A Different Way of Thinking

I spent many years working overnight at a large Post Office mail processing facility in a section called ‘the bullpen’. This was a large area on the loading dock surrounded by postal containers marked for the numerous AOs - associate offices (individual towns) we served. My fellow mailhandlers and I would spend the better part of eight hours walking around, toting letter trays, flat buckets, sacks, bundles, and parcels to these postal containers and then loading the filled containers onto trucks going out to the different AOs. We would pass the time discussing just about every topic imaginable. My favorite was when we would discuss various ‘what ifs’. Here are some of the more interesting conversations that I can remember. Not all of them were necessarily from my fertile little brain, but I will use the form of the first person for the sake of easier storytelling. A few other thoughts and non-postal stories are thrown in for consideration as well. Are these thoughts accurate or factual? That’s for you to decide for yourself. I may not be able to prove that they’re right, but you sure can’t prove that they’re wrong.

The topic came up whether or not alien life exists. I said “Of course it does. Furthermore, there is alien life here on Earth.” The other mailhandlers naturally challenged me to prove it, since I sounded so sure. I went over to the portable radio sitting on the ledge and remarked how they could fit all those musicians into such a small box. They said that the music was a signal being transmitted through the air to the radio. I stood right in front of the radio and commented how I couldn’t block the signal. They said the radio waves were all around me and passing through me to the radio. I changed the station and commented how these were different musicians. One mailhandler said that there were different frequencies of signals carrying different songs to different radio stations. I said I couldn’t hear the different tunes and the mailhandler said that I couldn’t hear any one song unless the radio was tuned into that particular station. A few of the others began to smile as they saw where I was going with this. “So you mean to tell me that there are dozens of different radio frequencies, television frequencies, telephone frequencies, etc. all occupying the same space as us at the same time and we can’t detect them with any of our senses unless a receiving device picks up the signal and converts it into something our five senses can recognize?” I then proposed that there are other lives in other dimensions occupying the same space as us and we’re not aware of each other simply because we don’t have a receiver tuned into them. They said I was talking crazy, but none of them could say for sure that I was wrong.

The discussion got around to religion. One mailhandler said he was an atheist. I said that God does exist. He challenged me to prove it. I asked him, if God didn’t create things in the world, then what did? He replied ‘nature’. I asked what created Man, and he replied ‘evolution’. I asked him what laws govern the movement of the sun, moon, and stars, and he replied ‘science’. I said that the belief in whatever creates, shapes, molds, and guides our lives and the world as we know it can be called 'nature’, ‘evolution’, ‘science’, or ‘God’. They are pretty much synonymous. The mailhandler asked why the need for several different words if they’re all synonymous. I reminded him that times were much simpler then; that the people had no way of understanding advanced ideas such as science and nature. The term ‘God’ is all-encompassing, and as such, the other terms are simply different aspects of God.

The mailhandler asked if I believed that Man was made in God’s image. I said that God is not a muscular old man with flowing white hair and beard as depicted on the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel any more than ‘justice’ is a blindfolded woman holding a scale and a sword. These are intangible ideas depicted in such a way that we can recognize the concepts. He said, "So you admit that Man is not made in God’s image." I said that Man is made up of the same atoms, elements, and chemicals as everything else found in the universe. That’s God’s image, if not an exact likeness.

The mailhandler asked if I believe in prayer, that you can talk to God. I said ‘sure’, and asked if he ever wished or hoped for something. He said ‘sure’. I said you don’t have to kneel and clasp your hands together to talk to God. If God is truly everywhere, including inside you, you can think a hopeful thought without the formality of ‘prayer’. Is wishing or hoping that things will turn out alright really much different from faith and prayer?

OK, here’s a biggie - he asked if I believe that God created the universe in six days and rested on the seventh? I said that we define a day as one revolution of the earth on its axis. Before the universe was formed as we know it, there was no measurement of time or a day. It may have take eons before the job was completed. Since Man was created on the sixth day, and humans arbitrarily determined the length of a ‘day’, it is entirely possible that God did it all in six days using a different measurement than humans use. All of humankind from creation to the present might still be on the seventh day according to God's measurement of time.

