Pick 56 - Easter Eggs

To this day I still cannot make the connection between Easter Eggs, chocolate rabbits and the Christian message which is celebrated on this day. I have fond memories of coloring hard boiled eggs with my mother when I was around 7 years old. I also remember hunting around the house for chocolate eggs that were allegedly left for me by the Easter Bunny. That was always on Easter Sunday morning after church services where I learned about the death and resurrection of Jesus.

 goodhousekeeping.com

 The hidden value in that message was that, like Jesus, we do not have to turn to dust at the end of our life but under certain conditions, we can go on living in a different way. Whether that different way was better or worse than the life we left behind depended on whether we obeyed God or not. If not, our chances were pretty slim to none. When we die, we are dead...period...end of story.  However, if we believe in God and try our best to obey the laws of God as Jesus did, then we can rise from the dead like Jesus and go on living forever like the characters in that Twilight movie. I never fully understood it but I could accept it because no one I had known ever came back from death and told me whether it was true or not.

Easter Eggs are a different story. First of all, they are delivered by the Easter Bunny and everyone knows how prolific bunnies can be. Start with two and before long you have a dozen. It will not take long for that dozen to turn into a lot of dozens and that is a lot of life from just two rabbits.

I am not sure how the Easter Bunny got tied up with the chickens that produce colored eggs, but I do know that chickens--unlike rabbits--come from eggs. I used to think that those live colored Peeps you could get at Easter came from colored eggs but now I know better. Anyway, since every egg is a chicken in the making, it is easy to see that eggs represent the cycle of life. Each egg is the rebirth of the chicken that laid it. But it is also true that rotten eggs cannot produce a chicken. That is not true for people. Rotten people can produce more people, but they do not have to be rotten people. I guess that is the hidden value of the Easter Message. But I still  can't tell you why the Easter Bunny holds the patent on Easter eggs.

$tokens to Tip the Pickers

1 $token - 1.00 USD3 $tokens - 3.00 USD5 $tokens - 5 USD 12345

Pick 55 - Spurious Correlations

This Sunday the two best teams in the National Football League  face off in New Orleans for Super Bowl XLVII. In addition to bragging rights for the winner, there may be some hidden value in the outcome.  Back in the late 1960's a group of geeky data analysts started tracking the correlation between the winner of the Super Bowl and the fate of the Stock Market for the rest of the year. (I told you they were a bit geeky) Perhaps after one too many beers they predicted that the outcome of the Super Bowl could forecast  what was going to happen to the U.S. stock market over the next 12 months. So they began accumulating the data each year thereafter and, by golly, there was a clear correlation.

The so-called  Super Bowl Stock Market Predictor claims that if an original NFC team wins the prize, the stock market will end the year up, but if an original AFC team wins, the market will end the year down. 

This seems like a ridiculous correlation, but from 1967 to 1988 the indicator was right 90.9 percent of the time - 20 out of those 22 years. Since then the accuracy has decreased, but it still hovers at around 76.7 percent - a predictor. When was the last time the advice from your Broker hit the mark 8 out of 10 times? 

In geek terms this is called a spurious correlation because the rationale for the correlation is totally off the wall.  Yet its track record is as solid as the gold in Fort Knox. Maybe more so because few, if any, investors have seen the gold in Fort Knox. Many who have followed this Predictor have seen their portfolio turn to gold in a couple of years.

The Super Bowl Stock Market Predictor is not the only spurious correlation with hidden value. Has anyone noticed that when the DJIA goes positive on a Friday, the price of gas usually increases a few cents on Monday. The opposite is also true. Use this hidden value to decide whether to fill er up on Friday or Monday and you will be ahead of the game most of the time.

$tokens to Tip the Pickers

1 $token - 1.00 USD3 $tokens - 3.00 USD5 $tokens - 5 USD 12345

Pick 54 - Fake Girlfriend

Even if I had thought of this when I was in my youth, it would not have been technically feasible. Yes. I could have conjured up an imaginary girlfriend...many of us had them in high school. But the geeks of that era were always at the bottom of the popularity totem pole so we had to rely on our imagination to assuage our deflated egos. Yet time was on our side. It was not the popular high school jocks who went on to earn six figure salaries, but those awkward geeks that could get us to the moon and back, design awesome muscle cars, and put a personal computer on the desk of everyone that was intrigued with video games or tracking their finances on a spreadsheet.

