link to newer blog

I've been doing more recent work on my latest dead tree, and posting it here:http://wherethegoldisburied.blogspot.com/. Please take a look.

Niagara Falls

Damn the Stooges. When I'm introduced, usually in the workplace, and the "where you from" question is asked, and I answer... someone (usually my age) always chimes in with "Ni-a-gara-falls... slowly I turn." I can't laugh anymore. I can barely smile in a friendly way. It's just not funny anymore. Fortunately this particular joke is passing into history.

The falls are special. My father grew up within a mile of the falls and used to ride his bike around Goat Island. We lived about ten miles away, in the country, and I couldn't get my parents to take us to the falls nearly often enough. When relatives visited we could get in a visit. I also fell in love with the regional history, well before I learned that my family had roots in it. I loved the two summers I spent taking tourists around the falls. I learned that one cannot make a living off tourism in Niagara, not without having a second livelihood to carry you in the cold weather. What's worse, there have been some questionable decisions in the recent history of Niagara Falls, from the demolition of the South End to the building of the Robert Moses Parkway, and the more recent gift of the South End to the Seneca Nation to build a casino. The city today looks painfully like Atlantic City.

In the years since I left Niagara (1978), the Internet has changed the world. I can now read the Niagara Gazette online, as well as the Niagara Falls Reporter, which is primarily online. I can say that not much has changed since I first left the area. Niagara's loudest voices tend to be small-minded and petty. The Gazette is too much a mouthpiece of the city's vested interests, and the Reporter is a vinegarish, perpetually cantankerous broadsheet. The city has also lost people, and this past year sank below 50K people, a (un)healthy percentage of which are on public assistance. The city is poor and hurting.

So I will opine here. The view from 500 miles might be clearer than from 500 feet.

"I don't like change" (Stewie Griffin, Family Guy)

A frame from 'Family Guy' showing where Peter has torn a wall from the house to build himself a club house, the wall being an outside wall from Stewie's room. From outside we see the baby stand in the opening. "I don't like change," he announces in a frightened tone.

I am facing a career shift in my mid-fifties, dropped on me by my employer of 15 years. They layed me off, then extended me and extended me... today was supposed to be my last day and HR just called and asked if I'd stay another week, they still can't decide whether to make me a part-timer or rescind the cut. Flattering, I suppose, but more indicative of their own poor decision making.

Writing: I've been able to get back on the short story horse. I've got a couple that I'm steadily polishing. I have also been looking more and more at self-publishing my Buried gold tale. The industry has changed since 2001, with many more players, and many permutations on the services offered. One thing that has changed it hugely: the web. Self promotion is so much easier now. Even those uninclined to stand in front of a crowd can easil put up a web site. Of course, then you need to drive traffic to it...

Summer, 2011

I knew it had been some time since writing on this blog, but I didn't realize it dated to January. That's the problem with writing on a schedule. A little writer's block and the blog gets dusty. Since January we've bought a house in Westford, which is mostly wonderful.

I am skipping going to writing camp this year. Initially it was to attend a family reunion picnic I've missed for years, and some details have changed, but I'm skipping writing camp this year.

I've been trying to write short pieces instead of launching novels. Much harder. I find the storylines hard to tie up. I had always understood that short stories were harder to write than novels, and it's true enough for me. I've also had some family crises and work issues that have been very distracting.

But tonight the Red Sox are winning against the White Sox. As we learned in Field of Dreams, we will always have baseball....

2011...

Another exercise in self-publishing. Using lulu.com, I uploaded scanned pages from a privately published family history (1905, 2 huge volumes, privately printed, no book number). I like the site, you can upload word files and download proofs in pdf. I set up a 56 page family history and some old photos for the front and back covers. Printed and shipped it came out to about $6 a copy, a nice additional xmas gift for my immediate family.

On heroes

I was surprised the other day to see that my last posting was quite some time ago... So this is an issue that's been quietly bugging me for a long time.

Heroism has been devalued in the past decade, largely thanks to international terrorism and its intended product of causing broad-based terror. When unsuspecting and largely innocent civilians are attacked by bombers or shooters, they cause terror. Those who become victims are often called… heroes?

Victims are victims. They are suffering unnecessarily, unfairly, unjustly. In a world where we tend to believe good behavior and bad behavior are sorted out through punishment, victims are those injured or hurt - in effect punished - without having indulged in bad behavior. Sometimes they are forces for good and are killed unjustly. So they really are victims. But they are not heroes.

It’s become especially popular to call all soldiers heroes. This is thornier, and more sensitive. Joining the armed forces isn’t the same as getting a job at, say, Sears or Microsoft or Bank of America. Civilian work is considered generally non-life threatening, not intended to be dangerous. People who work at Bank of America go to work in the morning expecting to peacefully return home. Soldiers, on the other hand, take a job that could put them in immediate danger for their lives.

It’s really with soldiers/sailors that the ‘hero’ label gets used too broadly. On this point alone I know I face opposition. Soldiers=heroes for many. I agree that many soldiers behave heroically, but not all are de facto heroes. In WWII, and since, there were soldiers identified as heroes. Usually they got medals for this distinction. More soldiers fired guns at the enemy than were given medals. This group, the undecorated shooters, could be considered heroic, but they are not singled out and recognized, and while soldiers do their job without special recognition, even risky assignments, I do not believe they should all be called heroes.
They have the potential to become heroes, as can civilians, if they encounter an emergency where they react with the values considered heroic. If they put their own lives at risk to save others, or to eliminate a lethal enemy under lethal conditions, they are heroic. If they did their job with logical respect for staying alive, they are honorable soldiers but not heroes. They do deserve the nation’s thanks for going where they go, and should be honored as soldiers, as our defendors.
But heroes? We need to distinguish Victims, and Honorable Soldiers separately from Heroes. It would seem that suddenly we are awash in heroes. I don't think we're all behaving so much better than people did fifty years ago. I think the global instant information age has devalued, among other things, the label 'hero'. Survivors are suvivors. This label needs to again become special.

Ni-agara-Falls...slowly I turn... a history museum, anyone?

When you are from the falls and live elsewhere, people over 50 will eventually run the Three Stooges opening line. I remember seeing it as a kid, and it's still got the power to draw an amused smile of recognition...but that's all. The other recurring joke (unintentional) is when you are somewhere far away - say, Tucson - and someone asks you where you're from cuz you don't sound like you come from around here - and you say Niagara Falls... "I knew this guy I worked with on the Alaska pipeline back in the seventies, he was from there, name was Steve?"

My usual response is to say, "true, there's only four of us, but he never made the meetings. You sure about him?"

I decided to post an idea I've had for years. It's about Niagara, and about its declining fortunes. I've been watching from afar for over twenty years and seeing promotional ideas come and go, businesses come and go... and the falls is even more decrepit looking than when I left in 1978.

Yes, the Canadian side is a blueprint for tourism development. But with all those lights and attractions, they have overlooked a cultural touchstone. There really isn't a Niagara Falls museum on either side. We have the Schoellkopf, and it does a fine job with the natural history of the gorge, but I'm talking about human history. In particular about the development of industry that erupted along the river in the late 19th century. There's a vast amount of interesting history that is virtually unknown outside of us geeks who seek it out.

I don't know for a fact how to do this, but I would hope there are grants out there that would get the process started. I know there was a collection, but it wasn't displayed properly - I think it was associated with the Local History section in the library, another neglected institution.

More later as I discover how good/bad an idea this is...