Those Elusive Passes

The Mountain Pass
by Big Frank Dickinson

Lewis and Clark made it over the pass.
They knew it existed but did not know where
It was; they needed help to find it
And this took them on a round-about journey
To a difficult passage

Over the mountains
To the Pacific
Ocean, a goal of some satisfaction,
Not because of where they ended up
But rather on having gotten there.

They quickly went back, and
The pass was easily found this time
As was the destination from which they had come.
However, it was never the same again

Thanksgiving

Give Thanks = Be Happy

The foundation of happiness is gratitude so does that mean that the Danes and the Finns are more thankful than we Americans? They are, stats tell, the happiest countries in the world. They are also among the most well-off, but it appears that only being better off than others without being grateful does not lead to increased levels of happiness. Emmons and McCullough did an interesting experiment in which three groups of people were asked to write lists and then had their relative levels of happiness compared. The lists were:

(1) What I’m thankful for (gratitude condition)
(2) What Is a Big Hassel (hassel condition)
(3) Anything I feel like writing down (control condition)

Group number one just by virtue of writing down a short list of what it is that they were thankful for at the end of each week for 10 weeks ended up 25% more happy than the other groups. Even when in a subsequent experiment with a new group added that wrote down how much better off they were than others (the comparison group) the gratitude group still came out significantly happier.

So, come on, what are you waiting for? Be thankful; write out your list today and continue to do so every week from now on. Be thankful for what you have and what you have will make you happy - much happier than what it is that you think you need but don’t have. It’s what’s in your hands that makes you happy; hold it, hug it, smile, and be thankful. Big Frank is - he’s smiling - Big Time!

The Origin of Lines

[Photo: Big Frank Dickinson: Osaka, Japn]

There are many ways of categorizing humans in which they are separated from other animals, mammals, and primates: the tool maker, the user of language, or the imaginative one looking into the future. However, here's a new one that definitely is unique to humans: standing in line. No animal will willingly stand in line for any reason whatsoever: food, shelter, entertainment, sex, . . . nothing! Human are the Queuing Animal. Look at all the times/places that humans will line up: to get on a train, plane, or taxi; to get a hamburger, a pizza, or a shot of vodka; to have someone look at their bunyans, moles or warts; to buy a TV, a hammer, or a quart of milk; to enter a theater, a restaurant, or a church; to register for class, withdraw from class, or enter class . . . and so on and on and on. Big Frank wonders when the first line was formed and for what reason. Surely it was not a group decision of perhaps a group of hunters descending on a carcass and standing in line to hack off a piece, nor the consensus of a tribe to queue up in order to drink one at a time from a narrow pool of water. We see lots of cartoons on the first users of wheels and this is typically put back into the fuzzy time when people lived in caves so perhaps that was when the first line was formed. Surely there must have been some kind of power structure to enforce it and some kind of order or enforcement. What did they first line up for: water, food, or perhaps something even more substantial and essential . . . but what?

Now

Big Frank knows the answer to this lovely poem full of questions and waiting!

This Couple
by C. D. Wright

Now is when we love to sit before mirrors
wth a dark beer or hand out leaflets
at chain-link gates or come together after work
listening to each other’s hard day. The engine dies;
no one hurries to go in. We might
walk around in the yard not making a plan.
The freeway is heard, but there’s no stopping
progress, and the week has barely begun. Then
we are dressed. It rains. Our heads rest
against the elevator wall inhaling a stranger;
we think of the cliffs we went off
with our laughing friends. The faces
we put our lips to. Our wonderful sex
under whatever we wear. And of the car
burning on the side of the highway. Of jukeboxes
we fed. Quarters circulating with our prints.
Things we sent away for. Long drives. The rain. Cafes
where we ate late, and once only. Eyes of an animal
in the headlamps. The guestbooks that verify
our whereabouts. Your apple core in the ashtray.
The pay toilets where we sat without paper. Rain.
Articles left with former lovers. The famous
ravine of childhood. Movie lines we’ve stood in
when it really came down. Moments
we have felt forsaken: waiting for the others
Tt step from the wrought-iron compartment,
or passing through some town with the dial
on a Mexican station, wondering for the life of us
where were we going and when would we meet.