4054 A bit of worry, averted

Saturday, June 13, 2015

"[T]he West won the world not by the superiority of its ideas or values or religion

but rather by its superiority in applying organized violence.

Westerners often forget this fact, non-Westerners never do."

--Samuel Huntingdon--

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My neighbor George is getting up there in years.  The 19-year-old who mows my lawn (significantly, he does not mow George's lawn) is his great-grandson, and not the oldest one, either.  When I first moved up here, George did a lot of heavy work around his house, like, with my blessing, removing the fence between our front yards, which included digging up the concrete footings for the posts and loading the metal and concrete chunks into his truck.

The past year or two he's slowed down.  He sold his truck last year.  Lately I sometimes see him just standing in his yard, slumped, with his head down.  Like he was resting.  He goes to the deli for a newspaper every morning, and lately he just sits in the car for a while before starting it, and when he gets back he sits in the car with the door open for a few minutes before getting out and climbing the steps to the yard.

For the past several days I hadn't seen him at all.  It's been hot and very humid, so I figured he was just staying in to stay cool.  

I've been a bit worried about him.

Late this morning the street filled up with cars, the earliest arrivals were the grandchildren (the whole family lives right around here) and then many more people arrived with covered dishes.  Many people.  Most were wearing black. 

I got a little freaked out. 

And then someone arrived and called from the street, "Happy birthday, George!", and George stepped out his front door to wave.  I was amused to see he was wearing a bright Hawaiian shirt instead of his usual dark t-shirt or plaid flannel.  

Happy birthday, George.   Glad you're still having them.
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3820 Snow

Thursday, February 13, 2014

My quarterly real estate tax was due on February 1st.  I missed it, didn't notice it was due until I was paying some other bills on the 11th, last Tuesday.  (Somehow I have it set in my mind that quarterly stuff is due in March, June, etc.)  By the time I realized the payment was late, it was 2 pm, and the town offices close at like 2:30, so I figured I'd pay it yesterday.

I went to the town offices yesterday and found everything closed.  Lincoln's birthday.  Duh?

Today we woke up to 8" of heavy wet snow, followed by ice pellets, followed by rain, and a "code red" call from the township saying that all town offices and functions were closed.

I probably won't get out to pay tomorrow, either, since we are supposed to get more snow overnight and all day tomorrow.

In the meantime, penalties accrue.

I hate snow.

The neighbor up the street says the Garden State Parkway and the Throughway, and many of the major local roads, are closed because of jackknifed  trailers all over the roads.  I got a code red email from the country house township saying that the highways are closed to commercial traffic for the same reason.

I really hate snow.  At least plain cold one can dress for, but snow can leave us defenseless.

At least we still have power.  Maybe that's one good thing Sandy did for us - all the weak trees and branches are already down.

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I am worried about my neighbor George.  He's got to be in at least his mid-eighties.  He gets out there shoveling.  He throws five shovelfuls, then stops and rests on the shovel handle for a while, kind of bent over the handle, then throws five more.

His late-teen great-grandson mows my lawn.  His granddaughter lives on the next street over, and some sons and daughters live in the area.  I can't help wondering why no one shows up to help him.  They all come for holiday dinners, so it's not like they're estranged.

I've got a delicate back and currently something wrong with my shoulder (rotator cuff?) so my daughter shovels for me if my little electric thrower can't handle it (note that's Daughter, not SIL Hercules), or scares up a kid to do it.  If I were capable, I'd help George.

Maybe I should review CPR procedures.

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I doubt that mankind in general is any smarter now than, say, 200 years ago.  200 years isn't much in evolutionary terms, but I do believe that on average we are already demonstrably more stupid.  We know more "stuff", but we are in general, overall,  less logical, less understanding, less interested in understanding, and less capable than we used to be.  It's like thinking is evolving out of us.  Like we don't need it any more.

Science fiction illustrators often depict humans of the far future as having huge heads, enormous brains.  I don't know why they think brains would get larger.  I think it's more likely we'll have tiny braincases.  As computers do the work of remembering for us, we won't need to remember anything much.  We won't need to calculate anything - the machine will tell us.

We already see evidence of brain atrophy....
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