Chandra Clarke

Award-winning entrepreneur. Author. Professional Optimist.

Why you should absolutely believe Margaret Mead and Mr. Rogers

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Art and photo by Mark Reinhart. Used with permission.

 

A change of pace today: I’m going to tell you a little story.

Once upon a time, there was a smallish community located in a large and cold kingdom. The land was suffering from a great plague that, like many sicknesses before it, shuttered people in their homes, caused many to die, and many more to suffer.

In this community, the people who remained blessedly unaffected by the plague recognized that there was suffering, especially amongst those who, even in the best of times, didn’t have much on which to sup. So they sent messages by special courier to one another, and plotted and schemed for weeks to gather the spare resources of the kingdom. And they came together — in their thousands, as much as was safe to do so during a plague — and gave those resources to those in need. Yes, just handed them over, no conditions, no tributes required. It was a joy to see, and everyone celebrated the great day. The effort was even commemorated in artwork across the land.

Lovely fairy tale? Utopian dream?

No.

In fact, it’s a true story.

The plague, of course, is the coronavirus pandemic, and the community in question is Chatham-Kent, Canada. On May 16th, 2020, some 5000+ volunteers, following physical distancing protocols and wearing masks, collected more than at least 678,200 pounds of food, donated by residents (who had been asked to leave a non-perishable item on their porch or front step for collection). The goal was to restock local food banks, because donations had tailed off due to the lockdown. You can read about it here, and search for more info by looking up the community name and “May 16th Miracle.” The whole thing was organized in about three weeks, via video calls, texts, and emails. Local artists documented the effort, and also worked to provide inspiration throughout the lockdown.

And this is just one of many similar stories to come out of the pandemic.

I tell you this because right about now, after weeks of depressing news headlines and even more depressing comments on social media, I bet you can use the lift.

But even more important, I figure you can use the inspiration.

You see, problems like pandemics, climate change, homelessness and poverty all seem intractable. Too big to contemplate, much less solve, right? Especially if you’re just one person.

Except, the May 16th Miracle was just one person’s idea.

And the people who helped were just ordinary people.

This wasn’t organized by government. Or a church. Or any kind of organization, really.

It was just a bunch of people who saw a pressing need and decided they were gonna be the ones to fix it. And they got together and did so.

Fred Rogers, of PBS children’s programming fame, once said that in a crisis, it was important to “Look for the helpers. You will always find people who are helping.”

He was right. There are always people who are helping, even in the worst of times. Many, many more than the media or those awful clickbait websites would have you believe.

Margaret Mead once said: “Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world; indeed, it’s the only thing that ever has.”

She was also right. You don’t need everyone on board. You just need enough.

Believe them both. And then have a think about what you might do to make a fairy tale come true in your community.

Because I believe you can.

 

Monkey See, Monkey Do

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“Did you *see* what they did with that press release, Frank?” Image credit: Pixabay.

It’s tough being a humour columnist right now. There’s a flood of whacky stories, and it’s difficult to tell what’s real and what’s satire, and what’s just flat out fake.

So, it was with a jaundiced eye that I read an old news release by the Zoological Society of London about chimpanzees. After explaining how chimps are our closest living relatives, with similar expressions and behaviours, the group — apparently in all seriousness — calls for volunteers to talk like chimpanzees.

“Animal behaviour experts at ZSL are asking volunteers to ‘talk chimp’ in everyday life,” says the press release, “and see how primate patter can resolve workplace conflicts, express emotions and strengthen human bonds.”

The Society helpfully provides a form that explains six chimpanzee behaviours, and asks you to report back where you used the behaviour and how it helped you. Never one to shy away from progress and research, I have performed my own experiments. Here are the results:

Distress: For this behaviour, you’re meant to form an ‘o’ with your mouth and make a short, high pitched “oo oo oo” sound. I attempted this during my last call to technical support, while navigating the voice mail options. After pressing 384 for “please start again because you’ve gotten completely lost,” I made a very loud “oooooo” noise. An operator immediately broke in over the hold music and asked if I was okay. Results: I made several more noises, and was not only immediately patched through to a technician who solved my problem, but I received a free software upgrade CD.

