Common Sense

I looked it up on Wikipedia and came up with this:
          Common sense is defined by Merriam-Webster as, "sound and prudent judgment based on a simple perception of the situation or facts."^[1]Thus, "common sense" (in this view) equates to the knowledge and experience which most people already have, or which the person using the term believes that they do or should have. The Cambridge Dictionary defines it as, "the basic level of practical knowledge and judgment that we all need to help us live in a reasonable and safe way".^[2]
          My dad called it horse sense.  I like to call it not being stupid.  After all, calling it common sense doesn’t seem very accurate because it isn’t all that common.  In fact it seems to be down right scarce.  Just look around.
          Last week I went to the Navy Credit Union to cash a check.  There is a sign on the window with a picture of a gun with one of those red circles around it with the red slash and the words “No firearms allowed on this property” printed underneath (no joke, see the attached photo).  I wonder whose idea that was?  I’m sure that at least a dozen would-be bank robbers saw that sign and went to rob some other bank instead.  You know, one that allowed them to bring their gun inside.

          Here is another one for you.  Did you know that the cost of making a penny is projected to surpass $2.41 for each penny made this year?  In 2011, the US minted about 4.9 billion of the little rascals.  The government could save about 11 billion dollars by just not making any this year.    Honest, just check it out for your self:  http://www.snopes.com/business/money/pennycost.asp  I think good old horse sense could fit in here somewhere.
          On two occasions I served as a chaperone for my granddaughter’s school trip to the Boston Museum of Science.  While there, I sat and listened to a young fellow (the same guy on both occasions) talk about our putting 10% ethanol in our gasoline in an effort to save on the use of fossil based fuel and there by making less pollution.
          Really?  Not so fast.  Common sense really took a hike on this one.  We are putting  10% ethanol in gasoline, which is less efficient (translation; lower miles per gallon so you burn more than with just straight gasoline) and creating that gallon of ethanol takes 1.3 gallons of fossil based fuel to complete the process.  Basically, you have burned more fossil fuel trying to avoid burning fossil fuel than you would have if you hadn’t tried to not burn fossil based fuel in the first place.  What the heck did I just say?
          It just boils down to this: The individuals who came up with the idea in the first place lacked good old common sense and their good intentions were turned upside down by facts they basically ignored.  There are a whole host of other problems that using corn-based ethanol has caused that I won’t go into.  None of them were good for our economy or us.
          A fairly long time ago, someone with some common sense figured out that a whole bunch of gas was being burned while people waited for the stop light to change when all they wanted to do was turn right.  As I said, someone with common sense had a great idea.  So out came the new traffic law.  You could now turn right after stopping at red lights unless otherwise posted.
          Now comes the guy without common sense.  Suddenly, at nearly every stoplight in the state, a new sign appeared.  It read “no turn on red”.  Whoever had the contract for the signs made a few bucks on that one.  After awhile the signs came down with a few exceptions.  The guy with the common sense must have chased the one without it out of the office.
          It’s bad enough to be common senseless without purposely telling everyone about it as in the case of the good old bumper sticker.  I love the one that reads, “War is not the answer.”  Those individuals evidently have never heard of the Civil War or the Revolutionary War or World War One or World War Two, or…. heck I could go on forever listing wars that were the only answer.
          Don’t get me wrong.  I don’t hold anything against anyone being commonsenseless (I think I accidentally created a new word).  I get that way myself every once and awhile.  And sometimes it can be down right amusing.  Like the time my brother and I decided to build a dune buggy.
          When my dad left for work that particular morning he walked right past my red, 1959 Volkswagen Karmann Ghia.  Little did he know what would be there when he got home.

          You might not be familiar with the Karmann Ghia.  It used to be called the poor man's Porsche.  Check out this commercial, if it doesn’t make you laugh check your pulse.  You might be dead.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EiBNtGSzrp4

          My brother and I were armed with some basic facts.  We knew that to build a dune buggy you need some kind of Volkswagen.  We had that covered.  We had the Ghia.  We also knew that a dune buggy had a shorter wheelbase (shorter distance from the front axle to the rear axle) than my Ghia.  We had that covered too.  We had a hacksaw.  The one thing that we lacked was the common sense to realize that we had no idea how to put the two halves of the car back together again once we cut it in two.  When my dad got home that evening my 1959 Ghia was in the garage in three pieces (we cut the top off because after all dune buggies are convertibles).  He was not impressed.
          On an interesting note later, while I was in the Navy, my dad built his own dune buggy from start to finish all by himself.  He used the engine from my Ghia so it didn’t go to waste.  Not bad for a guy who only got to the eighth grade.  He might have been short on formal education but he was long on horse sense and even at 90, he is one cool dad!

