A Little Humour

essaysbysean.blogspot.com

Hello Reader,

Got Humour?

I thought today I would attempt a humour piece, because I need the practise.

… At work and leisure I try to do the Right Thing, like everybody in those books says to do. 

Well, one time I was a young man, with no job, just a poor kid from the farm, off in the big city. How to get work? Well, of course, all the self-help books say the Right Thing is obvious: Just have Enthusiasm and really Believe In Myself. Oh, and have a marketing gimmick.

What could I do for work? Being from the farm I knew how to shovel manure, and how to have a strong back, but that was about all. So naturally, I went off to that clunky office building at the zoo. Once there, I suppose I should have gone to “Human Resources.” Actually, back on the farm, we called it “Personnel.” But hey, the books said to believe in myself, so bypassing Personnel I went down a little hallway to see the “Admin-istrative Ass-istant,” what we farmers call the “secretary,” because she had a desk right outside the door of the president himself: El Prezidente. The big cheese.

The Admin Ass was older than my mother, looking like an frowning dried up crab apple. All pumped up with enthusiasm, I shouted, “I’m here for a job!” She seemed unimpressed at the news, looked at me over her glasses, and asked,

“Have you a degree in marine biology?

“No.”

“In land biology?”

“No.”

“In microbiology?”

“No.”

“Then we can’t use you. No openings. Sorry.”

“Oh…” Then I summoned my enthusiasm: “Well, can-I-see-the-president?”

“No.”

I could see his door, marked “President.” I was looking right at it, like a pointer hunting dog. The secretary noticed the direction of my gaze, and repeated, “No.” But I remembered the books said to be persistent, so I narrowed my eyes and leaned forward, just like the best pointer would. As I had hoped, the secretary noticed. Too bad she added, “I said ‘no.’” I was leaning still further, about to fall over, when the presidential door opened, and the Man himself walked out. 

I thought to myself, ‘Quick, what would Horatio Alger do?’ Obvious the lad would show his pluck by following Mr. Big down the hall… so I did, right at the man’s heels. It was a short dead end hall with a small door at the end. No time to use my marketing gimmick. Quick—What would Alger say?

“Sir, if you give me a chance, you will never regret it!… I-would-be-proud to-be-a-member of-the-zoo!” The great man never stopped walking—he seemed in a hurry—but said over his shoulder, “Can you do marine biology?

“No.”

“Land biology?”

“No.”

“Microbiology?”

“Uh… umm…” I thought for a second. “No.”

“Then young man,” he said now at the end of the hall, reaching for the door handle, “I can’t help you.” I would have followed him through the door, but the room inside was only about the size of an outhouse, complete with toilet seat. I jammed my foot in the door!

“Sir,” I shouted desperately, “I have a strong back!”

He grimaced. “You’re hired! Now get-your-foot-out-of-the-door.”

When I went back down the hall and told the secretary my good news, I saw her show expression for the first time.

*** *** ***

Many weeks of happy employment went by, with me using my strong back. Have you seen those nice big rocks lining the path to the Safari restaurant? Those are mine. Pretty good, eh?

One day I was putting rocks along the path to the gorilla cage —I mean, “enclosure—” and I was kneeling and tamping a stone into place —that’s a zoo word, “tamping—” when I looked up, and standing over me was the president. He was holding out a square cream-coloured envelope. “Young man, I have something for you.” His envelope was the wrong size for holding money, but still, I just knew it was something special. He grimaced and said, “We have to have diversity on our board, so I’m inviting you and your partner to our board’s supper-meeting. Dress is formal.”

Wow! So after work I ran straight home to tell my dear wife. Ran down the sidewalk, that is, right along the river, as we lived in walking distance of the zoo. “Gosh!” I said, “isn’t this swell?” 

…Days later, on a fine summer evening, we walked down to the Safari room, she wearing her formal black dress, me wearing my Sunday-go-to-meeting clothes. First person we saw, outside the dinning hall, was a stranger in a nice business suit, rather like mine. I whispered to the wife, “Everybody’s dressed up, like us.” But I was wrong. Turned out the man was a waiter. We entered the big dinning room, with the big long table, and—Oh my Lord! The ladies all had black dresses, like my wife, but the men—they all had tuxedos. Drat! Foo-ey! Blast! I’m always the last to know.

We found our name plates and took our seats. I kind of sank down into mine, feeling small, and let my wife do all the talking. The lady next to her was a microbiologist, the fellow across from us said he was a marine biologist. The man next to me was busy talking to his neighbour, but I think I overheard he was a land biologist. I just sank still further into my seat. If anybody asked, maybe I could say I was a geologist, with a specialty in tamping. 

During the supper I couldn’t remember to do any Right Things from all those self-help books on How To Socialize. I just sank down still further into my seat, and avoided eye contact. My wife was fine, I could hear her and the lady beside her: They were comparing their tattoos.