Of course, things have changed since those days and it seems the jocks are back at the top of the totem pole--at lest those who really are good enough to become stars in college and draft picks for Pro Teams. So it did not surprise me when a certain college football star was apparently duped into a relationship with a fake girlfriend. That was sheer geekery! And I don't think we have seen the last of it.

I just came across this in one of my on-line news letter feeds:

If your Facebook profile is feeling lonesome, or nobody really believes that your unseen Canadian partner actually has the flu (a nod to Broadway’s Avenue Q), a Brazilian service will conjure up a fake girlfriend to round out your virtual identity.
NamoroFake.com will create the appearance of a love interest on Facebook for US$40, or offer up an ex-lover for $19.00 if your deception should be both dishonest and frugal. 
Namoro makes the lie convincing through matching you up with your “girfriend’s” fake profile, complete with 30 days of comments and the quintessential relationship status change. Everybody knows that it’s not ‘official’ if your status doesn’t say so. That’s today’s youth’s version of a “promise ring.”

I am not trying to say that there is some hidden value in having a fake girlfriend. We surely have enough true lies to contend with in our current times. Just sayin...geeks may not be popular but they can be very clever--especially when technology is on the playing field.

ez does it!
 

$tokens to Tip the Pickers

1 $token - 1.00 USD3 $tokens - 3.00 USD5 $tokens - 5 USD 12345

Pick 53 - The FED

For nearly eighty years after the charter for the Second Bank of the United States was allowed to expire, America was without a Central Bank controlled by the Federal Government. After various financial panics, particularly a severe one in 1907, many Americans, especially Farmers and owners of small businesses, lobbied Congress for banking and currency reform.  They wanted a ready reserve of liquid assets that could be used to expand and contract currency and credit seasonally within the U.S. economy.

In response to this lobby, the Aldrich–Vreeland Act was passed in 1908. The direct result of this act was the establishment of the National Monetary Commission in 1909. Over the next four years, the Commission prepared and proposed major changes in U.S. banking and currency laws. The final report was submitted to Congress on January 9, 1912.  Its recommendations  ran 59 sections--most of them very controversial in those times. The proposed legislation was known as the Aldrich Plan, named after the chairman of the Commission, Republican Senator Nelson W. Aldrich of Rhode Island.

The Plan called for the establishment of a National Reserve Association with 15 regional district branches and 46 geographically dispersed directors primarily from the banking profession. The Reserve Association would make emergency loans to member banks, print money, and act as the fiscal agent for the U.S. government. State and nationally chartered banks would have the option of subscribing to specified stock in their local association branch.

Since the Aldrich Plan essentially gave full control of this system to private bankers, there was strong opposition to it from rural and western states because of fears that it would become a tool of certain rich and powerful financiers in New York City, referred to as the "Money Trust".

From May 1912 through January 1913 the Pujo Committee, a subcommittee of the House Committee on Banking and Currency, held investigative hearings on the alleged Money Trust and its interlocking directorates. These hearings were chaired by Rep. Arsene Pujo, a Democratic representative from Louisiana^.

In the election of 1912, the Democratic Party won control of the White House and both chambers of Congress. The party's platform stated strong opposition "to the so called Aldrich bill for the establishment of a central bank." However, the platform also called for a systematic revision of banking laws in ways that would provide relief from financial panics, unemployment and business depression, and would protect the public from the "domination by what is known as the Money Trust."

Now, a full 100 years later, we are still searching for the same relief from the same financial woes. Both political parties appear to have retained their policy positions regarding how to solve these woes, but no one seems to be asking the key question: Is there some hidden value in the function of the Federal Reserve that we have overlooked. The FED has served our financial interests well for most of the hundred years it has been in operation. Why is it failing us now? 

$tokens to Tip the Pickers

1 $token - 1.00 USD3 $tokens - 3.00 USD5 $tokens - 5 USD 12345

Pick 52 - Character

Back in my school days traits like persistence, curiosity, self-control, conscientiousness, grit and self-confidence were actually taught in school and at home. There were no tests to determine how much character training we had absorbed each month. No text books or other training devices were used to instill these traits but, somehow both our parents and our teachers knew if we were making progress or not.

