The Arrogance of Ignorance 

Lack of knowledge, learning, information, etc. is a broad definition of ignorance. Ignorance seems to pervade our country- big time- these days. Once, at the beginning of our country, when settlers were on the move, self preservation was the driving thrust of existence. Kill or be killed was the coin of the realm with survival knowledge and good luck, working in unison, to secure a safer future. 

But, as settlers developed communities they sought the strengths brought by immigrants from European heritages to their new homes as they grew more civilized. Knowledge through learning was a key stone of this new structure, as was, the rule of law. 

Arrogance is an offensive display of superiority or self-importance, overbearing pride. Certainly some gun slingers fit this description but, as more and more moved west, slinger's gusto was not equal to the stories told about them. 

Harbored in the ghettoes of this World at this present time, a couple decades into the 21st Century, are pockets of deeply underserved citizens who have been been left behind. They lack the mental tools to lift them away from their plight and, more and more, cause their offspring to have a similar cross to bear. Ignorance, in the 21st Century, is a plague, a self inflicted plague, as well as, a plague orchestrated by the moneyed and powerful who see the effects of poor education but yet seem to ignore its causes. 

This truly is an example of "The Arrogance of Ignorance" bright and clear. Will we ever correct the conditions bringing ignorance to too many ? But, a more insidious result is surfacing in our World. More and more a dumbed down populous is satisfied with being awash in the throws of ignorance. They, by their attitude, allow the oligarchs to pidgin hole them into servitude, and worst of all, their offspring are drug down with them. The Lord of the Castle now has a serfdom to rule over, an intergenerational serfdom. 

 First, we should aggressively ferret out those in control who, though educated, are the perpetrators of this inequity. In them lies the scourge of arrogance, of overbearing pride. Secondly, we must have pre-kindergarten through four years of college as a goal for all citizens on this planet. And, the best and brightest must be chosen by each country to lead this endeavor in their respective countries. Not a want but education is a need to stamp out ignorance. It is a battle and must be fought as it was a war. 

Ronald C. Downie

What's In A Name

Forever, in all my 82 years, I've been watching the by-lines, credit lines, for movies and anywhere else names were listed that I could read to find the name Downie listed. Yes, I did find Leonard Downie, executive Editor of The Washington Post, before he retired from the post. He's not a relative.

All of a sudden, while watching channel 507, abc, this evening just after 6pm, a piece on Phillippi Creek Estates was aired and a commentator for The Estates was named Heather Downie the same name Connie, my wife, and I named our oldest daughter. Heather, an elementary grade school teacher at Lincoln, is renovating the old homestead on Evans to live there where she and her siblings grew up and attended Pottstown Schools through graduation. 

I did find Uncle Malcolm's linage up in New England and have corresponded with them. Alexander, my Dad, had three younger brothers : Malcolm, Andrew, and Hugh. I've lost contact with both Andrew's offspring, as well as, Hugh's. My recollection is that his youngest brother, Hugh, moved many score years ago to Florida with his family still intact. Maybe, Heather Downie is an offspring of Hugh's family, far fetched at best, but is a Nobel thought.

Few and far fetched are people named "Downie" that I've come across. Somebody once told me Downie is derived from the term "crooked nose". Could be true in my case since I was, in my hay days, a real rugged character. My farmer's strength came naturally to me and I exhibited it more than once in the early days. 

My favorite professor, my brother Andrew, has passed and our quarter of the family's linage rests in his and mine offspring. I got an idea where Malcolm's are and maybe even Uncle Andrew's whose only child was a son Andrew like my brother. Young Andrew we believed to be living  in Red Bank, NJ. So, if the Downie connection is maybe our family, it would probably be my Uncle Hugh's offspring. 

For an old bastard like me this is a good way to spend an afternoon thinking about family. It was merely a few seconds on the television screen that took me here. At 82, what else do you think I can do ?

Ronald C. Downie

Looking for a  Swamp Hog

Looking back, I vividly see my senior high school years when the school was situated on Penn Street between Chestnut and Walnut St's during the early 1950's. Neat being downtown for most kids but, I lived in Lower Pottsgrove on North Keim Street a couple miles from school, so most every thing required extensive walking to attend anything extracurricular. Walking, when in your teens, was just a fact of life which consumed some time. 

The Swamp Hogs was a high school recreation league basketball team informally lead by Ed Gibble, yes, the same Eddie Gibble who is the Prudential Insurance man. Games were played in the basement of the High School along Penn Street in a large, high ceilinged room we schoolers took our gym classes in. It was outfitted for basketball by having standard 10 foot high baskets at either end and a modicum of traditional lines, though awfully faded, painted on the floor. Out of bounds was generally called if the basketball touched a wall, in fact, the area was better used for dodge ball which we constantly played in our gym classes without incurring any out of bounds. It didn't matter wether a player or a ball bounced off the walls, the game continued on.

