Good & Bad

Sometimes I wonder if it’s worth the trouble. For those of us who give little thought to phones of any kind, an entire day devoted to the mysterious ills of a cell phone raises questions about necessity and increasing dependance. When I finally broke down and bought a mobile phone I was already years behind. The disbelieving looks when telling people I didn’t have a cell phone were by then an ordinary part of the day. Of course, the day came when like everyone else I did have a cell phone in my pocket and little by little I learned about a new brand of dependance. At this point, it’s second nature and the phone goes in my pocket automatically when I grab up the keys and leave home.

Frustrated now because a full day has been squandered on attempts to solve a ‘no service’ problem. Cut off in the middle of a call last night, suddenly a message appeared informing me of no service. No big deal, I thought; it will correct itself. Yeah, right. Two hours on another telephone talking to three different tech support reps this morning, a forty minute drive to the store where I bought the phone produced no results, no fix; another thirty minutes in the car hunting down the service provider’s office and finding no solution there. But hey, the man says if I get in the car and drive another thirty minutes over to Dunlawton they can probably fix it there, but no guarantees. I'm close to dropping the ornery thing in the trash and having done with it.

That was the bad part.

With day long frustration over a broken palm-sized gadget, a change of pace was in order. Things usually improve once you’re home and comfortable in a cushy chair, an icy jolt of spirits at hand and some cheery lines to look over. In a notebook next to the cushy chair are some newly jotted quotes from the long running television show, The Simpsons. Never seen it more than a time or two, but I read somes quotes this morning that hit the spot…

• Homer Simpson on his aspirations, “All my life I’ve had one dream—to achieve my many goals.”

• About responsibility, “You can’t keep blaming yourself. Just blame yourself once, and move on.

• On survival: “Three sentences will get you through life. One, ‘Cover for me.’ Two, ‘Good idea, Boss.’ And three, ‘It was like that when I got here.’”
• Talking about marriage, his wife Marge asks, “Homer, is this the way you pictured married life?” Homer ponders a moment and answers, “Pretty much. Except we drove around in a van solving mysteries.”

A short time later the gritty hours of frustration sort of rolled away looking at a quotation from William Blake. Blake’s “Auguries of Innocence” (1863) is a long poem of 132 lines, but the opening four lines are a familiar balm to many…

To see a world in a grain of sand,

And heaven in a wild flower,

Hold infinity in the palms of your hand,

And eternity in an hour.

Words good for clearing the head.

And finally, one more well written thought…

“Is there anything more beautiful in the world than to sit before an open window and enjoy nature, to listen to the birds singing, feel the sun on your cheeks and have a darling boy in your arms?” —Anne Frank, spring 1944.