Indiana Oh Indiana

We Americans have been nurtured for more than two centuries by the idea of personal freedom. Emblazoned upon our collective consciousness are phrases like, “the land of the free” from Francis Scott Key’s Star Spangled Banner. We have clung to the idea of free choice as a result of our history classes showing us the horrors of strict dictatorships and oligarchies across the globe. Freedom of speech is of prime importance among our many liberties, though our broader freedoms of choice have sometimes been more blurred by varied experience, wealth, race, sexual orientation, education, religious affiliation, etc.

I have noticed more bravado recently on the evening news in comments made by people who seem to refuse recognizing recommendations and even laws about wearing masks in public places and keeping safe distances during the Covid 19 pandemic. In my entire life, I have never witnessed such bravado in dismissing established science facts and safeguards with the standard, “I’m an American and have freedom of speech and assembly.” Such grandstanding and disregard for the safety of others filters down, of course, from “the top” in an egomaniacal avalanche of refutation, posturing and pretense. The result is a perilous fantasy that everything is just fine, and that everything is under control by our capable leaders. The argument by others who flout current etiquette and law about masks and distancing is the terror that we could too easily become “a nanny state.”

The title of Frank Sinatra’s hit song of the 1960’s, “My Way” sums up the growing attitude of many Americans, who are weary of being cooped up and want to hear or pretend that everything is just fine again. During World War II Americans thoroughly observed in their homes and businesses black-out laws, as did the citizens of The British Isles. People may have whined about the inconvenience, but people were less likely to flout the laws, because there was a deeper sense that errors could harm others too. Our sense of community seems to have suffered set-backs since then. People grumbled in the 1960’s about seatbelts in their cars, but the facts about saved lives made most people less likely to disregard the law. I liken this to the current attitude of some in their reluctance to immunize against Small Pox, Polio, Measles, or any other dreaded disease that can be fought effectively through such serums. Science is not in the list of important considerations for such people. Our national “ME FIRST” mentality has risen to the surface again through those who would prefer a display of braggadocio and poor betting instead of protecting their own lives or those of others.

People are certainly weary of being cooped up and are nostalgic about what life was even six months ago. The Bubonic Plague of the middle ages and the Spanish Flu pandemic of 1918 must have made folks feel similarly imprisoned and bored. Today, the media give us a much wider view with many more mixed messages that can confuse and imperil many, who want or need to be dangerously optimistic instead of hearing heart-rending facts.

As a nation, we have not been this pessimistic since the Great Depression and World War II. We need to remember that some of our freedoms become blurred and even compromised when their misuse threatens the very lives of others. So many interviews I’ve watched on television showed people wearing swimwear and no masks on crowded beaches, enjoying the limelight and bragging at not being concerned about the virus, as though their stand is heroic instead of just plain stupid and possibly dangerous to others. As much as I admire and love the writing of Henry David Thoreau, his powerful essay, Civil Disobedience is not currently helpful or especially wise. “For government is an expedient by which men would fain succeed in letting one another alone; and, as has been said, when it is most expedient, the governed are most let alone by it.”

The worst current problem we have is mixed messaging, a yin/yang of careless disregard versus healthy fear and respect. We have to realize that this is all temporary and can be reduced only by everyone’s cooperation. In that regard, the Me Too movement has become the Me First mentality for too many. Our charity and patience are essential to our survival, and it is that mind-set that can and must prevail.     JB

I’m sure that anyone can stand back far enough to see the widest view of what occurred in Minneapolis last week, but I need to express some deep feelings (maybe even thoughts) about that tragedy and what followed.

Our national history is certainly smeared by racism and unfair entitlement, despite that part of our credo that asserts “All men are created equal.” That history even includes a devastating war that, based mostly upon skin color, almost destroyed the nation. Many of the wounds on both sides have never really been healed. Being forced to exist at the bottom of such a social totem pole, due to skin color, is something many don’t even begin to understand, but the unmitigated murder of George Floyd by “law enforcement” was the most recent of such atrocities going back over two hundred years.

