In memory of Zane Michelson, who drowned March 19, 2010. Starring Zane and Tasha, this funny skit was completely improvised on the spot and shot in one take without a script or a director. Shot in December 1998 on location in Rocky Mount, Virginia.
It is worth watching on YouTube just for the reading the comments this evoked.
Grandma had a headache, but she treated her brain well by drinking Coca-Cola, and then, as she would tell, she gave some to my father … and he …in turn … to me. She had her own traditions and she kept them to a tee.
Coke elixir with her liquor. She drank it straight or mixed, ’cause she was the kind of person that liked to see things fixed. She did not total all her tees, she did not shirk her pleasures. She also felt that earthly pain should not become a treasure.
When great-grandma had a toothache, Grandma knew just what to do. She bought those cocaine toothache drops and placed them on her tooth. She liked those folky remedies, she liked her living fables that let live her life as clean and right as she was able.
“They are tearing down my childhood home today,” he said, wishing instead he were already dead. “I should not watch. It is a sad thing to see,” he said, thinking softly of the past, wishing it could forever last.
“I wish I could have done more to save it,” he mused, feeling the blues as it oozed from the news.
“I ate watermelon at the kitchen table, sweet as summer’s breath,” he said, tasting the juice that his mind reproduced.
“We had many a memory in that house,” he understated,
watching as his reality was castrated.
“I wonder it I was happier back then than now,” he exclaimed, unashamed that he had no fame. “Probably not,” he said to himself, knowing he had not mastered laughter in the face of disaster.
“Some folk’s homes become museums,” he pondered as his thoughts wandered. “I was never that important,” he concluded, as he brooded.
by Kenneth Harper Finton ©2014
My old grandpappy used say that “learnin’ is bad for a body. The more a body knows, the unhappier a body gets.”
Unfortunately, I did not take his advice, but I have yet to see any proof that he is wrong.
That is why I founded The Foundation for the Furthering of Global Ignorance.
Reading Ruins the Eyes
Reading is hellish on the eyeballs. We may not notice it for a while, but the words become increasingly out of focus and lines soon begin to dance before our eyes. The eyes will then begin to water and demand a good rubbing.
Reading Strengthens the Brain.
The natural state of the brain is mushy. The more we use it, the stronger it grows. We do not want to overburden or tax the brain, so we should replace reading and writing with movies and phone conversations.
Overworked brains need bigger heads and our heads are fixed in size and volume. We should not fill it the our brains with useless culture and relics from past thoughts. If these classic thoughts from the past had any value at all, these thoughts would reoccur to us, would they not?
Had I only paid attention to the old man, I could revel in even more ignorance than I already possess. Lucky for the present, most schools are not really teaching classic reading skills. They teach enough writing to sign your name and pass a driver’s license test.
They don’t teach geography, so no one under 25 has any idea of where they are going. They no longer teach cursive, as it can be had in the fonts folder if one really needs it.
Reading Can Expand Your World
For those of us who like things exactly as they are, there is no worse threat that seeing what is on the other side of the hill. With new communications tools the universe is at our fingertips. We can make friends in Patagonia and buy stocks in Australia. We can be inspired by ideas from across the ages and the seas. The Internet may kill everything we have worked for thousands of years to achieve. Ignorance and class. I was once told Al Gore invented the Internet. I believe that he should be drawn and quartered.
Reading May Accidentally Change Your Station in Life
This reading of history and novels must be held in check. Through reading one is able to transcend their own station in life. They are emboldened to dream of other worlds and experience other lives. This, of course, is disruptive to the homogeneous society we seek to build. When the average person learns too much about how the world really works, they tend to either revolt or become integrated in the power structure. Stability is built by the ignorance of the masses.
Once one embraces ignorance, the world is a much simpler place.
Kenneth Harper Finton 