Blame It All on Dickens

BLAME IT ALL ON DICKENS

           “Please, sir, I want some more.” This is the famous line from Charles Dickens’ novel Oliver Twist, which started it all. It was that poor, starving orphan boy who had the temerity to ask for a little more of the gruel being served to all of the children in that workhouse that pointed us in a wrong direction.

            Just as in our country today, in the 1830s England was wrestling with the problem of blending a free market economy with democracy. How does a democracy deal with the cycles of unemployment which are part and parcel of a free market economy? How does a society which is supposed to be responsive to the demands of the majority deal with chronic, long-term poverty?

            Well, good ole Charlie Dickens through his waif Oliver Twist made people feel sorry for those poor people. Then he threw Ebenezer Scrooge at us, trying to show how miserable a person could become if he thinks only about his own economic welfare.

            Recent comments in this newspaper, particularly some Letters of the Editor, some guest columnists, and some ads about the referendum on the sales tax for schools suggest that perhaps we need to dig up old Charlie’s bones so we can put him on trail for “crimes against self-interest.”

            After all, all those do-gooder liberals, bleeding heart socialists, and namby-pamby backers of social welfare programs got their start with Dickens. He made us feel guilty about how orphans were treated in those workhouses. He made us feel even guiltier when Ebenezer proclaimed that it would be better if the poor died off and thereby decreased the “surplus population.”

            Yes, my friends, when Dickens wrote that “mankind should be our business,” not making money, he set us on the slippery slope to the welfare state by making people, then and still today, think that they have some obligation to the fellow human beings. Bah, humbug!

            Let us forget Dickens, erase his nonsense from our collective minds, and return to those halcyon days of the Gilded Age when men like Rockefeller, Vanderbilt, Carnegie, Mellon, and Schwab built huge fortunes while making America the world’s industrial colossus. Never mind the environment they polluted, the children forced into labor, their practice of firing anyone who missed work for any reason, and their total neglect of safety in the workplace.

            If we are ever again going to have any progress around here, we must ban Dickens from our schools and libraries, expunge the New Deal and the Great Society from our history books, forget Jane Addams, and march backward to a time when welfare was handed out only with a large dose of shame and humiliation.

            Let people like Rush Limbaugh read the names on radio and TV of those who get welfare, food stamps, and agricultural subsidies. Hang in the Post Office the faces of those who get disability, apply for unemployment, or file of an income tax refund. Anyone who takes any kind of money from the government takes money from all of us.

            It is no accident that the word “dickens” in phrases like “what the dickens?” and “it hurts like the dickens” are in our common speech. In these phrases, “the dickens” is a mild oath substituting for “the devil.” Yes, there it is the origin of all our woes is that devil of a man, Charles Dickens.

            We should have a “Rid Our Nation of Dickens Day.” Let us gather in Riverside Cemetery in Moline, Illinois to burn all our copies of books, movies, DVDs, VHS tapes—anything written by Dickens. We can burn them on the grave of Francis Dickens, son of the author of our nation—a Bleak House.

And Peter Wept

"And Peter went out and wept bitterly." (Luke 23:62)

That one sentence has always seemed to me to be the sum of human experience. We all have come up short at some time in our lives when measured against the yard stick of God's expectations. Yet I have often wondered by I've never heard a homily on Good Friday using this verse, or even more so at an Easter Mass.

Using this verse and placing the denial of Christ by Peter against the betrayal by Judas, the important fact that I see is that in the end Peter came to understand the true message of Christ--forgiveness, whereas Judas did not understand, taking his own life in despair of his actions.

It is the providence of the elderly to dwell on those short comings in our lives when a wrong word or act put us in the same position as Peter on the night of the Last Supper. The difficult part of the soul searching of old age is accepting the fact that God forgives us even if our conscience will not allow us to lay down those past offenses and let them abide.  We keep re-opening them, taking them out for examination, finding more and more places where we could have done or said something different that would have turned something bad into something that today would not even be remembered. 

