attitude is:  "What do you mean I have to DO, CREATE, or PERFORM something original and actually noteworthy to earn true fame???  

That's too HARD!!"

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     If you are one of those lucky people who can look at a picture hanging slightly askew, and think absolutely nothing of it; if you have never required any group of objects (pens, pencils, silverware…) to line up perfectly - then stop reading this right now.  You just won’t get it.  On the other hand, if you refuse to part your hair without a level or a ruler and you cannot even THINK about cutting off your car engine when the windshield wipers are still halfway up the windshield, then read on – you are one of “us.”

Here’s how it went down:  My son (who drives a high end SUV that I’m too embarrassed to name, because it is almost decadent) stopped at a gas station in Austin.  A couple of “Austin’s Finest” (you know, policemen) were also there quenching their thirst.  When one of them asked my son if the SUV was his, my son (assuming the policeman, like most everyone else, just wanted to discuss the bells and whistles on the vehicle or ask about the gas mileage) proudly admitted the truck was his.  However, the officer had no interest in either the luxury options or the gas mileage.  He just wanted to advise my son his registration sticker had expired. 

     My son admitted he was aware of that, but added, “I’ve got the new sticker – it’s in the glove compartment.  You see, I have this OCD about getting it on the windshield perfectly straight…”  At that point the officer half-winked at his fellow officer and informed my son, “Well, you’re gonna have a $275 fine to go alone with that OCD if you don’t put that sticker on the window.”

     Obviously, the officer either did not believe my son in fact, did have the current registration sticker in his glove compartment, OR he is one of those people with no need of symmetry and balance in his world, and therefore, could not even imagine the extent of anxiety my son experienced at the very thought of applying the registration sticker any way but PERFECTLY STRAIGHT on his windshield.

     I understand.  Oh, I totally empathize.  If you don’t apply that decal absolutely perfectly – aligned with your universe the very FIRST time – you’re stuck with it – GAME OVER – you are forced to look at that crooked sticker for an entire year.  There are no do-overs in state sticker application.  If you are one of those obsessive-compulsive people faced with 365 days of seeing that cock-eyed sticker virtually gorilla-glued to your windshield – right in front of your face – there’s only one way to escape the anguish – SELL THE CAR.  That’s right.  You just have to trade it in.  Tell the dealer you need to trade it for a vehicle with perfectly aligned registration and inspection stickers.  I really think that’s what Tony Shalhoub’s “MONK” character would do.  

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As another school year begins, I reflect back a couple of decades ago, when I wrote a regular newspaper column in the Dallas-Fort Worth area, and the new school year saw my youngest child start kindergarten and my niece go away to college.  The following is a barely edited text of my column that ran September 8, 1988.  It’s funny how the theme is basically timeless.  However, reading my own words filled with hope for my children’s future is quite poignant today.

September Signals Start of Season of Separation

Few scenes are more pathetic than a disenfranchised mother, like a mama bird, peering regretfully over the edge of her empty nest.

Case in point:  The first day of school at my son’s elementary, where a covey of kindergarten mothers cluster in the hall to commiserate.

          Inside the classroom, enthusiastic 5-year-olds proceeded with the business of growing and learning, while outside in the hall, a handful of teary-eyed adults bemoaned their “babies” growing up.  There was a difference of opinion, as to whether it was more difficult for those of us blowing goodbye kisses to our last “baby,” or for those mothers who, while gently nudging their first into the world, still had at least one safe in the next.

          There was only one dad among us, and he left long before the teacher ushered the rest of us to the door.  Clearly, nest-nudging is one of those jobs that goes with the position of “mother.”

          Altogether, it was not an easy first-week-of-September, as I was forced to acknowledge the encroaching adulthood of my niece, as she went away to college, and my little boy started kindergarten.  Only my fourth grade daughter lent some sense of stability, by not embarking on any “significant firsts.”

          September – summer’s end, seems to be the season of separation.  Oh, I know there are songs from the 1960s, which would have us believe otherwise:  “See You in September” and “Sealed With a Kiss.”  But, they are about teenagers’ school crushes, distanced by summer sabbaticals.  I may have fallen for that romantic rhetoric then.  But, wisdom is in the eyes of the beholder.  From the parental perspective, I see September as a time of letting go.

          My daughter’s first day of kindergarten went quite smoother.  And knowing my son’s survival instincts, I should have known he would also ace the first day of the rest of his institutionalized life.  Yet, I couldn’t suppress the memory of horror stories I’d heard about hysterical kids clinging to their parents’ car bumper on the first day of school.

          Not to worry!  Last week’s inauguration seemed to take its toll primarily on those of us over three feet tall.

