Theory of the Leisure Class

One of our four sons once stated in a living room conversation that we had accomplished the near impossible. He said, that through education, we had risen three notches up the class structure in the United States. His knowledge came out of his sociology class at the university. His statement amazed me at the time and I think about it yet, occasionally.

We did increase our income. But I find income alone does not automatically put one in a higher class of society. The little things will out you in every gathering. With women it is a matter of manicure. Sit at a patio table with a group of women of elite stature; they do not wear blue jeans and they have perfectly manicured fingernails. White cropped pants and shirts to match was the attire of the Memorial Weekend Event. The topic of the day was Kelly Ripa and her charm and wit with Regis. A Diet Pepsi seemed childish and out of place next to the clean martini(s), as were my garden variety, close clipped, unpainted fingernails.

I will go to the grave with my INFP temperment, my social undoing. But I might go to it having read "The Theory of the Leisure Class," written by that Norwegian, Thorstein Veblen, who theorized that the 'higher-status' group monopolized war and hunting while farming and cooking were considered inferior work. I see Amazon.com has a copy for three bucks. Some women would never utter those words, 'three bucks.'

That is who I am; my own landscaper, and I make a mean potato salad. That gets a person no status with a group of warriors and hunters. To Veblen, the athiest, society never grew out of this stage; it simply adapted into different forms and experssions of conspicuous consumption.

David Brooks theorizes that "The information age elite exercises artful dominion of the means of production, the education system." It is a good thing that He Who Must Be Obeyed and I clawed our way through the university, graduating when we were 40, in 1975. All our education got us was the title, Mr. and Mrs. Got Rocks. You can take that any way you like. With the drop in the stock market we dropped half of the rocks four years ago.

The party was enjoyable. Our beloved hosts had invited lots of friends with 17 little children. I still am amazed at that act of bravery; it tells you something of the love of these friends.

In Flander's Field

"In Flander's fields the poppies blow
Between the crosses, row on row,
That mark our place; and in the sky
The larks, still bravely singing, fly
Scarce heard amid the guns below.

We are the Dead. Short days ago
We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,
Loved and were loved, and now we lie
In Flander's fields.
Captain John D. McCrae

My WWII hero, Frankie Clark died earlier this spring. He will not carry the colors for the veteran funerals in my home town any more. He is missed. The last time I visited him was at a cousin's funeral. He stood at attention with the flag while the rifle shots echoed in the Cave Hills. The day was as glorious as ever was. The Finnish church and cemetary hold the mortal remains of my dad, my baby brothers, my grandparents on both sides, uncles, aunts, cousins, neighbors, friend's parents, early homesteaders, old Finnish bachelors. My childhood memories reverberated between the scoria buttes in that peaceful place with each fired shot. Frank was there, that one last time.

THE Violin

He Who Must Be Obeyed had 'the violin' in the car and was waiting form me to return from a breakfast with a group of retired highschool teachers. We went to Neilsen's violin place downtown. It is going to be fixed. With a smile, we were told it was a Pre-WWII Japenese violin and he would reglue, restring and replace the chin rest for a paltry $50. The bow was not worth rehairing.

I love going there, rows of violins for sale, new cellos, lots of charming photos of violinists who came to perform in the Orphium, glue vats, all the assorted impliments of an ancient skill. Who knows when we will get it back, that wasn't even discussed.

No wonder so many Asians are excellent violists. Japan made the instruments with the little yellow labels that attrack so many ignorant Americans. "Antonius Stradiuarius Cremonensis, Fasieabat Anno 1734" my foot! Didn't those folks worry about false advertising? The son who wishes he could have it, will have it. Without the bow unfortunately.

This morning I read a Nebraska Governor's Lecture in the Humanities in 1997 by Martin Marty. He gives a nice concise overview of Nebraska's pioneer writers, Cather, Morris, Sandoz, and Neihardt and Rolvaag. I feel the same connection to the prairie.

Raking Sand into Patterns

Good things happen. Wonderful folks people my life and I read and swim. My main man is doing a lot of cooking, for the two of us and also for company. He is grilling marinated meats and vegetables on a new George Forman grill. We have had it for two years and never have read the instruction book until now. I am impressed.

Yesterday a son and daughter-in-law drove to Omaha from Wichita in their Corvette. They are a handsome couple and the car suits them. His wife told a little story about how when they first got it, he spent some time in the garage figuring out how to get in and out of it so it wouldn't hurt his knees.

