"He is a wise man who does not grieve for the
things which he has not, but rejoices
for those which he has."
Epictetus (AD 55- AD 135),
"Three years ago they told me that I had only three months to live."
She was a hospice patient wearing a shimmering purple satin robe, with a matching turban wrapped around her bald head. She was surprisingly calm, lying flat on a gurney, the IV medicaments slowly dripping into her forearm; she was too weak to sit up in a wheel chair. I introduced myself and inquired about her dental concern.
She spoke in a soft, wispy voice, "I was diagnosed with terminal kidney cancer. I am only fifty years old and have two teenage daughters. I sank into a major depression. I began to mentally rehearse; what did I have to accomplish if I only had three months to live and what do I never have to do again. Finally, great joy filled my body when I realized that if I had only three months to live, I would never have to go to the dentist again.”
Her eyes glowed as I smiled.
"Now, three years later, the back molar on my right side is causing me a lot of pain, so now I am back, dammit"
I checked and there was not much bone supporting the tooth. I suggested that extraction seemed the best solution. She seemed to be relieved, and we scheduled for the next day.
She returned in a chipper mood. The tooth was easily removed and she was relieved and grateful.
Two weeks later I read her obituary. The damn tooth would not wait.
Tuesday, April 26, 2011
Thursday, March 10, 2011
Endless Perfect Sheet of Ice
We would skate all winter long on the frozen Vermillion River above the old grain milling dam. The perilous, slowed waterway meandered lazily along the western edge of Centerville, South Dakota. Every year we anxiously waited for the current year’s essential cold spell to hit. Once we the welcomed arrival of Old Man Winter, he would miraculously create the preferred thickness of ice for the required parental green light to skate. As the skating season ensued, then the usual episodes of snowfall and the daily rapid fall of darkness were the only regretted impediments to our countless days of skating adventures.
The bridge over the Vermillion River northwest of town which that led to “The Old Beach” or to Gunderson Park served as a welcomed roofed haven. The spans of the bridge kept the frozen river free of snow and underneath structures created an imaginary hockey rink where scrap wood served as hockey sticks and tin cans as pucks. Many imaginary Stanley Cups were won on that secret, sheltered frozen oasis on numerous seemly timeless Saturday and Sunday afternoons under the old roadway.
Most of the time we kept warm by the sweat of our battles, but occasionally we stoked up a camp fire on the river’s edge fueled by the ample supply of wood of the tree lined ancient river.
Coffee thermoses filled with hot chocolate and homemade leftover Christmas cookies were freely shared, so we could play until we dropped.
Boys and girls, young and old were all welcomed additions to each hopeful hockey dynasties created and destroyed by the sparse supply of willing skaters each week.
Some years when snowfall was limited or if we were feeling a little more industrious, we would shovel a clearing on the ice behind our Centerville house which was perched on the eastern shores of the river. Being close would allow our kitchen to act both as the warming house and the snack bar, even though Dad had just installed a fresh new linoleum floor. Thanks, Mom.
One cold “snowless” winter in the 1960s, nature had blessed the meandering Vermillion with an endless sheet of perfectly smooth pristine ice that mercilessly tempted us to a cross-county skating adventure. The enticement to explore upstream river was irresistible since the river was left as a seemingly infinite seamless flat frozen meandering track.
With my brother and two other locals, willing explorers excitedly set off heading north into unchartered expanse of that year’s unusual gift. The decision to follow this frozen highway was more of spontaneous response than a calculated one, so we never thought about packing supplies, telling our families where we were going, thinking about getting permission, considering the time of day, anticipating the potential hazards or even considering our subsequent family responsibilities later on that night.
We skated and skated on the winding and the wildly snaking river across the farmlands north of town constantly looking back at the royal blue cylindrical water tower and the church steeples of town that served as our homing beacons as we excitedly raced away. The feeling of immense freedom, the changing landscapes, the novelty and the borderless track fueled our desire to thoughtlessly to press on. Around each bend brought a new experience. We meandered under old steel bridges, near country cemeteries, besides open water springs, behind vital majestic industrious farms, through old deteriorating abandoned rural homesteads, under high cliffs, through thick, old cottonwood groves and across sections of wide open flat plains.
The river had carved a path through the Dakotas many years before and the pioneer homesteaders choose to claim land next to the olden river. The land on the river edge was preferred for its natural source of free flowing water for the farmer’s year to year’s fight for financial survival.
