Of Time And Rabbits

Hey buddy, to you have a time?  A time to sit down and visit.  A time to reminisce.   A time to say hello, or goodbye.  Have a time on me.  Like the time you went to the ice cream store, or the time you fell off the bike. 

Sometimes a time is one you know you will remember even at the time.  And when you remember that time, you will also remember that you knew you would remember at the time.   Time and memory interact and compress as you get older.  All the times you had a time and all the remembers you remember accumulate and fill a part of your mind that you bother to use occasionally.  And that of the gray matter that remains active compresses time further, making it seem to go faster as the years progress and the times accumulate.

Who does not have a time?  Who does not want a time?  Wouldn’t everyone? 

The addiction tugs at his core.  His dreams fill with the visions of comfort.  He yearns for the high.  Sure he can walk away, but his geography keeps him locked in.  If only he lived where there was no temptation he could be successful in other things.  But then who cares, he is a successful addict.  That is enough for him.  Time is a measured thing.  Memories are shattered and viewed in pieces and shards.  A sacrifice he must make to serve the addiction.  Time is measured between hits.  Get a hit, wait half hour, start thinking about the next hit.  Now that is success.

 ‘The business changed’, he said.  ‘When I could work one on one with the Customer, face to face, I liked that.  But it changed and I lost touch with the people I as doing the work for.  In fact the work itself changed.’  His leathery features and drawn long face belied the years of work with VOC’s, volatile organic compounds.  The silicas in body fillers filled his exposed hands over the years, and fore arms.  Now he sheds skin continuously, with sores developing and the constant reoccurrence of infection.  The VOC’s have ravaged his lungs, eyes and sinuses.  Yet he staggers on, now in his late 60’s, dad in his 90’s, runs in the family. Watching him from a table on the side, the man gave him a gentle smile.  For all his skill, labor and sacrifice, the thing remembered most was working with the Customer.  Now this is a real American the man thought to himself.

Rabbits generally do not live well.  Hutches are holes in the ground.  They are reduced to eating weeds and low hanging stuff.  Their position on the food chain is not to be envied. 

You can’t teach a rabbit to box, or carry a gun.  No rabbit will ever pitch in the major leagues.  You can elect one to office.  You can keep them like a dog I am told. 

The Reagan Reality

Reality and Reagan

One thing for sure, the vast disconnect remains between the reality of Ronald Reagan and the continued myths of greatness surrounding Nancy and his years as President.  One must include Nancy, who’s ever brooding presence over her Ronny as his handler and go between made her likely the first woman co-President.  It is not because there is a lack of recorded history of those years that we do not see them for what they really were.  No less than 10 memoirs by former cabinet and staff members were published.  These included tell all books by Haig, Deaver, Reagan (Donald), and Watt to name a few.  It is the excellent management of his image and revision of history through omission or outright falsification of events that supports his fairy tail image. 

What shines through all the smoke and myth was Reagan’s uncanny ability to read the audience and deliver the script successfully.  Often put through grueling days and weeks of prep and rehearsal before any public speaking engagement, Reagan was the consummate actor in the greatest role of his career. While many lines delivered remain memorable, his knowledge lapses and frequent credibility gaps gave cause for great alarm at the time. 

He was very competitive coming into office but was a man with very narrow vision.  He was so prejudiced that it colored all of his beliefs and affected his entire staff.  Many times he came off as delusional.  He governed in absentee, leaving decision making to the staff.  His administrations were marked by scandal and criminality, punctuated with military excursions.  The failure of our own intelligence community to recognize what was happening in the Soviet Union during his time in office resulted in our total lack of preparation for it’s downfall, setting the stage for genocides and ethnic struggles down the road.

His second term was marked by indifference, and ravages of old age and dementia likely caused his total loss of control of the office and led to a string of crises great and small.  Great failures of his terms include denial of the aids epidemic, supply side economics, deregulation, tax reform, Nicaragua and the unprecedented growth of government and spending, the very things his scripts railed against.  

I think we should remember this President as a great orator and actor as President, but we should not forget the reality of those eight years.  Who would want to be like Reagan and repeat those years all over again?  No one in their sane mind.