The Skeeter Daddle Diaries

“But if thought corrupts language, language can also corrupt thought.” George Orwell

“It was a bright cold day in April, and the clocks were striking thirteen.”
― George Orwell, 1984

Words do matter. We so-called writers, addicted purveyors of the language, kind of know that, even if we have our doubts in these polarized times. So when the government bans words like ‘substance abuse disorder’ (it implies drug addiction is a disease) or ‘science-based’ (better to use something like ‘science in consideration of community wishes’) or ‘fetus’ (maybe use something like ‘little people who can’t speak for themselves and can’t vote but who don’t want to be killed by liberals who don’t read the Bible), they’re hoping to skew the meaning in their direction.
Nothing new here. You don’t believe in Global Warming, hey, ban the use of the words. Call it the Will of God or Faux Science. Course, if you ditch the words, then you can ask the question, why fund research into non-existent phenomenon? If you refer to fetuses as unborn humans, then you can write them into laws like one where a minus two month old kid can apply for a hunting permit. Validates the idea of life beginning at conception and goes for the twofer of applying the Second Amendment nine months earlier than before. The NRA is happy, the Right to Lifers are tickled, what’s not to like? ‘Right to Lifer’, there’s another nifty use of words.

My favorite this year, of course, was ‘Alternative Facts.’ Kind of sums up the entire Administration’s approach to, well, pretty near everything. Lies? Naw, just Alternative Facts. The News? No, dummy, not alternative facts, they’re Faux News, what we now call Lies. I know, it’s slippery at first, but after a year, we’re all getting used to it. In the Orwellian dystopia, Big Brother had to set up entire agencies to revise the history their Alternative Facts kept creating. In this new paradigm, not so much. Quote Trump from a year ago contradicting the current opinion, no problem!! The news media is biased. Faux!! They are, by definition, Liars. No need to bother about revisionism, it’s built right in. You just have to redefine Truth. Or ban its usage in the Newspeak altogether. Big Brother is smiling these days. And George Carlin is laughing his ass off.

So all us little hooligans would roll back into school come September and invariably our new teacher would give us our first homework assignment to write what we’d done during our summer break. Three months of unstructured play and now we 4th graders or 6th graders or whatever grade were supposed to compose an essay to describe idyllic idleness.

It didn’t exactly ruin it for us, that’s not how it felt, it just didn’t work, like jamming a square peg into a round hole. Maybe Miss Crenshaw went to Italy with her paramour and toured Rome and the ruins, adult organized vacation time, we didn’t know and we couldn’t make her write that essay, that’s for sure, but how were we supposed to scribble out on #2 pencils an interesting couple of wide spaced pages all those sandlot whiffle ball games and the bike riding or those long treks in all directions past the creeks and ponds or through the woods beyond the new houses or that time we went so far nothing was familiar and it took hours to find our way back home? We spent whole afternoons playing marbles, fer chrissake! We’d kill an entire day trading baseball cards or swapping old musty comic books, what are you going to say to Miss C. about that?

Sure, there was the time Joey Vandiver fell off his bike and broke his arm — he had a story. About two sentences before the rest of his vacation he hauled his arm around in a cast he carried in a dirty filthy sling. What I Did On My Summer Vacation: Not Much!!

We all signed our names on Joey’s cast. Did we all write that down on our essay? Were we going to be graded on all that NOTHING we did when we should’ve gone to Yellowstone National Park or 6 Flags over Atlanta? I shouldn’t have to tell you, I hated going back to school. And that first assignment should tell you all you need to know about WHY I hated to go back to school. Vacations are exactly like freedom. You don’t have to do a damn thing. And you don’t feel guilty either.

Until you go back. Today we’re going back and this is my essay…..

Well, it’s that time of year again when old Skeeter and the mizzus and a few friends pony up the sleigh and head out to the boondocks where Christmas is barely on the radar. Where the stockings hung with care are full of holes and nobody expects a miracle anytime soon from Santa or the Easter Bunny or Donald Trump. Mostly just another day in a long succession of rainy ones. Okay by us.

You get my usual Christmas gift: a reprieve from these endless droning observations on the South End. A chance to clear your heads. Maybe even turn off the TV and the news and shut down the computer. We’re definitely going to. Sounds real good to me. Real good. I hear about one more analysis of that tax bill most of the people who passed it don’t know either what all’s in it, I’ll eat my hat and the mistletoe hanging above it.

