Happy 100th, Sepia Saturday! ~~ A "Sepia Saturday" Post... Obviously!

Today marks the 100th Sepia Saturday post! Well, not counting a few thousand individual posts which have used that mighty meme as a prompt, of course.

To commemorate this occasion, as well as yesterday's Veteran's Day, I'm going to showcase two individuals. And as a special treat to you, dear readers, I'll keep my usual blitherings to a minimum.

1. The first is the one veteran in my immediate family: My dad, Edwin L. Lynch (1916-1968). I have several photos of him in his army uniforms, but scanner problems prevented me from using any of them. (The above shot came from a newspaper article on the September 28th, 1940 day when he married my mother.)

It's actually almost fitting that this post has no shots of him in uniform. Drafted only months after the death of a daughter who had only survived a couple of days, my father served in the Army from 1943 to 1945 under General Mark Clark in Italy (mostly). He had more than his share of negative memories of his time in the service, but he was hardly alone in that respect, of course. 

He never discussed his war experiences with me.

On one occasion, according to my Uncle Bob, my father literally buried his war medals -- Bronze Star, Oak Leaf Cluster, Good Conduct Medal, and lesser awards -- in the backyard. He later relented, evidently; I now own them.

He also became extremely angry when my cousin Joe -- almost a younger brother to my mom than a "real" nephew -- expressed an interest in joining the service.

Someday, I'll show a few photos of my dad in his army duds... but not today.

And now...

2. Thanks once again to scanner issues, the above photo of opera singer Polyna Stoska is not from my own collection of photos, nor are any of the others of Ms. Stoska that accompany this post. Even if my scanner had been working, all I have here at home are a couple of newspaper articles.

If 1930s-1950s opera star Polyna Stoska -- and I promise to do a "real" article on the woman in the near future -- is still alive, she would have turned 100 years old in July of this year! At this date, I have no way of knowing whether she is alive or not... but that doesn't mean I'm not still checking.

And why, you may wonder, is Polyna Stoska (née Stoskus) featured here at all, other than the fact that she would be 100 years old today dovetails so nicely with today's Sepia Saturday theme?

Well... my very own mom knew Ms. Stoska under a third name: "Cousin Polly!" (Yep, her real cousin!)

More to come? You bet!

Thanks for your time.

Who [Writes] Short Shorts? -- A "David'Z RantZ" Post

Short Shorts this time, fellow babies!

1. If you wanna drag me over to your computer to show me your cool new photos, try renaming them something that makes sense first. 1250024552Yw0FWh doesn't mean monkey-f*** to me, nor does it to you, I expect. So if you wanna show me a shot of your Aunt Sadie proudly holding her newborn grand-nephew, label it something that makes sense, like "Sadie with baby Arthur" or whatever. That way you can find it more quickly.

2. I have determined that UPS stands for "You People Suck!"

3. (This one is specifically aimed at one friend and one relative, neither of whom read my blog. So why am I writing this? It's called venting, boys and girls!) When you get a cell phone, you are making an implicit agreement with the Universe to be available to everyone on earth, twenty-four hours a day... forever. I don't wanna call you and get your freakin' voice mail, or worse, a recorded message saying that you haven't even bothered to set up your voice mail yet! "I can't get to the phone right now..." Oh, yeah? The doggone thing should be Super Glued to your ear!

4. Here's some good news! This Saturday marks the 100th edition of Sepia Saturday! I am gonna try my darnedest to participate. In honor of Veteran's Day (today) and in honor of the Sepia Saturday "100th" theme itself. I plan a mercifully brief post about not one, but two family members! (I say "plan." That could depend on my #6, below.)

5. I'm following so many other blogs lately, it's cutting into my writing time. So, fellow (and lady) Blogger-bloggers, please don't take it personally if I don't visit you as much for a bit. My shit blog comes first.

6. I know that medical terminology evolves as they learn more and more about the workings of the mind and body. For example, many of the kids currently diagnosed with ADHD are what we used to call "brats." (And if you have one who legitimately has ADHD, please don't leave a nasty comment. This is primarily a humor blog, and these are RantZ!) Anyway... Are they still calling a "nervous breakdown" a "nervous breakdown?" Cuz... I think I'm having one.

