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Health & Fitness

Common Sense

If you went looking for common sense, where would you find it? It really isn't common at all. Just look at some of the examples of its absence.

I looked it up on Wikipedia and came up with this:

Common sense is defined by Merriam-Webster as, "sound and prudent judgment based on a simple perception of the situation or facts."[1]Thus, "common sense" (in this view) equates to the knowledge and experience which most people already have, or which the person using the term believes that they do or should have. The Cambridge Dictionary defines it as, "the basic level of practical knowledge and judgment that we all need to help us live in a reasonable and safe way".[2]

My dad called it horse sense.  I like to call it not being stupid.  After all, calling it common sense doesn’t seem very accurate because it isn’t all that common.  In fact it seems to be down right scarce.  Just look around.

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Last week I went to the Navy Credit Union to cash a check.  There is a sign on the window with a picture of a gun with one of those red circles around it with the red slash and the words “No firearms allowed on this property” printed underneath (no joke, see the attached photo).  I wonder whose idea that was?  I’m sure that at least a dozen would-be bank robbers saw that sign and went to rob some other bank instead.  You know, one that allowed them to bring their gun inside.

Here is another one for you.  Did you know that the cost of making a penny is projected to surpass $2.41 for each penny made this year?  In 2011, the US minted about 4.9 billion of the little rascals.  The government could save about 11 billion dollars by just not making any this year.  Honest, just check it out for your self:  http://www.snopes.com/business/money/pennycost.asp  I think good old horse sense could fit in here somewhere.

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On two occasions I served as a chaperone for my granddaughter’s school trip to the Boston Museum of Science.  While there, I sat and listened to a young fellow (the same guy on both occasions) talk about our putting 10% ethanol in our gasoline in an effort to save on the use of fossil based fuel and there by making less pollution.

Really?  Not so fast.  Common sense really took a hike on this one.  We are putting  10% ethanol in gasoline, which is less efficient (translation; lower miles per gallon so you burn more than with just straight gasoline) and creating that gallon of ethanol takes 1.3 gallons of fossil based fuel to complete the process.  Basically, you have burned more fossil fuel trying to avoid burning fossil fuel than you would have if you hadn’t tried to not burn fossil based fuel in the first place.  What the heck did I just say?

It just boils down to this: The individuals who came up with the idea in the first place lacked good old common sense and their good intentions were turned upside down by facts they basically ignored.  There are a whole host of other problems that using corn-based ethanol has caused that I won’t go into.  None of them were good for our economy or us.

A fairly long time ago, someone with some common sense figured out that a whole bunch of gas was being burned while people waited for the stop light to change when all they wanted to do was turn right.  As I said, someone with common sense had a great idea.  So out came the new traffic law.  You could now turn right after stopping at red lights unless otherwise posted.

Now comes the guy without common sense.  Suddenly, at nearly every stoplight in the state, a new sign appeared.  It read “no turn on red”.  Whoever had the contract for the signs made a few bucks on that one.  After awhile the signs came down with a few exceptions.  The guy with the common sense must have chased the one without it out of the office.

It’s bad enough to be common senseless without purposely telling everyone about it as in the case of the good old bumper sticker.  I love the one that reads, “War is not the answer.”  Those individuals evidently have never heard of the Civil War or the Revolutionary War or World War One or World War Two, or…. heck I could go on forever listing wars that were the only answer.

Don’t get me wrong.  I don’t hold anything against anyone being commonsenseless (I think I accidentally created a new word).  I get that way myself every once and awhile.  And sometimes it can be down right amusing.  Like the time my brother and I decided to build a dune buggy.

When my dad left for work that particular morning he walked right past my red, 1959 Volkswagen Karmann Ghia.  Little did he know what would be there when he got home.