Late, on that glorious day, a spur-of-the-moment testosterone driven challenge race was ended by an undetected barb wire strung across the shallow river below knee level that resulted in all four us being violently being slammed to the ice. Cushioned by our thick winter coats, hats and gloves, we were only projected aimlessly across the velvety smooth frozen paradise. Surprised, all four of us began to spontaneously laugh hysterically as were all spread out across the ice plopped down on our bellies like fish out of the water.
Once we gathered up our slightly wounded bodies we noticed that the sun was soon to set in the west and we realized that we were still several miles away from town. We immediately began debating; “Do we turn around and skate home or do we take off our skates and walk across the frozen plowed fields trying to avoid that mindless meandering that we had just completed?
In our infinite state of novice wisdom we first choose to walk, but our cold stocking feet on the rock-hard plowed undulating black dirt fields quickly convinced us to regrettably to put back on our skates. We were forced to hit the meandering river again for a dreaded rapid race against the soon predictable setting of the sun. We all knew we were doomed by the clock.
On our late arrival that night, all the fierce tongue lashings and the quickly forgetful punishments were paled compared to our once in a lifetime memory.
A lifetime of smiles and chuckles were my rewards for that irresistibly youthful journey of perfectly smooth sheer joy.
The bridge over the Vermillion River northwest of town which that led to “The Old Beach” or to Gunderson Park served as a welcomed roofed haven. The spans of the bridge kept the frozen river free of snow and underneath structures created an imaginary hockey rink where scrap wood served as hockey sticks and tin cans as pucks. Many imaginary Stanley Cups were won on that secret, sheltered frozen oasis on numerous seemly timeless Saturday and Sunday afternoons under the old roadway.
Most of the time we kept warm by the sweat of our battles, but occasionally we stoked up a camp fire on the river’s edge fueled by the ample supply of wood of the tree lined ancient river.
Coffee thermoses filled with hot chocolate and homemade leftover Christmas cookies were freely shared, so we could play until we dropped.
Boys and girls, young and old were all welcomed additions to each hopeful hockey dynasties created and destroyed by the sparse supply of willing skaters each week.
Some years when snowfall was limited or if we were feeling a little more industrious, we would shovel a clearing on the ice behind our Centerville house which was perched on the eastern shores of the river. Being close would allow our kitchen to act both as the warming house and the snack bar, even though Dad had just installed a fresh new linoleum floor. Thanks, Mom.
One cold “snowless” winter in the 1960s, nature had blessed the meandering Vermillion with an endless sheet of perfectly smooth pristine ice that mercilessly tempted us to a cross-county skating adventure. The enticement to explore upstream river was irresistible since the river was left as a seemingly infinite seamless flat frozen meandering track.
With my brother and two other locals, willing explorers excitedly set off heading north into unchartered expanse of that year’s unusual gift. The decision to follow this frozen highway was more of spontaneous response than a calculated one, so we never thought about packing supplies, telling our families where we were going, thinking about getting permission, considering the time of day, anticipating the potential hazards or even considering our subsequent family responsibilities later on that night.
We skated and skated on the winding and the wildly snaking river across the farmlands north of town constantly looking back at the royal blue cylindrical water tower and the church steeples of town that served as our homing beacons as we excitedly raced away. The feeling of immense freedom, the changing landscapes, the novelty and the borderless track fueled our desire to thoughtlessly to press on. Around each bend brought a new experience. We meandered under old steel bridges, near country cemeteries, besides open water springs, behind vital majestic industrious farms, through old deteriorating abandoned rural homesteads, under high cliffs, through thick, old cottonwood groves and across sections of wide open flat plains.
The river had carved a path through the Dakotas many years before and the pioneer homesteaders choose to claim land next to the olden river. The land on the river edge was preferred for its natural source of free flowing water for the farmer’s year to year’s fight for financial survival.
Late, on that glorious day, a spur-of-the-moment testosterone driven challenge race was ended by an undetected barb wire strung across the shallow river below knee level that resulted in all four us being violently being slammed to the ice. Cushioned by our thick winter coats, hats and gloves, we were only projected aimlessly across the velvety smooth frozen paradise. Surprised, all four of us began to spontaneously laugh hysterically as were all spread out across the ice plopped down on our bellies like fish out of the water.
Once we gathered up our slightly wounded bodies we noticed that the sun was soon to set in the west and we realized that we were still several miles away from town. We immediately began debating; “Do we turn around and skate home or do we take off our skates and walk across the frozen plowed fields trying to avoid that mindless meandering that we had just completed?