          I don’t know about other mothers.  But, I probably tend to project my own childhood onto my more self-actualized offspring.  So, I am always pleasantly surprised that, not only do they cope, they conquer new situations.

          My niece and my children represent the secure 80s generation – the boomers’ babies who rarely view anything new as the end of an era  Instead, they approach life as an adventure, seeking less to maintain the status quo than to EXPERIENCE. 

          It’s a great winning attitude – one I’ve tried to sow and nurture in my children.  (It’s always a good idea to raise kids who will be positive role models for you in those formative years – from 30 to 45).

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This just in:  Physical education can be hazardous to your child’s health.

I kid you not.  It was in the news today. A study appearing in the September edition of Pediatrics indicates injuries to American children during physical education classes increased by 150 percent from 1997-2007.

Every week it seems the “new studies” indicate kids today are too fat and too sedentary – and we worry.  But, we don’t just worry – we take action!  We restrict the number of sugary cereal ads that can be run on Saturday morning TV.  (Yeah, that oughtta knock some fat off the kids’ behinds…)

In fact, we have demonized breakfast cereal to the point that “sugar” is now a four-letter word.  Seriously, when I was growing up, we had Post SUGAR CRISP.  Now, they are “Golden Crisp.”  Tony Tiger’s SUGAR FROSTED FLAKES?  I don’t think so – they’re just FROSTED now.  Apparently, the “S-word” itself is unhealthy.

But, I digress. 

So, last week, we were all upset because kids are too fat.

This week, the crisis is they’re bonkin’ around too much in gym class – breaking limbs, skinning their knees, and getting strains, sprains, and heat strokes. 

At the risk of sounding like an old fogy (though, if the bell bottoms fit…)… I am forced to hark back to President John F. Kennedy and the President’s Council on Physical Fitness.  Because of President Kennedy, my fellow baby boomers and I were forced to do sit-ups, push ups, chin-ups, and any other kind of “up” you can think of.  We were made to do this primate thing called “arm holds,” like a chin-up, only you just hang there until your arms are shaking so hard you either drop to the ground in a heap of perspiration or just have a stroke.  We also had to regularly run the whatever-yard dash, and we were GRADED on these things.

Now that I think about it, even our playground was physically challenging – returning to the primate theme, we had steel structures aptly named “monkey bars” and “jungle gyms.”  You want to talk about injuries –plenty of blood and bone chips were sacrificed at those altars of recess.  But, who cared?  The school nurse had plenty of mercurochrome and Band-Aids, and nobody’s parents ever sued the school.  If anything, the child would be chastised by his own parents (and definitely his siblings) for being a klutz and a spaz. 

In retrospect, I believe it is entire likely the school playgrounds of the 1960s were actually part of a Population Control plan – a "natural selection” blueprint to weed some of us boomers off the planet. 

Clearly, I have little sympathy for this new worry of the week.  When kids are not active, they get fat.  When they are active, we worry that they are getting hurt. 

What do we want fat kids with no “boo boos” or fit kids who get hurt, and learn to be more careful next time?

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"Don't Ask, Don't Tell" Policy is back in the news.
President Obama wants Congress to repeal the law.  In 1993, it was former President Clinton's way of appeasing both sides of the gays in the military issue.  I thought it was an excellent compromise.  After all, it was a huge departure from the strict ban on gays in the military, and was in some ways, a reflection of President Clinton's attitude toward his country and his wife - "What you don't know can't hurt me!"
 
No, seriously, I do think "Don't ask, don't tell" is the best policy - not just about gays in the military - about EVERYTHING.  But, then, that's the generation I come from.  My mom used to admonish, "Don't tell everything you know."  And people who DID tell everything they knew were considered "common" - not as in "ordinary people" - as in "white trash."
 
Proper people did not:

   Ask women or authority figures (in general) their age

   Ask about someone's finances - or tell about their own.

   Of course, it was never considered polite (or safe) to discuss politics or religion in certain company (that company being anyone who might disagree with you). 
 
My gosh - even CLAIROL reminded us that ladies did not reveal their natural haircolor:  "Only her hairdresser knows for sure..."  Given the intimate details of every personal "lifestyle" or hygiene item that is trumpeted in television commercials today, it seems ironically quaint there ever was a time when revealing that you color your hair was deemed "sharing an intimacy" or breaking with coy tradition... 
 
Clearly, if it was not polite to tell your age or income - maybe even your haircolor or weight - you can be sure NO ONE  was talking about their "s-e-x" life.

While a lot has changed in my lifetime - and I mean a LOT - there are still some things I choose not to know about other people.  At the top of that list is their bedroom activity - whether homo or hetero - military or non-military - I'm just not sure why anyone should ask or anyone should tell.

"Don't ask, don't tell" is just a good policy for life in general.

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