The Berenstain Bears learn about sound economic policy

I knew it!  I just knew that I hadn't imagined this.  A cartoon from 37 years that I saw only once ago and I still remember it!

Around the mid-Eighties there was an animated series based on the beloved Berenstain Bears children's books.  The show ran on Saturday mornings on CBS.  It was pretty good as I seem to recall.  And often quite humorous.

Well, the other day one of the episodes sprang to mind as I was reading the news about the latest attempt to avoid a government shutdown.  It involved the Bear kiddies learning all about money.  How those little green pieces of paper don't have value on their own.  Instead they must be backed up by something with real tangible worth.  In the bears' world this happens to be the purest honey in existence.  Without that backing, as the kids' father puts it there would be total chaos.

In other words: fiat currency is a very terrible thing for a society to have.

This is wise economics from a nearly forty year old animated cartoon made for youngsters.  Even a child can understand the enormity of it.

If only more people had grasped the concept.  This country would not be headed toward the disaster it is hellbent on achieving.  It is indeed chaos and there is not going to be any avoiding it.

Here is the episode: "Raid On Fort Grizzly".  Well worth watching.

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EEEEEEEEEEEEK!!!

 All this time for the past several years I've been trying to write a book.  About my life especially regarding the impact manic depression has had on it.

I've been working on a number of bits and pieces of it, going back and forth on those.  But there has never been a "plan" per se.  I've been assembling fragments but this project lacked structure.  I was stumbling around without a clearly defined plot.

For a very long time, going back even to before I left my hometown and set out across America, I've been trying to crack the basic outline for my book.  It has been something that has driven me crazy... well, you know what I mean (I hope).

I haven't had the shape of it.

Until today.

I finally cracked it.

Like a bolt out of the blue it hit me late this morning.  Maybe God was waiting to show it to me.  Perhaps I needed to be in a better place before I could be shown this.

Hot dang.  This is going to get made.  It's going to work.

I think that this is going to become something very special.

The first draft of the outline is now a Microsoft Word document.  Chapters and sections are already falling into place.

Working title of part one: "The Page", but that may change.  This is still very early.

My confidence just got a major boost.  Lord willing, I'm really going to be able to do this.

Okay, me go celebrate now.  Tonight's dinner: pepperoni pizza with a good helping of sriracha sauce (the original from Huy Fong).

So stoked now.  I'm looking forward to sharing it with others.  This is gonna be KEWL...

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Latest "episode" of my new video series

Still very early in this endeavor. Right now I am mostly working on camera angles, lighting, a better intro sequence... and my own presentation.  I used to publicly speak better than I do now and I have to wonder if the meds I take to manage my manic depression might have taken some of that away.  But there's no way to improve without jumping in and DOING it.  Perhaps I will indeed improve with time.

Anyway, here's the latest episode.  In which among other things I reveal my nearly forty years-old quest to obtain an object I've had my heart set on from the moment I saw it.  Lord willing that my book sells, I hope to get one.

Aaaand, on with the show!

 

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The Knight Shift turns TWENTY!

 Twenty years ago today, on January 2nd 2004:

"Here we go, fast and furious..."

I'll be honest: I really never thought this blog would make it past the first year or so,  It would be something for me to play around with and then I'd get bored and abandon it.

This has not happened yet.

I think The Knight Shift fulfilled a need in my life.  To actively chronicle the human condition of this one very peculiar individual.  That has been a thing of evolution, that I can't but be impressed by as I look at many of the thousands of posts I've made over the years.  Especially those early ones.  I was much more writing about politics then, for one thing.  Today, not so much.  I can put it no plainer than this: politics is one thing that I have grown bored with.  I'm more of an ideas man, not an ideologies man.  Although lately the desire to be more proactive about that has been growing in my mind.