Each time such a travesty occurs (and this is certainly not the first) mass demonstrations and rage have resulted. The arresting officer, Derek Chauvin, will be reviled (justifiably) until the next malefaction by police of his ilk bring more empty apologies to families of the deceased or maimed. Such folly and the resentments that accompany it are an awful blight on the nation and upon law-abiding, hard-working police officers across the nation. One fear I have is that all policemen will be clumped together in one unfair stereotype based upon villains like Chauvin. That will also be a blight upon our country’s ethos and history.

I was so proud of all those demonstrators of all ages and races, who peacefully made their voices heard with intelligence and compassion. The frustration and rage of many can be understood without effort, considering the scene played too many times a day on every possible newscast and talk show. The horror of it is embedded in the national conscience (if we have one), those torturous nine minutes reminding many of thumbscrews and other tortures without trial during the Middle Ages. I do understand the resulting wrath and exasperation of so many who feel powerless to stop such corrupt and evil behavior from those sworn to protect justice.

The other reaction I had was in conflict with the pride I had felt earlier in those thousands of people who created emotional posters and speeches evoking tremendous sympathy before the dark side of people returned in the form of looting stores of innocent businesses owned by struggling merchants who also have families to feed in a time of deep crisis beyond what can be measured by lawlessness. Seeing those masked bandits leaving destroyed stores in flames with TV sets and other appliances, clothing and more made my heart sink at any progress that seemed in those moments evaporating by those who set upon destroying the efforts of so many to bring peace and understanding through actual justice. I understand the feeling of hopelessness over laws that work for some and not others. It was as though all the work and compassion from the peaceful marchers across the country had been erased by yet more hate and desire for revenge, which are not always the same thing as justice.

No one knows how all this will play out. Much of the optimism and hope I had of so many thousands of people coming together for a common, powerful sharing of peace and hope for change melted away with every masked looter smashing his or her way through neighborhoods of cities all over the nation, only increasing the angst while solving nothing. Even though I still want to believe that progress can be made, it seems that too many among us insist on remaining where they are with no real attempt to change anything or anyone.  JB

       I’ve never comfortably labeled myself as a liberal or a conservative, as I see myself somewhere in between the stiff definitions both seem to have, especially now. The terms in our current political arena have lost their broader meanings to become almost comic caricatures of their former selves.

The American political landscape has become a war zone of almost cosmic proportions, based too much upon snide innuendo and self-righteous posturing. The two extremes are rich fodder for SNL skits, but the rivalry is no longer amusing, but rather poses an ugly and dangerous precedent that may leave other nations like Russia and North Korea in fits of laughter at seeing us destroy ourselves on the world stage. The far right has turned President Trump into an icon who can do no wrong, so that wearing blinders has become the norm for them, as they bristle when others point out his gaffs and sarcastic tweets. It is a kind of worship without any criticism of someone whose ego is already grotesquely inflated and makes the more liberal voters see him as being worse than Nero and Caligula ever were in ancient Rome. Everything the president thinks is blithely tweeted, which may comfort some into believing that anyone who is so apparently transparent and naïve, blurting his every thought, must be an honest man.

There seems to be no middle ground anymore. Extreme conservatives seem to excuse every gaff and cruel, fifth-grade insult (or at least seem not to care) the White House makes on a daily basis. While those on the more liberal left attack almost everything the president says or does. I don’t know if his fifth-grade vocabulary is a political tactic to woo the majority of his base or if it is no guise at all and represents his true intellectual level. I do know that he’s on stage all the time anyway and sees himself as the star of every event at every moment.

I believe we’re all weary of trying to prop up our beliefs in the face of vicious verbal attack. We have become a battlefield of righteous opposition, like the North versus the South during our horrendous Civil War of the 1860’s. There is bitterness and rancor on both sides. Our once shared values seem to be terribly out of focus.

It’s time to see again what we might share as a nation, despite our many other splintered and varied values (under only one flag) and stop constantly reducing one side or the other  to comic rubble. Both sides have issues and values worth considering and sharing, especially if we can stand back far enough to see the broader view. There have always been disagreements between Dems and the GOP, but I don’t recall another era (even the 1960’s) when the political arena was often just a Punch and Judy show, based too often solely upon the words “conservative” or “liberal.” We need a clearer and more accurate view of what those terms actually mean by stepping back to see them with greater clarity and honesty.

