May the Force Be with Us. Forever. Seriously, they will make these movies until the sun explodes.

Congratulations if you are reading this.  You have survived yet another exciting Black Friday shopping event.  You have survived Black Friday, Chartreuse Thursday, (the holiday formerly known as Thanksgiving) and you now find yourself in the middle of Broke Blue Saturday. 

Before this year, I had never participated directly in Black Friday, although I did pick up my wife once to take her to breakfast after she had been shopping for EIGHT HOURS.  This curb-side pick-up, though, is the closest I had ever come to the mayhem that is the exclamation point in our profanity-laced holiday sentence.  Lest we ever forget why much of the world offers us the one-fingered wave whenever we turn around to tie our shoes, we merely need to briefly examine some Black Friday security videos. 

            “Oh, yeah,” we will mutter while inspecting the footage of adults literally punching each other to secure a video game filled with characters digitally punching each other.  “I guess that is kind of messed up.”

            This column, though, is not about Black Friday of this year, or even Christmas of this year, two topics that we can probably all agree are much too passé to consider this late in November.  This column is instead about the Christmas season of 2015, which will undoubtedly be saturated by the December 18^th release of Star Wars Episode VII: The Return of a New Pile of Money.

Like many dorks around the world, I experienced an authentic emotional response upon learning a few months ago that George Lucas had sold Star Wars. Due to our steady food supply and indoor plumbing, many of us in the United States are often forced into creating our own dilemmas, and this dilemma, the one where the Walt Disney corporation gets to decide what Darth Vader’s grandchildren do with their pretend lives, has filled me with a pathetic degree of anxiety.

This concern is undoubtedly related to the fact that my connection to Star Wars has deep roots.  The first movie I watched in a theater, way back in 1977, was the original Star Wars.  Because my parents happened to be visiting a friend who lived in Los Angeles at the time, I actually had the privilege of watching the movie in Hollywood, of all places, in the actual Grauman’s Chinese Theater.  Star Wars paraphernalia permeated much of my childhood, and although I eventually put the toys away, the enthusiasm for the franchise never really left.

            More importantly, I am not alone.  Countless people throughout the world have devoted an unjustifiable amount of their memory to this cultural phenomenon.  Thus, in some respects, we are glad that George Lucas has allowed the story to continue.  We are pleased in a weird little way that our own children will be able to experience some of the space operatic magic that infused so much of our own formative years.

            However, another part of us, the part that believes we somehow “own” the version of the story we were told, is concerned.  After all, we were told a story about a very flawed human who succumbs to temptation with very grave results.  We were told a story about a son who risked his own life to save that flawed human from his own inner demons.  That is the story we were told.  That is our story.  We assumed that when Vader was killed and Anakin redeemed, the story was over. 

The rebels win, the Empire loses, and peace reigns throughout the galaxy far, far, away. Right?  Apparently not.  Apparently something has gone amiss.  I suppose we will find out in two years. 

In the meantime and in closing, let us recall another little band of rebels who fought against a greedy empire many, many years ago, in a land not far away at all.  These rebels, too, won their victory, and a few years afterward their leader spoke certain words to pass down through posterity. 

 “Whereas it is the duty of all Nations to acknowledge the providence of Almighty God,”  George Washington proclaimed on October 3, 1789, “to obey his will, to be grateful for his benefits, and humbly to implore his protection and favor…I do recommend and assign Thursday the 26th day of November next to be devoted by the People of these States to the service of that great and glorious Being…we may then all unite in rendering unto him our sincere and humble thanks...”

Washington continues about all the things for which the infant nation ought be thankful:  victory in the war, civil and religious liberties, the rational institution of a working government.  Things we now take for granted. 

And great Black Friday shopping deals, of course.  Washington just goes on and on about all the great deals.