Well here this blog is, twenty years old today.  When it began I was 29 years old, married, about to be diagnosed with a mental condition, trying to make my first movie, still full of "piss and vinegar".  Today I'm about to turn fifty, writing a book about life with that same condition, am unfortunately divorced (but still hopeful for that kind of happiness), have made a number of movies and recently started writing the story for a new one, and I think I've inadvertently become more seasoned.  The Knight Shift has touched upon all of that and more.  Including but not limited to: movie reviews, recipes, documenting a run for public office, taking on a major corporation, shared the thoughts and turmoils of being a manic depressive, took an extended respite and came back to write about being on the road across America for over a year, posted lots of pics of my miniature dachshund Tammy, shared the loss of loved ones, celebrated the gaining of new ones, and... well, you get the idea.

I'm hoping and praying that this blog will continue for another 37 years at least.  I want to write about seeing Halley's Comet for the second time in my life.  The first was a disappointment.  Would love to make up for that.  A much better appearance of Halley would make a fine place to retire this blog on.

But in the meantime I'm counting on God to continue to provide new ideas, new experiences, new people from which to draw writing inspiration from.  I'll be honest, this site took a blow after Dad passed.  I lost a lot of drive about many things.  But I like to think the old mojo is coming back.  So long as there's even just one reader, I'm going to do my best to make this a site worth visiting.  You have my promise on that.

So Happy Twentieth Anniversary to The Knight Shift!  I'm looking forward to seeing what the next twenty years will bring :-)

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Tammy's decoy

Last night Tammy, my miniature dachshund, got on the sofa.  And she brought along one of her Christmas toys: a plush dachshund toy, which came courtesy of my cousin Lauryn and her husband.

So she got up under her blanket, on my lap, and I noticed that she and her toy each had their tale protruding out:

Which one is Tammy??  In real life it really does look like there are two dogs in my lap.

It doesn't help resolve matters that the toy is almost precisely the same size as Tammy.  She could make serious trouble if she wants to :-D

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Twelve Years Later: Forgiving Mom

The realization hit me this morning that today is the twelfth anniversary of Mom's passing.

 

I've written about her before, here.  Maybe too much.   Sometimes all the hurt and anguish builds up and demands, even needs a vent.  Some people do that with art.  Or going out for a drive.  I learned a long time ago that I can't paint and I'm a threat to everyone on the road if I'm not in the right state of mind for driving.

 

I guess, I'm writing this to note how much my attitude toward Mom has changed in the past year or so.

 

There is no forgetting the things she did.  I can still hear her screaming "You're retarded!" at me.  The beatings.  The humiliations, often in front of friends (mine or hers).  Her telling me I wouldn't count for anything, and how much I believed her and maybe still believe on some level.  The list goes on.

 

I don't even know if I ever got a sincere loving hug from her.  She may have thought I was too deformed, too broken: the result of a birth that almost ended in my death and that close family insist made me mentally defective.

 

No, there is no forgetting those and more.  Mom had, as a dear friend put it, "a kernel of cruelty".

 

But in the past year or so, something has happened that surprises me as much anyone...

 

I've begun to forgive her.

 

It's not complete. Not yet. But maybe that's coming.

 

I've gradually started to let go of my anger and hatred toward her.  Have stopped letting it dominate my life, for the most part.   Maybe, even, coming to sympathize with her a little.

 

Because she was NOT all bad.  She did work hard to provide our family with food and clothing.  She also worked so that my sister and I would benefit from a private school education.  And there was never a bad Christmas, when Mom and Dad were behind it.  We always got nice presents from Santa that morning.

 

Mom did have her sweet moments, too.  They were so sporadic as to be complete surprises.  A few times she would come home from work, and having stopped at the Eden Mall along the way to get some things, and she would have a new Transformer toy for me (I so loved those little guys).  There were times when she surprised us with Domino's pizza for dinner.

 

I can't unfairly account for her bad, without doing likewise with her good.

 

Perhaps I must be content to resort to believing thus: that Mom was a very complicated person, who sometimes let the worst come out but was also capable of good.  That's the best I'll probably ever get to have on this side of the veil.

 

In her final year, she did once say something about how she had treated me at times.  Telling me that "wasn't the real me".  I've thought long and hard about that.  Was it just a lie, one of many that she told me over the years?   I don't know. I'll never know.   But like I just said, that's likely the best I'll ever get.  The closest to a real apology from her. I've got to do my best to accept it.

