JOY ALONG THE WAY: STAYING INTERESTED IN SOMETHING

Sometimes I fantasize about walking around town, in and out of restaurants, detaining people, much as did the Ancient Mariner, asking bluntly, "What is your main interest these days?"

I would have to have some sort of identifying label pinned on, such as "Authorized Inquirer, AFV", or "Certified Interrogator, DCD." The capitalized letters would mean nothing but would look impressive and maybe incline folks to answer. Who knows, the letters might be assumed to stand for American Family Values or District of Columbia Data. A person just can't keep up with all the acronyms floating around today and doesn't necessarily want to acknowledge it.

Approach could be, "I'm with the DCD bank, and am gathering statistics on what most people are interested in these days. Your answer will, of course, be confidential."

Surely everyone has a main interest. It may be how to walk so the left hip won't hurt so bad, predicting the time when the Democrats' and Republicans' paths will cross at the exact center, wondering if anything belongs to Regina, shouldn't it be returned to Regina, the capital of Saskatchewan, Canada, a really cool place.

I suspect most people, if they took my question seriously, would have a ready answer, then, upon momentary reflection, change it to something else, and something else and something else, denoting the plethora of things to be interested in these days.

One person's ready and tumbling-out reply might be, "Oh, I'm interested in the Rams' football team coming to St. Louis and what is keeping Saddam quiet these days, what the Supreme Court is going to rule about integration and the Kansas City schools, and aren't contract and covenant synonymous? And who were the four men coming down Bundy on June 12th?

Lest my tape run out on this person with multi-interests, I'd have to move on, seeking information from the next willing one and possibly getting the answer, "I'm interested in people minding their own business." Well, at least it would be an interest in contrast to the person whose answer might be, "Absolutely nothing." Such a person would remind me of the biblical description of a man, "He died without ever being desired."

The next person might readily reply, "Electronics."

"Tell me about it," I'd encourage.

"Well, what I'm interested in is keeping the public informed about current matters and getting their instantaneous yes or no on whether they favored the matter in question."

"We have polls for that."

"But they're not so all inclusive as mine would be."

"Go on."

"I'm working on a gizmo that, when an important national something-or-other came up which would be asked at a specified time of day, via TV, there would be a yes or no button on the TV set one could push and, presto, a vote would be reflected on some big board in D.C."

"Wouldn't it jam the airwaves, or lines or whatever?"

"Have you seen how fast those end numbers move when great amounts are being summed? They're like the footprints of a centipede running at 100 miles an hour."

"But what could keep one person from pushing the yes or no button all day long, voting a la Chicago?"

"Aha, that's part of my gizmo. Fingerprints left on the voting button would be recorded, serving a second purpose, and if repetition occurred the vote would be automatically voided.

"Gee whiz, would the button have to be cleaned after every vote?"

"Uh, no. It would be self cleaning."

"This sound like something Royko's Slats Grobnick would invent?"

"Who is Royko's Slats Grobnick?"

"Oh, just an imaginary character Royko uses to get his editorial point across."

"Well, I'm not interested in imagination."

"I see. I think. Me, I'm real interested in imagination."

REJOICE!

~Jean Bell Mosley is an author and longtime writer for the Southeast Missourian.