"Are You For Surreal?" (Thus Spake Putney)

(Article appearing on p.32 of "The N.Y. Daily News" of Wed., Nov. 3, 2004)

CANADA KEMOSABE RULING HAS A HI-HO SILVER LINING

Dateline: Ottawa, Ont., Canada-

The courts have ruled: Kemosabe is not a racist term, at least not in Canada.

Judges took up the issue after a native Canadian woman complained that her boss created a poisoned work environment by calling her Kemosabe, the name given to the Lone Ranger by his friend Tonto in the 1950s TV Western "The Lone Ranger."

The manager of a secondhand sports store in Sydney, Nova Scotia, argued that Kemosabe was a term he used to address customers as well as employees.

The court ruling last week confirmed a decision by a Nova Scotia Human Rights Commission board of inquiry. That decision was made after the board spent a full shift watching "Lone Ranger" episodes.

"When asked what {Kemosabe} meant, Tonto responded, 'Trusty friend,'" the board found. "Both the Lone Ranger and Tonto treat one another with respect...At no time during the episodes is the term Kemosabe ever used in a demeaning or derogatory manner."

The board added, however, that while Tonto was always treated respectfully, the long-popular TV show treated other Native American characters in a demeaning manner.

(I knew there had to be a "however" in there somewhere: too good to be true that sanity would prevail totally, even in the Great White {oops!} North! And of course, "Tonto" in Spanish still means "foolish" or "stupid." Just wait 'til the Latino Tsunami gets up there and the P.C. crowd forces trilingualism on 'em. Maybe that name and those meanings are what that airhead employee had in her "mind.")

Answer To A "Dear John" Letter

Dear Jayne,

Thanks for your letter: admirably piercing in its pointedness. I had this funny picture in my mind's eye of you sitting behind a desk in a plush office. You had on a double breasted, pinstriped blue suit. Yes, it was you, but your hair, manlike and blondish, floated in unruly wisps away from your forehead as you gestured dismissively with your fingers: "You're fired!"

It makes a world of good sense to "take care of business" a la "The Donald", especially in your own bailiwick, which is both your world and mine and which is (and always will be) a "Lady's Choice" one. I didn't, by the way, plan to "fall like a ton of bricks" for you. It just happened- and gradually. Don't worry. I promise to make this the last communication of any kind. Besides, equally genuine feelings, of a diametrically opposite kind (from those tender ones for you) will, hopefully, help me to keep my sanity and, in turn, comfort you: in knowing that I won't get all soppy sustaining any pining and bothersome pleas to maintain a relatedness to you.

Still, I do wish to thank you for a gladness that comes from our experience together. It has now been proven that such a thing could happen again in my life. Maybe that thing was just propinquity or even mere geography. Or maybe not....

A good thing about "falling" at my age, is that, akin to an old cockroach that has awakened after a long sleep and finds his legs pointing toward the ceiling, it takes a while to right one's self and get under way. But here's the particularly good thing: it's an easy enough trick for the offended homeowner (or platonic "friend") to spray on an insecticide (or to send a letter like yours) and watch the critter quickly come to a halt and to, soon enough, cease living (or loving). It's all quite unlike the realm of Youth where the passion combusts in a flash, as in the storied Sicilian "Thunderbolt" and the sulfuric stench and smoke of bad grace (after the flames have been forcefully doused by the powerful snuffing brutality of irrevocable rejection) lingers intolerably. The "tender and callow fellow", a.k.a. Poor-slob-of-a-would-be-Romeo, either makes a thoroughly tiresome pest of himself, or else has the decency to transform his abyss-wallowing into an act of self-annihilation. Remember the scene in an old French movie where a fatally smitten and semi-retarded youth pins a ribbon or rose on his naked chest preparatory to a shotgun blast (or was it a successful hanging)? Can't remember which.

None of any of that for this ol' "cucaracha". Like I said when we shared, what I guess, was our last cup of coffee: "I'm running out of gas." But perhaps to torture a metaphor, instead of frantically looking for a service station, I'm going to find a legal parking spot...and then walk home. I'll mix a steaming mug of chocolate, all for myself, and go to my collection of country tunes. I will NOT cue "He Stopped Loving Her Today", much though I love old George. No, this man manque will slip on his slippers and then put on "Livin' On Love", Mr. Jackson's warm welcome to his world, one that for many of us, only might have been, but its all loving embrace comforts especially, the friendless.

I shall always be on, if not at, your side and a daily prayer for you will be the best I can and will do.


