WITHOUT A HOOK

I play with words, have been for so long I can’t put my finger on when it began. I play with words like my kids used to play with matchbox cars. One car was not enough, they needed a tool box full of little toy cars, trucks, busses, ambulances, tractors and wagons that fit their little hands. They needed them all. It if wasn’t in hand it was parked strategically in a special spot on the carpet or the hard wood floor. On the floor between beds in the twins room I put down roads with masking tape, used wooden blocks for houses and barns. In the kitchen you could hear motors and highway sounds coming down the hall from upstairs. Then there was a cookie tin full of matchbox cars for outside in the dirt. The standard posture for playing their game was lying on your side, one arm propping up your head leaving the other to move the cars. Those motor sounds were wonderful. It meant they were not drawing on the walls with magic markers or any number of other cute but dire diversions. 

I don’t have to keep my toys in a cookie tin. They are part of my operating system, inside my head. My vocabulary isn’t all that grand but as a writer, it is adequate for my need and I default to the thesaurus when the cupboard is bare. Therein; my vocabulary has grown slowly over half a century. But: . . . always the ‘But’. I read once that ‘But’ is not the conjunction as we’ve been led to believe, rather it is an acronym. The letters B, U & T stand for, “Behold the Underlying Truth”. So if you ask to borrow money and I say, “I would like to, but: (behold the underlying truth) you won’t get any money from me.” But with age, cutting straight to the truth, comes memory issues. The inability to come up with the right word or expression compounds with age. Sooner or later the words or phrase they do come to you but just the same, if you can’t have the word you want, the word you own, when you want it, it’s like fishing without a hook and it certainly does make one feel like you’re losing your edge.

I have a word today I want to play with. I like to think I own it but frequently have trouble pulling it up. Can you imagine Roy Rogers reaching for his six-shooter but it gets stuck in the holster and the bad guys wait for him to finish his draw before they open fire. Right! Maybe I don’t own it after all. Today’s word is ‘Anecdotal’. Great word, maybe even necessary when weighing in on someone’s argument. Anecdotal is an adjective that refers to evidence or the weight of an example with its role in a cause/effect situation. It is what you remember or heard someone say but it only has a frequency of 1. An example would be; someone’s grandmother drank whiskey and smoked cigarettes every day, all of her adult life and lived to be 103. It questions the harmful effects of smoke and drink as they relate to long life. That example is ‘anecdotal’.  Even if the story is true, a single occurrence that has not been tested cannot substantiate a universal truth. I hang out with a small group of pretty heady characters who meet regularly. We watch documentaries and educational programs that deal with history, philosophy, economics and human behavior then discuss the issues that have been stirred up. My unofficial role in the process is the “Gong-master”. When someone defaults to an anecdotal argument; “I am the way I am because I ate worms when I was little . . . .” I raise my hand and everybody knows I’m about to “Gong” the violating anecdote. 

Anecdotes can be simple examples intended to entertain or clarify through story and not as evidence. Retelling how Uncle Al dropped his drawers at Christmas dinner; that’s an entertaining anecdote. Sometimes when I summon one word I get another. I’m reaching for the word, ’anecdotal,’ and what does my brain send down to my mouth; ’coincidental’. I don’t know how that works. Other times I just hit a dead end, like fishing without a hook. I hope this writing exercise will help imprint ‘anecdotal’ in my recall. 

As I’ve been typing, another word came to mind. I didn’t need it, had no use for it, sort of like when the cat brings a dead snake in the house for your approval.  The word is ‘Vroum’. In past years an auto maker, car company used ‘Vroum’ as their buzz word in their advertising campaign. It suggests excitement and high performance, makes sporty cars even more appealing. It was good marketing but I like other cars sounds better. Back in the 1970’s my kids taught me ‘Rrrr-mmm’ and ‘Uummmmmm’ and they were as good as it gets. The underlying truth here is, that I am being anecdotal and it doesn’t prove anything. Still, the other underlying truth is that it's for the sake of story. My 4 year-old twins are in their 40’s now but they would agree; Rrrr-mmm-Rrrr-mmm, Uummmmmm.