June 28, 2008 by Dave Rama.

In the course of time,customs and social behaviors change. That can be a good thing, or if you are an Olde Phoole, maybe less good in your estimation. It has been a very long time since I was introduced to anyone. Those of us in the O.P. category were taught that it was only good manners to introduce people to one another. “Miss Mary Jones, I would like to introduce my friend Mr. John Smith.” There is nothing too complicated about that. Still, in the present time, I almost always have to introduce myself to anyone new, and I always use my first and last names when doing so. This meets with a judgemental look right away. the response is always a first name only. John, Fred, Axman, whatever it may be. Last names are only for the IRS, and in rare cases, an employer. I know that more than one name used in public is not cool, though I have no idea why. Is it just cusssedness? Is it laziness? (This possibility gets a lot of votes in the O.P. group) The other guess from my uncool group is the person can’t remember their own last name, and certainly can’t be bothered to learn two names for you.

I have taken an aggressive stance on this matter. Now when someone tells me they are Arnold or Gandy or Fruitblossom, I say to them, “Oh, you are one of those people with one name, like Elvis or Madonna or Noah.” Or I ask if they have a last name. I have inquired if they are in the witness protection program, or if they are employed by the CIA. They will ALWAYS (eventually), mumble their surname like it was a dirty word. Then, of course, my deafness requires them to repeat it louder. Nobody argues with hearing aids. They may not remember my name when they move on to meet Gwen, or Susie, or Albertina, but they will know I was not cool enough to use one name only. My incorrectness in matters of cool is truly a gift from God.

I find this one name folderol to be an exercise in rudeness. It is not the lack of protocol of a formal introduction that makes it rude by my standards, but rather the fact that this individual finds you unworthy of their attention for more than ten seconds. Is our collective attention span that short? You are missing the human element here, folks. Someone suggests that we stop and smell the roses. If you can’t give more than a cursory greeting to new acquaintances, you may be missing out not on roses, but Rosalee.

My next tutorial on manners is how to execute a proper handshake. That dead fish business makes me vomit. Take a grip on that extended hand. It won’t hurt, and it will inform your new friend that you are present in this world, and not the next one.

If you are not acquainted with me do not throw me a hug like we were bosom friends. There are folks out and about that administer hugs like they were trying to sack the opposing quarterback. I find that to be way past friendly and into the neighborhood of desperation. Hugs are for the deserving and the needy and I am rarely either of those things.

So, now that I have gotten a load off my chest about these topics, what impact will this dissertation have, do you think? I would say approximately nothing. One of the best things about sharing these thoughts is that I feel a lot better. You are welcome to feel better or worse or unchanged as the case may be. If you do in fact, feel better, welcome to the O.P. group. We meet regularly on an unplanned basis. You can sometimes tell who we are by the gray hair, or in some cases, very little hair of any color. Feel free to introduce yourself (using two names, of course), and get a free handshake.

Dave Rama

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June 18, 2008 by Dave Rama.

I own a very trivial mind, and the mortgage is paid on it. The college loans are paid, and my little brain is overloaded with what may politely be called worthless information. Storing this pile of fact is the easy part. The difficult part is figuring out how to work it into the conversation.

It will become plain as we move along that there is no truth to the idea that age brings wisdom; it only brings more trivia. In the course of three score and more years, I have read thousands of novels, tens of thousands of magazine and newspaper articles, and countless captions under photographs. All of this stuff adds together, and it becomes a burden. My newest idea is to share a bunch of this burden with you, and thereby lighten my own load. What you do with this data is up to you, and you do have my thanks for your willingness to help.

I am a second-degree college person, and we all know that two degrees is very cold. That is pretty small potatoes next to a thirty-second degree mason. (Thirty-two degrees is cool.) I have no idea what the nth degree is, but it sounds big. I wonder how a person measures college degrees, Masonic degrees, and letter degrees. Are they calculated on the Celsius or Fahrenheit scale? Are the National Weather Service workers who record this data employed full time, or are they merely temps? Is there a big difference to be found in any of this, or is it simply a matter of degree?

If you were to show me a modern map, I can find China on it right away. If you show me an outdated map, I will be able to find Indochina right away. I know how to play Chinese checkers. I can tell you right now that Red China goes very well with a yellow tablecloth. When a Chinese fellow is described as “one in a million,” it means there are 1000 more just like him. When you tell me that I don’t stand a “Chinaman’s chance”, I will understand the implications of that.

To take an entirely different set of facts, it is a matter of record that George Armstrong Custer graduated dead last in his class at West Point. (To go off on a political tangent, we have living proof every day that not every graduate of Yale is a whiz, either.) To give Custer credit, he did graduate. He met the requirements of a college that has quite a stringent course of study. Every year, that academy on the Hudson turns out a freshly minted class of Second Lieutenants, and there is always a person who ranks first in their class, and there is always a person who ranks last. Virtually every American knows about the end of Custer’s career. It happened on the Little Big Horn in the grasslands of Eastern Montana, and even today, the mere mention of the name Custer will bring a resounding cheer from any assembly of Sioux or Cheyenne. Some of you may know that Custer was the youngest man in the history of the U.S. Army to achieve the rank of General, and no one else has even come close to reaching that rank at the age of TWENTY-THREE. That happened during the Civil War, and was at least partly due to attrition. Age 23 is not the world record. By the age of 23, Alexander of Macedonia had conquered his entire known world. Nevertheless, any comparison of Custer and Alexander the Great brings to mind a quote attributed to Albert Einstein. When asked for a comparison of stupidity and genius, Einstein reportedly said, “genius has limits.”

In a scintillating course, in my very recent high school endeavors, the daily topic was Chemistry. It was full of atoms, valences, neutrons, protons, ions, and in my case, at least one moron. I have retained two pieces of trivial matter from this course. One is the periodic table of elements, which is full of atomic weights and such as that. The second is NACL, which is chemical talk for salt. That may bring to mind Lot’s wife, who shall continue to be nameless, but she is still considered a salty woman. As a public service, I wish to report that the valences mentioned above should not be confused with valances, which are a type of curtains. I do think that the chemistry teacher, Mr. Reed, should also be mentioned here for his extraordinary collection of dirty stories. They were not told in class, of course. At least, Mr. Reed did not share these stories in class. Perhaps I could share one with you now. No, I guess I won’t. That would be considered common.

In arithmetic class, there was something called the Pythagorean theorem. It is an excellent rule about right triangles and their assorted hypoteneuses. It could also have been history class, as Pythagoras lived quite a while back. Perhaps I’m thinking of Archimedes, who is famous for his amazing, and very strange quote, “Eureka!” I suspect that Archie was returning from a village in Northern California. Anyway, it’s Greek to me. It is also odd, when you see the word theorem to find out that it rhymes with fear ‘em, and cheer ‘em, and spear ‘em. It looks like it should be score ‘em, or gore ‘em, or bore ‘em.

Well, I would certainly like to go on, but just getting this much unwanted and unloved information out into the open has made me feel a bit lightheaded already. I thank you for your assistance in relieving the pressure on my amoeba one-cell. I feel so much better. Next time, we will explore the limits of genius. Ciao. (That’s Italian talk.)

Dave Rama

Pee Ess: The Sioux and the Cheyenne did not much care for Custer, but they do give him credit where it is due. Even today, those folks will tell you that Custer was well dressed at Little Big Horn. They point out that he wore an Arrow shirt.

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