May 2007 -- Good afternoon, men and women of the graduating class of Home Town America 2007.

Yes, I said men and women.

I know the current habit, and it is a poor one, is to refer to you -- and your brothers and sisters graduating from universities today -- as "boys and girls" or "children."  You are no such thing.  You are men and women.  At your age in earlier generations, your grandfathers were wading ashore at Omaha and Iwo Jima, flying daylight raids over Germany, and slugging through the mud in France; your grandmothers were working the swing shift at Lockheed, driving cabs, digging Victory Gardens, ferrying completed planes to the troops, and hardest of all they were keeping life going at home.  You are going into the world today as men and women.  Childhood's gates have closed behind you.  That wind at your back is the wind of opportunity.  It's also that wind that blows when you're standing on the hilltop and everybody can see you and know what you do.

I'm not going to hector you with a lot of platitudes today because I know half of you are text messaging or blabbing on your cell phones, or you have your iPods cranked up to eleven and are huffing and grunting along with someone trying to convince you that you're still the kids and your only job is to prove to Mom and Dad that They Are Not The Boss Of You.  You are the group that will be a burden on society until your brothers and sisters who are paying attention finally have enough of it and kick you down the stairs.  That day will come sooner than you expect it, because the world has no time for those who refuse to pay attention until tank treads are crushing them into the earth.

There are three things I want to tell the rest of you today.  The first is this: that the one word you will not hear again unless you run for public office or Miss Universe is: POPULAR.  I know that high school is a desperate time for most of you in which you try unsuccessfully and unhappily to jam yourself into a pre-packaged format and earn the approval of the Herd.  Those days are over now.  From now on you're an independent human being, a Majority of One, and you live and die by what you do, not by what the Herd does.

"You" is a singular pronoun from now on.

Some of you will leave here and marry and start families.  The priest will look at you and say "Do YOU, Clara, take THIS MAN, Jack..."  He won't say "Do you, one of Delta Sigma Phi, take one of the Right Wingers on the hockey team..."  The promises you will make are made by you, Clara, and you, Jack.  Individuals.  Not members of the Herd.  When you are tempted it will be you and you alone who stand or fall.  The babies that come will be Michael and Mary, not Modern Children or White Kids or Black Kids or Victims of Exclusion or any other Group.  It will not be Society that walks the floor with that colicky baby.  It will be Clara walking the floor with Mary.  It will be Jack and Clara who go off to work, who pay the rent and wash the car and replace the toilet roll and pay the bills.  Not Society or The Community or Our Gang.

Some of you will go to University from here.  Unlike high school, there will be no spoon feeding from now on.  Professor Jones will hand out the reading list and the syllabus and will tell you when the stuff's due and what will happen if you don't hand it in.  That's it.  And if you don't hand in the work, it's you, Chuck and Linda, who will flunk the course.  And it will be because you did not do the work -- not because the professor is a racist or because he's insufficiently sensitive to your "issues". Oh, and if you borrow $50,000 and major in getting drunk and chasing girls and get a degree in Rock and Roll, you'll have to pay that money back by working days at Starbucks and nights cleaning offices.  And it's not Society that will have to pay it back, but Chuck and Linda.  Even if you didn't learn anything, even if you don't have any skills, even if you think it's not fair.  Get used to it now.

Some of you will go into business for yourselves.  You've got some great idea and you are ready to put them before the world to see what will happen to them.  You're going to be movie stars, stars of the NHL, NBA, MLB or NFL, network anchors, internationally famous rock stars, or best selling authors.  Or, alternatively, you're going to invent the next Microsoft, run a flourishing family farm, race at Le Mans or own your own garage.  You think you know exactly what you're doing and how long it's going to take.  Be prepared to be wrong.  It'll be harder than it looks, it takes way more money and lots more time to be successful and most of you will fail -- at least once.  And this is not because the world is racist, or sexist, or otherwise biased against you.  It is because that is the way life is. 

The second thing I have to say to you today is WE ARE THE BOSS OF YOU.  We, meaning those who teach the classes, own the businesses and pastor the churches have every right to tell you what to do and kick you down the street if you fail.  You don't get to choose which parts of Adult Life you will embrace and which you will blow off.  It's one big package.  When the work hours are "from 8:30 to When The Work Is Done" that means you don't get to go home at 3:00 to watch "The Young and the Restless" or pick up Susie at day care or whatever.  You don't get vacation time except when we say you can go; and you don't get to phone in and say "I'm, like, just not into work today, Man" and turn over and go back to sleep.  You have to subscribe to every tenet of the Creed, too, and no matter what you think, Catholic Kids, the Pope IS the boss of you.