In our infinite state of novice wisdom we first choose to walk, but our cold stocking feet on the rock-hard plowed undulating black dirt fields quickly convinced us to regrettably to put back on our skates. We were forced to hit the meandering river again for a dreaded rapid race against the soon predictable setting of the sun. We all knew we were doomed by the clock.
On our late arrival that night, all the fierce tongue lashings and the quickly forgetful punishments were paled compared to our once in a lifetime memory.
A lifetime of smiles and chuckles were my rewards for that irresistibly youthful journey of perfectly smooth sheer joy.
Wednesday, February 16, 2011
Grandma's Kitchen
"A house is not a home unless it contains
food and fire for the mind as well as the body."
-- Margaret Fuller
When the sweet flavor of "real” butter crosses my taste buds, I savor the smooth, light-yellow smear, with the subtle hint of salt.
My Norwegian Grandmother Bergina’s eighty-year-old, arthritic hands perfectly blended her homegrown flavor. Her butter was always home-churned, never store bought. As this butter melts into a heavenly slurry on a slice of warm, freshly-baked bread, I am returned to her South Dakota kitchen.
The gigantic, white range was fueled mainly by the previous year’s waste, which was recycled from the corn harvest on the great muddy Missouri River bottoms. The homestead had been chosen for its rich black-soiled fields and was remotely nestled between the small towns of Volin and Mission Hill, South Dakota.
The massive cast-iron wood stove never rested as the belly of energy for baking, cooking, heating pails of hand-carried water and a source of tireless, ambient heat source for the modest, drafty, stick-built, pioneer farmhouse.
When the round, cast-iron port holes on the oven's flat top were cracked opened, the dancing spews of flames shot out like a prehistoric dragon breathing fire out of the depths of its inner sanctum. When not stoked up for cooking, it would offer a blanket of toasty warmth that enveloped the home's working center, the kitchen.
The space served as the family gathering place and the source of mental and physical replenishment throughout the long, hard days on the farm. Family and guests would be found seated on high, worn, rib-backed chairs around an expansive oak kitchen table covered with the ever-present oil cloth.
The wood box in the kitchen was tended by the uncles with a seamless supply of dried corn cobs that would be ingested throughout the farmers; perpetual long days. Occasionally a large piece of wood scrap or olden split log would be fed to this hungry beast. But Grandma skillfully mastered the perfect mix of cobs and wood that would be well suited for each specific cooking task or social event that was anticipated. I still sense her love and passion that emanated from her humped-back body as she shuffled about the kitchen on the thread-bare linoleum floor.
I marvel at the flavors, smells and the many savory delicacies that were produced by such antiquated or rudimentary equipment. Techniques, experiences and years of dedication were ripe with unconscious, culturally-earned skills that contrast to today's new cooking technologies.
The stainless-steel manual churn stood like a shrine, polished, shining and cleaned impeccably with her loving, age-spotted hands. When the churn was not engaged, it stood in the corner next to her walk-in pantry, a noble adornment standing guard to the tabernacle of her culinary mystic arts.
The fresh cow's milk in the butter churn had been dutifully hand-milked that morning by my trusted, single Norwegian uncles (Clarence, Alfred and Harold) from the small herd of Mathison's black-and-white patched Holsteins.
They were allowed to freely graze the pasture, chewing the the new spring growth of ancient native grasses into a moist soft cud to fill their stomachs. Their diet would be only slightly supplemented with last year's hay and crib-stored corn. The pasture's rich variety of grasses pumped the sweetening stroke to this morning's separated cream, similar to the glover flowers sweetening the honey of the industrious bees.
With each bite of hot fresh bread, the taste of her delightful butter lingers from the center of my tongue, then my senses are awakened to the heavenly aroma of fresh bread loaves coming out of this giant's gut, mixed with the breath of the warm, smoky, wood-soaked air.
Recipes were stored on the hard drive deep in her sharp, aging brain. I never remember a single note card or cook book assisting her with her daily masterpieces. A craftswomen of culinary arts never needed a blue print, since life had seared her experienced skill deep by the repetitive motion of decades of her toils.
My mother revered her mother's skills with lifelong feelings of inadequacies, envy and that dreaded quality of jealousy. My mother's demon was her own perception. She possessed the exalted idea that there could be only one master of such culinary delicacies and that one would regrettably have to be her own mother. My mother's culinary skills, no matter how hard she tried would never rise to the level of her own mother's legendary and unattainable, earned gift.