Fear: Here you’re supposed to bare all your teeth, lower your head, and crouch down. I did this the last time the postman brought me a fistful of utility bills. Positive results: He doesn’t come around anymore. No more bills! Negative results: No more Christmas cards either, I suspect.

Play face: This requires a smiley type face and a high-pitched hoot that rises, sometimes changing into a throaty laugh. I did this several times at the last hockey game that I attended. Results: No one appeared to notice.

Authority: Usually demonstrated by males, during this display the chimp makes as much noise as possible to shock and awe his foes, brandishing objects and trying to seem bigger. Results: I didn’t bother trying this one as clearly there are a few world leaders using this behaviour already.

Greeting: Here the arm is to be extended with an open fist, and the greeting is to be accompanied by a throaty “huh huh huh.” I never did work out what an open fist was supposed to be, but I tried this behaviour at a convention recently. Positive results: I had several offers of employment. Negative results: They were all for, erm, ‘adult chat’ phone services.

Grooming: A more dominant chimp presents his or her back to another chimp for grooming. Since the best place to observe groming behaviour in modern society is at a teenaged girl’s slumber party, I crashed one this weekend. Positive results: I have way cool hair now. Negative results: I am also sporting a tattoo that says “Hoobastank rocks!” and I have no idea what this means.

The Zoological Society claims that it will publish the results of this study later this year. Given the reactions of some of the people I tried “chimp talk” on, I suspect the study will say one of two things:

1) “The chimp talk experiment provided valuable data on both chimp/human interactions and corporate communications techniques.”

or

2) “The lads at the society had a jolly good laugh at the expense of all the dorks who actually went around talking like monkeys at their family and friends. Results: It’s amazing what you can get people to do with a press release!”

 

Playing With Fire

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Image credit: Pixabay

Although we still have a long way to go in North American households, these days, men share at least some of the housework burden. That is, they do chores that traditionally have been “women’s work” — things like laundry, floor mopping, dusting.

However, there is one task that remains divided along ridiculously binary gender lines: women cook, men barbecue.

How do I know barbecuing is still the man’s job? Well first, there’s the issue of, ahem, size. When I was a kid, a barbecue consisted of a metal dish full of charcoal on a tripod. Throw on a rack and some hot dogs, and that was it.

These days, barbecues are huge, gas-powered, gleaming, chromed-up affairs with rows of dials, gauges, and buttons. They’re measured in BTU output, and of course, the bigger that number, the better.

Then there are the goodies that go with these modern fire pits. A man who shakes his head at his wife’s desire to coordinate the look of the countertop appliances will not think twice but to accessorize his barbecue to the max. There are smoker boxes and rotisserie kits, special planks for doing up salmon, side burners and veggie baskets. Can a remote barbecue starter be far behind?

The tools are also a sight to behold. While Mom works with a 99 cent nylon spatula from Wal-Mart for years, Dad splashes out on special tool sets. These are precision machined tungsten-carbide, with extra long handles, complete with mahogany wood inlay, and Italian leather hanging straps. Commercial airliners should be this well-crafted.

Another reason I know barbecuing is still in the man’s domain is because it reflects the unreconstructed man’s approach to house care.

For example, consider a typical dinner party, where the husband announces he’s going to give his wife the night off cooking by doing it as a barbecue.

The wife picks the time and date, making sure it doesn’t conflict with the schedules of anyone in the family. She also invites all the guests, either by phone, email or mail, and keeps track of those who have RSVP’d.

Once the number of people is confirmed, the husband makes the difficult choice between t-bone and sirloin steaks while tagging along at the grocery store. The wife meanwhile, buys extra food, napkins and other necessities.

On the big day, the wife cleans the house, picks up the kids toys in the yard, mows the lawn, and hoses down the lawn furniture.