That is all. Thanks for your time.

Oh, Well...

Gee, fellow babies, I was planning a great new Comical Wednesday post, to be followed by a terrific Theme Thursday entry...

But you know what? I've been too busy. Oh, well, it's only an effin' blog.

See you soon. I'll be out of town for a couple of days, but I am hoping I'll have a Sepia Saturday offering this week...

Thanks for your time.

"The Pome to End All Pomes?"

The Lair of the Silver Fox was just chosen the Blog of the Month by The River. And it's a real award, not one of those annoying chain-letter memes. Thanks to The River's small but dedicated staff!

I'm going to leave this pome up for a few days, and link this post to dVerse Poets Pub's Open Link Night -- that link goes live on Tuesday @ 3 p.m. -- to let some of the really polished poets get a look at it, too.

And now... my pome. (And yes, of course I know that it's "poem" and not "pome." Give me some freakin' credit, willya?)

*  *  *  *  *

Auburn

Somewhat lacking symmetry,

A hungry dog strikes its prey in the alley.

And my sins come back

To remind me of the summer rain.

Why this time?

Is there any truth to what we've been told?

The dog barks, frustrated,

As are we.

In our festive musings

Some are so often set adrift.

Tomorrow night

A hungry cat will meow instead

As the dog swims, dissipated,

And none save Clytaemnestra

Can ever break the chains

Our fathers and their sisters forged.

And the dog barks yet again

To show me

The Error

Of Someone Else's Ways.

*  *  *  *  *

And after that? Yer on yer own, fellow babies!

Thanks for your time.

Well, Bully for You! -- A "Theme Thursday" David'Z RantZ Post

A little Anger Music, maestro, please!

This is only a tenuous link to this week's Theme Thursday theme, Gadget, but here 'tis, fellow babies:

OptimizedApps.com has a new app called a Bully Button for your iPhone. With it, you can record and report instances of school bullying. (I'm simplifying, of course. Here's the link to the full article if you want to read it.)

OptimizedApps CEO Thomas Murphy says: "Everything's on camera now. That's just how it is. If you're doing something that's good to be doing, it doesn't matter whether or not we see you doing it. If you're doing something bad that you're ashamed of doing, then you shouldn't be doing it."

Fair enough.

Bullying -- physical or emotional -- sucks. In fact, in the real world, we have another name for bullying.

Abuse.

"He abuses his wife." What, like, he beats her up? Or "just" belittles her and makes her feel like total crap in front of her friends, family, children, etc.?

Like either one is okay?

"He abused a child." You mean, he sexually molested some poor kid, or did he smack the kid around anytime no one was looking? Or "only" insult the child and make him or her doubt his/her self-worth?

Like any of those are okay?

Hell, you wanna know something? If you were a bully when you were in school, or at any time during your life... You suck.

And that's "suck" in the present tense, even if the last arm you twisted or the last crying kid you taunted was in the schoolyard thirty years ago... unless you've apologized to the kid(s) in question (if that's at all possible) and whatever God or gods you believe in (if you've got one or more).

What, angry? Me? Ya think?

I was bullied a few times in school. It wasn't so much that I was small ('though I was, kinda), or weak (not really, I wasn't) or cowardly (not at all). In my case, I was less likely to fight back because I was always afraid of "getting in trouble" for fighting. And those who knew that fact figured I was "safe" to pick on.

The worst that it ever got for me in grammar school was when I was in second grade, I think. Making a long story short, a guy named Mark would come looking for myself and a few friends every day at recess as part of a stupid game called "Yum, Yum, Eat 'Em Up!" Mark never did anything really violent to any of us, but he roughed us up a lot. And every day. That was too much.

I seemed to be his favorite target. I dreaded hearing that moronic yell of "Yum-Yums!" which signified that Mark had spotted me and was on the attack. And in Mark's case, I never even thought about fighting back. I mean... Come on. I was a second-grader. He was a third-grader. There's some kind of law of Nature or Physics or Some-Damned-Thing that says that a third-grader can automatically outfight a second-grader.