Looking back, I suspect our parents measured our progress against their own. Like that old saying: "the apple does not fall far from the tree." If our father lacked persistence, he expected us to pick up the slack and finish what we had started. If our mother lacked self-confidence, we were expected to overflow with it. No. There were never any direct scoldings or pressure about persistence and self-confidence. It was more like nurturing; that subtle smile when you finished a difficult task, the words of encouragement whenever you tried out for the team or a part in the school play. They were little character building exercises taught using the activities of daily life.

Our teachers used a different yardstick. They measured us against our classmates and in many cases against the results they had attained with students who had gone before us. These days we consider it unfair and even prejudicial for teachers to make comparisons like that. But we need to remember that in those days incidents such as Columbine and Sandy Hook were unthinkable.  And therein may be the hidden value in ad hoc character building lessons. They not only taught us about the importance of  character, they taught us how to nourish it in ourselves and in others.

It is too bad that guns are so much easier to obtain than good character.  

$tokens to Tip the Pickers

1 $token - 1.00 USD3 $tokens - 3.00 USD5 $tokens - 5 USD 12345

Tour 51 - Live and Let Live

I was so depressed last night thinking about Health Care Plans, the

economy, the wars, lost jobs, savings, Social Security, retirement

funds, and the Sandy Hook incident .... I called a Suicide Hotline.

Pick 50 - OFF button

I had just gotten one of those new smart phones and had it with me at the meeting. As requested, I made sure it was off when the meeting began. About 5 minutes into the meeting I heard this strange sound coming from my pocket. I looked around to see who had failed to shut down their cell phone because I did not recognize the ringtone. Gradually all eyes turned to me and I realized the sound was coming from MY phone. With a blush of embarrassment, I fished the phone out of my pocket and desperately searched for the OFF button. There was none to be found. Then I remembered what the Instruction Book said about that. Apparently, this phone is so smart that it just puts itself into hibernate mode when it has not been in use for 5 minutes or when you disconnect at the end of a phone call. This mode saves the battery but keeps enough of the electrons waiting so they can come alive in an instant. Any incoming call or text message will do it. All  cell phones I used in the past had a very definite OFF button. Apparently, that concept is gone the way of the 8-hour work day and lights out. In our 24/7 culture we are never expected to sleep--only to hibernate when our services are not required. I was outsmarted by my own Smart Phone and there was nothing I could do about it except find the instruction for silencing my cell phone when I did not wish to disturb others.  

I suspect it will not be long before our smart phones will gain the upper hand. We will be able to silence them but that will not prevent gentle vibrations, blinking lights, or any other means of getting our attention when they have been awakened out of their hibernation state. That is the hidden value of having an OFF switch on electronic devices. It was our last hope for breaking away from the always on lifestyle.  Oh well...perhaps a new service industry will come about because of this. Instead of Cruises and Sunny Beaches, there will be OFF-line zones where, for a fee, you can roam about completely free of all electronic signals whether from Wi-Fi or Land Line. In the end, many Third World countries may find that is the one luxury they can afford to provide and they will thrive on it.Til then we need to carefully read those instructions for the care and nurturing of our wireless communication devices. Like many of our kids today, they are getting too smart for us to manage without professional help.

$tokens to Tip the Pickers

1 $token - 1.00 USD3 $tokens - 3.00 USD5 $tokens - 5 USD 12345

Pick 49 - Control

Recently as I was listening to the News reports about the storms that had decimated the northeast portion of the US, I experienced one of those hidden value moments. As is par for the course with storms, people were reporting what they’d done to prepare for it, and what they would have done differently had they taken it more seriously. As they talked, the TV cameras panned over some of the devastation and it was at that moment that I had my epiphany: there are some things in this world that you can do absolutely nothing about.

I know that sounds like basic knowledge but it wasn’t the concept that stunned me; it was the unrealized RAMIFICATIONS of the concept. Suddenly, I perceived that I can’t control everything in my environment. There are forces and people out there large and  powerful enough to knock me aside like a windblown leaf . Worse yet there’s absolutely nothing that I can do about it.  I can't control them. I can't change them. I can't even avoid them.