The term “one nation” in the Pledge of Allegiance has lost its meaning since the days when, as children, we recited the words in elementary schools of the 1950’s. Boxing gloves aren’t as effective for the nation as discussion and reasoning, minus the red-hot emotions we have seen so frequently the past three years, replacing those gloves with a reluctance to turn every issue into a political scoreboard. 

In fact, everything boils down to the next election. Having observed carefully and honestly (we hope) everything over the past three years, people just need to make sure they vote after taking all the hyped up rage manufactured by those who prefer an adrenalin rush instead of facts and balance. Gut feelings and truth don’t always agree, and it’s hard to admit this whenever we go astray of honesty, especially in politics. Whether the nation will be for us all, or just for the chosen few will turn out to be either a shared triumph or our undoing. It’s not too late to come together again under whatever president is chosen by the nation, but first we have to recall what our values truly are, if we can even remember them.   JB

One irony of our international need for isolation is that we are all feeling the effects of it from our own homes at the same time. That sentiment is universal and somehow brings us together in a collective sympathy for others who may feel the terrible absence of loved ones and friends in a time of fear and mystery too.

This afternoon I had on my earphones and listened to something on YouTube that moved me deeply. It was a Spanish choir and orchestra performing the song Moon River. The song is a favorite of mine, but beyond that, it was the faces of the musicians as they performed the music that brought back that joy of being in a large venue, like a theater or concert hall with many other people all sharing something beautiful and moving…together. Use earphones if you watch this little video and look at the faces of the performers, remembering the joy of being in large groups for a united purpose, whether it’s a play, concert, baseball, football, or basketball game, or rally…and that uplifting feeling of sharing with others something special.

Let’s remember that eventually such freedom of happy, safe crowds will return. For now, we have the telephone, FaceBook, and computers to connect with one another. Here is a link that I hope works to find what I was enjoying earlier. Paste it in the web search box.

Voces para la paz singing Moon River

We’re all in this together.

JB

The mystery is a powerful one to me. I don’t think it’s as much blind faith as rage against and mistrust of former government in America over the past fifty years. To many, a “broken” or risky system is better than one that excludes or panders (even though that is exactly what Trump is doing). Trump’s lies are a comfort to those whose vision has been irreparably damaged or criticized by educated and wealthy liberals. Trumpsters are people who are sticking their tongues out at the “old order” of the past four or five decades…the one that used to have power and influence in government. It’s all a kind of comforting illusion with a red hat that helps them pretend they have influence on the world stage again, as they did in the 1950’s, which they see as a golden age. Their spokesman has become a man who combines the ethos and irreverent style of Don Rickles and Rodney Dangerfield. Dignity is dead. JB

I remember my childhood to a great extent in terms of riding my bike, rolling down the dunes of Lake Michigan, roller skating on Hessville sidewalks, Mom’s endless supply of Band-Aids, my falling out of trees, bee stings, and playing softball in vacant lots without helmets. We all received scrapes and gallons of Bactine over the years, but not one of my friends was ever killed or even seriously hurt. We were allowed to be inventive in creating our own worlds, like our front porch becoming a spaceship.

We were left to our own devices and imaginations to come up with entertainment that was rigorous at times but I believe also very healthy in allowing us to figure things out for ourselves much of the time. That freedom encouraged creativity, independence, and how to get along with others. We loved being outdoors. I see so many kids now glued to their cellphones or iPads, cheated out of a rich social development that will pass them by right into adulthood with too little social interaction with actual people instead of tiny, restrictive visual screens. I don’t know the answer to this problem (which is a national one), but I hope that there will be a national realization of what has been lost in our descent into becoming a nanny state. Kids do need guidance, and lots of it, but they also need freedom to err and to create their own solutions to life’s problems in actual, face-to-face social venues.  JB

Grandma Bolinger came to our house every few months to spend two weeks with us.  She would stay with other relatives too, filling up her years in family guest rooms and bringing to each house her imperious and unbridled judgments on politics, cuisine, television shows, music, and fashion.  Admittedly, her taste in clothing was a bit geriatric, but the problem was that she tried to impose that taste upon the rest of the family. Most of her views were set in stone.

