Have You Ever Seen A Ghost?

Time Magazine's September 21, 2015 issue features questions with celebrity answers.  Some of the responders are really famous like George Takai.  Others are scientists who want infallible proof for things.  I scanned through part of this section and zeroed in on the question about ghosts.  Mr. Takai was quite certain there are.  He said he sees them everywhere when he goes back to someplace he has been in the past.  His description is of memories rather than ghosts  --  ghost memories, perhaps? 


The scientific dude says ghosts have never been scientifically proven, ergo they do not exist.  I don't blame him for being a disbeliever.  I was, too, for most of my life.  There is nothing like seeing your first ghost to know that they are very, very real.  It's most amusing when others you have known to be disbelievers see ghosts, also. 


For instance, some friends of mine were moving into a new home.  They were almost at the point of rage that anyone could believe there was such a thing.  By the time they had spent twenty years there, they were singing a different tune.  The previous homeowners had been dancers.  My friends had looked up to see a man dressed in a Spanish dancer's costume checking out his outfit in a mirror.  They said they sometimes heard people in the home talking.  They couldn't hear and understand the words, just hear the voices.


I had seen my first ghost once before, but I didn't realize he was a ghost.  I did wonder why the neighbor's who were doing their lawn work didn't acknowledge him when he was running around in glee and approaching them over and over.  I shrugged and thought well, whatever.


Then one night I was home alone and came streaking out of a steamy bathroom.  There he stood again, all smiley and friendly.  I rushed into my bedroom and closed the door.  Once I was dressed, I searched the apartment.  All the locks and chains were in place.  I was so sure there was no such thing as ghosts that I searched for days for some kind of secret entrance.  I never found one. 


I will have to say that he looked like a full color hologram that night, thus reinforcing the scary suspicion that I was seeing a spirit and not a live person.


Fifteen or more years later and in another apartment complex, I had another shock.  There was a man I had seen visiting a neighbor on several occasions.  That same man walked right through my upstairs hallway.  He was carrying and reading some kind of paper.  While I stared with open mouth and stunned silence, he glanced my way.  He was every bit as startled to see me as I was to see him.  It read all over his face.  Then he just walked through the wall to the next apartment.  He, too, looked like a full color hologram.


Both times I said approximately the same thing to these ghosts.  "I know you are here, because I have seen you.  I guess you mean me no harm or I would be harmed already.  So, I assume we can peacefully coexist.  Just don't let me ever see you again".  I've never seen them again.


I have enough of a scientific bent not to want to believe there are ghosts, but I have seen the "living, breathing" evidence that there are.  Well, in a ghostly way at least. 


But, then, who cares what I know or think?  I'm not a celebrity or a scientist.

I Think We've Grown

I read a story in Guideposts today which inspired this article.  I think I'm in a unique position to write it, because of the number of decades I have lived and what I know about changes in our society.  I've also known people wounded by the old ways we handled things and those encouraged and helped by the new.


This story I read was somewhat typical of ones you hear or see from children given up for adoption or from the parents who made the decision to let them go.  I think we Americans have grown a lot in my lifetime and that it has left us a more loving and compassionate people.  I like to think that the Almighty and Jesus smile down upon us for this change.


I was born in 1938, a rather innocent and naïve time.  I grew up in a mostly Christian neighborhood in a small city in Illinois.  When World War II was finally over, we began to live our lives without the loneliness of our men being gone or the grief of yet another death of our military men.


Prior to the start of the war, I don't think very many people engaged in unmarried sex.  But then I may be the most naïve.  Women seemed to become less reserved as they knew the war was going to separate them and they might never see each other again.  Where there is sex, there will be babies sometimes. People clung to each other and some wanted the children that might be the last tie they had to the man they loved.


After the war, we returned to the uptight, anal retentive, judgment making people we had been before the war.  Maybe, the no no's about sex were even more severe.  And, God forbid, anyone should get pregnant.  There are tales of shotgun weddings and stories of young men who refused to face their responsibilities.