As I thought more about it, other forces started coming to mind: the ebb and flow of the ocean, the waxing and waning of the moon, and even the behavior of the people around me. The one thing that I can control, though, is my attitude toward it and that’s a huge thing. As a matter of fact, it’s that characteristic that defines who I am as a person and how happy I am able to be. As Abe Lincoln once said, “Most folks are about as happy as they make their minds up to be”.

Perhaps that’s the hidden value of realizing that there are some things that I simply can’t do anything about; that it’s OK to let some things go and to be happy with the result even if it is not what I had planned. The storms of life come and go.  I have no control over most of them. My decision to accept the results with a happy or sad outlook is the hidden value in adversity. That is the only real control I have in any situation I face.

$tokens to Tip the Pickers

1 $token - 1.00 USD3 $tokens - 3.00 USD5 $tokens - 5 USD 12345

Pick 48 - Facebook

I usually try to keep the tone of this blog upbeat and engaging, however today I learned something about the hidden value in photos on Facebook that we might prefer to keep hidden...
Seems a data researcher by the name of  Alessandro Acquisti has developed a new data capture and analysis application that enables him to collect intimate information about anyone who posts photos on Facebook. All that is needed to start the search is a snapshot of the person of interest.

Acquisti has been working with a team of researchers to determine what personal information could be gleaned from a single digital photo. In one experiment, Acquisti and his team surveyed students at a North American college. The researchers shot a photograph of each participant, and then handed over a questionnaire to be completed on site. Even as students were completing the paperwork, their photos were being processed with facial recognition software scanning images from Facebook profiles. By the time the students had finished their anonymous questionnaires, the researchers were able to positively identify nearly one third of the individuals by name.

On first blink, this ability to identify a person by his or her photograph isn’t unsettling. However, Acquisti also showed how his team was able to use a known identity  to glean personal information such as social security numbers, birthdates and even current addresses.

In an earlier study, Acquisti and his team were able to predict the social security numbers of many living persons by comparing them to dead individuals who were assigned numbers at similar times, and in similar geographic locations.
In other words they found hidden value in a simple photograph placed on line in a social media forum such as Facebook. The photo links to a profile; the profile reveals sensitive, personal, information that may have immense hidden value to someone other than the person in the photo.

$tokens to Tip the Pickers

1 $token - 1.00 USD3 $tokens - 3.00 USD5 $tokens - 5 USD 12345

Pick 47 - Noggin Knowledge

My mom had a lot of unusual sayings. Some of them were funny and some were so subtle  that it took years for me to figure them out. Oftentimes when she was tapped to drive me to some event she would call up to my room "Are you ready or ready's brother?" Since she came from a family of a sister and two brothers I guessed she might have heard that when she was growing up. I was an "only" child so it did not make much sense to me til years later amidst the frustration I had getting my own son out the door on time. That's when her meaning hit my noggin: In some far-away imaginary place "Not Ready" is the brother of "Ready" That simple but subtle question was her way of prodding me along. It was not sarcastic or mean-spirited. It simply asked me to chose my identity with the sense that Ready was her favorite but I was free to be either of the two.

My mom grew up during the Great Depression but her parents were able to weather those times without having to pull any of their children out of school to work. She graduated high school in 1939 then continued to work in an Ice Cream Parlor where she met my dad who was a Merchant Marine. They were married on Memorial Day 1943, and used Gas Ration Coupons gifted by relatives to drive to Harrisburg for a one-day honeymoon. My dad, who was now a conscripted Merchant Marine, returned to sea the next day. As the youngest child it fell to my mom to take care of her recently widowed mother. She got a job as a seamstress in a shirt factory and became very proficient at operating a blind stitch sewing machine. Since she was on "piece work" she often got caught up and prodded the Foreman to get her more work. Apparently the befuddled Foreman would ask her what other work she thought she  could do to fill the time. Her reply was always the same: "I am paid to sew--not to think. That is your job." Guess that is why she often encouraged me with this saying: "What you don't have in your noggin; you have to have in your feet" It took me a long time to figure that one out too until I discovered that the sewing machines in those days were controlled by foot pedals.

