Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Speaker A: My name is.
[00:00:01] Speaker B: Hi, my name is Sherry Swaggart, and.
[00:00:03] Speaker A: I'm from Laetrope, and we're best friends.
[00:00:07] Speaker B: We are best friends.
[00:00:08] Speaker A: How'd that happen?
[00:00:09] Speaker B: Working at Planet fitness. And you're just my best friend.
[00:00:12] Speaker A: And you're my best friend.
[00:00:13] Speaker B: I love having best friends.
[00:00:16] Speaker A: What's your colorful living? Tip of the day.
[00:00:18] Speaker B: All right, so if mirrors had souls, you can rest assured they'd be reflective.
[00:00:24] Speaker A: Very true. Very true. Do you have another one?
[00:00:27] Speaker B: I do.
You always have to be unconventional. We live in a time when many people aren't truly happy unless they're truly angry. Just be happy to be happy.
[00:00:36] Speaker A: Thank you very much.
[00:00:37] Speaker B: You're welcome.
[00:00:45] Speaker C: Hi, I'm Chris Rodell, and welcome to season two, episode three of use all the Crayons, the podcast that tells you how we're always keeping it colorful. Right here in latrobe, Pennsylvania, birthplace of Arnold Palmer, Fred Rogers, rolling rock, beer, the banana split.
[00:01:03] Speaker A: If I could put it in just 14 words, and you better believe I can, those 14 words would be les trobe. So special. It's like make believe. So real. It's really special. Believe it. If I could put it into just one word. Hmm. How about I, for over the past.
[00:01:25] Speaker C: 40 years, spent my days chasing more than 3200 of the most compelling human interest stories on the planet?
[00:01:35] Speaker A: But first, let's look forward to Labor Day. Not Labor Day 24. I'm talking Labor Day 25.
[00:01:42] Speaker C: I choose forward because that'll give us a whole year to implement the wise suggestions I've developed to improve one of the most ill considered holidays on the whole calendar.
This is from 2016.
If anyone thinks by blogging on Labor Day I'm engaging in actual labor, they know even less about blogging than they do about labor. Blogging is something I enjoy, something that releases rather than causes tension, and something I can sometimes do while eating lucky charms.
True labor involves none of these things. Americans have been celebrating Labor Day since 1894, back when, I'll wager, at least 80% of the population was engaged in actual productive labor. Men tilled the earth. They shoveled coal into fiery furnaces. They sawed timber by hand. It wasn't any easier for the fair sex, many of whom had to drag heavy buckets of water from distant wells to their homes to use in tedious cooking and cleaning procedures. They made by hand their own family clothes and bake everything from scratch with ingredients they harvest or butcher themselves.
Many of them did this in lonely solitude, without even the comfort of Ellen DeGeneres riffing in the background. Life was dangerous and often endlessly grim.
Today, I'd be hard pressed to think of anyone who works as hard as their grandfathers did. Heck, it's difficult to think of anyone who works as hard as their grandmothers did. I think it's high time we changed Labor Day to leisure Day, a celebration about how much easier life's become.
I'm confused why we still celebrate a day dedicated to working when nearly everyone I know spends his or her time either moaning about having to work or scheming plans that will ensure they get out of having to work. Labor Day just seems anachronistic. Anachronistic in so many ways. The lone example of people who still labor as hard as our forebears are women who, ironically, are engaged in the act of.
[00:03:36] Speaker A: Does it make me any less of a man to confess I'll.
[00:03:38] Speaker C: Be getting an epidural, a spinal relaxing procedure most closely associated with helping women deliver healthy babies? I'm having it done to relieve persistent back pain. Does it make me less of a man? It does not.
[00:03:51] Speaker A: It makes me more of a man. In fact, a more pregnant mandehead.
Ever seen a woman in labor?
[00:04:08] Speaker C: It's impossible to imagine more arduous work. There's sweat, blood, pain, and primal screams in a guttural, voice wrenching ordeal that can last as long as 20 hours. A woman in labor is truly working her butt off. If you ever witnessed a procedure, that phrase is in some ways more descriptive than metaphorical.