“So”, the mailhandler said, “if God is so benevolent, how come he allows earthquakes, floods, disease, hurricanes, and all the other natural disasters? And what about wars, violence, crime, etc.?” I said that God is a macro-manager. He gave us intelligence to make discoveries, and all the raw materials needed to create things to better our lot in life and deal with disaster. He allows us the free will and judgment to micro-manage the small details of everyday life. As mentioned above, this could still be God's seventh day of rest.

The mailhandler saw he was losing ground, so I gave him an opportunity to save face by assuring him that we really share the same beliefs, we just use different syntax.

We’ve all heard the idea if the age of the earth could be outlined as a 24-hour period that humans would not appear until the last few minutes of the day. So what went on the previous 23+ hours of the earth’s existence? I propose that, long before the dinosaurs, there was a civilization far more advanced than us humans. Some sort of natural disaster, war, epidemic, meteor collision, or something wiped this civilization off the face of the earth. With decomposition over the ages, and volcanoes bringing molten material to the earth’s surface, and the crust going back into the earth, it’s very possible that there would be no evidence of this former civilization.

As our ‘modern’ science advances, we find new ways of measuring the earth and keep discovering it is older than we previously imagined. With this in mind, I propose that there have been many civilizations over the vast span of time.

In less than 100 years, our civilization has gone from the Wright brothers’ first powered flight to sending spacecrafts outside our own galaxy. Suppose that earlier civilizations went into space. Suppose that their advanced technology knew of impending disaster and they could go into space to avoid extinction, like Superman being rocketed from a doomed Krypton. Suppose an earlier civilization came back to Earth and repopulated the planet? I’m not saying they were ‘human’, but they could have evolved from whatever they were to what we are today. And keep in mind, with evolution over the vastness of time - humans are a work in progress, too.

There have been a rash of shootings in the Post Office since the 1990s, giving rise to the phrase 'going postal'. A friend asked me if I ever got into confrontations during my postal career. Yes, in the first minute of my first day on the job! Here is the story:

I received a letter telling me to report to work Monday, July 21, at 2350. Never was in the military, but knew of the 2400 clock. Not sure why they'd want me to report at 11:50pm - maybe I had to start my Tour I shift before midnight - I dunno.

I got to the facility early, 11:35pm, but the doors were locked. I rang the bell, banged on the door, no response. I went around the building trying different doors and eventually got to the back, where I went on the loading dock and entered by the rear doors.

There were two rows of clerks sitting at mail sorting cases and a desk facing them. The supervisor sat with his back to me, so I went up to introduce myself. He turned around and bellowed, "Who the f*** are you?" Startled, I gave him my name and said I was reporting for duty. This supervisor stood up - what a sight! 50s, short, obese (a real 5' by 5'), wearing a flannel shirt, leather vest, jeans, and cowboy boots, chomping on a huge cigar. "Yer late, ya f***ing hump!" I told him I'm to report at 11:50pm and it's only 11:40 now. "Ya stupid piece of s***, yer f***ing late!" I knew military time is a 24-hour clock - my letter says to report at 2350 - I'm early. "Ya stupid f***ing c***-sucker! 2350 is 11:30; the Post Office uses 100 units to the hour. Yer f***ing late, ya scumbag!" Not used to being spoken to in this manner, I snapped back, "The military uses a 60-minute hour, civilian time is a 60-minute hour, the whole world knows there's 60 minutes to an hour. How 'bout you tell a new employee that only the Post Office is crazy enough to use a 100-unit hour? Y'know what? F*** you, I'm outta here!" I turned around and marched out. As I got halfway down the ramp the 5x5 supervisor came waddling after me calling, "Wait, wait. Yer right. They shoulda told ya. I'm sorry."

I later found out this 'supervisor' was a 204b, a clerk acting as a temporary supervisor. He would've been severely disciplined if I left because of him. So began my postal career.

