Everybody’s in such a hurry today. From my pespective as a morning pedestrian on my walk around the lake, I walk on the road or on a path right next to it, and the vehicles race by, with no special regard for me – or for the speed limit for that matter.
I worry about that cup of coffee or cell phone in the right hand, or the paper in the briefcase that the driver might be reaching over to get as he or she approaches me. In my mind’s eye, I see the car swerve toward me and then I have to change the channel.
This perception of being completely defenseless against these missiles going by me, three feet away, at forty miles an hour, has made me intolerant of speeders, but I am a voice crying in the wilderness of tires spinning by me and sound systems with the insistent beat of juvenile idiocy pouring out the windows.
I’ve tried to persuade the city administrators to stop by the road, walk with me, stand where I walk, but either they do not deign to visit or they stay safely ensconced in their own multi-ton missiles.
The police make an attempt at enforcement every once in a while, but they have other priorities.
It is no longer a personal priority to understand that speed limits are set for a reason and that to obey them is desirable. We are all too important (yes, me too, but only on occasion) so that when late for that important appointment, we bend the rules in our favor and race down the road. Much easier than allowing sufficient time to arrive without breaking the unenforced law.
But here’s the point: Speeding doesn’t really get you there significantly faster than just going the speed limit. Probably isn’t too good for your blood pressure, either.
When I’m out walking, all the late people speeding doesn’t do one damn thing for my language or my blood pressure. I walk for exercise and for the loons and their chick, the ducks and the geese and the egrets and the sunrise and the wind in my face and the ever-changing clouds.
But you’re in a hurry and don’t see a bit of it. You think you’re on your way to more important things, but you would never convince me of it.
Thing of the fragile pedestrian just off your right fender; drive safely – and slowly – and how about starting today...now?
Monday, October 14, 2002
Tuesday, October 1, 2002
The Maul, er, Mall of America
Recently, Karen and I paid a rare visit to The Mall of America in Bloomington, Minnesota, located not far from our airport and nearly as big as. The Mall of America is celebrating its tenth anniversary which, according to those who are paid to invent meaningless declarations, is a Big Deal.
If you like a great big shopping mall with every national chain you can find in separate malls in other and more sensible parts of the country. If you must buy your shirts from a start with a 1957 Buick halfway through the show window, then by golly, the Mall of America is the place for you. If you watch Entertainment Tonight, believe Las Vegas to be one of the great places to pass more than about six hours, then you should hitch up your britches and move your tush in the direction of – yup – The Mall of America.
Or if you think that an indoor roller coaster is the cat’s meow, then point your roadster toward The Mall of America.
What I can’t figure out is this: If you are a beautiful person, the Mall of America cannot do a thing for you. If you are not a beautiful person, all the gewgaws and gimcracks which you might acquire by ripping your credit card through a card reader at warp speed ain’t gonna help.
I understand that for some shopping is therapy, entertainment, a chance to get together and waste time with people you like. It is also a delusion – surrounding yourself with stuff is not the freeway to bliss.
If you’re going to look at stuff, you’d be better off looking at great paintings, sculpture, or furniture at a local museum. That visit won’t cost you very much, and in the process you might find your spirit uplifted by the beauty and creative vitality which surrounds you.
I used to wonder why my father always wore clothes which were thirty years out of date and shoes which were half a century old. It took me a while to discover that he was not much for fashion (although he was interested in style), and his shoes were handmade in London, cost him a fortune, but he amortized that expense over a lifetime of comfort, so they were cheap in the long run (And yes, I wear them now, so they’re now in their eighth decade of active use. )
Clothes do not make the man, and an active intelligence is never out of date – unless it falls into desuetude (God, I love using that word!), through lack of use. Maybe you learn that only after your fourth decade on the planet.
Watching the shoppers at the Mall of America, now celebrating its tenth anniversary, made me sad – sad about the impact marketing has on our lives, sad about anybody believing they were acquiring some harbinger of happiness in such a place, sad about the fact that our government is trying to sell us on a war on Iraq with the same flimsy propositions and lack of evidence used to sell us on the latest model of (fill in the blank here).
If you like a great big shopping mall with every national chain you can find in separate malls in other and more sensible parts of the country. If you must buy your shirts from a start with a 1957 Buick halfway through the show window, then by golly, the Mall of America is the place for you. If you watch Entertainment Tonight, believe Las Vegas to be one of the great places to pass more than about six hours, then you should hitch up your britches and move your tush in the direction of – yup – The Mall of America.
Or if you think that an indoor roller coaster is the cat’s meow, then point your roadster toward The Mall of America.
What I can’t figure out is this: If you are a beautiful person, the Mall of America cannot do a thing for you. If you are not a beautiful person, all the gewgaws and gimcracks which you might acquire by ripping your credit card through a card reader at warp speed ain’t gonna help.
I understand that for some shopping is therapy, entertainment, a chance to get together and waste time with people you like. It is also a delusion – surrounding yourself with stuff is not the freeway to bliss.
If you’re going to look at stuff, you’d be better off looking at great paintings, sculpture, or furniture at a local museum. That visit won’t cost you very much, and in the process you might find your spirit uplifted by the beauty and creative vitality which surrounds you.
I used to wonder why my father always wore clothes which were thirty years out of date and shoes which were half a century old. It took me a while to discover that he was not much for fashion (although he was interested in style), and his shoes were handmade in London, cost him a fortune, but he amortized that expense over a lifetime of comfort, so they were cheap in the long run (And yes, I wear them now, so they’re now in their eighth decade of active use. )
Clothes do not make the man, and an active intelligence is never out of date – unless it falls into desuetude (God, I love using that word!), through lack of use. Maybe you learn that only after your fourth decade on the planet.
Watching the shoppers at the Mall of America, now celebrating its tenth anniversary, made me sad – sad about the impact marketing has on our lives, sad about anybody believing they were acquiring some harbinger of happiness in such a place, sad about the fact that our government is trying to sell us on a war on Iraq with the same flimsy propositions and lack of evidence used to sell us on the latest model of (fill in the blank here).
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