As I write this first entry in The Johnston Papers—no doubt a few months before you will read it—I am sitting in the Kennedy rocker on my porch at the end of a perfect summer day. The screen is keeping an army of frustrated mosquitoes at bay as I watch a purple-pink sunset over the Mink Hills. I am tapping on my laptop computer, sipping a cool drink, and listening to the first-place Red Sox on the radio. My daughter is snoring softly in her bed. I am in the middle of a two-week vacation from a job that pays me to have fun.
It is tempting, in short, to agree with Mr. Browning that God’s in His heaven and all’s right with the world.
But I know better. Oh, I suppose I could say that all’s right with my world, narrowly defined, and leave it at that. But, alas, the whole planet is my business, and in the world at large, things are amiss.
The problem, briefly, is that the world has been left in the hands of people who could serve us best by disappearing. Worse, those who could do something about it have opted out.
I don’t suggest that things were perfect in the past. No doubt there have always been jerks, louts, cowards, and bad spellers. But this is nuts.
I remember with remarkable clarity the day I received my first clue about humanity’s path. It was early September 1966, day two of the school year in Miss Acton’s second-grade class. The day before, the seat behind me had been empty, but today it was occupied by a girl named Mary Lou. Miss Acton asked her where she had been the previous day.
Mary Lou answered, “We was on vacation.”
Forty years later, the nightmares still come.
We was.
On vacation.
I turned slowly and stared at the entity behind me. I had no idea people like this existed. A year earlier, my mother had given me a strong dose of reality by coming clean about Santa Claus, and I had accepted it with admirable equanimity. But Mama never prepared me for anything like this.
At least I could count on Miss Acton to set things right. Although not technically a Civil War widow, she belonged to that species of schoolmarms, now extinct, who taught until they were 110 without ever cracking a smile, and who brooked no deviation from rules of grammar or citizenship. Mary Lou, to use a favorite second-grade colloquialism, was gonna get a lickin’. I figured one whack for the grammar, one for the truancy, and one for the audacity. Delicious. I don’t specifically remember, but it’s a safe bet that I was drooling.
Nothing.
Miss Acton glared at the miscreant for a second, looking appropriately disgusted, and that was all. No whacks, no dunce cap, not even a good tongue-lashing.
So this was how it was going to be. Flout the law, mock the language, and all you get is a disapproving look. I was alone in the world.
And that was just a preview. Seven years later, in 1973, it became apparent that Mary Louism had become a national movement when a group of unelected arbiters formally approved a practice that soon came to represent the decadence and moral bankruptcy of American culture. In response, the public followed Miss Acton’s example: initial outrage quickly gave way to resignation and inaction. Although a committed group of activists has fought consistently to overturn that wretched decision, the majority of Americans have passively accepted it. And so it appears the designated hitter rule is here to stay.
That timid response signaled that Americans could be expected to roll over for anything. Thus began the deluge: Light beer. Aluminum baseball bats. Sweat pants. Soccer. Lunchables. “Cathy.” Velcro shoe straps. Donald Trump. Car alarms. No-cheese pizza. Travel mugs. Bottled water. The Atkins Diet.
Scientists disagree about whether this evolutionary backslide is reversible. What is clear is that nothing will change as long as decent people yield the field to the opportunists who foist these schemes on us. Smart people of the world, unite! You have nothing to lose but your flip-flops!
Come on, peeps, it’s time to take back our civilization. In the coming months I will describe in detail the symptoms of America’s sorry condition—the unreturned shopping carts, the dangling participles, the automatic-flush toilets—and offer common-sense solutions. Yes, some people may have to get hurt, but hey—freedom isn’t free.
There will be homework. Your first assignment is to confront the person with 25 items in the express check-out line. No, wait! Better yet, the next time you see a teenager (quite possibly one of Mary Lou’s descendants) with his pants fastened below his butt, instead of merely commenting to yourself about how silly he looks, do something that will make a difference: walk right over and give those pants a good downward yank. Don’t worry—no matter how old and out of shape you are, I guarantee you can outrun a teenager with his pants wrapped around his ankles.
Join me in this mission, my friends. We may not save the world, but at least we can exact some retribution.
We is gonna have some fun.
***********
Editor’s note: Are you wondering what happened to the tag line, “A Fortnightly Rant”? Just after I went public, a reader informed me that the New Hampshire Gazette, a small newspaper in Portsmouth, has a column called “The Fortnightly Rant.” Horrors! My sketchy knowledge of copyright law tells me there is no legal problem, but one doesn’t want to be accused of pilfering someone else’s title, legally or otherwise. So until another idea presents itself, we remain simply The Johnston Papers.
