I have to write about whatever is on my mind here. That’s just how this works every night. If I don’t follow this, … . … it becomes painfully clear to all who read this “thing” that I do. Unfortunately, sometimes the things on my mind make absolutely no sense. Whatsoever. Occasionally, a wave of random piffle just pop into my head. I suppose that is true of us all.
But tonight, my two random…. and repeating ….. topics… are Whirling Dervishes and Tom Terrific. I have no idea why, but I can’t get either one of them out of my head.
Well… okay.. Tom Terrific used to be my all-time favorite cartoon when I was very little. I’ll get back to that in a minute.
But Whirling Dervish??? I mean, a Dervish is a Sufi Muslim person. He is an ascetic, an abstainer, an very poor person. They are subjected to beg for their food and they are known for their extreme poverty and austerity. Occasionally, they spin around in a dancing type routine. And they have on those big white robes that whirl and circle… as they twirl. Hence. Your garden-variety Whirling Dervish.
Again, I have no idea why those Dancing Sufi’s are on my mind. But there it is.
Oh, and let’s not forget Tom Terrific. What’s he doing in my brain with the Whirling Dervishes? It is crowded enough up there as it is. But. As I mentioned earlier, he is a cartoon. In fact… Tom Terrific ran in a series of five-minute cartoons created specifically for the Captain Kangaroo show from 1957-1959. I caught it in the years just a little later…… as it was rerun on Kangaroo for a long time thereafter.
Tom had a dog named Manfred the Wonderdog, and their big rival was the most despicable Crabby Appleton. Oh… it was good. Yes! My favorite cartoon. I can remembers standing in front of our TV in shear delight when an episode came on. For five years old… I was living large.
So. You know what I did? Tonight? I found some old episodes on YouTube. I was elated. I bellied up, and I hunkered down, in front of my computer screen for the Tom Terrific Fest of 2016… right here in my living room.
All I can say is… Oh MY Gosh.
I was completely underwhelmed. Seriously. Confounded. Duped.
I sat there, with my jaw dropped open, and my chin hitting my keyboard, somewhere between the “v and m” keys.
It was so bad I could not even watch the whole thing. Not even two minutes. Manfred made me a little crazy, right off the bat. (wink) And Tom was a whiner.
Which sort of enforced a current life lesson I am trying to get my head around. There is a spiritual suggestion which says we should not label our experiences as either “good” nor “bad” …. we should just accept them as they are. In the moment. It is what is happening right now, whatever it is. Not good. Not bad.
Only in the now, which is the only time we have. And the fewer expectations we place on any of it, the better. (I’m having trouble encompassing this notion.)
So what does this have to do with Tom Terrific? Well… what I once thought was the most incredible experience on the face of the earth, had much later in life turned out to be a bit of a disappointment. If not an all out irritation.
This could be applied, to most any life experience. The thing that is happening to us right this moment, may be perceived very differently in 5 minutes from now, 5 years, or 50 years. It all changes. Sometimes is changes quickly, and sometimes slowly. But it will change. Just like Tom Terrific. … who was the original “Shape Shifter” after all. Way before X-Men.
As for the Whirling Dervishes? Well, I am going to go put on my big white bathrobe, and start spinning around in circles, to see if I can make any sense of it at all.
Unless, of course, I get dizzy, fall over and crack my head.
The I will become Crabby Appleton. Or maybe I should just eat a bunch of apples, before I become crabby.
Oh. I’m telling you… it all comes full circle… and it all changes. You don’t even have to look that one up on YouTube.
The trouble with America is that there are far too many wide-open spaces surrounded by teeth. — Charles Luckman
When I was younger, I could remember anything, whether it had happened or not. — Mark Twain (1835 – 1910)