More on M: Part IV

Here’s another installment in our Rising Daughters™ series of interviews with the terrific twosome.  We last spoke with Marina back in October 2017. We were on the cusp of leaving Gurgaon for our new home in the U.S. Read on to discover the rambunctious Ms. M’s current views on life, laughter and the pursuit of happiness.

What's been the hardest thing for you to adjust to since you moved to Tennessee?

Sleeping with the door closed, not sleeping with Mommy, and not being able to use my flashlight when I go to sleep in my own bedroom. Also, finishing my breakfast in the morning isn’t easy.

What are your favorite clothes these days?

I like to wear shorts as much as I can. But skirts are distracting when you run. Shorts don’t flap like skirts when you run. I also like T-shirts.

Embarrassing habits? 

Sometimes I sniff my own farts and compare it with other ones from before.

What's your favorite ice cream/or candy?

Well, I like Laffy Taffy (candy). Chocolate and vanilla ice cream, and soda. I like Nerds when we go to see a movie. I once ate too many Nerds and got sick to my stomach.

Who is more fun to play with, boys or girls?

Girls are more fun. Why? I don’t know, ‘cause I’m a girl? Boys do scary sports and people really get hurt. I don’t want to get hurt, so I don’t play with them. The games are Dodgeball and Nosebleed.

Are you more of a guys' girl or still a girls' girl?

Both. At my birthday party I got around four pounds of Slime, confetti, beads and glitter. Four guests got one pound of it and other stuff. We saved some for a late party arrival so she could play with Slime, too. Elena got the clear Slime. Sometimes girls fight, though.

What's your average day like?

Dad wakes me up at 0655 with rock n’ roll. He carries me to the big bed in Mommy’s room and throws me on the bed to wake me up. I change into school clothes after that. Then I eat breakfast, brush my teeth. The bus comes at 0755. My friend comes, so we pet the other friend’s dog and wait for the bus to come. When we get to school, we wait for the car kids to come, then the gym teacher releases us into the school. We get to our classrooms and do grammar, math, social studies. Yeah.  That’s about it. 

Tell us about the past year at school in Tennessee. What have you learned?

I learned about the circulatory system and the solar system. Plants. U.S. states and history—and a project about Pres. Abraham Lincoln. I got extra points for the beard when I dressed up like him. I really liked Field Day games outside, when it was warm and school was ending, and Sunday’s ice cream. I won a spot in an art contest!

What books are you reading lately?

I still read SpongeBob but lately I really like reading Dork Diaries. Dork Diaries is a girly book, but there’s this other one, the Diary of the Wimpy Kid, that I like. It’s for boys but I still enjoy it.

What’s your favorite toy or thing these days?

I enjoy the camera that Mommy and Daddy got me for Christmas, and the drawing iPad they gave me, too. I love the robot dog, Maya, that Grampa gave me for my birthday present. It’s kind of like a real dog. It kinda walks, rolls over, and barks. 

What would you like to say to your future self?

[For Marina in six years from now/i.e. 15 years old] Hello, I’m fifteen years old. I’ve got a husband, he works for Nissan. I’m a zookeeper and I have 20 children. Apparently we sold them all and only have two children that we adopted. We sold all the children I gave birth to because we didn’t like them. We didn’t have money until my husband George found Nissan and I got to be an employee at the zoo. I live in MarinaWorld Castle and I am the Queen. ‘Bye!

###

Fields and Dreemz

"Human vs. Machine", courtesy of JennyConnected on Wordpress

A few days ago, I wrote about parenting in the internet age and the avalanche of technology that will have a tremendous effect on my kids as they grow up. While pecking at my keyboard I spied the dog-eared copy of W.P. Kinsella’s mystical baseball novella, Shoeless Joe, in my bookcase. That eased my introspection.

I first read Kinsella’s work not long after Hollywood’s take on the book, “Field of Dreams,” starring Kevin Costner, charmed North Americans in the late 1980s. The book was filled with wonder about life, the afterlife, and how people handle metaphysical curveballs pitched to them. It’s a work replete with plot twists focused on dreams, hopes and second-guessing on choices made. Gooey feelings galore. I saw the movie with my mom, who was pregnant with my younger brother at the time, because I thought she would enjoy the underlying spiritual themes. I went on to relish Kinsella’s many baseball stories in addition to learning about Canada’s indigenous peoples, of which he also used humorous storytelling to inform with wit and grace. His stories entertained, and made me think about how I approached and dealt with the unknowns, and failures, that all young adults grapple with.

