Humpday Happenings...
Well, it's a wonderfully FOGGY morning here in Dunstable, Bedfordshire...I mean Ft. Wayne.
Sorry, had a waking dream moment there.
Thought I awoke somewhere BETTER than my current neighborhood....silly me.
There is a good side to mornings like this.
The "neighbors" don't seem to take to FOG (maybe it's a John Carpenter thing).
I, on the other hand find a foggy morning nice...AND quiet.
The only sounds heard are the birds.
It's mornings like this that do hearken me back to an old TV show episode, however.
The old OUTER LIMITS show had an episode regarding a similar "foggy morning".
It was entitled "A Feasibility Study".
Here's two links to the episode info:
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0667805/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Feasibility_Study
They did a remake of this episode in 1997 as well:
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0667890/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Feasibility_Study_(The_Outer_Limits)
The show was about a town where everything started off normally, but a bit "different". People couldn't start their cars, the sun looked "odd", and there was no TV or radio reception.
And aside from a misty, foggy morning, everything seemed relatively typical...just another day.
Eventually, the cars start and people leave for work, but the show focused on couples that had personal issues, and were sometimes at odds with one another. But, they soldiered on, because that was expected of them.
It's when they see a stranger in the neighborhood that things take a turn for the worse.
The people in this six square block of "Everytown, USA" begin to feel that there's more here than just the fog.
And they're correct.
Their part of town was somehow transported to another planet, and the native inhabitants of that planet can no longer breed future generations, are turning to stone, and seek to find an alternative "work force". This planet is not the most hospitable for humans outside the "influence" of that six block area, and they will most likely die off, as the atmosphere is toxic, but these aliens have to at least see if their "plan" is viable.
One person even becomes "infected" when he comes in contact with one of the aliens.
The people start to panic, but realize the intentions of these aliens, and come together with a level of solidarity never before seen in the neighborhood. They meet at the church, and purposely "infect" each other, to render the "experiment" by the aliens NOT feasible.
The only remnants of this abduction back on Earth is a huge hole in the ground where the neighborhood used to be, with a high fence and warning signs around it. Feasibility study concluded.
Yeah, it sounds kind of corny, but that show stuck with me whenever I drove into a fog bank...never knew if I'd wind up somewhere other than were I was intending to go.
But that show was one of a few that presented a damn good "morality play".
Don't see that many today, sadly.
I think with all the "drama", the core values become muddled in the screenplays. Used to be a time when episodic TV focused more on "the moral to the story" as opposed to solving the crime in an hour.
Sure, the Lone Ranger solved the problem in a mere 30 minutes, but we KNEW that he was there representing the GOOD GUYS, and that the people that interacted with him (and Tonto) were the focus of the story.
Then again, those were simpler times, when a June Cleaver or Donna Reed household was SOP (standard operating procedure).
Those were the days of the NUCLEAR FAMILY.
All we had to worry about in THOSE days was having a damn atom bomb dumped on our heads from the nasty old USSR.
We learned that doing something BAD had consequences, and that doing something GOOD netted a reward along the way.
And, I suppose that some of that has carried forward into our living rooms on TV today, just not as much, and certainly NOT as pronounced.
We find that it's OK to be bad (everybody has flaws, so why fight it?), and that many times, the old saying rings in our ears: "No good deed ever goes unpunished". We might fore go being good to become that which we detest, in order to achieve the same goal we used to be able to reach without sacrificing our values.
We might find that just "bucking the system" isn't good enough these days, and that we need to tear the crap out of it instead.
That might work for some folks, and others might actually succeed, after a fashion.
But, it's those that hold true to principles that matter; values that mean something, and a morality that recognizes our human foibles, and yet perseveres to attain that which often seems unattainable. Now, who would have known you could get all this from old TV shows?
Well, you can.
And you can also find it in books...the REAL kind that you open and READ, word for word.
Life is way too brief to meander about, without purpose, without direction, and with no real sense of right or wrong.
And it gets more difficult should you encounter a "storm at sea", as we all will in our lives.
Sometimes, it all comes down to being able to tune out the world for a bit...and listen.
We need to pay attention to US once in a while, because we're saying more than we know, yet we're not focused.
That indomitable spirit in each of us bears closer scrutiny, because from that, we become better people. And if there's one thing this old Earth can always use...it's a lot more BETTER people.
"We now return control of your personal computer to you...until next time..."
Be well, make a difference to someone today, and...
Stay safe out there, America.
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((Almost forgot - If you want to read a FANTASIC post regarding guns and WHY good people own them, bop on over to the WAITING FOR GOD blog - link at left. It's YESTERDAY'S post, and it IS worth a read, trust me on this!))