One a Day

Like many families, we have chosen to take a proactive approach to the numerous changes taking place in the American health care system.  Although it is still early in the game to make a historically acute judgment call, preliminary indicators of the President’s Affordable Care Act suggest that it is not cool.  Depending on what television network you are watching,  this legislation will either give some Americans access to health care after countless glitches are worked out,  or it will enslave us all in some kind of quasi-Marxist death-scape where an insurance premium cost three fingers and an ear lobe.  However, since it has been my observation that the future is very rarely as good or as bad as people promise, my family and I have chosen what we believe is the middle ground and have invested in a fancy new treadmill.

Why a treadmill, you may ask?  Well, why not?  A treadmill in your home says to the world, “Hey, world, it doesn’t really matter to me if the weather is too hot or too cold or too wet, I can run whenever I want.  I can run once a day or once a week, or, as recent history has suggested, once a month.  So watch it with your attitude, world! I own my health!”

            We also have in our basement a set of very extreme exercise DVD’s.  These are the DVDs where the very extreme instructor shouts out borderline-abusive comments while doing hundreds of weird-looking push-ups.  Despite having owned these DVDs well past the ninety-days needed to transform my life, I still look like an aged Peter Parker before his spider bite.

Besides thinking very seriously about exercising, we are also buying more nutritious food, such as fresh fruits and vegetables, many of which get eaten before they spoil.  We have even gone so far recently as to replace hamburger in our chili with quinoa.  Believe it or not, quinoa is a real word and a real thing; a so-called super food from South America full of protein.   Like many super foods, is it most appealing when eaten with non-super foods, like excessive amounts of melted cheese. We ended up freezing most of the chili, as is our habit, and will most likely add some other ingredients to it when it is thawed, such as hamburger and flavor.

Perhaps the most promising development to come out of our skyrocketing insurance premiums is that our children, too, have decided to take a greater interest in their own health.  Candy Maker, the game in which they whisper to each other the words, “Candy Maker” before sneaking into the pantry to snatch some suckers from their stash of old parade loot, has declined from a daily exercise to a few times a week.  The most inspirational member of the family, though, has to be our toddler son, who pounced on his own health destiny a few weeks ago by gobbling up seven adult gummy vitamins in less than a minute.

Now, by “inspirational” I mean terrifying, of course, because the bottle of adult gummy vitamins suggest that even adults, which he is not, should only consume two in a twenty-four hour period.  This intense health moment led to my very first phone call to poison control, where I was quickly put on hold due to, and I quote, “budget restraints.”  Now, I am not an economics expert, nor am I a health professional or even an elected official.  However, I do know what a budget is, and it seems to me that one place that really ought not be susceptible to “restraint” is the phone number people call when they need immediate advice about something that might kill them.  It’s kind of in the name:  POISON.  People who call 911 when that operator is too busy are often told to call poison control.  I was not told to hang up and call any alternative number, so instead I watched my very satisfied son run around the living room as if he had just won the sugar lottery.

Eventually I was the given the privilege of talking to a real human, who told me that gummy vitamins are not toxic and that my son did not need to be rushed to the hospital.  I was also told that if the vitamins contained iron, then he might suffer from some minor digestive issues, which meant nothing to me whatsoever because the boy has had minor digestive issues for the last twenty-six months of his life.

To conclude, never mind what the pundits and politicians on TV tell you about health care.  We are all going to die someday, anyway.  Prior to this, I predict we will pay more for health care than what it is worth, and I also assume that the care we receive will be less than what we deserve.  That is life, which, as mentioned, will someday cease.  If you like your doctor, he or she will probably not like you.  If you like your current health insurance plan, you probably do not understand all the words in that health insurance plan.  The best thing you can do today for your health is turn off the news, grab a bottle of water, and go for a walk. 

            And be sure to take your vitamins.

Gardening

The following is a parable about gardening:

A very wealthy man had fifty plots of land full of gardens.  These gardens were laid out in a variety of shapes.  Some of them were square, others rounded, some lengthy, and some quite short.  The soils of these gardens were mostly good and the weather was mostly good.   The gardeners themselves—the foremen, the planters, the tenders, the pickers—were mostly good as well.