One visit began on Halloween night of 1957 when Grandma B arrived wearing an orange cardigan sweater, a black skirt with a large sequined poodle, and saddle shoes with bobby socks, her hair in a long pony tail secured by pink pop-beads.  She entered our house with her black handbag and luggage carried by the cab driver, and there was a deafening silence suggesting we were waiting for Grandma to say, “Trick or treat?”  The fact is, I would remember that entrance for all Halloweens afterward and recall it later as a “Whatever Happened to Baby Jane?” moment.

We all felt relieved after Grandma confined that long and dangerous hair by the usual bun and doffed those terrifying teenage garments for her usual white blouse, black cardigan, and tweed skirt.  Also the comfortable security of her black orthopedic shoes (what my sister Connie Lynn called “Wicked Witch of the West shoes”) brought sighs of relief from the rest of us.

Whenever Grandma B came to our house, we knew that there were certain television programs to be watched at her request.  Perry Como made her swoon like the teenager she had appeared to be on Halloween, but his singing was like a powerful sedative to me and my siblings.  Grandma, however, was always riveted by his crooning so that no interruptions were looked upon favorably, even coughing, sneezing, or trips to the bathroom.  She seemed to have similarly romantic feelings for Lawrence Welk and for James Arness, who played Sheriff Matt Dillon on her other TV addiction, GUNSMOKE.  Her final TV requirement was THE JACK BENNY HOUR during which every gesture by Mr. Benny threw the woman into gales of laughter.  During these shows my brother David and I would exchange looks of wonder, disgust, and facial contortions suggesting severe stomach cramps.

Even now I blame Lawrence Welk for the next turn of events which began with Myron Floren’s virtuoso accordion performance of “Lady of Spain,” which impressed Grandma B so much that she had to put both hands over her heart.  His rendition of “Alice Blue Gown” brought my mother to tears.  I was right there in our living room when these performances were watched, but little did I realize the longterm effects of Myron’s fingers flying over those accordion keys.

My mother’s attachment to the waltz, “Alice Blue Gown” went back to her first formal dance at the tender age of fifteen, when she had worn a pale blue, floor-length gown and a blue silk ribbon wound through the long braid of hair wrapped around her head.  By my father’s account, Mom had been a vision of loveliness and charm that evening with a gorgeous smile  and amazing eyes that captivated everyone in the ballroom. As she and my teenaged father entered the room, the orchestra’s conductor turned to see her, abruptly stopped the current musical selection, and played “Alice Blue Gown,” a baritone singing the words, all eyes on my young mother.  It was ever afterward my mother’s favorite song.

In her sweet little Alice Blue Gown

When she first wandered down into town,

She was both proud and shy as she felt every eye,

But in every shop window she primped passing by.

In a manner of fashion she found,

and the world seemed to smile all around,

Till it wilted, she wore it.

She’ll always adore it.

Her sweet little Alice Blue Gown.

After dinner one evening Grandma B announced that she thought it time for me to take music lessons and that she would pay for them the first year and even purchase the instrument.  The noose was now growing tighter, but I didn’t feel its grip until it was declared that the instrument would be an accordion.  The strains of “Lady of Spain” began at that moment to haunt me for the next year.  Dad agreed to the proposal and was further moved to acquiesce by the fact that unlike a piano, the accordion was not only portable but would require no rearranging of furniture in our house.  Coupled with my parents’ enthusiasm was Grandma B’s irrefutable generosity.  It was a done deal.  Any hope I had now of escaping those music lessons was like leaving the porch light on for Jimmy Hoffa.  I was doomed.

My music lessons began in March of 1958 on a Saturday morning when Miss Clairmont, my instructor, came to our house, where the lessons would be given at the same time each week, ten o’clock sharp for thirty minutes.  Miss Clairmont was that day wearing a black pleated skirt, a gray silk blouse, and black beads.  Those beads were an omen of things to come, though I hadn’t the sense to be tuned in to anything that morning except Miss Clairmont’s stack of sheet music and rather dazzling accordion, an instrument displaying more mother of pearl and gold leaf than the Palace of Versailles.  Her initials, D.A.C., were engraved on a red panel over the keyboard.  By contrast my accordion was a sober ebony with no sparkling accoutrements of any kind.  The complete appropriateness of that contrast didn’t strike me until much later.