As far as I know, no girls in my neighborhood faced an unwanted pregnancy.  A friend some distance away "fell in love" and found herself facing a mountain of trouble.  Her family handled it in what was probably the worst possible way.  They forced her to get an illegal abortion and forced the couple into a shotgun wedding as well.  You know how long that marriage lasted!  I ran into the girl some years later after I had gone away to school.  Not knowing that I had run into a nurse with questionable integrity and a flapping mouth, she told me she had ruined her life  --  but she didn't tell me why she felt that or what she had done to cause it.  My heart still aches for her and for my inadequacy in dealing with the situation.


Television shows have shown the horror of parents, who in their own fear and unwarranted shame over "sex" and it's inevitable results (a beautiful little baby) have acted like monsters.  Such parents shamed the young people, especially the girl.  They sent her off  to seclusion where caring (and sometimes evil) people tended them until the birth and then the parents and the staff forced the girls to give those babies away to loving and "well-to-do" couples who couldn't have children of their own.  Oh, would that this had always been true. Some women decided on their own to let the children go to supposedly better lives.


These approaches have left generations of women searching for their babies, and even children who found good adoptive parents, wishing and searching for their natural moms.  And these poor kids have a hole in their psyches from which we can almost hear the scream  --  why couldn't you love us enough to keep us?  How could you cast us away?


I won't duke it out with anybody whether the sexual revolution is good or bad, acceptable or evil.  But I will attempt to describe a good side effect of it.  Girls now get to keep their love children if they want.  Parents don't have to become ogres who rip new babies from their baby's arms.  Hospital personnel willingly list the birth father's name right along with the mother's.  If the couple is compatible, they make a nest together and take their babies home.  Families are inclined to encircle the young couple with love and support.  Proud grandparents engage in their justifiable bragging rights.


Babies are a gift from God as the saying goes.  And a marvelous gift one is.


I think this shows we have grown.

You Can't Fix Stupid

The title of this article is one of my baby brother's favorite expressions.  Often all we have to do is walk outside the door and say good morning to someone to find out why such a remark is so descriptive of life.


What gets under my skin, ad nauseam, is how people with such controversial jobs as those at Planned Parenthood could be "stupid" enough to say anything that could be used against the program, whether in or out of context.


Planned Parenthood, even if one abhors abortion, has a lot of value in society.  It teaches, duh, planning pregnancies instead of having them by accident.  It provides the sex education where needed.  It helps young people cope with serious life issues.


Now, because individuals have sat around talking about crunching baby heads and buying expensive cars, our aggressively moralistic, conservative base has more fuel to fan the flames.  Our young people could be without needed counseling.  And medicine could potentially lose a valuable resource for determining how to fix our serious ailments.


And where are the morals of the people who sucker punched these individuals?  They have none!  All they have is an obsession and a faulty understanding of what God's mind really is.  None of us know God's mind in this day and age.  It's not just pastors who have lost touch with the Almighty.  An obsession is a mental illness, not a righteous calling.  Let's call it what it is.

It Isn't Just The Drill We Fear

On a tooth cleaning mission recently, I noticed plaque was forming on my lower teeth.  Instead of ruminating whether a heart attack is imminent, I thought, "OMG, I'm going to have to go to the dentist".  Have you ever noticed how an appointment to have your teeth cleaned turns into a near lifetime commitment to the "chair"?


Before the dentist lets the dental assistant start the cleaning, he pokes, prods and examines every tooth.  Then he schedules uncomfortable x-rays and finally you reach the cleaning stage.  It's like the dentist takes possession of your mouth until every tooth has been drilled and filled, refilled and root canaled so not an original surface remains  --  or he has cleaned out your bank account, whichever comes first.


All this to get rid of plaque?  I can put it off another day, or until a filling drops out.


I think I could deal with the ordeal if they would ever ask how much you can afford or which teeth you want fixed. Instead, they assume they own your mouth because you walked through their doors.  And they think we avoid them because we are afraid of the drill?

