Vapors and Crazy

Reading for November 29, 2009

Time or no time? I just had to make the time, because the second grade was where I would be able to dispatch the language barrier.

St Hyacinth was "Swiety Jacka" in Polish. Not only would I be privy to the secret language of the adults at home, but I could cruise the neighborhood and talk with everybody there. From the neighborhood it would be on to the world. In my joyous state of mind, images of that heaven on earth wafted, as I saw the decoder allow people such understanding of life and each other that harmful/bad/evil/hurtful things would be able to be known ahead of time and changed into helpful/good/holy/joyful things. Oh boy, this was going to be good.

I was on the Polish highway reaching for my decrypter, with nary a speed limit sign to be seen.

Eager to see all my friends, and excited to begin my first Polish language class, the first day of 2nd grade couldn't come soon enough. Hmmmmmmmm – subtle, but total disintegration.....the likes of which I wouldn't experience for another four plus decades when my computer screen would flash: access denied.

Polish classes were stopped.

The line I got at the school from the nuns and priests was that we needed more time on all the other subjects. What I overheard in that place where adults talk more freely than anywhere else in the universe, my dad's drugstore (especially if I am completely out of view) was that while – yes - the other subjects did need as much time as possible; the real reason was to learn English, and learn it well enough, to forever rid the planet of the scourge of the stereotype: "dumb Polack".

How simple that posit seemed…………. and………….. how very much I had to learn about myself, in the ease, I would be finding "a", "some", "any", justification........... for hate.

The kindness of time, fused - probably as a result of some maverick Ras protein's last second experiment to meet an immunology class project deadline - with the hope of space, created an unbounded zilch about Lattice Q function for me to deal with that stuff later. Right now,though, bizarre was approaching front and center.

At first, I struggled to find a place for it in my seven year old mind. In short order, however, its inanity seamlessly dovetailed with all the other contradictions and weirdnesses I was picking up on; and, in comparison, television was becoming boring.

My second grade class started doing “something”.

This “something” I would come to know with unfailing certainty belonged to that same friggin crazy part of this world that was friggin crazy. We did this thing over and over, so that we could do it as quickly as possible. Of course, there was the usual giggling and joking 7 year olds did when confronting a thing so silly that, if we did it at home, we would be told to stop acting foolishly. Nevertheless, the nuns were unrelenting about “practicing” this absurd activity. The schoolyard skinny was that it was really important because people all over the city were doing the same thing. We even heard the signal loud and clear that told us to start our routine; and, someone had even mentioned that their uncle or aunt told them that people all over the United States of America were doing the same thing we were doing – but no one believed that!

Well over time, the second grade grapevine had all the juicy facts. What we were doing had a name. It was called a “drill”. A drill was exactly this "practicing" that we were doing – no matter that it was idiotic. It did not matter either, that "practicing" was the way we learned our prayers ~ and no one ever called that a drill ~ this was different ~ this was a drill. As we were learning more and more, we were becoming more and more mixed up.

Now finding out what the drill was for became my first exposure to senselessness.

We were learning to get under our desks to be protected from an “atomic bomb” that some really bad people over in “Russia” might be dropping on us.

I never did learn to appreciate my desk at St Hyacinth grammar school for its atomic bomb protecting abilities. One day, however, in eighth grade - after Billy Green and I managed to work out some of the screws that held his front row desk to the floor, and, we decided to see what would happen if we both pushed on it as hard as possible – I grew to love its ability to rocket forward and crash into the blackboard.

Join Captain Flip Side in his true life adventures every Sunday!

Happy daze,

The Captain

**special thanks to CATFISH of the great state of Californisurf, and its Green Flash for tutelage in the mathematical systems that bore the Zilch about Q Theory, which made the substance of this chapter possible

Encryption One

Reading for November 22, 2009

At the most interesting parts of conversations, which brought me edging closer and closer to hear more clearly, they broke into Polish! Secret codes and encrypted messages shared right in front of me. I understood nothing. Sure I heard Polish all around the neighborhood and in church, but I didn’t understand it. This never failed to infuriate me.

