When it was determined that I needed a psychologist, at the ripe old age of eight, my mother seemed filled with pride and joy. It was the 70’s, after all, and not only was she in counseling, but for the most part so were her colleagues, friends, and the community at large. As a kid from Los Angeles, “therapy” was as much a verb as a noun and “being in analysis” or “seeing your shrink” was considered sort of a cool thing to do.
What little boy does not dream of becoming a king: where fire breathing dragons and fair and beautiful damsels await our rescue, intervention and response? They tucked us into the covers at night, those creatures we called our parents, whispering into our dreams, impressionable minds and destinies. And for every bedtime story told, there is a commensurate community, neighborhood or culture that looks somehow just that way drawn up from the masterful plans of our childhood memories.
America the Beautiful wasn’t built merely on pride, grit or a pious call to freedom. In fact, these attitudes are common among the working class and those, in particular, who’ve found themselves on the wrong end of history. Rather, it was built upon a random, yet to be discovered, and practically stumbled upon commodity known as - petroleum.
My grandfather, Don E. Ashworth, was a banker. In fact, in addition to being the Comptroller for the Golden Gate Hotel and Casino in Las Vegas, he was also one of the co-founders of the Nevada State Bank; which over half a century later remains the largest state-chartered commercial bank in Nevada. Entering the work force at the onset of the Great Depression, Gramp, a self-taught accountant, extolled the virtue of education, eulogized the benefits of hard work, and through his example thus epitomized the look and feel of success to a privileged and enterprising posterity.
Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon
He was China’s first and perhaps most formidable traveling salesman. From the 2nd century BC, in fact, Zhang Qian set forth to canvas Central Asia and to promote and sell China’s products and services to the world. And as he carved out a sort of Superhighway of Strip Malls across Asia, he subsequently opened new markets thus restoring the modern-day People’s Republic of China to the single most powerful nation on earth!
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It was my favorite ride at Disneyland. And for the price of a coveted E-Ticket, I could ride and sing along to Walt Disney’s largest audio-animatronic project to date, The Pirates of Caribbean, which has sent an estimated 600 million young buccaneers sailing through its caverns since 1965. In fact, the California attraction has been duplicated in Orlando, Paris, and Toyko making it the single most visited amusement park attraction in the world.
I loved to play school. Not actually attend school, mind you, but to exchange the reality I knew for make-believe curricula, imaginary students, and a magical classroom of my very own. Here, in the quiet of the afternoon, is where I could profess to be more than I was, deny the convention of the world I knew, and to pretend, invent, and ultimately play to a more perfect world.
The Berlin Wall: A Gift with Purchase
I first came into contact with the Berlin Wall, believe it or not, at the Estee Lauder counter at Macy’s New York City Department Store. My purchase of $35.00 (or more) entitled me to a “Free Gift” which included Super Luxurious Face Wash, a Red Dreamy Lipstick, a Travel Tote, and, last but not least, a tiny piece of the Berlin Wall.
He was so magnificent and so noble. The ancient sun god, Ra, ruler of the sun, sky and earth, appeared during Egypt’s Second Dynasty and some 3000 years before the birth of Christ to proffer rain and flood the riverbanks of the Nile. The subsequent harvest of wheat and flax was a staple of the famine starved Middle East, and ultimately the commodity sustaining Egypt’s economy at home and abroad.
At the beginning of the Great Depression, more than 20% of all Americans worked on farms. Indeed, it took 1/5 the US population to produce enough food for the country. Developments in agriculture, however, were gaining momentum. Genetics and machines combined to create better seeds, fertilizers and the mechanization of modern farming practices. Today, as a result, it takes less than 2% of the population to produce more food than Americans’ could possibly ever consume.