So I told my mom, and asked for her advice. Actually, it's not fair to suggest that I was mature enough to actively seek her counsel. Uhhhh, no. She had demanded to know why I kept "faking sick" and coming up with other ploys to keep me from attending school.

I'm not sure what my dad -- whom I rarely saw because his work schedule demanded that he sleep during the day -- would have advised. My mom talked to the school principal.

My own second-grade teacher walked up to Mark one day as he held me pinned against the school wall, and she trotted us both to the principal's office. As the other kids in the playground stared at us, she told me "Don't worry, David, you're not in trouble."

So, I walked into Mrs. Boyle's office with kind of a grin.

In a matter of minutes, Mark had explained that this was all a silly game called "Yum, Yum, Eat 'Em Up!" There was no actual bullying, just a little innocent, playful rough-housing.

"So, this was all a misunderstanding," offered Mrs. Boyle.

WTF?

I was still the seven-year-old who was "afraid of getting in trouble," remember? So I didn't dare say what I was thinking.

And what I was thinking, of course, was my seven-year-old self's equivalent of "Are you kidding me? A misunderstanding? Is it a 'misunderstanding' when someone pushes you down, or punches you, or twists your arm behind your back? Are you f***ing kidding me?!?"

But no. Of course, I didn't say any of that.

Mark never bothered me again. That would have blown holes in his earlier "game" excuse. But that wasn't even the freakin' point any more.

At least... At least seven-year-old David learned some very important things that day.

1. Public school teachers, paid by the taxpayers' dollars, often want to please everyone. And as most people who try to please everyone eventually learn, when you try to please everyone, you end up pleasing no one.

2. Don't expect anyone to fight your battles for you. Maybe they can help you, but they can't do it all for you.... especially if you want the result to please you.

He hadn't written "A Boy Named Sue" yet when I was in second grade, but Shel Silverstein later wrote -- and Johnny Cash sang -- "get tough or die," and he had one helluva point.

3. To hell with "getting in trouble." Do what your heart -- your "gut" -- tells you to do. Just remain true to your own sense of fair play. As Jiminy-effin'-Cricket said, "always let your conscience be your guide." If you hit me, I'll probably fight back. If you hurt someone whom I care about, though... You just made a very bad enemy.

It's almost scary to think of how some of the later incidents where people thought I was cowed were just examples of my enormous self restraint. Don't get me wrong, I'm not trying to make myself sound like some sort of bad-ass -- I'm emphatically not a bad-ass! -- but there were a few instances where some guy who thought he was being tough didn't realize that while I was sitting or standing there, quietly & maddeningly smiling at him, I was actually thinking about how surprised he'd be if I lashed out, screaming like a madman, and smashed my stack of schoolbooks against the side of his head, and... and...

Oops. Where was I? Heh.

No, I never did anything crazy like that in school. Worst thing I ever did was when some prankster pulled my pen out of my shirt pocket. He caught me on a bad day. I grabbed his throat with one hand and slammed him up against my locker.

I got the pen back.

Okay, enough of my school days. Let's jump ahead, twenty years after Mark and the "Yum Yums," for not one, but two applications of the lessons I learned when seven.

When I was engaged for the second time, my fiancée Faye -- Number Two in a series, collect 'em all! -- loved to make me the disciplinarian -- a/k/a "villain" -- where her two kids were concerned. One day I came home from work to find that her son Jason was "grounded in his room," waiting for me.

Jason was ten or eleven at the time. I was to decide his "official" punishment.

"What did he do?" I asked.

"I'll let him tell you," she replied, rather smugly.

So she and I went to his room. "What did you do, Jay?"

"I got in a fight at school."

Terrific, I thought. I'm sure this could have been avoided...

So I asked for details. (And I'm going to make up some names here to make for easier reading.)

Jason's friend Steven was involved in a fight with another kid named Danny. Steven was losing. Jason stepped in to help Steven. I wasn't pleased at all that Jason had interfered, even if Steven had been losing what was, after all, a fair fight.

Ah. But that's when Jason explained that he had indeed stayed out of the fight until Danny's friend Eric had jumped in, to help Danny beat up Steven... who was already losing!