And there’s another thing. Some time last year after the religion class’ little oh, by the way to reach life’s goal of getting to heaven, there’s a load full of stuff to do teacher dinged us again. Sister Felicia was telling us about Mary, the mother of Jesus, and the many many reasons we have for honoring her. Sometimes, she said, the church picks out one of the most important reasons and makes a special day just for that. At the time last year we were about to celebrate the feast day of the Immaculate Conception; so, sister went on to explain its meaning. Mary, and only Mary, she went on to say started her life inside her mother without any sin, or pure, or Immaculate! I thought “like cool” that’s neat. Good for her. The hammer came down when Sister followed that with saying that everybody else that was born, came into the world in a state of sin. I thought, hey; wait just a minute, here! To me, this was the same as saying we all somehow arrive at this place, and then the very first thing that happens to us is that we are given a gigantic chore list – because we are flawed or something like that; and it was pissing me off. To add to all this, I began thinking, hey, I didn’t volunteer to be born, and I didn’t know of anyone else that did.

In some strange way, these very things that were annoying me, were also giving me sense of purpose. An internal directive emerged that overrode the questions of where am I and how did I get here – and inspired me to deal with the fact that I am here and I have things to do…………..like learn Polish. I thought of one of my favorite television shows: Flash Gordon. I decided I was going to be like Dr Zarkov. Zarkov had a limitless number of cosmic resources and inventions he used to save the earth from peril. I was going to invent and/or decode things to save life on our planet from that birth chore list for the flawed; and, then all of us could just be happy.

The third part of Sister Felicia’s catechismal dogma: “to serve God” then appeared in my mind and identified itself as that very inventing, decoding and saving the world. Okay, that still works.

Doing the “to know God” part still was “learning” for me and that was fun – so no problem there. Only one thing remained blurry, but somehow didn’t seem so important. The “blur” came in seeing the “to love God” and the “to serve God” parts as different. They seemed pretty much the same to me.

A more critical question was, whether - with all this other stuff going on - I was going to have time for the second grade.

Join Captain Flip Side in his true life adventures every Sunday!

Happy daze,

The Captain

There's something more

Reading for November 15, 2009

First grade class started off great. Teacher was actually echoing the very concerns I had. She spoke that first question that got me all pumped up from the start: “what am I doing here on earth?” Sister Felicia got my total attention when she set about telling everyone the answer. I really, really liked the way it began.

She said that we are on earth to know, love, and serve God. I liked that. I got the “knowing part”. I figured that was learning, school and all the really good stuff. “Love”, wow! I could do that easily, I was the “love baby”! Now I guessed the “serve” part must have been what my older brothers, Bob and Jerry were already doing as altar boys. I would see them “serving” mass up at the altar in the church where everyone in the neighborhood came to pray. I learned later that actually not everyone went to St Hyacinth School and church, that some people acted very differently from the people in my parish, and many of them weren’t even were Polish or Catholic; but that didn't come until later. I wanted to be an altar boy and serve mass too. I couldn’t wait. Sister Felicia went on to say that the knowing, loving, and serving God, then, was how we achieved the final goal.

Following ever word, I thought it made sense as Sister put it all together. The good Sister summarized that we were here, then, with the means to fulfill our one true purpose, which was to be with God in heaven. Once there, we would be in a state with “beatific vision” or, perfect happiness. She then described this happiness as being so big that she really could not put it into words because it was much greater than words, and - in fact - greater than anything on this earth. We were given the idea that it would be perfect ~ absolutely perfect happiness ~ we wouldn’t need, want, like, or desire anything – and nothing on earth could be perfect. I was musing the idea of being with God and absolutely happy, when suddenly, it dawned on me: this makes no sense. Why wait?

Now, as much as a six year old can, I deeply considered and weighed carefully, thoughtfully and thoroughly this position. I pondered as much as my then brain was capable of. I concluded that I already had "perfect happiness". In fact, so many happiness-certainties were filling my mind, that my first grade skull started to leak. I had vast love from my “love baby” status - and on this wise - all the affection and caring from my parents with special attention from my Aunt Nina, a burst of altruism and innate sense of service of others welled forth from somewhere in me and my hand shot up in revelation so profound I could not keep it to myself. Sister, sister, I have a question!

Yes, Henry, what is your question? I said, well if the goal of the life of humans is to be with God, why not take all the newborns and kill them so they could be with God right away? I thought that made sense, it fulfilled the goal, why go through all this life stuff, seemed like an unnecessary waste of time. I remember even then, speaking in the abstract, the underlying absurdity of killing babies sort of highlighted a system flaw...................there's something more.