Then I discovered that her name was Diane Arlene Clairmont and that she had actually played the accordion professionally for a couple of years at a night club in Chicago.  My first thought on the subject was how terribly far down the woman had fallen. I pictured her once wearing sparkling evening gowns and playing encores of “Lady of Spain” for an intoxicated but affluent audience who would stand and applaud while throwing kisses and ten-dollar bills.  Now here she was in our living room of shabby furniture whose glory had also suffered the ravages of time among the cheap art reproductions like our faded prints of “The Laughing Cavalier” by Frans Hals, and “The Blue Boy” by Thomas Gainsborough.

Despite my heart going out to poor Miss Clairmont and my wanting desperately to please her by doing well at my lessons, I was a consummate failure at the accordion, able to play only two songs that people recognized, “Silent Night” and “She’ll Be Comin’ ‘Round the Mountain.”  Unless it was the yuletide season, that left only one song to play when visiting relatives asked for a performance.  It got run into the ground pretty fast.  My rendition of “Alice Blue Gown” turned out to be much bluer than anyone had anticipated, and my chances of ever playing “Lady of Spain” with any competency were as great as my chances of playing “Flight of the Bumble Bee,” starring on the Lawrence Welk Show, or appearing at Carnegie Hall.  My mother did cry when I played “Alice Blue Gown,” but I couldn’t tell if her tears were from nostalgia or from the many wrong notes of my less than lovely performances of the song.

The other thing that permanently scarred my ego was that our cocker spaniel, Topper, howled to go outside as soon as I even picked up the accordion, and my family would all leave the house on Saturday mornings at 9:58, always on the pretext of some group errand or on the grounds that they didn’t want to disturb the “flow” of my music lesson.  Yeah, right.  During the year that I took those lessons, Miss Clairmont never committed suicide, but I imagined more than once her limp body being found in some motel room, her accordion unfolded and sparkling on the bed next to a note explaining her utter revulsion at having to teach music to a boy whose rendition of “Volare” took six weeks for him to learn and another six weeks for her to erase from her memory.

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This was an excerpt from one of my books…a novel called This Ain’t No Ballet, available as paperback or Kindle on Amazon or as paperback at Barnes & Noble and other bookstores nationwide.  JB

I confess that I feel a bit slow-witted in my backward attempts to understand, on any level, the phenomenon of our current president’s popularity from his voting base.  At the beginning of his campaign in 2016, I didn’t quite understand the frightening allure of the carnival medicine show so prominent in the media. The outrageous but hypnotic tactic of breaking all the rules of former decorum did catch our attention as a nation, but Trump’s vulgarity and transparent attempts to pretend thumbing his nose at the “establishment” appealed to the top and bottom levels of American voters.

First, there was the extremely wealthy upper two percent of Americans (Trump’s tax cut was, of course, for them). Then there was the lower echelon of our nation (those who struggle to make ends meet), who had seen Washington as greedy and corrupt as any other government in history. They knew Trump was a bully whose tactics would probably be questionable, but they wanted and needed to believe that he was authentic and on their side. Their wishful thinking was like that of children who still believe in Santa Claus, but for many it was the final thread they could grasp and believe would hold them up. Unlike President Obama, a man of eloquence, tact, and compassion, Trump is amoral, but that also means (to his base) that he can fight “dirty” for them, if need be. That is his persona, one that his base still believes will work for them, despite the fact that our country is being tarnished on the world stage by the effects. He convinced them that he gave a damn (which in Hollywood could have won him an Oscar). That is the irony that escaped me, despite one deception after another, accumulating finally into a stack of bold-face lies the height of Mount Everest.

