Give me coconuts or give me death! But I’d really prefer coconuts

I don’t know where you stand on evolution and frankly, I don’t care. My kids are grown and out of school and based on everything I’ve seen on Nickelodeon while babysitting my grandson, there’s no hope for future generations anyway. If educators want to start telling students Adam and Eve rode dinosaurs in the Garden of Eden, that’s fine by me.

I was once a staunch believer in the Theory of Evolution, if only because so many of my friends – I’m thinking mostly of the guys from my weekend bar band – are quite obviously descended from apes. I’m guessing I am, too, based on the abundance of chimp-like hair sprouting from my back and shoulders.

Now, I’m no scientist or theologian (obviously), but I’m beginning to think there’s room for improvement in both schools of thought. Particularly where evolution is concerned.

For those of you who were home schooled, evolution is the theory that all living creatures evolved from lower creatures. Amoebae begat fish, fish begat dinosaurs, dinosaurs begat birds and mammals, birds and mammals begat monkeys which then begat human beings. According to many scientists, there was more begatting going on in Earth’s prehistory than in the entire Old Testament and yes, I’m including 1 Chronicles, so we’re talking a lot here.

(And I’m only kidding with the “home schooled” comment above. One of my editors was home schooled and it’s been a while since I gave her a reason to want to punch me in the esophagus. Mission accomplished.) 

At any rate, my explanation of evolution is vague and oversimplified, but so is my understanding of same, so… My point is, I’m no longer so sure the Theory of Evolution is accurate. Just lately I’ve been thinking Darwin had it backward. We didn’t evolve and we’re not evolving.

In fact, just the opposite may be true. I think we’re devolving. Devolution is the theory that species can, over time, revert to more primitive forms. I don’t want to believe that’s happening, but sometimes I watch the news and can’t help but entertain the idea.

I mean, let’s take a quick look at the history of humanity. Whether you want to call them Adam and Eve or something more scientific, at one time there were only a handful of homo sapiens running around on the face of the planet. Homo sapiens, by the way, is Latin for “wise person.” I think that moniker is apt, or was at that time.

Humanity was scattered and not numerous enough to cause a lot of trouble. We lived off the land, got along well with most plants and animals we didn’t eat, and wanted nothing more from life than a warm meal, a mate who was occasionally in the mood for romance and a roof over our heads when it rained.

Life was hard, but good.

Then we started growing things on purpose rather than simply gathering coconuts from the trees. Communities sprang up to support this new agricultural lifestyle. Things were still pretty good, though not everyone was happy with the Friday night crowds at all the good restaurants.

Then came industry. Some people were better at it than others and it didn’t take long before there were employers and employees. One group had more, the other less. Those who had less wanted more. So did those who already had more.

Now remember, their (supposedly primitive) ancestors were happy eating coconuts and laying around in the sun all day. The notion of “more” and “less” hadn’t even occurred to them. So they were happy.

But once an idea takes root, it’s hard to stamp it out. Before long, everyone wanted more. And then – and this is where the devolution thing really takes off – someone figured out you could make a buck by promising people more more more! A coconut in every pot and a Chevy in every garage!

They called the people who made these rash, unfulfillable promises politicians.

There’s probably a Latin word for “politician” but I’m guessing whatever it is, it doesn’t translate into “wise person.” Politicians, I believe, are the driving force behind the devolution that will eventually have humanity back in the trees, swinging from vines and picking the nits off each other’s backs.

You doubt my theory? Have you seen any of the presidential debates so far?

Just under 2,500 years ago, humanity was represented by Socrates. Not much later, on the theological front we had the teachings of Jesus, Muhammed, Buddha. Then later came Galileo, Kepler, Descartes, Newton, and finally, Einstein.

Near as I can tell, it’s pretty much been downhill from there.

And when I see those presidential candidates on the news? Well, all I can say is, I’m not seeing anybody up there at the podium smarter than Socrates. Or Larry, Moe and Curly, for that matter.

I’m picking out my tree now. I want one with a lot of coconuts close to a stream.

mtaylor325@gmail.com

(616) 548-8273

I’m another year older, and maybe, a little wiser

The party was going full tilt New Year’s Eve. Great food, dry martinis, amazing band playing songs I actually recognized, beautiful woman by my side, good friends across the table.

Sweet Annie glistened and glowed in her New Year’s Eve regalia; no Hollywood superstar strutting the red carpet at the Oscars has ever shone brighter.

It should have been an evening for the record books.

Instead, I found myself repeatedly checking my watch and waiting impatiently for the ball to drop so I could honk my little noisemaker, guzzle my champagne, and head home where I could change into sweats and finish reading Dickens’ “A Christmas Carol.”

There was no logical reason for me to be having anything other than a fabulous time. Yet … I was kinda bored.

For one thing, it was too loud to carry on anything resembling a normal conversation. I used to LIKE my parties loud. The louder the better. As recently as a few years ago, if my ears weren’t ringing by the time a wing-ding broke up, I considered the evening a wash.

What, I wondered, had changed? Here I sat with Annie, my friend, Calvin and his girlfriend, Shirley — three of the most interesting people I know — and communication was possible only through lip reading, wild gesticulation and the deployment of those small flags they use to guide jets onto aircraft carriers.

Why did this suddenly matter? I have no idea. 

But, for Annie’s sake, I did my best to appear as though I was having a good time. I danced (with all the rhythm and natural grace of a rabid ferret on powerful amphetamines), I laughed, I lustily sounded my noisemaker.

