The Frog, No Idea

 Part 4 of 31

They Found Another Body

Here’s a case where they actually did find a body in the river. Whether it was floating, dang it, they didn't say. Sometimes they float and sometimes they don’t, so six of one, half dozen... If you had only your keys and 50 cents likely you'd still be bobbing. That's some good information to remember, your chances of survival are always better if you're broke. And if you can keep your head up, that helps, trying not to get blinded by the sun. Oh, hell, do it however you want, but you're better off staying in drydock. Try to think of the survivors and community. We want it wrapped up as soon as possible, live or die. And think of the community's grief; it's incidental, yes, but there's something there, even if you're just a lesson for others.

I’m very interested in the things of grief, whether personal or shared. You might've heard me brag about that a few times, that one of my hobbies is being something of a student of mankind, with a minor in grief management. Have you heard me say that? People ask me about it all the time. They see my poker face at solemn events. I stand there like a tree, my hair lightly tossed in the breeze. My eyes are farseeing, yet I appear silently consumed by the grief. They ask, "Have you learned anything new about life?" I usually say, “You have no idea.” Because that’s how it is. I’m moving through life in a never-ending pursuit of knowledge, of our joys, sorrows, wisdom, and follies. I’m understandably proud of the whole schtick. I love your insightful question.

Anyway, back to the guy, I don't think we had a name for him ... Frogman or just Exhibit B. What do you think, heaven or hell? For dogmatic reasons — I’m sort of the anti-dogmatist — I don’t come down on either one quickly. We must examine the totality of life, and whatever we decide, if it would cause more grief for the survivors, we must — if we are merciful — tell them the opposite. Keep it light, cheery, but not too cheery, you don't need to smile, just be there for them, comfort them, and give them peace, whatever you have to say. Then flip a coin, that's his destiny.

His life was already a hell, no doubt. From the looks of it, and I don’t have the files on this case I'd like, and I’m sure I'd cling to every nugget that presented itself, he had some contact with trouble. Examining the artwork, we discern Thug A, the guy at the door, was working on the guy for vengeance or a payoff. Our hero (B) was in trouble and knew it. But he wanted to survive. But the guy with the gun wanted his cut, wanted what he thought was coming to him. Or, check that, if operating on instructions from Mister Big, whose interests present certain hopeless demands, that put him in No Man's Land, headed for the water.

Let’s say he couldn’t pay back Mr. Big. Mr. Big has him offed through Thug A. Thug A drags the body of B to the river and tosses it in.

However it happened, Frogman aka B ends up in the river, and when they hauled his body in an actual frog was found in his pocket, very much alive! Proving without a doubt that every time something horrible happens, something good can and perhaps might come out of it, if the whole story gets a full hearing. Inspirational.

Minimizing Things Through Expertise

Which came first, familiarity or contempt? We know familiarity breeds contempt, but what bred familiarity? It's the age-old question that I'm an expert in avoiding. Hence, if you want more questions than answers, look to me, who admittedly doesn't know much. And since I don't know much, to me everything looks huge. It's only the real experts who can take huge things and effectively minimize them.

You see, for the experts, big challenges are little. They have gained this perspective through study and experience, consolidating their gains until they're able to stride, Godlike, over their particular field of expertise. With the eventual payoff for them being a fresh pot of coffee.

I too have known things -- in the distant past -- in jobs I've had. I started out in the printing business, which since, now that I'm out of it, has made enormous progress in technology and techniques. I could never find a place in the industry now. But I always had the consolation that, lacking any other opportunity, I could go to Mexico and work, Mexico always being 20 years behind the United States in technology. But because it's been over 20 years since my departure, even Mexico has left me in the dust.

OK, let's turn to the experts and their minimizing. When I see a jet airliner I think, "What an enormous, awe-inspiring machine -- way beyond the Wright Brothers and their dinky plane. Now planes are vast in every way, with potential I can only wonder at." But to the expert pilot, it's just another day at the grind. He sees the airport looming, a mere 500 miles ahead, and says, "Let's set this bird down." Or, maybe there's a problem, they're approaching the wrong airport, and he casually says, "Let's turn this tin can around and get 'er to the right barn." And they make plans for a nice cup of coffee afterward.

Doctors are one of my favorite experts, since they're so obviously minimizing it, this time for the sake of ignorant patients and their ignorant loved ones. (I'd love to be a fly on the wall in hospitals, since this is a joy to watch.) Doctors see their relationship with them as familiar, while secretly knowing they know it all and we know nothing. So you have a consult where this kind of minimizing takes place: "This little rascal (the tumor) is about the size of my fingernail, nothing really. We'll get it out in two shakes of a lamb's tail -- lickety split -- and you can get on with your life."