Here’s the tie-in with the technology element in the previous post. People like booing umpires after a call is made that we don’t agree with, even when we know the umps are probably right. It’s contradictory and defies rational thinking. They’re human, therefore fallible, those damn umps. But who doesn’t enjoy the theater of the manager ambling out to do verbal battle with the umpire crew chief on a questionable call? Even if he knows he’s in the wrong, the manager will argue and put on a show, sometimes get thrown out of the game, just to show his allegiance and rally the fans and his team. It’s a human reaction. Calling balls and strikes, or making close calls just by the sound of a ball hitting a glove, is nigh impossible to get right every time. But we accept that. 

Thank you, ESPN

Since 2011, ESPN’s K-Zone – a square representing the player’s non-official strike zone superimposed on the TV screen for viewers -- has been visible during its ballgame broadcasts. Traditionalists decry it, claiming it removes human judgement and control from the game. Others think it makes baseball games move faster, with more precision and impartiality. Machines and radar don’t have biases.

Both sides are right. For me the K-zone and other adjustments to baseball are reminders that faith in our humanity and our imperfect ways will continue to triumph over the tech tools we create to assist us. But that’s the same reason I like umpires, not computers, making the final call on a ball or a strike. It’s because of the fallibility of man, the mystery of life, and accepting occasional value judgments rather than cold, binary yes/no decisions.

If I can divine some larger philosophical significance from a book about baseball then certainly the future technology that awaits today’s kids will continue to serve them if we don't delegate control too much. The man versus machine debate will not fade away. Zeros and ones do not govern our squishy thinking. Nor do they determine if a pitch is called a ball or strike. 
The kids will be alright.

HAL9000 and my kids

[Forward: This entry is contemplative and wonky, so forgive me. I must exorcise the thoughts.]

Access to technology has forced the several battles and a strategy rethink amid the Rising Family's childrearing campaign. TV and cellphone screen time have launched a hundred headaches in the last six months. The problem is that one kid now has a basic cellphone. The other one doesn’t, which is an affront to the kids’ perceptions of natural justice. It’s the perennial question: why does she get one just because she’s older? It’s not fair! Slamming doors, tears, and terse silence at the dinner table abound.

So how have these tiny screens -- and the software and the expanding artificial intelligence that make them all so addictive -- provoked such outrage? Why do smartphones, YouTube 'slime' videos and texting hold swath over the Rising Daughters’ budding brains? 

Courtesy of Facebook

Rhetorical question #1: If 2016 proved that Facebook subverts our democracy, what will Alexa do in 2020?

Before Stephen Hawking died, he warned that AI could spell the end of the human race. His prediction feels a lot closer to reality to me when I cannot pry M. away from Siri long enough to hold a real conversation.

Sometimes I get the Technology Terrors when I think about the future. Visions of my daughters being deprived by my weak discipline in the face of the siren song of Tech. Giving in means sleep affected by screen time before bed; micro attention spans; lapses in logical reasoning; difficulty in socializing; incipient ADHD diagnoses; and eventual fears over contact with online predators. These dark visions come with every hour they spend on the PC or with eyes glued to the cellphone. Let alone the opportunity cost in outdoor activities and organized sports. Doom and gloom stuff, right?

Maybe so, maybe no. I think previous generations of parents had similar fears for their kids about the advent of radio, TV, and personal computers. 

Silly rhetorical question #2: 2001: A Space Odyssey’s infamous HAL 9000’s vocal sounds have a Canadian accent. Stanley Kubrick chose a Canadian stage actor for HAL’s voice because he wanted a flat, geographically ambiguous tonal delivery for the emotion-free, murderous supercomputer.

Anyway, I think Technology need not provoke Terror. I love The Matrix trilogy—even the third film. Something about our lives being simulations on another being’s program…supreme fodder for daydreams. And, if nothing else, The Matrix showed that what makes us human are feelings such as doubt/disbelief, fear/fright of things we don’t fully understand, shame/pride, and any number of emotions and feelings that go hand-in-hand with the technology pervasive in present-day life.