Sweet Annie had put a lot of time and effort into gussying up for the event — going so far as to buy a new gown and matching shoes — and I wasn’t about to ruin her fun by being a party-pooper. 

And, in truth, I really was having an OK time, kind of. It’s just, I dunno, I would have preferred to be home with my feet up, watching an old Bing Crosby movie or finishing the Dickens. Earlier in the month I was excited by the possibility of the world ending, but since that didn’t happen, the passing of 2012 and the start of 2013 meant nothing to me.

I’ve seen a lot of non-apocalypse years come and go and the novelty has pretty much worn off.

Dick Clark is as dead as Guy Lombardo, so I have no idea who hosted this year’s feté in Times Square, but the televised ball finally did drop, everybody sang “Auld Lang Syne,” I kissed Annie, Calvin kissed Shirley, other couples around the room kissed, we all downed our complimentary bubbly and the band went on break in order to be first in line for the free midnight hor’deurves. 

“Are you having fun, baby?” Annie asked. Other women have called me “baby” over the years, but for some reason when Annie does it my knees get a little wobbly and I have a hard time breathing right.

“Um, sure,” I lied. Like I said, I wasn’t going to be a party-pooper and drag my sweetie away from what, for her, was obviously a fabulous, glamorous time.

But all parties must end and this one did, too. We shuffled our uncomfortable, shiny shoes over the icy parking lot and — breath billowing in white gusts — shivered into the waiting car.

Annie was quiet for a few miles, then said, “Well, that was fun.”

“You bet,” I said.

She was quiet a while longer. “I know you love stuff like that,” she ventured.

“Well … sure,” I said.

“Oh, yes, me too, me too,” she said, hurriedly. Then, tentatively, “But maybe next year, we could just stay home or have a couple friends over for a few drinks or something.”

We talked. Turns out Annie had been putting on a show of having a great time for my sake while I was doing the same for hers. Both of us would much rather have been ringing in the New Year at home, fireside, over a nice glass of Jameson and a game of Scrabble.

I guess no matter how many New Years you witness, you’re never too old to learn something new.

Mike’s book, “Looking at the Pint Half Full,” is available from Robbins Book List in Greenville and in ebook format at Amazon.com. Contact Mike at mtaylor325@gmail.com.

You can get into a lot of trouble on New Year’s Eve, especially with a driver’s license

I have a long history of getting into trouble on New Year’s Eve. I’ve been stranded in snowstorms, drunk too much (which doesn’t happen often, much as it may appear that way in this column), gotten hopelessly lost driving home from gigs or parties…the list goes on. I’m hoping this year will be somehow different.

My weekend band is playing New Year’s Eve at (free plug alert!) Riverbend Bar & Grille in Ada, less than two miles from home, so any snowstorm looking to strand me there would have to be exceedingly formidable. Sweet Annie’s driving, so I needn’t worry about the affects of that extra glass of champagne I don’t really, technically, in all honesty need. And my car now has GPS, so it is—in theory, at least—impossible for me to get lost on the drive home, if I were driving, which again, officer, I am not.

So with any luck I’ll wake up around noon on New Year’s Day, well-rested, un-hung over and with the smell of slowly baking ham and sweet potatoes wafting into the bedroom. God will be in His Heaven and all will be right with the world.

Yup, that’s my hope.

But like I said, the odds aren’t good. The first of my New Year’s Eve misadventures took place the year of my 16^th birthday, two months after I received that Holy Grail of teenager-dom, my driver’s license.

The family car was, as were many in those days, a Ford Country Squire capable of housing an entire Catholic family, one that took the Pope’s admonitions about birth control very seriously. There were seven of us and you could still fit a couple dogs and cousins in there along with enough baggage to survive a cross-country trip. That Country Squire was, in no way whatever, a cool car.

Since my folks had no lives other than the daily wrangling of their herd of recalcitrant progeny, they had no plans for New Year’s Eve. I did. I was going to pick up my girlfriend Debbie and drive. When you’re 16, a destination is optional.

The weather was lousy and my mother didn’t want me to take the car. My dad, understanding he had four other perfectly good kids should something terrible happen to his eldest, overruled her. The last thing he said as I left the house was, “Don’t get stuck on any cow paths.”

I had no idea what a cow path was or why I might get stuck on one, but I was in a hurry to get out of the house before my old man could change his mind about loaning me the car so I promised I wouldn’t.

I did. With Debbie. In the middle of nowhere, next to some farmer’s field. What were we doing out there in the middle of the night in the sleeting rain? That’s the same question my mother and grandmother asked me when they drove out to pick us up. I didn’t give them an honest answer and I don’t feel the need to give you one, either.

This was after Debbie and I had hoofed it over a mile of muddy road to the nearest home with lights on, where Old McDonald let us use his phone to call for help.

It was an hour before the wrecker arrived to pull us out of the mud. The ride home with my mother was not a comfortable one. The encounter with my old man when we arrived home was not particularly pleasant either, though I did live to tell about it so that’s something.

I’m hoping this New Year’s Eve will be less eventful. All the roads between home and Riverbend Bar are paved and well-lighted.

We do have to cross one small bridge, however.

Uh-oh.

Mike Taylor’s book, Looking at the Pint Half Full, is available online at mtrealitycheck.blogspot.com or in digital format from Amazon and most other major booksellers. Email Taylor at mtaylor325@gmail.com.