October 22, 2023
Dear Friends,
All the time when I was growing up, whenever we had spaghetti, we never put Parmesan on it. My dad was against it, always saying it’s just like putting Tide laundry soap on it. I was an adult before I ever even tried it, and now it’s a regular.
About 30+ years ago, my Dad wrote his autobiography. I read it then, but had forgotten muh of what he said. Then a while back I ran across it and am now re-reading it. He spoke of one incident just after high school in which he and some classmate girl went to a restaurant together to celebrate graduation. They had spaghetti, and for the first time in his life, and at the girl’s insistence, he put Parmesan on it. He hated it and from that one instance made a lasting generalization.
I’m not a fan of generalizations based on only one or two examples. To wit, if your spouse is frequently inconsiderate, rude, self-centered, you might make a generalization that all members of the opposite gender are inconsiderate, rude, and self centered. Negative generalizations, I think, are more common that positive ones.
I taught university classes for many years, and have heard many negative generalizations about students. Negative behavior, low intelligence quotient, low effort, etc. with bright good students being an exception.
People from Appalachia are all red-necks. There are lots of examples you could come up with. Racial generalizations from some folks can get pretty crazy.
In my opinion, right now the worst culturally common set of generalizations is that of dividing people into age-defined groups, such as millennials, generation z, and so on for the specific purpose of making negative generalizations about them. Yet if you have the opportunity of actually meeting and getting to know someone within one of the labeled groups, you find that particular person does not fit it.
Tide soap on spaghetti was on a correct generalization, and many generalizations are simply bias. Knowing that to be the case, I still believe I have spotted an accurate generalization related to our shop. Last Tuesday, we were extremely busy, and that was the day about which I wrote concerning our parking lot jam. Exhausting busy day. Monday, the day before that, business was down to a trickle. Wednesday, back to a trickle. Thursday a group of seven retreaters came to stay with us for three nights, so that kept us busy. Then Monday, two ladies came and stayed two nights, with the standard traffic flow being low. Then this past Thursday, 8 retreaters came and stayed with us for three nights, leaving for home, Grand Prairie just today, and each of those days was busy.
That’s what got me to thinking about generalizations relative to the shop. With no retreaters, it seems to run every other day is busy, and then the other every other day, it’s down to a trickle. That’s what I observe, without understanding the reason for it. Certainly there must be some mysterious ultimate cosmic driven law that sets this principle into motion. And I think I need to re-read the book of Ecclesiastes to see if I can get some insight into this.
O.K., time to go feed our outside dogs (a German Shepherd and a Golden Doodle), maybe water the pansies (they are doing fine and looking good), and maybe spray some herbicide along the sides of the driveway where the grass has gotten out of hand. Then maybe I’ll start a record book of busy vs non-busy days to see if my observation holds up.
Call to action: You need to visit here frequently enough to ensure my busy/non-busy day observation keeps me from believing in fate.
Chip
