I have lived in Indiana for six years. It will be seven next September. In all that time there has been an Aldi Food Store on the corner near my home since before we moved here. It is a rather nondescript building, brown, flat roofed, and in the great scheme of things, its rather squat in shape. In short, it doesn't have "flash" of, say, a Kroger.

So my mom and I, after running some rather unsuccessful errands, stopped off at the Aldi's store. A few weeks back, there had been a two page article in Time magazine all about Aldi's.

I'm going to cut to the chase: Aldi's is scary; very scary.

First of all, you want a shopping cart? Twenty-five cent deposit, please. Huh?

You want to use our bags? Ten cents a piece. Pardon?

I walked in ahead of my mom. She got a cart-- which is a story in and of itself. Short version: she someone coming out of the store. Said person offered her the shopping cart, only after my mom coughed up a quarter for the courtesy.

We got in and started walking around. When I was a kid living in New York I remember going to the ShopRite supermarket, I remember seeing black and white food packages with the label MSB. Which stood for Money Saving Brand. Basically, MSB was a step up from Government Issue. That's kind of what Aldi's reminded me of. A store full of MSB.

The most frightening part of the whole experience was getting out of the place. We couldn't figure out how to get out. We could see the front door, but we couldn't get there. My mother didn't want to buy anything. She thought that Aldi's was more expensive than the Kroger or Walmart or even Sam's Club (yes we shop at the Evil Empire...)

The way this Aldis was designed was actually pretty slick: the only way you could go was towards the check out. We were, for lack of a better term, in a chute. We tried to get out through a closed check out lane, but there was a gate that wouldn't let us through. So, we backtracked literally. We went back through the "chute." And went out how we came in.

Once we got into the car we did a quick double debrief. Both my mom and I were just a tad freaked out. Neither one of us had ever felt trapped in a store before. We both literally felt like we couldn't get out. We finally escaped through the front door, after my mom abandoned her cart by the front door.

I wish I could describe the terror, yes, I used the term terror I felt after I could get out of there. It was one of the strangest feelings I've ever had....

A Feeling of "Ahhhhh..."

The election is over. Thank God. I have the same feeling right now, I do after a scary doctor's visit: relief. Its done and in the books. Obama, the Messiah, has been crowned and in a few months time he will ascend to his throne.

I have heard this today: "for the first time in my life I am proud of my country." Huh? I am proud of my country every day. While I'm not exactly pleased with the result of this election, it is great to see the day after an election peaceful. There might be a few hurt feelings, a maybe a raw nerve or two, but that's about it. There is no blood in the streets, no tanks, no soldiers. Walking around campus today it was quiet, subdued, almost. I think a collective sigh of relief.

I don't have much to say about things. I never really do, if you think about it. But the feeling of (I beg your pardon, I need to use an onomonopoetic here) "ahhhhhh..." is everywhere.

Now we can get on with the business life. The political brouhaha is, at least for a day or two, over. That chapter is done.

Seasons Change

The seasons are changing and I welcome it. There is a distinct cooling in the air, pumpkins are starting to sprout on front porches, and costume stores are on every corner. Haunted houses are being touted. The leaves are changing from the chameleon green to the more natural red, yellows, and oranges. The days are getting shorter. My sweater doesn't seem so out of place now.

We are deep into the fall semester, papers are starting to come due and research is being quickly done. Freshman students, eager as always to please, take big topics and try to squeeze them into two page papers. The success is debatable.

Speaking of debates, the election season is winding down, or heating up, I guess it all depends on your way of looking at it. Soon we will have a new president and a new set of problems.

Autumn has arrived and in it, I revel.

Maryland, Again

A whirlwind trip to Maryland, done. It was a quick weekend. As I look back at it, I think I spent more time in the car going and coming back than actually on vacation. We went to the mountains of Western Maryland. We go there a lot, more than we should probably, but to hell with it, that's my "homeplace" as the oldtimers used to call it.

The leaves were just starting to turn from their thick green to their fire reds, oranges, yellows. The maples were the furthest along. The air was clean and in the mornings and evenings crisp.

It felt good like it always does to go "home."

