Jim Grades God's Work

One of these days I just might die, and if that should happen, my life is going to be judged by God. That’s the story I’ve heard, anyway. Well for right now I’m still alive and on Earth, so I figured while I’m here I might as well judge God’s work. I mean, I’ve been alive for over 60 years and through those years I’ve been looking at stuff, stuff that’s supposedly God’s handiwork. So I figure I’m just as worthy to judge God’s doing as anyone else. So here it goes…

The Universe (excluding planet Earth); God really did a good job with the Universe, generally speaking. There is a fair amount of colors and shapes, and certainly no one can argue that the size is inadequate. Personally, I like all the open space, and the almost infinite distances between things. I think it captures the imagination. I mean, what’s out there? Are there other intelligent beings? See, I like the intrigue. On the other hand, if I had been born a thousand years ago, I would have found that same emptiness of space nothing more than confusing. It would go largely unappreciated. And in another thousand years, the human population of Earth might well wish that everything in space were closer together. As it is, mankind’s residence will likely always be on Earth, and in a thousand years the Earth might not be big enough. But for today, the present time, the Universe seems to be a fascinating place. I’m going to give God a B+ grade on it.

Planet Earth; I’m slightly disappointed with God when it comes to his work making this planet. I think he could have been more imaginative. For an example, I don’t like all the foliage to be green. I know that plants need green chlorophyll for photosynthesis, but I’m talking about God here, a guy who can do anything. I think chlorophyll should have come in an array of colors. Why didn’t He make the sycamore leaf violet and the oak leaf white? How about a deep blue maple? See? God just didn’t think it through. I don’t know, maybe he was in a hurry to get it done.

Most of God’s animals get a passing grade for design and for general environmental utility. But I don’t quite get what the thinking was behind the creation of the mouse or his big brother, the rat. I like God’s idea of fur, but scales don’t do a lot for me. There are huge swimming animals, such as the whale and some species of shark, but there aren’t any colossal birds. I think God missed the boat on that one. If I were God I would have made a couple of species of gigantic birds. Yeah, if I were God there would be a couple of varieties of bird the size of a 1958 Oldsmobile. Anyway, all told, I’m giving God a C+ grade when it comes to planet Earth.

Humans; Okay, according to some people, all of God’s work was done with humans in mind. So I’m going to put Human Beings, i.e., homo sapiens, into their own category. And as for humans, I like what God has done, generally. There is evidence of true cleverness in a number of places. He has made mankind almost perfectly imperfect, if such a thing is possible. For example; there’s something very calculating about a species that has the intellect to destroy all life on Earth, and the ignorance to possibly do it. I see some gloriously dark humor there. It’s almost devious. And who wouldn’t appreciate the scheming behind the concept of various colors and races within the human species? Us humans still haven’t figure out how to deal with that. Yet, when it comes right down to it, usually the act of one person is helpful to some other person, or at least it does him no harm. So mankind is basically a positive entity. But the answer to the supreme test will not be known for perhaps hundreds of years, and the test has one question; can man survive his own actions? Can mankind survive mankind?

As for the physical structure of the human species, God has done a good but not great job. He has given us the intelligence to develop medicines that allow us to survive far beyond the expiration date of our bodies. Personally, I think that was a miscalculation on God’s part. I mean, unlike the social puzzle that comes from man’s racial problems, old age just causes pain and debilitation to individuals. On a positive note, God did make sex a highly enjoyable experience, at least highly enjoyable most of the time. What if the act needed for the male’s half of reproduction was no more stimulating than spitting saliva, and the female half was like... ? Anyway, I’ve got to give God kudos for that little piece of genius. But overall, when it comes to God’s handiwork, and the human species, I’m giving him a B grade. Good, but not outstanding.

So taking all categories into account, I’m giving God an overall grade of B. That’s not bad. If I were God, I’d be happy with that. I mean, it was a big job. No one could have done it perfectly. Truth is; I hope when my day of judgment comes, He grades me as high. Heck, I'd settle for a C+.