Join Captain Flip Side in his true life adventures every Sunday!

Happy daze,

The Captain

SPECIAL EDITION

NOW

TODAY

Peace ... Beauty .. Love.... however they may be .....

obvious ~ pervasive / hidden \ rare\ | calm or fear

^...........^......... I commit my soul to this reality~~~

.............that they are here....................................

footprints on the Polish Highway

Reading for November 8, 2009

It was, then, in the fall of 2008, that my brother Thad and I walked past the “portal postal” to find lunch on the “Polish Highway” as we shared memories of childhood. Our parents, we mused, were drawn by the strong socio-cultural pull of migration in the 1930's and 40's. With this force growing stronger and stronger, the influence of the Polish Highway, surely as anything, drew our parents, Edmund and Helen to the Avondale neighborhood and the parish of St Hyacinth. I border on inordinate pride with the sentiment of having created the term “Polish Highway” for Milwaukee Avenue.

I believe it sociologically sound.

Milwaukee Avenue runs diagonally on Chicago’s northwest side. One can see the Polish migration running along Milwaukee Avenue followed closely by the Hispanic populace, and that, later, by the Black and Korean Communities. Two Polish dynasties jump easily to mind as examples. With long standing family businesses that have moved up along the Polish highway from Bucktown, and operate today at the time of this writing, are the “Wojciechowski’s Colonial Funeral Home” and the “Przybylo's White Eagle Banquets and Restaurant Halls” {notably both on the “Milwaukee Avenue”}

At a church on the city's near south side with close proximity to the genesis of this cultural trail, in 1995, I had an unusually clear view of the Polish Hispanic movement on Chicago's northwest side. In addition to the opportunity to see evidence of this cultural phenomenon, the intriguing circumstances provided a lesson in humility.

It was on a hot and humid day; one that Chicago can produce, even in Spring, with its asphalted zigguart zones radiating enough heat to compromise the laws of physics, that I accompanied my dear mother to St Pius Church. Our quest ~|~ my brother Bob's Baptismal certificate, the one that had to have the Church's validating embossed canonical mark. St Pius Church, located at 19th and south Ashland Avenue, was the first of the two wellspring parishes for my parents. Well when my mother and I entered the church record room, I inwardly groaned with the expectation of a long frustrating wait in this, the lair of the Luddite.

Not a single computer in sight.

The room was pleasant enough with the glow from weathered but gorgeous aged oak counters and a picturesque set of beautiful oak cabinets. The cabinets held thin, yet wide and deep drawers set with polished brass handles, which dutifully held the books wherein handwritten notations bespoke the intimacies of family passages. So my mother pulls out this piece of scrap paper with her perfectly straight practiced notations as to my Brother Bob’s exact name with the date, month and year of his baptism. The clerk, glancing at the paper as she headed to the drawers behind her, located with ease the decade required as indicated on the large worn but graceful drawer faces. She effortlessly opened the drawer marked 1930 to 1940 and brought out a long book from its conforming container. She then, swung easily, much like a professional dancer, to the counter where in rapid succession the book was opened to the year, month and date. Finally, with precision in her pleasingly clean fingers, locates my brother’s name and the information my mother requested. All this happened, I came to realize, in less time than it takes for my computer to even boot up; and even when my computer is running, the time I would need to find and open a program then activate a specific function (such as locating information on a date and year of a person's event) would take much more time then what I had just witnessed. I decided to be thankful for the quality lesson in humility and the fine example of the "Galileo - Minsky Paradox".

The ethno-cultural insight was spectacular.

In the book, I had felt compelled to peruse, the pages spoke loudly and clearly with the cadence of the multi-syllabic Polish names they bore. One after another was written, all with the running of consonants, not unlike my cousin’s marriage name: Przybylo. It was also as familiar as my grammar school role call: Karwowski, Kwasnieski, Gorski, Grabski, and Raczybowzinski. Then, after a few years, the list started developing a new "music" with an occasional Hispanic name; a Santiago, or Domingo here and there. Over the years, the register transformed into more and more Hispanic names until by the current year, all the names were Hispanic.

Sure, some of the same deep rolling "R" sounds which peppered both the Polish and Spanish languages were still present; but there it was: eloquent in its simplicity, profound in its plainness: cultural footprints.

Join Captain Flip Side in his true life adventures every Sunday!

Happy daze,

The Captain