$tokens to Tip the Pickers

1 $token - 1.00 USD3 $tokens - 3.00 USD5 $tokens - 5 USD 12345

Pick 46 - Pop's Stories

Pop was only 14 years old in 1932 when he was cast off his family island and told to fend for himself. Now that America is headed down that same road again, I would like to share how Pop not only survived but earned his place as a standing member of that Greatest Generation.

Pop could spin a story with the best of them, but I never got that interested until I faced a job loss in the midst of the Carter Recession. It wouldn't have been that bad for me alone but I had a wife and two young children to support. What's worse is that my job loss was of my own doing and therefore I was not eligible to collect unemployment benefits nor would it be easy to find another job in the same profession. You see, I was a high school teacher suffering burn-out so bad that the thought of going back to school left me in a state of depression. With little useful business experience to show prospective employers and unable to collect unemployment benefits I stayed awake many nights worried sick. Pop assured me that we could move in with him and mom if worse came to worse, but I could tell that he dreaded that possibility more than I did. That's when I began to pay close attention to the hidden value in the stories he would tell me. In a subtle way he conveyed five important survival skills that got me through hard times then and still do today:

1. "In God We Trust" appears on our currency for a reason: Trust in God--not the Government
2. Be humble enough to accept help from any friend or stranger willing to give you a hand up.
3. Learn from everything you do--even if it does not appear to have value at the present time.
4. Be flexible in your goals but never bend your principles to achieve them
5. Give back whenever you can and in any way you can.

$tokens to Tip the Pickers

1 $token - 1.00 USD3 $tokens - 3.00 USD5 $tokens - 5 USD 12345

Pick 45 - Compromise

We are hearing a lot about the need for compromise these days but it must have some hidden value that our politicians have not found yet because we don’t see much of it. I wish they could have observed a recent event I observed while visiting my grandchildren the week before the General Election…

The three of them were in the living room floor squalled around one of those giant cartoon coloring books. The piece of artwork in question was a picture of an elf packing gifts into Santa’s bag and there was a debate about what color the cheerful chap’s hat should be. One child argued that everybody knew that elf’s caps were green, and the other pointed out that if they colored it green, then the holly leaf in the band wouldn’t be visible; it should obviously be red.

Neither child was willing to concede until the third one, the youngest, jumped in. She suggested a green hat, a red band, and a gold holly leaf. He was, after all, a magic elf and could have golden holly in his cap if he wanted. The two older children thought for a few seconds and happily agreed, but the one who had wanted a red hat had a condition. She agreed to the green hat if the jacket could be red with a green belt. The other two agreed readily and the teamwork commenced.

Later, I took a few seconds to commend the youngest mediator on a job well done, and her reply was stunningly simple. “We just wanted to color, and it was only a hat.” Wow, out of the mouths of babes! I realized in that moment that compromise wasn’t an intricate skill that one learned in debate class in college; it’s a survival skill that each of us learns as toddlers, or maybe we’re born with it. After all, we see it happen in nature all the time. A tree bends in the wind instead of standing stiffly because if it didn’t, it would die. It’s the nature of things; bend or break.

When I looked into those guileless blue eyes and considered her words, it occurred to me that the hidden value of compromise is two-fold: happiness and progress. She knew what she wanted and found a way to make it happen. The other two shared the same goal, and were willing to offer up some goodwill and bend a bit on the details in order to finish the picture. In the end, everybody was happy and the project was complete.

It would appear that our children have a better handle on running things successfully than those whom we pay to do so. Maybe our politicians should have mandatory babysitting duty this holiday season with the hope that they’ll find the hidden value in guileless compromise before the winds of change break our nation.

$tokens to Tip the Pickers

1 $token - 1.00 USD3 $tokens - 3.00 USD5 $tokens - 5 USD 12345

Pick 44 - Patriotic Sacrifices

My late father was a Veteran of WWII, but was not recognized as such until 1988. He was a Merchant Marine. In peacetime, the Merchant Marine is a civilian service that handles commercial cargo. But the Merchant Marine Act of 1936 allowed it to be converted during wartime to an auxiliary of the U.S. Navy. And during the war, the Merchant Marine provided vital logistical support as allied forces fought on three continents. As then Gen. Dwight Eisenhower put it, "When final victory is ours there is no organization that will share its credit more deservedly than the Merchant Marine."