 

Nothing good she did will completely erase the hurt. But I can choose to overlook those, for sake of allowing myself to love the woman who, for good or bad, did bring me into the world.

 

Maybe writing this and sharing these thoughts will bring me closer to closure. And perhaps these words will resonate with others, who likewise are having a hard time letting go of anger and bitterness. I can tell you that forgiving someone can be a very hard thing. But it really will bring you a freedom that you've never known.

 

If I can forgive my mother, then anyone can forgive... and be forgiven.

 

 

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Christmas 2023: Return of a Tradition

To be honest, I don't know if I should do this.  It seems like it would be more ideal to bring this back during a better Christmas.

But when would that be?  We aren't guaranteed a tomorrow, much less a holiday that could be years from now.

It's like this: for a very long time, every year in the days before Christmas, I would post an article that I wrote for my college's newspaper, in 1998.  A few weeks ago was the twenty-fifth anniversary of it getting published.  When I started this blog some years after college, that essay seemed like a good thing to make a holiday tradition out of.

I just checked and the last time I did that was in 2013.  Ten whole years ago.

In 2013 I was recently back home from spending a week in voluntary commitment to a psychiatric facility, because of depression.  Well, a few other things that preceded that too, that had also really hit home.  I don't know how I managed to eke out the tradition that year.

And then in 2014, Dad passed away just before Thanksgiving.  There was no keeping the tradition after that.

Since then I've struggled to keep the blog going at times, occasionally wondering what is the point of it.  But I always seem to make myself realize that this is, as it always has been, a chronicle of the human condition, seen through the eyes of one particular and peculiar person.  With all his strengths and weaknesses, warts and all.

And then there was my picking up stakes and traveling across America, looking for a new place to hang my hat.  It was a quest that brought my dog Tammy and I all the way to California.  That didn't work out so friends invited us to stay with them in South Carolina for awhile.  Now I'm living in a real home, and have had a serious career under my belt.  Unfortunately the current economy made me have to look for other work.  Which is very sad, because I truly loved my job at the Department of Mental Health.

 Well, I guess... things could be much worse.  Despite circumstances there is still a roof over our heads, food on the table, a car that still runs.  Tammy and I are together and Lord willing will be for many more years to come.

And for the first time in a very long time, definitely since before the worst of the manic depression cranked up in stark earnest, I've found an abiding faith in God again.

I suppose if nothing else, that by itself qualifies the return of the tradition this year.

So here it is, for the first time in a decade.  And with that I am going to take a few days off from blogging.  Allow myself a period of reflection and consideration, as much as might be possible.  Maybe it will be a season in which I can draw further close to God.  I would really like that.

Until next time, Merry Christmas.  And now...

 

 

 Originally published in The Pendulum, Elon University, 12/03/1998

Celebrating the Christmas season means celebrating the memories

Chris Knight
Columnist

 
     Some of the best memories that we take through life are about the times we cherish the most. And sometimes, it doesn’t take much to bring back the joy.

     Last Friday as I was driving around Greensboro, the all-time coolest Christmas song ever came over the speakers.

     Who knows what this genius recording artist’s name is? Does it really matter? Whoever he is, he’ll forever be remembered as giving us the immortal sound of “Dogs Singing Jingle Bells”:

 
Arf arf arf,
Arf arf arf,
Arf Arf Whoof Whoof Whuf…

 
     Ahh... you know how it goes.

     And there’s the ever-beuh-beuh-beauh-beautiful rendition of Porky Pig singing “Blue Christmas” and the Chipmunks and of course “Weird Al” Yankovic’s “Christmas at Ground Zero,” but hearing those dogs singing “Jingle Bells...” ahhhhh.

     It brought me back to the very first time I heard that: on the radio coming back from school just before Christmas in 1982. I was in third grade at the time. And it brought back memories of the Christmas we had.

