J.P.

Earl and I have been meandering out in the Jeep today. At this time of year I enjoy the challenge of following roads that say “Seasonal Use Only / Road Not Maintained Nov. 1 through April 1”.  These roads are fun to drive in a Jeep Wrangler Rubicon.

We found ourselves at Selkirk Shores State Park along the eastern shore of Lake Ontario. This state park is about 10 miles or so from the house I grew up in. We drove by the old house. It’s not really that old; my dad built it and we moved in for my first day of Fourth Grade in 1977. The new owners of the property are being very kind to it. I’m happy to see life thriving in what I used to call home.

Having grown up pretty close to the Great Lakes, I find myself longing to hear the crashing of the waves, even when it’s 40ºF. Earl is a good sport; we walked out on the pier and took some photos. In the distance you can see Nine Mile Point, home to three nuclear power plants. Two of those plants have been active for nearly my entire life and I don’t glow in the dark. Nuclear power doesn’t scare me.

We are now meandering around in the outskirts of the city of Syracuse. We have stopped for a Starbucks break, as we don’t have Starbucks at home and we like to indulge once in a while. After this blog entry and the completion of our treat, we shall continue our meandering with a target of getting home some time tonight. We are only 45 miles from home but it might take us several hours to get there.

Meandering is good for the soul.

I love four wheel drive. 

I’ve been using my Facebook account on a regular basis for the past couple of weeks, since shortly before the travesty we amusingly call “Election Day”. I started out by going back to read a couple of geek and flight oriented groups that are housed within the confines of the Facebook platform. I smile every time I see a pilot share photos of their first solo flight. I read about the experiences of other pilots. I talk with folks that also own a Piper Cherokee. I also keep up with family and friends that I haven’t seen in a long while. Unfortunately I fell into the pits of Facebook hell and got caught up in the whirlwind of disinformation, fake news and the like the Facebook is becoming quite famous for.

The truth of the matter is that I know better. As a fairly well-educated tech guy, I know that Facebook tracks every movement I make on the web. Facebook knows every time I search for something and adds that information to my profile. The paranoid side of me believes that Facebook is somehow _hearing_ my conversations because I’ve had a couple of suggestions come up in the FB sidebar after Earl and I have had a conversation about a product, but I’m still trying to figure out if that’s possible or not. Facebook is a very dangerous platform for many reasons, yet I still wade in the acidic waters, clinging onto some shred of hope that it doesn’t rot me away completely.

Over the past couple of weeks I’ve noticed that Facebook has significantly pared down the posts that I see from friends and family. The number of people showing up on my timeline has been whittled down considerably. On more than one occasion, while scanning through my Facebook timeline, I’ve thought to myself, “It’s funny I haven’t seen a post from X in the past few days.”  I’ll then search up their name and see that they’ve been posting right along like they always have, Facebook just didn’t feel it was necessary to share that information with me. Instead, I’ve been barraged with posts from people that I’ve shared a hearty banter with (usually about the “election”), as if to magnify that particular person’s point of view in lieu of just presenting me with a timeline.

When a timeline is skewed with algorithms, it’s not a timeline. It’s propaganda.  Instagram, owned by Facebook, is notorious for this. I keep seeing the same photos from the same six people instead of the 300 or so that I follow on Instagram. It makes me crazy. It’s not genuine. There’s nothing genuine about anything owned by Facebook. It’s not information, it’s manipulation.

I keep saying, and blogging, that I’m just going to share more right here on my blog and less in the Facebook arena, but the issue with that approach is that when I want to get an important point across, such as the fallout from the recent “election” (yes, I’m annoying with the rabbit gestures around the word election, which should give you an indication as to how much I believe it was truly an election reflecting the will of the people), the people I want to reach are comfortable inside the Facebook echo chamber and the folks I want to target with my voice aren’t going to hear what I want to share. 

Unfortunately I don’t have an answer for this. I’m concerned that Facebook isn’t going to go the way of MySpace. A reader on Medium suggested that Facebook be treated like a public utility and subject to the same governmental oversight as the other utilities (power, water, telecom) in the United States. While it’s questionable that any utility will still be subjected to any oversight after we somehow survive the next four years as a cohesive country, the idea of Facebook being considered a “utility” is horrifying to me.

It is really my hope that the country will wake up from some drug induced trip and come back to its senses: in the way we think, the way we act, the way we use tech, the way we think our society should be going, all of it. My gut tells me that this is the new normal. I didn’t think it was possible for us to head in the direction of “Idiocracy” but I’ve been a wrong about a lot of things over the years and I’m afraid this is one of them. To mix movie metaphors, (I was going to paste a quote from “Angels in America” here but Apple’s iOS 10 won’t let me do that, so I’ll paraphrase), “Before life becomes merely impossible, it will be, for a long time, completely unbearable.”

I think Facebook is leading the charge into the unbearable realm.

In 1939, as part of the Federal Works Administration projects that were going on at the time, a new school was built in my hometown. The school housed grades Kindergarten through 12, with a student population of under 1,000. The facility was state of the art, built with art deco touches and made use of some amazing architectural decisions, including marble in the lobby, an impressive staircase and gorgeous wood work in common areas such as the library, principal’s office and the like. The building was annexed in 1956 with every effort to maintain the architectural integrity of the original building in the addition. Aside from slight changes in then pattern in the terrazzo floor in the hallways, the annex is a natural extension of the building.