Yet humans are not logical beings and we often consciously make poor choices. Computers don’t. Life isn’t as easy to understand as a smartphone application or made easy by rigid adherence to algorithms. So maybe the key is first regulating their technology impulses until the kids can make their own informed choices. Sounds like classic Parenting 101 after all.

We can still deactivate HAL with effective parenting! Thanks to MGM for the screenshot.

I boil this down thusly: kids are similar to tiny drunk adults. They have poor impulse control. They scream bloody murder when their worldview, decision-making, or desires are called into question. That’s when the sober ones in the room have to take away the keys until the time is right to unleash them back into this brave new world.

Musical immersion: Sweet Jane & Sweet Tea

Many describe Toronto’s Cowboy Junkies as an alternative country and folk rock act. I’ve been a fan of this band for almost three decades and saw them live years ago back in the Great White North. Never in my wildest imagination did I ever think I would attend one of their concerts in the South.

When the opportunity came up to attend a show during the All That Reckoning tour at the Franklin Theater in March, I leapt at the chance. It’s a gorgeous venue, a former movie theater, first opened on old Franklin’s main street in 1937. It now hosts movies, theater, and concerts. The Junkies’ musical style pulls together the blues, folk rock, and country into a sweetly subdued sound all their own. People sit down and absorb the luxuriant guitars, wind instruments and vocals. During the concert, I was lost and contented in the music.

Music is a powerful emotional draw for me as with most people. This music-focused blogpost coincides with my recent entries mulling my family’s experience of living here in middle Tennessee. That music is impacted by cultural influences and the history is not a new insight. What’s relevant here is the Cowboy Junkies opened their audience interaction by mentioning their early bus tours throughout the small cities of the South, and the influence of country music on their sound and writing. As it turned out, one of the first songs of the evening was “200 More Miles”:

Atlanta's a distant memory, Montgomery a recent birth

And Tulsa burns on the desert floor

Like a signal fire

I got Willie on the radio, a dozen things on my mind

And number one is fleshing out

These dreams of mine

I've got 200 more miles of rain asphalt in line before I sleep

But there'll be no warm sheets or welcoming arms

To fall into tonight

In Nashville there is a lighter in a case for all to see

It speaks of dreams and heartaches left unsung…

So, it seems music has fused who I am – the person I became thanks to where I was born and lived -- and where I live now. Obviously, there’s much more in common between Ontario and Middle Tennessee than previous stopovers in Japan or India. Still, all this thinking -- about cultural differences, history, and simply listening to the damn radio every morning on the commute to work with an open mind -- got me into a major Southern Rock phase. Heretofore I wasn’t a fan of the genre. 

I have to come clean and admit that I drive around in my electric vehicle signing along to Lynyrd Skynyrd’s “Sweet Home Alabama” without derision and now refer to country/roots rock without use of the term “shitkicker.”  

Just for the hell of it, here’s a list of songs that, for me, best exemplify Southern Rock.  

Sweet Home Alabama  - Lynyrd Skynyrd

No Rain – Blind Melon

Ramblin' Man -  The Allman Brothers Band

Mississippi Queen - Mountain.

Black Betty - Ram Jam

The night they closed old Dixie down - The Band

Can’t you see – The Marshall Tucker Band

Southern Man – Neil Young

Let it all hang out – The Hombres

Hard to Handle – Black Crowes

All right now – Free (English band)

Slow Ride - Foghat 

American Girl - Tom Petty and The Heartbreakers

La Grange - ZZ Top

Roadhouse Blues - The Doors

Copperhead Road – Steve Earle

Rain on the Scarecrow – John Mellencamp

New Orleans is Sinking – The Tragically Hip

More Southern Exposure

We’re back from a second family vacation spent in Florida. I gleefully drove the entire way. During my time in the driver’s seat, I glimpsed telltale billboards along the interstate expressways. We also motored along backcountry two-lane highways. Lower speeds allowed me to ponder the weight of history still palpable in this region. I saw plenty of lingering damage and debris in the Florida panhandle. Many towns are still contending with the impact of Hurricane Michael of last October. Our course took us through immaculate small towns and along the Gulf coastline, and to large, growing cities. We experienced genuine hospitality and had a fine time.

