He's Watching. I'm Learning.

There are SO many contexts I could use today's title for!

For today's purposes I refer to a snippet of conversation Martha, Jeffrey, and I had last night as we her sitting on the couches -- Sarah and Martha were on one, I was on the other, and Jeffrey was sitting on the floor. The kids got to stay up late because they have no school today or tomorrow with the North Dakota Educators Association meeting Thursday and Friday. Watching an episode of Top Chef before bed (and I always appreciate the irony of eating while we're watching a cooking show, which is often) Jeffrey had gotten us a package of Sun-Maid Raisins we'd bought and gave us each a box. We finished them quickly, and Martha threw me her empty one. Then Jeffrey did the same thing -- that is, tossed me his empty box -- and his mother railed into him that only she could do that. I muttered a little incensed today's title's first sentence.


Jeffrey followed with the second.


The more we're seen to mock each other the more our kids, if they're not already influenced by more of that ... tablet time and the people they meet and the books they read, will do the same for they won't know otherwise. So many people like blaming (at least in the United States where I write) the current candidates for President for modeling a bad influence, but no matter how many cameras are on them and how many pundits are following every word they say and every move they make, Donald and Hillary are not shaping the culture. The culture's there, and they're just happening to pander to it. This is the same argument you often hear regarding motion pictures and practically anybody involved in them; our civilization and the Romans' weren't the only ones that regarded actors and prostitutes (and politicians?) on roughly the same social level.


It's a disgusting Western narrative.


We could almost elect a talking animal to high office and few of us would notice the difference! Of course, you have to learn how to talk to the animals, as Dr. John Dolittle does. No, not the Rex Harrison or Eddie Murphy movie "adaptations", but the original. I just finished reading author Hugh Lofting's second Doctor Dolittle book, The Voyages of Doctor Dolittle (1988 Delacorte Press edition, ISBN 0385296630) and I must admit it's a lot of fun. The story's narrated by Tommy Stubbins, a ten-year-old boy in Victorian England whom he takes on as an apprentice who follows him through England to Spain to Spider Monkey Island floating off the coast of Brazil to find the greatest living naturalist ever, Long Arrow whom no white man has ever met! Voyages was originally published in 1922 and became the second book to win the Newbery Medal for Children's Literature.


Right behind Hendrik Willem van Loon's The Story of Mankind which has influenced me greatly.


Several times in the book Doctor Dolittle's referred to by his animal companions (once you can understand them, of course) as not always knowing where he's going, but he gets there. There's no trace of absentmindedness in him, but you have to wonder -- at least I did -- if that's what he wants you to think, like another fictional Doctor of our common cultural acquaintance; you know, the one who travels in that big blue phone booth? Heck, English language children's literature was full of people first half of the twentieth century who were or implied they were more than they seemed. Except for Willy Wonka for me, they kind of petered out and the Oompa-Loompas' song after Mike Teavee was taken away reflects it ... I've still got time to at least start with the kids off school this weekend to get them thinking such a big question, and they're reading Eat This Not That!  

Where it seems all the good stuff is in the "not" column, but they're learning.

David