Back in 1940, Glenn Miller released the popular big-band song “Pennsylvania-6-5000”. To this day, the Hotel Pennsylvania in Manhattan still has that same phone number - 212-PE6-5000 (‘PE6’ is now known as ‘736’). You have to go back to the early 1930s to find phone numbers with fewer than seven digits. The U.S. population has more than tripled since the 1930s.

The five boroughs of New York used to be area code 212. When they began running out of numbers, Bronx, Brooklyn, Queens, and Staten Island became area code 718. Then Manhattan began running out of 212 numbers so they added area code 646. They made a 917 area code for cell phones. Then when they began running out of 917 numbers they added area code 347. There are places in New York City where you have to dial a different area code to call your neighbor or even your own fax machine.

My brother has had the same phone number for the past 20 years. Of course now, in addition to that number, he has a separate number for his internet connection, and separate cell phone numbers for himself, his wife, and each of his three children. Is it any wonder that we’re running out of phone numbers?

I propose that we change the basic phone number from seven digits to eight or nine digits. At eight digits, you are increasing the present amount of available phone numbers ten-fold. At nine digits, it increases a hundred-fold. But that makes my phone number too long and confusing to dial. Not at all; your present number will simply end with a zero, or 00, which is still easier than dialing four extra digits for a new area code. Down the road, when people are used to the idea of an eight- or nine-digit phone number and we’ve exhausted all the seven-digit combinations, it will seem perfectly natural to have eight or nine different digits.

Let’s take this idea one step further: I propose that the ninth digit be used to denote what device is being called. For example, you could have your home phone number 987-6543-00, and your secondary home number 987-6543-01, and your home fax machine could be 987-6543-02, and your internet connection could be 987-6543-03, and your cell phone could be 987-6543-04, etc. This would make all your numbers easier to remember and greatly reduce how many different phone numbers are needed. By the way, who still dials a phone number?

A phrase I would sometimes use when somebody is unsure of a fact or doubtful of what they're saying is: "Know what you know," (OK, so far so good) "because if you know what you know, you also know what you don't know." (Huh?) Then I give as example: I know that I know nothing about calculus. If you ask me anything at all about calculus, I know that I haven't a clue. This simple idea makes my life much easier, more 'black and white', eliminates a lot of the 'gray area', and allows me to focus on what I really do know. Also, if I hear something new on an unknown subject, I can digest the information easier, not having any doubtful, pre-conceived ideas on the subject.

Light is made up of all the colors of the rainbow. What makes us see individual colors is that an object absorbs all the other colors, allowing one particular wavelength of color to be reflected. Our eye sees that wavelength and our brain interprets it so we can see that particular color. Since each brain is different, we all interpret these wavelengths differently and see different colors. Huh? But when you and I both look at the grass we both see that it’s green. We may both recognize it as green, but if you could see through my brain, you might see it as orange or blue. It is our individual consistency of seeing the same wavelength and interpreting it as the same color that prevents us from knowing that we are actually interpreting the color completely differently from each other.

Over the past several decades, all forms of cancer have increased dramatically. During this same time frame, there has been a dramatic increase in the number of television and radio stations (both terrestrial and by satellite), microwaves, pagers, wi-fi, and, most of all, cell phones. There are millions and millions of cell phones in use worldwide. Each and every cell phone has its own unique phone number and a corresponding radio frequency. These radio waves are everywhere at all times so that whenever and wherever someone calls you, the signal is sent directly to your particular handset. This also means that our bodies are constantly being bombarded with our own cell frequency as well as everyone else’s at all times. Is it any wonder that our bodies are more vulnerable to cancer? Our cells could easily react negatively to constant radiation. A dentist will put a lead-lined bib on you before leaving the room to take a low-radiation x-ray of your teeth, yet we all live in a world where we are bathed in countless radio frequencies at all times.