I’ve mentioned before that my interest in synchronized time, which is part of a keen interest in “systems” (roads, airports, power lines, computer networks, telephones, etc.), was started in that art deco building built in 1939 when I discovered that all the clocks were connected together, despite the fact that while most were square and part of a wooden case with a speaker, others were round and some were more modern looking (in the annex). The clock system collection in our home marches on today, despite the fact that all of the clocks were discarded by school districts as being outdated and based on old technology.

Master bathroom clock from 1940

Having these clocks wired through the house, all advancing on the minute with a tick-tick in unison, can be a little odd for folks that visit and aren’t used to the noise. The clocks in the bedroom areas are the quietest ones we own but they are still quite audible. When I mention that I might swap out the clock in the master bedroom with a quieter one Earl talks me out of it, stating the he can’t sleep with the minute impulse sound. When guests visit for an overnight stay I usually disconnect the clock in the spare bedroom.

Master bedroom clock from the early 1920s

The simple but persistent technology in these clocks, technology dating back the 1880s, reminds me of a time when the United States took pride in its manufacturing prowess. “Back in the day” we had a lot of quality goods made right here at home. Solid, well-crafted, reliable things that would last a long time. Shiny and new didn’t matter; sturdy and long-lasting were the goals in the early to mid 20th century. We made things to last. We took pride in our work.

Guest bedroom clock from 1939

In 1969, the student population out grew the school building and its annex and a new high school was built on the other side of town. The new high school was built to modern specifications. There was no marble, no grand staircase. Classroom walls were painted over cinderblocks. Large embossed numerals denoting room number were nowhere to be found; numbers were painted on molding around the door. The clocks, while tick-ticking once a minute, were made by a different company, oddly placed in some rooms and not as reliable. The clocks in the 1969 building failed before the clocks in the 1939 building did. There was no pattern on the hallway floor as there was no terrazzo to be found. The school was adequate and met the expectations of the populace in the 1960s. When I went to that high school 20 years later there were leaks in the ceiling on the second floor. The stage lighting panel in the auditorium caught fire during a production of “South Pacific” but it was quickly extinguished. The auditorium chairs were replaced not long after I graduated in 1986. The whole building just felt more “plastic”.

Jamie’s bedroom clock from 1941

When these clocks wired throughout the house tick-tick to indicate the passage of another minute, I’m occasionally reminded of the days of old when the country seemed to be a little more solid. Admittedly, societal norms were not kind to society as whole but forward progress was inching ahead. Presidents acted presidential, there seemed to be a general sense of local community and our country made things. Solid things. Things that would stand the test of time.

I’ve lain awake at night for the majority of this month, the tick-tick of time moving on in the background, wondering what lies ahead for the country. I’ve tried to muster up a positive outlook. I look for the brightness but my dreams when I sleep are plagued with darkness. The future feels plastic. The foundation feels crumbled. Past changes in presidents have felt like that change in the pattern in the hallway terrazzo. The hallway is still there and the pattern is similar but familiar. I feel like the hallway has come to an end and no one has built a staircase to go to another level.

But time continues to march on.

I was driving home from working in a nearby office yesterday when I stopped at the Clifton Springs Service Area on the New York State Thruway. I needed the bathroom break, I wanted to stretch my legs and I was in the mood for an unsweetened iced tea from Starbucks. There was a chance that I could satisfy the sweet tooth I was feeling as well.

As I made my way through the parking lot, looking for a place to park, I noticed a man standing a space looking quite despondent. Nearby was a run-down car of foreign manufacture. The trunk was up, even though it was raining. The man had a wandering gait. I parked nearby and made my way into the building. I noticed the man had started approaching another motorist going to his car but thought better of it and went back to the spot near the broken-down car.  My attention to this was casual and by the time I was in the building I had forgotten all about it.

Armed with an unsweetened iced tea and an oat bar from Starbucks, I was walking back across the parking lot when the same man approached me. It was raining harder.

“Hey, would you be willing to trade a case of Gatorade for some gas money?”, he asked.

I shook my head, murmured an apology to the negative (I don’t need that much Gatorade when I have unsweetened iced tea) and walked to the Jeep.  As I got in the Jeep, I looked back and saw that he had sat down in the empty spot next to his car. The trunk was still open. The rain prevented me from determining if he was crying or not. In the background I could see the woman in the passenger seat with her head on her hands in a despondent pose.

I pulled out my wallet and took out some money. I went back out in the rain and walked over to the man sitting in the parking space and gave him the cash. It would be enough for him to put a decent amount of gas in his car. 

“Here, take this. Keep the Gatorade”, I stammered.  He thanked me several times as I walked back to the Jeep.

I did this without hesitation once I made up my mind to give the man money, but there was a hesitation as the cynic in me worried about being scammed. I wondered how someone could get to that point in their life that he professed to be, stuck at the Clifton Springs Service Area with no way to put gas in the car. Fleetingly I wondered how someone could go through life asking for handouts. 

And then I put all that cynicism aside and decided that whether this was the right situation or not, I needed to be better about trying to make the world a better place. And that’s when all hesitation disappeared and I approached the man to tell him to keep his case of Gatorade.

I don’t know if I was scammed. Honestly, I don’t care. Whatever the reason he had for asking a stranger for money, I hope that he is in a better place today. 

Sometimes we just need to pay it forward with no questions asked.