Text 122, 96 rader
Skriven 2005-06-03 11:26:44 av Ardith Hinton (1:153/716.0)
     Kommentar till text 83 av James Bradley (1:134/77.0)
Ärende: People...  1D.
======================
Hi, James!  This is the last chapter in the current series:

JB>  Sorry if you *are* a Laurence Welk fan, BTW. :-)


           No, I'm not.  And as I recall it was Eric Nagler, BTW, who commented
that the musically illiterate are the truly handicapped of this world....  :-))



JB>  I'll take my father as an example. (Man, I feel like
JB>  I should be on a couch! <LOL)) I think I've told him
JB>  three times that the Laurence Welk show does not take
JB>  any risks at all, and every note, from every player,
JB>  on every song is designed to not create any challenge
JB>  to the listener.


           Yes, I think that's it in a nutshell.  Some folks prefer *not* to be
challenged where you & I might be bored out of our gourds.  I'm reminded of the
meeting at Nora's elementary school in which the principal informed the parents
there were five "cognitively challenged" students in the school.  He was trying
to be politically correct, while I prefer to call a spade a spade.  Nora is one
of the students he was referring to... she has Down's syndrome.  I don't object
to terms such as "mentally handicapped" provided they're used in a kind but not
condescending way.  Neither does she.  And as I remarked privately at the time,
I believe every student in the school should be cognitively challenged....  ;-)



JB>  I turned him onto a local radio station (CKUA: I think
JB>  you can "www" into it if you need a good soundtrack. It
JB>  might be "www.ckua.ab.ca", but more likely just a ".com")
JB>  that tends to push some bounderies. His car radio is only
JB>  off it when he gives others a ride, so I can't be too
JB>  tough on him in general.


           For over thirty years I drove a car which didn't have a radio, and I
never missed it.  One of the reasons, I think, was that my father had the radio
on all the time.  I got a few strange looks when I stopped at a red light while
belting out a tenor aria from MESSIAH, for example... but I digress!  The stuff
my father listened to was mostly hard rock or C&W, and he did it because he was
used to working in a noisy environment.  It was "just noise" to him... or so he
said... but evidently it had to be his kind of noise.  One day, when were alone
in the house, I decided to try expanding his repertoire... just as you did with
your father.  He liked honky-tonk piano, so I played a recording of harpsichord
concertos & he tolerated that quite well because the harpsichord sounded like a
honky-tonk piano to him.  After awhile I was able to get him to listen to a few
baroque ensembles in which the harpsichord accompanied other instruments.

           I suspect he was much like the students I used to get in grade eight
who swore up & down they didn't like anything but rock music.  They didn't know
anything else, for the most part... and they were afraid of what was unfamiliar
to them.  That's human nature.  So I expanded their range a bit at a time, just
as I'd done with my father.  I'm sure you've guessed by now that I like baroque
music.  I also like a lot of other stuff, though, and I like to see people make
informed choices.  I won't get all bent out of shape if they prefer the updated
version of such-and-such to the one which was composed hundreds of years ago...
in many cases, I do too!  I don't expect everybody to share my own preferences.
But in my experience decisions based on fear are usually not good ones....  :-)



JB>  I think people in our situations have to remember
JB>  what life was like without the muck that we are
JB>  dealing with.


           Absolutely!  One way & another, we've been on a steep learning curve
... we may have behaved differently when we didn't know these things either.  I
get rather irritated with folks who finally figure out what I've been trying to
tell them for years, then act as if they knew all along & everybody who doesn't
know is stupid.  I certainly hope I'm not making the same mistake now....  :-))



JB>  Until we do that, I believe we can never forgive
JB>  a person for behaving the way they do.


           Yes, I think it is important to be aware of our own shortcomings.  I
mentioned some canvassers who didn't notice the wheelchair just inside the door
... together with many others!  People walk right past Nora's wheelchair to get
to our living room, then ask where her wheelchair is.  One way to look at these
situations is to take them as a compliment on my ability to hide such things in
plain sight & make them blend in with the background... another is to recognize
that I'm just as unobservant as the next person sometimes.  Recently we visited
a family in a situation not unlike ours, and I didn't really notice the massage
table in the living room at first although we'd been told it was there....  :-)




--- timEd/386 1.10.y2k+
 * Origin: Wits' End, Vancouver BC, CANADA [604-266-5271] (1:153/716)