The Curse Of Change

I've been to the main branch of the Kansas City, KS, library twice since they were closed for a week to orchestrate yet another change.  Until today, the only change I had noticed was that the alphabetical guides did not match up with the order the books were shelved.  It was a little better today.  There did seem to be a lot less mysteries than previously.  Today, I entered right across from the tub for returning books and walked right straight to it.  There was a man there who volunteered to check in my books.


After I made my selections for new reads, I returned to the same spot.  It was a light day, and the same man reached for the books and asked if I were ready to check out.  I was instantaneously blindsided by another clerk who offered to teach me how to use "The Machine" to check them out.  Now, a machine for such purposes is not necessarily new.  I recall refusing to learn to use it after the last time they reopened.  I clearly told him (same man, I think) that I definitely did not want to learn something new that day.  I still don't.  Apparently, nobody else does either, as in the several years since then I have not seen it used more than once.  But, I guess we have no choices now.  We will use the blankety blank thing, like it or lump it.


Why might I not like to use a machine?  For the same reason anybody else wouldn't.  It lacks the personal touch.  Nobody is there to say, "Hey, how are you?"  Nobody is there to answer questions.  Nobody is there to tell that a book is falling apart.  Just a cold, you know, lacking in warmth, hunk of metal


And, then, there is the problem of accuracy.  The dude who showed me how to use it kept having to move the books around so all were recorded.  That requires paying attention.  That requires being on one's toes.  That requires a little work --  and at the library for goodness sake --  when they are the ones getting the paycheck.


Let's not forget the main problem.  As the job gets more and more automated, they will need less and less people to work there.  Less people needed, less people hired.  Less people hired, greater unemployment.


But then, there's a good side to less people after all.  I've already put in my request to the Almighty for which clerks should go, beginning with the hateful man who answers the phone if you need to renew, right down to the clerk who forced me to use "The Machine" today (and the girl who laughed because he did it).


Things could be looking up after all.  Don't let me down, God.  Too bad He never listens to me.


Then, again, I could just use another of our local, more patron friendly, libraries  --  Kansas City, MO, Johnson County, Midcontinent.  I've used them all at some point.  If enough of us did this, all these people would be unemployed.  It's a thought!  All of them could be the ones to deal with the curse of change.

Perky

I received a free copy of Reader's Digest this week.  I've always enjoyed the magazine, but when you have a "no budget" budget, some things just have to go.  I opened it at once.  By page 27, it had inspired this article.  It says "Finish This Sentence.  The title of my autobiography would be . . ." 


Patti Ebben of Appleton, Wisconsin says, "Why Does My Cheerfulness Annoy You So?"


Oh, Patti, let me count the ways.  I don't know you personally, of course.  I don't even know if you are a celebrity or a hard working school teacher.


Let's just describe a few ways.  I get to bed at 11:30 for a change.  I'm just slipping away into dreamland and the idiot that leaves the neighborhood fire pit powwow revs his engine a few times, then takes off.  Tonight it isn't enough to set off my car alarm just once.  He goes around the block and tries again.  Between 12:30 and 1:30, a neighbor slams the front door and moves rather noisily up the stairs.  Somewhere around 3:00 to 3:30 another door is slammed.  If I'm lucky enough to get back to sleep at this one, another neighbor makes up for it with a slam around 4:30.  At 7:30 during the school year, the little guy right next door starts getting ready for school.  He really loves those boots of his.  I get to be grateful for silence for another hour.  Then, it starts again.  Finally, if I haven't given up already, I do it now.


