There's No Time Like the Past

You're interested in the past. That's why you're here. We have spent our whole lives in what is now the past, and those are moments for us to celebrate.

Today, we are holding a gala celebration for the past, with the purpose of moving on from it. We are bidding a fond farewell to the past, that it all might be left behind, not with a bum's rush but in style and with honor.

I want you to enter the grand hall, with the audience where the audience always sits, and at the front a dais and lectern for the various leaders. Everything has been arranged in advance, you really don't have to worry about a thing. Simply stand and cheer at those times you feel would be most appropriate. Or remain silent.

There will be various ones, divisions of people, marching in. There will be the giving and receiving of awards and certificates. There will be so many different things happening that I won't even be able to write it all. You will have to imagine it where you are. And if you need to shed a tear over something, so be it. Let them flow.

On this occasion we will be extending our thanks and appreciation to those of the past. We will be applauding one another, listening to one another's stories with laughter and sometimes tears. There may be fist-pumping and backslapping. We will be holding up the glories of the past, revisiting the stories.

In comes the magnificent banner with our theme! "THE PAST WAS OUR HOME FOR MANY YEARS, BUT NOW ITS WORK IS DONE."

And here comes The Cavalcade of Decades! With representatives from each one! The 1800s flag is carried in (the whole century, not decades) by someone they found who had ancestors from then, as there are no living representatives from the 1800s. A moment of silence. Imagine that, we couldn't find a single living representative. They've all gone on to their reward.

Next are the flags for the decades spanning from the 1900s to the 1930s. There's a few from the 1900s, a few more from the 1910s, a few more from the 1920s, and several more from the 1930s, getting progressively younger. They plant their flags and we see a symbolic picture from each one. I'll mention the 1920s, a megaphone. And the 1930s, a sign saying "APPLES 5 cents."

The representatives from the 1940s through the 2010s are more numerous, and the symbolic pictures closer to our own experience: World War II, Elvis, Kennedy, Bicentennial, Big Hair, Computers, 9/11, and Guns. I'm personally proud to have lived through quite a few of these. I'm still doing the whole Elvis thing, and of course working with a computer. As for big hair, I'm virtually bald, but I still have decent sidewalls.

I get a tug at my heartstrings with the '50s flag, since I was born then, was one of the world's first Elvis impersonators, at the age of 5, started school then, and crossed the road one time without my mother's permission. The '60s flag tugs at me, too, JFK. I was in an antique store the other day and saw a huge picture of Kennedy. I told him what I've already told his picture a thousand times, "Do not go to Dallas!" The '70s flag doesn't tug quite as hard. I couldn't wait for the Bicentennial to be over, and now it's ages ago. Probably should've put the Fonz on the flag.

Shhh ... they're doing one of the obligatory moments of silence for some past atrocity. I was typing when they announced it and accidentally tuned it out. But it must really be something, because people are putting their hand on their heart. Which I better do, too. And ... there ... OK ... the man at the lectern said, "Thank you," followed by lots of us clearing our throats and coughing.

I'm taking it all in. It's overwhelming, what the past means for us. And now, here, today, we're leaving it all behind! It's going to be tough! But rest assured, we will carry on. If we ever wonder then, "Whatever Happened to the Old Days?", we can know, with every fiber of our being -- it's like Doritos -- we're making new old days all the time.

The Test Of Time

With Daylight Saving Time, once again we see how illusory time really is. Suddenly an hour doesn't exist. Time is a fiction. You could literally be born last night and 99 years old tomorrow if the government said that's how it was.

Everyone complains about time but no one does anything about it. That's true. I'm feeling every ache and pain of my many years, but you'll notice I still accept the fact of those years. I haven't decreed them gone; they are neither destroyed nor renewed. I wake up, notice I'm a day older, and live with it.

And yet someone somewhere, our governing officials, actually have the means to change time. They could declare us all 50 years old and never have to pay Social Security. That'd save money. But for the rest of us, unless we run for office and are able to get our hands on the black box with the official clock, we just sit here and take it.

Here's something to think about: If time itself is a fiction, what does that make the phrase "The Test of Time"? We say something stands the test of time, and that's supposed to mean something. It means it stood the test of time. Which means a certain amount of time passed and it's still here. Standing and looking good. Looking good, or looking adequate for the task, is part of it. There's a lot of things that literally stand the test of time but they don't look good. Old houses, old cars, Gov. Jan Brewer of Arizona...

