Category: Orphans

It happened in a flash last night that I finally realized how “plugged-in” I was — or wasn’t — in today’s technopalooza world. (Note: I don’t know what, if anything, “technopalooza” means but I thought it was a good word to insert since nothing else came to mind at the time. Needless to say, the word infers a technologically all-encompassing society. Feel free to use any other word that you want!)

My friend Paul, who lives in Tokyo, and I communicate with one another by e-mail, Facebook posts and Facebook sort-of real-time chats. We were friends in college and lost touch with one another. We recently discovered the other was still alive through Facebook or Classmates.com. I don’t remember which one. We have not actually talked to each other for somewhere around 26 years.

Those modes of communication also go for my contacting other, though certainly not all, friends. Also, some of the friends with whom I keep in contact, be it through chat, e-mail and post — oh and I forgot ye ole EFD — I have actually seen live and in person and perhaps talked with by cell more recently than in Paul’s case.

Paul posted on Facebook a quiz by which a number can be attained to put one’s self up against the so-called “Millennials.”

Millennials are the generation of those teens and 20-somethings who are coming of age as adults at the start of a new millennium. A recent study by the Pew Research Center looks at the characteristics of this new crop of young adults and found some interesting although sometimes, not-so-surprising, traits. The quiz on Facebook was likewise revealing though I was not greatly astounded by the results. You can take the quiz here and you don’t have to be on Facebook to do so.

One who has paid the slightest bit of attention to what has gone on around them  during their lives — and can still remember things reasonably well — should not really be surprised that the Millennials are in general:

” … more ethnically and racially diverse than older adults. They’re less religious, less likely to have served in the military, and are on track to become the most educated generation in American history.”

As well one has to have been in a coma for the last few years to not know that the Millennials (Mi3Ls–hey I made that up just now!) have suffered setbacks in their first jobs courtesy of what Pew now pegs as, the “Great Recession.” That this generation is unfailingly plugged in to different modes of communication and self-expression such as Facebook, Twitter, e-mail, etc. — 83 percent of the Mi3Ls surveyed sleep next to their cell phones compared to my Boomers at 50 percent — should also raise a great “duh” from someone who has a fraction of awareness of our current society. And that includes those who have a penchant for using “duh” as a noun, verb, adverb, adjective, etc. I kind of like “etc.,” don’t you?

What I believe the Pew study does exhibit very well is in their conclusion that the Millennial generation are, for the most part, kinder and gentler than previous generations. One can only hope that is more literal than the rhetorical term President George Bush the First used.

The study and quiz, as well, allows some reflection and some introspection (I feel some 70s soul slippin’ in, now) into how in touch one is in the larger sense of the word. I scored 22 on the quiz, which puts me about smack dab in the middle of the profile between Baby Boomer and Generation X, which would seem fairly logical because I was born in the middle of the Boomer years.

I am sure there are all sorts of variables these researchers kept in mind during the study. This sort of thing is where sociology and statistics and economics all merge, the latter two makes me dizzy even though I work somewhat in the last field. But from this research it does somewhat startle me when I think of just how much I have grasped technology — or it has grasped me — in really just the last 15 years or so.

This research and self-reflection somehow has made me feel relevant. I think were I to explain how I would question my relevancy my head would explode. But that is the good I see from such knowledge in my own personal way. What more can an old aging Baby Boomer ask for, relevancy and hope for the future, and perhaps, the entire Beatles collection?

It was most appropriate that I had a few mixed nuts before I sat down to read a newspaper article awhile ago.

The New York Times story told of how the conservative nuts on the Texas State Board of Education finally passed a rewrite of social studies curriculum that will attempt to warp the young minds throughout the United States. You see, Texas is a big state and orders a lot of textbooks. So other states end up, by and large, buying textbooks that reflect the Texas education board’s stamp — or more appropriately, mold, — of approval.

That means Thomas Jefferson will likely be just a president rather than one whose writings provided inspirations of revolutions during the 18th and 19th centuries. It seems Tom isn’t very well liked because the majority conservative voting bloc on the board doesn’t like his words about that “separation of church and state” thing. These members, who are not historians, simply do not believe in separation of church and state. Member David Bradley, whom I am ashamed to say is from right here in Beaumont (or maybe not, there has been some dispute as to whether he actually lives in his board district), says he’ll donate $1,000 to one’s choice of charity if the idea of separation of church of state can be located in the Constitution.

Mr. Bradley must do quite well at his real estate and apartment rental business. But as a historian, he leaves a lot to be desired. A number of what we consider rights cannot be found explicitly in the Constitution but were instead borne of landmark court cases such as Marbury v. Madison and Gideon v. Wainwright.

The nut majority on the education board also have also ordered that “capitalism” be replaced in textbooks with “free enterprise system” along with other changes that say your kids, whether in Big Lake or Baltimore, learn all about the National Rifle Association. I like guns and all but c’mon, why don’t you just add the tobacco and alcohol lobbies in there too?