A young boy I knew came to see me one day hunched over and looking very glum. I asked him what the matter was, and he said someone in school called in a 'doody-head'. As an adult I smiled, but recognized that this was a terrible tragedy for an 8- or 9-year old. I said to him, "That was a pretty dumb thing for him to say, wasn't it?" He said, "yeah." I said, "He must be pretty dumb to say that to you, huh?" He said, "Yeah." I said, "Do you really care what a dummy thinks about you?" He straightened his back, looked me in the eye and said, "Why, No!", and walked away a happy camper.

A comment I've often mentioned to people is that I take pride in the calibre of people who have a problem with me. This confuses them until I explain: There have been many people who've disagreed with me. There are those who do not get along with me. I always look carefully at the person who has a problem with me. If it is someone I respect, I reassess what I did. Sometimes it is a real jerk, on whose opinion I place little value. If a fool has problems with me, well, that's just fine.

One mailhandler commented how, in his youth, he could work all day, party all night, and stay up to work the next day. He can't do that anymore; he must be getting old. This brought on an hour-long debate whether, 1- an older person doesn't have the same stamina of a younger person, or 2- a younger person doesn't really have the stamina either; he burns himself out doing this silly nonsense. No resolution was reached.

Sight, smell, hearing, touch, taste: these are our five senses. These are the only senses we truly understand because they are the only ones we are aware of. A dog will sit by the door waiting five minutes before his master comes home. Some other domestic animal can detect disease in a person. Wild animals may head for high ground an hour before a flood hits. What do they know that we don’t? Obviously, they sense things that we don’t. Some people claim to have E.S.P., or can see auras around people, or say that the color blue has an aroma. Crazy, or is it that we can’t sense what they can, and therefore have no reference to believe them?

I am a baby-boomer and as such, grew up during the turbulent 1950s-1960s and the struggle for civil rights. In the 1950s, a particular race was referred to as ‘Colored’. In the ‘60s, they were called ‘Negro’. In the ‘70s, they called themselves ‘Black’. In the ‘80s, they changed it to ‘Afro-American’. In the ‘90s it became ‘African-American’. In the early 2000s, they tried out the term ‘person of color’. So, during my lifetime, in the name of political correctness, this race ‘progressed’ from colored people to people of color.

Is the above a racist statement, or an accurate observation? Some will say that black people are not truly black in color, yet during all this time, Caucasian people were always called ‘white’, although even an albino is not truly white in color. In strictly anthropological terms, there is ‘Caucasoid’ and ‘Negroid’. There is nothing racial or political attached to these terms, they are strictly for purposes of classification. By following the ‘rules’ of political correctness, a black man from Kenya is an African-American African!!?!

I used to work with a government-sponsored organization that reached out to youth. It was not made common knowledge, but for the purpose of tracking the number and percentage of various ethnic groups served by the program, the following key was used (to the best of my memory): W (White), B (Black), H (Hispanic), O (Oriental), I (Indian), N (Native American Indian), A (Arab-Middle Eastern), X (Other). What about children of mixed race? They would either be categorized by the ethnicity of their last name or the race they most resembled. Is it a perfect system? No. The information was not made public knowledge, and it was not meant to be politically correct, but it did help keep things as statistically accurate as possible.

A couple of years ago, I had a conversation with a teenager of Chinese parents. When I referred to his heritage as ‘Chinese’ he seemed highly insulted. “The correct term is ‘Asian-American’”, he said. I said that may be the politically correct term, but it’s not the true correct term. I asked him that, since Pakistan is part of Asia, is he Pakistani? Korea is part of Asia; is he Korean? He said no, his parents were born in China, making him Chinese. Isn’t that what I originally said? I was not going for racial offense, but a descriptive observation. Once we talked a little, the teenager agreed with me that, in the name of ‘political correctness’, communication has become more difficult. People have become so touchy that describing someone or identifying where they are from might hurt their sensitive feelings where there is no call for sensitivity.

Some narrow-minded people may look at me, see a tired, aging white guy, and think I am prejudiced, or worse, a bigot. I am neither; I am a racist. I am a strong proponent of the human race.

