HomeMy WebLinkAboutThe Citizen, 2002-06-05, Page 5Final Thought
There's absolutely no reason for being
rushed along with the rush. Everybody
should he free to go very slowly ... What
you want, what you're hanging around in
the world waiting for, is something to occur
to you.
— Robert Frost
THE CITIZEN, WEDNESDAY, JUNE 5, 2002. PAGE 5.
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Elvis has left the building
6 w ay back in the Stone Age when
I was but a pup, green of horn
and dampish behind the ears,
there bestrode this nation a giant of Canadian
journalism by the name of Pierre Berton. He
had yet to write his 11 gazillion books and
become an avuncular member of every
Canadian household via the TV show
Front Page Challenge. All he did back in those
days was write a daily column for The Toronto
Star.
The column was often funny, usually
controversial and hugely popular, and I, among
tens of thousands, tried never to miss it.
What I remember best is Berton's annual
New Year's Predictions column.
Every January he would write a column
prophesying what he believed would come to
pass in the next 365 days. And what invariably
led off the column was Berton's prophecy that
this year, rock and roll would die.
And of course, each year, Berton was
gloriously, hilariously, wrong. Rock and roll
didn't die. It just got bigger and weirder.
Berton started issuing his premature death
notices when guys like Bill Haley and Gene
Vincent were pumping it out. He was still
declaring it dead through the years of Buddy
Holly, Little Richard, Dylan, The Band - and,
of course, Elvis.
The truth is, rock and roll outlasted Pierre
Berton's column and still looks more than
robust enough to outlast the man himself.
However, Pierre, if you're reading this, I
Gresham's
Few people recognize Gresham's Law,
which states simply that bad money
drives out good. Nevertheless it is
something that is as valid today as it was on the
day that Gresham came up with it. When I first
had to learn it, I considered it to be just another
bit of information that would be tucked away
one of my professors asked about it on an
exam.
How wrong I was!
I ran into it the first time_ after I arrived in
Spain where I was going to live and study for
a while. I decided I would need some bananas
in my room in case I got hungry between
meals and, as there was a little grocery store
across the street, I went in and bought some.
Not yet really acquainted with Spanish
money, I gave the clerk a big note. I was
surprised when he handed me all my change in
five peseta pieces — a large coin with a hole in
it.
I thought nothing more about it until I gave
one of the coins to a little beggar boy selling
pencils. He immediately exclaimed, "That's
not worth anything." I asked him to explain
why; he told me that the government had just
recently taken the coins out of circulation.
They were, however, being unloaded by
unscrupulous people (my store clerk) on
anybody who didn't look like they knew
Spanish currency.
There was Gresham's Law in action — the
bad five peseta coins driving out the good
ones.
I was determined that was an insult to a
graduate economist; I would not let this clerk
get away with it. I plotted my revenge and
finally hit upon a plan. The next day I went
back to the store and to my delight there he
was. I bought some small item and gave him
another big bill. Sure enough, convinced that I
had not yet caught on, he unloaded another
bunch of the five peseta coins on me.
I swung into action by pretending to go but
then immediately turned around and said, "I
might as well get a few more things while I am
here." I proceeded to get out my list and when
have some comforting news:
Elvis has definitely left the building.
The news media reported that Elvis died in
his Graceland mansion of a drug overdose
'way back in 1977, but a lot of diehard
fans never bought it. For years after, their
hearts fluttered at reports that Elvis was alive.
That he had been spotted pumping gas in
Wyoming, or flipping burgers at a truck stop in
Jersey.
Or driving a long-haul semi, or living on a
yacht, or recovering from plastic surgery at a
spa in Switzerland.
And in an odd way, Elvis didn't really die
back in August of '77. His records continued
to sell by the carload. So did posters, books,
Elvis clocks and Elvis shirts, Elvis radios and
Elvis books.
You could even, at the height of the frenzy,
get an Elvis head Chia pet.
Only problem is Elvis's hair and sideburns
came in green.
And today, almost a quarter of a century
after his demise, the fans keep showing up at
Elvis's Graceland mansion in Memphis to pay
Raymond
Canon
The
International
Scene
he had assembled everything, I got out all
those offending coins from the two
transactions. He couldn't claim that they were
no longer valid since he had just given me
some of them.
He took the coins but you could see from the
look on his face that he realized he had been
trumped. I felt good the rest of the day!
Well, even longer than that.
From money that is no longer valid it is only
a short jump, as far as Gresham's Law is
concerned, to outright counterfeit money. Let's
say that you have a copier (Canon copiers are
the best ones) in your basement that turns out
excellent counterfeit bills. You run off a bunch
and then what are you going to do with them?
If you are a bonafide counterfeiter you are
going to use them instead of any real money
that you have. In other words your bad
counterfeit money is going to drive out the
good money. That is, until you get caught at it
or else run out of the right kind of paper.