          Unfortunately, there are too many times when people with power show a lack of common sense in what they do and it hurts someone else.  I haven’t been able to confirm this next story, but I have no doubt that it occurred.  I heard about it a very long time ago.
          Somewhere out west there is an area where wild fires are common.  To protect the homes (rather expensive ones I might add) they made firebreaks.  The firebreaks were made by disking the fields around the homes.  This insured that the fires would not burn down the houses.  It was extremely effective.
          Along came a commonsenseless group of people that discovered there was an endangered critter in the fields around the homes.  I believe it was some kind of mouse.  You can guess what happened next.  Disking was prohibited forthwith.  After all, you might kill the endangered critter and then the owls that prowled the night sky would be denied their midnight snack.
          The result would be obvious to someone who wasn’t commonsenseless.  The fires came along and burned down the houses.  I might add that they roasted the endangered critter as well.  Go figure.
So what do we do?  How do we fix the epidemic (I love that word) of commonsenselessness?  Hey, another new word!  I’ll have to contact Wikipedia and let them know.  Maybe you have a few suggestions to correct the problem.  If you do please share them with me!!
          I went to bed last night thinking about what to do.  The only thing I could come up with is how I learned whatever common sense I have.  I didn’t learn it in school.  I learned it from my mother and father.  Perhaps that is the solution, perhaps if we as fathers and mothers took the time to teach our kids some basic common sense they would, in turn, pass it on.
          For this to work, we have to keep our families together because the biggest example of no common sense is what we have been doing to the family.  I’ve said this before and I’ll say it again- if you fail in the home, no other success will make up for it.  The family is the key to a whole lot of issues.  If you don’t believe me read this article.
          Just one other thing we might do.  The next time we see something that displays commonsenselessness we should say something.  Even if it is just “that doesn’t make any sense”.    Kind of like the home version of homeland security  :)
          So, until next time keep smiling and give your kids a kiss even if they are 40 years old.

          Hey, wait a minute!!  I just figured how the government could save about 9.9 billion dollars this year!!!  If they paid everyone who turned in their pennies two cents for each penny they turn in (I just know that there must be billions of the little fellas hiding out in piggy banks all across America) the flood of turned in pennies would make minting them this year unnecessary.  For the paltry sum of just under one hundred million dollars (and half of that they get back because they now have your penny) they would eliminate the ten billion they would have spent to make them!!!

          Nah, they wouldn’t do that because nowhere in the United States is commonsenselessness more prevalent than in government.  Bye for now.




          Oh, I nearly forgot.  If you purchase a copy of my novel “Operation Armageddon” in kindle or nook format I will send you a copy of my play “A Rare Encounter” free of charge.  Remember 50% of the royalties will be donated to help our veterans.

What's in your orange?

What’s in your orange?