We visited about Meyers/Briggs personality evaluations. This particular son is probably similar to my father and myself. Work managers put people through these processes, as do counselors. I have always enjoyed the introspection. Some think of it as a waste of time. Some of us find out why we are so lonely and yet seek solitude. We yearn for simplicity and find complexity intriguing. It is such times that mowing the lawn is grounding and brings one back to meaning.

This was the first time we have seen them since Christmas. He brought us Finn Cream and licorice, as he has recently returned from a business trip to Latvia and Finland. It was good to compare travel notes with him. It was a nice little comparison of his recent travel and that of mine, with my mother, in 1980. We used FinnRail, he drove. He said Finland had traffic well figured out and didn't tolerate speeding in Helsinki or in the country side; the language is complicated and wonderful. He, like us, was amazed at the cleanliness everywhere. There are no plastic wrappers blowing about anywhere. The sand is raked into beautiful patterns in public places.

If yesterday's violin turns out to be 'decent' and not worth anything, he would love to have it. I would love for him to have it...but not until I find out if it is reglueable. Of course it isn't a Strad, not in a million year would it be one of the 12 made in 1734. No one would be so dumb as to let it come unglued, nor sit on a table in the sun. How silly of me to even think about the possibility. I am irksomely gullible.

Life stages, finances, and time management all seem to be the tune that most of us dance to. This place that I find myself suits me nicely, it is a kind and gentle place, with an abundance of years, money, and time. Life is good.

A Fool for a Stringed Instrument

He Who Must Be Obeyed lured me to lunch this noon. We went to a nice midtown place where he ordered a salad and I ordered a hamburger deluxe. When we got our meals, he eyed both of them and announced that he was swapping with me. "Oh good," I told him, "you just order whatever and I do the same and when we get them we trade plates, that always makes for an unexpected surprise." Whatever.

The area was having their yearly neighborhood garage sale and I have done it again. HWMBO distained the area. and the neighborhood, and wouldn't even get out of his Wrangler until I walked back and told him I wanted him to look at the yellow label inside a violin, out baking in the sun, on a table. This is such a stupid thing to even think about; but it does sort of take a person's breath away.

Inside the old, old case lay this, one string short, chin rest off, otherwise in pretty good shape, violin. Peering through the sound hole into the instrument was a yellow label that said "Antonius Stradiuarius Cremonensis, Fasieabat Anno 1734." Being Italian, somewhere along the line the u was changed to a v, or the other way around, maybe. It was $50, but I have paid more than that for a rock, so what the hay, I say. It is much prettier than most of my rocks. The mother-in-law who owned it will call me sometime, as I want to know everything she knows about it. "It was in her house for at least 20 years," said the nice woman collecting the money.

Ever since, I have been on an Internet search and found that the fakes are out there by the thousands, I suppose. But here is the deal. In 1734, Stadavarius made 12 violins and one viola. I have no idea if it is simply a label that some luthier slapped on a hastily built violin or what it is. He lived to 1737 and had a couple of sons that made violins.

I am going to take it downtown to Nelson's Violin Shop and have the string put on, perhaps have the bow rehaired and ask that excellent craftsman what he thinks. I know that rehairing the bow will cost a bunch. I paid $125 or so to have my cello bow rehaired a few years ago there. There is an interesting label inside the cello as well but I am not going to even think about it.

There was a time that I had four kids, at home, practicing violins, a cello and a string bass. That is what I mean about being a fool for a stringed instrument. Back then I bought three violins from a nun who had taught in Chicago. Once the neighbor across the driveway from us, on an open window night, yelled out for our bass player to "Stop that and go to bed!" None of us has forgotten that.

Whitsunday, 7th Sunday After Easter

Today is Pentecost. Next to the Advent blue, I love the red of Pentecost and Reformation Sunday. We altar guilders are aware of the colors of the Christian church year, changing banners and paraments with the seasons. Some of my friends give me a blank stare when rattle on about it. I would love to be a walking talking hyperlink. This blogging is the best thing, ever. It was red everywhere this morning at St. Tim's. Red paraments and pastor's stoles, red banners, red altar flowers and red carnations on the eleven confirmands. I love ordering the church flowers; it amazes me to think I thought it was going to be one big pain in the neck. It isn't.

I had a meeting between the Spirit Alive and Traditional 11:00 services regarding 'passionate spirituality.' I think they thought I had lost my mind when I told the group that I thanked God for them. I do and they might just as well know it. C, who very competently heads this little group, is a middle school teacher. There are only four of us. One of the fellows went to the same high school at which I taught for sixteen years. M is part of the prison ministry. The three of them are pretty amazing people. We have more work to do and I have no doubt that it will be significant and of much consequence. I am glad to be a part of it.