My name is Steven. I’ve also seen it spelled Stephen, which kinda throws me off since ph makes the f sound in elephant. There are dozens of other examples of alternate spelling like Jody/Jodi/Jodie, Stacy/Stacey, John/Jon, Alan/Allan/Allen, Jane/Jayne, and Shaun/Shawn/Sean to name a few, so “normal”spelling differences don’t really surprise me.

Celebrities are famous (or infamous?) for giving their offspring unusual names. A few examples: Michael Jackson's sons are Prince and Prince Michael II. To avoid confusion, the younger one has the nice, normal nickname of 'Blanket'. Brother Jermaine Jackson's two youngest sons are Jaafar and Jermajesty (jer kiddin' me, right?). Frank Zappa, lead "singer" of the Mothers of Invention, named his son Dweezil and his daughters Moon Unit and Diva. The Phoenix parents named their actor-sons River and Phoenix. Actress Gwenyth Paltrow named her daughter Apple and her son Moses. Singer/lipsyncher Ashlee Simpson's daughter is named Bronx Mowgli. My Name Is Earl actor Jason Lee's child is named Pilot Inspektor. Actor Nicholas Cage's child is named Kal-El (yes, Superman's Krypton name). Soccer star David Beckham and Spice Girl Victoria's child is named Brooklyn. Director Robert Rodriguez named his sons Rocket, Racer, and Rebel, and his daughters Rogue and Rhiannon. Oh, those crazy, self-indulgent celebrities! With late Summer 2009's famous 'balloon boy' hoax, the child's real, given name is Falcon (now that's a lot of hot air!).

I worked for a while at a health care answering service. Almost all of the home health aides and home attendants were either immigrants or American-born coming from similar socio-economic backgrounds. Immigrant names were no problem, being common in their native countries. ‘Luz’ was always spelled L-U-Z, ‘Altagracia’ (though tough to spell) was always A-L-T-A-G-R-A-C-I-A, ‘Teresa’ was always T-E-R-E-S-A (never Theresa). I don’t think I’ve ever seen unusual, alternate spellings of foreign names. The American-born aides, however, never ceased to amaze me how often they had strange names, unusual spellings for their names, or made up words for their names just to be different. I dealt with many women named ‘Princess’, ‘Queen’, ‘Lady’, and ‘Precious’, to name a few. I’ve heard ‘Keisha’ spelled over a half a dozen different ways. One female said her name was ‘Asia’. When I misunderstood her, she said “It’s Asia, like the country.” When I confirmed the spelling, “So, that’s Asia, A-S-I-A?”, she said “Oh, no! That’s A-I-S-I-Y-A-H.” Gimme a break!

When I was with the Post Office, one supervisor, Lenny, told me he and his girlfriend named his new baby boy ‘Kevin’. When I said something like “What a nice, regular name”, he said, “Of course, we spell it K-A-V-O-N.” Sheesh! I should have half expected it; Lenny’s real name was Linton.

I once met a brother and sister. He was named LeQuan and his sister was LaQuann. Of course!

With all this in mind, I’d like to convince my nieces and nephews that, when one of them has a baby boy, to name him ‘Fred’. Of, course, to make him unique, I remind them that gh can make the f sound in rough, and it can also be silent like in night. I want them to spell ‘Fred’ this way: Ghreghd.

I’m no poet and I know it (ouch!), but I do know that generally, poetry should rhyme. Words that end with the same spelling often (but not always) do rhyme. Words spelled completely differently may also sound alike.

It surprises me how often words like ‘gain’, ‘rain’, ‘pain’, ‘main’, ‘vain’ are rhymed with ‘again’. It may look good on paper, but we’re not in England. We say ‘uh-gen’, not ‘a-gayne’. Once I became aware of it, I saw this strange ‘again’ rhyme in print, spoken verse and song almost once a week. Now that you’re aware of it, see if you also notice this oddity a-gayne and a-gayne.

