08.13.08
Sandy Allen, R.I.P.
She passed at the nursing home where she’d lived for some time.
Never met her, even though she lived her entire life in a town about 25 miles northeast of the city where I live. Within four months of my age. Saw a fair amount of media coverage of her over the years. Admired her perspective, her crusty sense of humor, her genuine warmth, her enjoyment a bracing libation. She made friends where she could find them.
What we can learn from the life of the giant from Shelbyville is that real life is just that – real. It’s not the stuff of chick-mag advice columns or rock album covers or vapid politicians’ droolings about hope and change. It’s about conditions and parameters and finding your heart and mind anyway and finding a way to refine yur humanness so that people have kind things to say – and a little tear in the eye – when you pas sfrom this realm.
Mr. Dings said,
August 14, 2008 at 2:53 pm
But a whole whole lot of life is appearances too. Likely not to that creator God we generally, cannot see, but often think we do. Like the CEO of some oil co. I saw in passing on the tellie news last night. He just looks the part. Tall, think, silver hair, jut-jawed. Like the Olympic Adonais swimmer. Tall, broad wingspan, a body built for the water, by our maker. Short people got no reason to live.
Mr. Dings said,
August 14, 2008 at 2:53 pm
But a whole whole lot of life is appearances too. Likely not to that creator God we generally, cannot see, but often think we do. Like the CEO of some oil co. I saw in passing on the tellie news last night. He just looks the part. Tall, thin
, silver hair, jut-jawed. Like the Olympic Adonais swimmer. Tall, broad wingspan, a body built for the water, by our maker. Short people got no reason to live.
Administrator said,
August 14, 2008 at 4:24 pm
Well, real life involves human nature playing itself out, like tall lean guys with square jaws having a leg up in the corporate world. There are conditions within which we pursue our destinies.
Let us remember, though, that tall, lean good lookin’ guys can sometimes come to bad ends, exposed as phonies without a lick of sense, witness the trial lawyer from North Carolina – known in the video-editing world as “Love Lips.”
Mr. Dings said,
August 14, 2008 at 6:47 pm
And, put a uniform on and, presto! Better with a gun. Poor Sandy was a freak show. And how did some Chinese get so tall like Yao Ming (7′6″)? He’s the cat’s meow, even without his pajamas. Short man syndrome, sour grapes, from an formerly average sized guy I guess, akin to class envy. What would the world be without the darker sides of our nature? (Or the more animalistic?) You realize don’t you, that we shrink around 1cm. per decade after 40? Ahh, the Darwinian struggle. Helps to get prematurely grey in the corporate world, was’ up wi dat? Again, might (expressed through $$) is right. Gotta look the part. How deep is that? Yet, poor Sandy was a freak show. They had an interview with the tallest man from Beijing the other night on the tellie. He’s 7′9,” shattering illusions about little Chinamen, him and Yao. I’m pretty partial to the little bulging butts on the female gymnasts myself (that’s legal, ain’t it?)
Administrator said,
August 14, 2008 at 7:39 pm
I hope so. It’s the kind of fleeting jollies available to us in the enlarged-prostate demographic
Mr. Dings said,
August 14, 2008 at 8:08 pm
Beach volleyball, dude.