Some states have, with the help of technology, managed to break free of the Texas education board’s conservative headlock on education. Hopefully, more will do so. Then perhaps some of tomorrow’s minds won’t be quite as warped. Boy, are some kids going to be really surprised when — or if — they get to college.

What a low blow. You know, critics can be pretty nasty but when the big right wing starts criticizing the little folks like me, they can attack you too. Take a look right here!

Old Squeaky. You could hear him a mile away.

That was me today. You know how new shoes somehow tend to squeak when you first walk in them? Well multiply that sound it makes by a factor of about five and that should let you know how squeaky I really was.

The shoes I wore are one of two new pair of Ambulator Diabetic Shoes I was given by the VA in an attempt to lessen the pain from my peripheral neuropathy that makes my feet feel as if they were shot, stabbed and set on fire. I have only had worse foot pain once than I am having nowadays. That was the Night of the Cruel Shoes.

My friend from college, Clay, had a very nice and large wedding when he married Katie about 12 years ago. Another friend, Warren, had been Clay’s roommate in college and Warren and I were two of the six or seven groomsmen attending the groom. Of course, we were wearing the rented tuxes which, unfortunately, came with rented shoes.

Now as I mentioned, my friend, Clay the radiologist, had a very nice wedding so this is nothing to take away from the wedding. But the shoes turned out to be living hell as time went on. Warren and I went on to call them “Cruel Shoes,” which is the name of the best-selling 1979 book written by comedian, actor, etc., Steve Martin as well as the title of one of the book’s very funny essays. Needless to say, or perhaps not, that the rented shoes were not black and white pumps with two left feet and …

” one had a right angle turn with sepa­rate compartments that pointed the toes in impossible directions. The other shoe was six inches long and was curved inward like a rocking chair with a vise and razor blades to hold the foot in place. ”

Our cruel shoes were black and rented. God only knows how many feet had been tortured in those shoes I wore in Dallas that night. That’s all right though. The bride and groom know how much we care for them and would endure pain to make their wedding a most wonderful experience. I still hadn’t seen the videos.

My diabetic shoes aren’t cruel from what I can tell. Just squeaky. At least the pair with the Velcro straps are. The other pair has shoestrings. They don’t look too bad. They are definitely more expensive than I would pay for — here is the shoe on a retailer’s site — all but probably hiking shoes. Thinking about hiking shoes makes me sad because I don’t know if I am ever going to hike again with this constant pain. But if the new shoes aren’t cruel shoes and help get me through the day then I guess I can handle the squeak until they get broken in properly.

It’s amazing how a trip back to Beaumont from Houston, all of 90 miles or so, wears me out. Or maybe it was all the sitting around I did at the DeBakey Veterans Affairs Hospital this morning in Houston? Or maybe combine all that with the 15 minutes I spent finding a place to park at the VA hospital?

Well, one thing about it, you could never mistake going to the VA hospital with fun.

I would have never known that they added 160 parking spaces in February at the DeBakey hospital. But that’s what their press release says.

“We know parking at the DeBakey VA is a serious concern for Veterans seeking health care,” said Adam C. Walmus, the hospital’s director. “The current situation is unacceptable and we are taking immediate action to alleviate the problem.”

I tell you what Mr. Director, I don’t think the 160 extra spaces were a drop in the bucket at least when it came to my driving around trying to find a spot this morning and finally parking more or less perpendicular to the VA Regional Office which is a lot closer to Holcombe Avenue than is the hospital. What I am saying is it was a good hike. Great for someone whose major problems include feet pain from walking for extended periods of time. In other words, the situation is still unacceptable.

Now I am sure the hospital folks would say: “But we have free valet parking.” True but one would spend as much time waiting to pull your car up to the hospital entrance, not to mention the waiting time for your car to be retrieved, as it takes to park your vehicle out in that mess that’s known as visitor parking.

The VA plans to increase parking spaces by the summer by 500. But that and the spotty enforcement seems like plugging up a hole in a boat made of Swiss cheese. One of the main problems cited by the Houston VA is that, since parking is free for visitors, this has led to jacking spaces by those who work elsewhere in the Texas Medical Center. Those employees simply park and hop on a bus or ride a bike over to the other hospitals. The VA has had its police checking to see if some of those cars actually belong there but that just seems fruitless.

My solution is to shoot these scofflaws who steal parking spaces from America’s veterans! I guess that’s a little harsh but I don’t even know if the total 1,200 spaces they hope to add at DeBakey when they build by 2016 some kind of structure over one of the existing parking lots will do much good.

There must be some kind of solution to the problem other than merely reshuffle the existing spaces. The task is providing parking, not brain surgery. I realize that is an oversimplification, especially since the government is involved. You add the frustration that you get trying to park with the frustration you have sitting around for hours on end waiting on appointments plus the frustration when you have to deal on occasion with one of the asses who needs to be working in something other than in contact with the public and you got yourself a real s**t storm. Seriously, it is surprising you don’t hear about more violent episodes than you do at the nation’s VA hospitals. It’s not just Houston’s.

It seems like if the Department of Veterans Affairs are serious about wanting to provide the best care possible, they could start when you park your car. The approach that is being taken is just too little too late.