'Tis far easier said than done when it comes to letting go of bad deeds.

Questions of value

     Like many of my ilk, I find myself today questioning whether or not my life-long views of my fellow humans have been founded on flawed thinking. Raised in a family that held that FDR not only saved the world from fascism, but also save my country from a  political crisis over the role of capitalism in a democracy. Those beliefs, at least on my part, have been predicated on the view that as a society we have been working toward some "better angels of our nature." Granted the movement has been unmeasurable at times, but nonetheless, there was always room for hope.
     I look at the killing and hatred that has been spawned by the various sects of Islam and want to believe that we (Americans) have figured out how to live in a tolerant society by respecting the rights of others to hold beliefs that are not personally our own. But more and more I see politicans and religious leaders putting up walls and pointing to "them" as the source of all the evil in the world.
     In listening to the rhetoric of the GOP presidential candidates I hear degrees of savagry and demogagoury that indeed scares me. I hear the rattle of sabers over Iran even as we leave Iraq after a long and bitter struggle that never should have been started in the first place. I hear candidates redefine the wall between church and state in such a way that has only one logical conclusion--writing the Book of Leviticus right into the U.S. Constitution. We have gone from the first Catholic to be elected president having to clearly state that he will respect that wall of separation to a Catholic candidate who finds Kennedy's position nausating.
     To be sure, President Obana has shown himself prone to poor judgment on some issues, but the mandating birth contol coverage for institutions run by religious organizations who are morally opposed to birth control seems to be handing the opposition a ready made issue for dividing this nation in ways that have not been seen since the fight for Civil Rights of black Americans.
     As a historian, there is nothing that scares me more that the spectre of religious dogma backed by the power of the state. Most of the human caused suffering and death in the world can be laid at the feet of some form of relgion that somehow gained control of the reigns of governmental power--whether through kings, emperors, dictators, or elected leaders.
     Make no mistake. The man who brought about the US invasion of Iraq ran for president because he felt God called him to and large numbers of people voted for him because they believed God called them to. Fits my definition of a theocracy. Are we to have another man elected to the US presidency on that same basis--a president who will then be hell-bent on disarming a government run by men who believe they have been called by Allah to rule?
     There are days when I fear that we are entering a new dark age that will as devoid of freedom of thought and expression as Europe saw centuries ago. And will be as violent and deadly.
     Only the love of my family and the joy of my grandchildren keep me from total dispare. For their sake I pray that my fears may never be realized.

Worries

     It is typical (and somewhat tolerated) for a grandfather to think and even say that he has the greatest, most intelligent, perseptive and loving grandchildren ever.  This is certainly so in my case. I am constantly amazed and humbled by all nine I have the honor and pleasure of calling my grandchildren. That I marvel all the time at their insights, senses of humor, talents and faith never ceases to amaze me.
     What worries me is that my own three children are just like their offspring, but that I never took the time to appreciate them when their were growing up. Perhaps it is the providence of grandparents that we have the time to savor our grandchildren in ways that life did not permit with our children. This may be a rationalization for opportunities missed, but I hope that my seeming lack of attention to the details twenty-five years ago was not taken as a lack of love. More like a lack of knowing what was really important to esteem.

A Child's Christmas in Central Illinois

Like Dylan Thomas, I plunge my hands into that snow drift of Christmas memories and pull out a handful.

Food--Since we lived within five minutes of my father's parents and 20 minutes of my mother parents, Christmas Day was always consisted of two gatherings with two major meals and two sets of presents. Turkey was the meat of choice at Grandma Kelmel's while roast goose was the tradition on the Finch side. I always looked forward to staying with Grandma Kelmel for several days after Christmas as she and I would "pick" over the turkey carcass for most of our meals. Plum pudding as the desert of choice at the Finches, while pumpkin pies were featured at the Kelmel meal.

Cousins--lots and lots of cousins. Being an only child, the commotion and noise of family Christmas gatherings was both stimulating and at times overwhelming.

