It's Saturday - Wal Mart needs us

It all started with our first baby.

We did the new-parent thing and attended classes to learn how to breathe properly and plump a pillow. Two nurses from the ob-gyn office led the training, and they were as different as night and day.

In their examples of being prepared for the onset of labor while out and about, one always placed the location at Westlake’s and the other placed the location at Wal Mart.

This was back in the dark ages when there were no Super Wal Marts in our part of the country, and Westlake’s was the upscale store in town. Not wanting to take sides, my wife and I split our time between the two businesses.

One day we went out to Westlake’s to pick up a can of spray paint. Westlake’s makes it easy to get whatever you want, laying out the store with excellent signage and a wide variety of products. We found so many things that we had just put off picking up, that when we checked out our bill came to just over $100.

Now we were newlyweds. We had never, ever spent $100 in one place in our lives as a couple. We really needed that trash can, though. And that clock was essential to fill that blank spot in the kitchen. All necessary, all required to maintain our frugal existence. So we took a deep gulp and paid for it all.

I mention this because that $100 has become a magic number in our household. Ironically, it is now associated not with Westlake’s, but with Wal Mart.

As we had our children and continued to build a home, rooms and cupboards and refrigerators had to be filled again and again. Wal Mart became our destination of choice as it was conveniently located and the prices were low. We couldn’t help but notice that nearly every time we went to Wal Mart, the total ended up being at least $100. That astronomical sum that shocked us at Westlake’s was now the norm. It became a standing joke that if we didn’t break $100, it didn’t seem like we had really been to Wal Mart.

Last weekend my wife and I prepared for our weekly pilgrimage to the Super Wal Mart so that the hungry residents in our house wouldn’t starve over the next seven days. My youngest daughter, now twenty-four, looked up from the computer and asked “Where are you guys going?”

I looked at her without breaking a smile and replied, “It’s Saturday. Wal Mart needs us.”

She understood. She’s family.

I like airplanes

I like airplanes. Don’t get me wrong; it’s not in my blood, inherited from my family as it infected my wife, who practically grew up on Eastern Airlines and was bitten by the travel bug at a tender age. It’s not the allure of the plane thing or the culture of flight or anything like that.

My wife and I visited the Florida Air Museum in Lakeland, Florida. It houses mainly civilian aircraft and a few military examples. The smaller plane sizes allow more exhibits to be squeezed into the limited display space. I spent most of my time snapping photos of the classic aircraft, looking for the most interesting compositions. As I struggled to get all six propeller blades of the Lockheed XPV-1 into the picture while checking carefully behind me so I wouldn’t back into the wing gun of the P-63, I realized what it was I like about airplanes.

Airplanes look cool.

You’re right, that is oversimplifying. Yet that is the point – airplanes look cool because of what makes them fly in the first place.

The most efficient wing design when seen as a cross-section resembles a curved teardrop, with a rounded leading surface that arcs to a tapered trailing edge. Let’s just say that it disturbs the air moving around it in a way that it generates lift so the plane can do what it was designed to do.

All of this means that the plane as a whole has a lot of smooth, rounded surfaces to reduce drag wherever possible to make forward and vertical motion as efficient as possible. It’s beautiful. The lines are simple and basic. It just looks good.

Perhaps it is in my genes: the joy in simple, uncluttered presentation. I hope you are familiar with Strunk’s Elements of Style. After 90 years of testing, William Strunk’s rules of composition still provide a strong voice for simplicity in writing the English language. I enjoy writing that is simple and uncluttered, just as I relish the smooth lines of an airplane.

Yes, I also cringe when I encounter writing that drifts or presumes too much or has a protagonist act in a way that is totally out of character. I treasure consistency while prizing mystery. Mysteries, after all, will ultimately be unraveled to show a logical sequence. Something that is, after all, simple and uncluttered. It’s great to have a clear standard.

Now all I have to do is figure out why I think the F-117A looks cool.

Teal Green Arches

Sedona, Arizona is a picturesque town founded on the twin principles of aesthetic beauty and unbridled commerce. Two major roads lead into the area; one from the north that snakes through the hairpin turns of Oak Creek Canyon, and one from the south that favors the flatter terrain of the desert. When we visited Sedona several years ago, we decided to enter using the southern route as we didn’t want to risk the unfamiliar turns of the canyon in the approaching darkness.

We couldn’t miss the sign as we neared the outskirts. “The Only Teal Green Arches in the World!” The Sedona McDonalds has teal green arches? What an advertising coup! We had to check this out come the morning.

The next day, sure enough, there was the McDonalds restaurant, clad in adobe and sporting very fashionable arches in a gorgeous green teal. It looked like it belonged in this community where everything seemed to be color-coordinated to fit a southwestern theme.

While talking with the locals a different story emerged. It seems that McDonalds, that corporate giant of fast food, swept into Sedona several years back to plant their world-renowned image in this tourist Mecca. They planned to stand out from the competition with their trademark red-and-gold color scheme attracting the attention of children and their obliging parents. The opposition came as a complete surprise.

Sedona, it turns out, has a very strict zoning ordinance. Those mellow combinations of tans and yellows and teals that you see everywhere? It’s a mandate, not a happy accident. Everyone must conform to the approved color scheme. Even a swaggering juggernaut like McDonalds.

McDonalds didn’t knuckle under without a fight. They battled the requirement in court, seeking relief from this ridiculous burden on their business. And lost. If a McDonalds restaurant was going to grace the streets of Sedona, the famous arches were not going to be gold.

Ultimately someone realized that instead of being defeated, McDonalds was teetering on the edge of a great opportunity. If they couldn’t be like all of the other thousands of McDonalds, they would be unique! How many McDonalds restaurant arches do you take pictures of while you are on vacation?

So was born the marketing campaign to advertise the world’s only teal green arches – as if McDonalds had thought up the idea themselves in the first place.

There’s a wonderful lesson lurking here. How often do we encounter adversity in our lives, something that at first glance seems to block our progress in life and makes our existence miserable?

Why can’t we embrace the situation and look for ways to turn it into an opportunity? Many of the world’s great inventions were products born of looking for ways to solve a problem. It was the noted Greek philosopher Plato who said “Necessity is the mother of invention.”

The next time you run up against the unexpected and the unwanted, take time to figure out how to make that boulder into a stepping-stone. It’s your happiness at stake. Look for the teal green arches in your life.