Today, from Washington, DC., comes the chant of "the draining the swamp" by the president. I guess, meaning : cleaning out the people varmints living there who are living off the excesses which seems to permeate life in our Capitol. A study of news these days sort of indicates D.C. is overrun with swamp hogs, swamp rats, swamp snakes, and swamp 'gaters all wallowing in the muddy waters of our present political system. 

Back in high school, I never thought the steward young men I played against would have to carry a derogatory name at these last stages of their lives. Being  a Swamp Hog back then was an honor just because it was a super name, very descriptive. Even to this date Eddie, a super salesman, promoted Swamp Hogs his whole life, more in jest these days than in reality. Never did he think the nature of swamps would change especially in the derogatory way it has been demeaned these days. 

Yes, I believe the Swamp must be drained and the first to be flushed down the drain would be the perpetrator of the idea. Remember, you have to cut off the head of any varmint you wish to eliminate. Swamp Hogs were a good bunch of guys but the guys I played with on my team were good too. The trouble is, I've forgotten my team's name and players' names to old age since we didn't have a memorable name like "Swamp Hogs" that you can't forget. For olden time's sake !

Ronald C. Downie, Class of 1953

Curb Appeal 

Street curbs are designed to contain the street and its users. The majority of street trash accumulates there in the curb line for sweepers like Daisy Paolucci and other town persons who feel civic responsibility for a clean town. They broom sweep even though the town contracts truck born sweepers to clean the streets. These, town civic minded sweepers, have a calling rather than a duty placed on them by others. 

Curb lines have quite a history. Back, before passable alleys, all garbage collections were situated there. Every type of container was used before the borough tried its hand at imposing standardization. Remember, in olden days, every household burnt coal as wood availability declined, in either case, both created volumes of ash which were put out at the curb as part of the trash cycle. Then, the country grew up and packaging became a volume trash maker for everything bought from stores and shippers. More and more trash created as, just in time, alleys where considered important and trash disappeared from view - out of sight, out of mind.

I remember from my early years, about out site seeing, with dad driving us through a town and seeing very large piles of furniture stacked on the curb line for a house and I asked about why this was. Dad assured us that incidences like this had diminished greatly since the wrath of the Great Depression had about its run course in the late years of the 1930's. Evictions were life episodes, although diminishing, life lines were fragile, at best, and many ceased at the curb line. The Great World War changed the way Americans reacted to life. Curative, full employment, was a pill for social ills.

For Sale, For Lease, For Rent - signs became common place ; the curb line became more prominent as a function in the design of streets and, finally, assumed their rightful place in a borough's landscape.

My thoughts, though, bring me back to youthful feelings about the roll of curbs. Too often I squint faces into the piles of disposed furniture from evictions long forgotten. Will this happen again ? Will citizens be marginalized again from their inability to pay for housing or for basic healthcare ? Will the funnel remain reversed and draw all increased income from the American engine of production up, away from the producers, into the deepening pockets of our oligarchs ? 

Will curb lines up north become clogged with the destitute population as it has down here on the sun coast of Florida ? How will the old, the in firmed, the immobile be treated ? I know, I'll expire shortly, so don't cry for me, save your tears for those with few resources, who have to live life out there behind a tree. 

Ronald C. Downie 

Spanish Point

In coastal waters, early man sought food

Delivered by tides that rose and then fell ; 

Almost like a huge organism breathing, 

Unless upset, by storm induced fury.

Shellfish by the buckets, the earthen mounds 

Sing out loudly to our generations.

Facts needn't be expressed only on paper.

Unwittingly, "The Assent Of Man" strides.

Did sunsets enter into early life ?

Did early natives begin drum circles ?

Did they hollow out logs for their canoes ?

Life evolves, goes on, believing in self.  

Seeking answers from ancestors long gone.

Who lived their lives suppressing wants, while needs,

Pressed each day's hours seeking eatables.

Existing, they survive today by deeds 

Unaware of their affects left behind.

No Bible was written about them, then.

Inquisitive, modern man scales the walls 

Recording what he thinks about the past.

Ronald C. Downie

May Day, May Day, May Day !!!

Not lately, do I see colorful crepe 

Paper steamers twirling in sun warmed air, 

Hung from a tall flag pole, centered out front.

Music's a must, if not a radio, records. 

Through the magic of memory, many

Years disappear, seventy-five long ones. 

The golden time of youthful impression,

Elementary school, up there, top the  hill.

May First, May Day, somewhere begins summer,

Somewhere, end of winter. Pivotal day

In the scheme of seasons, not calendar. 

Hair combed, the girls interweave the streamers.

Grumbling, the boys reluctantly pitch in,

As teachers play conductor-director.

All look forward to that last bell, "School's Out".

Time, as a vine, withers as it's climbing.

Young impressionable days dissipate 

Into the far off zephyrs of heaven.

Lost, but to be resurrected for thee, 

By me, pulled from temporal recesses.

Ronald C. Downie

5/1/2017