          About 25 or 30 years ago a good friend, Nellie Vernott, gave me a couple of tapes from a guy by the name of Wayne Dyer (http://www.drwaynedyer.com/).  He was someone I had never heard of before she gave me those tapes.  I suggest you click on the link and give a listen to some of the things he has to say.  Like fine wine he has gotten better with age.
          Anyway, that was a long time ago and I don’t really remember much from those tapes.  Well, except for this one thing that has stuck with me for all these years.  What was in my orange?  I’ve used this story on more than one occasion because the point Doctor Dyer made can help us understand an awful lot about ourselves.  It sort of went like this….
          If you pick up an orange and squeeze it what happens?  The answer to this question is obvious to anyone who likes fresh squeezed orange juice.  Out comes orange juice.  That was easy.  It’s the next question that had me wondering if Doctor Dyer had all of his ducks in a row.
          “Why?”
         I thought, well, gee, that’s because it is an orange and that is what’s in it.  How dumb a question was that?  If this was a motivational talk I was losing the point.  It sounded more like an advertisement for Tropicana orange juice.
          While you are figuring that one out here are a couple of other things that I’ve noticed.  There seems to be an epidemic of bad behavior in the world today.  It’s like pollen in the spring; it’s everywhere!  I’m not sure but I think that it has something to do with that orange.
          I play video games on line.  It’s my son in law's fault.  He gave me a PS3 several years back.  I mostly play the war games.  Call of Duty Black Ops is one of them.  In this game you and your teammates play against another team.  I play hardcore.  I have a three to one kill ratio in that game (no brag, just fact).  That means I die once for every three of the enemy that I kill.  Not bad for a 63 year old gamer.  In that game mode you can kill your own teammates either by accident, or if you are a jerk, on purpose.  There are an awful lot of jerks out there.  I’m pretty sure that this has something to do with that orange.
          People are stealing the pipes out of houses to sell them for scrap.  They are stealing ornaments from graveyards and selling them for scrap too.  Once when I stopped at the 7-11 near the Casino someone stole a toolbox from my truck.  If that wasn’t bad enough they stole my lunch box too!  I liked that lunch box.  I think that there was an orange in it.
          Just the other day the Secret Service guys were kicked out of some country for arguing with a hooker over her fee.  Some other gal was on the news because she thought someone other than herself should pay for her contraceptives for her recreational sex while in college.  What was that about?  I remember what my mother had to say about girls who had recreational sex.  It wasn’t complimentary.  This most certainly involves that orange.
          If you think about it, oranges are really useful.  They provide vitamin C and other good things like fiber (when you get over 60 that somehow becomes important) and on top of all that they taste good too.  I just peeled one a little while ago and ate it.  While I was taking the peel off I remembered something from back when I was in the Navy.  With a little effort you can fix it so that when you squeeze the orange something else comes out other than just the orange juice.  You can fix it so that a screwdriver comes out.
          You might know where I am going with this.  All you need is a really large hypodermic needle, a shot of vodka and the orange.  You inject the vodka into the orange and shizzam, you have a screw driver (vodka and orange juice) disguised as a harmless orange.  Eat a half a dozen of those and you will need a designated driver to get home.
          So, by now we have figured out that what comes out of the orange may not be just orange juice.  If you put something else in there, when it gets squeezed something else will come out.  We are all kind of like that orange.  We may look like an orange on the outside but what have we been putting in our orange?  What have we been putting inside ourselves?
          What kind of music do we listen to?  What kind of movies do we watch?  What kind of company do we keep?  Do we have a moral compass at work in side of us?  Do we even know what that is?  Do we have character?  Do we have integrity?  Are we the same person when no one is watching us?
          Just this evening Fred, a friend of mine, said that he teaches his children that character is doing the right thing even when no one is watching.  He is putting something good inside the two little oranges that he is raising.  How about you?
          Almost anyone is a good enough actor to put up a good appearance for those people around them, but very few of us are good enough actors to maintain that orange like exterior when the pressures of life squeeze us.  Whenever that happens, what ever we have been stuffing in our orange comes squirting out.
          I’m convinced that those guys or gals killing their teammates in that Call of Duty game have got something in their orange that shouldn’t be there.  After all, the old saying it’s not whether you win or lose that counts, it’s how you play the game is a statement on character.  If you figure that most of those people are young adults and kids, I’m wondering just who has been filling their oranges?
          So what do we do?  What do we do if for years and years we have been injecting our own orange with stuff that we know shouldn’t be in there.  Do we just say that’s the way I am too bad for the other guy.  It’s like the bumper sticker I saw yesterday that read, “my attitude, your problem.” The confusing part was that right next to it was one that read “mean people suck.”  I’m not sure that I want to know that person.  It was bad enough that I had to chase that car to three stoplights to read both of those bumper stickers.  That isn’t easy in my 1984 Ford F-150 pickup truck.
          Several years ago another friend of mine, George, was giving a talk at church.  He said something that at the time I thought was pretty stupid.  He said, “If nothing changes, nothing changes”.  Well, I was the one that was stupid because he was exactly right.  If you don’t make some kind of a change nothing will change.
          There is a basic law of physics at work here.  Two objects cannot occupy the same space at the same time.  What we need to do is put enough orange juice back in our orange to force the other stuff out.  If we work at it we can empty all the bad behavior from our orange.  It may not be easy or it may not happen quickly, but you can do it.
          Pay attention to what you are surrounding your self with.  If you listen to music, listen to good up lifting music.  If you use foul language, stop using it.  Many years ago I was working on a car with a friend of mine, he banged his knuckles and yelled out “rutabaga”.  He then told me that he was trying to stop his cussing.  It worked for him.
          The problem for most of us is identifying our own bad behavior.  Once we do that we can change it.  Knowing what to change is the key.  I remember the story I heard about a supervisor who had a lot of bad stuff in his orange.  He worked at a plant that I myself worked at for nearly twenty years.  He had some kind of a seizure.  He couldn’t speak or move but he could hear.  When he collapsed one of the two people with him asked, “What should we do?” the other guy answered, “Let the SOB die”.
          Allowing for the guy who said “let the sob die” having his own issues, the supervisor suddenly realized that the people that worked for him actually hated him.  It could have gone either way but in his case the revelation changed his life for the better.  He fixed his orange.
If you are still alive you can fix your orange.  Then when someone asks you what’s in your orange you can proudly say, “Orange Juice.”
          And if you have a bag of little oranges running around your house you can get right to work filling them with good things.  One piece of advice, keep away from the vodka.
          Until next time, remember to kiss your kids and tell your spouse that you love them and when you bang your hand remember to yell rutabaga.
          I would like to remind you to visit my blogspot and purchase a copy of “Operation Armageddon” so that I can give just a little more to help our veterans.  After all, if it weren’t for them we wouldn’t have any oranges.
          Just a note, I’ve added a sample reading of my novel to the website.  Please enjoy.  If you purchase a copy of my novel in Kindle or Nook format I will send you a copy of the play “A Rare Encounter” in a pdf file free of charge.

Somebody email me and tell me how to spell shizzam!!!