• Paper wait

I have a propensity to fill up a paper shredder every few days. That’s because, like many people, I am inundated with mailings from all sorts of sources who are of utterly zero interest to me — greedy banks, “charity” fundraisers who spend more on themselves than on the charities, frantic auto dealers, desperate real estate salespersons, gaudy sweepstakes operations … .

What I do look at are mailings from governmental entities. Not because I may learn something from them. They invariably are skewed to simply push a point of view or a reelection campaign, which sometimes are one and the same. No, it is because I love to watch my tax dollars at work.

A newly-elected member of the U.S. House of Representatives from my area, a nice gentleman I know casually who was a pretty good state-level legislator for many years, didn’t make a very good impression on me with his first major mass-mailing since taking office. It is a four-page, glossy printed mailer titled “Rebuilding bridges. Rebuilding our economy.”

It contains two photos of the congressman, a picture of a newspaper story about a local bridge project, a picture of what one presumes is that project, and a laundry list of the “accomplishments” of the Congress.

Somewhat interesting, but only to a degree. The same message could have been gotten to his constituents via e-mail, radio, TV, newspapers, and Web sites. It is neither necessary nor budget-minded to spend our dollars on a slick handout.

But the merits of that item can be debated to some extent. What really can’t was the other piece of literature I received the same day: a letter from the U.S. Census Bureau telling me that in a few days I would receive a letter from the U.S. Census Bureau.

Oh yes they did.

The opening paragraph explains what the impending letter also will tell me, I’m sure:

“In a few days your household will receive a questionnaire in the mail for a very important national survey, the American Community Survey. When the questionnaire arrives, please fill it out and mail it back promptly. The U.S. Census Bureau is conducting this survey and chose your address, not you personally, as part of a randomly selected sample.”

Interesting that this very process nullifies any statistical viability of such a survey.

Your government in action. Usually it’s your government inaction. I don’t know which I prefer these days.

• Kent State redux

Next week is the anniversary of what has come to be known as the Kent State Massacre.

On May 4, 1970, four students at the Ohio college were killed and nine others wounded, one of whom suffered permanent paralysis, when members of the Ohio National Guard opened fire on a crowd of young people. Some were protesting the U.S. invasion of Cambodia on top of our continued involvement in Vietnam, others were merely passers-by.

That was then. This is now:

(From the Associated Press)

Police say a weekend brawl and riot near Kent State University in Ohio started with the arrest of a female for underage drinking.

Kent Police Chief James Peach says 50 people were arrested Saturday at the off-campus “College Fest.” The annual party marks the near-end of the school year but is not an approved Kent State activity.

Fires were intentionally set. Peach says a large crowd chanted and challenged police and firefighters by throwing bottles, rocks and other items. Most of the people arrested were charged with misdemeanor counts of failure to disperse.

Peach also said Monday that one police officer who responded, from nearby Lakemore, had a heart attack later at his home and died.

• Karma is a bitch

The headline:

‘Mom-to-be hit by car
while fleeing bear is OK’

The question:

What the hell did this woman do to run this far afoul of the gods?

• Marilyn, before her time

Back in the early ’70s, I was a senior editor at the now-defunct Baltimore News American. As the funky, feisty counterpart to the staid establishment paper The Sun, of H.L. Mencken fame, our newsroom was the target of any pitchman who had something to sell and was looking for a frayed-collar newspaper eager to one-up The Sun.

Thus, we were immune to the blandishments of the average pitchman. When the circus came to town, we didn’t much care how many contortionists and sword-swallowers they trotted out in front of us. We even ignored the racist presidential candidate George Wallace when he came to our area to make a speech as part of his presidential campaign — and, thus, missed having a first-hand report when he was shot by a would-be assassin.

But, there was that day in ‘73 when a fresh-faced young model and would-be actress visited the newsroom to hype her new X-rated film, “Behind the Green Door.” The fact that a few days earlier we as a group had just ignored a tiger being paraded on a leash through the newsroom by his trainer only underscored the fact you had to have something very special to sell to get our attention.

Marilyn Chambers had that.

The lovely, blonde 22-year-old from upscale Westport, CT, had just hit the news by appearing virtually simultaneously as the pure-as-snow mom on a box of Ivory Snow detergent and the incredibly raunchy star of the porn film “Behind the Green Door,” which shocked the world not only by displaying the enthusiastic debauchery of a pretty girl but the then-taboo sight of sex between a white woman and a black man. It had come out in 1972, the same year Linda Lovelace caused quite a stir in “Deep Throat.”