You might not be familiar with the Karmann Ghia.  It used to be called the poor man's Porsche.  Check out this commercial, if it doesn’t make you laugh check your pulse.  You might be dead. 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EiBNtGSzrp4

My brother and I were armed with some basic facts.  We knew that to build a dune buggy you need some kind of Volkswagen.  We had that covered.  We had the Ghia.  We also knew that a dune buggy had a shorter wheelbase (shorter distance from the front axle to the rear axle) than my Ghia.  We had that covered too.  We had a hacksaw.  The one thing that we lacked was the common sense to realize that we had no idea how to put the two halves of the car back together again once we cut it in two.  When my dad got home that evening my 1959 Ghia was in the garage in three pieces (we cut the top off because after all dune buggies are convertibles).  He was not impressed.

On an interesting note later, while I was in the Navy, my dad built his own dune buggy from start to finish all by himself.  He used the engine from my Ghia so it didn’t go to waste.  Not bad for a guy who only got to the eighth grade.  He might have been short on formal education but he was long on horse sense and even at 90, he is one cool dad!

Unfortunately, there are too many times when people with power show a lack of common sense in what they do and it hurts someone else.  I haven’t been able to confirm this next story, but I have no doubt that it occurred.  I heard about it a very long time ago. 

Somewhere out west there is an area where wild fires are common.  To protect the homes (rather expensive ones I might add) they made firebreaks.  The firebreaks were made by disking the fields around the homes.  This insured that the fires would not burn down the houses.  It was extremely effective.

Along came a commonsenseless group of people that discovered there was an endangered critter in the fields around the homes.  I believe it was some kind of mouse.  You can guess what happened next.  Disking was prohibited forthwith.  After all, you might kill the endangered critter and then the owls that prowled the night sky would be denied their midnight snack.

The result would be obvious to someone who wasn’t commonsenseless.  The fires came along and burned down the houses.  I might add that they roasted the endangered critter as well.  Go figure.

So what do we do?  How do we fix the epidemic (I love that word) of commonsenselessness?  Hey, another new word!  I’ll have to contact Wikipedia and let them know.  Maybe you have a few suggestions to correct the problem.  If you do please share them with me!!

I went to bed last night thinking about what to do.  The only thing I could come up with is how I learned whatever common sense I have.  I didn’t learn it in school.  I learned it from my mother and father.  Perhaps that is the solution, perhaps if we as fathers and mothers took the time to teach our kids some basic common sense they would, in turn, pass it on.

For this to work, we have to keep our families together because the biggest example of no common sense is what we have been doing to the family.  I’ve said this before and I’ll say it again- if you fail in the home, no other success will make up for it.  The family is the key to a whole lot of issues.  If you don’t believe me read this article.

Just one other thing we might do.  The next time we see something that displays commonsenselessness we should say something.  Even if it is just “that doesn’t make any sense”.  Kind of like the home version of homeland security  :)

So, until next time keep smiling and give your kids a kiss even if they are 40 years old.

 

Hey, wait a minute!!  I just figured how the government could save about 9.9 billion dollars this year!!!  If they paid everyone who turned in their pennies two cents for each penny they turn in (I just know that there must be billions of the little fellas hiding out in piggy banks all across America) the flood of turned in pennies would make minting them this year unnecessary.  For the paltry sum of just under one hundred million dollars (and half of that they get back because they now have your penny) they would eliminate the ten billion they would have spent to make them!!!

 

Nah, they wouldn’t do that because nowhere in the United States is commonsenselessness more prevalent than in government.  Bye for now.

 

Oh, I nearly forgot.  If you purchase a copy of my novel “Operation Armageddon” in kindle or nook format I will send you a copy of my play “A Rare Encounter” free of charge.  Remember 50% of the royalties will be donated to help our veterans. 

 

Tage N. Wright

My Website: http://tagewright.blogspot.com/
Download My Novel "Operation Armageddon" 
in Kindle Format on Amazon 
Download My Novel on NOOK
Follow me @TageWright
tagewright@aol.com
(860) 608-8451

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