He Who Must Be Obeyed and I swam this afternoon. The pool was 95 degrees, if you can imagine. It was great. We vacuumed the tree seeds off the bottom, drank some wine from little silver wine glasses, and probably got more sun than our winter white skins needed.

A son called to tell me he and his wife will be flying home next weekend if the weather is favorable, if not they will probably 'fly' in the Corvette. I am happy they will be here. We haven't seen one another since Christmas. Since then he has been in Latvia and Finland. We have so much to talk about.

Sundays are the best.

Freecycle

A friend asked, "Where have you been?" How do you answer a question like that when you haven't been anywhere, just absent. In absentia, absent minded, nowhere, here, but not here. I feel a little disconnected while sleepwalking through the days, reading a lot while it rains, reading at magazines, reading at the paper, reading at a book on how to write letters, of all things. Who even writes letters anymore. Reading at, never finishing anything.

Yes, I got it at a garage sale. It was fun to visit with the young man who was selling his sister's things. "That is nice of you," I told him. "I get to keep all the money," he said, "so it is actually nice of her." He was selling his college books and her girlie collectibles. I bought a Flannery O'Connor, Wise Blood. "It is a downer," he warned me. I told him some of us liked that. A melancholy read for a melancholy Finn. I will probably like it a lot.

In order to make garage saling legitimate in my mind, I look at it as an anthropological study. There, in a garage or on a driveway, people's lives are strewn over tables, on the cement, over chairs and dressers. Parking near by and walking up the drive seems a little voyeuristic to me, but not in a sexual way. Looking at people's cast off stuff, things that apparently were needed at one time, now just junk to them, seems much too personal. It is almost like digging through homesteaders garbage dumps, or Egyptian tombs. It is all anthropology on one scale or another; unless of course you need those kids clothes or worn out furniture or garden tools. I don't need anything, but I do find some things intriguing enough to bring home.

It amazes me that anyone has the energy to take all that stuff out, put little price stickers on it all, and sit with it for up to three days. Then the strangers park erratically nearby, shuffle through the assortment, fingering everything, examining objects from top to bottom and in the end perhaps spend a quarter on a unique box which once held three long hand rolled Nicaraguan cigars. Was somebody there in the '80's on one side of that situation or the other? Perhaps a gift to a grandpa. Now it is mine to put some little treasure under the sliding lid, or not.

Today L, from Melbourne, Australia, sends this amazing web site to our congenial list of elder emailers. It is worth a little exploration and tempts me to join the Omaha group. I am all for getting rid of stuff and certainly embrace the idea of giving it away rather than trying to sell it. Introverts are not salesmen, or women. I am the sort of person who apologizes for giving away stuff as I am so concerned that it might be insulting. No, instead we haul used, but usable, things to the Salvation Army. I don't ever get a receipt. Why bother?

Maybe through Freecycle I could join the local group and chance not insulting someone while giving away an item I probably bought at a garage sale long ago. No not the horse collars with mirrors, nor the Texas longhorns, nor the oil paintings nailed to the back fence, nor the little footstools for this five foot Finn. Yes, I got a nice one so I can see into my top oven. I think I will paint it blue to match the Oscar Howe Antelopes in Flight over the table.

Home and Back Home

Going to and returning from the Black Hills is a push-pull experience. I have resisted going twice in as many months and yet am ever drawn there to seeing two friends of 55 years. Being with them was like it has always been, an easy togetherness that warms at first sight and grows anew with the graceful gift of familiarity.

We talk of our girlhood, our motherhood; and now of this bewildering aging that we find both challenging and comforting in ways we sometimes resist and sometimes rest in. We share names of old friends and acquaintances, places, times, experiences; we share meals that begin with a table grace in Norwegian, we share our enjoyment of our hometown newspaper even reading from it to one another; and we share our times together that used to begin and end with warm hugs, now including a kiss on cheeks starting to wrinkle.

Each of us face challenges that at times seem insurmountable. The challenges do not halt our ability to laugh over our own physical limitations while still caring for adult children who suffer debilitating conditions that limit their ability to make lives apart from us; or from the tasks of raising grandchildren. We complain about our churches that let us do too much service and we talk about how thankful we are for those who pray for us for years.

It is a true gift to be able to share our burdens with one another in heartbreaking reality, draw a breath and end the solemn solioquay with a laugh that doubles us over because of the absurdity of it. Being together is healing and helpful and I can't put the going back off so long next time. Friends are a gift. I would say thank you to them here, but they don't read this so I will write bread and butter notes to say it properly and send them off with a pretty commemorative stamp.