low tech, high satisfaction

I'm a child of the '60s, so of course when the Sony company marketed its "Walkman" in the late '70s, it was perfect timing for me. Off to college, you know? Independent, portable life. I can't tell you how many walks I took with mine -- my favorite tunes on tape, or the radio option for the news of the day. No doubt I fast-walked to monotonous updates on the Iran-Contra "affair" (the whole miserable, covert operation and judicial proceedings swallowed 10 years of history). More than a few "Car Talk" episodes, and the culture-shattering rise of the home-based computer.

Just recently I was caught with a set of audio tapes of Marguerite Henry's 1953 book, Brighty of the Grand Canyon. By the time our family spring break was ending, no one else wanted to listen. We'd managed Robert Louis Stevenson's Treasure Island (1883), and C.S. Lewis' Voyage of the Dawn Treader (1952), and a contemporary diversion about a kid from a disfunctional family who needs his meds to stay focused on the simple tasks of daily living (Joey Pigza Loses Control, by Jack Gantos, 2001).

After a few brief attempts to play Brighty in the final hours of our long drive back, I gave up trying to convince the others. The following Monday, I dragged out the old "boom box" cd/audio cassette player from one of the kids' rooms and plugged it in. Pushed a few buttons, flipped the tape, nothing happened. I was psyched for some serious bagging, boxing and moving stuff out and I needed a tape player; Brighty was waiting. Suddenly I remembered ye old Walkman, tucked away in my active togs drawer, behind the sweats and the sports bras. Ah! But the plastic waistband clip was long gone and, given the weight of the thing, I had to find a way to carry it.

My fortuitous outfit for this day of dedicated domestic cleansing was jeans and a white t-shirt under a flannel shirt (think, 50s, 70s or 2010, it's all how you look at it.) Knot up the flannel shirt tails, button a few up from the knot, and I had the perfect Walkman hammock. I was ready. More than one task got accomplished that afternoon and I only had to stop from time to time to sip a little seltzer and "fast forward to the end of each tape before turning it over to side B". Dear Marguerite created an engaging, if a little long, story of sincerity and simple living in the old western frontier. Between an early murder based on greed for a sweet, old prospector's mine and the book's bad man finally will get punished ending, Brighty lived a life of wild burro freedom to come and go as he pleased, while chumming up from time to time with kindly settlers and even President Teddy Roosevelt. Themes were solidly based in the culture of the late 19th century: resource extraction, a full-time lion killer hired by the government, the domination of once-unreachable natural places. It's all the stuff of serious adventure to young kids shortly after World War II. 

Professional audio drama, history, cultural commentary, and a serious dent in the domestic stuff-pile, all in one day! Can you do that with your Kindle? Just asking.

Tidbits I gleaned:

• A portable personal stereo audio cassette player, called Stereobelt, was first invented by the German-Brazilian Andreas Pavel in 1972. (Wikipedia) You can guess that the Sony company fought his claims to rights for a good long while, too, with several millions of dollars in the pot to shush him up. 
• Sony stopped making the audio cassette Walkman last fall, except for a small allowance for die-hards in China. A number of newsy blogs can be found on the subject, including Liz Goodwin's at http://news.yahoo.com/s/yblog_upshot/20101025/tc_yblog_upshot/sony-walkman-rip 
• If you've got an extra 20 minutes (!) to skim this morbid outline, CNN has a timeline of the Reagan/North/Bush operation in Nicargua and Iran: http://www.ibiblio.org/sullivan/CNN/RWR/ps174/icontra/ictimtxt.htm

Detritus

Di TRI tes  Not a word I use regularly, but every now and then it pops up in my thinking. This afternoon it did, as I was raking dead plant matter from the ground covers and shrubbery that encircle my back yard. The bright green starts of sweet woodruff and the day lily stubbins breathed more deeply, I thought, and the upper reaches of the lilac roots had their first glimpse of sunlight since the broken leaves of November crammed themselves down like napping pillows in the corner of the couch.

