“22,700 in 0.76 seconds…”

22,700 is the number of results that popped up in 0.76 seconds when I typed in “it gets dark too early” into Google just now.  It seems like I’m not the only one experiencing a negative emotion in regard to the cruel games that Daylight Savings Time plays with our biological clocks twice a year.  I know that in the dead of winter, no matter whether we use DST or not, the days are always going to be shorter.  In fact, statistics show that there is a correlation between less daylight (read: Vitamin D), along with colder weather I’m assuming, and a more stagnant lifestyle in the winter, leading to weight gain & depression in many people. 

Frankly, I’m not surprised by this at all as I’m sure none of you are either.  In the last week and a half, I can already tell you that when 5 o’clock PM rolls around (my normal time for going to the gym), I’m extremely hesitant to trek back out into the total darkness that has already set in (it starts to get dark about 3:45-4:00 here already!).  This of course contrasts with the other end of the day when the sunlight wakes me up around 5:30 or 6AM and I hop out of bed with no problem since my body thinks it’s already getting late!  It doesn’t hurt that I have no curtains on my huge 3^rd floor windows and I face the rising sun! 

At first, I thought this new schedule was great…I was getting up earlier than usual and getting started with my “work” by 7-7:30 at the latest.  I place the word in quotations because lately, my days have consisted of working non-stop on Ph.D. applications, which consists of requesting transcripts, scanning documents, sending files back and forth from professors and universities, creating and revising my C.V., writing essays, translating research projects, etc…you get the idea…basically not terribly fun, but fairly rewarding since I know I’ll be done with it all in a week or so more (my personal deadline is by Thanksgiving Day!!)  But, now that I think about it, with it getting dark at 4 o’clock, I’m really not getting done anything more than I was before…this because it seems like once it’s dark, I feel like the day should be over.  The biological clock thing I guess…we are creatures of habit, naturally inclined to STOP whatever work we’re doing when the sun goes down because without any man-made innovations, we would still be living the hunter/gatherer existence that humankind experienced for centuries.  Interesting that DST tampers with this even though in our modern society we are not hampered by lack of artificial light, right? 

Seems like yet another indication of the fact that as human beings, we tend to run away with our ingenuities and they wind up controlling us more than what we profit from them.  After all, how many different pills exist to help people sleep?  How many psychological problems exist that could be the result of sleep deprivation or over-exertion and stress?  If everybody quit whatever it is they had to do right when the sun went down and rested till the next glimpse of daylight, how much better off might we be?  Of course, we wouldn’t be as materially productive as we are now and the very idea of getting 12 hours of sleep every night is a laughable impossibility in our culture.  But for all our desire to return to all things “organic,” “natural” and (I hate the terminology) “green,” we seem to completely forget about this natural phenomenon that occurs every 24 hours that’s called a day. 

Could it be that it was created for a reason?  Could it be that we not only need 1 day of rest in 7, but ½ day of rest per day as well?  Something to think about…   

"La persistencia de la memoria" Salvador Dalí

"Clocks slay time... time is dead as long as it is being clicked off by little wheels; only when the clock stops does time come to life.

-William Faulkner

          

Bicycle Rage?

Over this past weekend, I spent some time with a friend from Athens who is on a tour of graduate business programs throughout the Northeast.  In discussing transportation options for living in this area, we naturally talked about the pros and cons of riding a bike as a means of basic transportation, which I have done almost exclusively since I arrived here.  What I told my friend was to Boston’s credit…but an unpleasant experience on my commute this morning is making me question the idyllic “everybody loves bikes here” image I tried to impress on my friend.  What I still want to believe is that Boston, since it’s a big “small” town with fairly accessible public transportation, not too crazy drivers and plenty of bicycle lanes on most of the major veins throughout the city, is that it is relatively safe to ride your bike here.  I would even be willing to bet that biking is much safer here than Athens, a tiny town in comparison, but where I know people who have been hospitalized multiple times & have even come within an inch of death at the hands of ignorant, careless drivers who believe that the roads should be off-limits to anyone unable to fly at speeds of 80 mph. 

Biking for transportation in Athens, or even in Dalton, where I grew up, is still not terribly common & understandably so with all of the hills that get in the way of an easier ride.  So, even though I used my bike relatively less while living in Georgia, I can still remember many a time where some bully driver tried to run me off the road while spouting ridiculous anti-bicycle hate-speech or flipping me a bird…Ok, that sounds a little exaggerated, but it’s really not too far from the truth y’all.  I never could understand this angst against bicyclists…after all, isn’t pretty much everyone upset about higher gas prices or strapped for cash and trying to find ways to cut back on daily expenses?  Regardless of how you feel about the benefits of using less energy (I’m not a tree-hugger by any means!) or the possibility that our expensive oil habits are keeping terrorism in business (up for debate of course!), a rational person should respect someone for trying to cut back on their use of a car, save money on parking or public transportation and get some much needed exercise at the same time!  Seemed like a pretty good idea to me here in Boston and I would say that 95% of the time, drivers have been very respectful and overly considerate of those of us peddling our way around town.      

