On every corner tavern was. Not chic-chic martini bars, not Viagra-triangle cigar bars, but hard-core bastions of liver-pickling alcoholism.
Both bars smelled the same. Unforgettable cloud of cigarette butts and beer in places vomit-marinated asbestos floor tiles hovered over the darkened door every day.
In these bars, drank working stiffs for their families " savings settlements in the backless barstools, hunched over with Fedora bartops shellacked wooden rib. They came straight from work and stayed until midnight, phased home for angry wives in the fabric dresses, fell into coma after an exchange of harsh words or hurt silences, and then started again the next day.
Since our shop is located in the center of the block, we often witnessed unsteady migration drunkards, as they moved from bar to bar. Some mornings, we could find remains of biohazardous their way, which my father would leave the hose briskly, as the first order of business.
In this is unlikely crosscurrent, one day no clarity and a premonition. One of the pitiful procession decided to stop and talk with me. He hung a parking meter and barely managed to avoid falling down.
" Come here boy, I want to tell you something & quot;, "he said.
I edged closer in unfamiliar territory. Usually we tried to stay away from drunks, and they ignore us in turn. But this guy would like to talk.
" I do not know everything & quot;, he slurred ", I do not. No one does. Nobody knows, and all either do I. You do not, I do not, and neither does the President of the United States. "
" But I tell you something right now & quot;, he continued. " I can not know everything, but dammit, I know where to find him if I need it. Thats the key. Gotta Do you know where to find what you need to know. I do not know, but I know how to find out. "
Flash forward 43 years, from 2004. I was in the window and door business for 23 years. I made a mistake for the construction of which cost my company thirty thousand dollars. I do not know that my door is required 32 " clear opening which was necessary to meet the disabled code. I am puzzled. How could I, with all my experience, is not yet known it is needed?
Forward more than 2 years. I meet an architect who knows the laws relating to the availability of very good, probably because she uses a wheelchair himself. I begin to quiz her. I am confused because I do not know the codes that govern, so I do not know what rules to follow.
She tells me that my confusion is justified and widespread. There are three sets of rules, federal, state and city, and they say different things. The largest developers and architects in Chicago, are confused, as I have.
Now we come back drunk and his point.
I could do to search the Internet for the disabled code, and possibly studied at length the state of the code and considers himself to obtain information. But if I did not know there were two other codes and their relationship, I would be, not knowing that two-thirds in the dark. I informed the necessary experts to give me that, overall prospects.
I knew that I could troll the Internet for an answer, but I do not know what to answer, how consistent with the larger picture.
Now, that information is held freely, we must read the relative values on things that bob up and down in overcrowded information channel. We need meta-information. Information about the information. Whom information is better than others? Which supercedes? What specific and that in general? What is more modern? What is outdated?
The drunk told you, Google. it is not enough to get the 29662 records in response to the search word. Does time in the first ten answers to key words equated with a good time, well-rounded information? Not yet. We are moving, but we did not yet exist.
Some day we too will know where to find what we need to know. One day we will catch up drunk on North Avenue.
Copyright 2006 Mark Meshulam
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