During the business part, the coffee was keeping me awake, …suddenly I didn’t need any coffee anymore. —Suddenly the president was looking right at me. “You’re from a local farm. Maybe the zoo should have an exhibit of the local ecology, eh? Stand up, and take a minute or two, to give us your thoughts on what we could include.” So I stood, said ‘gulp!’ and ‘erk!’ …and I tried to do the Right Thing. The rest of the evening was a blur. Things only came back into focus when at last my wife and I were walking home.

*** *** ***

…Now, of course, not just at work but in my leisure time too, I try to do things right. As leisure, my wife and I both attend a weekly toastmasters club to learn public speaking. In fact, this includes impromptu “one to two minute” speeches after being given a surprise topic. For this we always had an “evaluator:” a person supposed to give us, and the rest of the listening club, feedback on how we had just done with our “gestures,” our “vocal variety” and other things too. Was “supposed to.” And sometimes, a listener in the club would get as angry as a witch, (rhymes with b-itch) angry: “because the evaluator “merely” retold what the speaker just said!”

That evening, as we walked home, with my brain all blanked out, it was a no-brainer to ask my wife for her evaluation of my talk. I spoke up as soon as we were clear of the zoo. “Dear,” I said, “forget the vocal variety, forget the gestures. All I want to know is: What the heck did I say? Did I sound like an idiot?” 

She said I did fine, really fine. I relaxed. And then she cheered me up by asking me to do my special marketing thing: So I did—We walked home along the river with me singing to her, in my very special opera voice…

The end

Sean Crawford

At the zoo,

Which is indeed by the river,

Where I have a membership,

Which gives me free parking,

Winter, 2017

Footnotes:

~No, I don’t sing opera. In fact, at work, if I’m around others, I would purposely sing like a kid. But then I was “outed.” Someone was hiding behind a tree to smoke. She heard me pushing someone’s wheelchair while singing like Bing Crosby, and then she told everyone I have “the voice of an angel.”

~Horatio Alger is like Pollyanna: If you read many self help books you soon learn those names. I haven’t read any novels about Alger yet, but I sure enjoyed Pollyanna. To me her story was just as good as Sarah Crew’s, and better than Ann’s. (of Green Gables) 

~Speaking of formal suppers, sometimes a medieval feast would include peacock as a delicacy. Last week when the zoo guys were moving the peacocks to their winter digs, once of them adventurously flew right over the wall of the lion’s enclosure. That day some lion ate better than I did.

~Here on the prairies we see gophers everywhere, such as along the town railroad tracks and underneath multi-lane pedestrian overpasses. Maybe that’s why there’s none on exhibit at the zoo. But at the London Zoo, they have something children like: Gopher tunnels you can crawl through! Complete with a few rainproof little domes where you can pop up and look around, just like a real gopher.

Abuse Science

essaysbysean.blogspot.com

I must confess the stress and dangers of the times have left an abiding sense of doubt and insecurity in my mind.

H. G. Wells, at the conclusion of The War of the Worlds.

… and I started seeing therapists when I was 18,19, and it wasn’t until I was in my mid-30s that someone used the word abuse to describe what had happened. So, once it was named everything shifted.

From a CBC radio transcript regarding sibling abuse. (see footnote)

Hello Reader,

Got abuse knowledge?

Sometimes you don’t need to know the theory for you to be practical. Our ancestors thought electricity was like a water current. It’s not, it’s electrons, but that didn’t stop them from lighting up their cities, and making frog legs kick.

They thought human nerve tissue was like solid electrical wires. Actually, the nerves have numerous gaps where particles are released and go across. But that didn’t stop good medical work.

Sometimes you don’t even need science theories. Hey, would you like to abuse your cult followers, so you become a millionaire? Science has studied some cults, and come up with practical observations of how they work. (Such as deprivation of protein and sleep) But the first cult leaders had no science. 

Out on the mean streets, to my knowledge, there are no learned texts on how to abuse a stable of women in order to make them controllable… but pimps seem to be doing quite well without any science. 

One morning my housemate came down the hall telling me she must have gotten a black eye in her sleep. A lie. She was “abused into thinking” that being struck by her boyfriend-pimp was OK, even if this was also something to be hidden from me. She later became a streetwalker. I remember her crying while saying she didn’t understand, just didn’t know how she had been manipulated by her boyfriend into turning her first trick, but somehow it happened. Then more tricks. Eventually, “we lost her” because her pimp transferred her to a distant city, to have her far away from any emotional support from we who knew her. This is standard practise, but not something a vulnerable girl is going to find out from her local library.

I don’t know of any scientific proof or medical explanation for how abuse could conceivably, possibly, have any lasting effects whatsoever—but maybe I don’t need to know. What prompted this blog essay was a man writing in the essay collection This I Believe that his father (whom he went fishing with weekly) would strike him in the face, and that he lacked self confidence… but he didn’t draw a bold connecting line between those two points. I was angry, not at him but at his surrounding society, our society where people don’t want to connect the dots. 