Warmest regards,
Homer

Eilithyia

She scares you, truly. Always my choice, the opening gambit of "Good morning, how are you?" was in reality, one of diplomatic "patty-cakes". Politely, dutifully, she tries to reciprocate the flatness of such a verbal ritual as I duck away from her vitality and natural curiosity. The weather and its recent years of supposed radicalism are my sword and buckler: hopefully endless material for chit-chat. Again, she respects my unease and tries to listen for the kernel of emotional truth in my complaint about our current "false spring". There is none. In a twinkling (and the twinkling of) those laughing hazel irises (God's gifts via forebears from Crete and Cornwall) refocus and cascade somehow forward and toward me in exuberance and for a particular delight, hardly hobbled by our workplace's atmospherics. As visions and the promise of a genuine April animate her again, she asks me of my plans for that season of burgeoning life. I stumble and mumble and she touches my arm in a way that says "It will be alright soon."

My cubicle looms as others of better acquaintance now greet her and she responds with a cheerfulness no more familiar or less sensitive than her gentleness towards me. I am painfully aware of her beauty and feel the twinge of her physical distance now, though she is but several feet further away than a moment ago. The time has arrived for certain cogitations and calculations in the service of strangers who will compensate me for this care and attention to their money. I do not think about her again. I drink the day's first cup of coffee with a particular gladness as the stimulant both befriends and steels me for the first of the soulless hours ahead. I am concentrated in my tasks and yet asleep: "a paycheck for a somnambulist", I silently chuckle, with impassive face. Another silly image intrudes on the world of spread sheets and pencil shavings: my character in a play of twenty years ago, a rabbi stroking his beard in weighty deliberation over his congregants' distress about a certain communal quandary. "There's no law against it!" he regally declares finally and I embrace his decision's spirit of rectitude relative to my sleepwalking. Strangely, the day wanes with clock watching at a minimum. I pull on my overcoat and softly curse the hole in the lining of a pocket as I struggle for the descended glove.

Eilithyia speaks more delightedly than usual and I strain to hear her across the room and over the low murmur of others preparing to go home. "Oh yes, it's a boy! She and Stan were trying for years. My sister! She's the dearest! Oh, thank you. Thank you. Yes, thank you Mary! Thanks a lot Joe. Good night!" The small crowd, though surely sincere in their congratulations, dispersed quickly. Get a jump on the traffic or a favorite meal awaiting, one supposes. But, she lingered and so did I, out of sight. She made another call on her cell phone. More exchanges of the joyful tidings. She hung up and after the briefest of pauses said, barely aloud, "I love life." I stood in frozen silence then slipped far back and away from my enclosure's doorway, mouthing the words "I love you" and waited until she left.

A CHRISTMAS STORY

Jarvis was born and raised in Walterboro, South Carolina. He grew up with an intense aversion to authority. He literally, not figuratively, could not appropriately respond to the words "no" and "don't."

This obviously resulted in numerous social, educational, and professional issues. He was not welcome at the local library, where "no talking" was the rule.

Diligent parenting, and a caring, responsive township, developed compromises that allowed Jarvis to maintain a civil lifestyle. His parents suffered thru his early childhood. The results were disastrous when they scolded "no!" if he got too close to fire, played on the stares, tried to eat his shoes.
But they learned as he grew. Comments like "don't speak to me like that," which led to an unnerving stream of profanities, were replaced by "that kind of speech is unacceptable."

Jarvis lived his life on a delicately thin line stretched across a sea of cracked ice.
School was not easy for him; he dropped out as soon as he could, which was March of 1976.
Got a job bagging groceries at Krogers.
Met a check out clerk named Betty; they shared lunch breaks every now and then.

Betty was an accommodating girl; never said "no" to anybody.  She and Jarvis got along real well.
Jarvis very badly wanted to spend some quality "alone" time with Betty, who lived in Yemassee.

His ma and pa agreed to let him use the family truck to go see Betty for New Year's eve;  it was sort of a Christmas present.  They couldn't say "no" when he asked.

Jarvis would be traveling north along the newly opened I-95; exits 53 to 38.

Things surely would have turned out differently if ma and pa were familiar with this road.  Alas, they were not.

Jarvis approached the "No U Turn" sign just past exit  47.
He had no choice; he made a u turn.

Heading south, Jarvis approached his second ever "No U Turn" sign midway between exits 41 and 42.
He had no choice; he made a u turn.

Jarvis continued to travel in circles; continued to make illegal u turns for twenty minutes.
U turns are illegal for a reason.
They are dangerous.

The funeral was not well attended.
Ma and pa were there, but Betty was otherwise occupied.

In 1985, the "No U Turn" signs were replaced with signs that featured the globally accepted symbol of a "U" with a line thru it. 
Rednecks were appalled, thinking this was an unnecessary compromise for the Mexicans.
It was for the completely caucasian, completely unfortunate likes of Jarvis.