Tag Archives: Midwest

Ballerina

Ballerina: (n) a female ballet dancer.Dictionary B

It is amazing to me, the things that pop to my mind when I hear the daily word that comes up through the luck of the draw of the dictionary–and suddenly an image is literally dancing across my consciousness, and no matter how hard I try to consider some other interpretation, it remains predominant.

I remember a very obscure song I knew as a young boy, which referred to a ballerina. (I could probably look up who did the song on the Internet, but I would lose the spontaneity by trying to impress you with my knowledge instead of impacting you with my experience.)

I think the song had a harpsichord in it and sounded a little old-fashioned, but it was a rock song that began with the haunting musical phrase, “I had a date with a pretty ballerina.”

And then, something about “her hair of gold was so bright it hurt my eyes.”

But what really struck me about the song was the lyric, “Was I surprised? No. Was I surprised? No, not at all.”

It was sung really high–in a falsetto.

As a kid, I loved that song, though I wouldn’t admit it to my friends, who thought it was really sissy.

The singer was one of those cast-offs from the British Invasion, who sounded very English, and therefore, to my Midwest ears, like he possibly was homosexual. (It was a different time…)

But this didn’t prevent me from having great emotion and affection for the song. It awakened me–that music, by itself, has a particular anointing, whether you understand the lyrics or comprehend the message or not.

So when I think of a ballerina, that song comes to my mind, and even though I don’t know who sang it or what the hell it was all about, it still conjures images of a dainty lady graced with great ability, pirouetting into my mundane life.

 

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Anteroom

dictionary with letter A

Anteroom (n.): an antechamber, usually serving as a waiting room.

Of course, we never call it an anteroom.

But I’ve had my fair share of being in waiting rooms. I think most of us have. Three occasions pop into my mind immediately.

When I was seven years old, my parents found a dentist about ten miles from our town who stubbornly refused to join the modern world of pain-free tooth care, and insisted that all of the chemicals and medicines that were injected into young children to relieve the discomfort of repairing teeth were going to cause a generation of sterile adults.

Of course, he had no basis for the theory, but my parents thought he was a pioneer and a patriot so they decided to use him as our family dentist.

I have two startling memories of this experience.

Number one was sitting in the anteroom, waiting my turn, hearing the moans and groans of other children subjected to the Neanderthal treatment.

Additionally was enduring both the lecture and the pain of having my teeth drilled by a gentleman who was certainly soon to be declared a medical dinosaur.

The second waiting room experience that pops to mind was when I was a mere nineteen-year-old, waiting for the birth of my first son. Having no idea of the process, and being surrounded in the waiting room by veterans of the procedure, I remember fidgeting until I forced myself to need to pee, and therefore being out of the room when the doctor came in to tell me of the birth of my child.

The third and final memory is a rather unpleasant one of being in the Emergency Room of a hospital in Mobile, Alabama, waiting to hear the status of my son who had been hit and run by a car. Being raised in the Midwest, I was filled with optimism, believing that the medical field would be able to put my little Humpty Dumpty back together again.

That night, over and over again, I was given bad news, each time deepening in darkness. Matter of fact I was so inundated with dreary reports that I nearly ran from the room, screaming, to escape the mania.

So when I think about waiting rooms, I realize that they are a perpetual paradox. First you have “waiting”–not the best profile for any human being. And then, you have a room, which normally has four walls, increasing claustrophobia and fear.

I certainly hope there’s no waiting room in heaven.

Don’t you?

 

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Antarctica

dictionary with letter AAntarctica: A continent around the South Pole

Somebody just wanted seven.

I am convinced that some guy putting together the map of the world thought that seven continents looked better than six, so he peered down at the South Pole and said, “Hey! There’s a continent!”

(Obviously, he didn’t think that eight was as poetic as seven. Otherwise, why leave out the North Pole?)

It must have been a real public relations bonanza for all the penguins and polar bears, even though I cannot truthfully tell you that I am positive there are polar bears at the South Pole.

Actually, what I know about the South Pole has gone south in my intelligence level.

I know this: I have no desire to visit it.

Matter of fact, when it occasionally comes on the television set with some sort of special about it, I turn the channel because I get cold.

I don’t like to get cold.

I grew up in the Midwest in an area where we weren’t even blessed with an abundance of snow–only the dreariness of gray clouds and the damp, bitter Jack Frost nipping at your ass.

So as I have aged (beyond twelve) I yearn for a place where you can walk out the door without having to display half of your wardrobe to stay warm.

So obviously, I am not a fan of Antarctica.

I don’t even like penguins that well because I think they’re making fun of how I walk.

And I was disappointed the first time I saw a polar bear, realizing that they’re really not white. They’re kind of a sickly beige.

So hats off to those who want to explore this mysterious seventh continent, including it on their bucket list of things to do before they die.

Just realize that if you do go … everything in your bucket will be frozen.

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Affront

Words from Dic(tionary)

dictionary with letter A

Affront: (n) an action or remark that causes outrage or offense

Sixty years.

If you think about it, it’s not really that long. But in sixty years of life, I have been offered many ideas, which, as time has passed, have gone from being the common sense of my day to being opinions that AFFRONT.

Let me give you some examples:

When I was eight years old, I was told that black people were inferior. They weren’t “bad,” just more or less one step up from monkeys, but a step down from my Midwest, white friends and family. Yet you can see, if I held any part of that conviction today, I would affront many–or maybe even most–people.