Traveling with Steinbeck

Taking a break from reading. I'm re-re-reading Travels with Charley, by John Steinbeck. Its one of those books that never quite got the notice his other books like Grapes of Wrath, or Of Mice and Men recieved and that's too bad. Almost sad, really.

Those other books are good, great even, but there is something about them doesn't really resonate with me. That is particularly true with Grapes of Wrath. Maybe the themes are too big, or maybe my brain is too small. Either way, I feel awash in the prose and somewhat buffetted by them. Not so with Travels with Charley.

Travels with Charley is, as far as I am concerned miscast. One usually finds it in the amongst the fiction of Steinbeck. It is not fiction, but a travelogue. In the early 60's Steinbeck decided to become reaquainted with America. He figured, and rightly so, that since he wrote about America and the American experience he should get to know America. So he had a small camper built on a pickup truck, got his standard sized Poodle, Charley and set off to rediscover his country. Or as he put it:

One of my purposes was to listen, to hear speech, accent, speech rhythms, overtones and emphasis. For speech is so much more than words and sentences. I did listen everywhere. It seemed to me that regional speech is in the process of disappearing, not gone but going. Forty years of radio and twenty years of television must have this impact. Communications must destroy localness, by a slow, inevitable process. ...with local accent will disappear local tempo. The idioms, the figures of speech that make language rich and full of poetry of place and time must go. And in their place will be a national speech, wrapped and packaged, standard and tasteless.

Reading Travels with Charley is like looking at a backwards mirror. I do find it to be a modern day prophecy. When I read Travels with Charley I have to do it in small doses, a page or two, sometimes just a paragraph. Reading the book almost fifty years removed from the actual writing has the feelin of literary archeology.

I have a strange affinity for Steinbeck. I'm not sure why, maybe it has something to do with the fact that he and I share a birthday, granted his was 72 years before mind and he was dead a full seven years before I made my squalling appearance, but for some reason Steinbeck's words resonate and rattle my brain cage when I read them. Full discloure: I tried, but have never gotten through East of Eden, if there is a heavier handed book I have yet to meet it.

There are passages in Travels with Charley that stick with me, particularly those rare occasions when I am traveling. I usually get whacked in the head from Steinbeck when I am in a motel. I make it a point to leave nothing behind because of something he writes about when he stops in Chicago.

There is an audio recording of the book, but it is only on audio tape; trust me, I have looked for it on cd. The book is read by Gary Sinese. Sinese's gravelly voice really captures the prose and the rythym of the book.

So, I shall go back to 1960 and drive with John and his dog Charley and rediscover America. I wonder what I'll learn this time.

If You're Happy and You Know It...

I have gotten rather spoiled quickly by my new job. If for no other reason than I have annoyingly regular schedule. I'm not complaining at all, actually. It is nice to be able to go to work at nine or ten and able to come home at five or six, seven on Tuesdays. It's nice to have Friday evenings off, if I want I can do something, I haven't done much with them, though. Its nice to wake up on Saturday look at the ceiling and say "I don't have to go to work today." Saturday night, I usually go to church, mainly because I don't like going to the "contemporary service" they have at my church every other week and I have a hard time remember which week they do it.

Sunday is a great day. If I'm not in church, I just kind of bum around. Right now, I'm in my pajamas, listening to NPR and drinking my second cup of coffee, they just had a story about a singer I've heard of, but never heard before. Ira Glass is now introducing This American Life.

Emma, my white cat, just knocked something off my dresser-- my wallet.

I just poured my third cup of coffee. I'm going to the gym later on today.

I got involved in Dave Ramsey's Financial Peace University. It hasn't been easy. Its not easy, its a lot of work, but I'm learning somethings that are helpful. I'm working on my thousand dollar emergency fund. That has been harder than I thought it would be. Its coming along, but slower than I had hoped, but even the tortoise got to the finish line, right.

I'll be paying off JCPenny next month.

Things are going well. Yeah, I am blessed.

Bobbleheaded Talking Heads

I've been listening into the debate between the bobbleheaded politicians we have to pick from this evening. I'm not actively watching it, but I am sort of listening to it. One thing comes across clearly. Neither bobblehead McCain or bobblehead Obama like each other. They really don't.

I think I'm gonna watch a movie.