Before any more time passes, and assuming the government doesn't suddenly turn us back an hour and none of this actually happened, without further ado, let me state something else about the test of time. Even though things do stand the test of time, time still goes on and for the most part they're going to eventually fail the test. Or will they? The pyramids are a great example of standing the test of time. The big advantage they have is they're built of rock, not bamboo. So it's not quite as tough to do. But I'm thinking even they someday might crumble and fall; I know, it's going to take trillions of years. But before trillions of years get here, they have to somehow survive the destruction of the earth when the sun becomes a red giant. But it's not too hard to imagine them floating in space, looking for another planet with an Egyptian climate.

I've been thinking about writing my memoirs on toilet paper. Do you think they'll stand the test of time? Of course not, because toilet paper is flimsy and given to early destruction. But I forgot to mention, I will also laminate it as I go along, and that'll give it more durability. I haven't looked it up lately so I don't know how long laminated toilet paper lasts. Just as a side note, it might be a good way to save on toilet paper. Buy a roll, laminate it, set it by your toilet and just keep reusing it. You'll need to clean it, though. For that I recommend paper towels.

The Hiatus Clock Is Broken

Grandpa used to always say that a broken clock was right twice a day. I said, "What? How can something broken ever be right?" And he pointed out that when a clock is broken the hands are still pointing to a particular time. Say the clock broke when it was 9:40. The hands are going to keep pointing to 9:40. Then on any given day when it is actually 9:40, as it is in the morning and again in the evening, the broken clock will appear to be showing the time. But it's not strictly true that a broken clock has to be right twice a day. Because you could be sneaky, and just before 9:40 you could pull the hands off. Then it'd be broken and never right.

Grandpa certainly knew about broken clocks though. It was funny about the cars we had back when he was around. They always had broken clocks in them. You'd drive a '57 Chevy or a '62 Chevy off the dealer's lot and immediately the clock spring would go BOINNNG and that was it for the clock. I think Detroit had a contract with the county home full of halfwits somewhere to make clocks. The body may have been by Fisher, but the clocks were by Morons. But at least they were still right twice a day, whatever actual use that really is.

Anyway, to this day, I'm always interested when the old car show come to town. I'll be down at the park looking at them. Sometimes the owners think I must be some kind of expert, the way I'm peering inside like I'm really focused. But I tell them, I'm just trying to figure out if the clock in this old car still works. Because I've never seen one that worked. Immediately I know, if it works, that it has to be a replacement.

Well, friends, I've been "driving" this '09 Hiatus for quite a while now. And guess what, the clock must be broken because I've lost track of how long it's been. Must be over two weeks, maybe a month, I really don't know. When I pulled it off the dealer's lot, I didn't know if it'd be a day -- I figured it'd be more than a day, I guess. But as far as I knew it'd be over with in a few days. At that time I still had "friends" and "followers" on the blog and subscribing to my newsletter. And I was pulling in a fairly decent income simply from Google Ads.

But since then, I let the days drift by, I didn't put forth much effort, and everyone basically went away. Where they went, I'm not sure. But there are some competitor blogs I know about -- Grandma Swisher has one -- and they're off adhering and aligning themselves to those imitators. But you know the whole "Grandma" fad started right here at Grandma Slump. But because of my hiatus, as far as everyone's concerned, I've given up, gone by the wayside. They've written me off. It's like I'm AWOL, but this is my business, right? Am I right? Am I really under some obligation to keep everyone else happy?

I don't mind losing a little money if I really do need the time off. Yes, some days I regret the fact that we can't afford the luxuries we had before. That does hurt. Some of the expensive paintings we bought, I had to sell -- at a loss -- just to pay the bills. A lot of my bling I had to pawn. But most of it was just weighing me down and not really doing the trick anyway, because girls kept passing by the house without stopping. It must not really be that appealing, as far as they're concerned, to see a 50+ year-old balding man with his shirt unbuttoned all the way and 75 pounds of bling reflecting everywhere, waving a cane and trying to get them to pull over.

So, that's it. The hiatus clock is broken. Maybe it's already been a year. I don't know. But this is one clock I don't care about. If I sit here and vegetate for the next 15 years or until I die, it's all the same to me. You don't care that I've been putting forth a great effort on the internet or with the newsletter? I don't care either. I still have my back issues. I can reread them myself and enjoy whatever wisdom I was the writer of there for a while. Sometimes I sit and reread my stuff and just shake my head ... Did I really write this great stuff?