The Vanishing Handkerchief

(originally published in the Los Angeles Daily News, March 2007)

When I was a kid, I can remember my father, the Boy Scout.  Although not really a Boy Scout, he was a public elementary school principal.  His first name was always Mister.  He was polite.  He was professional.  I remember that he always carried a handkerchief in his shirt pocket, not as some gaudy fashion statement that matched the color of his tie, but a well-utilized part of his ensemble, as purposeful as a pair of shoes or a wristwatch. 

Many a bloodied nose or scraped knee met with the careful pressure of my father’s timely handkerchief.  Sometimes they would be washed and reused, other times, they were soiled beyond hope, and had to be tossed out, like so much garbage.

Professional workingmen do not carry handkerchiefs anymore.  Occasionally, one may encounter a corporate executive with a bit more aesthetic sense than his peers, who may place a silk pin-striped kerchief in the breast pocket of his blazer, but rarely for the purpose of anything more than a fashion statement, a brief haute couture one-liner.

To say that American culture is slipping, is not a new position.  To say that language is pandering increasingly to the lowest common denominator is hardly a fresh witticism.  However, the implications of this slipping, have yet to be fully realized.

Recently, the same week that saw the savings accounts of the American people hit the lowest average figure in 74 years; also saw the biggest annual profit by a corporation, ExxonMobil, in American history.  Slowly, the people of the United State are becoming that which we once despised.  We are becoming a nation of peasants, squirming under the heel of aristocracy.  American culture, once indispensable, now appears disposable, with handkerchiefs now replaced by disposable facial tissues.

Ironically, one need only look just over the US border, into the Mexican state of Baja California, to gauge this shift in American identity.  The little shops, called tiendas, in Tijuana and Rosarito depend almost exclusively on American tourist dollars to sustain revenue.  As such, the wares offered inside these shops are constantly changing to keep up with the plunging American taste for culture.  Sadly enough, they do not sell handkerchiefs.  There is no market for the tourist dollar that caters to the handkerchief owners of the United States.  Perhaps there never was.

In one shop in Rosarito, the little knick knacks like Mexican jumping beans or bottles of Tequila with the worm in it, have given way to some of the most paltry reflections of American culture.  Innumerable incantations of swag (hats, shirts, towels, clocks, mirrors) featuring Al Pacino in the1982 film Scarface, glass marijuana pipes of every size and description, pharmacies with any generic drug under the sun, stare back at us, the United States, like a warped fun house mirror.

Bear in mind, these are not original Mexican icons or merchandise.  American film director Brian DePalma created Scarface.  American hunger for marijuana facilitates the blowing of glass pipes for sale.  American pharmaceutical companies develop the drugs that are eventually reformulated into generic copies.  There are no Mexicans wandering the shaded eves of these tiendas, save the few who have carefully learned enough English to barter with the American tourist for his/her spending dollar.

As corporate cronyism further yolks the working American people, the voice of opposition that struck down many of the great trusts and monopolies of a century ago, today falls on silent, unarticulated breath.  Corporations demonstrate to us that an entire generation of the cubicle-clad workforce is disposable.  Once profits shrink, outsourcing begins.  Conversely, corporate workers also participate in this disposable ideology, fleeing their jobs as soon as a higher paying position becomes available in another company.

Social justice seems lost on our current generation.  Today’s working American finds it mush easier to fight with immigrants over the crumbs that fall from the top, rather than to fell the corporate thieves who toss the crumbs in the first place.  Most working Americans in debt, without a savings account, and paying more interest, while earning less wages to the ratio of corporate executives, than ever before in American history.  Life itself has become petty.  There seems no great issue over throwing it all away.

Rather than languishing in the comfort of peasantry, Americans should reject the informal speech and the less erudite elements of language and stand up to corporate cronyism.  We are not peasants.  Peasantry has not helped our country gain wealth or influence.

We need articulate examples.  We need passionate advocates whom share common cause with the people.  Essentially, we need more middle class heroes.  The American middle class holds the true core of American values.  Very few upper class citizens give us an example to follow.  Leave the crumbs to the lower classes.  Leave the elitism to the upper classes.  We need to look more to ourselves, and see our own plight as worth saving.

There are two outspoken examples of this struggle that need mention.  They are, ironically, two of the richest men in the world.  Microsoft founder, and current philanthropist Bill Gates and Berkshire Hathaway fund manager Warren Buffett.

Both hold fortunes in the double-digit billions.  Both have rejected the concept of dynastic wealth, that is, wealth passed along from father to son, et cetera.  Their cause is one of social responsibility.  They want to eradicate malaria, bolster education, and fight the spread of AIDS.  Both Gates and Buffett have taken it upon themselves to improve the planet on which they live, on a scale with which they are comfortable.  They just happen to have untold billions in their bank accounts.

 Outside of the enormous scale that Gates and Buffett have found it possible to give, is the notion that elitism caters to that same problematic slipping of American culture.  They are the grandest example of xenophiles.  Not only do they believe that helping poorer, less fortunate people ultimately helps the entire world, but also that passing inherited wealth exclusively to one’s own children, hurts the rest of the world.

These men are Boy Scouts, even if they do not carry handkerchiefs.  Their actions show that they value life, that life is not some mere trinket easily thrown away.

Thinking back to my father, the school principal, and the handkerchief in his pocket, I hope that my generation, the parents of the future, will see fit to elevate their speech, shrug off the fallen crumbs of peasantry, and possibly even start carrying handkerchiefs of our own.  Even if our collective American nose is so bloodied that we might need to throw one or two of them into the garbage, before we get back on track.

                                                                                                Written by Zachary Urbina