Not Practicing for my Doctorate

I get a chance to visit various blog sites and get a taste of different flavors available on the web. I figure if the only blogs I read were those who were in my immediate sphere of influence it would be a little like a family reunion in W. Virginia. “Hey Ma, I mean Sis, I mean…” What’s the old saying, “Vice is nice but incest is best”. I can forget running for office now, geezzzzz, talk about blowing off an entire state in one breath.

Most of the blogs are fun to read, occasionally strange and downright outrageous in content. The ones that bother me; call me backward if you will, are those where they appear to be practicing for some kind of Doctorate thesis.

When I was in college as an undergraduate I was never all that impressed with the pseudo-intellectuals who structured their sentences in such a way as to completely leave the planet. The signal being sent out was “If you can’t understand what I said then you are obviously not worthy of my company.” One of my business professors called it “Gobbledygook”. In plain English, that means that you have to use multi-syllable words as often as possible, preferably those words which can only be found in the Oxford Edition as opposed to the standard Webster’s dictionary. By so doing it makes the writer sound as if his words are more important than the “common folk” and by way of default offers their ideas as somehow more valuable. I stepped in some of that a few minutes ago and had to hose off my shoes.

I have nothing against multi-syllable words, not that I know of. When Bonnie was in the 1st grade her teacher was playing music for the children so that they could enjoy various sounds, possibly different than the everyday pop culture stuff they hear all the time. “Can anyone tell me what this is?”, the answer the teacher was looking for, “music”, or “a record being played”. Bonnie’s hand shot up and the teacher picked her, maybe it was because Bonnie had a big smile of recognition on her face. “That’s Rachmaninoff!” Did I mention that we have an extensive classical collection of music that goes from A to ZZ Top and Bach again? We got an interesting call from Bonnie’s teacher that day wondering how such a little child was able to respond with a multi-syllable word and to properly identify the music. I thought it was my job as a parent to expose my child to as many wonderful experiences as I could; taking it a step further, what the heck are the rest of these kids being exposed to? Having been a cop, maybe I should restructure that last question.

I will continue to visit blog sites, some of them in hostile territory, and enjoy the ideas presented to the general public. I will even leave comments if the wild hair strikes. Sometimes it’s more fun to throw a rock through a window just to hear the breaking glass. I ought to know, my dad had to fix way too many windows when I was throwing the baseball with my friends, those windows were on the second floor of my neighbor’s house. I never made it easy for my parents. I get a kick out of being the one who upset the apple cart, rippled the waters and…I’m on a roll, …rocked the boat. As you may have guessed by now, No, I’m not practicing for my Doctorate Thesis. I write to entertain myself and those foolish enough to spend some time here.

I would hope that anyone visiting my site will walk away knowing that he either agrees, disagrees or could care less with my opinion, not walk away wonder wondering what the heck I had said.