Two lingering episodes from this trip come to mind that exemplify some of the South’s social characteristics.

One image is a young man in front of us in line as we waited for a roller coaster ride in Tampa’s Busch Gardens. He had Kid Rock-style arm tattoos, sported an unruly blonde mullet and a three-day beard, with jangling keys attached to his belt. His T-shirt proclaimed, “I love guns, titties and Harleys.” No judgments here; it was just interesting.

The second flashback is motoring along the I-4 from Tampa and viewing a biplane slowly bringing religion to the cloudless indigo blue skies over Orlando. He wrote “LOVE GOD. U + GOD = (Happy Face).” 

It was mesmerizing to see this slowly materialize above our heads. I later found out this religious skywriting is a regular thing. The pilot is a believer. And why not spread a little love around?

I don't intend to ruminate on what the South’s history may have wrought, or was; I am thinking about what South is, now. But....arrggh. My verbosity is once again getting the better of me. What I am unable to crystallize are thoughts like:

- Do I sense any lingering Yankee-Rebel rifts here? Answer: Not in my neighborhood, nor in my experience to date.

- Is Dixie a toxic word? Answer: Only when it’s in the context of justifying mass shootings in Charleston or Charlottesville.

- Are the mental images of Southern life framed by palmetto trees, whiffs of magnolia and slow-paced afternoons, true? Answer: Every place has its own selfie, but I have taken to drinking iced tea, if that makes sense.

 This derelict old gas station is only a few miles from where I live and evokes the stereotypical view of old time country living. 

- Are there still racial problems here? Answer: Let’s face it; it takes time to overcome the scars of history. I do think most people are trying to get along. By contrast, I have seen roadside post office boxes embossed with the Stars and Bars, and I don’t think their owners are being ironic.

At this point, I will invoke some wisdom imparted by the late, great Gord Downie: “Me debunk an American myth, and take my life in my hands.” Rather than ramble more about my unoriginal theories, allow me to drop a few photos and brief scribblings to describe what lies in my heart as I think about living and learning here in the South.

Invoking Abe in Kentucky means America has its own two solitudes. Now more than ever?

I do think about eternity when I see these billboards. Nothing wrong with soul searching at 70 mph. And tiny spiritual course corrections.

I still don’t understand. Don’t. Understand.

Ice cream eat-a-thons, country music, state fairs. "If it ain’t fried, it ain’t food.”

This was a display at the NASA Rocket Center in Huntsville, Alabama, that set the social context amid the great technological strides made to enable reaching the moon in the 60s. I have almost no experience with racism directed at me. However, the bicultural Rising Family on rare occasions detects tinges of it. There is no better way to educate my girls about real hardship experienced by people due to racial prejudice than by learning about the life of MLK. It follows that it’s wonderful to dream about, and work toward, changing the world for the better.

Sun Studio: One of the shrines to rock and roll. Oh Memphis!

Big-ass watermelon contest at the Tennessee State Fair. Our family’s love for this sweet fruit is undiminished regardless of where we live.

###

Southern Exposure

On January 21, Martin Luther King Day, we drove down a small state highway to a public park.  The rolling fields, open spaces, derelict barns and countryside on both sides of our vehicle got me thinking about what I have learned about the South. Open spaces do that. They draw out Big Thoughts. What follows are a few.

My Grampa (Boppa) sparked my youthful curiosity with eight-track tapes of old-time country music stars like Kenny Rogers, Charley Pride, Johnny Horton and yes, Johnny Cash. Of course, in rural Ontario where he lived, there were also rolling fields, open spaces, derelict barns and countryside on both sides of the highway. But riding around in his Ford pickup, I began to associate country music with the South. And the funny accents I heard on TV —thank you, Beverly Hillbillies re-reruns— also helped. In my adolescence I watched Ken Burns' documentaries about the Civil War and later on about jazz and the blues.

The South, as a concept, rather than a place that normal people lived, seemed somehow foreign, slow paced, and different. But not the 'different' image reserved for England or Australia. I spoke 'American', but the upstate New York variety thanks to Rochester TV stations. The annual exodus of Canadians southward to warmth during the bitter cold of winter held a separate charm. South of the Mason-Dixon line remained distant, a place of capital H History, real BBQ and palmetto trees.

