Artemus: Meanderings

There has been a lot of things written about rainy days. Mostly about how bad they are, how depressing, how enervating. Personally, I have always found rainy days delightful. They often provide the perfect excuse not to do something you didn’t really want to do. They make the perfect environment for enjoying a good book nestled in your favorite chair with a cup of coffee. They cocoon you in the proper ambience to go meandering in your mind. Maybe even take a nap. What’s not to like?

Too often these days, it seems we drift through life in a mental fog created by a storm of outside stimuli. We miss the unique shapes, textures, aromas and feel of the everyday things around us. It’s sort of like trading our wide-screen color television in for a nine-inch black and white set. The essentials are still there, but the richness has gone. Perhaps it is time to alter our environment a bit and reclaim our joy in living. 

Sometimes we fail to consider the unintended–and usually negative–effects of events we set in motion. The military calls the phenomena collateral damage. Often the unintended effects far outweigh the value of the intended ones. The old adage ‘look before you leap’ might profitably be applied in such cases. It often makes for softer landings. 

Meanderin’ memories seem to affect us all as time goes on. Maybe it’s like magnets, where the further you are from the metal, the less hold the magnet has. And maybe an increasing gap in time between a memory and the event which produced it is what allows some of those old memories to loose their moorings and drift off into the fog. Say, do you remember when…?

While time changes many things, there’s a few treasures that seem exempt. Like the explosion of flavor from the first handful of popcorn, fireworks lighting up the sky on the Fourth of July, the pleasure of a face-plant into a slice of ice-cold watermelon on a hot summer evening and walking barefoot on a pristine white sand beach in the moonlight. In fact, walking barefoot most anywhere.

It’s only fair to warn you there are nay-sayers in the world who disdain the unshod wherever encountered. If you are not one of them, join us and proudly proclaim, ‘No shoes! No shoes!’

Some scientists believe time may not even exist. If that is true, I wouldn’t feel nearly as bad about wasting so much of it. Of course, if you are one of those sad, deluded souls who count fishing a waste of time, then I don’t have the time to deal with you anyway!

When things just don’t seem to go right for us, the tendency is to look around to see what went wrong. But maybe the problem doesn’t originate from the outside. Maybe the culprit is inside. Maybe we’re suffering from a dread malady that motivational guru Zig Ziglar warns us against called Stinkin’ Thinkin’.

There are times when we form strong attachments to inanimate objects–like cars or teddy bears or favorite chairs. Disposing of an old and well-used vehicle which has served faithfully over many miles and many years can be a jolt. Sorta’ like having to put down an old hound. It’s best to plan ahead for such eventualities.

Seems like we sometimes get bogged down in our own miseries to the point that we get no joy from anything. That horrible spell can often be broken by the application of a little judicious caring from a fellow traveler, seasoned with a touch of warm humor.

That’s the prescription of Doctor Artemus at any rate. “Take two smiles and call me in the morning.”

There was a time when the epitome of long-distance communication was the Pony Express. You could send a letter coast-to-coast in about two and a half weeks. Then along came the telegraph. If some villain hadn’t cut the wires, communication was nearly instantaneous. But with these methods, a physical connection was necessary from one end to the other. That limitation disappeared with the advent of an amazing new technology called the wireless.

Messages were sent through the ether and you could sit in the comfort of your own living room and listen to a fireside chat with the President of the United States. It was a time of marvels and mystery and aptly illustrates the topic of this episode…