My creative juices are a little clotted tonight, so I’ll fall back on an old standby—a family photo from my scan collection, one which apparently sat in the sun too long at some point in its history, getting badly faded out.

Analysis:

This one isn’t strictly a family picture. It’s a photograph (dated around 1930, I’d guess) of the class at a country school, containing at least one of my family members. The second girl from the right on the bottom row is my aunt Corene, I think. Though it could be Aunt Jeannie. But I think it’s Corene.

The thing is, I had the idea my dad was in this picture. But it’s hard to pick him out. The little boy second from the left in that same bottom row might be him, but the hair looks a little dark (Dad was extremely blond). The story I recall is that the picture also includes, among other people, the girl who someday would be the mother of a guy who was my college roommate for a while, years later. But I don’t recall which girl it is.

I also recognize the two boys on the right in the middle row. Not as individuals, but by their family. They were neighbors of ours, and the face genes ran strong among them.

Actually, saying they were neighbors is redundant. This was a country school, built on the old Northwest Ordinance principle by which one section of land in each township was sold to pay for a school, which the kids in the township would attend. As you probably know, it was a one-room operation, in which the older kids and the younger kids all sat in class together. There are those who argue to this day that that setup was actually a benefit to all concerned. The younger kids had the older kids to help them, and the older kids got to help teaching, which is one of the best ways to learn.

You’ll note that almost all the boys are wearing bib overalls. A very practical garment for boys, those were. They cover the most vulnerable parts of the shirt (except, of course, for the elbows), preventing stains and wear. Oddly, although I grew up on a farm, and my dad wore them all the time, I don’t recall ever wearing one myself. There is, however, an old picture of me as a toddler in a small pair.

If I’d been born only a few years earlier, I’d have gone to this school. It was only about a half a mile from our farm, and was still standing, abandoned, when I was a kid. A friend of mine lived on that farm, and we sometimes went inside and goofed around.

Our township schools around Kenyon consolidated just a couple years before I started, so I went to the “new” school in town while it was still pretty new. It was a light-colored, one-story brick affair built in a U shape,with two wings branching off a central administrative section. I suspect somebody thought we kids would play in the space between the wings, but we almost never did, and the teachers didn’t encourage it. Too many windows there. The building was state of the art, equipped with the green chalkboards that, all the best minds agreed, would streamline the learning process and put us years ahead of the Russians. Each room was equipped with an asbestos fire blanket, I recall.

I don’t remember any of my classmates ever wearing bib overalls to school. That age had passed.

I don’t often travel alone, and when I do, I don’t turn on the TV. Watching it isn’t how I want to spend the little time I have in the room, and since my on a working trip, I don’t think my managers want me to lollygag around the room for long, especially when I could be lollygagging right under their noses. (Lollygag is a distinctly American word from 1862, perhaps deriving from the old world loll meaning “to relax completely.”)

I know many Christians will approve of my habit of ignoring the hotel room TV, because it guards me from any temptation to watch the soft porn or worse which is usually available on premium cable channels. (Pornography, by the way, was first used as an English word in 1858. It comes from a similar Greek word which meant “writing about prostitutes.” I wonder how many models or actors would want to think of themselves as prostitutes.) I wonder if a growing number of other believers, those who vocally criticize “fundamentalists” for hiding from the world in their church-bunkers, would see what I do as hiding from the world also or maybe a lack of self-control due to a prudish morality.

(A prude is an excessively modest or discreet person. The word comes from an old French world, which meant “good, virtuous, modest.” The word had variations for male and female, the male version meaning “a brave man.”)

Regardless any criticism, I think leaving the TV off is one step in cultivating an acceptance of silence, a small detox from the constant noise in our media-saturated world. Doing that should help build contentment, self-control, and even purity. How can I surrender my indefatigable pride to the Lord of Life if I hide in a bunker made by the world markets? Isn’t that one of the many meanings of Psalm 119?

The last generation to have TV as their major media source is nostalgic for the good ole days of 90s programing. How could Nickelodeon turn down an opportunity like that?

This brief NPR report is interesting, because it states that 20-somethings are so deluged with media throughout the day they will relax in front of the TV with familiar programming, a single media source taking them to their childhood comfort-zones.

Here’s a story worthy of April Fool status, if it were not true. “With more than a fifth of the country submerged, millions of spiders climbed into trees to escape the rising floodwaters.” As a result, many trees are knit together with spider webs. The eery pictures look like a Ted Burton creation, but in a more positive light, the mosquito count is way down.