I Finally Get It

I'm now 61 but I still remember when I was a kid there were a handful of parents who did not want me around their children. One summer evening, a parent visited our front door and angrily proclaimed that he did not want to see me around his son… ever again! I think the father’s son had come home for supper late and dusty. When I was in my youth, that is how I often traveled; late and dusty.

When I became a teenager, there were parents who forbid I keep company with their children. I remember a high school classmate, who will go nameless, informing me that his mother no longer wanted me to visit, and I should stay away. If memory serves me correctly, we had taken some photos of each other skillfully sliding our cars around on a dirty road. It wasn’t necessarily dangerous behavior, just out-of-bounds behavior in the eyes of most adults. Anyway, my friend’s mother got wind of the activity and I was banished from the property.

Many decades later I still do similar shenanigans. A few weeks ago I was in the bleachers at a sporting event. I decided I wanted some popcorn so I visited the vendor in the mezzanine. As I was returning to my seat, inching my way down the crowded row with my popcorn in my hand, I acted as though I were suddenly about to lose my balance and on the verge of toppling over the patrons in the lower rows. A few people gasped in fear while others reached out in a desperate effort to stabilize me. But of course there was never any need to fret. As if by magic, I suddenly regained my balance and continue unfazed down the row.

This is an old stunt of mine, but I still like to bring it out now and then. Needless to say, I was always in complete control and in absolutely no danger of losing my balance. But you couldn’t tell it by the clumsy –but controlled- wobble. This sort of behavior annoys Diana, my significant other. I usually get a dejected headshake and the question, “Why do you do that stuff?”

I usually grin, shrug, and reply, “For personal amusement.”

I bought a cellphone a year or so ago. Now and then I call out on it, but I’ve actually received only one or two calls. Anyway, I’ve recently discovered that it has a feature where a person can record sound, including voice. Not only can the cellphone record a voice, but the voice can be used as a ringtone. The possibilities for low-grade fun seemed endless. What I ended up doing was sitting in my car in a remote parking lot and in a screeching, obscenity-laden voice, told myself to answer the phone. It went something like, "Answer the phone, you &%#@&&%@% mudda%^#%#!" When that was completed, I then selected the shrieking to be used as my ringtone. With the work done, I then clicked an option where I could listen to my ringtone without actually being called. Yep, the cellphone suddenly came alive, blasting the collection of obscenities over and over until the phone was supposedly answered.

Keeping in mind that this is me saying this; it was funny. I couldn’t help but to chuckle at this obscenity-spewing cellphone. Splendid, if not slightly demented humor, I thought. Then, all at once, my laughter ceased and it hit me. Who does this stuff!? What goofball thinks about having a home-made, obscene ringtone for their cellphone, let alone actually putting in the effort to make such a ringtone? For perhaps the first time ever I was seeing myself from the perspective of some other adult. As I stared at my cellphone I suddenly realized why so many of those parents preferred that I be elsewhere, anywhere but with their child. Their sentiments suddenly made sense. I’m not saying anyone is right or wrong, but finally, at long last, I get it.

I’ll tell you, sometimes a personal revelation can be something of a bummer, especially one where you finally comprehend why you were something of an outcast. It’s not the first time I’ve had a moment of negative self-discovery, but this one might be the most stinging. Truth is, I could use a pick-me-up. Maybe someone will call to cheer me up. Heck, just hearing that ringtone would help.

My Pal Dave

I was talking with an old friend, Jeff, about one of our mutual buddies from back in the day, a guy named Dave Rubadue. Dave was a good-looking kid who had a unique kind of nutty streak in him. He could make funny but poignant observations concerning the entire world, other times he would make humorous yet often insightful comments aimed at some everyday minutia right in front of us. He had a gift for that kind of thing. I first started hanging out with Dave when we were both just starting the 11th grade, almost forty-five years ago. At that time Dave not only had his driver's license, but he also had his mother's car at his disposal. Among other activities, we cruised around Columbus's north side, stopping if we saw a pick-up basketball game, or a couple of pretty teenage girls on the stroll. On Friday nights we'd sometimes drive to other high schools' football games for purposes of picking-up girls. A few times we were actually successful. This was in the Midwest suburbs about a trillion years ago. So there wasn't any actual sex. About all we did was kiss and nuzzle. We might try to cop a feel, but we were risking a rebuff if we did. Still, after we took the girls to their homes we would compare notes and congratulate each other if we had any success, such as it was. Dave actually met his future wife on one of these escapades.