She cleans, cuts and boils potato for a salad. She then defrosts the rolls, and shucks the corn on the cob. After that, she bakes a cake.

About mid-day, the husband strolls out to clean the barbecue.

She will set out the picnic table, put on a table cloth, stock it with cutlery and plates, and set out a variety of drinks for the children and anyone who is driving.

Guests start arriving in the afternoon. He will hand out beer. She will ice the cake and finish the potato salad before taking the stack of corn cobs out to the barbecue.

He will show his mates his latest barbecue accessory and then start cooking the corn and the steaks. She will make sure everyone gets enough to eat, restocking the table every ten minutes, and keep an eye on all fifteen children careening around the yard.

As guests start to disappear she will begin the long process of cleaning up. As he says goodbye to everyone he gets lots of congratulations for “putting on such a great spread.”

That night as they go to bed, he will cheerfully express his hope that she enjoyed her night off cooking. He will not understand why he gets a pillow in the mush for saying this.

A Broken Record

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Image credit: Pixabay

I know this is sacrilegious, but I have to say that I’m not much of a summer Olympics fan.

This is perhaps because I’m Canadian and the Canadian teams have traditionally, to use the technical, sports medicine term… sucked at the summer games. We frequently get beat in the medal counts by such economic and social powerhouses as Bulgaria.

To be fair, this is not the fault of our athletes, who are top notch. Our beach volleyball players, for example, are among the toughest in the world. This is because for 10 months out of every year, they’re practicing on beaches that are about as warm and inviting as a meat locker, wearing nothing but fur-lined swimming trunks.

This is mostly the fault of our Olympic team management. For a start, most of our athletes didn’t even know they were going to be on the Canadian team until last month, when they received a phone call that went something like this:

TEAM CANADA: Good morning, Bob? We’ve selected you to be on our cycling team.
BOB: Oh. Right. I didn’t even know I was under consideration.
TC: Well you were. We think you’re top notch.
BOB: Okay, well, I suppose I should take the snow chains off my tires eh? Practice biking in Athenian conditions.
TC: Hey! Great idea!

Canadian summer athletes aren’t very well-funded either. Indeed, most of them earned the money for their airplane tickets to the Olympics by selling fur-lined swimming trunks and snow chains to each other.

It’s also not like our athletes are missing by much. At first it’s disheartening to think your country’s entrant came in eighth place … until you realize that the difference between first and eighth is less than one quarter of one second.

Which brings me to the issue of human achievement. The games have long ceased being of interest to me because we’ve reached the limits of what we can do. Desperate for any competitive edge, athletes are doing things like buying special swim suits that cut drag, using performance enhancing drugs, or even worse, practicing their sports cliches by telling journalists that they gave 110% percent out there.

Indeed, we have so little room for improvement in standard sports anymore that people are resorting to participating in increasingly silly competitions, like, say, running for the US presidency.

Or consider the entries in the Guinness Book of World Records. Kevin Cole of Carlsbad, New Mexico, USA, holds the record for — I kid you not — the longest spaghetti strand blown out of a nostril in a single blow. Vincent Pilkington of Cootehill, County Cavan, Republic of Ireland, plucked a turkey in 1 minute 30 seconds. There is even an entry for the fastest winkle picker in the world. (And is it just me, or does winkle picker sound like a Shakespearian insult? “Horatio! Thou art a winkle picker, methinks!”)

All of which leads me to ask important journalistic questions like: How does one learn one can eject spaghetti from one’s nose? (Answer: I really don’t want to know.) and Did the turkey get any sort of recognition for being the fastest plucked of its species? (Answer: Yes, a pot of cranberry sauce and a good basting.) and Just what the heck is a winkle anyway? (Answer: A close relative of the wonkle, obviously.)

Perhaps it’s time then to consider some new sports and sports venues. Why not put the next summer games on the Moon?

Then athletes really would have to put in 110% … just to deal with the lower gravity. And Canadians might just have a chance.

It’s darned cold up there, you see. We could sell fur-lined spacesuits.