Lefse took on the roll of the "Holy Grail" of that Old Norwegian's kitchen. My mother sought out every tool, technique, roller, flat iron and electric flat plates. The taste, texture and the color could never duplicate or match the imaginary high bar set by the master chef of our grandma’s gastronomic divinity on the southeastern South Dakota plains.
She had been forced into the job of homesteader queen matriarch as early as 1893 at the young age of twelve by the early death of her mother from scarlet fever.
Our mother was obsessed as a small child with the distinct delineation of sexual roles and cultural duties; therefore she watched and listened to her own mother as if she was clairvoyant of her destined future.
One spring Sunday afternoon we were driving out of Grandma's meager farmyard on the weed-lined gravel driveway. As an eight year old "city" kid, I turned to my mother and asked, "Is grandmother poor?"
My mother quickly returned, "No, Grandma's not poor; she's Norwegian."
I love to savor the taste of "real" butter.
food and fire for the mind as well as the body."
-- Margaret Fuller
When the sweet flavor of "real” butter crosses my taste buds, I savor the smooth, light-yellow smear, with the subtle hint of salt.
My Norwegian Grandmother Bergina’s eighty-year-old, arthritic hands perfectly blended her homegrown flavor. Her butter was always home-churned, never store bought. As this butter melts into a heavenly slurry on a slice of warm, freshly-baked bread, I am returned to her South Dakota kitchen.
The gigantic, white range was fueled mainly by the previous year’s waste, which was recycled from the corn harvest on the great muddy Missouri River bottoms. The homestead had been chosen for its rich black-soiled fields and was remotely nestled between the small towns of Volin and Mission Hill, South Dakota.
The massive cast-iron wood stove never rested as the belly of energy for baking, cooking, heating pails of hand-carried water and a source of tireless, ambient heat source for the modest, drafty, stick-built, pioneer farmhouse.
When the round, cast-iron port holes on the oven's flat top were cracked opened, the dancing spews of flames shot out like a prehistoric dragon breathing fire out of the depths of its inner sanctum. When not stoked up for cooking, it would offer a blanket of toasty warmth that enveloped the home's working center, the kitchen.
The space served as the family gathering place and the source of mental and physical replenishment throughout the long, hard days on the farm. Family and guests would be found seated on high, worn, rib-backed chairs around an expansive oak kitchen table covered with the ever-present oil cloth.
The wood box in the kitchen was tended by the uncles with a seamless supply of dried corn cobs that would be ingested throughout the farmers; perpetual long days. Occasionally a large piece of wood scrap or olden split log would be fed to this hungry beast. But Grandma skillfully mastered the perfect mix of cobs and wood that would be well suited for each specific cooking task or social event that was anticipated. I still sense her love and passion that emanated from her humped-back body as she shuffled about the kitchen on the thread-bare linoleum floor.
I marvel at the flavors, smells and the many savory delicacies that were produced by such antiquated or rudimentary equipment. Techniques, experiences and years of dedication were ripe with unconscious, culturally-earned skills that contrast to today's new cooking technologies.
The stainless-steel manual churn stood like a shrine, polished, shining and cleaned impeccably with her loving, age-spotted hands. When the churn was not engaged, it stood in the corner next to her walk-in pantry, a noble adornment standing guard to the tabernacle of her culinary mystic arts.
The fresh cow's milk in the butter churn had been dutifully hand-milked that morning by my trusted, single Norwegian uncles (Clarence, Alfred and Harold) from the small herd of Mathison's black-and-white patched Holsteins.
They were allowed to freely graze the pasture, chewing the the new spring growth of ancient native grasses into a moist soft cud to fill their stomachs. Their diet would be only slightly supplemented with last year's hay and crib-stored corn. The pasture's rich variety of grasses pumped the sweetening stroke to this morning's separated cream, similar to the glover flowers sweetening the honey of the industrious bees.
With each bite of hot fresh bread, the taste of her delightful butter lingers from the center of my tongue, then my senses are awakened to the heavenly aroma of fresh bread loaves coming out of this giant's gut, mixed with the breath of the warm, smoky, wood-soaked air.
Recipes were stored on the hard drive deep in her sharp, aging brain. I never remember a single note card or cook book assisting her with her daily masterpieces. A craftswomen of culinary arts never needed a blue print, since life had seared her experienced skill deep by the repetitive motion of decades of her toils.