During my first long motorcycle adventure across the continent, on the way west my buddy Brad Lozinski and I rode through the Shenandoah Valley, down through to Tennessee. 

I even stopped at the intersection of US 61 and US 49 in Clarksdale, Miss., where blues tourists pay their respects at the spot where it's said Robert Johnson sold his soul to the devil in exchange for musical genius.

I drove down a couple of times in the 90s, tasting spring break In Florida one year, and indulged in a caffeine-fueled frenetic weekend drive to see the Durham (NC) Bulls in their home stadium, and back. I also read Pat Conroy novels and studied the history of the civil rights movement. I watched Hollywood's take on things southern: Bull Durham, Mississippi Burning, Forrest Gump, Deliverance, Glory, and Fried Green Tomatoes, among others. But I always suspected that I would never understand the South just by visiting, reading, listening to the African-American blues greats, or watching movies.

My life journey eventually churned up a chance to live and work here. So the Rising Family™ has been enjoying and absorbing southern culture for about 20 months now. I can't claim to fully understand it yet, but I sure as heck am appreciating the Southern lifestyle.

Yikes, this prelude has become rather long. So I’ll just plunk in a few photos as foreplay for the next post.

This storefront in Tennessee, reminded me of Northern Exposure, the quirky favorite TV series of mine from the 1990s.

General Lee replicas throughout the South. 

The Rising Daughters at a pumpkin patch last autumn. 
This farm is not too far from the birthplace of Confederate General and first Grand Wizard of the Ku Klux Klan, Nathan Bedford Forrest.  Chew on that one until the next post.

Spacey

"Maintain an even strain."

I often repeat this mantra to myself to prevent my temper from flaring when the Rising Family™ feuds inside our car. I first read those words during my teens in "The Right Stuff," penned by the incomparable Tom Wolfe. 

I mulled the deeper meaning of it all – how to stay calm and collected when irritated – as we drove down to Huntsville, Alabama. Appropriately, we were heading to visit the US Space & Rocket Center, a museum dedicated to the US space program. 

You see, Thing 1 and Thing 2 were having another round in their ongoing sibling slugfest. On board an SUV going 70-plus mph the only choice for a parent is to ignore the screeching and crying, or crash and burn. The trip to Huntsville takes only 90 minutes from the Nashville area by car. But when your kids are fighting without heed to terse parental orders and promised retribution, the vehicle’s interior can feel like an existential black hole. It's like the vacuum of space, sucking the fiber of one’s being into an endless void of nothingness. Is that depiction stark enough to evoke the helplessness felt when animosity envelopes an enclosed metal space hurtling at high speed? Thus, “maintain an even strain” comes in handy as a psychological safe zone during family outings.

Anyway….we departed on a sunny Sunday morning and headed south to 'Bama. Being an unrepentant space geek, I was eager to begin this visit. When you’re a teenager, Alabama seems a long way from Ontario. As an adult, I was yearning to experience all the museum had to offer. The Space & Rocket Center did not disappoint. The place was chock-full of old spacecraft and mega military hardware that made loud booms. 

The many artifacts were set in chronological order together with historical displays that set the geopolitical context. We saw early German V2 rockets; NASA projects Mercury, Gemini and Apollo capsules; SkyLab modules; and the Space Shuttle program. All these hurtling machines were showcased from the prism of the Cold War and the Space Race.

Courtesy of NASA

Famous Americans such as Alan Shepard, Chuck Yeager, John Glenn, Neil Armstrong, Buzz Aldrin and John Young were lionized all over the exhibit halls. I was proud to see Chris Hadfield there. I totally geeked out and had to be dragged from one section to the next. I wanted to read everything. To me, these relics of beat-up space metal were tangible history. I felt awe and the forward-looking simplicity of those times and my mind drifted. Then the baleful stares of my wife and daughters caught my attention, telegraphing a vehement hurry-up  message. Did they enjoy all these monuments to superpower rivalry and space exploration? Sure they did. Just not as much as I did.

Visiting the Space and Rocket Center was a nice coda to my boyish glee when I first read about these cool spacecraft that had made history. It was an awesome family outing. You should read Wolfe’s classic book about astronauts, keeping your s**t together while under stress, and American identity. It entertains. And I believe its lasting message does help prevent dads from pulling the cord to the ejector seat.