[00:04:26] Speaker A: It's.
And that's for women who've been coached.
[00:04:31] Speaker C: By supportive spouses and friends. Some women have neither. My wife had it worst of all, she had me heckling her. It's true. Not wanting to see her lose her edge, I stood there, arms folded, saying things like, don't you think you're being just a tad overdramatic and screaming, enough with all these damn theatrics. Push. Push, you whore. Pushed. If we're going to keep celebrating Labor.
[00:04:53] Speaker A: Day, maybe we should do away with.
[00:04:55] Speaker C: All the picnics, the badminton, the cookouts, and all the other leisure activities. And for at least one day a year, all go to work. We could get together as communities and dig flood controlled drainage ditches, clean up vacant lots, help stabilize the porch railing for the old lady next door, do some actual labor that involves breaking a sweat. It would be a respectful nod to the people who came before us and.
[00:05:17] Speaker A: Help literally pave the way for our.
[00:05:19] Speaker C: Pleasant lives of comparative leisure. Of course, you can still feel free to enjoy your labor day in the traditional way. Laboring on Labor Day is just a suggestion.
[00:05:33] Speaker A: Lori Corbett.
[00:05:34] Speaker B: Eclectic, serene souls appreciate the utter senselessness of trying to change the minds of the mindless perfect.
[00:05:45] Speaker A: This is me telling a group of local business people an Arnold Palmer story for an address I was giving up at St. Vincent College in 2017.
[00:05:54] Speaker D: Gary Player. He was such a rival of Gary players. They were friends and rivals for so long. And Gary Player, in the year 2013, appeared nude on the COVID of ESPN the magazine. And he was about 76 years old at the time, and this was to display what a fit man he was. And I said, mister Palmer, Gary Player is appearing nude on the COVID of ESPN the magazine right now, and he's bragging about his fitness regimen. He says that he never drinks alcohol, never eats bacon, and he does all these push ups. And I said, what's your regimen, Mister Palmer? And I knew it would upset him. He said, he goes, well, I drink a hell of a lot of kettle, one vodka.
And then he started to get back on track. He said, but it's good for people to do what Gary says.
[00:06:36] Speaker A: That's good advice.
[00:06:36] Speaker D: We should all live like that. But I could see it was bothering him. You know, his rival had done this thing, and so he was kind of fidgety. And I asked him the next question. He was distracted. He was just sitting there, kind of edgy, and he got through the question. Then I asked him another question, same thing. He just was kind of like on robotic answer. And then I asked him a fourth question. And in the middle of my asking the fourth question, he said, oh, and Gary player eats bacon when no one's watching.
And then he kind of settled back.
[00:07:05] Speaker A: In his and chair.
[00:07:05] Speaker D: He smiled over Doc Giffen like, I won that one.
[00:07:18] Speaker A: The Lazarus story makes no mention of it, but Lazarus became very unpopular because he eventually died. Again, a typical complaint. Didn't we already go to his funeral? I'm not missing another Steeler game to bury that jackass. I swear, if that guy dies one more time, I'm gonna kill him.
Another NFL season kicks off tomorrow night, and you know what that means? More complaints about over officiating of the game. I have a solution to that that I came up with in 2013.
It's another weekend of the ruling elite infuriating 99% of americans who feel helpless about doing anything in the face of tyrannical oppression. I'm talking about officiating in the NFL. I think we can all agree NFL over officiating is ruining the game. Calls are excessive and confusing. Now. Every scoring play is under review. That makes sense when you realize the next logical step is reviewing goal line plays that don't involve scoring. But upon further review, might have some fans say this is good because getting it right is essential.
[00:08:21] Speaker C: Well, no it isn't.
[00:08:23] Speaker A: If it was, we'd have cameras isolating every single player to ensure they weren't committing an infraction. What's essential is getting as close to right as possible without making the aims last even longer than they already do. You may not have noticed amidst all the beer and truck commercials, but the typical three hour and 15 minutes football broadcast has just eleven minutes of action.