     It was cold and very cloudy. I remember that because Santa had brought me a telescope and I didn’t get to use it that night. Which wasn’t too big a worry, ‘cause me and my sister had our brand-new Atari 2600 to play with!

     Another Christmas memory: To this day, I’ll never forgive Anita for the pounding she gave me in “Combat.” I don’t care how fancy Sega or the Playstation get... they’ll never touch the 4-bit pleasures of the Atari!

     There have been many a Christmas since then, and I remember each one well, for all the little things they had with them.

     I’ll never forget Mom and Dad taking me and my sister to see Santa Claus at the mall in ‘84. That morning Dad asked if I’d come with him to cut firewood, so we rode the tractor into the woods. There had been snow earlier in the week, which lay around us in the crisp, cold morning.

     Dad also brought his 30-30 rifle, why I still don’t know. After we had the wood loaded, Dad asked if I wanted to try shootin’ the gun.

     There I was, a ten-year old kid, holding what looked like an anti-aircraft cannon in my tiny hands. Well, I aimed at this tree like Dad told me to, and pulled the trigger.

     To this day I cannot describe the colors that flashed before my eyes, or the sound in my ears. When my existence finally returned, I was flat on my back in the snow, and blood was gushing from between my eyes where the scope had hit my nose from the backfire.

     That night Santa saw the bandages and said “Ho ho hoooo, and what happened to you, little fellow?”

     “I got shot, Santa,” was the only thing I knew to say.

     Hey, was I gonna lie to the Big Man? Uh-uh, no way was I gonna lose all that loot!

     The following year’s Christmas I remember for many things, but especially feeding the young calves on our farm. It would be the last year our family would be running a dairy farm, and I had started helping with some of the work around the barn.

     Dad set up a Christmas tree in the milking room, with wrapped-up boxes beneath it.

     Tinsel hung from the front doors of the barn. And there was something about the feel of the place there, that has always held a special place in my heart, as if we knew that there would not be another Christmas like this one.

     I wish there had been another Christmas on the farm, because there’s something I wish I could have seen. And as silly as some people might find this, I really believe that it happens.

     You see, if you go out at midnight on Christmas Eve, you will see all the animals in the farmyard, and in the fields, and in the forests, and wherever else they may be, stop where they are.

     And then they kneel.

     They kneel in remembrance for another night, long ago. It was Christmas, but how many people could know it then?

     Nothing remarkable, to be sure: Caesar had decreed a census through the land, and each man went with his family to his town.

     One man in particular took his wife, a young woman quick with child. But there was no room for them at the inn. So that night, in a dirty and filthy stable and surrounded by animals, a child was born.

     You see, it’s easy for us to forget. At this time of the year, we are too overwhelmed by the consumption and the material and the glitter and all the customs that come with Christmas.

     And it’s too easy for us to forget that Christmas is, before everything else, a birthday.

     But the animals, who watched over Him as He lay as a newborn babe, two millenia ago... the animals have not forgotten.

     And so they kneel every Christmas and give glory to the newborn king, and in awe that God would send His Son to live among us in the greatest act of love.

     And to teach us many things, but especially to “love one another”. And to bridge the gap between man and God.

     The birth of Jesus Christ: the greatest Christmas present there will ever be. His birth, which would give mankind the greatest present it could ever ask for.

     Who in the world on that night could know the price that this present would someday have?

     Heaven and Earth sang praises to His glory on that night. The animals have always remembered that night. And Heaven and Earth still praise and sing unto Him.

     And if you only take a little time out from how busy things become at this part of the year, you can hear the singing, too. And it is a great temptation to join in that chorus.

     And perhaps in hearing, we will not forget the real meaning of Christmas, either.

     This Christmas Eve night I plan to be outside, with the same telescope that I got for Christmas all those years ago, and trying to envision a bright star over Bethlehem. Around midnight, I’m going to take a walk over to my aunt’s farm.

     Merry Christmas. Peace on Earth, and goodwill toward men.

Dedicated to the memory of W.C. “Mutt” Burton, for whom Christmas was always “In My Bones.”

 

 

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