Despite the title of this blog and my tendency to carry on about the ancients, I sure am glad I am not really an ancient Roman brought back to life in modern America. I mean, how the hell would I make sense out of the omens and portents I regularly encounter?
I was running this morning, and part of my route is alongside a busy commute strip. All kinds of things fall from cars. (Maybe they’re dropped; I don’t know.) And when I am running, I don’t like to stop and pick things up unless they’re really “good.” Or unless they cry out for intervention. (One time I found a wallet belonging to a physician, who was an inch away from cancelling all the credit cards and was spared that nuisance.)
But what the hell would an ancient Roman make of these four items? (Ruler included to indicate dimensions.)
A little pink diving fin?
Three brand new address books labeled “Seasons Greetings from Jane”?
Were I a superstitious person, or a Roman, I might be very puzzled. Or maybe very troubled. Or possibly very happy. The little pink diving fin is something I just couldn’t leave there. It just seemed to “belong” in my blog. What to do with it now, I don’t know. Why only one? Is it a left fin or a right fin? It’s really tiny, too. Some parent is really starting that child young. And it’s pink. That means it must have belonged to a tiny girl, right?
The address book/calendars, I don’t know. Why three? Surely that number means something. And why Jane? Might that be the owner of the little pink diving fin? I don’t think so. The fin is so tiny that I think it is highly questionable whether the girl is old enough even to be in school, much less organize her life with address books and calendars.
Let’s look at the larger, real world implications of this morning’s find. Considering that the blogosphere is the only real world of anyone’s legitimate concern, this must be a sign, an omen, a portent, directly from the gods, about my blog.
That is not an arrogant assumption, is it?
And this blog is, after all, called “Classical Values.” Clearly, the gods are trying to tell me something.
Might they be telling me that yes, while I am swimming in the blogosphere, I am still at a very childish level compared to what they expect of me?
And I have many address books to fill, and many dates to enter in my calendar?
Three years of daily blogging? Is that what the gods demand?
If anyone has a better interpretation, I’d like to hear it.
Comments
One response to “Fun with Dick and Jane — in ancient Rome?”
Most interesting. I shall have to ponder the meaning of it. Hmmm…. Omens. Synchronicity. The way things come together or are juxtaposed by Fate. What a strange thing.
4 incidents of nationalistic synchronicity in my own life: 1) I was sitting in the Central High School library reading Oswald Spengler when I heard a kid named Breitenstein say to another kid: “He sure drank a lot of beer.” 2) On our birthday, my brother and I were looking at my Camille Paglia books while we were eating in an Italian restaurant, and one of the menu items had the word “paglia” in it. 3) A few years ago, I was reading a book by Alan Dershowitz while eating a bagel. 4) Around the same time, I was eating some Mexican food while reading an article about the Aztecs.