Suspended Reality

I stopped by to visit Uncle Bubba on a quiet afternoon. I found him sitting in his backyard, in a shady spot reading a book. I nearly stopped and retreated in quiet as I feel that a person quietly reading is sacred event. But Uncle Bubba noticed me and smiled as he rested the book on his lap and motioned for me to join him. As I sat down near him he told me about the book he was reading. After a brief plot summary our discussion turned to the idea of suspending one's reality to lose one's self in a story. It's no secret that human mind has the ability to suspend reality and buy into the apparition of a story. It's so much more enjoyable to believe in the setting and that the characters exist and revel in their adventures and emotions. Bubbie gave me a knowing squint as he described this as a gift from God, an escape from the stress and brutality of a world also manufactured by men. This also incorporates what has been described as the suspension of disbelief in which the reader would suspend judgment concerning the implausibility of the narrative and often applies to fictional works. This is because its man's nature to be skeptical and disbelieving.

Juxtapose this now against the current chaotic climate of Reality TV, Facebook, and Twitter where the mundane and inane is posted and proclaimed as the truth. The imagination of the person posting is exercised in the reflection of their perceived reality, yet the readers do not suspend reality, but take everything as actuality. It no sooner hits the web or the airwaves than the news outlets pounce on it to be the first to proclaim it as truth and thus validate the inveracity. In Bubbie's view, our willingness to use "reality" as entertainment causes a loss in our ability to separate fact and fiction and therefore creating a void in our intellect. In our laziness to challenge an allegation or account we easily fall prey to ignorance. This way of living, this self imposed brainwashing threatens our ability to learn a lesson from a story; to suspend reality and explore morality without causing harm to others. But in Bubbie's eternal optimism he walked with me back to my truck with the idea that by pausing, by taking the time to discover the truth, we can move ahead while holding onto the best of what humanity has learned.

Serious Laughs

Uncle Bubba sat at his old wooden kitchen table with a white coffee cup and saucer full of piping hot coffee in front of him. He had a big smile on his face as I pulled out a chair to join him at the table. He showed me a magazine that he received in the mail from a firearms company. He got a kick outta some of the ads and shared a few with me. One is from Nordic Components that claims to sell "zombie eradication necessities". Nordic Components claim to be Zombie Hunters Guild approved and Bubbie's glad because zombies don't kill themselves!

They also advertise a concealed carry tote that, "accommodates all the tools you need to survive the urban jungle!" It's a "low profile carry case that looks like a mild-mannered-computer-nerd accessory, but it's designed for your pistol as well as your PC!" Because you know how dangerous the urban jungle is for unarmed naive nerds. As I thumbed through the pages of the tiny magazine I read a quick article that started with , "The first rule of gunfighting is, of course, have a gun." Bubbie reckoned aloud that the second rule is use it first." In Bubbie's view it was refreshing to see that a company uses a little humor to advertise their products, obviously assuming that their potential customers have a brain.

Olive You

Uncle Bubba was finally home for a weekend and he and Sweet Pea had an awesome Easter, just the two of them, together. While getting reacquainted with his community he came across an ad for a local olive orchard. He and Sweet Pea decided to take a short drive to investigate. Long story short, they wound up purchasing two olive tree saplings; a Greek variety Koroneiki olive, and a Spanish variety Arbequina olive tree.

This mission provoked research and gave enlightenment to Bubbie in the mysterious elixir of olive oil. Without a doubt the most important bit of knowledge that signor Bubbie can pass along is that good quality olive oil should have some cloudiness and even some sediment in the bottle. What most of us are purchasing here in the U.S. is a blended, reduced concentration of oil. We are being flummoxed. To explain this further, Uncle Bubba refers to an explanation of the term Extra Virgin.

"In Europe and many other countries, “Extra Virgin” is a narrowly defined grade of olive oil. Standards developed by the International Olive Council (IOC) require it to be produced entirely by mechanical means (no solvents) under temperatures that will cause no alteration of the oil (less than 86 degrees F). It must have a maximum free-fatty-acid level of less than 0.8 percent (a measure of the soundness of the fruit) and a peroxide value of less than 20 meq (a measure of oxidation). It must be free from defects when evaluated by a trained sensory evaluation panel and possess at least some degree of fruitiness.

Unfortunately, the U.S. government does not enforce IOC standards for use of the term “extra virgin.” As long as the product is made solely from olives, it can be labeled “extra virgin olive oil” in this country. A petition has been filed to adopt the IOC standards for “extra virgin” in the United States. In the meantime, the playing field is anything but level for the domestic producer of true extra-virgin olive oil who must compete with low-cost imports that could never to be sold as extra virgin in Europe. (hobbyfarms.com)"

In Bubbie's view, the failure of the U.S. government to adopt a higher standard in the grading of olive oil is the problem with the standard of the U.S. government across the board. We should be setting the standards to which the rest of the world aspires.

Adios Pennsyltucky Peaches

Uncle Bubba is glad to see Pennsyltucky in his rearview mirror for no other reason that he is headed for home. He's a southern man, which he admits skews his perspective, yet sees folks at face value. Most folks at that level are nice and have far more in common than the media would have us believe. But in this commonwealth that has given us such small minded thinkers as Rick Santorum and Gerald Sandusky, Bubbie gave me one word for the Keystoners, wacky. They'd be surprised, no doubt, to discover that they aren't exactly the friendliest folks one might come across. They have a spooky way of looking right through a person and not acknowledging that you're there.  (Bubbie now better understands that lights out look in Santorum's eyes.) They don't offer a mere hello, let alone a handshake or a glass of water to a thirsty worker. Yet when they are engaged they're as pleasant as most. One day Bubbie was jawing with some locals and mentioned that he reckoned that he saw a peach tree orchard in his travels.
"Peach trees!" they heckled, "Apple trees for sure, but not peach trees!"
Uncle Bubba felt a little embarrassed and suddenly felt like a southerner, an outsider as he waited for their snickerin' to die down.

A few weeks later he was cruising along no more than 20 miles from where he was lightly chastised for thinking that there were peach trees in Pennsylvania when low and behold, there was the doggone peach orchard!

Yessir, right there under the noses of the narrow minded locals were some pretty pink peach blossoms just as sweet as any Georgia bloom. Uncle Bubba knew that he wouldn't cross paths with the local yokels again, but it did shed some light on the phenomenon that we all suffer from; shortsightedness. We live within a few miles of our homes and seldom leave except through what we see on TV. We'll quickly rant that we all know that what we see on TV is not real, yet it seems to drive all of our opinions and perspectives. In Bubbie's view, he got the last laugh but it didn't really seem all that funny. He pitied the rubes that didn't know what lied outside of their own community, yet was oh so happy to be rolling home. Not only that but he was thankful for his innate propensity of open-mindedness and that he got to see the beauty of a Pennsylvania peach orchard.