Culture Over Easy - Repeat Monday

The tree trunks here in Melbourne, Australia are wrapped with metal guards. This is the kind of thing that gets my husband and I curious when we travel. Forget the museums, forget the art galleries, forget the fireworks display every Friday night over the River Yarra. What’s with the tree tin? That’s the real Australia. You can just feel it. As we ride around the city we develop theories.  “They’re to keep the squirrels out of the trees,” I speculate. “But where else are the squirrels going to live if they don’t live in trees? Telephone poles?” “Good point,” I conceded. “How about it’s to keep crazy crap out of the trees. You know like those bear things.” “Koala bears? No way. You’d think they’d want a koala hanging off of every tree branch. Think of the tourist dollars.” “Good point.” We continued to scratch our American heads. Finally, Sherwood asks the cab driver, “What’s with the tree tin?”  Cabbie tells Sherwood, "That's to keep the possums out of the trees."  "Why don't you just shoot them?" asks Sherwood (Dead Eye) Zern, of Saint Cloud, Florida, near Kissimmee, home of the Silver Spurs Rodeo.  "Because the government took our guns, and we'd get in trouble with the animal people," cabbie says.  "In America, we'd just shoot them." "In America, you shoot everything." It’s hard to know where to go from this point in the cultural exchange: to be more curious about the enormity of the problem Australians are facing with pesky possums colonizing city trees, or offended at the gross ignorance and prejudice on the part of the cabbie about our American way of life. I’ll address both. One) How big are these possums? How mean? What happens if they climb up in those trees? What are the possums tossing at people from up there that makes the citizens of Melbourne have to take such drastic tree trunk wrapping action? Where do the possums go if they don’t go up those trees? Telephone poles?  Two) It is simply not true that Americans “shoot everything.” We don’t shoot roaches. That would be counter-intuitive. We pour gallons of poison over them as if basting tiny turkeys. We don’t shoot the mailperson. We give the mailperson twenty bucks at Christmas and thank her for not throwing our mail in ditches. We don’t shoot the computer. We want to. We want to real bad, especially when it seizes up and threatens to meltdown IN CHINESE.  Possums? Possums we shoot. Especially, when they climb in the chicken coop looking to rape and pillage and thieve eggs. Then possums are going down—American style. Come to think of it, that’s why we wrap sheet metal around the bottom of our chicken coops to help keep nasty possum types out.  Hey! We’re not so different after all. It’s a small, possum troubled, world after all. Linda (Foreign Exchange) Zern PS Australian possums look like something you win for your kid at a carnival. Adorable. Florida possums look like something in the freak show at the carnival. Prehistoric and toothy. Very toothy.

HILLS OF WHITE SAND

We don’t buy toys for our grandchildren. We buy dirt. Once or twice a year, we call the dump truck man and have him bring his giant belching, clanking dump truck full of white sand to our back yard, where he dumps it—as high and as deep as he can make it. We call it the Mountain, and then we unleash the grandkids on it.

“Go play on the Mountain,” we say.

“Don’t dig in that nasty horse poop. Go dig up the Mountain,” we instruct.

“Of course you can make a tiger pit on the Mountain,” we encourage.

The Mountain is worth its weight in cash, check, or charge.

The Mountain is a kid-friendly, adult-free zone. There is only one rule that governs the hill of white sand community.

“Thou shalt not throw sand.”  That’s it.

We don’t tell them how deep to dig, or what size shovel they should use, or whether they should build a sand castle or a wombat nest. We don’t care if they cart sand around in buckets or build a sand fort or bury each other up to their neck bones.

“Thou shalt not throw sand.”

That single mountain commandment is specific and limited in scope. It is patterned after the Ten Commandments, “the [Mosaic] law has a modest function; the law is limited, and therefore the state is limited. The state, as the enforcing agency, is limited to dealing with evil, not controlling all men.” (Old Testament Student Manual; the page after 137; the part about rules we should all follow.)

As the official representative of “the state” in our backyard, I like the whole setup. I can sit in the sun, read a book, drift off to sleep, dream about Aruba, and eat grilled cheese sandwiches—most of the time, until someone throws sand, until someone EVIL throws sand.

Then the State steps in . . .

It always starts with a grubby kid on The Mountain standing up straight as a stick, hands clenched to fists, eyes squeezed to sandy slits, and mouth open—howling. One hand slowly extends like a ghost newly crawled from an open grave, finger pointing, “He/She/They threw sand,” the howling mouth howls. Inherent in the howl is the demand for justice.

Shading my eyes with my paperback, I say, “Wipe your eyes with your shirt tail.”

The howler tries to comply. Sand is ground deeper into sockets.

The howler screams, “Arrrrrrrrrrrrgggggg!”

Denials fly.  “I didn’t do it. He did it. The dog did it. Mavis the Goat did it. A chicken did it. No one did it. It just happened.”

The howler, now the screamer, continues to wipe and wail.

At this point, the State is forced to put down her lemonade, egg salad, paperback, bonbons, umbrella, and intervene.

Evil is a pain in the eye sockets. It takes time and energy and attention to control “all men” also women. It costs money. It’s a drain on leisure activities. It’s depressing. It’s exhausting.

The Ten Commandments have gotten a bad rap over the years. (I blame wicked people.) It’s too sad really; because they are not a bad deal. Thou shalt not steal. Doesn’t tell you how to spend your money or how to earn it or how to use it or donate it or squirrel it away—all it says is that you shouldn’t take my money or your neighbor’s money with the great looking ass (as in donkey.)

That’s it. Thou. Shalt. Not.

Not a single thou shalt. People want to tell you that the Ten Commandments are repressive. They are wrong and probably are all about coveting your ass (as in donkey.)

Thou shalt pay income taxes to the federal government to be doled out by liars, cheaters, and thieves in a district hundreds of miles away from your front door or thou shalt go to big, fat jail; that’s repressive.

Or as I like to say, “You let me know which one of those Ten Commandments you most object to, and I’ll know whether to hide my purse or my husband.”

Other than that, here’s your sand pail; the Mountain is out back.

Linda (Sand Storm) Zern

 

Book Trailer: Mooncalf

Here is a wonderful new trailer for my book, Mooncalf.  It's a return to classic Southern Literature; hopefully Harper Lee and Zora Neale Hurston would be proud.  (Mooncalf is set in Florida after all).

Expertly produced by the one and only Nathan Schmoe.  Make sure to visit his website and check out the rest of his work.