Although I am here using “abuse” in the context of human against human, while noting the lack of applicable scientific theories, it is instructive to consider “alcohol abuse.” The highly trained medical establishment, back when my parents were children, had barely made a start in creating knowledge for curing the scourge of alcoholism… and then some untrained stockbroker created the program of 12—Steps of recovery. The 12—Steps worked much better than the efforts of doctors with Ph.Ds, despite the fact that nobody knew why. Some years ago my university chaplain said to me, speaking theoretically, as neither one of us were an alcoholic, “You know the problem with university guys like us? We want to know why, know exactly how the program works, before we are willing to get started.”

As I see it, our society doesn’t “get it”: doesn’t realize “why” abuse has consequences, and doesn’t even realize how little it knows about the gruesome, monstrous effects of abuse. Lacking a scientific theory, not knowing how abuse works, we use our alleged “common sense.” If only walls could talk I might hear talk about a boy or girl:  “Abuse doesn’t mean anything.” … “She shouldn’t be affected.” … “It never happened, and anyways, she deserved it.”

Without science we may believe, or pretend to ourselves we believe, “Once she grows up and leaves our Abusive home she should instantly snap out of it, and be a fine credit to our family.” Actually, I’m making that up: Because a family wouldn’t use the “A-word.” No, it seems to me that a father, mother or sibling who is weak enough to abuse, is also too weak to admit the effects of abuse, and too weak to feel guilt or shame: Easier to blame the victim. A family voice that sounds falsely strong from expressing anger and scorn may conceal a pathetic weakness. “My wife is so stupid, she makes me so mad, that I have to hit her.” In other words, blaming and thinking “she is so stupid” can happen after the first abuse, not before.

Decades ago, society made a huge breakthrough with a phrase for raising consciousness: “blaming the victim.” That sure opened a lot of windows! My concern is when victims of abuse blame themselves. My concern is when, without science, they come to minimize, to think “nothing very bad” happened: Thinking that, in fact, they should instantaneously be as fully functional as anyone who was never abused. And then feel guilty. I say: “Come on, get serious. Don’t you think recovery will take at least a day or two? A week or two? Seasons? Years?” 

I can’t scientifically prove it, but this I believe: It is natural for an abuse victim to lack confidence in the world, and to lack confidence in other people, too. 

Society, as embodied in that “mythical successful businessman,” might claim that phrases like “self-esteem” and “recovery from abuse” and “positive thinking” is woo-woo southern California nonsense. Strange, then, how that same businessman will evaluate job candidates for self-esteem, and insist his salesforce have positive thinking. In other words, at some level, we all know. We might abuse our children by saying, “If you don’t stop crying, I’ll give you something to cry about!” but we know. When we bully, we know. We just don’t want to admit it. I’m amazed at the ten-year high school reunion where a grown adult didn’t think his high school victim would still remember, let alone have any hard feelings— and I’m disgusted. 

I’m not going to wait for stupid scientists to finally do their research. No. I think it’s quite practical right now to “act as if” verbal, emotional and physical abuse—three separate things—are like a blow against a person, just as much as the onrushing blow of concussion from artillery. 

Regardless of whether a blow is physical or figurative, it still happens. To quote a former soldier, now back in civilian life:

“… I felt horrible… I lost my self-confidence and stopped believing in myself. I also constantly panicked during conversations, and afterwards I always felt guilty.” (p. 208)

“My goal for the future is to get better and to became a “better person,” not to feel guilty anymore, to be calmer and relaxed.” (p. 213)

(As reported in When the War Never Ends

The voices of military members with ptsd and their families

By Leah Wizelman)

Well soldier, me too. …I’m much better now…

Sean Crawford

November

On the lone prairie,

2017

Footnotes:

Someone asks me: How do I know if was abused, or if, these days, I am being abusive to others?

Easy: Anything that is not nurturing is abusive.

“Ya but Sean, isn’t there a vast middle ground?”

Sean: “No.” 

~The adult former bully is quoted in my essay of innocence, Saving Tomorrow Land archived August 2015

~H.G. Wells is quoted in my PTSD essay, Poetics of H.G.Wells, archived November 2015

~The soldier is quoted in my book announcement, posted as Voices of PTSD, archived June 2012

~That first trick? My housemate and her boyfriend had visited a prairie city three hours away, across the cold barren plains, and then the boyfriend told her they needed cash for the fare home.

~Here’s a link where someone turned abuse and complex PTSD into a science fiction novel. If the cover looks a little ugly, well, it’s an ugly topic.

~What I loved about my self-help group, where we mainly looked normal and had jobs and marriages, was how we could tell each other stories society would never believe, and we would believe each other. …Otherwise I might still feel like poor lonely Sarah Connor in the scene where she jumps over the desk screaming, “It happens!”

~Not sibling rivalry, not just bullying, but abuse: Here’s a link for a CBC radio program, with transcript, about the horror of sibling abuse. It happens.