I have been astonished over and over again at the TV coverage of Trump rallies with red-capped worshipers in the background wearing vacant expressions of empty adoration for a man who had convinced them all that he was fighting for them, despite the fact that his shining armor was empty of even the slightest bit of sincerity or authenticity and was to become part of a stage set of actors spouting endlessly outrageous but vapid accolades from the ventriloquist leader himself. Those audiences needed desperately to believe that Trump would be pushy, gritty, and even mean enough to fight what they all wanted to think was an utterly reprehensible government that had cared nothing before about the needs of the needy. They saw him as the rebel they wanted in order to shake up the old order they hated so much. No persona in the history of world literature could have been more deviously wrought.

Though the MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN logo has evolved into the delusional KEEP AMERICA GREAT, more folks have caught on to the carnival side show deceptions of a man whom history will remember in far different terms from those of the poor victims who now venerate him.  JB

Is it possible that anyone this side of a coma missed the blaring irony of the mob Republican men “storming the citadel” to claim a cover-up was occurring and that other info was being withheld at the Deposition on October 23? Friends, this is an SNL skit in the making. Those Republicans used distraction to try turning the deposition into a football game with the offense all wearing designer suits and ties while showing off their phones, like weapons, recording the resulting chaos as though attending a witches’ coven they wanted to expose for coverage on Fox News.

Even though protocol was observed by the Dems, following rules to the very letter, the Republican men, with chaos and distraction as their goals, pretended to own the space as though no one else was actually there. I suspect that they might even have believed that their chutzpah could actually have appeared heroic on some level instead of the rude, loud, vulgar display it turned out to be for the American public. The rules of order and even the Constitution itself seem to have been forgotten in the melee that ensued.

However uncomfortable and embarrassing this process may be for certain people, it needs to reach its conclusion, as dictated by law, not by public displays of tantrums to try modifying the legal process just for the chosen few with their imperial leader, whose loyalty and good faith have never been witnessed by anyone in or out of his political realm. Devotion to Donald Trump remains a mystery to most of the rest of us, who have seen the things of which he is capable. Any “loyalty” to him must be based then upon fear, especially regarding the voters who still worship blindly this despot, whose view of anything or anyone doesn’t seem to exist outside his own reflection in the nearest mirror.

In any event, the process needs to be completed, unimpeded by political shenanigans on either side. The Mueller Report was necessarily a flop, due to its weak presentation and the editing it endured by those in power.  Truth and justice should prevail without favoritism or fear of reprisal for those who must make the difficult decisions regarding those conclusions. Yesterday’s embarrassing event seems like something from the time of Andrew Jackson. Bad sportsmanship through cover-ups and trying to stall the truth with threats may sadly put an ugly face on the GOP for this part of our history as a “free nation.” Truth and civility should go together, but right now, Archie Bunker and Don Rickles still seem to be our leader’s models of eloquence and behavior on and off Twitter. Dignity has been on hiatus now for the past couple of years. Many of us want it to return and remain.  JB

What disturbs me most about our current political situation in The United States is that our president has worshipers who see nothing wrong (or won’t admit seeing anything wrong) with his behavior. The nation (like other nations) is divided into “haves” and “have-nots,” as it always has been. The have-nots found in Trump a vulgar, abrasive, puerile leader who, unlike them, has the power (or chutzpah) to scream at the establishment  (of which he is ironically a prime member) and pretend to thumb his nose at the values of the rich, while he luxuriates in his dominance, authority, and supposed wealth and privilege.

Of course, the “haves,” though quite aware of Trump’s moral depravity, will not call him out, because they are benefitting more than the rest of us by the man’s cheating the nation for his own financial gain and political power. It’s why so many seem blind to his detestable personality, values, back-stabbing behavior and general repulsiveness. Instead of a weaker but honest, fair-minded leader, they have chosen an ogre who, even fifty years ago, would have been the stuff of fiction, someone right out of the works of George Orwell.

President Trump has managed to convince the “lower” echelon of our country that he is on their side. My prayer now is that he fails to cheat the nation in the next election, even if he doesn’t get impeached and removed early from office. If his fawning rabble has not yet learned (or admitted to) the truth, our dictator in chief will not be leaving The White House until the nation collapses or becomes the true dictatorship that Trump thinks it should be. Just remember that when Trump refers to the USA as “my country,” he means it literally. JB