Miss Virginia Dogwood

This piece was originally published in the Central Virginian Newspaper on January 16, 2014

   On January 11, 2014 it rained in a way that causes one to post on Facebook how much it's raining while looking out the window for an old man in a gopher wood boat full of animals in pairs.  The temperature gamboled playfully between freezing and almost seventy degrees Fahrenheit.  In the midst of this climatological confusion, several dozen young ladies prepared themselves for the Miss Virginia Dogwood Pageant that would take place at the Louisa Arts Center.

   The weather was soon forgotten by both the contestants and the audience.  Talents were displayed, questions were asked and answered, and thank yous were offered.  Through it all was a reminder that the event, which is a qualifier for the Miss Virginia competition which, in turn, leads on to the Miss America pageant is more than what so many consider a beauty pageant.  That night, Delesia Watson was crowned as the new Miss Virginia Dogwood, the title of Miss Virginia's Outstanding Teen went to Carlehr Swanson, Haylee Landry was named Outstanding Pre-Teen, and the Little Miss title went to Adyn Douglas.  I have to tell you, that night was far more than a beauty contest; there was a pageant held at the Arts Center.

   Sure, when the businessmen in Atlantic City first conceived of the Miss America pageant in the 1920s, it was a marketing gimmick.  They needed to get people to their town, so they put together this contest where guys could see all these pretty (single) girls from all over the country.  The marketing ploy worked and the pageants, having done their job as a tourism booster, faded away until they were resurrected in the 1930s to combat the economic devastation of the Great Depression.  In the late 2000s the Miss America Pageants were moved to Las Vegas, but Miss America is back home in Atlantic City where it's no longer a marketing gimmick, but is an avenue for many young ladies to fund their education and also open doors in careers in the music and broadcasting industries.

   Now, why am I writing about this in the Chuck Wagon?  It's because I was given the opportunity to co-emcee the event with Rebecca Gogue, a former Miss Virginia Dogwood herself (I emceed the Miss Virginia Dogwood Pageant where she won the crown) who is pursuing a career in the recording industry.  During the event, I was simply awestruck at the talents, poise, and confidence of the young ladies on stage at the Louisa Arts Center that rainy Saturday night.  

   Look, you all know I have no problem talking (droning on and on) in front of a group...but singing?  Dancing?  Playing piano?  I'd rather shave a porcupine.  But these girls perform with a style and panache which is laudable and more than a little enviable!  I mean, I can't seem to master the words to Blinded By the Light in English while one of the contestants sang an operatic piece in German.  Yeah...it's just a beauty contest, sure. 

   Many of the girls who participate in these contests already have their undergraduate degrees and are pursuing post-collegiate degrees, (in fact, the current Miss Virginia is a doctoral candidate).  The scholarship money awarded from the pageant is often used to pay off student loans or pay for the board tests mandated to apply for many grad programs.  Sure, just a beauty contest, right?  Kind of like saying the Winter Olympics is just a snowball fight.

   Of course, there are those who will argue that the swimsuit portion of the pageant makes it all just about beauty being skin deep, but I think they're wrong there.  The swimsuit competition focuses on the need for balanced nutrition, for making healthy choices, and for being proud of the results of those choices.  It's not a meat-market, and shame on those who think that.  As my co-emcee, Rebecca Gogue put it, "It's about more than how you look in a bikini, it's about health - all areas of health, and about being comfortable in your own skin."

   When the crown was placed on the head of Miss Delesia Watson (Louisa's own!), all the rehearsal time, the rolling in and out of the Steinway piano, the calls and texts, the checks and double checks of entry forms and fees, the printing of programs, the pictures by Rick Myers (his photography is breath-taking, by the way), the selection of judges, the seating of auditors, the welcoming of M.C. Gravely (the Field Director for the Pageant), the setting of marks and levels for music, the practices and opening by Performing Arts 2000...it all culminated seamlessly in the moment when the crown was passed on by outgoing queen, Ashna Sharan (whose Bollywood-style dancing had wowed the audience earlier in the evening).  Just a beauty pageant?  No...no, I don't think so.

   For the young ladies who competed, for their parents and those who support them, for the judges and those of us who got a peek at the back stage chaos that become on-stage poetry, the event is truly one full of opportunity.  And, as Miss Virginia Oustanding Pre-Teen, Anna Graham told me, making opportunities out of what some see as obstacles is what the Miss Virginia organization does every day.  Powerful words from such a little girl.

   Honestly, I can't sit here and tell you that I wasn't once guilty of applying all the stereotypes to beauty pageants that are so often tossed around.  The girls are airheads, just eye-candy, pretty wrappers for empty packages.  But I have seen that those stereotypes (like most) are born of ignorance and a lack of appreciation for what goes on at these pageants.  These young ladies are dedicated, courageous, confident, and worthy of the titles they hold.  Think I'm wrong?  Okay, come to a pageant, then we'll talk.