But when World War II was over, the Merchant Marine's greatest advocate, Franklin Roosevelt, was dead. And Congress never conferred official veterans' status on the service, meaning merchant mariners didn't get to take advantage of G.I. Bill or home loan programs that veterans of the other branches did. Only in 1988, following a federal court ruling, were they given official discharge papers and allowed access to federally administered medical care by the Department of Veterans Affairs.

Merchant mariners played a critical support role for the Navy and other branches during World War II, ferrying fuel, troops and cargo to hot spots where fighting was taking place. Even though merchant vessels didn't have a combat mission, many were attacked and 733 were sunk. A year after the war, the government reported that 5,638 merchant seamen and officers were dead or missing and 581 were taken prisoner. In fact, the Merchant Marine death rate was 1 in 26, the highest rate among the services in World War II.

My father was never bitter about this gross oversight. Although several of the ships he sailed during the war were sunk by German submarines he felt that God had protected him and the Merchant Marine Corps had given him more adventure and insight into life than any other experience. He sailed around the world twice--once from the West Coast and once from the East Coast. One of the supply ships he sailed on had delivered supplies to a desperate Russian port city that was under attack. Shortly after the Cold War ended with the break up of the Soviet Union, the new Russian Ambassador to the US delivered a special note of thanks addressed to all of the crew on that ship. The official notice included a medal of valor awarded by the Russian Government to all who had helped the port city survive the German invasion. My father just shrugged it off...typical of The Greatest Generation. From him I learned that the hidden value in patriotic sacrifice does not lie in the sacrifice itself but in the lessons the next generation takes from it. Thanks for serving Dad!

$tokens to Tip the Pickers

1 $token - 1.00 USD3 $tokens - 3.00 USD5 $tokens - 5 USD 12345

Pick 43 – The Curator

I was browsing through the on-line job postings for freelance writers today when I came across a term that I had never encountered before:

“We are looking to expand our content creation strategies with an increased focus on content curation. We require a curation expert with an indepth knowledge of the process of curating content.”

 It immediately occurred to me that there must be some hidden value  here because I do a lot of on-line research and google all kinds of unusual terms but had not come across the term “curation” Moreover, no one in my LinkedIn network of thought leaders and professional writers claimed to have an in-depth knowledge of this process. So I deferred to the omniscient mind of Google and found:

Curation is the process of discovering, gathering, adding value, presenting and making accesible a set of contents, despite its formats (video, audio, text, images...), which describes or defines a topic or matter from the point of view of the content curator.

I may be old-fashioned or just too old to understand the difference, but the definition sounds like what I have been doing most of my professional life: RESEARCH

Perhaps the hidden value is in the perception that a content curator has a broader perspective than an ordinary researcher and can command higher rates. If so, I will have to change my profile and start calling myself a “content curator” I can use the extra money.

ez does it!

$tokens to Tip the Pickers

1 $token - 1.00 USD3 $tokens - 3.00 USD5 $tokens - 5 USD 12345

Pick 42 - The Underdog

I learned a very important lesson on Election Day 2012 when I entered the voting booth at 3:15 PM. I was totally undecided...not independent like many other voters...just decidedly undecided. I am, and have been for most of my voter life, a card-carrying Republican. I can tell you that I voted for Nixon and Reagan. I did not vote for Ford or George W. I will generally vote for moderate Republicans who are fiscal conservatives but I will also vote for moderate Democrats who are fiscal conservatives. I have voted in every election since 1968 and have managed to select the winner in every case except for Bush the Elder and Al Gore. There was something about both those elections that skewed my judgement. I was afraid I would repeat that error in this election. In fact, I even considered not voting--at least not for the presidential slot. I also had to select a Senator and some state officials, so I had other motives to get myself to the polling station and have my vote counted. I was going to leave the Obama vs Romney ballot unchecked until an image came into my mind at the last second.

