The Guild of Wistful and Outdated Uncles
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE DATED DEC. 31, 2001
THE LIBERTARIAN, By Vin Suprynowicz
The Guild of Wistful and Outdated Uncles
I propose we form a guild or union of uncles, stepfathers, and granddads.
The purpose of this guild would not be to do anything useful. We've already tried that -- it's what got us into this fix. Rather, we would meet weekly at one of our quieter, better-lit local taverns, or even -- what the heck -- one of the member's gun rooms, there to trade stories, drink any legal beverage that struck our fancy (coffee being specifically allowed), sigh the heavy sighs of men whose pasts stretch longer than their futures over glorious eras vanishing unlamented, and assure ourselves that it is better to have tried and failed than never to have tried, at all.
Tried what?
We had already resigned ourselves to the pernicious doctrine that children under the age of 10 shall not be expected to learn about or evince the slightest interest in guns (except those depicted in video games), hunting, politics, nature, the outdoors, or even to read novels of exotic adventure in which the words take up more space than the pictures.
Never mind that the men (and even a few women) who founded this country enjoyed what we now call "complex literacy," had read some of the great novels and political tracts of their time, and were starting to dabble in the study of Latin, French, mathematics, and engineering -- not to mention tracking, woodcraft and surveying -- by such an age; no no, to set any such high expectations would surely damage the child's self-esteem -- even worse would be the plight of any child who actually rose to such expectations; the ridicule he or she would suffer at the hands of small-minded schoolmates would surely require years of expensive remedial counseling.
And the boys of 16 or older? We're no fools. Once it was discovered that the young female of the species could be inveigled into accepting a ride in a motorcar, the fate of the male youth aged 16 to 20 was sealed.
But we still harbored the foolish hope that a young man, having reached the precipice of adolescence and now aged 10 to 14, might be waylayed, diverted and seduced by the wily and age-old maneuver of presenting him, on his birthday or of a convenient Christmas morning, with objects as insidious and subversive as ...
C.S. Forester's "Horatio Hornblower" novels. Conan Doyle's "The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes." J.R.R. Tolkien's "Lord of the Rings." For the young lasses, Anne McCaffrey's novels of the dragon-riders of Pern.
Not to place all our eggs in the literary basket, mind you. For at the same time, surely it would be appreciated if we were to seek out and assemble just the right tantalizing "starter kit" consisting of a few score rare and historic coins or postage stamps, along with the appropriate holders or albums and a few introductory texts (profusely illustrated), explaining how generations of young men have been enthralled to hold in their hands these actual historical objects which were there to witness the rise of revolutions and the fall of kings.
Coins minted in San Francisco for use in the Philippines in the early 1900s? You mean to say the Philippines were an American colony? Mexican "revolutionary" coinage and stamps of 1915? What "revolution" was that? Coins stamped out of melted-down cannon and churchbells in Ireland in the late 1600s? Why on earth was an English king hiding out in Ireland? Commemoratives of an English victory over the Scotts in 1746? I thought Scotland was part of England; what the heck was that about?
Thus were the presents carefully assembled, in fond hopes of eliciting the most minimal profession of further interest.
And so Christmas dawned, the new Lego set or video game assembly wisely purchased by the doting parent who hung out at the store for the darned things to go on sale at midnight lo those many weeks ago was opened to shrieks of delight; that part of the family aged 18 and under raced to the living room to plug the new electronic doohickey into the appropriate interfaces and set to work with their joysticks, and ... it's three days since Christmas as this is written ... still the books and fledgling coin and stamp collections lie peacefully in their sundered boxes beneath the Christmas tree, or else placed carefully put away in a dresser drawer by a thirtyish father with a mildly apologetic smile and shrug: Maybe next year.
I do not mean to single out any individual young person in this lament: I have tried this now many times in several states though well forewarned of the likely outcome -- the phenomenon is generation-wide.
I do not hate computers or video games. I work with computers daily; I've played video games myself; they're mildly challenging.
And it would be something else again if these young men were busy with their soldering irons, designing and building these new electronic marvels, as my own dad built his first crystal radio set as a boy -- a new generation's fledgling Bill Gateses and Steve Jobs.
But -- in addition to the history and geography that my generation and my father's learned from eagerly tracking down and squirreling away coins and stamps, always hoping to stumble on that rare date or some new and exotic country, in addition to the just plain fun of whiling away a snowy winter evening fighting a sea battle with the daring Lieutenant Hornblower or forging our way through the Mines of Moria with Frodo and Gandalf the Gray -- those adventures did have moral content, as well.
Courage and straight dealing won out over daunting obstacles; those who fell victim to the temptations of power and avarice met unkind ends, or lived on to become twisted, empty-souled and tortured villains, the Saurons of Mordor.
Are those vital lessons and principles being re-taught, now, at all? At least we now have a film version of "The Lord of the Rings" ... though for the reasons discussed above, the audiences seem to be mostly grown-ups. More on that next week.
Vin Suprynowicz is assistant editorial page editor of the Las Vegas Review-Journal. Subscribe to his monthly newsletter by sending $96 to Privacy Alert, 561 Keystone Ave., Suite 684, Reno, NV 89503 -- or dialing 775-348-8591. His book, "Send in the Waco Killers: Essays on the Freedom Movement, 1993-1998," is available via web site www.thespiritof76.com/wacokillers.html.
Vin Suprynowicz, vin@lvrj.com
"When great changes occur in history, when great principles are involved, as a rule the majority are wrong. The minority are right." -- Eugene V. Debs (1855-1926)
"The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed -- and thus clamorous to be led to safety -- by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary." -- H.L. Mencken