My mother revered her mother's skills with lifelong feelings of inadequacies, envy and that dreaded quality of jealousy. My mother's demon was her own perception. She possessed the exalted idea that there could be only one master of such culinary delicacies and that one would regrettably have to be her own mother. My mother's culinary skills, no matter how hard she tried would never rise to the level of her own mother's legendary and unattainable, earned gift.
Lefse took on the roll of the "Holy Grail" of that Old Norwegian's kitchen. My mother sought out every tool, technique, roller, flat iron and electric flat plates. The taste, texture and the color could never duplicate or match the imaginary high bar set by the master chef of our grandma’s gastronomic divinity on the southeastern South Dakota plains.
She had been forced into the job of homesteader queen matriarch as early as 1893 at the young age of twelve by the early death of her mother from scarlet fever.
Our mother was obsessed as a small child with the distinct delineation of sexual roles and cultural duties; therefore she watched and listened to her own mother as if she was clairvoyant of her destined future.
One spring Sunday afternoon we were driving out of Grandma's meager farmyard on the weed-lined gravel driveway. As an eight year old "city" kid, I turned to my mother and asked, "Is grandmother poor?"
My mother quickly returned, "No, Grandma's not poor; she's Norwegian."
I love to savor the taste of "real" butter.
Wednesday, September 1, 2010
RETROSPECTIVE PERFECTION
"My mom is a never-ending song in my heart of
comfort, happiness, and being. I may sometimes forget
the words but I always remember the tune."
~Graycie Harmon
My mother stood in the doorway on that Easter Sunday afternoon, tilting her head to visualize my presence through the murky cloud of macular degeneration. An ocular stroke in her left eye and the ravages of eighty-three years had left her legally blind.
Her face showed the simple life she desired. Deep wrinkles and random age spots were tattooed badges of survival. Her brown-graying hair was slightly whiter around the edges since the last time I was home. She still curled it with pink sponges in her ever-simple way.
She was never glamorous, always uncomplicated. Her dress, worn in the vein of a plain, life-long uniform, was a light-blue, small-flowered pattern with food stains on the front, undetected by her ailing eyes.
My family were already loading the car, and as I subtly tried to pull away, I could not let go of my angry disappointment.
Her name had finally come to the top of the list on a nearby senior housing unit; but despite her life-long desire to live in a new place, she denied herself the luxury. The threadbare linoleum in the narrow hall reflected her choice to remain within her own familiarity. Fear took away another dream.
A couple of years earlier when Mom had suffered the stroke, she attempted to lay guilt on me by hinting that she should consider a nursing home. I suggested that all she had needed was a roommate, thinking of someone with healthy eyes.
She assumed I meant the company of a man and shook her head, "I'm afraid I'd get a talker.” My dad had the Irish gift of gab and when he went into assisted living, she may have enjoyed the peace of being alone.
Torn between my waiting family and abandoning her, I blurted out, "I've got to go."
Mom pulled me back into her musty apartment, chilled from her frugal thermostat, curtains pulled as life had closed upon her vision, to say her private good-bye. Her family were stoic Norwegians, so a nod and a wink would always do for a hug.
"I tried to do my best,” she said. “There were a couple of things that I didn’t like about myself. I was a jealous person, and I wish I’d known better how to show my love."
Then she hugged me hard, a hug that’s lasted forever.
A week later on Monday night, she died in the hall on her way to bed.
Looking back at our final moments, I understand the meaning of perfect parenting. I've never felt the need to be jealous and although I express my love daily, it's never enough.
No regrets.
-- Patrick J Foy, DDS
comfort, happiness, and being. I may sometimes forget
the words but I always remember the tune."
~Graycie Harmon
My mother stood in the doorway on that Easter Sunday afternoon, tilting her head to visualize my presence through the murky cloud of macular degeneration. An ocular stroke in her left eye and the ravages of eighty-three years had left her legally blind.
Her face showed the simple life she desired. Deep wrinkles and random age spots were tattooed badges of survival. Her brown-graying hair was slightly whiter around the edges since the last time I was home. She still curled it with pink sponges in her ever-simple way.
She was never glamorous, always uncomplicated. Her dress, worn in the vein of a plain, life-long uniform, was a light-blue, small-flowered pattern with food stains on the front, undetected by her ailing eyes.
My family were already loading the car, and as I subtly tried to pull away, I could not let go of my angry disappointment.
