Mike Ball

Blogs are a fascinating phenomenon. I indulge very lightly compared to many, but there are still more than I can keep up with. I list some of them in the sidebar. I was reading a post in presentsimple (she has problems keeping up too), but I was struck by her mention of culture. Can you say that you are part of the local culture if you never watch TV? All of the cultural catch phrases seem to come from TV shows, and people sometimes have to explain what they are talking about. Often I can fake it without their noticing, but sometimes I get quite mystified. It’s a culture gap. I think she must have a rather bigger one, living in a land that makes foreigners perpetual outsiders. Of course, I know that I don’t understand the Japanese, so I’m impressed by her bravery.

There’s a deeper question underlying that one, and it’s bothered Americans since 1776. Just what makes a person an American? It’s not ethnic, it’s not cultural in the traditional sense, because we have a blend of other cultures. What are American attitudes? I’ve taken several courses on the questions and I’m still not sure of the answers. Some people believe that the lack of a simple answer is a grave weakness. I think that we’ve managed pretty well without it. Maybe, in a world that’s changing so rapidly, there’s something to be said for making it up as we go along.

Flo was helping out at the fair booth for the Machine Knitters Guild, which got her two tickets for free admission. I couldn’t turn this down, so this afternoon I went to join her there. Besides, I like fairs. At least I thought I did.

Either the fair is changing, or I’m changing, or both, because it just wasn’t as exciting as I’ve remembered. Part of the problem may have been low attendance at the fair. The mobs are part of the fun, and there just weren’t very many people there. There really wasn’t a lot of livestock, and there was very little interest from fairgoers. We were walking through the new barn (and a very nice one it is) looking at sheep, and we were the only people there other than sheep owners. There were no small animals or birds at all, but it was probably just not the right time for them. I always like to look at the various crafts, but that wasn’t all that great either. There just didn’t seem to be many entries. There was a great commercial woodworking show, with some absolutely lovely work, though nothing I felt like I wanted.

I think that San Diego is just loosing its rural and semi-rural roots. The back hills are filling up with suburbs as the city creeps out further and further. The only people doing handcrafts in town are old people, so you just don’t get the same interest in the shows. In retrospect I’m not surprised. The Santa Clara County Fair, in the bay area, has gone even farther along this route. We found it disappointing too.

We’re changing too. We don’t have kids at home, and we are planning to move anyway, so things like the garden shows weren’t exciting anymore. The gadgets never were all that interesting, but now we really don’t want more stuff.

Oh well, life changes.

This is an interesting list from the New Scientist: 13 things that do not make sense.

I love things like this. I’ve always been convinced that we know far less than we believe we do, and stuff like this just guarantees an interesting future. We haven’t quite hit the end of science yet……

My ex-father-in-law died last week, and I just went to his memorial service. If this seems a bit odd, let’s just say that I admired and liked him, and I had a bit of mourning to do. The service was the usual sort, with a minister who never knew him, and talked about how he was happy in a better land. Oh come on! No matter what your religious beliefs, do you think that someone who just lost everyone and everything isn’t going to be doing some mourning himself? There were some touching stories, including a tribute from Diana, and those helped. Then we all went and had some food and talked.

The whole thing was actually good, if exhausting. I remember having the same feeling after my father’s funeral, and started wondering why. It’s pretty obvious that others feel the say way, since we keep having funerals. It’s not, as some young people like to say, a morbid exercise in grief. It gives us the chance to realize that the person is actually gone, no matter how much we want to deny it. It lets us say all of those things we wanted to say when he was alive, and have someone hear them, even if he can’t. Mostly, it lets us put our relationship with the person in perspective, as something that had a start, and now has ended. We can let go, grieve, and go on with life. As at no other time, we can let go of all of the bad times and other cruft that may have covered our love, and realize that all the love that was ever there has never gone away. When all is done, nothing else matters.

The meeting over food afterward is important too. Often, our connections with others are through another individual. If the connection was through the deceased, the wake afterwards lets us connect directly and hold the community together despite the loss.

Maybe this is blazingly obvious to most people, and I’m the only one who had to figure it out, but I hadn’t put it together before.