These gardeners, for the most part, were not paid a large sum of money by the wealthy man, but he respected them very much.  The gardeners were given good tools and much time to do their work.  The wealthy man understood that his servants, being as they worked hard and were well trained, knew how to grow seeds into plants.

            Life was not perfect, of course, as nothing on this earth ever is.  Some soil soured, the sun did not always shine, and not every seed grew.  But life went on, and the very wealthy man slept well at night with the satisfaction that surely he had the finest gardens in all the land.

As time passed, though, more of the soil began to sour, which made it more difficult for seeds to grow.  The sun, once so strong, began to hide behind clouds more often.  This alarmed the wealthy man.  This alarmed the gardeners.  Soon the wealthy man, although he was not really a gardener himself, decided he could help his seeds grow by giving advice.  He gave the gardeners some unfamiliar tools to use for gardening.

But still the soil soured, and still the sun hid, and still more seeds did not grow.  This alarmed the wealthy man even more, and so he went back to the gardeners.

            “We need a new way to garden.  What you are doing is not working.”

            The gardeners were not so sure about that, but they were hard workers and wanted the seeds to grow very much, and so they tried new tools and learned new ways to garden.

            The soil and weather continued to sour, however, and the seeds struggled to grow.  The wealthy man’s concern soon turned to anger.

            “Why are so many plants wilting?”  He thundered at his workers.  “Aren’t you taking care of them?”

            “Yes, sir.”

            “Then you need retrained in how to use even newer tools.  You need to try newer ways to tend the seeds.   You older gardeners need punished for these shorts crops; you must work an extra hour past sundown.  You younger gardeners need to know more about gardening in the first place; you must pass an extra inspection before sunrise.  These ideas will fix these problems.  If they don’t, each of you will be sorry.”

            The gardeners began to grow weary of the wealthy man’s anger, but they loved the seeds very much, and so they did what they were told and worked as hard as they could.  They worked even harder than they knew they could.  They worked hard in the day tending their fields, and they worked hard at night learning about new ways to garden.  (Although they were not quite sure the new ways to garden were really new at all, but were mostly just an old way to garden with a fancier name.)

            But the soil continued to sour, and the sun hid behind dark clouds almost every day, and thus many seeds did not grow.  The wealthy man’s anger turned to fury.  He read about gardens in distant lands where seeds grew up strong and tall, and his fury turned into rage.

            And thus he called a meeting.

            “How is it that I have spent so much time and money giving you new tools and new ideas, and still our seeds do not grow?  How is it that I read about seeds in distant lands that grow strong and tall while many of our seeds creep slowly and rarely reach the sky?”

            These were not questions meant to be answered, of course, by anyone at the meeting but himself.  Before the wealthy man could open up his new box of tools, however, an angry young gardener broke her rake across her knee and threw it to the earth. 

The break of the rake cracked angry in each ear, and before the wealthy man could reply she spoke.

            “A tool is a tool.  It cannot mend the soil.  An idea is an idea.  It cannot shine the sun.  In distant lands, some seeds are not even planted.  But in this land we plant all our seeds, to give each of them a chance to grow.  The questions you ask are hollow and foolish.  A better question, the question I ask, is this:  How is it that in a land where the soil has become so sour, and in a land where the sun almost never shines, can such a garden grow?  Look around you, and see.”

            The wealthy man, still quite angry, looked around at his fifty plots of land.  He saw many of his seeds struggling up above the contaminated soil toward a sun struggling to shine.  He saw that most of his seeds had indeed sprouted, but many of them had not.

He shook his head.

            “No.  These seeds do not grow strong because you each have become too lazy.  You visit with each other too much, and thus you will no longer be allowed to talk while working.  Perhaps then, once you only work and never talk, and if we try out some of these new…”

            But no one ever heard what his new idea was, because the sound of fifty thousand breaking rakes is a very loud sound.