And the third thing is: Adult Life Is Almost Never Like Teevee.

Those of you who successfully pass the Bar Exam and go to work for big law firms will find that it's nothing at all like Law and Order.  It's 20 hour days of drudgery every day, and you can't take the summer off and go surfing -- you'll be lucky if you get the odd Saturday off and even then you'll have to be on call -- and the work will not be interesting or exciting, at least for the first ten years.  You'll have people interrupting you, hollering at you, criticizing you, and demanding your attention every minute of every day.  None of your clients will be international movie stars or wrongly accused next door neighbours and you won't have one at a time -- you'll have twenty at a time and they will all want your full attention.  It won't be fun.  Ditto for those who go into medicine, meteorology, archaeology or the Armed Forces.  Most of it will be hard, thankless drudgery and you have to get up every day and go whether you want to or not.  Hey, even racing drivers will tell you that 90% of their job consists of endlessly pounding laps around a test track, or schmoozing sponsors and friends of sponsors and bosses and mechanics and whoever you're told to kiss up to, and explaining to the press five hundred different times why you stuffed your car into the first corner wall.

For those who choose to stay home with your children, you face the same work tomorrow that you did today.  You will break up the same fights, walk the same floors, clean up the same messes, drive the same route to cleaners, grocery store, church, playground, hardware store, garden centre, Wal-Mart and the park.  You will have to walk the dog even if it's raining and you don't want to.  You'll have to walk the floor constantly with a sick baby who can't tell you what's wrong, and you'll have to clean up after it every hour.  If you mark one diaper you will find you have washed it 45 times in one week.  And the next morning no matter how you feel, you will have to get up and do it all again.

Being an adult is a lot of work, however you slice it, and nobody will thank you for doing it.  This is what the old folks call "duty".  You do it because that is what adults do. 

So put down the ducky, and pick up the tools of your trade, and prepare to be men and women, Jack and Clara, Chuck and Linda, Shamida and Shaquile and Stanley and Danica.  You are no longer a cheerleader, a jock, a geek or a part of a herd.  You are each a man and a woman and you're on your own from now on.

Whatever you do after you leave here today will be your decision and you will bear the consequences.  Make it a good stout effort, whatever it is, and take both the credit and the blame for the way it turns out.  It's all up to you.  Each of you.

Now if you will kick your neighbour who has blabbered or rocked to her iPod steadily through this message and let her khow it's time to stand up, we will repeat the pledge of adulthood.

I, Jack Jones [Clara Smith] understand that from now on I am a man [woman], not a boy [girl] or a child, no matter what matter what Daddy's lawyer or Jesse Jackson or Al Sharpton may say, and that from this day forward what I do is up to me and the consequences that result from what I do are mine to bear.  I can do anything I want to do but I cannot do everything I want to do.  AND NOBODY ELSE WILL PAY.

That's the whole thing in a nut shell, men and women.  Go forth and create a new world.  Just remember, you'll have to live in it, not us.  We're going to retire and have fun.

You are dismissed.

May 23, 2007 -- A lot of "Green" books and magazines and articles have been coming out lately and I have sampled some of these, looking for ways to improve my behaviour toward Mama Earth and all.  Unfortunately, just like it happens when I buy those "How To Budget" books, I have discovered that almost all of what they suggest are the kinds of things any sane person already does.  I learned most of it at my mother's knee -- not because Mama was a hippie, but because both Mama and Daddy were Depression Babies and they had five kids without ever making more than $10,000 in the best year they had in life.  "Use it up! Wear it out! Make it do or do without!" was the little verse our Sainted Southern Granny would recite to us, and words that my parents lived by.  "Do I need this? Can I borrow one? Have I got something already that I can make do? How long will this last?" we'd ask as each dollar was turned over and over in our hand.  'Green' heck; that was Poverty.

Save water?  We had a well, a cess pool, a hot water heater, one bathroom and seven people.  A shower meant five minutes and OUT, because if your sister had to take a cold shower you'd hear about it until the lights had been out for an hour and Mama shouted "Don't make me come in there, girls!" in The Mom Voice.  If you wanted a long luxurious soak, that's why there was a lake in the front yard.  And speaking of the front yard, if you were the one who left the water running and backed up the cess pool, you would NEVER hear the end of that.  Shoes and clothing were community property until you got working papers and bought them yourself.  Any screams of "Mine!" brought the reminder that everything in the house belonged to Mama and Daddy including our bedrooms and that was the end of the noise.  Save heat?  We learned early that nobody who grew up in New York was entitled to run barefoot and in shorts in winter, indoors or out.  Dress warmly or freeze.  Touch that thermostat and die.  And so on.  I carry a lunch in re-usable containers, take public transit routinely, walk to the grocery store and library, and wear the same clothes as long as they hold together.  (Mama bought me a new summer formal when she was horrified to see me in 1993 in a fabulous green and cream paisley granny dress with an empire waist and a thread-lace cream collar, and a huge straw cartwheel hat with a brown and white striped gossamer scarf streaming from its brim.  She said enough is enough, even though it was (and is) still perfectly good and today Laura Ashley would charge $250 for the same dress that cost me $30 in 1973).  I have two pairs of shoes; in fact I have two of almost everything except things a lady has seven of.  Okay, I have eight jackets.  Not including the Penske one that's locked up with all the other Penske stuff in the garage.  Racing teams give them out.  (I am still looking for a Spyker Squadron jacket though.)