That's right, the Wall Street Journal in 2010 found that the ball is in play for just eleven minutes. That means for every 60 minutes game, we're getting 49 minutes of foreplay.
That's a lot of teasing anticipation for a game that considers itself manly. Speaking of foreplay, let me get to the point. And fear not, this won't take long. I'm one to talk about when it comes to delivering a full eleven minutes of satisfying action.
I have several radical solutions to over officiating. First, get rid of instant replay and all but two officials, one for the offense and one for the defense, and ask the players to agree to play under the honor system.
That means if a player commits a foul, he needs to raise his hand and confess his sins. Then he needs to apologize to the player he's victimized while one of the two referees steps off the penalty yardage.
Introducing a player on our system would flip the culture of showboating and finger pointing on its head and provide exemplary role models for an America's starving.
My friend suggests changing the rules so that the only time a penalty is called is when a player uses both hands. That would eliminate many questionable calls about holding, but this has as much chance of succeeding as does players of conforming to the honor system. Although it would be hilarious to see the reaction to the insufferable goody goody, Roger Goodell announcing the change using just one hand goes against human's nature. He goes against a lineman's nature. We need something to ensure a player can't use either hand in blocking. Yes, we need armless linemen. Every eleven man squad should have five linemen who, for the good of the team, have lost or had team approved doctors sever the limbs above the elbow.
I havent looked into it, but I imagine theres a deep pool of armless and otherwise able bodied men who have fought and sacrificed in our recent wars.
The flag waivers at the NFL would jump on this. They would be giving our disabled vets, a place to excel where we can honor their service and allow them to be shining examples that nothing can stop men so motivated.
And think of what it would do for our fighting forces. Imagine the heroic risk they take on the battlefield if just the right injury might lead to a spot on an NFL roster.
I offer this idea knowing full well it is controversial and will be picked apart by critics who fail to realize the NFL o officiating is killing the game. I'm going to spend the rest of the day trying to resolve some of the more obvious questions, and I promise to get right back to you as soon as I figure out how an armless lineman can bend over and snap a ball between his legs.
Now back to Labor Day.
The story has now become legend and is recounted scornfully whenever I encounter any of the principals or their descendants in public. The details are intended to embarrass. Don't they understand it's impossible to embarrass the man whose entire career has been one long self inflicted embarrassment?
Here's their version of what happened 25 years ago. Val and I lived in a small house that shared a common driveway with two other families that had two teen daughters apiece. One of the women was divorced, the other had still has a great husband, and it was idyllic. We all got along, supplied tools and recipe ingredients, and without fail, we exchanged waves and pleasantries with every encounter. No one ever mentions any of that.
All that's mentioned is the snow. Now, here in western Pennsylvania, winter snow is not uncommon. It wasn't an unusual snow. It wasn't life threatening. No one lost power or had to consider the cannibal option. When the fridge went empty, it was just snow. And as I recall it, it wasn't even winter. It was on the cusp of spring.
Val was working, and I was home alone. And those are circumstances that could apply to most any story involving my wife and I. But one of the neighbor women came up with the grim thought that the adults, the husband wasn't there, and one of the two kiddos ought to clear 125 foot gravel based driveway of snow. The other concurred.
I guess they thought that I, and by default, the alpha lone male, would see them toiling, spring into action and, like the fabled John Henry, that steel driving man, blast a path through the snow spacious enough to accommodate the family jalopies. I don't recall what I did. I may have browsed porn, nursed a hangover, or been enthralled by the Nickelodeon rerun marathon of the Andy Griffith show. What didn't I do? I didn't lift a finger to help the fair damsels out of their self imposed distress. I did, however, lift a different digit. I remember going to the window and giving them the thumbs up for their efforts.
I suspect my thinking was along the lines of my late father, who at some point in the late winter would always surrender his snow shoveling duties and say, with admirable wisdom, the good Lord put it there. The good Lord can take it away.
I must have inherited that mindset from the old man. If I did, it was all I inherited.
[00:13:34] Speaker C: He never earned enough to leave his.
