RoadsideOnline

When I recently wrote the "Help NOT Wanted blog", I was inspired by my very own avocation.

The fact that I forgot to include "writer" among the crafts disappearing as real vocations is a further indication that my memory also appears to be disappearing. No matter. Let's consider it now, because it's one I believe is particularly sad, and not just because its disappearance affects me personally.

Many people will claim that the internet has created more opportunities for writers than there ever has been. But that's like saying there are more opportunities for chefs than ever and use as an example that more people are cooking for themselves. Yes, I agree that blogs and forums provide wonderful opportunities for people to express themselves, opportunities that once didn't exist. But the craft of writing, as practiced by those who tried to understand and employ its subtleties and use them carefully to maximum affect, no longer is rewarded at anywhere close to a degree that any writers can earn even a meager living doing it.

It's sobering to consider in a time of high unemployment that not only jobs but entire occupations disappear every day. We can hope that the jobs come back, but many occupations never will.

I guess that's the nature of progress, and they (the ubiquitous "they") tell us that new jobs are being created to replace the old ones. But what is worrisome here, in this land of Mom 'N Pop Culture, is the quality and meaning of these new occupations as compared to the disappearing ones. Particularly sad from the standpoint of the quality of our lives are the artisans who must face how progress - to use that term, if not sarcastically, at least loosely - has negated the value of their arts. Consider the following occupations. I mourn the loss of these honorable and sometimes ancient crafts.

Musician: I commented on the state of the music industry in my recent blog, "Worth Listening," but it's worse than the fact that everybody inside and outside the music industry seems preoccupied with the next big thing at the expense and so many perfectly wonderful little things. Yes, this is the phenomenon that gives us Lady Gaga and the idea that how wildly performers dress becomes more important than whether they have anything to actually say - not to mention any talent for saying it.

I'm warning you. I'm about to write on a subject important to me that you might dismiss as not only entirely uninteresting but as having nothing to do with Mom N' Pop Culture. But please bear with me, because I believe this subject serves as a perfect microcosm of the larger subject this blog was created to discuss.

I'm into auto racing. Have been since as far back as I can remember. I liked racing before the sport hit the major leagues. I didn't realize the niche it occupied back then, mostly because back then I was occupying a pretty small niche myself. I was a kid. My interests were about what interested me, the concepts of niches, mainstreams and every other measures of popularity foreign to a self-absorbed child.

My interest in racing remains, and I don't make a secret of it. And almost every time somebody learns of my interest in the sport, they seem to consider racing from their own point of view and question how I could ever (being an apparently intelligent, interesting adult human-being) stand to sit and watch "cars going around in circles for hours."

"It's boring," they'll declare.

"I agree," I'll agree.

And they'll look at me funny.

I just realized I never provided an update on my computer-lesson, as related last month right here in Mom ‘N Pop Culture.

I won’t rehash the details. You can find that a few entries down this blog, so to speak. Suffice it to say my misadventures trying to buy a computer from Sears ended up happily. Gary at Tech Direct in Johnston, RI, set me up with a computer he assembled himself that allowed me to continue using all the software and peripherals I’d been using for years but with higher speed and "enhanced internet capabilities." It’s got a floppy-drive so I can still refer to old articles and stories from time to time. I’m writing this on my faithful old Word Perfect program. I have my printer hooked up through a new-fangled port, the name of which I forgot because stuff like that just isn’t very important to me, and the scanner connected through the old style "parallel printer" port because sooner or later even that uninteresting title got through to my gray matter (See me in about five years for the name of that printer cable).

I even get to keep using my little sports-car mouse, even though it, too, plugs in like an ancient phone (one of which I also still use, as a matter of fact).

I also have a wire running about 40 feet through three rooms and behind my wife’s desk to the "wireless remote" that sits on it. I love the irony of that. Furthermore, Gary advised I avoid the wireless adaptors that previously drove me bonkers if I could, as a cable simply was more reliable. It has been.

No, I didn’t cut up the Sears card. I still like their tools and the store closest to where I work employs these old guys in the tool department who actually know what they’re talking about. Hey, it’s good to see they found work. And Sears gave me a full refund, no questions asked, it’s only fair to report. Of course, as I’d made a payment in the meantime, now they owe me money. Talk about good credit.

Hey! DSL! That was a quick five years!

If you want to live in a walkable community you could do worse than to move to the town of Putnam.

Putnam sits hard against Rhode Island as part of what Connecticut likes to call its "Quiet Corner," the state’s northeastern region. This is a beautiful part of Connecticut, far removed by more than distance from where the state shares the grime and gloom of New York City. The Quiet Corner of Connecticut is made up mostly of rolling rural hills, quaint New England villages, the occasional private boarding school and some of the most scenic roads in America.

It’s easy to imagine that Putnam once was the center of commerce for the region. Its small downtown flanking the Quinebog River is filled with solid brick buildings and surrounded by giant porched and gabled homes, many long-ago subdivided into apartments as prosperity left the town behind.