Unfortunately, it’s that other 5% of drivers, like the SUV, soccer-mom lady honking & mouthing off to me to her little heart’s content this morning, who send my blood-pressure spinning out of control and give me sufficient motivation to take the time to write a post like this!  For my part, I try my best to cede the right of way to cars whenever I can, but am also very aware of the fact that it is my derrière on the line and that first and foremost I have to watch out for myself, lest I wind up getting “doored” (this is what happens when a car parked on the right side of the road opens up their driver’s side door right before you pass by…you can imagine what happens next!) or smashed into by a 2 ton object going at speeds of 40-60 mph!  So, the precautions you take (I do at least) as a cyclist to prevent these things from happening are the following:

1)  Always ride at least 3-5 feet into the lane away from the cars parked on the street.

 

2) When crossing a major intersection, establish yourself in the middle of whichever lane you need to be in so that a crazy-driver doesn’t try to pass you and wind up pushing you into another lane of traffic or worse into an on-coming car!

3) When riding the wrong-way on a one-way street, always pull over to the side when a car is coming your way…(Ok, this last one should be a no-no anyway, but I’m sure I’m not the only guy on a bike who winds up having to do this on limited occasions!) 

I’m sure more experienced cyclists than me could come up with more guidelines than these for safe riding, but they have definitely helped me protect my body and limbs sufficiently to this point…knock on wood!

All this to say that when riding a bike, you try to be as respectful and yielding to cars as you can be while still protecting yourself…so, why can’t those few hurried drivers slow it down a touch & not heckle us to the point that we risk putting ourselves in danger on the road just because they may have to wait 30 seconds to pass?  I guess this will only ever occur in the meilleur des mondes possibles and if Candide couldn’t find that world, even in El Dorado, I’m unlikely to find it in New England...as much as I may still try.                         

Beantown Bowling

http://www.saccosbowlhaven.com/

Just this week, I discovered that going bowling in Boston (and possibly other parts of New England as well, I’m not sure) is actually something worth writing home about…so I will!

First of all, if someone asks you if you want to go bowling, they probably are referring to what they have termed “candle-pin bowling” here in Massachusetts.  If you all, like I was yesterday, are wondering what this is, it is basically bowling in miniature…well almost.  The balls are about 1/4th the size of a normal bowling ball, are wooden, have no holes for your fingers & are shared by everyone…because they’re all the same!  The pins, in turn, are also shrunken to maybe half the size of a normal bowling pin and are in the shape of candles, standing straight up and down, but with no rounded bottom.  The only part that is not in miniature or shrunk is the size of the alley itself…SO, basically you have a full sized alley with the smaller pins at the same distance away, but you have to hit them with a tiny ball that is much harder to control!

The rules are a little different as well, which was good for those of us needing a higher handicap.  In each frame, you get three throes, but don’t be mistaken, we were still hard-pressed to knock down 8-9 pins each time & even though one gal (from Georgia as well!) managed a spare, nobody ever knocked down all 10 pins at the same time!  The score was all kept manually on a different type sheet than normal bowling, which was easy, since all we had to do was simple addition with our lack of spares and strikes!

Another difference in the bowling “culture” up here (and I’m told other places in the North generally) is that (I’m assuming because of the heinous weather!) people go bowling ALL the time & make a whole evening of it…So, the bowling alley was also a fully functional Brick-Oven Italian Restaurant and Bar with unbelievably delicious pizza & a variety of organic food specials that sounded great & I hope I get to try out again!  So, while you’re waiting on your lane (there was a 2 hour wait for a lane when we got there!), you can sit down to a nice meal and relax with your friends or family.  This strikes me as a contrast to a lot of our seedy bowling alleys in the South where cigarette smoke, plumber’s crack & cut-off t-shirts are pretty much the norm!  All in all, it was a great experience; we bowled 2 games, didn’t manage to break 100, but had a great time…all only a mile from my house right in Davis Square @ $3 a game, not a bad way to escape the cold, while still getting out of the house!  

Pictures courtesy of my buddy from Knoxville's iPhone...the hands up were a poor imitation of a steller 70's bowling photo on the wall...you had to be there!

           

A Hopeful Tribute

Now that life has settled down for me somewhat here in Massachusetts, with my days consisting mostly of looking for jobs, tweaking my résumé, finding new coffee shops with free wireless & scouring graduate school websites to work on my Ph.D. applications for next year, I want to take the opportunity to give everybody a break from hearing about me!  Instead, I would like to honor someone who is and has been one of the most important influences in my life, my maternal grandmother, known affectionately by all of her grandchildren as simply “GranGran.”  

It is with a very bittersweet frame of mind that I begin writing about my amazing grandmother because, as many of you already know, she has recently suffered a massive stroke that has left her partially paralyzed and unable to speak more than a few words at a time.  This sudden debilitation came as a huge shock to all of us, and I’m sure even more so to her.  

