When we were kids, my brother and I didn’t have television. It was a fairly new invention and one my father treated with disdain. So we only got to view it when we visited relatives.
One of the programmes I was allowed to watch was “Bill and Ben the Flower-pot Men.”
The only thing I can really remember about it was the character known as “Weed”, pronounced with drawn out “e” and emphasis on the “d”. Typically, I identified with Weed. The down trodden.
How little times have changed.
In 1958, returning from home leave, my parents decided to stopover in India, in order to see the Taj Mahal.
It was an impressive sight, even for a 9-year old, though I wasn’t aware enough to note the absence of other tourists. How different life was.
What I did notice, in Delhi, was the presence of numerous small children, younger than I, begging. They looked sad but my father crossly told me they were taught to look that way so people would give them money. He did not.
My father brushing aside a little girl with an angry “no!”, we got into a taxi somewhere and drove off. As children do, I gazed out the back window at that child whose face is etched into my brain.
Even if it was for commerce, surely being taught to beg couldn’t be much of a life for a child?
But these days, of course, they are thrust into much worse occupations.
And it seems that the majority of the human race believes this to be acceptable.
Perhaps not quite acceptable. But for someone else to sort out. You know, those bleeding heart people.
Someone who is obviously highly thought of by a friend I know to be compassionate, was ranting today on Facebook (yes, I know I should stay away from it) about Capitalism and the American Dream.
And about God, Guns, Guts and Glory.
Though my idea of God is somewhat unconventional, I was educated by Catholics and I know what their God is supposed to be. Somehow putting His name next to Guns doesn’t seem all that Christian.
There were the Crusades, of course, maybe Christianity isn’t a good example.
Isn’t the concept of “God”, goodness and compassion and Peace? Do as you would be done by?
“Guns and Glory”?
Capitalism….more and more, bigger and better. Why? Where will it stop? When there is no more planet?
Then there was the issue of unborn children.
Abortion. Does it not occur to anyone some of those unborn may not wish to be, in certain circumstances?
I’ve lost track, what exactly is the American Dream?
Yesterday a neighbor texted about coming to help move my little maple tree which is very sweet as it is now, but in a few years, would be too close to the house.
Grant asked me for an opinion about where it should go instead. Reasonable question.
Without offering an idea, I fell to pieces, saying that wherever I said to put the tree, it would certainly die and I was having nothing to do with it.
The tree will still be on my property to love and enjoy, so why all the drama?
Usually, I can figure these things out. I’ve always known where most of my problems came from.
Right now, I haven’t got a clue.
To end on a happy note…
This isn’t a weed but not a “flower” either.
This is Common Flax or Linseed.
My brother used to oil his cricket bat with Linseed Oil.
It’s my favourite colour.
So what if it’s “common”?