So Al can come and piffle on my doorstep (I won't let him in, the cat does not approve of him) about "green" options all he wants to.  He'll never find a thing to complain about at my house.

And when I am in Monaco riding in the Ferrari Dino with Gino, Al will never know it's us.  Because what he calls Green we used to call Poverty -- and we leave that at home.

Al, babe, go and do thou likewise.  Come back when you have moved into 675 square feet with no amenities at all, and when your consumption of food and drink is what it used to be when you were Poor.  Oh, I forgot you never WERE poor, were you?  Well, it's not too soon to start.  Now that poverty is chic, get with the program, Man!

UPTOWN (May 8, 2007) -- For many years I have guided myself by something I once heard Ari Onassis say. "Live at a good address," he said, "if you have to live in the attic."  With few exceptions I have followed that advice, living in a series of "attics" on the boundary line of the best neighbourhoods for the privilege of telling people I live in Buckhead or Forest Hill or whatever will make their eyes pop.  This month I bid farewell to this lifetime dictum and opted for comfort over location.  I have moved from the attic to the main floor.  I am living Uptown.

The place I removed from was built in the 1950s and was what we called in the Old Neighbourhood a 'brownstone".  It was a four-story walk-up with rooms the size of match boxes, bars on the windows, no access to either yard or balcony, and no way to get inside save up a steep flight of steps (or two).  The windows were never washed (and you could not get to the outside area to wash them) during the four years I lived there, the kitchen ceiling fell in twice due to a water leak in between the apartment above me and mine, and was so badly patched that opening the kitchen cupboard door scraped a rain of plaster down on the food and the floor.  The refrigerator had to be defrosted and reminded me of the one my mother had in the early 1960s; the stove regularly blew fuses.  It took the landlord three years to replace a torn screen -- and he only did that after one of my cats finished destroying it and escaped into the neigbourhood never to be seen again.  The garbage was piled in the garage as was the recycling, so if you happened to have a parking space your guests would have what Daddy called The Ash Can Tour to welcome them to your home.  And dirty -- don't get me started on that.  The place was filthy from top to bottom.

Why did I live there for three years? It's in a good neighbourhood, and the modern housing in that neighbourhood costs more money than the law will permit me to pay for rent.  This good address cost me nearly $1,000 per month.

Now I live uptown with the biggest park in the city for a front yard.  I have enough space to do a rond du jambe in any room without kicking anything, and I have a modern kitchen that has room for the extra storage I had to bring in (Canadians build their apartments with storage that would be suitable if you have just graduated from college or just got out of jail.)  For the first time in ten years I can have all my stuff around me.  I have a balcony, there are no bars on my windows and I don't have to put the lights on in the daytime.  And above all else it is clean -- clean, clean, whistle-clean from top to bottom and they are out washing the windows even as I write.

What did I have to give up by moving up town?  Well I gave up a really good neighbourhood of Italians and Jews with no crime, a quick walk to three parks and the subway or streetcar, a five minute walk to my church and the public library, and easy access to good food and good entertainment.  (The grocery store in my new neighbourhood looks like it belongs in rural Alabama, and on Saturday morning there was only one check out clerk "because nobody wants to work on Saturdays."  I will be shopping in my old neighbourhood from now on.)  This past summer I stood on my front steps and joined in the delerious parade as the Italians celebrated their World Cup Victory.  Nobody passes by the new location except coming and going to work, and nobody is outside except people riding bikes or walking dogs.  Even the cat is bored by the passing scene, which is static and suburban.

Life is a trade-off, I guess.  And though Onassis was right -- there is a lot of cachet in an address at a good location (for one thing you get much more high class junk mail) -- there comes a time when living in the attic is just too big a sacrifice for the benefit I can't deny I got.

So farewell Mr. Onassis and thanks for the great advice.  I recommend it to all who are young enough to still enjoy living in the attic. It is a great way to learn about life.