The Linear Canvas
This journal is about the wrongs and rights of the world, as I see them.

The Linear Canvas

Running From Rocks

February 23rd, 2009 . by Alexander Fisher

Mr. Boogey Man
As I was growing up in London, Ohio, my family lived in several neighborhoods. In 1969, when I was in the fifth grade, I moved to North Oak Street. Nothing was unusual about this neighborhood at all, for London. Most of the houses were two story single-family homes, plus a few duplexes. One street over from North Oak Street was a street called North Madison Road. The houses were very similar to the ones on my street. Most of them probably had been built around 1900.

About two blocks south of my house on North Madison Road, lived an old man named Ted Roberts. Mr. Roberts was a black man, about seventy-five years old. He always wore an old dark green coat and a wide brimmed dark hat. They were probably very stylish in the 1930’s, but were very old and dirty by the 1970’s. He had been a barber in London for many years and had been retired for quite a while. He had family close by, but he lived alone. People that knew him would mostly say kind things about him. Several people I knew had said their fathers had taken them over to his house and he cut their hair. My dad knew him, but luckily, my dad took me to the local prison to get my haircuts, where it was safe. Lucky me.

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Optometrist Office Fun

February 16th, 2009 . by Alexander Fisher

I called and made an eye appointment today, late in the day.  I had been putting it off for a while. I had been going to a different eye doctor but I was less than impressed with their service. I looked up optometrists on my insurance providers web site and found one just a couple of miles down the street from my house. I called to make an appointment. The person on the phone said they had just had a cancellation and I could come in, in less than an hour. I asked my supervisor if I could leave early from work and he said yes. So I headed towards the optometrist office.

Not only was I surprised I got in so quickly, I was treated very well by all of the staff when I got there, except for the optometrist. He was an older man. Before I even met him, I had pegged him as an extrovert. He was talking to a woman about her child’s glasses, and being a bit overly dramatic. I just thought he had an odd manner about him, and he was certainly an overconfident type of guy.

After the testing that I received from the office staff, I waited for a short while and then was led back into an examination room. When the optometrist came in, he immediately asked me if my contacts were forty-four years old (?). I said no they were a few years old, but not forty-four. Twice when he was trying to explain to me the difference in my eyes because of my age, he got my age wrong. I tried to communicate with him, as best I could, but he wasn’t hearing anything I was saying. He would just say something that I never felt connected to what I was saying. During the examination he seemed confused and became very condescending after I said anything. I really can’t remember what it was he said that finally got to me, but in essence he was talking over me as I tried to explain my history and didn’t seem to believe me that I have never had bi-focal glasses or contacts. At the moment that I’d had enough, I went silent for about 2-3 seconds, then I asked him, “Do you want my business or not?”.

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Summer of ’75: Aerosmith

February 8th, 2009 . by Alexander Fisher

“In The Summer of ’75, The Whole World Is Gonna Come Alive”
-Jefferson Starship

My friend John and I spent the biggest part of the summer of 1975 following Aerosmith around Ohio and wearing out our Aerosmith records and tapes. We threw in some hard partying as well that summer. It’s not like they were the only band we were into at the time, we saw Uriah Heep twice that summer as well.(see my post Summer of ’75:Uriah Heep ) But Aerosmith was the rock band we liked the best. I saw them at Dayton and in Cleveland that year.

John had a girlfriend and a posse. The posse was made up of people John had grown up with in his rural village. They were all around sixteen or seventeen years old. All were younger than him. The group included one of his younger brothers as well. I was new to this party, and sometimes felt more like an outsider than anything. I was like the new kid in town and was treated somewhat different as a result. I never did posse well.

Dayton, Ohio Hara Arena, April 1975

On the day in late spring that we saw Aerosmith at Dayton Hara Arena, there were enough people going to the concert that we could barely squeeze everyone into two fairly large cars. This group included John’s girlfriend, Marlene. Marlene was a cute 16 year old girl that always acted the part of the stoner chick. The problem for her was she liked John more that he did her. When it came time to decide who was riding in which car, it came down to a choice between me and his girlfriend. John picked me and made his girlfriend ride in the other car. The thing I remember about that most was, she didn’t seem to mind that much. Weird.

When we first got to the arena, we went into the lobby to wait for the gates to open. As more and more people arrived, the temperature began to rise quickly. there were so many people there that we were all pressed in there tightly . Hundreds of us. It was so hot, it was a wonder someone wasn’t hurt that day. Someone was passing around a few towels in the crowd. Believe it or not, because they were so hot, some people in the crowd were wiping off their sweat, with the towels, and then wringing it out, and passing it on. I doubt anyone would even think about doing that today. There were these security guards behind the glass doors who probably could’ve let us in, but they were just standing there on the other side laughing and pointing at us.

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Stimulating America’s Economy…First

February 5th, 2009 . by Alexander Fisher

Included in the stimulus package currently before congress is a provision to spend American tax dollars on products made in the US instead of sending the money to other countries. Critics (foreign investors) call this protectionism and claim that this will cause other countries to enact their own protectionist rules.

The question whether foreign countries will respond in kind if we enact the Buy American policy in the president’s stimulus bill, should be handled by decreasing or eliminating any foreign aid to a country that tries to “punish” the US for reviving manufacturing in our own country.

Detracters of the Buy American provision like the US Chamber of Commerce are heavily invested in foreign companies and countries and have an un-Patriotic financial interest in the loss of American jobs to third world contries and/or the elimination of labor unions so they can turn the US into a third world country, or a fascist/corporatist state. That is, more than they already have. Sometimes I wonder who these organizations real loyalty is to?