You see, until the day of the stroke, my grandmother was not what most people would think of when they conjure up images of a typical elderly retiree.  In fact, she probably was more active and involved in a variety of sports and social events than most people half her age.  Some of her weekly activities included:  at least 2 full rounds of golf per week (and not just for fun, she has WON many tournaments & is known for a couple holes in one as well!), 2 bowling leagues (because just one didn’t challenge her enough!), a bi-weekly bridge game with 3 of her closest Florida friends who are also her golfing buddies, completing the crossword puzzles daily, morning walks on the beach (these maybe not so often as a result of too much golf!), seeing all the popular movies playing at the theatre, reading constantly and filling in often as a pianist at her local church where she is also very active.  I know this list is incomplete, but even only including these activities, I’m again amazed at the vigor and zest with which my grandmother has always lived her life, even as she has suffered knee injuries, foot pain & the sadness of watching many of her older friends decide they just can’t keep up anymore.

Besides all of these activities which have kept my grandmother young and given her the chance to enjoy her retirement, I have always considered her love for conversation and story telling to be one of her greatest attributes.  This love for sitting around for hours on end with coffee in the morning, during a long car ride or flight (she, my mother & I recently travelled together to Argentina for my cousin’s wedding!) or just by the pool on a warm Florida morning has always been something I cherished about the time we have spent together.  The stories that she has told me over the years, along with those from other grandparents, have played an important role in my life and have always meant a lot to me as I value greatly my family history and relationships.  One such story deals with the details of her family’s situation leading up to the time she was born.  I will attempt to recount it here...

The year was 1932 and the grim reality of the failed economy (which in the South was pretty much just the way things had been since Civil War) had forced my newly married great-grandparents to move to New Orleans from their home in Whitfield County, GA in order for my great-grandaddy R.L. to find work.  This was not the first time that my great-grandfather had been forced to go to great lengths to find work in order to provide for his family.  He had actually dropped out of school after finishing the 8th grade in order to walk miles every day into town to work at the Cotton Mill, something he did in order to provide his mother with the extra income she needed to take care of all 9 or so children.  Oddly enough, he never went back to school, but managed throughout the rest of his life to educate himself and become more successful than most folks I know who (myself included) have more formal education than we know what to do with!  So, Grandaddy R.L. went on to New Orleans alone at first to find work, planning on sending for his new bride as soon as he was settled in.  It didn’t take long for him to find a job; I guess because he was willing to do whatever it took to provide for his family.  So, he began working on a banana boat, unloading bananas onto the docks and getting paid $1 per day for his trouble....I’m assuming he did this 6 days a week, so $24/month was his salary at this time.  I know that money could be stretched out a lot more back then, but I still can’t imagine surviving on this type of income when you have a wife & a child on the way....but they did.  Of course, it meant that my great-grandmother T. would have to manage without certain things she would need for this new baby, soon to be their first daughter of 7 children, of which 5 are still living today.  Now we come to the part of the story that always makes GranGran laugh and shows also the innocence of a young Baptist country girl from Georgia going to the big city of New Orleans to live...

During the time that my great-grandmother was expecting her first child, she would go down every day to a kitchen to help serve lunch & in turn would receive a free hot meal.  One lady always seemed particularly interested in Grandmama T. and so pleased that she was expecting her first child.  This lady made a great impression on my great-grandmother with her beautiful clothes, perfect make-up and always nicely arranged hair...it must have been odd for someone to seem this well put together in that neighborhood during the depression years.  Be that as it may, this kind lady began to bring my great-grandmother gifts for the baby to come & provided her with all the clothes and other things necessary for when the baby would be born.  These gifts were accepted and greatly appreciated by their family and only later on did my grandmother find out something that everyone else around her already knew....this beautiful lady was actually the Madame of one of the famous New Orleans brothels of the time...This irony may be lost on some of us in this day in time where we dismiss all behaviour as a ‘personal choice’ or with the philosophy ‘live and let live,’ but for an upstanding Christian home of this time to benefit from the charity of a ‘house of sin’ must have been quite a shock...so that was how it all began!  

Soon after, my great-grandparents were finally able to move back to Georgia, where they lived in Atlanta for a short time while my great-grandfather worked as a short-order cook, developing his love for cooking that would continue throughout his life & then back to Dalton, where they raised a family, started a business & now rest in peace...I had the privilege of knowing them both & am very grateful for the time I was able to spend with them.  I can only imagine the importance of their character, hard-work and love in the life of my grandmother, who as their oldest child looked up to them so much and worked so hard to follow in their footsteps.   

From the time of my grandmother’s birth in 1932 to now, there are so many other stories, mostly happy and some sad, that could be told.  If any of you that are reading would like to contribute to a collection of stories about her life, I invite you to please reply to this post with your story or send me a private message (to:  daltonhair@gmail.com ) and my family will be sure to let GranGran have the pleasure of hearing your stories about her as a tribute and comfort to her during this hard time in her life.  

Thank you and God Bless.    

                                   GranGran's 78th Birthday on October 10, 2010