Anyone familiar with the Rocky movies starring Sylvester Stallone will understand what I mean when I say the opposition managed to turn Obama into the underdog. That's allowed in American politics. But once they achieved that, they continued to beat him up mercilessly. And, in some corner of the American psyche, beating up the underdog is just plain wrong. Ask yourself: would John Wayne have ever stooped that low? I don't think so!  So, with that image in mind, I found my index finger slowly and almost reluctantly heading for the Obama checkbox. I touched the button. The check mark appeared beside Barack Obama  and almost instantaneously I pressed the large "Cast Vote" button which confirmed my vote. The deed was done--for better or worse.

This time I had found a hidden value in the American psyche. We respect the underdog. Maybe that is because whether our ancestors came here on the Mayflower or on a makeshift raft, we can all identify with the underdog. Those who cannot find hidden value in the underdog may have lost an important facet of their American identity.

$tokens to Tip the Pickers

1 $token - 1.00 USD3 $tokens - 3.00 USD5 $tokens - 5 USD 12345

Pick 41 - Video Games

I try not to be a curmudgeon. I try very hard.

However, sometimes the limits of my patience are tested, and it appears that the world is conspiring, in my later years, to turn me into a grumpy, disapproving stereotype – the kind of person that, as a boy, I tried to avoid.

To illustrate, I recently visited my grandchildren. Usually, they are happy to see me – and I want to keep it that way.

However, what proved to be my trial was The Game – a video game, of course. My sensitive, intelligent  granddaughter had begun to play it as I was sitting comfortably on the living room couch.

Understand: this was not Pac-Man, which I could have tolerated. No. It was a shockingly realistic, nightmarish gore fest which, I was told, is called Silent Hill.

This fictitious location featured dark, fog draped streets strewn with mangled dead bodies. Lumbering, deformed creatures emerged from the mist, necks tilted at unnatural angles, heads wobbling. One of these gurgling, hissing, slurping monstrosities was coming toward my grand-daughter – at least the character she was controlling on the screen – as her thumbs twitched furiously in self-defense.

Here, among other things, was my problem: When my granddaughter was even younger, she used to have terrible nightmares that woke her up at night and reduced her to a trembling heap – and sometimes even to tears.

There are so many ways to enjoy life, I thought. There are not only libraries full of fascinating literature to explore; there is the refreshing lure of the outdoors, and so much natural beauty that goes unappreciated – not to mention the magic of imagination. Instead of enjoying these wonders, my grand-daughter had chosen to sit in a dimly lit living room and play a game that terrified her – she had chosen a nightmare over some of the best things life has to offer.

My grand-daughter turned to me. “Look,” she said. “Did you see that? I got him.” She was clutching the controller so hard, I thought she might break it.

I forced a tolerant smile, and hoped it did not turn into the curmudgeonly grimace I felt trying to form. I had decided not to ruin her fun.

Then, something happened. The vision on the screen was indescribable – a grotesque perversion of nature ripping into something else with malicious, and possibly even sadistic, intent – in an orgy of death and violence surpassing any horror I had ever seen. And now it was advancing toward my grand-daughter.

It was too much. I felt the curmudgeon inside me rising to take control; it had an entire speech prepared, and I was about to deliver it for him. Just as the creature found its way to my daughter, a voice from another room interrupted: “Supper is ready.”

“Hold on mom,” my grand-daughter said. “I’m coming.” She paused the game, freezing the creature before it could do any damage. She set down the controller, got up, then smiled charmingly – and beautifully – at me. “Come on, Grandpa,” she said. And then she was gone.

For a second, I could not move, or breathe. When the monster had paused, something inside me had paused as well. As I stared at the newly static screen, a flicker of understanding had arisen.

This was not the nightmare of her childhood. This was not any fear she dealt with everyday. Here, and perhaps here alone, she could put her fears on pause. These monsters were no threat to her. The game allowed her an extraordinary power – a way to confront her nightmares in a way that was completely safe.

If only real life granted this, I thought. Being able to actively confront fears without true danger was a hidden value – and I had missed it.

I imagined a world in which everyone could freeze time when bad things happened and then, go to eat supper. I thought I could appreciate this world a bit now, with its frozen monster, a place where my granddaughter would never feel helpless; where the threats were not real – where she ventured bravely toward the monsters, rather than waiting for them to come to her.

$tokens to Tip the Pickers

1 $token - 1.00 USD3 $tokens - 3.00 USD5 $tokens - 5 USD 12345