I sit on the side of the bed waiting for my head to quit spinning (Eustachian tube failure), then as I pull myself up by holding onto my dresser, I'm reminded of the Robert Redford character in Electric Cowboy saying it takes a little longer for the "broke parts" to work.  I throw on my robe, find my keys and billfold which I must carry all day, stop by to water the commode and then limp my way down the stairs.  I flip on the television and there is little Miss Perky doing her thing.  Well, actually, there is a perky 1 and perky 2 on this one sometimes.  It depends on what life experience the other is letting it all hang out about, whether she is manic or morose.  So I switch channels where the male anchor periodically has to calm their somewhat preferable version of cheerful.  I give up and wait until 9:00 when I can get Perry Mason reruns.  That show hasn't "changed" in decades (LOL) and I can always count on Della Street for a classy, upbeat, well-mannered version of cheerfulness.  There's no dealing with a frisky puppy or an uncontrollable teenager before I get my morning cup of coffee.

"Matchy, Matchy" Versus Tacky, Tacky

The fad not to be all "matchy, matchy",
Has truly become quite tacky, tacky.




I've lived so long, I've see all kinds of styles for dress and interior decorating.  What for one generation is a sign of poor taste will become a fad a couple of generations later.  But, really folks, the styles of the young stylists and decorators are going to invoke the need for eye transplants if we don't watch out.  We are subjected to clashing, gaudy colors and clashing, clashing patterns ad nauseam.


Once in a while, we win some when the fads change.  Some of my favorite color combinations today were once forbidden as style ineptitude.  The use of brown with black as well as blue with green were seen as faux pas when I was in elementary school.  I remember the great pleasure I found in the blouse I got after high school which showed a rusty brown and black on a white background.  It was around all of the time after that.  The banishment of blue against green was perhaps the most mysterious rule.  I don't know how designers and decorators could have looked at God's blue sky against a green hill and found something wrong with that.  Finally, they got some sense.  We use them together in all shades and tints now.




During the early eighties, the big thing was to consult a specialist to find out our colors.  We were divided into four groups based on the seasons.  There were certain colors a "winter" should and shouldn't wear.  Actually, most of the time it did improve the way women looked.  The biggest mistake of this trend was telling us if we couldn't match the hem of our skirts with our shoes, then we should wear shoes that matched our hair.  I still get a toothache thinking of seeing a woman in a print dress of wine and white and black print wearing rust colored shoes that did, indeed, match her poorly dyed hair.  And, no, I would never say a word.  Doing that would be in poor taste.  She was an acquaintance who had just paid a color consultant for advice.  By the way, our seasons of color were based on our skin tones and eye and hair color.


The trend not to be all "matchy, matchy", has been around a while.  Apparently this new generation of style gurus sees something wrong with having shoes and purse in the same color, so they might choose black shoes with a red purse and an outfit that neither matches nor complements the combo.  Say what?  I've seen some lulus being shown as "a proper way to dress."


There is a long-term trend I can't wait to see end.  This thing of having a blouse or shirt hanging out below a sweater or vest, like a high school kid's mother's worst nightmare, is a fad that should have had no beginning.  It's almost as bizarre as watching a teenager's underpants show above his jeans or shorts.


The nightmare trends in decorating are almost as bad.  A person could go cross eyed looking at pictures of rooms that combine geometrics with plaids, stripes, etc., etc., etc.  It really does assail the senses.  One or two predominant designs per room is really quite enough.  Overkill in any endeavor has never been in good taste, fad or not.


And then there is the problem of designers going in and telling a client that their current scheme is not "them" at all.  Now how in the world would the designer know what "them" is?  Besides, it's downright rude.  One article published had the designer telling the client that silks and colors were not them and switching the client to fabric that looked like pillow ticking  --  changing her from luxury fabric to something that is commonplace among poor people who can't afford sheets and pillow cases.  Beware of designers looking for work.


Just about bottom line is that nobody knows what you like better than you, no matter how experienced, famous or wealthy they are.  If you feel peace or serenity or get a sense of thrill when you walk into a room, then you are the expert on what is you.  I've heard such bizarre things as "you shouldn't use end tables at either end of a couch.  You shouldn't use tables as they were designed to be used?  Get real.  But never fear, next year or the year after, everything will change again.  How else can they keep those dollars rolling into their coffers if they leave everything the same?