Sleeping uncles--tradition held that we had the Finch Christmas at noon and the Kelmel Christmas in the evening. As a result, the afternoon was composed on uncles asleep in the living room while the aunts gossiped and bragged in the kitchen. The kids were relegated to remain anyplace where they would not disturb the uncles. I learned early on "to let sleeping uncles lie."

Ban-lyon Shirts--For the Finch side we always "drew names" so each person only had to buy for one person. Uncle Earl always asked for a Ban-Lyon shirt (double knit polyester). Never failed. He had to have had dozens of them in his closet, since he never wore them to work.

Miscalcuations--My perverse sense of humor got me into trouble with a couple "special gifts" over the years:
     --Aunt Doreen loved the musicals made by Jeannette MacDonald and Nelson Eddy. Their signature duet was "Indian Love Call," which is the most parodied song in American history. One year Kevin, Mary, Aunt Jo & I did a tape recording of "Indian Love Call," (Aunt Jo on the piano, Kevin on the trombone, and Mary & I singing (I was the one off key all the time). Needless to say, Aunt Doreen did not find it at all amusing. It was always a sore subject with her for many years after. Once video tape films became available I gave her for Christmas a VHS version of the film which featured the song. It did little to assuage her pique.
     --Dieter's spoon--Aunt Jo was always talking about going on a diet, so one Christmas I gave her a "dieter's spoon," which was a teaspoon with a large hole in the bowl. She did not find it particularly amusing in spite of her well know sense of humor. I learned that a person's practice of self-deprication was not an invitation to participate.

Pinochle Games--Once I was old enough to play pinochle, which was the card game of choice for both families, I was allowed to partake in the games of the adults. The Finch side played double pinochle, which uses two decks instead of one. I once dealt a perfect hand to my partner (which statistically is almost impossible in double deck play) but misdealt, which voided the hand. I was not allowed to forget that error for many, many years.

Millburg Gatherings--My Grandmother Kelmel's family--the Millburgs--gathered each Thanksgiving, Christmas, New Years, Easter, and Fourth of July. Six of the sisters had married farmers, and all had very large families. By the time I was ten they had to limit the gatherings to only the Fourth of July as no one had a large enough house to accommodate everyone in cold weather. When I was five or six my parents hosted one of the last Thanksgiving gatherings. How we got all of those people inside that tiny house on Illini Drive I do not know. All I remember of the day is that the men went hunting and came back with a wash tub full of dead, skinned rabbits. Fortunately, these gatherings were potlucks, as cooking for that many people would have been beyond my mother's humble culinary skills. The one Christmas gathering I vividly remember was at someone's farm where there was a large forzen pond out behind the barn. The reason I have such vivid memories of this event is that their dog bit me on the cheek when I tried to pick it up. My natural affection for dogs was circumscribed by the experience.

Dad's Gifts for Mom--It seems as if every Christmas my Father would purchase some really expensive dress for my Mother from the most expensive women's shop in Taylorville. Often these were dresses that Mother would never wear. She would take them back and exchange them for dresses she could wear to work. The problem was that the dress shop carried few dresses that Mother considered appropriate for the office. A couple times the owner of the dress shop just gave Mother the money back when she could not find anything she liked in the shop.

Booze--The weeks before Christmas were times when Dad came home in loads of "gifts" from the salesmen who sold products to the township. Bottles of expensive whiskey, boxes of candy and tins of gourmet popcorn were unloaded each evening when he came home from work. After Dad stopped drinking the liquor bottles began to accumulate in our bar. Eventually, he began giving it away to friends.

Midnight Mass--Mother and I usually went to Midnight Mass. She always preferred to sit toward the back of the church, so I could see very little and with the Latin Mass, I understood even less. My chief memory is of the incense and my intense desire to go back to sleep.