But make no mistake, Dave and I were true friends. Sometimes we'd talk about personal stuff. Romance, sex, religion on occasion, even our philosophies concerning life, all were discussed one time or another. Dave was a bright kid but a bit restless, whereas I was a lousy student constantly on the verge of a kind of frustrated boredom. Truth is, if it weren't for our friendship, Dave, I, or both of us may have gone down some wayward path. As it was, our chemistry together seemed to put limits on each other's behavior. One time we drove into a drive-in movie theater through the exit. It just seemed like the thing to do at the time. The cops showed up, took our names, and then threw us out of the theater. It was relatively harmless, juvenile behavior. Back in those days I was capable of a lot worse. Another time we stole beer out of some guy's garage. That time we escaped without capture. Again, I was capable of considerably more egregious behavior, and so was Dave, but when we were in action together, ironically, there seemed to be limits.

After graduating from high school, Dave went on to Ohio State, which was about five miles down the road from our high school. I never had either the grades or the academic aptitude to go on to college, so I began my career in low-paying menial labor jobs. When in college, Dave spent more time studying than he did when we were in high school, yet we still chummed around. Our stomping grounds merely moved down to the Ohio State campus, and surrounding neighborhoods. We'd play basketball on one of the many outdoors courts in that area, and then go to one of the bars for a postgame beer or two. Then about a year into his college career, Dave landed a part-time job and moved into a campus-area apartment. All we had to do was sit on the sidewalk outside his front door and in short order one college girl or another would wander by, ripe for the one-liner. Of course they usually would just smile and dismiss us, but that was okay, we were still entertaining ourselves. I don't know what I would have done with myself had I not spent those hours with Dave. I don't know what direction I might have gone.

About six months after Dave got his undergraduate degree, he got married to one of the girls we had met five or six years earlier while on one of our "patrols". When he told me he was getting married, I informed him that it would likely be the complete end of the buddy-ish life that we had known for the previous six-plus years. Dave denied it, but I knew better. Deep down, Dave probably knew better too.

I was an usher at his wedding. I saw him about a half dozen times after that. Though he lived within twenty miles, he never called, and when I called him, he was always busy. I eventually quit calling.

I've loosely kept track of him to this day. Dave went on to law school and took a job doing lawyer stuff for a big corporation. Soon thereafter he moved into a new, stylish suburban neighborhood and began raising a couple of kids. I haven't heard his voice or even seen a photo of him in well over three decades.

Anyway, as I said earlier, a few days ago Jeff and I got to talking about our old pal. Mostly we talked about some of the shenanigans that the three of us experienced together. But eventually we brought up Dave's sudden and absolute disappearance following his marriage. As I talked about my friend's departure, my thoughts on it, it all started to make sense. See, when Dave received his college diploma, he opened a new door and at the same time closed an old one. Beyond the new door were the wife, kids, and the suburban lifestyle. I did not have a place there, not even to visit. I couldn't sit in his living room and watch TV with his wife and kids. That wouldn't have been good for anyone. And Dave couldn't very well go out and play basketball, or go to see a porn flick, or even spend an evening fishing and drinking beer with his old chums. Those activities existed back behind the old door. End of an era.

Jeff said that he'd like to meet-up with Dave again just to see how he's doing. But I said that, as for myself, no way. The Dave Rubadue of 2012 might very well be a sixty year-old fuddy-duddy, and I certainly wouldn't want to see that. No, I want to remember the young Dave Rubadue, the friend who could spout out a zany one-liner, a zany one-line that often contained a dash of genuine perception. Yeah, that long-ago Dave who would occasionally get me in a little bit of trouble, and in so doing, quite possibly kept me out of a lot of trouble.