Guess I shouldn’t be too surprised with this ‘again’ pronunciation, especially since so may of us grew up hearing the ‘rhyme’: God is great; God is good. Let us thank him for our food.

To show my limited poetic talent, here is a limerick I wrote for a school assignment in 6th or 7th grade. It won an award back then, but don’t expect much from this pre-teen effort:

Country Boy and the City Slick

There once was a country boy, Tom,
a hired hand on a farm.
He toiled all day
and received meager pay
and then had to sleep in the barn.

So one day Tom packed up his things
and flew off as if he had wings.
“I’ll go to the city”,
he said, feeling witty,
“and see what my good luck brings”.

Tom stepped off the train at Main Street
dressed up all spiffy and neat.
His coveralls were white
and to make things just right
he had pressed a pleat in the seat.

By the track was a city slick
with a simple idea – get rich quick.
He searched by the tack
for the perfect sap
and our own fellow Tom did he pick.

“My boy, you can go very far;
“I see what a talent you are.
“Just give me your dough
and, what do you know,
I’ll make you a really big star!”

But Tom was using his head.
“’Give me your dough’, you said?”
So Tom walked away
feeling witty that day;
he gave the slick a loaf of bread.

I've noticed significant hearing loss as I've aged. I attribute a big part to my playing in a band through junior and senior high school. It's gotten so bad lately that I've taken to watching DVDs with the closed captioning turned on. In my youth, rather than reading an assigned book, I'd look for the movie version. Now in my 50s, I find myself reading a good movie.

Was at the library recently and there was a sign for free hearing tests. A local college sent some audiology students with an instructor. Had some spare time and there was no waiting, so I had my hearing evaluated. A pretty 20 year-old filled out my form and asked my age while another young girl fitted the headphones on me. I raised my hand a total of ten times as the instructor played five tones in each ear. The test was concluded and I was told I got all the tones; my hearing is perfect for someone my age. Feeling a little cocky with this news, I asked if I could take the test for a younger person. The young girl said 'no', so I asked why not - nobody else was waiting. The girl looked at the instructor. I asked again to play the tones for a younger person's test. The instructor tapped my shoulder and said to me, "I just did".

I was at a party for a family martiarch's 65th birthday recently. An elegant affair of more than 100 held in a ballroom. One family member put together a slide-show presentation, some told stories, one acted out scenes from the matriarch's life, some did interpretive dance, one wrote a poem, and one girl (late teens or early 20s) sang "I Will Always Love You", complete with fancy vocal runs and flourishes. Awww. Unfortunately, she warbled off key, the runs were pitchy, and her voice cracked. Awww-ful. But being family, she received a huge round of applause. I was sitting in the back by two cousins. One turned to the other and said, "She sounded like Whitney . . . Eli Whitney. That song was a cotton-pickin' mess!"

A co-worker of mine told me that his daughters were pestering him for a kitten, even though he did not want to get one. I gave him a tip. The next day he came in and said my advice worked like a charm:

His daughters nagged, "Daddy, I want a cat. I wanna cat. Iwannacat. IwannacatIwannacatIwannacat..." He said, "Sure I hear they're delicious." The girls screamed, "Daaa-deee! Ewwwww..." They haven't asked him since.

It's no secret that many products are shrinking in size. A 1-pound can of coffee is down to 12 oz or less. They're packing less cereal in the same size boxes, same goes true for laundry detergent and many sundry items. This Passover, I saw Rakusen brand matzo's 1-pound box is 14 oz.

As a kid, a new roll of toilet paper filled the roller and was tight turning until the roll saw a few 'uses'. The size of a roll has shrunk over time. Today, there's an inch or more of 'wiggle room' on either side of the roller. New bathroom fixtures actually have shorter rollers on them.

Why is this such a big deal? As people get older, their bodies tend to broaden. Even those who haven't gained weight have a smaller measurement difference between their waist and their hips. Sooo, as we Baby Boomers age we're getting wider asses and narrower toilet paper. You're right, this isn't a big deal, it's a crisis!