Buying Christmas Trees--When I was in eight grade, Sister Loretta, who was my eight grade teacher and principal of St. Mary Grade School, asked me to help her and the other sisters decorate the church for Christmas. This was done on Christmas Eve day. I helped carry the large plaster statues of the Mary, Joseph, the Christ Child, a cow, a couple sheep and a donkey out of the church basement and up to the sanctuary. When this was done, Sister Loretta handed me a leather pounch full of money and told me to go buy six Christmas trees for the sanctuary. Now it was a cold, snowy day and I was not old enough to drive, so I do not know how Sister thought I was going to get the trees. I walked seven blocks to the nearest place where they sold trees and began looking at the meager selection left late in the afternoon on Christmas Eve. The man who ran the gas station where the trees were sold, asked what I wanted and when I told him he was surprised at my request. We picked out the trees and I paid him. Then he took pity on me when I told him I was going to have to drag them to the church, making at least three trips. In retrospect, all of the needles would have been pulled from the trees in the process. The kind man closed his business (he was working alone), loaded all the trees in his pickup and drove me to the church. Then I had to figure out how to get the tree stands on the trees, something I had never done before. Once in place, it was obvious that the trees were some of the worst anyone had ever seen. Whether anyone said anything to the priests or the sisters about the scraggly trees, I do not know. But I remember that the next year there was a notice in the church bulletin the Sunday after Thanksgiving asking for volunteers to decorate the church for Christmas. Either by design or accident, the Sisters were no longer in charge of decorating the church for Christmas.

Most of all I remember the sense of wonder and magic that seemed to fill the air on Christmas Eve. Regardless of all the presents, turmoil, family angst or commotion of Christmas Day, the night before Christmas was, and still remains, the holiest of times for me. The beauty and joy of Christmas has always been in the anticipation, a feeling never dulled.

Is Consistency Too Much To Ask?

If one examines the baseline beliefs of many Evangelical Christians when it comes to the support of Israel, you find that they base their beliefs in the idea that the end of the world and second coming of Christ will be signaled by a massive conflagration in the Middle East. Therefore, according to their theology, anything that precipitates Armageddon is acceptable.

In the same context, opposition by such groups to efforts to control global warming is based on the belief that with the arrival of the end of the world coming sooner rather than later, worrying about the environment is a waste of time and effort.

Accepting both of these ideas at their face value, I then have to wonder why these same people get so upset over federal and state deficits. If "the end" is coming soon, then what does it matter how big the national debt becomes? If they are consistent in their beliefs, then their motto ought to be: "Spend like there's not tomorrow!"

Perhaps they think that since the cause of much of the national debt (and state debts, too) comes from social and foreign aid programs that help people who do not share the same religious, ethical and moral beliefs as the Evangelicals, then it is wrong to add to the debt.

In my old age I have decided that the only true test of a religion is whether or not it can admit that there are other ways to salvation besides its own.

What's a nickel really worth?

     I am always amused at how a seemingly normal conversation can trigger some random thoughts that bring back memories of years gone by. In his delightful book "A Child's Christmas in Wales," Dylan Thomas describes his memories of past Christmases as a large snow bank, and each time he sticks in his hand he pulls out some random vision of his youth.
     Today a conversation at dinner led me to recall that when I was 5 or 6 years old I managed to swallow a nickel. Of course I was taken to the doctor, an old and barely competent company one. After a cursory exam, he pronounced that my parents needed to monitor my fecal matter until it was determined that the missing coin had been passed out of my system.
     As was the case for most of my childhood, I spent weekdays with Grandfather and Grandmother Finch since both my parents worked outside the home. So, when I next went there to stay I came equipped with the pot off my old child's training potty and a set of clothespins with which my dung was to be examined.
    Grandmother, apparently misunderstanding the need to conduct a thorough search, looked into the pot with the first deposit, dumped it in the toilet, then went off to find a nickel in her purse, which she gave me. "There," she said, "you've got your nickel back."
     No further scrutiny was made of my shit as she must have told my parents that the missing monetary unit had been recovered. Who knows? I may still have the lost buffalo head still lurking in the depths of my bowels. Which would mean that I have more cents than some people credit me for.