In World War II the Nazis, who recognized
the value of Gresham's Law, got the bright
idea of flooding England with counterfeit five
pound notes; to this end they put an excellent
homage. An average of 650,000 faithful every
year.
But there's a funny thing about those fans.
They're pretty much all gray-haired and a
little stooped. (Which shouldn't be a surprise.
Heck, if Elvis WERE alive he'd be 67 and
collecting his old-age pension once a month.)
If you see a shot of Elvis in his prime (or
even past his prime), the audience is full of
screaming young people. Elvis was always
about being young and rebellious.
Nowadays most young people emphatically
do not worship The King. If they think of Elvis
at all, they think of him as an old guy who
died of drug abuse.
Andrew Bergstein, a professor at
Pennsylvania State University who specializes
in pop culture, says: "A lot of students I teach
are only vaguely aware of who he was, and as
more of a comic figure...I wouldn't want to be
in charge of trying to sell him to a younger
generation."
I'm no Pierre Berton, but I'm prepared to
make a Bertonesque prediction.
I predict that there will be a flurry of
Elvismania this summer, because it's the 25th
anniversary of his death. After that, a slow
fade. Oh, he'll be remembered of course - but
remembered like Sinatra, Ella Fitzgerald, Al
Jolson.
Remembered, but not revered.
Of course, I could turn out to be just as
wrong as Pierre Berton.
In a way, I kind of hope I am.
counterfeiter to work who was able to create
printing plates that did remarkable copies. His
masters were truly impressed and gloated over
the chaos that the dumping of such notes
would cause in England.
They had, to be sure, read Lenin's comments
that the best way to destroy an economy was to
inject hordes of fake money into a country.
Fortunately for the English, the Nazis couldn't
get their act together when it really counted
and the fake bills never crossed the channel in
any quantity. If they had, you can be sure that
Gresham's Law would immedlately have
become world famous.
The various central banks are fully aware of
this "infamous" law and are taking extra steps
to produce bills that defy counterfeiting as
much as possible. At the same time when you
go into a store and they either tell you they are
not taking a specific denomination of
banknotes ($100 bills are the favourite) or they
put yours through a little machine to see if it is
valid, that is simply Gresham's Law in action.
The store is actually trying to prevent it but,
if you mention the word "Gresham," I'll bet
you anything the clerk won't know what you
are talking about.
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There are, in one of my spare bedrooms,
some pictures on a bureau, old ones.
For the most part they sit, with little
notice paid them, like historical sentries
discreetly watching over the family.
On occasion, however, when company's
expected or when circumstances warrant, a
little dusting off brings these photographs, and
the people in them, back to my attention. And
as a result I often find myself at these times, if
only for a minute, pondering the past, these
people — my grandparents — and how their
existence shaped my life.
Actually, anytime I see an old picture I am
struck by wonderings. And the discovery of a
photo from what appeared to be my paternal
grandparents' courting days really brought up
a question. How did they meet? They didn't
live near each other, at least not near in the
days of horse and buggy. They didn't go to the
same church or school.
My curiosity piqued I decided to ask my
parents, a move which brought little
satisfaction. They had no idea.
This disappointed me. I am interested in
genealogy, not just the names and dates, but
even more so the stories that bring those
names and dates alive. Sad to say, I came by
this nostalgic fascination far too late to satisfy
me. I had never known my great-grandparents
and had by the time I was 15 only one
grandmother left. She passed away when I was
in my mid-20s.
The self-absorption which often is part of
youth, kept me from realizing the value of
getting to know them for who they were, rather
than for who they were to me. There are so
many questions I would ask given time now.
The best I can do is advise my children to
not make the same mistake, to talk to their
grandparents. The difficult part of this then is
in thinking not what they want to know now,
but what they may want to know later.
Also, my kids did not have the opportunities
to be with their grandparents the way that I
did. My maternal grandmother babysat me for
a time and because they lived nearby I was
able to pop in for visits. The grandparents of
my children are not so handy.
To remedy this the family practice of any
excuse for a party has guaranteed that my kids
at least see their grandparents periodically.
It may be that my own introduction into the
joys of grandparenting has made me somewhat
sensitive, but I believe that the older
generation has always had a good deal to offer
to their children's children. My husband and I
thus far have been fortunate in that our little
guy visits us frequently.
So, to think that there are children who never
spend time with their extended family makes
me sad. And, barring violence or evil, there
really is very little excuse for it. Even families
separated by hundreds of miles, have found
ways to keep the bonds tight. In recognizing
the importance of grandparents. to children and
vice versa, they e-mail, telephone, take
extended holidays, use photographs to keep
the two generations connected.
Petty squabbles, immaturity, or silly whims
are no excuse. To deprive a child of a
grandparent's company is to deprive them of a
part of their history.
And in later years the questions they might
ask may be even harder to answer,
a little known law