So before we go, Merry Christmas to all of you and Tiny Tim too. And Santa, if you’re listening, I’ve been only marginally naughty so maybe you could grant me one measly present. How about bringing me a new America. One that isn’t so greedy. One that isn’t so militaristic. One that cares about the poor and the infirm. One that values compassion over swagger, truth over braggadocio, science over corporate consultants. You know, the America we used to believe in even if it probably never existed. Just asking…

And if you’re too busy, I’d take a cup of kindness. Short supply, these days, I know.

Christmas on the equatorial South End doesn’t arrive on Black Friday, one hour after Turkey Day is still undigested, the way it does the rest of Jingle Bell America. The urge to drive 40 miles to the nearest mall with a maxxed out credit card doesn’t compel us to hurry up the holiday that will only push us one step closer to bankruptcy trying to buy the kids enough presents to hide the water basin under the tree.
Oh sure, it’s swell to say every year that the holiday is really about the Spirit of Giving, that the True Meaning is sharing and love and blah blah blah. But for a full month the REAL meaning blasts across the airwaves, piles in drifts of glossy sale ads, whistles down the blacktop in a high decibel muzak howl fever-pitched to buy buy buy some more….
Nothing new here. Nothing we haven’t heard every year of our lives. Too much commercialism. Too much emphasis on materialism. Too much tinsel, too little joy? Plug in the Blu-Ray re-released hi-definition “It’s A Wonderful Life” and watch it for the 50th time, only $29.95 on Amazon or run down to Wal-Mart at midnight on Thanksgiving with White Christmas spewing over the loudspeaker in a synthesized cadence determined by a shopper survey study group to enhance purchasing.
Naw, you can have it. Down here we’re gonna hang the nettle wreaths the day before Santa sets sail, string a few festive lights (that won’t stay up all year) and maybe invite a few neighbors in for a Yuletide nog spiked with something savory. We won’t give too many gifts, you can bet your stockings hung with care, not in these hard economic times, but we’ll help fill the food bank carts for those who need help this season way more than us.
Like always, we’ll drink a toast. To another year with our loved ones. To Peace on earth. To good will toward men. And women too. We probably won’t watch “It’s A Wonderful Life”, we’ll just try to live it. And hey, all you Cyber Monday Shoppers — A Merry Christmas to You, Too! Just not 365 days of the year, okay?

My shack has ghosts. Poltergeists. Gremlins. Whatever you care to call the little demons that are turning my lights off intermittently, then turning them back on. I don’t really believe in phantasms, but I know my lights are flickering off, then going off completely, then later suddenly snapping back to life. It’s disconcerting, I do know that.

I pulled the breakers outside, replaced them and for awhile, they seemed to work. But only for a day or so. Now the lights are turning themselves on and off again. It’s driving me batty. Yesterday I tore into the walls, jerking out switches and outlets, looking for a loose wire, a faulty switch, a connector come undone. So far nothing…. Now more lights are turning themselves off, turning themselves on. I was convinced there was a logical explanation, but more and more I’m starting to wonder.

I wake up every day to strange stories in the news. Sexual harassment, Russian probes, Senatorial races with a bigot and child predator, lies and faux news, it never ends, just drives me crazy. The nation seems stuck in a reality meltdown where paranoia reigns and obvious lies are uttered without embarrassment. I need meds. Lithium, valium, anti-psychotics, whatever it takes to reduce the brain-fever. The truth is flickering on and off. The news is driving me insane. Faux news, real news, on and off, on and off, day after day.

Today the lights in the house went off. I checked the fuse box and nothing was amiss. No breakers were OFF, but the power was. To half the room I’m in right now. Half on, half off. I’m sure it has a logical explanation. I’m sure an electrician could explain this phenomenon in a nano-second. The truth is out there somewhere. But somewhere isn’t here.

I shut off the power entirely to the shack finally. I turn it on when I’m down there working, but I’m afraid to keep it on when I leave the building, something might spark and the place will go up in flames. I should probably do that with the news, just turn it off, but I’m afraid the country will go up in smoke if I don’t pay attention. Am I crazy? Are we all going crazy? Maybe I need to turn off all the lights once and for all. Before they turn themselves off. Except that seems illogical. Doesn’t it??????????