But when he's with other doctors things aren't so rosy. "Even a single cell is of course enough to kill him a dozen times over, and it's already the size of a fingernail -- huge. I'm giving him only a .0038% chance of survival, and that's totally incapacitated. Now let's get coffee."

Even our men of the cloth -- our own minimizing term for the modern shaman, defanged in our estimation -- are holding back, having seen it all. "Your loved one has gone to a better place," they say, although they usually personalize it, increasing the minimizing: "Edgar's in a better place. You'll see him again." Were he to tell the truth, he'd have to bring in all kinds of competing theories of the afterlife, and even get into the whole thicket of theories on life itself. Everything from the universe being a vast living organism and all of us part of it down to our more typical view of the universe as dead matter with an omnipotent God, a larger version of ourselves, looking out for us. Take your pick, but remember, there's everything else in between.

So what's the problem? The parishioners would look at him with disgust, and he's expert enough to know it. Why bother, especially with a hot, steaming hot, piping hot, delicious pot of coffee waiting him back home.

A Date With The King Of Group Dynamics

SUMMARY: The King of Group Dynamics guest-teaches a home economics class, the members who then have the opportunity to win a date with him.

A couple days ago I got a call from one of the teachers at the college, who discovered we lived in the same town. Of course she'd seen my name in a textbook, since I'm quoted in several of them in the field of Group Dynamics. Some years ago, as part of my amateur studies, I formulated "The 3 Rs of Group Dynamics," and so now there's usually a half page in the (undergraduate) books about that. But typically you wouldn't expect I would be living in the same town. In this case, I did!

She was an instructor in the Home Economics department, a Miss Dowdy, and wondered if I might make a personal appearance before her class to discuss my "3 Rs," saying it would be such a thrill for the girls. She said it would bring their textbooks to life in a most wonderful way. I checked my calendar, and seeing it blank as usual, told her I could probably make it.

The girls were very receptive. It looks like they don't see many men in that department, making me for that hour the only rooster among so many hens. Or I might say, the only thorn among so many roses. I couldn't take my mind off the fact, even for a second, that I was a man, and that they, the class, were all women. Here I am up here, struttin' my stuff! But that couldn't be my focus. I needed to get down to the lecture.

Since it was such short notice, I used the same notes I've used before -- at Sunday School, nursing homes, and the Boy Scouts meeting -- giving them a rundown of the basics, not wanting to blow their minds with too many big words or high flown concepts.

The lecture went great. I wrote three big Rs on the blackboard and waited for everyone to take it down. Then I sketched in a small a in front of the first R. "These are the 3 Rs of Group Dynamics," I said, adding that I needed to write a little more, the full slate being, 1) aRrange; 2) Reconnoiter; 3) Ruminate. "Has everyone got them down?" I asked as they scribbled away.

I gave the usual boilerplate explanation, i.e., that, "Group dynamics starts before the group assembles," meaning you need to aRrange the setting. You're not leaving anything to chance. If the chairs need to be aRranged in a particular way, that's an example. Reconnoitering means you pay attention all along the way, with another dimension being guiding, keeping on task, etc. Then you Ruminate. This is examining your findings, coming to conclusions, etc. Very cut and dry stuff, with each point sketched out only in a shallow way.

To bring the principles to life, I counted the ladies and suggested we split into groups of five, and as an added bonus, I said a member of the best group would win a date with me. Since there were 26 girls, that meant five groups of five, with an extra, who I decided would be in a group with me alone and would be the ultimate winner. She was a stunner, a lot better looking than the others, who, frankly, were a lot of Maudes. This gal was the only fox, a stunner named Tawny.

For the rest of the class period, I had them, 1) aRranging, i.e., determining what kind of positioning they would take in relation to the rest of the group to be able to see the most group dynamics. 2) I suggested if they had not yet Reconnoitered to please move into that phase of things. Then as the hour wore on, I told them to, 3) Begin your own personal Ruminating. "Very good," I occasionally said as I went around observing their mental exercises. Tawny was looking at me, licking her lips, bringing me this time to purr, "Verrrry good."

It pays to be the King of Group Dynamics, if for nothing else than the easy dates! Notice how I masterfully aRranged things in the way that seemed best, then perfectly Reconnoitered the proceedings. And now that I'm back home after a very lovely date -- verrrry lovely -- I've been pleasantly Ruminating over a refreshing bottle of Guinness Extra Stout, remembering Tawny, my verrrry favorite Home Economics major...