Her name had finally come to the top of the list on a nearby senior housing unit; but despite her life-long desire to live in a new place, she denied herself the luxury. The threadbare linoleum in the narrow hall reflected her choice to remain within her own familiarity. Fear took away another dream.
A couple of years earlier when Mom had suffered the stroke, she attempted to lay guilt on me by hinting that she should consider a nursing home. I suggested that all she had needed was a roommate, thinking of someone with healthy eyes.
She assumed I meant the company of a man and shook her head, "I'm afraid I'd get a talker.” My dad had the Irish gift of gab and when he went into assisted living, she may have enjoyed the peace of being alone.
Torn between my waiting family and abandoning her, I blurted out, "I've got to go."
Mom pulled me back into her musty apartment, chilled from her frugal thermostat, curtains pulled as life had closed upon her vision, to say her private good-bye. Her family were stoic Norwegians, so a nod and a wink would always do for a hug.
"I tried to do my best,” she said. “There were a couple of things that I didn’t like about myself. I was a jealous person, and I wish I’d known better how to show my love."
Then she hugged me hard, a hug that’s lasted forever.
A week later on Monday night, she died in the hall on her way to bed.
Looking back at our final moments, I understand the meaning of perfect parenting. I've never felt the need to be jealous and although I express my love daily, it's never enough.
No regrets.
-- Patrick J Foy, DDS
Tuesday, May 11, 2010
THE RIGHT ANSWER
My daughters' young faces are glowing from the monitor screen as I walk into the dark computer room unnoticed. They are honing their detective skills to solve a mystery in the most recent series of "Nancy Drew" computer games.
If they are stumped, there is no sense of cheating when they leave the game to find the right answer on the Internet. They access chat-groups, websites or social networks, compiling and sharing a plethora of digital routes in the same way we used to trade baseball cards. When it comes to outside help in solving a Nancy Drew mystery, they have not honestly hurt anyone but themselves. They are innocently developing a programmed habit of seeking for the right answers to many of life’s questions in their endless and limitless digital world.
When I was a kid and stuck a piece of candy in my pocket without paying, it was clear that I was stealing. But our children have grown up in a digital world filled with fuzzy borders. Many of them will download a pirated movie or a MP3 tune without equating that behavior with theft.
These kids are raiding the candy store of copyrighted media, national exams and areas beyond our understanding without realizing that everything is not free for the taking. Unfortunately, there are no recognizable doors or cashiers to keep them honest;. They acquire information without permission and without appreciating the moral or legal ramifications of violating intellectual property rights.
A colleague of mine has a twelve-year-old computer phenomenon that was able to hack through a certain government agency's firewalls. It wasn't until the FBI was at their door that the father knew the high level of skills his son had acquired. The child’s game of “challenge” evolved into an illegal trespass into governmental data.
Our young people search with a mob-like mentality within the immense network of the internet, and all moral checks and balances are totally absent or unappreciated. We have not been sitting next to them at the computer to instill our values and moral fiber.
Just the fact that we can access specific information does not necessarily mean that it is in the public domain and free for the taking. How do we know such information is valid?
We will be left with what we teach our children. The ethics of this new digital world is in our hands. But how do we address a problem that we can neither see nor comprehend? I suspect Madoff’s gang thought they had found “The Right Answer”.
If they are stumped, there is no sense of cheating when they leave the game to find the right answer on the Internet. They access chat-groups, websites or social networks, compiling and sharing a plethora of digital routes in the same way we used to trade baseball cards. When it comes to outside help in solving a Nancy Drew mystery, they have not honestly hurt anyone but themselves. They are innocently developing a programmed habit of seeking for the right answers to many of life’s questions in their endless and limitless digital world.
When I was a kid and stuck a piece of candy in my pocket without paying, it was clear that I was stealing. But our children have grown up in a digital world filled with fuzzy borders. Many of them will download a pirated movie or a MP3 tune without equating that behavior with theft.
These kids are raiding the candy store of copyrighted media, national exams and areas beyond our understanding without realizing that everything is not free for the taking. Unfortunately, there are no recognizable doors or cashiers to keep them honest;. They acquire information without permission and without appreciating the moral or legal ramifications of violating intellectual property rights.
A colleague of mine has a twelve-year-old computer phenomenon that was able to hack through a certain government agency's firewalls. It wasn't until the FBI was at their door that the father knew the high level of skills his son had acquired. The child’s game of “challenge” evolved into an illegal trespass into governmental data.
Our young people search with a mob-like mentality within the immense network of the internet, and all moral checks and balances are totally absent or unappreciated. We have not been sitting next to them at the computer to instill our values and moral fiber.
