Viral Vicissitudes

R U Ready, for this: R is for Recess, Restricted.  Recess Redeployed: 🎶 Six geese a-laying; no children playing...I cry fowl! Required Reading: And lots of other material that's most un-welcome. Which is how these gens, coming upon what was once a site for free-dumbs, realize that play is anything but, these daze. To fully appreciate the back-ground of play-grounds getting ground down, to a halt, requires a historical context, one that involves ...and one that necessarily begins with an attempt to answer some nagging questions, which takes us way back to how and why, the whole set of R's came into being...and then went...as in took a Right-less (or wrong) turn, depending on how, which perspective one adopts... What's the (mis)use? That is, after Recess! was introduced as sort of supplementary (or complimentary, if you prefer) to the other R's that the whole educational establishment was initially built on, the core of which has kind of suffered from a strong force of n...

Youts Too!    "What constitutes a Youts, these days"? The question remains, a judgement call, as depicted in "My Cousin Vinny" which might offer you a welcome break from all the season fare, which you may have, in turn, turned to, to take a break from all those ads, most of which are geared, of course, depending on which station and what time of day/night...informing You, the "big spender" on behalf of Them, the beneficiaries, of all your spending... "Hey, big spender...🎝" Not too late...especially in this land of "same day" which is, on course, due to the trajectory, based on my own estimates, to be on the verge of..."wait just a minute kids...as I've got my 3D printer warming up, in the next room..." Such as the new daze in our lives, in order to satisfy what WE think THEIR cravings are...at least according to "our sponsors" -- and otherwise to keep THEM in (dis)belief about "Old St. Nick" -- the age...

Hunger, Games and the Mouths of Our Babes A Toast, from your (post) host: The one, you and I have heard over and over and...one that encompasses just about very dimension of what living "a long, full, and interesting life" looks and feels like. No matter what the occasion, time of life, is timely, well received by all present, other-wise the life we are accounting for. In the form of a casual, formal toast, even in the form of a prayer in super formal, more reverent settings. But in all, every instance, context, it consists of... Well, wishing: Wishing others well, as in "Good will towards..." Even accompanied by acts, especially at certain times of the year that seem to "call" us to do so...whereas at others, not so much... Guaranteed: "We'll guarantee that if you bring in proof, that an item is offered by someone else at a cheaper price...." A highly common phrase that we hear at all times of the year, but especially yesterday, today...not ...

Thanks! in Full: All-Ways in good taste. Multi-Sensational! - The full experience: An exclamation that the cook, at least on this special day, tends to hear over and over (hope-fully), especially from those who, in the increasing busy-ness of the season, may have forgotten to either purchase or pack the host/hostess gift. And a word that also connotes the SUPER! engagement of one or more senses -- the ones we refer to as sight, sound, smell -- are usually on full alert, while keeping touch ("texture" as in either mashed or whipped potatoes) and taste...on stand-by. All of which will be working over-time on what we, U.S. still call, around here, THANKS-GIVING Day. Sometimes involuntarily (think Pavlov's dogs, as in "salivating glands"), or even when we actively seek out a whiff of "what's cooking...?" As if we needed any hints...been here, done it a hundred if not...Which might even be accompanied by the briefest of fore-tastes, if the cook not only...

The ultimate culmi-NATION of forces: catching U.S. Outside, looking In - A Strip Teaser! Giving Recess! its due. So, just where is every body...? Good question and one we catch our-selves asking, no matter what time of day, weather condition...taking a walk around the park, or even, when "strolling" around the school-yard, when there's even the "slightest indication" -- coming out of the mouth of a so-called "babe" (well, that's not what THEY call them anymore) -- issued from one of the "Top Ten most attractive, other-wise highest paid Meteorological Proctologists" -- some of which actually studied such "forces of nature" -- whereas others learned to just, simply "pose" -- as in modeling...became well in-formed that this might be a good pausing point, maximum ex-posure ("Harry didn't their mothers warn them that going out dressed like that, could catch them-selves a cold? Martha, I think anything, but..."...

Resumption of Hostilities: Resuming Recess...It's Astronomic! A Precession-ary: on the cause, for the pause, what the future gens may experience when coming onto such a scene, jogging (if it's still allowed) their collective memory, to a basic law in physics, astronomically speaking, as in "any of several gravity-induced, slow and continuous changes in an astronomical body's rotational axis or orbital path..."  No Way! A common exclamation which will likely endure, stand the test of time, even of the still celebrated institution, which spurred a lot of excitatory responses from earlier beings, as in "bodies and minds in perpetual motion..." as in at least for a brief period each day...in some locales even a two-fer! The popularity came to the attention of several entrepreneurs, spurring a so-called "cottage" industry, which saw the land-scape of the earlier recess!-ionals pivot, into one dotted with various "play things" that came to ...