When I was fourteen years old I was told that rock and roll was “of the devil.” Matter of fact, I read a book about how the beat came from Africa and had the potential to turn us into animals instead of enlightened creatures of Eden. Alas, if I promoted this idea today, there would be great possibility of affrontation.

May I proceed?

All through my teenage years, I was told by my church and even my school that a woman’s place was “in the home.” Interestingly, most of the girls in my senior class were encouraged to take Home Economics, and any boy who might decide to join the class would be ridiculed right out of the school. Move ahead. Stating such a premise in public nowadays would put you in danger of being shunned, if not stoned.

I go on.

When my wife became pregnant with our first child and we were not ready, we considered abortion. But because our upbringing and the world around us told us it was murder, we passed. Now, if you were to state that abortion is murder in a public arena, you would be labeled an ultra-conservative right-wing nut.

Can I give you another one?

“Marijuana is a dangerous drug.” I grew up with that conviction. But just the other day I discovered that fifty-eight percent of the country now contend that it should be legalized. How “backwoods-bumpkin” would you look to disagree?

And finally, throughout my childhood and even my young adult years, it was common knowledge that homosexuality was abnormal. Move ahead a couple of decades. Such an assertion would be met with violent opposition and you certainly should be prepared to be ostracized.

It reminds me of the question that a governor once asked a convicted felon right before his execution. His name was Pilate and he said, “What is truth?”

Is truth what is best for human beings, or what is easiest to sell to the masses? It may take a generation that decides to discuss and learn what is functional instead of getting up in arms over their cause to finally arrive at what works for the human family.

Who knows? Maybe sixty years from now.

Acrid

Words from Dic(tionary)

by J. R. Practix

dictionary with letter A

Acrid: (adj.) an irritatingly strong and unpleasant taste or smell

I guess we universally say something isn’t to our taste, but I’ve never heard anyone say it’s not to their smell.

Am I right?

So is it possible that folks who love jalapenos and maybe will even eat grasshoppers, still universally despise the smell of crap?

For there ARE cultures which devour things that we would never eat, but I’ve never seen any place in the world where certain odors are tolerated.

(Well, take that back. There is the Midwest, where people drive into their small towns and seem to accept the air of cow manure permeating the surroundings. But even there, if you look deeply into their eyes, most of them seem to reflect a wish that the cows would poop elsewhere…)

And there ARE certain things we will tolerate and eat and not call them “acrid” because we’re trying to impress. For instance, I have never been a drinker of alcohol. Yet if I’m in Wisconsin and someone offers me a beer they’ve made in their basement (which, by the way, SHOULD be frightening enough) I feel compelled to take a drink and somehow or another come up with an approving phrase about the liqueur. They usually know very quickly that I don’t know what I’m talking about, but ignore that in deference to my politeness.

I remember the first time I was out on a date with a girl, very early in my years, and I realized that she was willing to kiss me–repeatedly.  But in the process of receiving THAT very pleasant experience, I had to reconnoiter her breath, which was a bit … acrid.

I was torn. Two sensations tugging at my soul–the pleasure of appreciating a woman’s lips and a revulsion in my gut which was suggesting we move further away from the attacking stench.

It is amazing what we will accept if we feel the results are to our benefit.

I was watching a show last night on TV. Young women were trying to lose weight by drinking green, slimy slushes to trim off the pounds. What struck me was that these lovely ladies will probably not want to drink this concoction the rest of their lives, and that we as a human race, have not found a way to produce good-tasting food that doesn’t kill us.

  • Why can’t we have peanut butter that’s low in calories?
  • Why not a beef steak that has the nutrition of broccoli?

This might be more beneficial than curing cancer. But we’re going to continue to eat and smell acrid things and pretend they’re good for us, knowing that in a moment of slight weakness, we will run away.

Acrid is NOT in the eye, the taste buds, nor the nose of the beholder. It’s pretty universal.

I guess it’s just the common conclusion to almost everything.

Some people just lie better.

Abaxial

by J. R. Practix

dictionary with letter AAbaxial: (adj.) {botany) facing away from the stem of a plant, especially denoting the lower surface of a leaf. The opposite of adaxial.

Being raised in a Germanic household in the Midwest, where the mention of sex only required a simple pronouncement of “male” or “female” and nothing more, I have not made a practice of looking at the undergarments of plants.

So I’m a little uncomfortable with abaxial.

It sounds kind of sneaky–maneuvering your way behind the hapless greenery to peek under one of its stems and examine the full hidden foliage …

Am I the only one who’s nervous about this?

It’s not a plant’s fault that it has to be so … well, so exposed. That’s the only way it can get sunshine–similar to a voluptuous blonde laying out next to the pool and unfastening her top to gain the rays of the sun to promote her particular brand of growth.

it is not good for me to ogle either one.

Now, it’s not that I’m a prude–it’s more that the wisdom of precautionary action in the realm of the sexual experience will often keep you from the embarrassment of backing up claims in the real world which you have made with your fantasy statements In other words, if you have not talked about your sexual prowess, when the actual moment arrives with your partner, you can always plead inexperience, insufficiency or the classic–“a cold breeze must have blown by.” If you’ve been bragging, then there’s always a season when “pay-up or shut up” unveils all of your shortcomings.

So it’s not so much that I believe in being a prude as that I fear false advertising, and therefore a disappointed consumer.

Yes, sometimes it’s a good idea NOT to sneak behind the plant and look up at it from the backside–in an abaxial mode.

I guess it’s just like real life with real girls. You just wait for them to invite you … to de-petal them.