Just the fact that we can access specific information does not necessarily mean that it is in the public domain and free for the taking. How do we know such information is valid?
We will be left with what we teach our children. The ethics of this new digital world is in our hands. But how do we address a problem that we can neither see nor comprehend? I suspect Madoff’s gang thought they had found “The Right Answer”.
Tuesday, April 13, 2010
THE CENTERVILLE DANCEHALL
Dancing is a wonderful training for girls;
it’s the first way you learn to guess what
a man is going to do before he does it.”
-- Christopher Morley (1890-1957)
Every Saturday night the small town of Centerville, South Dakota was invaded by hoards of high-energy teens in penny loafers, blue jeans, plaid shirts and cool casuals from miles around. They came to kick up their heels to garage bands thumping out rock-n-roll hits.
My parents, Ted and Nora Foy, met at a dancehall near Yankton, South Dakota in the 1940s, and from 1958 to 1970, they owned their special oasis, "The Broadway Ballroom." The massive, white-clapboard monstrosity took up half-a-city-block on the corner of Broadway and Lincoln.
It was an opera house built in the late 1800s. During the dance craze of the early 1900s, a pavilion had been added to create an expansive floor with high, pressed-tin ceilings, oak-planked floors waxed for dancing, knotty-pine booths and benches, with classic red-and-white Coca-Cola signs on walls that were pungent with stale, past Saturday nights.
My father, Ted, the flat-top, sparkplug Irishman, and my mother, Nora, the ever-so-simple Norwegian, enjoyed watching these Midwestern kids have fun on the stage they created to put a few extra bucks in their pockets. Nora, parked in the ticket booth, handled the money, and Ted booked the bands, played amateur advertiser, part-time bouncer and all-around manager.
Bill was our enforcer. A towering six-foot-plus farm boy had arms thick as the timbers to muscle intoxicated youths to the door. He used the out-of-line teen heads as battle-rams cupped under each arm to open the swinging doors to the streets.
I was the geeky kid who was either dancing or sweeping the floors, stocking the concession stand, running for change, putting antifreeze in the toilets, scouting for trouble before someone got hurt and watching my parents work with passion and joy.
It was a prosperous and innocent era. Throughout the small farming community, the car-filled streets, stores, restaurants, bars and bowling alley bustled with the weekly hullabaloo.
Since we catered to teens, beer and hard booze were not allowed in the hall. Rumors of bottles spread swiftly. The offenders were banned for the rest of the night, but welcomed back the next week in exchange for a promise and apology.
Soda was served in glass bottles, chips were plain or barbecued, popcorn and candy bars were the only fare at the make-shift concession stand.
The music was on track promptly at 8:00 PM and never lasted past midnight. Wood-shedding bands like Patch of Blue, Smoke Ring, The Famous Apostles, The Seven Sons, Natural Colors and their line-dancers along with other up-and-coming groups were booked to impress the locals with aspiring musical talents.
Cold winter nights meant frozen toilets, frosted windows dripping moisture inside, small crowds dancing with snow boots, lost overcoats in a coat room jammed in disarray, spin-outs on the road home.
On hot summer nights the place rocked with sweaty, boogie-down teens dripping in hormonal exasperation. One summer night in 1968, with the three-piece Bobby Alison and the Shattoes, the stars were aligned when record attendance shot up to nearly 700, and the Fire Marshall was nowhere to be found.
The townsfolk had a love/hate with the ballroom. They wanted Centerville to prosper, but didn't appreciate the raucous, outlaw imports of nearby towns.
Sometimes a group of cocky Sioux Falls kids would make the journey. The University of South Dakota in Vermillion, twenty miles south, brought in the older, educated crowd smelling of alcohol. Drag races were staged west of town on the old beach road. Town gang fights were scheduled on the outskirts.
Beer cans thrown in the alleys, urination in the bushes and fatal automobile accidents on the country roads kept vigilant lawmen nearby. The highway patrol came armed with tape measures to ticket those who jacked up their car's rear end beyond the legal limits.
Meanwhile, the Battle of the Bands, Go-Go Girls, Beatle Boots and goofy hats, radio ads on KELO and KISD, Tommy Bolin's high school band, drum solos, howling Vox, organs, Fender guitars, harmonic vocals, all brought Southeastern South Dakota teens twisting, jerking, swimming, ponying and jigger-bugging into Ted and Nora's Centerville Dancehall destination.
