~ Lincoln Logs, Lego’s, and glue.

I never played with Lego’s.  I played with bricks, with American bricks; they were made of wood blocks with pegs - they were made before Lego’s and plastic but otherwise they were about the same.  The scale of magnitude was of course different.  But this post is not about the differences between Lego blocks and American bricks.

I liked Lincoln Logs too.  You (one) could build houses.  Really ‘log cabins’ like Lincoln, the President; like the one he lived in except nicer, bigger, better roof.  You would take the toy logs and assemble them and build (construct) a one room or maybe two room castle and then put on the roof, maybe using the red or yellow end things and the green slats and then you (one) would marvel at the cabin and look through the door and windows maybe and feel really (really) good about accomplishment and progress and ones ability to be “just like Lincoln” or maybe like any proud owner (builder) of a “cabin in the woods”.

It was like that with bricks, but only better.  I built towers and pyramids and battleships and tanks like my brothers taught me.  We played at war.  Airplanes bombed the armored cars and the Long Toms and everything was made of bricks and the good part was the bricks cane apart and that was why the bombs seemed like they were real or the cascalading fire of explosives (bricks thrown by hand against other bricks assembled) seemed to recreate the carnage of real war and real destruction and reconstructed the fruitless, pointless, purposelessness of real war - build it just to destroy it; but, you don’t really have any idea of what I’m talking about because you never played with bricks.

Lego’s (the Lego blocks) were not like bricks.  They (Lego’s) snapped together with a cold and scientific efficiency.  They held together, they were plastic (not wood) and hence were immortal in the sense that plastic is endlessly recycled and bricks made of wood may rot or burn or warp with water or just waste away someday - dust to dust; it is the transformation thing, not the recycling thing, but who knows about those things anyhow?

Some kids just never got it.  They wanted permanence, not building blocks.  They wanted cities, not Lincoln Logs.  They were model builders; believed that models should never die, thought that each accomplishment was forever; the kind of kid that wanted a trophy for everything.  You know the type.

This kind of kid liked glue.  They preferred “airplane cement”, as if airplanes were really made with cement; never understood ‘lift’ and weight and what really made flight possible; lighter than air; folding paper pages into wings and launching them and watching them glide to earth (or the floor) - we played inside as children, cold days of autumn, five airplanes for a nickel, maybe more.

The real name of course was modeling cement, for use in making models - but most all the models were really airplanes then; ships and submarines were rare, nobody cared about model tanks except the German kids and most of them liked sports cars better; Mercedes Benz, a Chevy convertible, a Cadillac if you could stand to paint it pink or gold - as in solid gold Cadillac - now that was a real car.  Cultural literacy means that you’re still with me.

So “that kind of kid” applied airplane cement to everything.  He would glue his pancakes together if he could.  Maybe it was the vapors.  Maybe glue was sniffed without really sniffing, like trying Mary Jane and not inhaling, Bill Clinton was an airplane cement kind of kid - thought you should know.

These kids would glue Lincoln Logs together.  They just didn’t get it.  They didn’t understand the discovery, experimental nurture nature nature of life.  They wanted trophies and awards and things set in cement and set in stone and things never changing and sought to make everything glued together as if glue was the answer and as if Lincoln Logs and Lego’s should be used only once and then be set aside and plastered with blue ribbons (or red ones) as if they were exhibits at some county (or State) Fair.  Du Pont would make you happy.  Du Pont made airplane glue, other chemicals, one sniff and you knew; childhood should last forever.

This kind of kid has taken over.  She or he can be found on every block.  They are the “leaders” now.  They find their solace only in fixation; they see the flexibility of life as needing glue, glue will fix everything, bond things together, make things “stick”.  Do it once, then forget it.  Make a decision, then “stick” to it.  It’s a world of sticky notes, small pages stuck to larger ones because the larger pages can’t stand alone without getting lost; color outlines, pages flagged with pages with page flags flagged.  It is like a war in Afghanistan.  It is only glue and the glue people that hold it together.

So Obama won the Peace Prize.  And dynamite is the mortar for all the bricks.  And glue will make every Lego better; and where do these kids come from that are so fond of glue?  Silliness has come of age.  Silly people buy silly stocks.  Silly notions about the economy abound.  Silly hopes substitute for serious considerations.  It is silly putty that is now such a good substitute for glue (and glue was such a bad substitute for it all).

I have a dream.  The dream is that the Nobel Prize Committee will reconsider.  They will take back their prize.  They will apologize for their haste.  They will admit that they were just being silly, like kids with glue, some things stick together - others just don’t or shouldn’t or just aren’t a “forever” match.  Let’s face it kids; Obama is not a Peacemaker, doesn’t have it in him.  He likes war too much, likes deaths in Afghanistan, likes troops in India and Italy and Germany and probably France.  O-bomb-a.  It is his first or middle name; war stuff like glue; it’s a part of the guy, can’t dissolve it, it’s a sticky situation almost forever.

So, George Walker Bush got 9-1-1 in his first nine months as president.  Obama got the Peace Prize near the same point in his.  Which one was more unexpected?  Which one was more undeserved?  Which one will lead to the greater calamity in time?  Of course these kids are not fit to be Presidents.  They are like Peter Pan; they don’t believe in growing up, they want Neverland forever.

I favor reconsideration.

[2009.10.11 / Sunday - Reconsideration]