Everyone in the 150-plus person newsroom that day, men and women alike, stopped what they were doing when Marilyn and her agent walked in to meet the newspaper’s entertainment editor. There was something utterly mesmerizing about her, not just because many of us had seen her nude, active and as splayed as a human being gets in front of a camera, but because she was truly beautiful of face, lithe of form and graceful of movement. That tiger had nothing on her, which was a fascinating situation since the Baltimore of those days was known as a haven for strippers, raunch clubs and a live-and-let-live attitude.

Marilyn never made it beyond that sort of notoriety, not even when she twice ran for vice president of the United States on the ticket of something called the Personal Choice Party in 2004 and 2008 and not even with bit parts in such mainstream films as Barbra Streisand’s “The Owl and The Pussycat” (1970) and “Rabid” (1977). She wound up doing sleazy X-rated and R-rated flicks and Cinemax-style series, bloated and unattractive and an object to be pitied. It was difficult to see the downward spiral.

Then came word the other day that she had been found dead, three days shy of her 57th birthday and largely forgotten by most people.

Marilyn Ann Taylor, her real name, was found in her Los Angeles mobile home by her 17-year-old daughter, McKenna. The county coroner said the cause of death, while under investigation, did not seem to indicate foul play.

In an online chat with AdultDVDtalk.com in 2000, the thrice-married Chambers attempted to explain what caused her to take such a radically different career path after her mainstream movies and straight modeling work.

“Back then in my naive brain I was thinking that something like ’Behind the Green Door’ had never been done before, and the way our sexual revolution was traveling I really thought it was going to be a stepping stone which would further my acting career,” she said. ” … There will always be a stigma on people who do adult films. It’s unfortunate that that’s the way society has made it.”

Given how society, cinema and sexuality have changed over the past three decades, the Marilyn Chambers of the ’70s would barely cause a ripple these days.

• A top drawer collection

I used to think my late stepfather was the master packer. Two hitches in the U.S. Navy taught him how to stow anything and everything in cramped places most ordinary people would never think to try filling with assorted bric-a-brac.

Today, my wife inherited his mantle.

It was one of those lazy spring Sundays, a day when it was still too early to dig into the garden, but not to dig into a long-unopened drawer. This one was in a dining room sidetable, the one that supports a set of pewter Jefferson cups, a set of antique glasses and decanter, and an iron clock from the historical Ansonia clockworks in Connecticut. In themselves, those are interesting items, but they are mundane compared to what The Woman To Whom I Am Related By Marriage had managed to neatly pack into the long, narrow drawer beneath them.

We all have what we lovingly refer to as a “junk drawer.” I prefer to think of such cubbyholes as troves of undiscovered treasures, things that revive memories, pique one’s curiosity, or simply leave you scratching your head. Her collection, for example, has all of those things.

To wit:

• 10 pre-Euro Irish coins of various denominations.

• A business card from the Graceland Wedding Chapel in Las Vegas where we had renewed our wedding vows lo those many years ago in front of an Elvis impersonator.

• Several boxes of note cards — 2 with cats, 1 from Colonial Williamsburg, 1 with recipes, 1 with New York City scenes, 1 with lighthouses of Cape Cod, 1 with scenes of Merishausen, Switzerland, which we had briefly visited, and 1 with a silly party invitation theme.

• One small carton of stick-on notes.

• One packet of 500 corner-stickers for adhering photos to album pages.

• 200 white notebook hole reinforcements.

• Self-adhesive vinyl doorstop bumpers.

• Pictures of the vases and a price list for Kinsale Irish Crystal we’d picked up in that Irish city.

• A card from painter Kely Knowles of the Rock Harbor Art Studio in Cape Cod, whose work hangs on our walls.

• Packets of various stamps — from France, Jamaica and U.S. commemoratives of Marilyn Monroe.

• Scotch tape.

• Felt stickers.

• Many candles.

• A heart-shaped glass bowl embossed with “25 – I ♥ NY – George E. Pataki Governor.”

• A collection of rubber bands.

• 8 replacement bulbs for holiday electric candles.

• Cape Cod Trivia cards.

• Bridal gifts of silver bottle stops.

• Florist tape and wire for making floral arrangements.

• A flat-candle holder.

• An invitation to a wedding in 2006.

• A pair of Groucho glasses, complete with large nose, mustache and bushy eyebrows.

Top that.