Recess! At a sand still. 2+2= A Fear sum Foursome. (YOUR worst nightmare) It all adds up; THEY took it all away...one at a time. Insidio-US-ly!  The Best and the Worst: Two things, a curioUS pairing that tends to command our attention the least two months of the year, commencing right about the time you hear the incessant caroling on a few radio frequencies that now offer Christmas songs, contemporary as well as "songs of old" the year-round. But, as the calendar year winds down, most media the world over offers US a glimpse, a brief reminder, as we get ready to "start anew" -- what was, based on alleged surveys***, what we considered as the songs that we just as soon forget, after too much airtime, as well as horrific events that changed the landscape, at least for the time-being. Here, in the scope of just two well thought outposts, I wrap up the year as well as this mini-series on the thing US Boomers referred to as Recess! -- especially when allowed to go "...

Veteran's Day Special: It's got a nice ring, tone to it. Freedom, that is. The answer to the age-old, perennial question, "What's the point, of all this...hoopla, pomp, circumstance, and such?" And the cause for this pause here, for putting the attempts to recess Recess! once and for all, on a short recess itself, in order to pay homage both publicly (i.e., "National Holiday") and in private, the latter being more of a state of reverence. As in revering all those who served, going all the way back to earlier times, those that remained anonymous to us ("tomb of the unknown") as well as those with which we are more intimately familiar.  In both cases, many have passed on, while passing down to U.S. around here more than we could ever repay... Ring a Bell? When you hear a bell is the thing we have fought for throughout history, at least hear in this "Country 'Tis of Thee" -- does "Liberty" and its close ally, "Freedom...

Swearing in; out swearing: "I'll not stand for this; we won't take this lying down!"    Take-aways: What it would be like, to not be allowed, to play "Keep Away" or when THEY other-wise try to take IT away from us -- IT being RECESS! of course... "Braking News!" As in "Putting on the brakes, on RECESS!" Hard to imagine? Well, I'm here to share a vision of what this might look, sound like...in the not-too-distant future...the What, Where and When...to be followed in kind by Who and Why, such a thing "could be allowed to happen..." "Eureka, what's lost has been found!"  Some items from which ("Lost and Found" box) may have found their way into the time capsule, one which tells us what "life back then" might have looked like. A vessel, the likes of which are frequently found under or in proximity to what used to be, as it turns out, based on the "great reveal" of what the letter insid...

In Jeopardy (RECESS! is the subject of the day, with many categories, at stake) Round One  Answer: Range, Red Rover.  Question: "Don't tell me...it's over?!" Question: What just happened?! Answer: "Don't say I didn't warn ya'all...me, being the host, of this post...that it could, one day, happen to YOU -- this is NOT a game!"  Heeder haters: If you can't, won't heed the warning of what might be on the horizon, around the next bend (e.g. a waterfall!), you'd think that you would at least benefit from the lessons of the past...that could wash ashore, such as the age-old "message in a bottle"...which these daze, are also unearthed at various pre-appointed times... Time (en)capsulated, below: Remnants of the past, that is. That were carefully, preselected, so as to give those opening the containers but a glimpse into "what the - - - - THEY were thinking...!" The items, things, chips, that were supposedly representative...

"Pssst...just between YOU and ME, Manners Matter"  In hushed tones, wist-fully speaking: "If I only could..." turn back time: To a time of old, before I regretted saying something that may have been a bit "ill advised" -- "Those words that have hurt you" (Cher, in a moment of enlighten-meant). Yeah, to the so-called halcyon days, transporting US to a place and time, when "Seldom is heard a discouraging word..." Was there ever such a time, place, the cynics among US query...Which most of US these daze, at least imagine were so long ago, as in gone, forgotten, irretrievable...The so-called golden age, a mythical time (literally) when Greek gods roamed the earth and sky, and poked fun at us mere mortals, but at least showed a degree of sophistication in doing so (go ahead, just ask a Greek and they'll be more than happy to tell you all about this time of "primordial peace..."). And on through the Bronze, Silver, and finally, ...