Loose bits of stuff created from the decay of other things.  Disintegrated parts.  That’s detritus.  It’s the particular bend in the circle of life that allows newness to be fed and to blossom.

A friend is rounding the corner eight weeks after a systemic bacterial infection took him to the brink of death.  He lost his left arm and segments of his skin died away.  After keeping him sedated in intensive care, urging his organs to return to full function and grafting newness onto the parts of his flesh that had died, this week the medical team has just given him clearance to begin rehabilitation and move up to a new room.  To work at talking again, standing, strengthening the muscles that had been kept quiet while the medical magic, and the celestial miracle, were taking place.  Today he is up, with fire and light, ready for a new season.

Detritus.  Not all raked away, but remnant feeding the vigor and the color and the life-breath of spring.

Hallelujah!

muscari

Bye bye ball pits!

Toddlers of the '90s used to get together to crawl around in ball pits while their mothers (and dads) floundered beside them at the neighborhood indoor play gym. I know this to be true, because my older kids experienced these vinyl-padded play zones from time to time. You know, the hippest preschoolers would be found there, clinging with their little sockless toes to the netted "walls," some trying not to get dragged down into the colored-globe abyss. Once the grip was lost, though, they were goners. The watchful parent had to stop yakking to the other kid's mom long enough to grab an appendage and yank the child up before they were gone from sight completely. (No socks allowed in those days, recalls Eldest. No one wanted to fish around for them after they fell off your feet.)

For some reason, the subject came up today and Youngest bulged out her eyes in my direction and said, "Ball Pit? What's a ball pit? I want to see one!" Caught me off guard, though, since the safety-police part of my brain filed away those ball pits (indoor play zones in general) sometime shortly after Middle kid contracted pneumonia and RSV and was hospitalized a day after playing hard at the play zone in the mall. Yes, she'd had a mild fever for a couple of days prior and was, I thought, free and clear. But that's all that poor kid needed and ZAM! She was under a medical team's 24-hour care for two and a half days in the pediatrics ward. Those were the days! (Youngest wasn't born at the time. Been there, done that, in my mind, so I feel like saying "sorry kid, they don't make those any more." Do they?)

Google the phrase and you'll get one of several parent chat sites -- Paraphrased First mom: "desperately seeking play zone options for child's birthday" -- Another mom: "Don't go there, don't you know that people were leaving syringes on the saggy floors underneath all the happy rainbow balls?" Third mom: "What about feces, vomit, plain old invisible, nasty germs?" Snopes.com will tell you that a story of a 3 year old dying after getting pricked with a heroin needle in a ball pit is false. Other sites suggest vague "safety concerns" and Wikepedia claims that Chuck E. Cheese discontinued offering ball pits, as balls would wind up in little kids' personal belongings and leave the building. Ain't no fun in a too-shallow ball pit, now is there? No point whatsoever to the pit-ball belly flop or hide and go seek if your hair's sticking out where someone can easily spot you!

But they're such a clever idea. Fun for all ages! Hygienic nightmare, for sure. So these days, I guess some parents order mini sets for their little ones to play in at home. (Let's see - how many small children would enjoy a 32-inch wide, plastic fence thing? (Only $200 more for 1,000 3-inch "crushproof" balls to fully cover a little tyke) There's also a nylon tent-like thing available with at 19-inch diameter tunnel connecting the two taller ends. Sounds small to me. And it could be rather tricky getting a little person out of the middle of the tunnel part if something would go wrong. Does it all fit in the washer if someone has an accident?

No, these days the closest we can get to something like this is the indoor, inflated bouncy town across the city from our house. And if you don't bring a clean pair of socks for your feet, they make you buy theirs out of a shiny glass case. We've come a long way since the late '90s, wouldn't you say?

I won't speak this idea aloud at home, just yet, but why don't we convert the storage room into a padded ball pit area just for the family? Christmas 2011 could be a bunch of fun when we lead the kids from a gift-less tree down to the basement. Surprise! Only 5,000 balls and $1,000 later (not counting the vinyl padding on the walls), won't we be having a very jolly holiday? But the neighbors can't come, sorry to say. Too many safety concerns.