Untotaled – Stepping 26: (April 6th, 1966) Hello, Dollie … August 9, 2014

 

 Jonathots Daily Blog

(2317)

 

English class.

Right before lunch.

Four days before Easter.

Since everyone was giddy, ready for spring break, the teacher intelligently surrendered to the atmosphere, forsook all nouns and verbs, and instead, posed the question: “What are you doing for Easter?”

Everyone joined in enthusiastically with their plans.

“Ham.”

“Church.”

“Family.”

“Trip to New York.”

“Dinner with friends.”

“A cantata.”

And then, out of nowhere, a young girl who was normally pretty quiet and reserved, piped in:

“I’m waiting for the Easter bunny.”

There were a few chuckles, since the majority of the room believed that such a proclamation was impossible to take seriously.

Now, this young girl’s name was Dollie. She was tall, gangly, bespectacled, often escaping into her own thoughts, but dressed very fancy because her family was loaded. She was a fair student, a little silly, and now, suddenly, with a full spotlight on her in an adolescent English class, found herself the sole advocate for the Easter bunny.

The teacher, attempting to get Dollie off the hook by changing the subject, posed an additional question to the entire class: did they like pineapple on their ham, or raisin sauce?

Yet Dollie persisted, oblivious to the social cliff looming in the near distance.

“The Easter bunny lives in a hole in my back yard.”

She nearly sang it. Yet to the classroom, the idea was off-key.

We were all stalled. We glanced around the room at one another in horror and disbelief, when all at once, the most popular cheerleader laughed out loud. Everyone, feeling license to participate, joined in heartily.

Dollie sat, nearly in tears, perturbed and perplexed that everyone had selected an agnostic position concerning the Divine Easter Bunny who slept in her back yard, awaiting the opportunity to bring candy to all the good little boys and girls.

Fortunately, at that point the inquisition was interrupted by the ringing bell announcing lunch period. Everyone leaped to their feet and headed to the door, still giggling and whispering.

Dollie remained in her chair, stung, emotionally bleeding and bewildered that her faith in the Great Rabbit had been marched into the coliseum of public opinion and slaughtered by the lions of ridicule.

I felt compelled to do something–but I was just a kid. So I walked over and patted her on the shoulder and said, “You know, that’s really dumb. There’s no Easter bunny.”

That was the extent of my empathy.

I then walked from the room, leaving her alone to her thoughts.

It wasn’t the last time I would have an encounter with Miss Dollie.

 

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Untotaled: Stepping 22 (May 14th, 1965) Jack Smack … July 12, 2014

 Jonathots Daily Blog

(2289) 

(Transcript)

School was nearly out. I cannot tell you the relief I felt to finish out the year.

Having survived my infatuation with Jennifer, I had disguised my feelings by using revenge or attempts at ridicule, to make it seem that I no longer cared about her.

We were two days prior to summer vacation, in the midst of a school-wide festival, which had loosened the reigns on the tight restrictions usually imposed on us by teachers and principals.

I was feeling so darned good that I felt like I could say “damn.”

I was in the hallway with my friend, Craig, when we both noticed that Jennifer was standing next to the boy’s locker room door, absent-mindedly staring out the window into the school parking lot.

I had an idea–another way to embarrass Jennifer and therefore appease my male ego from her rejection. I whispered my inclination to Craig and he giggled.

So we ran forward, grabbed Jennifer, opened the boy’s locker room door, and pushed her in. It seemed hilarious in the moment. We lodged our bodies against the door as she pounded and screamed to escape. Her pleas sounded a bit comical to us, so we were in no hurry to set her free.

Suddenly she stopped crying out and the pushing on the door ceased.

So both Craig and I ran back into the festivities, hoping to blend into the crowd so that our misdeed would go unnoticed. Little did we know that in the boy’s locker room was Coach Swartz–and that he had walked out of the shower to discover that Jennifer was there, peering at him, creating what could only be the personification of an awkward moment.

He quickly covered himself, ran around to the other door, to peek and see who was keeping her from escaping.

Now for a moment let me talk about Coach Swartz. He was a collision of cool, crazy and confusion. He was cool because he was very handsome and all the girls in the school thought he was dreamy. Crazy, because he taught health class, and thinking that he was a doctor, passed out some erroneous advice. And confusing because he once told us at football practice that black people couldn’t play quarterback because there was extra oil on their hands, and they couldn’t hold onto the ball.

We also knew his first name was Jack because he had a paddling board which he used to punish students, which he had surnamed “Jack Smack.”

Returning to my story, Coach Swartz, with his hair still wet from the shower, ran into the festivities, found Craig and me, took us into his office and explained his overexposure to dear Jennifer.

He wasn’t mad, but said we would have to be punished. He wasn’t even mad as he took the Jack Smack board from its perch on the wall and hammered us both on the ass, seven times apiece.

Matter of fact, from that moment on, I think he liked us more, winking at us in the hallway as he reflected back to his one-man Chippendale show for Jennifer.

Even Jennifer never complained about our prank.

So you see, even though I got my butt whipped, I didn’t learn anything about being a better person through this experience … whatsoever.

 

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Populie: Life is Dark … February 19, 2014

Jonathots Daily Blog

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• It is popular to complain.
• And an ongoing lie is the assertion that “everything is getting worse.”
• Put them together and you have the Populie, “Life is dark.”

Matter of fact, one way to receive ridicule and to present yourself as a novice is to say things are not as bad as they are made out to be. Be prepared to be called sentimental, maudlin or schmaltzy. If you find something to be praiseworthy, you risk losing the audience that is prepared to bitch.

• Politicians revels in this climate because they can rail against the party in control, portraying that these renegades in power are hauling us “to hell in a handbasket.”
• Religion picks up the banner and carries it proudly because it loves the idea that mankind is depraved and is desperately in need of an always-forgiving God.
• And of course, entertainment is delighted with the notion, promoting projects like Breaking Bad, Boardwalk Empire, Dexter and True Detective as examples of “real life” projected onto the screen, knowing the market that exists thinks blood is cool–as long as we aren’t the ones bleeding.

So sometimes it becomes difficult to step out of this shadowy kingdom of “populie” reasoning and offer alternatives that are not nearly as debilitating.

1. Life continues through birth.

What do I mean by that? We stop believing in the power of living when we’re always trying to kill things off. There has to be a sense of regeneration, reclamation, salvation and solution or human beings despair. If you’re not going to birth something in hope, you will add to the darkness by dousing your light.

2. Caring for others is the only way to secure your own space.

Yes, we are selfish. We are concerned about our own needs. But if you’re going to stomp on the face of the person just below you, be prepared to get a foot in your own face from the one who has ascended higher than yourself.

I love other people because I need love–and the only way I could ever hope that this love will be there when I need it is to make sure I continue to put love seedlings in the soil.

3. Promoting “bad” advertises mediocrity and discourages the pursuit of excellence.

Honestly, if all I have to do in life is be better than the characters on television, I really am just fine. We aren’t given real heroes; we don’t have those who have struggled and overcome, and we are absent enough examples of people who stand up against the system to prove their point.

Everywhere I go now, even in the religious system, there is an abiding sensation that “life is dark.” I plead with my own family and children to stop peppering their minds with incessant violence, perversion and bleak dreariness that’s offered in our present politics, religion and entertainment.

I plead with you.

Because remember: the loss of empathy is the death of humanity.

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