[00:13:35] Speaker A: Impoverished children a single red cent. And they say the apple doesn't fall far from the tree. I mention this story now because there's a sickness racing through the country. People are afraid to be lazy. Chances are you'll correspond with at least five people today, and you'll, out of habit and politeness, ask, hey, how are you doing? And guaranteed, each one of them will respond, busy.
We want people to think that we're.
[00:13:59] Speaker C: Industrious, productive, always on the go go.
[00:14:02] Speaker A: It is exhausting. It's as if we're giving the impression that we have idle time, or some relaxed or unstressed moment is some kind of crime against nature. I yearn to hear someone say they're serene, refreshed, or the best answer of all, horny.
At this point, I must reveal the little conspiracy you and I share.
If either of us ever says we're busy. It's an obvious lie. How so? If you have time to read this far into my blog, you're never truly busy. And if I have time to compose it, well, you want busy? Go back three or four generations. None of us is as busy as our ancestors. Our female ancestors.
Many of our great grandmothers had to lug heavy water pails from the backyard well, chop firewood to heat the water, and break out the gnarled washboards to wash the family duds. Imagine the godsend today's washers and dryers would be to them.
Imagine the godsend today's washers and dryers would be to them. Given the spare time, I doubt they would have spent it, say, washing the family mule. No, they would have likely fixed themselves a turn of the century martini, put their aching feet up, and waited for Ellen to come on. That, by the way, would have been roughly a 95 year wait. They would have reveled in their leisure. They would think our work obsessed culture was insane. If you find yourself pretending you're always busy, I urge you to practice what I call strategic laziness. I deploy at any time I scheme to get out of work I consider unnecessary or otherwise stupid. It's a combination that involves one part reasoning, one part resentment, and three parts delay, delay, delay. It sounds easier than it is. Ironically, avoiding hard work is hard work.
Resisting being goaded into shoveling snow that in one or two days will disappear without my intervention is a perfect example. I reasoned I'd be more comfortable inside rather than outside shoveling snow. I resented the implication that I should.
[00:16:04] Speaker C: Somehow shovel due to some misguided concept of foolish chivalry.
[00:16:08] Speaker A: And because I'd committed to delay, delay, delay, I knew the job would get done without me. And that's just what happened. I wish I could say during those 2 hours I divined some idea that will eventually benefit all mankind. But really, I think all I learned was it's unwise to let Otis, the town drunk, and the Mayberry jail when the dynamite eating goat is in there, too.
Score one. For strategic laziness.
It's necessary because we live at a juncture in history where it's truly possible to be busy around the clock. It just isn't advisable.
I'm Chris Rodell, and this has been your use all the Crayons podcast touching on Laitrobe. While embracing the whole damn planet. I believe I've been steadfast in my vow to see that this podcast gets better and better, both technologically and spiritually, each and every week.
What do you think? Would you prefer a ten minute, 30 minutes or hour long podcast?
And how's the content? Good enough to share with friends?
What do you think about these sound effects? Too many. Do they add or detract interest from our storytelling purposes? You may discuss among yourselves.
Thanks for checking in. We'll be back here next week. Back here in the beguiling Laurel Highlands. Back here in Laitrobe. And those 14 words? Say it with me.
Laitrobe. So special. It's like make believe. So real. It's really special. Believe it.
That's right. It's home.
Colorful living. Tip of the day. Number 824.
You have to be careful and think clearly on this one. It's not easy. I want you to put your thinking caps on.
Ask a brainy six year old to spell rule. Listen. Then say, you know my name is not Ellie. Now spell rule. Repeat.
I'm gonna have to give you the answer to this one. Spell rule. R U l e. I'm not l e. Now spell rule. R U l E. Stop calling me Ellie.
[00:18:40] Speaker C: John Jamison retired sheep farmer.
My colorful living tip of the day is learn the fine art of knowing.
[00:18:53] Speaker D: Precisely when to quit.
[00:18:55] Speaker A: Thank you.
[00:18:56] Speaker C: Yes.
