Well, here it is, Saturday morning in the eastern foothills of the Sandhills of Nebraska, about 1500 miles due west of where the brain-damaged one's at in northern New Jersey. I saw on the weather map last night that central New Jersey was apparently getting some autumnal rains, or at least sprinkles, and wondered if it'd move up, but it didn't.
It looks to be another fine autumn day for the brain-damaged primitive, a chance to take a leisurely stroll around his neighborhood, stopping in to exchange pleasantries with the local delicatessen owner, the butcher, the postmaster, the gas jockey, the five-and-dime clerk, the genial banker, the hot dog vender at the park, the cop on the corner, and the firemen playing checkers at the fire station; to help little old ladies cross the street, and to approvingly pat little children on the head.
The brain-damaged primitive's got to get out, and practice some human relations; it'd do him good.
The high winds forecast for this area never got here, perhaps changing direction and blowing up into South Dakota instead. However, it's obvious autumn's now here in the Sandhills, because when I got up at 5 a.m. and took a cup of coffee out to the back porch, I wasn't out there but five minutes before I came back inside.
The thermometer said 40 degrees, but upon checking accuweather, the "real feel" is 26 degrees.
I've been thinking about a reading-list that would be of use for the brain-damaged primitive so as to show him how to win friends and influence people. I never read it, but I imagine Norman Vincent Peale's The Power of Positive Thinking might be good.
Also, Bruce Barton's classic from the 1920s, which I have read, The Man Nobody Knows, might be of some use, although it has more to do with the advertising business than with ways and means of inspiring someone to become a better person. But what is the advertising business, if not a means of pleasing people?
Any biography of Ronald Reagan or Robert Dole, who came from poor backgrounds and pulled themselves up by their bootstraps, would be illluminating for him, too. It's a little late in the day for the brain-damaged primitive to hope to become president some day, or even just run for president, but even up until the moment one's about to slip from this time and place into the Eternal one, one should be striving to improve oneself.
My inspiration's always been T.E. Lawrence's The Seven Pillars of Wisdom; true, it's an adventure story, but chock-full of inspiration about how to get along with people, how to get others to like one.
I think today'd be a good day for the brain-damaged primitive to go to the library.