Faye was rather shocked when I looked at Jason and said "Oh. That's different. Go out and play."

As Jason ran outside, I matter-of-factly informed Faye "I would have done the exact same thing. I'm proud of him!"

Sure, he'd broken school rules by fighting. But I admired his motivation. Zorro, The Lone Ranger, Batman, Captain America... They would have all protected the underdog. To hell with "getting in trouble."

And there was another time... Faye's daughter Jen was being bullied by another girl at school. Jen was about twelve, I believe. Faye looked at her and gave her one of the dumbest pieces of advice I've ever heard, one which parents often use in cases of bullying, sad to say:

"Just stay away from her."

I stared at Faye as if to say what I should have said to Mrs. Boyle twenty years earlier: "Are you f***ing kidding me?!?"

Faye looked at the deranged expression which (I assume) was on my face, turned back to Jen, and said once more "Just stay away from her."

And it alllllllll came back. Mark. "Yum, Yum, Eat 'Em Up!" The stupidity of school officials. You name it. I'd heard the same lame-ass "Just stay away from him/her" before, and it always infuriated me.

"Don't tell her that!" I exclaimed. "Don't ever tell her that!" I then went on a verbal tirade, pointing out that these bullies seek out their victims. I literally challenged Faye to try to "stay away from" me. "Go ahead!" I dared her. "Just for the sake of argument, you walk into any room in this apartment, and we'll see if I can or can't follow you in there! What the hell is wrong with you? Don't ever tell a kid that!"

Yeah, I was furious...

But not as much as when I finally stopped ranting... because that's when Faye gave me that look that said "Are you done?" and she looked at Jen once more and said "Just stay away from her." As if I hadn't said a word.

Thank God I'm not the type of jackass who hits women. Cuz even though it didn't even occur to me then, that might have been the moment I'd have done it out of anger, frustration, outrage, you name it.

But even if I had, I'd never try to justify it.

Cuz you can't.

Cuz bullies suck.

Thanks for your time.

One Last Stab at Halloween

Okay, fellow babies, here's a Halloween Quickie for you!

Ah, 'tis the season for all parents to go through their kiddies' Halloween loot to make sure there are no poisons, pins, or razor blades (as in the photo at the top of my post) embedded in the candy.

But you know something? I've seen people doing that since the early 1970s, and I think the paranoia is over-blown!

Read here and here, and see if you don't agree, at least a bit!

Okay, gotta run. I wanna post this, and there's someone knocking at my door...

A trick-or-treater? Don't be silly!

See? I told you I wasn't totally unreasonable!

Thanks for your time.

A Zero for Zorro!

A BEVY OF CAPES, for Halloween

Before I do anything else, I want to commemorate the 125th "birthday" of The Statue of Liberty by posting this photograph of its sculptor, Frédéric Auguste Bartholdi, shown here using his cell phone!

And now...

Today, fellow babies, in honor of Halloween, I'm posting a poem about some of the adults that like to "play dress-up." And since I often talk about Zorro, as well as other caped heroes... here's a love poem I call...

A BEVY OF CAPES

There've been a lot of Zorros,

Many actors who have played the role,

With capes of varying length.

These cloaks provide a bit of flash,

Or concealment,

Or in some cases,

Even a sort of majestic flair.

Mine provides all of that,

And then some.

It gives warmth

And protection from the elements,

And the symbol of my longing to provide

A cocoon...

Or other enclosure...

Even a world separate from all others...

And all of that

For only myself and my lady fair.

Worn by any other,

These capes are just an accessory,

An afterthought to an adventurer's costume.

In the end,

Just a piece of fabric...

But not mine.

Longer capes there may indeed be.

Warmer capes, too, perhaps.

Capes of thicker fabric

Or more costly material

There may be as well.

Mine, however,

Exemplifies the heart within

The man

Who dons the costume.

A heart that's pure,

And true,

And loyal,

A heart that beats solely for milady.

No other can compare,

Nor compete!

No other heart,

No other love,

No other lady.

*  *  *  *  *

Any Freudian symbolism is all in your mind, by the way.

Thanks for your time.