Speak, Friend, and Enter

Wow, looking at stats just now and there were 26 viewers from Deutschland! How lucky for me. Grüß Gott!  Tausend Dank. I have never been to your country, though it is certainly on my list. I don't know your language, but I have family that speaks it fluently. My American heritage includes several citizens of Deutschland, including my surname Adler, which means Eagle.

So welcome all. As written over the entrance of Moria in Elvish- Speak, Friend, and Enter. (OK, yes, I am a Tolkien nerd :) )

I am curious about what made so many of you drop by my blog this week...as opposed to other weeks. Please feel free to drop comments at the bottom of a page that interests or aggravates you. I'd love to hear from you.

But interestingly, that is not why I am addressing you today. I'm going to do something I have not yet tried here before. I'm going to reach out to the blogsmos and ask if anyone knows three characters from my past that I have lost touch with and would love to connect with. If these three people ring a bell with anyone, please pass the word on that Nick Adler would love to connect again.

The first two are German citizens, brothers. They were visiting the United States back around 1979, 1980...in the Northern Arizona area. Their father worked for Lufthansa which allowed them flight privileges that sent them on adventures to see the world. That, along with liberal enough parents that let them travel to distant countries unchaperoned. On the trip where I met them, the were 'campers' involved with the YMCA Adventure Camp to hike Havasupi Canyon. I was one of the counselors on that trip, and the three of us struck up a good friendship. My memory, 35 years later were that their names were Sven and Kurt...but I could be way off there (thinking of the Sound of Music or something...hahaha). If was a great trip, and anyone interested in finding out more about flight benefits working for airlines or camping with the YMCA, leave me a note and I can speak fondly on both. I'd like to think I have had a few adventures of my own, like Sven and Kurt (known to me as Dolphin), and flight benefits and the YMCA both helped me in that regard.

The other friend from the past from that area of the world was a girl named Unni. It may have been Unni Wurzberger or some such spelling. I met her a few years later, up at Sky-Y Family Camp. My memory says that Unni (or Uni?) was from Austria. She was an exchange student staying with a family here in the states (perhaps California or Arizona) and they had come up to Sky-Y Family Camp. I worked for 5 or 6 years at this Camp...and again friends...if you want to do something different and meeting new people at a Family Camp environment suits you...I would encourage you to try this. I met many people  this way, and we all had a great deal of fun there. Anyway, this particular summer I met Unni and in a short time we became friends.

Right, don't go worrying about my integrity, this was just friends people! I'm not talking about stirring up some old romance...but friendships. There was a time when a 20 year old camp counselor could make friends with a couple boys and  a girl from Eastern Europe and there was no funny-bunny business about it. A kinder, simpler America perhaps? More on that in another post.

One thing I have found is that I was very casual about friendships at that time, and most of my life. All three of these 'friends' wrote me after our adventures together but I lapsed on the correspondence.

So, if anyone knows anything about these three friends of mine that I lost contact with...please encourage them to this URL. I'd love to catch up on these old friendships.

Cheers NCA.

Pens Were Once Made Of Feathers

 There is an old quote that calls television the 'Vast Wasteland'.

 

"When television is good, nothing — not the theater, not the magazines or newspapers — nothing is better. But when television is bad, nothing is worse. I invite each of you to sit down in front of your television set when your station goes on the air and stay there for a day without a book, without a magazine, without a newspaper, without a profit and loss sheet or a rating book to distract you. Keep your eyes glued to that set until the station signs off. I can assure you that what you will observe is a vast wasteland." Newton Norman Minow.

 

This is probably more true today then back when Mr. Minow said it back in 1961. (I wonder if he came up with the brilliant thought during a 3 hour tour?). I think my cable provider comes with about 12 stations I actually watch and 200 that will never see even a brief flick of static on my SONY. I wonder if there are stations that are never watched by anyone, or is there someone out there actually watching the gem channel right now?

 

But if television is a wasteland, what of the Internet? 'Vast' is nowhere near descriptive enough for what the Internet provides. For the Gilligan's Island Theme Song search I just did, there were 149,000 hits on google!   Mind-boggling. Mind-Googling.

I pulled these statistics off a search on Yahoo. Certainly not scientific, but I think probably the accuracy is less important than the sheer possibility of it all:

• Total number of YouTube videos -- over 120,000,000
• Number of videos uploaded per day -- about 200,000
• Time required to see all the videos -- over 600 years
• Number of videos watched daily -- over 200,000,000
• Amount of content uploaded every minute -- 13 hours

The Internet is beyond comprehension to me. This post will soon be swallowed up into the mammoth infinity like one tiny krill digested by a blue whale swimming in any one of all the oceans in all the possible worlds (imaginative and real).

Social Networks were the rage. In my circle they may still be, but I am aged and behind the times, my daughter tells me of newer Internet rages way beyond my ability to comprehend. But Social Networks are the subject here, since it effects me and troubles me and gives me cause to ponder.