Great Balls of fire brought down this ancient jewel and tinder box June of 1970 on a sleepy Sunday morning. Sparing a potential disaster and ending an era of many great years of music on Centerville’s main street.
Requests?
-- Patrick J Foy
it’s the first way you learn to guess what
a man is going to do before he does it.”
-- Christopher Morley (1890-1957)
Every Saturday night the small town of Centerville, South Dakota was invaded by hoards of high-energy teens in penny loafers, blue jeans, plaid shirts and cool casuals from miles around. They came to kick up their heels to garage bands thumping out rock-n-roll hits.
My parents, Ted and Nora Foy, met at a dancehall near Yankton, South Dakota in the 1940s, and from 1958 to 1970, they owned their special oasis, "The Broadway Ballroom." The massive, white-clapboard monstrosity took up half-a-city-block on the corner of Broadway and Lincoln.
It was an opera house built in the late 1800s. During the dance craze of the early 1900s, a pavilion had been added to create an expansive floor with high, pressed-tin ceilings, oak-planked floors waxed for dancing, knotty-pine booths and benches, with classic red-and-white Coca-Cola signs on walls that were pungent with stale, past Saturday nights.
My father, Ted, the flat-top, sparkplug Irishman, and my mother, Nora, the ever-so-simple Norwegian, enjoyed watching these Midwestern kids have fun on the stage they created to put a few extra bucks in their pockets. Nora, parked in the ticket booth, handled the money, and Ted booked the bands, played amateur advertiser, part-time bouncer and all-around manager.
Bill was our enforcer. A towering six-foot-plus farm boy had arms thick as the timbers to muscle intoxicated youths to the door. He used the out-of-line teen heads as battle-rams cupped under each arm to open the swinging doors to the streets.
I was the geeky kid who was either dancing or sweeping the floors, stocking the concession stand, running for change, putting antifreeze in the toilets, scouting for trouble before someone got hurt and watching my parents work with passion and joy.
It was a prosperous and innocent era. Throughout the small farming community, the car-filled streets, stores, restaurants, bars and bowling alley bustled with the weekly hullabaloo.
Since we catered to teens, beer and hard booze were not allowed in the hall. Rumors of bottles spread swiftly. The offenders were banned for the rest of the night, but welcomed back the next week in exchange for a promise and apology.
Soda was served in glass bottles, chips were plain or barbecued, popcorn and candy bars were the only fare at the make-shift concession stand.
The music was on track promptly at 8:00 PM and never lasted past midnight. Wood-shedding bands like Patch of Blue, Smoke Ring, The Famous Apostles, The Seven Sons, Natural Colors and their line-dancers along with other up-and-coming groups were booked to impress the locals with aspiring musical talents.
Cold winter nights meant frozen toilets, frosted windows dripping moisture inside, small crowds dancing with snow boots, lost overcoats in a coat room jammed in disarray, spin-outs on the road home.
On hot summer nights the place rocked with sweaty, boogie-down teens dripping in hormonal exasperation. One summer night in 1968, with the three-piece Bobby Alison and the Shattoes, the stars were aligned when record attendance shot up to nearly 700, and the Fire Marshall was nowhere to be found.
The townsfolk had a love/hate with the ballroom. They wanted Centerville to prosper, but didn't appreciate the raucous, outlaw imports of nearby towns.
Sometimes a group of cocky Sioux Falls kids would make the journey. The University of South Dakota in Vermillion, twenty miles south, brought in the older, educated crowd smelling of alcohol. Drag races were staged west of town on the old beach road. Town gang fights were scheduled on the outskirts.
Beer cans thrown in the alleys, urination in the bushes and fatal automobile accidents on the country roads kept vigilant lawmen nearby. The highway patrol came armed with tape measures to ticket those who jacked up their car's rear end beyond the legal limits.
Meanwhile, the Battle of the Bands, Go-Go Girls, Beatle Boots and goofy hats, radio ads on KELO and KISD, Tommy Bolin's high school band, drum solos, howling Vox, organs, Fender guitars, harmonic vocals, all brought Southeastern South Dakota teens twisting, jerking, swimming, ponying and jigger-bugging into Ted and Nora's Centerville Dancehall destination.
Great Balls of fire brought down this ancient jewel and tinder box June of 1970 on a sleepy Sunday morning. Sparing a potential disaster and ending an era of many great years of music on Centerville’s main street.
Requests?
-- Patrick J Foy
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