__said Ben Franklin__

early to bed, early to rise

makes a man

healthy

wealthy and wise

Isn't it nice, with warm stockings under the tree? Old traditions, the carols that actually got sung before radio days and vacuum tubes.

After the hay rides stopped, though, something got different. Nostalgia got a new life, even for folks that never saw the filaments glow. Maybe having to Google now for what, exactly, is meant here?

Lately, the smell of pine needles has gotten more expensive. Trees are getting scarcer. Plastic ones, anyway, can be stored for next year. Did you ever sleep in a hay stack?

Memories are relative. My sister said, a few years back, that she wasn't going to worry about it much because she'd be gone before it got like this. But she's not saying that now. The more time passes, the faster it goes.

My point? We make it up as we go along. Just passing time, so to speak. It's a traveling circus. Because there's nothing to give or take but that thinking makes it so. Just a few words that zip through an empty mind. Passing time is kicking the can down a black hole.

Whew! Oil your Time Machine, Mr. Wells.

In tube glow days, GE declared progress their most important product. And operas arrived through the ether. Yes magic, and progress became an implanted fact, memorable indeed.

When the circus got to Butcher's Corner, performers needed tents. Call it Geezer's corner, retro, and make way. For Progress! The grubbers chewed up Orchard Supply and cleared the Corner for dessert with chocolate topping, future value.

It's a BART train to the stadium that brings wealth, they said, and cheers for Mr. Smith. Not your ordinary Smith but, the Adam of Apple's corporate eye. It's a rolling pumpkin that, as it comes to your front door, has carved out eyes and a toothy grin. Smile! You're on TV!

An implanted memory is Smith's Wealth of Nations, and seems factual now. Didn't we plan this?

Adam took us for a ride. His magic carpet: the Theory of Moral Sentiments. Everyone he knew had them and went along with the same circus. And no vacuum tubes, no ether, no pollution, lots of trees. When you have it, good health is not an issue. Likewise wealth and power. Mr. Smith's wealth was his artful dodge around wisdom.

Sentiments like his are guard rails for the magic Invisible Hand. Surely everyone wants to be wealthy, the whole nation. What a beautiful plan.

The BART train pumpkin, when it got to the Corner, found the grubbers had already chopped off health and wisdom. And that's progress, don't you know?