I have joined and left and joined and left and rejoined Facebook. At this point I removed 90% of my 'Friends' and left mostly family and some friends that I worried that I might offend. I encouraged the others to go to this blog instead, since I can be more 'me' here and less a part of the machine. If you were of the group I deleted as Friends, let me apologize. I welcome all Friends yet pander none in my own vanity. At this point, there is just a very few left, when once there were near 70 or 80. I see some people, some Friends on Facebook with hundreds, even thousands of Friends. Gathered like badges of honor, like a contest of who can log the most Friends. I could never dare to be even competitive in that honor.

Of those left, those few I dared not delete...my heart is troubled. Recently, a feud among some family on Facebook has caused some mean and angry postings. Among some other Friends, there are occasionally jaw dropping personal revelations that I'd prefer to not hear, not read. At times embarrassing, or personal, or angry, cast into this extendedgigantic galaxy of bits and bytes. And of what duration? Is something, once posted on FaceBook permanent, backed up on servers, indelible and irreversible like carvings in stone? Are these the Chauvet Cave paintings our ancestors will someday read?

And can I even point my finger at my family and Friend, cast a first stone with what I myself have posted here and on Facebook and elsewhere on the Internet?

Facebook, Social Media in general, allows us to carve our instant and fleeting thoughts as a gospel of our soul. This momentary gospel suddenly achieves a shelflife and an instant audience, becomes a permanent record. Words can hurt, and the written word stings worse then those that are spoken. Thoughts have a short shelf life, spoken thoughts last longer, written thoughts on Social Media can be everlasting, perhaps more lasting than any of us truly intend.

I don't believe in censorship. Free Thought and Free Speech are part of my American Heritage, and I will stand up for those rights proudly. But does every thought need a voice? Is every thought worthy of a post? Does every post require a decision of 'Like' or 'Unlike'?  Just because the 'pen is mightier then the sword' it does not mean we need to wield our pens like swords...I remember when pens were quills made of feather  as were the wings of a dove.

Cheers, nca

Rear View Mirror

I was driving in my car to work yesterday, listening to 'The Troubled Man', by Henning Mankell for the second time. There was a line in the book that says 'History is not only in our past, it follows us around'. My guess that he was quoting someone else may or may not be true, since I later googled the term and did not find it in those exact words online. Again, Henning writes native in Swedish, so who knows the exact term he used in the book prior to translating.

So, I credit it to Mr. Mankell and Wallander for now. But the quote seems very poignant for me for many reasons.

I'm 53 now, so much of my life is behind me. My personal history is creeping around back there, constantly sneaking up on me. I find often that history involves my father, little bits and pieces of him hanging out back there mixing with my own personality from time to time.

Also, those events in my life that stick out from the others are always back there ready to pop out like a jack-in-the box. These are critical mistakes I have made. These are odd or mean things people chose to do to me along my path. These were life altering events like the death of a dog or of a father, the birth of children. These are lies I told to people I care about. These are friends I dropped along the way due to neglect, or changes in perception, or in disloyalty. These are mean events of temper thrust upon my kids or wife. And these are accomplishments missed. This is my history, the good and the bad, the ugly and the sad. Let us not forget the joyful and the exciting and the thrilling.

My history is constantly growing and my future is consistently shrinking. And both facts come into play day by day. I can not stop the process, I have no power over time. Time has another master. The growing shadow in my rear view mirror is a monster beyond my control. What quantity of time I have here on this earth is another event beyond my control. There is only one thing I have the control stick to manipulate and that is what I do with this very moment, and the next, and the next. One step at a time.

The creature in the shadows behind me is no monster. He is nothing to be afraid of. He can teach me, he can guide me, but he can not harm me unless I allow him to. Though I might fear the creature I am marching toward quite a bit, in the end he too is benign. Because I have faith I know that there is something greater beyond my future and though I must stumble blindly through my future, I still have the power to do so with dignity and with grace if I so choose.

When I was young my Mom made a bargain for me on my birthdays. I was allowed to pick something I liked to do and she would take me. For me, on my birthdays, I usually picked a movie to go to. One year, I picked Willie Wonka and the Chocolate Factory. The song 'Golden Ticket', from the movie, fits into this theme a bit:

I never thought my life could be
Anything but catastrophe
But suddenly I begin to see
A bit of good luck for me

'Cause I've got a golden ticket
I've got a golden twinkle in my eye

I never had a chance to shine
Never a happy song to sing
But suddenly half the world is mine
What an amazing thing

[Spoken]
It's ours, Charlie!

[Sung]
I've got a golden sun up in the sky

I never thought I'd see the day
When I would face the world and say
Good morning, look at the sun
I never thought that I would be
Slap in the lap of luxury
'Cause I'd have said:

Charlie:
It couldn't be done

Grandpa Joe:
But it can be done

I never dreamed that I would climb
Over the moon in ecstasy
But nevertheless, it's there that I'm
Shortly about to be

Grandpa Joe and Charlie:
'Cause I've got a golden ticket
I've got a golden chance to make my way

Cheers, nca