   The wagon rolls ever onward.  Thanks for riding shotgun with me!

Pinball Wizardry

   In an age when the XBox One and PlayStation 4 seem to rule the landscape, places like Seattle's pinball museum is a must-see for many tourists (I kid you not).  Lest you think it's just "old folks" who go, a University of Washington law student from Chicago picked it as one of the places to take out-of-town visitors to show them a place he considers, "very Seattle."  And, before you think, "well, it is Seattle, you know?" these kinds of places have been popping up all over.  Las Vegas had the most well-known pinball museum, but there's another one right up in Baltimore (just a few hours north of this blogger's seat).  To get a more complete look at the article about the Seattle museum, visit hhttp://news.yahoo.com/seattle-pinball-museum-part-silver-ball-revival-074101866.html?soc_src=mediacontentstory. To check out the Baltimore pinball museum, well, you can only go online because the museum (the National Pinball Museum, mind you) is seeking a new building, but the site is: http://www.nationalpinballmuseum.org/homepage.html ..

   So, why the sudden nostalgia for pinball?  I mean, I have an app on my iPad that'll let me play pinball on about a half-dozen "machines" and, if I make some in app purchases, I'll literally double that number.  One of the first things I did on my first windows PC was find and play the pinball game.  If I can do all that, why do I care if there are real places with real machines?  Why?  Because of the feeling.

   Playing pinball on a computer is kind of like watching Wheel of Fortune.  You get the experience, but not the feel.  You get to see the puzzle solved, but you never spin the wheel.  

   Think about it, when you're at the controls of a pinball game, so much is translated to your hands.  Each thump of the bumpers being hit courses through the pressed metal of the machine to your fingers.  The metallic launch of a ball after it's been "captured" briefly by whatever mechanism the makers of the game built into it to allow the game to have some sort of plotline, truncated or derivative though it may be.  The chunk of a new ball being dropped into the straightaway in front of the plunger; that chunk being one of the most universally hopeful sounds to every man, woman, and child who has ever stood at the buttons controlling the paddles of a pinball machine.  That "chunk" is the onomatopoeia of hope, in many ways.  It says that no matter how badly that last ball was played, this could be the one that earns a free ball, breaks the high score, and earns you a place among the constellations as an immortal among pin-ballets.  And if it gutters out before you even flipper it once, the gods of pinball may see fit to offer you a do-over.  That never happened to me playing Tetris.

   The Who never wrote a song about a kid being a wizard at Atari or ColecoVision or at the controls of a Texas Instruments computer (yeah, they made home computers before focusing mostly on calculators and we had one at the Moss house - yep, we avoided buying a Betamax player, but had a TI-99/4A).  Before I travel too far down the road and we cover the Commodore 64 and the advent of the analog-pretending-to-be-digital "blip," allow me to get back to the human appreciation for the analog.

   We, as human beings like the convenience of the digital world, but need the contact of the analog (I am somehow made to think of Woody Allen's Sleeper here and the machine the similates...Uhm...you know).  Just as we need to hold hands, touch an arm, rub a shoulder; so also does the touch of the flipper control buttons and the impact of the bumpers and all the things described in the paragraphs above combine to provide that contact we so intrinsically need as human beings.

  Really, we need both physical and emotional contact.  If only our physical needs are met, that can prove as stunting or fatal as only meeting emotional needs.  I don't cite moribund studies about the same to back me up (though I found some online).  If your think about it, pinball does both.  The sounds and pixilated images that are part of the game appeal to our need for affirmation or feedback that transcends the physical, while the physical interaction we have with the game meets our need for contact. 

   "Chuck, you are really over analyzing this pinball thing.  It's just a game.  You play it, you're done.  That's it.  There's no interacting."  Oh yeah?  Why do Nintendo, Sony, and Microsoft all have feedback devices for their controllers?  Why has the video game platform revolutionized itself by becoming a way to do our outside activities inside?  Maybe I do over-analyze, but so do the people who put new games in your hand every day.  You want to talk about over-analysis?  How about the Call of Duty games where the CGI characters' bootlaces bounce when they run?  How many man hours did THAT take?

   Look, I'm not suggesting that a return to pinball is needed to allow mankind to recover part of its soul.  It is just a game, after all.  But, what a metaphor for life, right?

   I just realized this whole blog flies in the face of the movie Her.  Oh, well.  Sometimes Joaquin Phoenix and Spike Lee are just on a different side than I am.  How many times has THAT happened, right?

   Like a ball that has just caromed off a pinball flipper, the wagon rolls on.  Thanks for riding shotgun.  Next game's yours, if you want it.